Auntie Charo's Soapbox

Gerard Partido of the Marianas Variety in today's issue writes about the very questions of NWA's flight 74 and how it landed not so 'normally' last Friday. "Accounts of the landing are conflicting, with some passengers noticing nothing amiss during the landing and only being alerted when the aircraft started to skid and smoke began to fill the cabin. Others noted unusual occurrences while still in flight such as the aircraft making a number of passes at the airport before descending for a landing. But according to GIAA, Flight 74 did not report any problems when it called the airport to get a gate designation prior to landing."
Several people saw the plane make passes over the airport as it tried to make its landing. Some airport personnel say that the pilots were trying to 'spend' the fuel while others say that the plane was flying over or near the tower to see if the front landing gear had opened-as in, the tires had come out from under the belly of the front part of the aircraft. I'm assuming that this information would be recorded in the 'black box'.
There's also talk from several people that it was the employees of the Dave Tuncap people that helped the passengers of the aircraft after they got off the aircraft because it took a long time for the rescue people to get to the aircraft and that the passengers had to walk in the heat(can you imagine how hot they were on that tarmac in the afternoon heat...some carrying hand-carry with babies as well some in their senior years?). So...what took the rescue people such a long time to reach the scene, surely the tower realized that the plane was in trouble when it saw that the nose was touching the ground, not to mention there was a call for the use of foam to keep the aircraft from going up in flames.
Funny how well we do in practice and how well we don't do when we're in real situations. We can only thank God that NWA had a good pilot and that the plane landed in one peice and that all lives were saved...in the meantime, me thinks the tower needs to communicate better/faster with the rescue people.....ya think?