Airplane mechanics on Las Vegas flight with smoking engine said it was a ‘smooth landing’

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - Two people with years of experience working on aircraft engines were on board Wednesday morning’s American Airlines flight that made an emergency landing.

Both Paige Mitchell and Michael Lockett have spent years working on aircraft engines. Mitchell is an airplane mechanic in Las Vegas and Lockett is a 22-year Air Force veteran stationed at Nellis with background in engine maintenance.

By total coincidence, they were both on board flight AA 1665 headed to Charlotte, North Carolina. They explained one moment everything was routine, the next it wasn’t.

“We took off and as soon as like the pilots put the gear up, it was like pop, pop, pop over and over,” Mitchell said. “You could kind of see like orange and yellow like glowing like every time you hear the pop.”

Locket, with decades of military aircraft experience, said the sound was instantly familiar and concerning.

“With my background, as soon as it happened, I knew kind of what it was because I’ve seen it on Air Force aircraft before,” Lockett said.

For both, the realization set in fast. Lockett said he stayed calm on the outside but mentally prepared for whatever would come next.

“I already knew it was an engine failure,” he said. “I didn’t say anything out loud because I didn’t want to, you know, get people riled up, so the most I did was just pray until we got back on the ground.”

Mitchell said her instincts as a mechanic kicked in, assessing the flight pattern, the sounds and bracing for a rough landing.

“I was like ‘oh, this is going to be rough’, but no, they actually put us down really nicely, and as soon as we hit the ground, they stopped, and there was fire trucks and police waiting for us,” she said.

Both airplane mechanics tell FOX 5 they credit the pilots for keeping the landing smooth and controlled and Mitchell even called it “one of the smoothest landings she has ever experienced.”

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