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Video: Delta Flight 4951's Emergency Landing at JFK
By
Ben Yakas
Published Sep 27, 2010
Modified Sep 27, 2010
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Sep 27, 2010
Modified Sep 27, 2010
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Delta Flight 4951 was forced to make a dramatic landing at JFK airport on Saturday night because of mechanical failure due to faulty landing gear. Sparks flew as flight attendants told passengers, "Heads down! Heads down!" (you can see video taken by passenger Alessandro Albero below) None of the 60 passengers or three crew members were injured in the landing.
Flight 4951, operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines, was a connection flight headed from Atlanta to White Plains. The crew realized around 8 pm Saturday that the jet's right wheel was jammed in the up position. The flight was quickly re-routed to land at JFK (you can read the full transcript of the pilot talking to the control tower here), making the landing with only two of its three sets of landing gear. Passenger Jamie Pfeiffer said, "I could feel the vibration, I could feel it bumping" as the wing scraped the runway, according to LoHud. "I heard a guy behind me say he saw sparks. The pilot was just awesome," he added.
As can be seen in photos in the Post, the right plane of the wing virtually detached from the airplane after the incident. "It was better than the Hudson," the pilot said, referring to the U.S. Airways Flight 1549, which made an emergency landing into the Hudson River in January 2009.
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delta flight 4591
emergency landing
faulty landing gear
JFK
pilot
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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