Passengers prayed and wept in terror as an Alaska Airlines jet made an emergency landing in Nevada over the weekend after the pilot reported stabilizer problems like those suspected in a fatal California crash.
The Seattle-bound Alaska Airlines flight took off from Reno at about 10 p.m. (EST) Saturday, began “porpoising,” or moving up and down, and then made an abrupt U-turn after eight minutes, returning to the ground.
“The pilot seemed like he was trying to get in control of our porpoising,” said passenger Dennis Smythe of Anchorage, who has a commercial pilot license.
Airport officials said the plane made a “rough landing,” but that none of the 140 passengers and crew was hurt.
The plane was an MD-83, the same as Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which crashed into the Pacific last week on a flight from Mexico to San Francisco, killing all 88 aboard.
“There was a lot of crying and a lot of praying because a lot of people were probably thinking about that crash,” Smythe said.
As the plane turned around, flight attendants put on life jackets and began explaining crash procedures, passengers said.
The airline said the motors that control the plane’s horizontal stabilizer — mounted on the tail fin — probably overheated when the pilot tested them before takeoff.
“We suspect people are being very cautious, and they are moving the stabilizer up and down and through a full cycle … and it’s overheating the motors,” said Jack Evans, an Alaska Airlines spokesman.
Evans said the carrier doesn’t plan to ground its 35 MD-83 jetliners or to make any unscheduled maintenance checks.
Many passengers left Reno on a replacement plane shortly before midnight, although the airline also offered to pay for hotels, rental cars or later flights.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it planned to interview the plane’s crew and check the aircraft’s voice and data recorders to find out what happened.
The scare was the second stabilizer problem reported since last Monday’s fatal crash of Flight 261.
Last Tuesday, an American Airlines MD-83 reported trouble with its horizontal stabilizer after takeoff and safely returned to Phoenix.
The stabilizer is the horizontal part of the tail that helps keep a plane level.
The pilots of Flight 261 reported they were having trouble with the stabilizer shortly before their plane plunged into the ocean north of Los Angeles.