Jet Blue Airways Flight 292 - Aftermath and Evaluation

Aftermath and Evaluation

Passengers began to disembark less than seven minutes later. The landing was smooth and no physical injuries were reported. The aircraft was evacuated via airstairs, as opposed to Evacuation Slides typically used in an emergency situation.

As JetBlue did not operate from LAX at the time, the aircraft was towed to a Continental Airlines hangar at LAX for evaluation.

Expert opinion expressed was that, despite the drama and live worldwide coverage, there was little real danger to the passengers or crew of Flight 292. The A320, like all modern airliners, is engineered to tolerate certain failures, and if necessary can be landed without the nose gear at all.

A similar incident with an A320 occurred on an America West Airlines flight in February 1999 in Columbus, Ohio (Flight 2811). The NTSB found the cause was a failure of the external o-rings in the nose landing gear steering module." That plane also landed safely.

The media reported that this was at least the seventh occurrence of an Airbus A320 series aircraft touching down with the landing gear locked ninety degrees out of position, and one of at least sixty-seven "nose wheel failures" on A319, A320 and A321 aircraft worldwide since 1989. Earlier incidents included another JetBlue flight bound for New York City, a United Airlines flight into Chicago, and the America West flight into Columbus, Ohio. While some incidents were traced to faulty maintenance and denied as a design flaw by Airbus Industrie, the manufacturer had issued maintenance advisories to A320 owners which were later mandated as Airworthiness Directives by American and French aviation authorities. Messier-Dowty, which manufactures nose gear assemblies for the A320, stated in a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report in 2004 that part of the gear had been redesigned to prevent future problems, but at the time the redesign was awaiting approval. Mechanics familiar with this common fault usually replace or re-program the Brake Steering Control Unit (BSCU) computer.

The NTSB report says that worn-out seals were to blame for the malfunction. Also the brake steering control unit system contributed to the problem. Airbus claims to have fixed the problem in an upgrade.

Following the incident, the aircraft was repaired and returned to service still bearing the name "Canyon Blue." JetBlue no longer uses Flight 292 on its Burbank-JFK route; the flight route designation for JetBlue's flights between Burbank and New York are now Flights 350 and 358.