"We had a bit of a bumpy ride up here and we ran into a little problem that required us to communicate with the ground for awhile. We managed to isolate the problem and prevent it from becoming a serious issue. At this point, there's no reason for us to expect anything other than a normal landing. However just to be on the safe side, there are emegerncy vehicles waiting for us on the ground. As we land the plane, you may see the flashing lights and emergency vehicles lining the runway, but that's just a precaution."

Uhhh, what?? We were delayed for an hour before we left, and I guess we know why now! The girl sitting across the aisle from me turned white as a sheet, and there was a lot of nervous murmuring and I bet there was a quick burst of activity on God's radar as there were a lot of people with their eyes closed and their heads bowed on that plane. The cabin crew came through making sure that no one was in a position that would hinder their exit, you know, if needed. The girl who went pale had a blanket on her legs and the flight attendant asked her to take the blanket off, so it would not entangle her legs in case she had to move quickly. As for me, I just started laughing. Someone asked rather brusquely what was so funny. I was laughing because what the hell else am I going to do? I tightened my seatbelt and that was about it.

The people who fly the planes have so much training and so much experience, and contingency training, and the inflight crew goes through months of training in just about every contingency you can imagine there's really nothing else TO do. A couple years ago a pilot landed a JetBlue plane with the front landing gear twisted 90 degrees and I remember another incident about a year ago where something equally serious happened and the pilot landed it like there was no problem at all.

So we approached the runway, maybe landed a little faster than normal, but it was fine! I've had worse landings before when there were no problems at all. The Captain of the plane had some SERIOUS skills and had he not made the announcement, then no one would have known that there was any problem at all, it was that smooth!