Twenty years ago, millions watched live as JetBlue Flight 292 made an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport, its nose gear jammed sideways and sparking flames across the runway.
On board the Sept. 21, 2005, flight was New York Times critic Alexandra Jacobs, who was seven months pregnant and a fearful flier at the time. Speaking with KTLA on the anniversary, she said the memories of circling for hours and then watching her own plane on live television remain as vivid as ever.
“I remember waiting for the ding — that moment when they say you can use approved electronic devices — and it never came,” Jacobs said. “I looked out the window and realized we weren’t really climbing. Then the pilot came on and said, ‘Folks…,’ and I knew something was wrong.”
The crew soon explained that the front landing gear was stuck, forcing the plane to circle for more than three hours to burn fuel. Inside the cabin, Jacobs and her fellow passengers watched the drama unfold on the seat-back televisions, which were tuned to live cable news.
“It was alarming to see the coverage, especially since we weren’t that far out from 9/11, and I’d been in New York during 9/11, so seeing an image of a plane in a blue sky is just not one you want to see on the news,” said Jacobs. “The pilot was great, I mean, but we didn’t have that much information.”
As the plane finally approached LAX, flight attendants instructed passengers on how to brace for impact. “That was really scary,” Jacobs said. “You just didn’t know, you’re thinking, ‘What were they preparing us for?’ And the fact is, they were preparing us for the worst-case scenario.”
What followed, however, became one of the most celebrated landings in modern aviation. Pilot Scott Burke kept the jet steady, touched down on its back wheels, and gently lowered the damaged nose gear until it skidded to a stop in a shower of sparks.
“You could smell that burning and, even before the flame, I swear to you, I felt that heat, and I smelled that rubber,” Jacobs said. “And then it came to a stop, and we all applauded. It was amazing — just incredible. Everyone applauded, and it felt like, ‘I’m in love again, with life.’”
Everyone on board survived without injury.
“The pilot, you know, came down and made the most beautiful landing that I’ve ever seen,” said Jacobs. “I’ve shown it to not just the child that I was pregnant with then, but the second child I went on to have.”
Her husband, meanwhile, was at work in the Jimmy Kimmel Live! writers’ room, where he’s been a writer since the show began in 2003. The late-night program was suspended by ABC earlier this month. “They were joking around, making light of the plane on TV, when suddenly he realized, ‘Wait, my wife is on that plane,’” she said. He rushed to the airport with fellow writer Cousin Sal, bracing for the worst. “He was so nervous, not just about the landing, but about how panicked I must have been up there,” she said.
When Jacobs finally stepped off safely, her phone rang almost immediately. “My brother was actually the first to call me — which was shocking because he never calls,” she said. “And then when my husband got through, the first thing I said was, ‘I lived in a plane crash.’”
The critic, a writer for the New York Observer at the time, became an instant media figure in the aftermath, appearing on CNN, ABC’s Good Morning America, and even quoted in Time magazine. “It was the last moment before social media took over — the whole world’s eyes were on this one story,” she said.
Two decades later, the emotions remain complex. She says she still doesn’t love flying, but what sticks with her most are the small details: a stranger in her row reassuring her, flight attendants shifting bags, and the moment the entire cabin erupted in cheers when the plane rolled safely to a stop.
“It was something we all went through together,” she said. “I’ll never forget it.”
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