PAN PAN PAN, landing gear malfunction. American A321 EMERGENCY Landing at Los Angeles REAL ATC

10 JUN 2022
An American Airlines Airbus A321 performed flight AAL1 from New York to Los Angeles. Is on approach to the airport when the pilots report a problem: they’ve selected their landing gear lever to down, but the gear hasn’t moved.
The crew declare PAN-PAN-PAN and discontinue their approach.
Main playlists:
EMERGENCY - • REAL ATC
REAL ATC - • REAL ATC
CRASHES - • Crashes
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#REALATC #AIRTRAFFICCONTROLL #AVIATION

[@zeushighlights5891]

As a nervous flyer you you get scared when you hear the noise of landing gear coming down. Experienced flyer you get scared when you don’t hear it😂

[@timothylegg]

It's not comforting when you hear it cycling up and down either. Especially when you take off see yourself turning left and the flaps go down. You know it's a return to field and going to be an unusual landing. In my case, we were quickly trained on how to prepare for landing. Landed fine, but we deplaned via a staircase on the taxiway

[@ColinWatters]

The worst experience I've had was departing from Turin. The aircraft was late and it was snowing. We set off down the runway but after gaining a decent speed it was obvious to me that we wernt continuing to accelerate. I had visions of struggling off the ground too slow and ending up in a field. Mentally I was screaming at the pilot to make the decision to abort. It seemed like ages before he slammed the brakes on and deployed reverse thrust. Heaviest braking I've ever experienced in an aircraft. I was mighty relieved but others were really upset. Im like no, it's a good thing. We had to leave the aircraft for a few hours and after reboarding us they couldn't get the brakes off. I swear they had someone with a big mallet hammer on them. Several people wanted to get off at that point.

[@vicranger6876]

No gear means short landing distance, but this one was just no confirming down and locked. 👍

[@Yonkage-ik5qb]

I'd get scared if I heard it when the plane is at cruise, because that means that shit is going down and the pilots need to reduce speed as quickly as possible to drop altitude.

[@garretmaki2564]

Funny thing I used to be deathly afraid of flying (now I am just mildly afraid). I was hyper aware of every single sound I heard. As a result I learned what most of the noises meant. Now I find myself explaining noises to other passengers. and rarely worrying myself about them since I know what they are.

[@Xanthopteryx]

"There is no problem with my brakes, i just can't get the landing gear down, so the shortest runway will work fine." =)

[@yellow73914]

That part struck me as odd. If you're going to land gear up, why pick the shortest runway? Why not the longest? The overall tendency with gear up landings is to float long; both due to less drag on the airframe and pilots trying to gently set down the aircraft. They also wouldn't use reverse thrust on a gear up landing. So had they landed gear up on the shortest runway, they'd be putting themselves in the highest likelihood of running out of runway.

[@Xanthopteryx]

@@yellow73914 But they have more efficient brakes when belly landing. Planes stop in a really short distance compared to when doing a normal landing so. Probably they have the numbers in their little book so within specs, it works fine.

[@yellow73914]

@@Xanthopteryx I guarantee you there are no numbers for belly landing stopping distances. Their "little book" includes a large number of landing (and take-off) data points that are largely verified through testing and extrapolation. They don't run a chart for "Gear up landing distance, 145,000lbs, 15C, 500' airfield elevation, grooved concrete" because those don't exist. Do they come to a stop sooner than gear down landings? Probably. But we don't know for sure since there's no test data to verify it? Nope. The two things that stand out which could make a big difference are spoilers and engine reverse thrust, both of which would not be used in a gear up landing (maybe spoilers if manually activated). All of that said, the point is they don't know what their landing "roll" would be, and they don't know how far down the runway they'd touchdown, so why not take the longest runway available?

[@Xanthopteryx]

@@yellow73914 You would be surprised of the details in the data in check lists, and then you have ground crew with even more data.

[@38911bytefree]

@@yellow73914 They dont want to scrath the plane su much.

[@hotlavatube]

I recently watched a video on LOT Polish Airlines Flight 16 which couldn't get their landing gear to extend due to a hydraulic leak, but then the alternate extension method also failed. Thus, after further attempts to fix it in the air, they were forced to land without a landing gear. It turns out that the reason the alternate method didn't work was a circuit breaker near the floor had been snagged or popped.

[@HammondOfTexas0]

Expensive circuit breaker

[@alduncine]

great graphics.. great Vid!

[@232K7]

I kinda like how approach challenged their plan for 05 a little bit just to make sure american knew what it was doing lol. There's so much cool little stuff they do in the background that all serves a purpose.

