Business

American Eagle Flight 2511 Performs "NASCAR" Landing Due to Inflight Emergency

By Joe Hyde, May 3, 2014
 

American Eagle Flight 2511 experienced an in-flight emergency near the San Angelo Mathis Field Saturday at noon today. According to passengers on the plane, the Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-200 (twin-jet) operated by American Eagle affiliate ExpressJet, the pilot recognized a malfunction with the flaps as the plane was preparing for landing at San Angelo.

American Eagle 2511 departed Dallas Fort Worth International at 11:06 a.m., four minutes ahead of schedule.

According to FlightAware.com, a web app that tracks the flight path of all U.S. flights, Flight 2511 made several high altitude holding patterns over Mathis Field while the pilots were troubleshooting the problem.

The solution that the captain of Flight 2511 decided upon was to land the regional jet with no flaps.

No-flap landings are difficult because it forces the jet to fly down the approach path at a higher angle of attack, somewhat restricting the view of the landing zone aim point when compared to full-flap landings. Also, with no flaps, the stall speed is somewhat increased, requiring the pilot to fly at a faster airspeed.

No-flap landings are a staple of emergency procedures training for most pilot training programs. In some cases, it is one of the more difficult training events.

As a precaution, the San Angelo Fire Department and the airport crash rescue crews were dispatched and stood ready near Mathis Field’s Runway 18 as Flight 2511 landed.

Once on the ground after landing with no flaps and at a higher airspeed, the concern for crash crews is that the jet will run off the end of the runway. Runway 18 is 8,049 feet long,

“For the pilots, it was a fairly typical emergency, but for the passengers, it was like a NASCAR landing,” one passenger said as he made his way through the terminal. “He [the pilot] was very calm and he let us know what was happening the entire time,” another passenger said.

“After we landed, everybody clapped. The emergency services came out, checked for hot brakes probably, and then let everybody out,” another passenger said.

No one was injured but the flight was 14 minutes late because of the additional holding patterns required to troubleshoot the flaps system.

There are usually four or five American Eagle flights arriving from DFW every day at Mathis.

 

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Concise lead - check. Inverted pyramid style - check. Citations of sources - mostly check. GSP - mostly check ("every body" -- the article implies the bodies are still alive, meaning "everybody" would be a better choice). Sometimes the media writing teacher in me comes out, but I must say that, in general, I've been very impressed lately with the quality of SanAngeloLive journalism. I wouldn't have expected what seems like an "upstart" media company to deliver news with the same or similar rigor of established media companies.
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bebop, Sat, 05/03/2014 - 20:04
I just assume it's the unedited raw news. Otherwise, it should be "no-flap landings..." instead of "no flap landings."
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live, Sun, 05/04/2014 - 00:20

When you have people critiquing the grammar, you have arrived.

The story was typed on an iphone while listening to an mp4 of interviews with passengers. Luckily, it involved a subject I was steeped in knowledge because sourcing inflight emergencies after the fact is extremely difficult. In our trial lawyer society, no one in charge will talk, especially not the pilots.

I don't know the exact approach speed of a CRJ, but I suspect it's normally around 150 knots. No-flap is probably 20 or 30 knots higher. The passenger said "NASCAR." I ran with it (-;

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hey every body... this is sort of no-flaps journalism... its fast and the best news source in town... lets not sweat all the details... great article
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... if you misspell every other word. This reporting is so superior to the alternative, I can stand some grammatical snafoos. While I'll notice them, I'll likely not spend the time writing about them. Well done Live.
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Unless there is something different about a Regional Jet compared to a private aircraft, landing with no flaps requires a shallower decent, not steeper. If approaching an airport at too high of an altitude, one would apply more flaps to increase drag (slow down the plane) and increase lift (allow the plane to stay in the air at lower speeds). So, I expect that they came in low and at a much higher speed (maybe 30% faster... it would be around 20% faster in a single engine private plane). There is no ability to compensate for coming in too high because normally the pilot would increase flaps to drop altitude faster. Just my take. Any jet pilots see this differently?
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