MA - Pilot's gutsy maneuver ends midair scare By J.T. LEONARD Sun Staff

BEDFORD -- For about 90 tense minutes yesterday, 15 lives -- and a young airline's flawless safety record -- hung in the balance while jammed landing gear prevented Shuttle America Flight 261 from landing at Hanscom Field.

But the calm veteran pilot's gutsy maneuvers nearly four miles high fixed the problem, allowing him to set the plane and its passengers down without incident.

The twin-engine turboprop left Bedford bound for New York's LaGuardia Airport at 1:40 p.m.

About 10 minutes into the flight, however, a hydraulics system warning light forced pilot Drew Chace to turn the plane around, said Mark R. Cestari, spokesman for Shuttle America.

On the way back to Bedford, Chace also found that the nose landing gear failed to lock into its lowered position. First Officer Shabaz Kahn and flight attendant Glenn Lowrey tried to crank down and lock the nose wheel by hand, but failed.

At 2:20 p.m., Hanscom air traffic controllers ordered the plane diverted to Boston's Logan International Airport. With more extensive emergency equipment, Logan could better handle a last-ditch, forced landing, Cestari said.

On the way to Logan, however, Chace -- who has been a pilot more than 20 years -- and Kahn tried one last maneuver to free the nose wheel: They climbed above 20,000 feet, then started throwing the plane into a series of sharp dives and pull-outs to try to jostle the gear free.

The trick worked.

"At 2:55 p.m. they performed a perfectly routine landing" at Hanscom Field, Cestari said.

Nobody was hurt during the 90-minute ordeal.

Odds favored the Dash-8 plane and the Connecticut-based airline, which was founded in 1998.

"Shuttle America has a perfect safety record," Cestari said. "We've had no accidents since we started flying, and the Dash-8 has a perfect safety record."

With a fleet of six aircraft, Shuttle America flies Dash-8 planes exclusively. They are built in Canada by Toronto-based Bombardier.

Flight 261 was a 6-year-old Dash-8-300 with a capacity of 50 passengers. The plane has logged 15,005 hours in the air -- a modest number of hours for that model, Cestari said.

After a thorough checkup, the plane was flown last night to Shuttle America's maintenance site in Buffalo, N.Y. It will undergo a complete diagnostic exam and any repairs will be made before it is returned to fleet service.

Although no injuries were reported, several passengers were left disgruntled by the situation. Flight 261's cancellation scrubbed a subsequent flight last night, leaving as many as 50 grounded passengers grumbling in a crowded waiting area, or scrambling to arrange other means of travel.

Passenger Joe Motta thought of his wife and two young children during the aborted trip.

He said being aboard the troubled aircraft was tense, but not a panic-stricken nightmare as in the movies.

Finally back on the ground, Motta, 35, a self-employed graphic designer from Bedford, N.H., decided to forsake air travel and drive to New York City instead.

Speaking on a cell phone while on the Massachusetts Turnpike, he described the ordeal as "pretty surreal."

"Everyone was pretty calm for the most part, except one (passenger) who was pretty hysterical," he said. "But somebody else sat down beside her and calmed her down.

"We didn't think it was serious until (the pilot) said he couldn't get the nose gear down."

Flight 261 was not the only Shuttle America flight yesterday to be plagued by mechanical gremlins. In Trenton, N.J., Flight 220 also made a precautionary landing after a similar warning light flashed on.

"I'll never fly them again. But the one positive thing I'll say for (Shuttle America) is that the pilot was very calm and in control," Motta said. "He kept us informed with what was going on and what they were doing to try to fix the situation."

"We could be sitting here telling you a very different story," Cestari said. "But we're obviously very happy that the situation righted itself."

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-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), December 06, 2000