Herald staff
PORTLAND, Ore. — Engine problems forced an Alaska Airlines jet heading for Seattle to make an emergency landing in Portland.
There were no injuries and the Boeing 737 landed safely at Portland International Airport about 10 a.m. Friday with emergency crews lining the runway, officials said.
Alaska’s Flight 385 was en route from Sacramento, Calif., to Seattle when it developed engine trouble. There were no details released on what went wrong or the extent of the problem.
Passenger Mike Isbutt says none of the passengers knew there was a problem until the pilot told them they had to make an unscheduled landing.
Isbutt said the pilot warned passengers that they would see lots of firetrucks but said everything was under control.
Company plants flags in Northwest: Enchanted Parks, a locally owned amusement park between Seattle and Tacoma, has been sold to Six Flags Inc. for $19.3 million. The price is more than double the $8 million that Enchanted Parks chief executive Jeff Stock paid for it in 1992. Enchanted Parks, which includes a water park and an amusement park, was first opened in 1977. It was unclear whether the sale would affect plans to add two roller coasters.
Man killed in police standoff: Deputies shot and killed an apparently suicidal man who brandished a pistol during a Thursday night standoff, Whitman County Sheriff Steve Tomson said Friday. Three deputies fired simultaneously when they thought Chester Eugene Hunt, 26, raised the weapon to fire at them from the bed of his pickup about eight miles south of Pullman on Highway 195, the sheriff said. Whitman County dispatchers had received a report earlier in the evening that Hunt had left the Lewiston-Clarkston area armed with two handguns and was possibly suicidal, Tomson said.
Look before you leap: A prisoner being transferred from the Queen Charlotte Islands to the mainland jumped out of a floatplane nearly 5,000 feet over Hecate Strait, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. Constable Dan Alexcee said he’s not sure whether the prisoner, Don Bigg, 46, was wearing a parachute when he leaped from the plane Thursday more than 30 miles from this northern British Columbia coastal town. "I don’t believe so, but I can’t comment," Alexcee said. Police did not release what charges Bigg faced. No trace of him was found in a search of the waters in the area, about 500 miles northwest of Vancouver.
