Passenger Gives Timeline Of Events For Emergency Plane Landing In Tulsa

Hundreds of American Airlines passengers are scrambling to get to London after their plane had to make an emergency landing in Tulsa.

The plane took off from Dallas Monday night, but had to land an hour later.

Instead of spending the night flying over the Atlantic Ocean, passengers said they spent the overnight hours stuck on the tarmac in Tulsa.

A turnaround to Tulsa, after an American Airlines Boeing 777 takes off from Dallas, headed for London.

After being in the air for less than an hour, the pilot turned the plane around near Springfield, Missouri, and headed to Tulsa International Airport.

Air traffic recorded by LiveATC.net showed the flight crew was concerned about the brakes on the plane.

“Uh, we would like to stop on the runway, if able to have our equipment check our brakes,” said the flight crew.

Controllers had this message for the flight crew: “Emergency aircraft requests that you continue to monitor their brakes, they’re still showing two brakes as hot at this time and they just want you to make sure that you guys are going to follow them into the pad."

A passenger on another plane, which had to circle while waiting for the Boeing 777 to land, took a video, showing firetrucks spraying water on the plane.

Shengjie Tao took time to document his journey once off the diverted plane.

"We were told that the situation that the plane was in, did not classify as an emergency, which was somewhat comforting,” Tao said.

American Airlines said in a statement the plane had to land because of a "possible mechanical issue," but didn't provide any more details about what was wrong.

Tao said he and the nearly 300 other passengers landed in Tulsa just before midnight, but could not get off the plane for hours.

"It was about half [past] four in the morning that passengers started to finally get off the plane,” Tao said.

News On 6’s Osage Casino Skycam Network showed American Airlines workers checking out the plane after sunrise Tuesday morning.

Then another jet arrives, the one that eventually took some passengers back to DFW before starting over their trip across the ocean.

American Airlines’ full statement on the issue: “On Sept. 5, American Airlines flight 80 from Dallas Fort-Worth (DFW) to London Heathrow (LHR) diverted to Tulsa (TUL) due to a possible mechanical issue. The flight, with 278 customers on board, landed safely and without incident at TUL and the aircraft was inspected by our maintenance team. Our team members worked to re-book all customers to their final destinations. We never want to disrupt our customers’ travel plans, and apologize for the trouble this caused.”