Los Angeles: live crossing

I have just been witness to the dramatic landing of the emergency landing of a passenger jet, forced to land at Los Angeles LAX airport due to its landing gear problems. Shortly after take-off, the pilots realised that the wheel at the nose of the plane had gotten stuck in a sideways position when trying to retract the landing gear.

With 139 passengers on board, they circled the airport for two hours, while planning the crash landing. They dumped fuel over the ocean, in an attempt to lighten the load, and I suppose, keep the plane from becoming one mother sized inferno should anything go wrong.

Check the vid from CNN. Even cooler, was that I was chilling at a dodgy neighbourhood bar, where everybody was glued to the screens as we witnessed this event totally live! It was flippen scary, seriously! We could've potentially witnessed a horrific disaster, if it wasn't for some fancy flyin' and a stylin' touchdown! You should have heard the applause in the bar, what a moment! Chicken pox all over!

And in other news, just as scary. Hurricane Rita was upgraded to a Cat 5 twister, the third most hectic in recorded history, with winds up to 175mph. And it's headed straight for Houston, a major city.

If you remember, I was supposed to go there originally before asking to go to Denver. We have three Safrican colleagues there, and they're a bit freaked out. The Houston office closed down today, with the Safricans being evac'd to Dallas, to bunk with our other Safrican colleagues.

So its all happening over here, just like the movies. Heard rumours Bruce Willis and Arnie the Governator were getting kitted up to come save the US (and the world) from these disasters...