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Polish pilot hailed for safely landing plane in New Jersey

November 7, 2011

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November 7, 2011

A Polish pilot used his cool-handed skills this week to safely land a crippled jumbo jet at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty Airport. About an hour before landing, the pilot had radioed the approach controllers about a problem with the landing gear. The airline’s mechanical experts were trying to fix the problem to no avail, according to The Post.

The pilot said, “The awareness that we’ll be forced to make an emergency landing only dawned on me three or four minutes before we touched down.”

A Newark Liberty Airport 10-year controller said, “I cannot say they appeared calm, but surely they were concentrating,”

Before the touchdown, the airport controller told The Post that he offered the pilot a hopeful “good luck.”

“I tried my best to give only the essential information, and something extra from me,” he said.

“The approach looked very stable, and it looked so until the very end. The touchdown was very light,” the airport controller reported. “The thing that was most perfect for me was that the pilot was able to keep the nose of the plane along the centerline.”

Firefighters had sprayed the center of the runway with a fire-retardant foam, so there were not many flames. None of the 231 people aboard the fight were injured--though many said they feared the worse.

Read more.

What do you think is the most important skill or trait that a pilot of a plane should have?

If you or someone you know has had his or her safety compromised on a commercial or private aircraft, the aviation lawyers at Nurenberg, Paris, Heller & McCarthy can help.

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