PORTLAND, Ore. — A flight from Seattle to Redmond, Oregon, had to be diverted to the Portland International Airport (PDX) for an emergency landing on Monday. After the plane suffered what Alaska Airlines referred to in a statement as "an issue involving the hydraulic system that controls various systems on the aircraft, including control of the nose wheel steering."
X user @KeithPDXAir captured a partial video of the landing, starting moments after the plane touches down and continuing as it slows down and makes its way to the end of the runway. The plane nose wheels and axle can be seen wobbling substantially throughout the video.
According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, the flight appears to be a daily scheduled trip from Seattle to Redmond called Alaska Airlines 2020, operated as Horizon 2020. Horizon Air is an Alaska Airlines subsidiary focused on regional flights. The flight was using an Embraer 175 jet, according to FlightAware.
The Monday flight left Seattle at around 1:30 p.m. on a route that would normally have seen it land in Redmond about an hour to an hour and a half later. The flight made it most of the way to Redmond before diverting, and it landed just after 3 p.m. at PDX. Another flight labelled Horizon 2020 departed PDX about two hours later and arrived in Redmond at about 5:40 p.m.
"Our flight crew is trained for scenarios like this, declared an emergency for priority landing, and landed without incident," Alaska said in its statement. "We swapped the aircraft and guests arrived to their destination about two hours later than scheduled. The aircraft is being inspected by our maintenance team. We apologize to our guests for the inconvenience."