Frontier Airlines Flight to make Unscheduled Landing at LAX
NGUYEN: Still staying on the Frontier Airlines plane where the indicator light shows a cargo door is open. That plane left from John Wayne Airport this afternoon in Orange County, California, to Denver. But because of that indicator light, it's headed back now to LAX Airport. And you're looking at pictures right now from the KABC helicopter which is headed to the airport as we watch this plane come in. I want to bring in CNN's Chad Myers because you've been watching the flight tracker on this. What have you noticed thus far?</s>MYERS (on phone): We have the flight tracker fired up on this storm -- on this plane and it did come out of SNA, which is Orange County John Wayne Airport. And right now I have it tracking very close to Catalina Island out here, still well out away from LAX. There's the plane right there at about 700 feet, doing 210 miles- per-hour. It was planned to land in Denver there -- the small numbers on your screen -- but at 21:19 for official time. That plane is still though -- if you can see the straight line, flying to the southwest, not toward LAX yet. So it may be more than 10 minutes before we get this information and this plane on the ground. Now remember, since it's been 9/11 that there's a little bit of a delay from the FAA. This is not exactly real-time. We don't know anywhere from about a minute to two minutes behind, but it's pretty close to that location.</s>NGUYEN: And we were hearing a little bit earlier from Jeanne Meserve that this plane may be -- which is why we're not seeing it go straight to LAX -- they're trying to burn off some fuel.</s>MYERS: Well, because it had so much fuel in its cargo -- in the fuel tanks -- because it knew that it was going Denver, so it had to have a lot of fuel to get there. You don't want to land that plane with all of that weight on the wheels, because it wasn't planning on landing with that much weight on the wheels. And so you have to get rid of some of that. Probably that's why they're over the water. They could be getting rid of some of that fuel right now over the water and as they land back in, they want that plane lighter so that it's not so stressful on the landing gear. Not that -- there is nothing wrong with the landing gear on this plane, but you don't want to land 10,000 pounds heavier than you have to.</s>NGUYEN: Well how big of a problem, if indeed this cargo door is open as the indicator light shows, how big of a problem is that going to be for landing? Do you know?</s>MYERS: I really don't think it's a problem at all. It's just a problem of getting to altitude and that's a semi-pressurized area of the plane. And well, if the door's open, that doesn't work, does it?</s>NGUYEN: All right, Chad. We're awaiting momentarily to speak with Joe Hodas, spokesman from Frontier Airlines. What's the weather like in that area right now? Is it pretty clear for landing?</s>MYERS: Good question. Let me walk right over here to my other computer. LAX has excellent visibility, at about 25 miles, scattered clouds at 14,000 feet. Some scattered clouds estimated at about 18,000 feet, otherwise broken and very little wind. It's out of the southwest at six knots, about seven miles-per-hour. Temperature is 61. Pretty good. I mean, that's good weather for</s>LAX. NGUYEN: All right. Stand by Chad, we're going to speak now with Joe Hodas, a spokesman for Frontier Airlines, who joins us on the phone as we look at live pictures of emergency crews on the ground. Mr. Hodas, talk to us about the situation with the indicator light. What do you know?</s>JOE HODAS, SPOKESMAN, FRONTIER AIRLINES (on phone): Sure. Essentially -- first of all, I really want to clarify at front, this is not an emergency situation. It was a cargo door indicator light that was flashing intermittently, which essentially means that there could be a number of issues. It could be a faulty switch, a number of things. But ultimately, if the cargo door was indeed open to any extent, the cabin wouldn't be pressurizing appropriately. So we'd certainly know if there was an issue. So ultimately we've decided to go to LAX, just to land, to check it out, as we would any sort of normal maintenance issue and make sure that everything's OK.</s>NGUYEN: How long was it in the air before you noticed this indicator light was on?</s>HODAS: You know, I don't have specifics on that. The flight took off at 10:50 local time. So my estimation is it is not very long, it was probably about 20 minutes.</s>NGUYEN: And again, just to reiterate, which we have been doing -- that just because the indicator light is on, showing that the cargo door is open, doesn't necessarily mean that that cargo door is open and things could fall out of it and it could cause depressurization in the cabin.</s>HODAS: That is absolutely correct. In fact, as I was saying, the No. 1 indicator of any issue would be, is the cabin pressurization off? Which it's not, so, this is not an open cargo door.</s>NGUYEN: What's the plane doing right now? Is it burning off fuel?</s>HODAS: It's burning off fuel, that's correct. You know, there are certain weight requirements and restrictions for aircraft when they're landing, so because this plane had not only all the fuel to get to Denver, but in addition we were tankering fuel back from L.A., because of the cheaper fuel costs there. We do have additional fuel on the aircraft, so it makes the plane a little bit heavier. So we're trying to burn some of that off, before we make our landing.</s>NGUYEN: How long do you think that's going to take? Because we heard, oh about 10 minutes ago, that it was expected to land right about now. Are you just trying to burn as much as possible and could that take quite a while?