green lights indicate the main landing gears are down. but the nose gear indicator remains dark. the nose gear showed that it wasn t either down or up. it didn t say what position it was actually in. so they broke the approach and advised air traffic control that they needed some time to sort through a technical problem. unaware of what s going on in the cockpit, flight attendant beverly raposa feels the plane turn away from the airport. i wasn t concerned, because i mean, things like that happened. and if there was a problem, we had a phone by each of the flight attendant seats. if there was a problem, the pilot would have called us. to troubleshoot the problem, the l-1011 climbs to 2,000 feet and heads west toward the everglades. the captain then puts the plane on autopilot. everybody wants to find the solution. that s just nature. we re human. we want to accomplish the mission.
is a mounting threat. that s because minutes earlier, u.s. air flight 1493, a 737 that began its journey in syracuse, new york, had been cleared to land on that same runway. all they see is the menagerie of lights. it looks in their mental picture, it looks like a normal landing runway. as they are flying closer and closer, they still can t discern airplane lights from runway lights. they are all the same color. the 737 s main landing gears touch down. then as the nose lowers the landing lights reveal the turboprop. this is the first time the captain sees the plane. what the hell? there is an explosion on impact and the small plane bursts into flames, but the 737 can t stop. at 70 miles an hour, it skids and finally crashes into an
crew is trying to fix a problem with the nose gear. it shouldn t be a crisis situation, but it quickly becomes one. the l-1011 crashes into the swamp, killing more than 100 people. what amazed me was they said it was unsurvivable. how do you come out of that? december 29, 1972, eastern airlines flight 401 is on the final leg of its flight from jfk to miami international carrying 163 passengers and a crew of 13. ron and lily infantina were just married 20 days before and are now returning home from their honeymoon. it was a perfect flight. smooth. calm air. it was just a very dark night. the l-1011 is just five miles from the runway when the pilot extends the landing gears.
is there no paparazzi. weeks ahead of time. the white house didn t know. they accepted the apology, so a kind couple there. now this coming up, they are the words no plane passenger ever wanted to hear over the loud speaker. stay in the [inaudible] condition until the aircraft stops completely. forced to land without all of its landing gears? call it one-stop shopping for entitlements. new websites lets users apply for food stamps housing and obamacare all in one place. but is this creating a nation hooked on handouts? in my world, wall isn t a street. return on investment isn t the only return i m looking forward to.
thank you. now back to the developing news out of london this morning. this is a situation with a virgin atlantic flight having to go back to gatwick airport to make what is called a landing here a nonstandard landing after some problems with the landing gear. that flight was headed to las vegas, actually. what you re looking at is a flight tracker here. you see in that highlighted neon green the kind of circle formation there. that is that particular flight that has to circle as they re trying to make that landing with a problem. so something we re watching here as virgin flake is saying it has to make that nonstandard landing at gatwick. we don t have conformation that was the plane. but that s our understanding with an issue a technical issue with one of the landing gears. virgin atlantic said we re returning back to gatwick. we want to bring in here one of