Plane circles Sonoma County Airport during landing gear malfunction

Mechanical issues with a commercial airliner’s landing gear delayed the plane’s landing at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport on Tuesday afternoon, causing the aircraft to circle the airport for about 20 minutes.

The scare - the second this year that also happened to occur this month at the airport - caused the flight’s pilot to radio the airport’s control tower that he or she was unsure if the plane could land, triggering the most severe airport emergency response from the county’s dispatch center. That included 23 units from seven local fire departments and two ambulances.

Airport manager Jon Stout called the response “substantial” and precautionary, whenever there’s an apparent mechanical issue with a commercial airplane.

A malfunction with a flap that houses the front wheels of the turboprop plane, a Q400 operated by the Alaska Airlines affiliate Horizon Air, caused the delayed landing.

The issue was fixed with a reset of the plane’s landing gear, said Ray Lane, the airline’s spokesman.

The glitch prolonged the scheduled 1:19 p.m. landing of the aircraft, which departed from the Santa Ana John Wayne Airport at 11:37 a.m. with 72 passengers and a four-person crew aboard. No one was injured in the incident, Lane said.

It was the second such emergency response to the airport this month, according to county fire dispatch.

A Horizon Q400 encountered pressurization issues after taking off from the county airport the evening of Oct. 8, and the pilot had concerns the landing gear would not drop and lock.

The mechanical issue was resolved and the plane returned to the Santa Rosa runway to an emergency response the same size as Tuesday’s.

One of the passengers on the plane Tuesday was Santa Rosa nurse Leslie Fonseca, 66, who was returning home from a business trip in Long Beach when she realized the plane was going in circles. From her window seat, she spotted a group of firetrucks below gathered on the airport’s tarmac area with lights flashing. Deputies from the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office also responded, Sgt. Spencer Crum said.

“I just prepped myself,” Fonseca said. “I’m a nurse and I know what to do in emergencies, but afterwards it’s unnerving.”

The pilot announced there was an issue with the plane, but did not offer details, Fonseca said. A little while later, flight attendants told passengers the plane would be landing, she said.

As she was departing, Fonseca thanked the pilot for safely landing the aircraft. She was greeted at the airport by her husband and son.

“Situations like these really make you want to hug your loved ones,” she said.

The FAA will review the incident, agency spokesman Allen Kenitzer said.

Stout said over the course of his 16-year career at the local airport his recollection is incidents leading to emergency responses like Tuesday’s and the one earlier this month occur no more than one or two times a year.

“We don’t differentiate between a precautionary situation and real situation,” the airport manager said. “An alert is an alert. They’re not very frequent.”