</s>HODAS: No, we're expecting it actually within the next 5-to-10 minutes, is what I understand.</s>NGUYEN: All right. How many passengers are on this plane?</s>HODAS: It's an Airbus A318, it holds 114 passengers. My understanding is that it's a pretty full flight and then we have five crew members.</s>NGUYEN: And if indeed cargo door is open, as the indicator light shows, is that going to be a problem with landing?</s>HODAS: No, no. It's not a problem. In fact, as I said, if there was any sort of real issue with the cargo door, there would be other indicators that would let us know that there was a problem. So we're not anticipating any issues in the landing.</s>NGUYEN: Kind of more of an inconvenience for these passengers.</s>HODAS: Unfortunately for today, yes. But as is always, our sort of mission, we want to make sure that we're as safe as possible. So, again, this checkout now is really what we thought was the best idea.</s>NGUYEN: Yes. I think they'd be appreciative of you putting safety first.</s>HODAS: Exactly.</s>NGUYEN: Well, Joe Hodas, spokesman for Frontier Airlines, we appreciate your information. We're going to be watching and of course, crews on the ground there at LAX are watching as well, hoping that this plane comes in safely and this indicator light is a false alarm. We're going go now to CNN's Jeanne Meserve, who joins us with a little bit more information on the situation at hand. Jeanne, what do you know?</s>MESERVE: Betty, you asked me earlier why they were going to LAX. I think the obvious is -- the answer is obvious when you look at this picture. LAX is a lot bigger. John Wayne Airport, the airport from which this flight took off is small, only has one runway. LAX is one of the hugest airports and has a total of four runways and a very extensive fire and rescue capability. So in the interest of maximum safety, they'd want to put it down in that larger location that gives them a lot more flexibility in terms of approaches and what not. Otherwise, I'm getting the same information, of course, that you just got from the airline. This was a case where the aft cargo door indicator light came on some time after this plane's take-off from John Wayne. They are burning off and possible dumping some fuel before they come in for a landing at LAX. But nobody with whom I've spoken feels that this is an urgent situation. This is precautionary. They want to come down and figure out exactly why that indicator light is on -- Betty.</s>NGUYEN: Jeanne, I asked a little bit earlier how long had this light been on before they recognized the problem? He didn't have an answer for that, but do you know, in your questioning to the people on the phone and your sources, how far this plane traveled before it started to turn around?</s>MESERVE: No, I really don't. I was told it was shortly after take-off. That would be in line with what the Frontier spokesman told you, but I don't have an exact time, no. But obviously it could not have been very far into the flight because their option was to come back to the L.A. area, as opposed to carrying on to Denver.</s>NGUYEN: And we're watching now as planes land at LAX. You're watching an Air Canada plane right there make a landing. And we're waiting -- this is normal procedure, Jeanne, for planes to circle around, burn fuel, especially if there's some concern with landing?</s>MESERVE: Absolutely. I mean, obviously, fuel is exactly that. It can fire -- it can fuel a fire, as well as power an aircraft. So you want to have as little onboard as possible when you're coming in. So this would be very much standard operating procedure to try and lessen that load before you come down.</s>NGUYEN: Jeanne, I'm going to ask you to stand by. We're going to bring Chad Myers back in. Because he's been following the flight tracker to see exactly where Flight 263, this Frontier Airlines plane, is at the moment.</s>MYERS: Still at 700 feet. Obviously, it didn't go up very far. And if the light came on, it wouldn't want to go to a higher altitude because if that door was open, you would not get the pressurization. But I'm still seeing the plane very close to John Wayne, all the way down here into Orange County on flight tracker. The plane here, now just making a little bit of a left-hand turn, getting -- going to parallel the coast, going to fly over Long Beach and then on its way back into the LAX pattern. The pattern would be from east to west, so the plane will have to fly maybe almost to riverside, make the left hand turn, and then land at LAX. We'll keep a watch up here in the weather office.</s>NGUYEN: Yes, but Chad, as Jeanne was saying, I mean -- and what we're looking at shows it would be a lot quicker just to go ahead and land at John Wayne, but...</s>MYERS: It's right there.</s>NGUYEN: ... all the safety factors are on the ground at</s>LAX. MYERS: Well, they just have so much more equipment up there. They're so much more involved in a rescue up there. You can't compare the two airports. That's why they're going out there. Even though as the guy from Frontier said, this is not an emergency situation -- Betty.</s>NGUYEN: And that's something we do want to stress. An indicator light is on, showing that the cargo door is open. But as we spoke with the person, Joe Hodas, a spokesperson with Frontier Airlines, doesn't mean that door is indeed, open. Because if it was, there would be depressurization in the cabin and we'd see a number of other problems at the moment. We have General Shepherd on the phone to talk about the situation with this airline as it comes to land at LAX. We're going to pause for a moment, take a quick break and come right back with more on this Frontier Airlines Flight 263, headed to LAX and hopefully for a smooth landing.