[@mbvoelker8448]

I thought it was remarkably foresighted and considerate of the pilots to pick the shortest runway. They knew they were going to tie one up for a while getting inspected and towed. It's really going above and beyond to figure out how to minimize disruption while handling your own problem.

[@NVFlyer]

"assuming we won't get it down, we'll need to stop on the runway for an inspection". Ummm... yeah... you'll need to stop on the runway alright.

[@LorenzoGiordanoGomes]

I think what he meant is that if they don't get the gear down via the regular way they'll have to do a gravity extension, but this method leaves the gear doors open and those doors might contact the ground and be damaged during landing, hence why they might have to stop to an inspection before continuing with the taxi

[@de-fault_de-fault]

He actually said assuming we *will* get it down, I think, because he goes on to say they haven’t tried extending manually yet but he thinks that will work.

[@thomasdalton1508]

Yeah, that's assuming they *do* get it down. They need an inspection to make sure the gear is properly locked in place and it is safe to taxi on it, I think.

[@danhildebrandt4956]

Would landing "belly up" not mean upside down?

[@davestarr7112]

My thoughts exactly, Dan. I even replayed that part of the video to make sure I heard it right. Landing "gear up" or a "belly landing" is somewhat of a high-risk maneuver, but it's been done many times, and a skilled crew usually gets it done with no problem. But landing an Airbus "belly Up"? That would be a sight to see indeed, and God help those going through it.

[@ashleydavis3342]

🤡 controller

[@Bluefroggy84]

Yeah he wants to land upside down 🤣

[@lukeorlando4814]

Read the thumbnail and came looking for this comment. I’ll watch the video now

[@holywells]

"Belly up" = "gear down, belly off the runway."

[@erika8357]

Turn left heading 236, that is what I call precision 😜

[@janossowski1490]

Indeed, that was kinda funny. But in reality they probably had their mind set on a concrete value like 15 degrees turn and got the 236 from mode S reading of current heading. Most likely got the instruction relayed from approach so to round it up they’d have to call and confirm. “Hey can I make it 14 degrees instead of 15?” It makes more sense to just go with 236 ;)

[@robertd7073]

atc wanted 15 degree turrn so next aircraft can take off

[@MrJONES925]

I think it’s a standard heading issued on all go arounds for that runway to comply with some ATC rule for separation from traffic on the parallel runway

[@ashleydavis3342]

@@janossowski1490 what is mode S reading of current heading?

[@janossowski1490]

@@ashleydavis3342 aircrafts transponder has multiple modes. The basic one is mode A (just answering to radar calls), mode C (transmitting aircraft’s altitude) but the newer standard is mode S which reports a lot of other parameters as well. Heading is one of them, there is also stuff like IAS, set altitude (so controller can verify if pilots are descending/climbing towards the correct level), vertical speed and more. While controller can use a command of “turn left 15 degrees” it’s generally recommended to give a concrete heading. It’s harder to confuse. Even if you mishear “right” as “left” you will think twice before you make a 345 degree turn. Traditionally for that ATC would first have to ask “report heading” and then add 15 degrees. But now we have mode S and can simply check it on the screen

[@Jon.......]

Where's the ending? Any problems with gears or brakes? What caused the problem?

[@Zapruderfilm1963]

Also just last week a Little Caesars corporate Gulfstream declared “ pan pan “ 😏🙃

[@gavinsingh4450]

In 1992 it was meatsa meatsa

[@youngeshmoney]

I don't think the pilot understood the ATCs concern of landing on the shortest runway😂

[@hughroney6342]

Belly up means the plane will be upside down!! No worries about brakes then! Passengers may not like being upside down though!! Always better to have the Belly next to the ground

[@MultiGamingNetwork03]

In the case of aircraft, "Belly Up" means that the Belly is off the ground and the gear is down. Not upside down as it usually is.

[@ExercitusGymnasticus]

Super professional

[@UncleFeedle]

American 1 is a pretty cool callsign. 😄

[@erauprcwa]

I have questions. Why use the shortest runway? When asked if this was gonna be a "belly up" landing, the pilot said "yes"... implying the gear will not be down and the airplane will be skidding on the runway, why did they reply in the affirm?

[@adogonasidecar1262]

We may be missing the audio but at no point did I hear pilot inform tower of progress/success of manual procedure to lower gear

[@Hans-gb4mv]

Because they'll only know once they are on final, and by that time, they had already switched over to the emergency tower frequency. They knew they had to drop the gear manually, and while you take a longer final to do that, you still do it on final.

