How pilots made an amazing crash landing

The jet thundered down the runway, then lifted into the evening sky over Los Angeles. “That’s odd,” remarked Captain Tim Barnby, noticing that the wheels seemed to take longer than usual to retract. He scanned the instruments for indications of trouble. There were none: all the wheels were up and locked.

With no problems evident, Virgin Atlantic Flight 024, with 98 passengers and a crew of 16, set a course to London’s Heathrow Airport. The flight was uneventful, and 11 hours later the red-and-white Airbus 340 began to descend. Thanks to favourable tail winds, touchdown—at 3.05pm on November 5, 1997—would be a little early.

Graham and Janice Jones saw their daughter, Claire, 23, grin as she came down the aisle, smart in her flight attendant’s uniform. She had invited her parents on a trip to California, and they were now returning home. “Dad,” Claire said, “the captain wants to know if you’d like to sit in the cockpit for landing.”

“I’d love it!” he replied. Minutes later, Jones slid into a jump seat between Captain Barnby, 39, who was talking to air-traffic control on the radio, and Andrew Morley, 32, who was piloting the plane. The third pilot, Craig Mathieson, 28, who had relieved the others during the night, explained the landing sequence to Jones. “When the landing gear is lowered,” he said, “you’ll see four green lights on the instrument panel showing the wheels are down and locked.”

At seven miles to touchdown, Morley ordered, “Gear down!” There was a clunk as the big doors opened, and a rumble as the wheel struts unfolded into the slipstream. Jones watched three green lights illuminate—and one red. The pilots waited for the red to correct to green. Nothing changed.

“Recycle the gear, please,” Morley said. Barnby raised and lowered the wheels. Again, three greens and a red. Now as the plane descended to 750 feet on final approach, alarms dinged like door chimes. Morley immediately pushed the throttles to climb while Barnby raised the wheels. Flight 024 surged into the clouds.

“The boys have a bit of a problem,” Mathieson told Jones. “Would you mind going back to your seat?”

Barnby knew that minor glitches often caused false alarms. He was confident all four sets of wheels were coming down perfectly and that only the warning light was faulty. But with the landing gear out of sight there was no way to be sure.

As Morley flew a circular holding pattern, Mathieson raised a hatch in the floor and wriggled into the tiny avionics compartment. Brightly lit with electronic boxes on metal shelves, it was like the inside of a computer. As he pulled different combinations of circuit breakers, the pilots raised and lowered the gear. The red light remained on.

Barnby kept his eye on the fuel gauges; already, 25 minutes of circling had burned nearly half the fuel reserve. “Looks like we’ve got a real problem,” he said. “I want to do a flyby.” They’d make a low pass by Heathrow’s control tower so controllers there could see whether all wheels were down.

In the forward galley, in-flight supervisor Jacalyn Courtney explained the pilot’s plans to the crew. Claire Jones was close to tears as she realised the implications. “I’ve got my Mum and Dad!” she cried. “What have I done?”

By now the passengers were getting jittery. Colin Mitchell kept his nose in his book. A rollercoaster fanatic who worked for a London bank, he’d been surprised on his 40th birthday when his wife, Lesley, gave him tickets to Las Vegas so he could ride one of the world’s highest roller coasters. With their daughter Hayley, age three, they were now heading home. “Why don’t you panic like the rest of us?” Lesley teased.

Claire Jones seemed agitated as she checked the other passengers. “It’s going to be fine, don’t worry,” she told them. But she wouldn’t look her mother in the eye; Janice Jones knew the situation was serious.

Barnby now took the controls while the other two pilots began reviewing emergency checklists.

Barnby levelled off at 250 feet, roaring toward the control tower. “You’ll enjoy this, Tim. It’s your cup of tea,” Morley said lightly. He knew that Barnby was an aerobatic pilot in his spare time and had won the British aerobatic championship that summer. An abnormal landing won’t be so tough for a man who spends a lot of time flying upside down, Morley mused.

At the last moment Barnby pulled back on the stubby control stick. Climbing steeply, he tipped the plane’s belly. “It’s bad news,” a controller radioed from the tower. “The left gear is not even out of its bay.”

“Roger,” Barnby replied, his mind racing. Their fuel was getting short. Flight 024 was in trouble.

Barnby’s radio crackled; it was Robin Cox, manager of the Airbus fleet. “Okay, there are a few things you can do,” he advised. “You can try bouncing her.” Barnby would hit the good wheels hard on the runway and take off instantly, hoping to jolt the stuck wheels down.

“Not in this aircraft,” Barnby replied, noting that fuel was running low. “I need to get her on the ground.”

Cox had another idea. “You can pull some G,” he suggested.

Barnby pushed the plane into a steep dive, then pulled up sharply while flicking the wings up and down, hoping gravitational force would dislodge the stuck wheels.

As the G-force squeezed passengers into their seats, Colin Mitchell flung out an arm to protect his daughter Hayley. This was a stomach churner at least as good as his birthday surprise, he thought. And scarier.

