00:00Look at this Airbus. The left landing gear is not coming down. So how do you land it?
00:04On November 5, 1997, this plane was about to land at London Heathrow. Then the computer warned the
00:10crew, left main gear problem. Nobody knew why. So they circled London. The pilots tried everything.
00:15Nothing worked. The captain had to plan an emergency landing. Here is the nightmare.
00:19They had never trained for this exact failure. So the first real try would happen with 98
00:23passengers on board. Then Heathrow suggested another airport. Why? The field was packed.
00:27A crash landing there could jam traffic like a New York freeway. But the captain refused.
00:32Heathrow had better conditions. After a 10-hour flight, fuel was low. To see the problem,
00:37he flew the Airbus A340 low past the tower. Controllers checked it. They confirmed it.
00:42The left gear was stuck inside the bay. Then engineers offered a wild idea. Touch the runway
00:46lightly with the right gear. Maybe the shock could shake the left gear out. The captain said no.
00:51The force was too hard to control. If the right gear broke, only the nose gear would be left.
00:55That is a shopping cart with wings. Then the team changed the plan. Make a steep turn in the air.
01:00Maybe gravity could swing the left gear out. The captain tried it. Over London, he banked at 50
01:04degrees. Passengers got a roller coaster ride. But after the turn, the left gear still did not move.
01:09Then the fuel warning came. Now they had to land. The crew knew the aircraft could veer left after
01:14touchdown. To avoid the terminal, they chose runway 27L. To stay on pavement longer, they needed to land
01:19on the right half. Before each engine scraped the ground, the crew had to shut it down fast.
01:24The airport got ready. Fire crews waited. Passengers braced. Then the plane touched
01:28down on only the right gear. One leg. Hundreds of lives. Because the outer number one and four
01:33engines would hit first, the crew shut both down at touchdown. Then the captain lifted the left wing,
01:38trying to stop the plane from tipping left. But he pulled too much. The left wing rose too high.
01:43The right outer number four engine scraped the runway. Sparks flew everywhere. As speed dropped,
01:48holding the left wing up got harder. So the captain ordered the left number two engine shut down.
01:52The left wing sank. Number two scraped the ground too. Smoke and sparks trailed behind.
01:57Then the captain hit the brakes. He ordered the final right side engine shut down. The plane drifted
02:02left. He slammed full right rudder, fighting to keep it on the runway. The overloaded right gear blew a
02:06tire. Finally, the Airbus stopped. It stayed on the runway. Passengers evacuated fast. All 114 people
02:13survived. Only seven got slightly hurt during evacuation.
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