[@adogonasidecar1262]

@@Hans-gb4mv makes sense, thank you

[@RyanGatesFM]

So we had to do an emergency landing today, any chance you can do a video on it? It was Delta Flight 809. Original departure time from the gate was around 8:55am EST.

[@doggybag2355]

Logistically I understand this is an insanely busy route between LAX and JFK but it's crazy that things seem to keep happening to American Airlines Flight 1, there's already been 3 deadly accidents with it between the 30's and the 60's

[@joeskis]

I don't get what happened. So it landed just fine with its gear down? Otherwise there would not have been any taxing.

[@Windrider6]

4:53 "No issues with braking, just the gear." Ha ha, that's funny! The landing gear won't go down, so the brakes are irrelevant!

[@karabinjr]

no issues with braking, just no gear?..

[@dsacton]

I gather they got the gear down after all?

[@Halli50]

Odd comment by the AAL1 crew: No issues with the braking, just the gear. In one sense they are correct, the brakes are totally irrelevant while the wheels are tucked solidly in the belly of the aircraft, but with the gear up they have NOT braking at all - except perhaps for the ground spoilers. The rest of this sequence is weird: They landed, stopped (naturally, assuming the gear was UP), inspected the gear and then proceeded to taxi to the terminal! There is something seriously weird here...

[@insylem]

Emergency landing gear extension. Got the gear down with backups

[@subbss]

There is hydrolics and other mechanisms that are supposed to pull and push the landing gear in and out, when that fails for whatever reason, there is an emergency backup which releases the gear with gravity only and will lock into place when it reaches the full extension. If the pilots would need to redirect to another airport or keep flying for whatever reason, they wouldn't want to release the gear early since it limits speed and fuel efficiency. If the gear failed to deploy the normal way, that means it also wouldn't be able to retract at all after using gravity and the gear would be stuck extended, so they don't want to use it until they have to.

[@lprophit]

so it landed with gear? how did it taxi then..

[@getmeouttatennessee4473]

There's a website that gives a list of every diverted flight in the world. I perused it at length this week noting the type of aircraft listed. I fully expected it to be Boeing 737 or Max for whatever reason. I was truly surprised to see the Airbus 320 series so often instead of others.

[@MaartenHartog]

If you are implying aircraft reliability as a main cause for diversion: the decision to divert can of course have many more reasons, including weather. And, for instance, theoretically certain operators could have more strict anti-gettingthereitis rules, urging their staff not to press on in case of doubt...

[@Jehty_]

@@MaartenHartog and just the number of aircraft flying and number of landings (short vs long haul) will also play a role.

[@johnellis5828]

Airbus generally have more problems than Boeing, although usually less severe.

[@Westsideaviation23]

Poopbus

[@michaelclear4458]

Interested to hear your ATC coverage of grounding all flights in US today 1.11.2023 😮

[@Eyes0penNoFear]

Monkey Werx channel said there were 52 mid-air refueling planes in the air during the grounding. That means there were likely several hundred fighter jets in the skies that we never heard anything about.

[@evomrix]

​​@@Eyes0penNoFearn this day and age, "hundreds of fighters" would've been caught on video by people on the ground. Also, the number of refueling aircraft you mention, is not that significant when you consider the US operates over 550 of them

[@RiDankulous]

@@evomrix I was surprised to learn how many of them there are plus the C17 transports.

[@elpusegato]

As someone who wants to get my pilot license....my main source of anxiety is that I've never been able to understand a single word of these communications. It just sounds like static. Is it clearer in practice, and the method of recording is what garbles the sound? Because I've never understood how a pilot or atc can understand a single word of what's being spoken.

[@RaineStudio]

These are ground recordings from a fixed location. In many instances, the signal is weaker and noisier than it would be in the air.

[@DethWshBkr]

It usually is much clearer in the cockpit. Remember your radio will very likely have "line of sight" to the person you are talking to, and as a result will be much clearer. That said, mic fright is the most common issue with beginner pilots. It sounds like a TON of jibberish when you listen to these. However, once you understand what to listen for, you oddly enough can usually block out all the unnecessary comms. Once you hear your callsign or N number, it seems to bring you back to listening. Except in these emergency situations, there are usually only key pieces of information being transmitted at any point in time. Your training gets you to understand what those pieces of information are. You usually are expecting something anyway - so you can pick it out very easy. It can get confusing sometimes though. A big thing to remember is that they guys and gals in the glass tower are not there to scold you. They are there to help coordinate you in controlled airspace so no one gets hurt. If you cannot hear what they said, or can't make it out just say - "Approach (or tower/ground/departure) - 2FW, please say again" (Back when I flew 172FW).

