David, Who died and declared you aviation expert? The reason that airplane didn't continue to JFK is because it couldn't go to JFK. Period. You have one of the gears dangling down. - The aircraft couldn't exceed the VLE speed. With the gear extended you cannot climb as fast and gain altitude. There is a potential of not being able to make it to flight levels. - You burn much more fuel at those low altitudes and the fuel they loaded in BUR is not going to be enough to get you to JFK. - The cockpit crew didn't know exactly what was wrong with the nose gear until they did a low pass. Even then the situation is a big unknown. - If you decide to go to JFK you may reach speeds that may risk losing the nose gear and hit the fuselage or get sucked in to one of the engines. - UAL has mx facility at LAX that this can be looked, repaired and sent back home again. These are the many things that cause the B6 crew to make it back to LAX. Baha Acuner -----Original Message----- From: The Airline List [mailto:AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David MR Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 11:13 PM To: AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: jet Blue incident Did you interview the pilots to determine that they didn't continue with the flight so they could "have a controlled situation in which to land..."? JFK is JetBlue's main base where they do maintenance. Unless the gear would not retract - which the news casts I've seen haven't mentioned - the aircraft could have made it to JFK. What do you call a lawyer in a firm that specializes in aviation that sues an airline before the facts of the incident/accident are in? What do you call a lawyer in a firm that specializes in aviation that sues an aircraft manufacturer because its plane was not maintained properly (in other words, there was no defect in the airplane cause by the manufacturer. Did you know that a large part of the cost of purchasing is due to suit-happy lawyers? At one time, 70 (seventy!) percent of the cost of a Cessna light aircraft was due to possible liability caused by lawyers. >From my view here on my high horse, I still say one of the reasons that the aircraft went to LAX was due to lawyers. Alireza, based on your previous e-mails and this one I should have known that you were pursuing a career in an industry that is rated very high on the list of professions that most people hate. David R http://home.comcast.net/~damiross/books.html www.sequoians.com www.chanticleers.org -----Original Message----- From: The Airline List [mailto:AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Alireza Alivandivafa Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 21:59 To: AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: jet Blue incident Oh come on David, isn't this getting tired? I mean, I take this as a personal insult. B6 wont get sued (though, if this is the result of their contracted MX, B6 might sue). Also, there are whole firms that specialize in aviation law, so that "craphead" would know something on the subject even if someone decided to sue. Finally, the reason they didn't continue is because they wanted to have a controlled situation in which to land, as opposed to be forced into an emergency somewhere for some other reason AND had to deal with the gear. Imagine that a flap went bad and they had to land at flaps 15 instead of 30 (I am using 737 numbers, but you get the point)? That would have meant a faster than normal, not a slower than normal landing, and ending up off a runway somewhere. Get off your cynical high horse and just be happy that the two remarkable ladies on the flight deck landed that plane the way they did In a message dated 9/22/2005 12:37:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time, damiross3@xxxxxxxxxxx writes: Lawyers. If the pax found out about the gear before landing at JFK, some crap head of a lawyer who knows nothing about aviation would have sued. Come to think of it, JetBlue will probably be sued anyways