A U.S. Airways plane made a safe but bumpy emergency landing in Houston Monday night after its nose landing gear failed to deploy.
Flight 1825 from Philadelphia to Houston landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport carrying more than
50 passengers and four crew members, CNN reported.
"The passengers exited the aircraft on the tarmac via aircraft slides," airline spokeswoman Victoria Lupica told CNN. “One passenger has been transported to a local hospital, however the injuries of that passenger are not reported to be serious."
"We were told to brace, brace, brace,"
passenger Janice Mumma told KTRK.
"Then they said ‘It looks like the landing gear's not out. We're going to have to have a crash landing,’" passenger Olin Johnson told the station. "That's when it kind of got scary, because the pilot, you could hear it in his voice he was nervous."
"They're telling you to put your head down," passenger Dan Hanson said. "But everything's telling you to keep your head up and look around. But then when we actually hit, it really wasn't that bad."
KTRK said passengers were happy with the pilot, offering their praise.
“I think he did great," Mumma said. "He was calm. The crew was calm. I think the crew did great. He landed it."
Airport spokesman David Hebert said that the plane landed around 9:30 p.m. after reporting the need to make an emergency landing.
"They did a couple turns around the airport airspace, talked to the FAA tower, tried to get visual confirmation that the
nose gear was, in fact, inoperable," Hebert told KHOU. "Unfortunately it wasn't working properly."