[@TheGospelQuartetParadise]

In those conditions today, it would not have been good to have braking issues.

[@stevesmodelbuilds5473]

So professional. Those guys sure make their (underpaid) money. Can you imagine eating airplane food for lunch every day???

[@mrplowjrezv]

American 1, did you land belly down?..."Affirm".... possible pilot deviation, we have a number for you let me know when you're ready to copy.

[@dashford06]

As with ATC, I am also curious to know why they would prefer the shortest runway. Seems counter intuitive.

[@snoopyontheground3481]

If the landing gear failed, the aircraft would be crippled on runway 24R - the shortest runway would be closed. The longest runway 24L would remain open and all aircraft needing longer distance could still land otherwise aircraft would have to divert.

[@hotrodray6802]

@@snoopyontheground3481 Yep. If you belly land you'll stop in a shorter distance than rolling. LOL

[@JohnChuprun]

@@snoopyontheground3481 No consideration is done to about "keeping the damage to the shortest runway" during an emergency, all best options are considered first. I can promise you that. It was weird they elected for that runway, but it was probably because they were all set up for that approach, and would be less safe to program/brief in a new approach at that high workload point.

[@trilight3597]

@@JohnChuprun Fair, but I've heard pilots ask the tower/approach in a few emergencies assuming it'd prevent blockage of traffic or closure of the busiest runway. Which to be frank, as an ATC I'd be like..."You choose the best option for you, you're on fire!"

[@de-fault_de-fault]

I don’t think they were intending a belly landing, nor did they end up doing one. They were planning to drop the gear manually but that would mean having to stop to have the gear inspected before leaving the runway. Given that AA1 is an A321 nowadays, and only had 89 aboard, they probably didn’t need that much runway and figured they’d be under the least pressure to get out of the way if they were occupying the shortest runway rather than one of the others.

[@travel4fun003]

Only 89 souls on a NY -LA flight. Wow

[@alquinn8576]

which is probably 89 people and 60 redheads

[@hyundaihd440]

A321T, seats 102 people, very premium heavy layout.

[@katefields1]

Just curious... If the landing gear wouldn't come out, how were they able to taxi? I think I missed something.

[@jcl410]

Well, the "the pilots should have used panpan" will be happy, but.... To me, the way the pilots explained their issue wasn't very clear.... ATC asked if it was belly up, an the pilot didn't say yes, or no, but rather a too long description. It was unclear if ATC knew what was going on.... A better way might have been something like; " We need a delay vector while we run the checklist to see if we can get the gear down manually."

[@Jehty_]

Also the beginning was strange. Why did the pilot not just declare a missed approach or go around (or whatever it's called)? Instead he used the unnecessarily confusing sentence "we are going to have to level off...". That unnecessarily confused ATC while they were still on approach.

[@PaulBreed]

there is a VFR corridor over LAX at 3500 and 4500 ft. They blew through that corridor.... should have come down to 2000ft or so till past LAX.

[@zlcju]

Unless you're a LA GA local, you're not going to know that.

[@TheBrennan90]

@Steve Shmaryahu Joo it is on the charts. They should be aware.

[@zlcju]

@@TheBrennan90 you probably don't realize how many airports we fly into... If it's not depicted on the Jepp plate (and I know it's not) we would have no idea. I grew up flying in LA and have used the SFRA loads of times, it's found on the TAC chart for LA. We don't have TAC or Sectionals in our Jepp FDpro at the airlines.

[@chrisschack9716]

@@zlcju The pilots might not know, tower knows for sure. I was surprised they left them at 3500 myself. Perhaps they knew nobody was in the SFRA southbound.

[@TheBrennan90]

@Steve Shmaryahu Joo I didn't realize that you weren't responsible for knowing all alavible I formation about your intended destination.

[@DashPar]

89 total souls onboard an A321? Not very many people on that expensive flight.

[@ManMountainMetals]

American 1,I know that you are busy up there, but when able, we need to know the number of sandwiches remaining on the food carts, please. 😮

[@unfnbelievable3609]

I got the part where there was no landing gear. I suppose "Audio recording of Discrete Emergency Frequency not available" is the part where they became able to taxi to the terminal. My drunk ass really needed to replay this a bit to make it make sense. Good thing I'm not a pilot. I'm guessing the missing audio says something like "Wheels down." I want this to make sense.

[@pauljohnson4590]

but what happened?? did the gear come down?

[@Frank787-9]

Yes, a manual extension was executed.

[@Frank787-9]

Aka a gravity extension

[@adamgunn2885]

crew performed an alternate gear extension and landed on runway 24R

[@hotrodray6802]

@@adamgunn2885 Oh they put their spare gear down.

