For the second time in two days, a passenger jet landed safely in Little Rock after reporting indications that its flaps were inoperable.
American Eagle Flight 2574 from Dallas with 50 passengers and crew on board landed at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field without incident at 1:30 p.m., said Shane Carter, an airport spokesman.
The crew contacted the Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control tower at the airport and reported a "flap failure," according to the "report we received," Carter said.
Flaps are devices that improve the lift of an aircraft's wings and allow the aircraft to, among other things, safely descend for landing without increasing speed.
Special aircraft rescue and firefighting personnel assigned to the airport by the Little Rock Fire Department stood by under an Alert 2, said Fire Capt. Randy Hickmon.
An Alert 2 is when an "aircraft is known or suspected to have an operational defect that affects normal flight operations to the extent that there is danger of an accident," according to the airport website.
An Alert 1 is a lesser alert and is when "an aircraft is known or suspected to have an operational defect [that] should not normally cause serious difficulty in achieving a safe landing."
An airplane crashing at the airport or in its vicinity prompts an Alert 3.
Flight 2574 was a Bombardier CRJ200 twin jet flown by ExpressJet under the American Eagle Airlines brand, said Andrea Huguely, a spokesman for American.
The plane landed without incident, "checked out just fine" and returned to service for its regularly scheduled return trip to Dallas on Thursday afternoon, Huguely said.
A similar incident involving an indications the flaps weren't working occurred on another American Eagle flight from Dallas to Clinton National on Wednesday afternoon, reportedly the same flight. It also prompted an an "Alert 2" response from the firefighters assigned to the airport.
"It was probably the same flight," but a different aircraft, Huguely said.
Metro on 06/06/2014