By Arturo Castañares
Editor-at-Large
Pilots of a commercial airline flight from San Diego to Las Vegas on Saturday afternoon reported smelling smoke in the cockpit and donned oxygen masks before losing the ability to transmit on the radio and landed with fire streaming from its landing gear.
Frontier Airlines Flight 1326 was about 50 miles from Las Vegas' Harry Reid International Airport (KLAS) when pilots reported smelling smoke in the cockpit and quickly put their full-face oxygen masks on as a precaution but did not release the overhead oxygen masks for passengers.
A few minutes later, air traffic controllers lost communication with the aircraft as well as its transponder tracker, a sign usually seen when airplanes crash.
Moments later, the aircraft’s transponder came back online but controllers could not hear any transmissions from the pilots so they resorted to giving the crew instructions over the radio and asking them to acknowledge instructions by pushing the transponder identification (IDENT) button which shows up as a momentary highlight of the aircraft’s radar image on the controller's screen.
Controllers continued giving the pilots approach and altitude clearances and the pilots acknowledged the commands with additional transponder identifications.
The flight landed with an usually hard landing that broke the secure cockpit door open and passengers could see the pilots as the aircraft touched down.
Commercial aircraft cockpit doors were replaced with secure locked doors after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack where hijackers entered airplane cockpits of three airplanes.
The aircraft landing gear tires exploded on impact and caused sparks and flames as the speeding airplane slowed to a stop on the active runway.
Passengers did not notice any problems with the flight until the extremely hard landing and excessive braking seemed unusual.
Emergency fire and rescues vehicles were already aligned along the runway when the airplane landed and quickly began dousing the aircraft with fire retardant foam used to battle fires usually caused by the thousands of gallons of Jet-A carried by commercial airliners.
Passengers waited for a few minutes as steel air stairs were positioned at the front cabin door and firefighters then helped deplane all of the occupants, including the four crew and two pilots.
All four of the airplane's main landing gear tires were blown out and had been burned by the fire.
There were no reported injuries.
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) staff were on scene and began their investigations as is required in cases of aviation accidents and incidents.
NTSB reports are usually release within two years of an incident.
Two days after the flight, passengers received an email from Frontier Airlines with a $200 flight voucher to be used on a future Frontier flight.
Castañares, the Publisher and Editor-at-Large of La Prensa San Diego, was a passenger on Frontier Airlines Flight 1326. Castañares has won numerous awards for his writing, including the prestigious Ruben Salazar Award for Excellence in Print Journalism, the First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists' San Diego Chapter, and the San Diego County Taxpayers' Association Media Watchdog Award. Castañares is also an FAA-licensed private pilot.