[@petergriffin8767]

@@hotrodray6802 mhm yes they fly with spare landing gear. It’s incredible

[@joecraven2034]

ATC sounds a little behind the 8 ball here. 236 heading? Pilots clearly state they need to work out a gear issue and mention a manual deployment and then one controller asks if a "belly up" landing will ensue. Controllers were not talking to each other clearly is what I gather. All in all the system worked pretty well as usual.

[@legofreak4895]

Was does "180 or better" mean? speed 180 knots or above? FL180 or higher?

[@davef.2329]

Velocidad.

[@RicCrouch]

180 knots or greater

[@cdrlemuz]

Wonder why they would choose the shortest runway to land during the emergency?

[@macmedic892]

If the gear failed on landing, the aircraft takes the runway out of service for a long time. If things don’t work out, this way he’s less disruptive to the continued operations of the airport. The shortest runway is the one fouled by FOD or a plane on its belly.

[@davJanko8052]

Bathrooms closer as well. Check pants after belly landing

[@athleticguy15]

The shortest runway at LAX is still very long.

[@Jehty_]

Simple answer: There was no emergency.

[@jetalse7974]

2:30 Odd comment, ".....assuming we won't get it down,....well need to stop on the runway..." If they don't get the gear down, they won't be taxiing.

[@forestcityfishing4749]

So....nothing happened? Great channel you got here.

[@hardangervidda002]

Yeah, choose the shortest runway available, furthest away from your gate, excellent choice for an Airplane with gear issues…..??????????

[@flynomo]

This makes very little sense. Announcing belly up landing and accepting the shortest RW? Whyyyyyyy?????

[@msurcombe]

‘No issues with the braking, just the gear’, huh?

[@leardvr]

That makes perfect sense. My aircraft has 3 different braking systems. Normal, alternative/reserve and accumulator. They work off the right, center, and right (again) hydraulics. The normal gear extension is off the center with a reserve system using fluid trapped in the gear hydraulics. So we can have a gear extension problem and not have a brake problem.

[@hotrodray6802]

Sliding on the belly eliminates concerns about your brakes? What do I know, I'm a CP.

[@RaineStudio]

Erm, I really don't think they wanted to land belly-up. That would entail flipping the plane over.

[@YAZZYUTUBE]

I thought "belly up" meant the plane was flying upside down.

[@tedsmith6137]

So I assume they did complete a manual extension of the gear, since they taxied to the Terminal. Pity you didn't bother to give that info before the landing.

[@freddiecarr7602]

Air India landing gear is extra

[@hunterra217]

Y'all they did not land on their belly, that would have been a mayday and they would have taken much longer to make that decision, and definitely wouldn't have been able to taxi to the maintenance bay within half an hour, they'd have needed a crane to even begin to do any of that. They deployed the landing gear using the manual alternate deployment, that's why they were alright to land on the longer runway, because they still had their gear, just the hydraulic systems that would normally drop it at the push of a button had failed, so they had to be pulled down using gravity. The title and implications of this video are somewhat dishonest.

[@tomjohnson6036]

“No issues with braking, just the gear.” I’m not the smartest guy and am not a pilot buuuuut, if the gear doesn’t work, don’t you then have a pretty big problem with braking?

[@singleproppilot]

Not at all. The airplane will stop quickly without gear.

[@athleticguy15]

Ever hear of friction?

[@hanswind724]

Typical Airbus.

[@stephandreischl]

Was all pretty amateurish IMO

[@MaartenHartog]

Accustomed as I am to European RT I found the whole RT rather sloppy on the pilot's part. Or over-casual, if you want to put it mildly.

[@stephandreischl]

@@MaartenHartog I would say that's putting it mildly indeed

[@singleproppilot]

Europeans must trip over obstacles frequently since they seem to walk around with their noses stuck up in the air all the time.

[@MaartenHartog]

@@singleproppilot All Americans are always generalizing 🙂

[@eggtimer2]

Oh come on!! No audio if the interesting part!?

[@iam5hadow444]

Terrible incomplete video. So it landed on the belly then taxied on the belly? Thumbs down

[@MultiGamingNetwork03]

They got the gear down manually. And had fire crews inspect them on the runway before being towed to the gate and then back to their maintenance. There's literal captions in the video that explain this.

[@billymacktexasdetective5827]

In the case of no landing gear, personally I'd prefer to land belly DOWN...

[@gottadomor7438]

Right stuff both ends the radio. Cool to hear & the video showing just as impressive. t/y/v/m. "Good day." ;-)