Airline emergency takes place over Island

Catalina Island briefly found itself thrust into the national headlines in a very unlikely way earlier this month as a result of a nail-biting aviation emergency.

It all began two weeks ago Saturday on an otherwise relaxing United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Kona International Airport on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Catalina Island briefly found itself thrust into the national headlines in a very unlikely way earlier this month as a result of a nail-biting aviation emergency.

It all began two weeks ago Saturday on an otherwise relaxing United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Kona International Airport on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The flight, United 1296, departed LAX at about 8:40 a.m. and headed southwest towards Hawaii.  About an hour into the flight, well out over the deep and wild Pacific, a crewmember detected smoke in the plane’s passenger cabin.

Emergency procedures were enacted immediately, including the donning of oxygen masks and life jackets.

“I think everybody thought we really weren’t going to make it,” said a passenger to CBS2 News.  “That we were going into the ocean.”

Naturally, people were nervous enough as it was.  But things got a lot worse when the captain reportedly came on the loudspeaker and said they might have to land the plane—a Boeing 757—on Catalina Island.

While a Boeing 757 is not exactly a DC-10, anyone familiar with Catalina’s Airport-in-the-Sky knows that its relatively short runway surrounded by precipitous cliffs does not make it conducive to the landing of airliners.  In fact, landing at Catalina’s airport can be likened somewhat to landing on an aircraft carrier.

To make a long story short, not to mention happy, the airliner eventually landed safely at LAX just before noon.  Evidently, sometime between the announcement of the possible landing at Catalina and the actual landing of the plane at LAX, someone informed the United pilot that landing at the Airport-in-the-Sky was not the best idea.

None of the passengers needed medical attention and all passengers were placed on other flights to the Islands where they no doubt consumed great quantities of Mai Tais. The cause of the smoke is under investigation.