But the manoeuvre didn’t work. Barnby’s only hope was to land on the right-side set of wheels, while holding the left wing off the runway to keep it from touching and cartwheeling the plane. No one had ever tried this in a wide-body jet. “You’d better call a mayday,” Barnby told Morley.

In the tower, air-traffic watch manager Alan Haines flipped up the red cover on his desk and pressed the “crash” button. Instantly Heathrow Airport swung into crisis mode. Departures were stopped, taxiways closed and many incoming flights diverted. Thousands of travellers groaned as “delayed” flashed up on flight-information screens.

Fire and rescue units sped to positions along a 2.5-mile runway. Nearby hospitals were warned to expect a major accident.

Barnby and his crew methodically worked through the crash-landing checklist on their screens, then again from the printed sheets in the plane’s handbook. This time they realised they had overlooked something. The small print stated: Ensure centre gear is raised.

Barnby and Morley exchanged horrified glances. The wheel strut in the centre of the fuselage, between the wings, was not strengthened for heavy impact, and if they landed with the centre wheel down—as it was—the strut could punch up through the cabin. Shocked by the lapse, Barnby flew a circle while they sorted it out. “Can you spot anything else?” he asked anxiously.

Mathieson scanned the lists. “No, that’s it.”

All his flying life Barnby had wondered what it would be like to have an accident. Will the plane stay straight as it skids down the runway? Will it break up? He tried to put aside negative thoughts. Just fly the plane, he told himself. Everything will be fine.

With minutes to go, in-flight supervisor Courtney asked passengers to read the safety card and look for the nearest exits. “Able-bodied passengers who are firemen, police, airline staff, pilots, doctors or military,” she added, “please make yourselves known.”

Flight attendants then chose four passengers to sit near every door. “You have to go down the slide first and get people out of the way at the bottom,” Claire told her father.

“I can’t leave without you and Mum,” Graham replied.

“Dad!” she snapped in a tone he hadn’t heard before.

“All right, I’ll do it!” he agreed.

The Mitchells strapped Hayley into her seat. “There’s going to be lots of noise, darling,” Lesley said, her stomach knotting. “Daddy will undo your seat belt, and then we’re going to run as fast as we can.” Blue eyes big and round, Hayley gazed trustingly at Lesley.

At 4.19pm the Heathrow tower controller radioed Barnby: “You are cleared to land, runway 27, wind south at 14 knots, emergency services standing by.” Rescue units’ radios crackled: “All stations. The next aircraft will crash on landing.”

Five miles out Barnby picked up the runway lights. Monitoring the instruments, Morley kept up a running commentary: “Descent rate good. Land slightly to the right.”

At 200 feet Morley spoke over the public-address system: “Brace! Brace! Brace!” Protecting their faces with pillows, passengers leaned forward and pressed their hands on their heads.

The Airbus seemed to float out of the sky like a gigantic bird reaching for the ground with a single claw. Barnby held her straight down the runway and pulled up the nose; the longer the Airbus stayed in the air, the more it would slow before it hit.

With a slight thump, the plane’s 150-tonne weight kissed down on the wheels of the right main gear. “Cut the outboards,” Barnby called. Mathieson snapped the master switches of engines one and four to minimise the risk of fire.

The left wing lifted, causing the right to drop. The engines under the right wing scraped along the concrete, shooting streams of sparks.

Firetrucks sped along behind Flight 024, dodging metal pieces that broke from its undercarriage. The fire crews expected the plane to roll and split apart at any minute.

But Barnby levelled the right wing, and the nose wheel touched down. “Cut two!” he ordered. “Cut three.”

The plane swung right, its good wheels coming perilously close to the runway edge. As it started to slow, the left wing dropped, and the engines on the left side scraped concrete. Barnby and Morley gently pressed on the rudder and brake pedals, but the computer was confused because only one set of main wheels was registering. Finally, after 16 seconds, it applied full brakes.

The wheels on the right landing gear locked, and the smoking tires blew out with loud bangs. Melting as they scored into the concrete, the wheel rims spurted sheets of flame and sparks.

The plane slid along its belly, canting to the left, then finally came to a halt. The emergency personnel all braced for an explosion. None came. Firetrucks pulling alongside sprayed foam on the smoking wheels. There was no fire.

In the cabin a burst of applause quickly faltered as flight attendants ordered the passengers to evacuate. Colin Mitchell put Hayley on an escape slide and let go. A fireman caught her at the bottom. When Lesley hit the ground seconds later, Hayley reached over to her and giggled, “Mummy, can we do it again?”

In less than a minute the cabin was empty. Outside, Claire ran to join her parents. “We made it,” they cried, hugging one another.

Later Claire and her mother hugged Barnby and his crew. “You did a terrific job!” Janice said. Barnby boxed Graham on the shoulder. “It’s all your fault,” he said, laughing. “Everything was OK until you came into the cockpit!”

A British government investigation concluded that as Flight 024 lifted off the runway in Los Angeles, a metal pin about ten centimetres long fell out of a brake assembly, allowing one end to drop and jam the left gear door mechanism.

Following the accident, the landing gear was redesigned to prevent future malfunctions.