Landing‑Gear Light — Quiet Damage Control
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Leo reassures Bartlet about the landing gear indicator light issue, downplaying its severity with anecdotes.
Bartlet informs Charlie, C.J., and Will about the landing gear issue and the need to keep it secret from the press.
C.J. and Will devise a cover story about a fuel spill to explain the delay to the press.
C.J. informs the press about the fuel spill cover story while managing their suspicions.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Prepared and service-oriented; ready to be deployed as needed.
Ed is invoked by C.J. as someone to help Will with press distractions; he is a named resource though not shown acting onstage in this segment, indicating practical, behind-the-scenes support.
- • Support C.J. and Will in managing press narratives.
- • Execute practical tasks to keep the plan moving.
- • Small, concrete actions reduce risk in public messaging.
- • He can be relied on to follow rapid instructions.
Persistent and probing; focused on extracting usable information for immediate filing.
Reporter Arthur directly challenges C.J. in the press cabin, demanding clarity; his questioning forces C.J. to deploy the fuel-spill cover and demonstrates press pressure on the team's secrecy plan.
- • Get a straight answer about the delay and potential mechanical issues.
- • Test the administration's story for veracity.
- • The press has a right and duty to insist on facts.
- • Administration vagueness will be filled with speculation if not countered.
Focused and slightly anxious; projecting competence to mask unease about overlapping crises.
C.J. receives the Oval briefing, immediately pivots to press control: exits to the hallway and press cabin, offers the maintenance-truck/fuel-spill cover line, assesses which staff to deploy, and physically picks up the phone to page Leo when new Kuhndu information arrives.
- • Sell a plausible, simple cover story to the press to buy time.
- • Maintain message discipline to protect national security and markets.
- • Alert senior staff (page Leo) about a shift in priorities due to Kuhndu news.
- • The press will accept a simple mechanical explanation if presented confidently.
- • Containment of information is possible and necessary right now.
- • Paging Leo will re-center decision-making for the broader crisis.
Alert and professional, providing steady presence without drawing attention.
Charlie quietly enters Leo's office on cue and remains present as Bartlet briefs the group, acting as the attentive aide who sustains the team's logistics and absorbs instructions for follow-up.
- • Be available to execute follow-up tasks and relay orders.
- • Ensure the president's immediate needs are met without distraction.
- • Quiet competence aids crisis management.
- • His role is to keep the inner circle functional under stress.
Grave and insistent; professional duty to inform despite the danger of complicating other responses.
Reporter Chris has been on the phone; she pulls C.J. aside in the staff cabin and delivers double-confirmed news of friendly-fire deaths in Kuhndu, escalating the stakes beyond the mechanical incident.
- • Inform the administration off the record about verified casualties.
- • Ensure accurate reporting without immediate public broadcast.
- • The administration must know this now even if it complicates other crises.
- • Double-confirmed sourcing obligates immediate disclosure to the decision-makers.
Concerned and authoritative; surface calm leavened by impatience and a need to control narrative and risk.
President Bartlet receives Leo's phone briefing, moves from ironic levity to operational command: explains the failed landing-gear indicator to his team, orders an F-16 visual inspection, and frames secrecy as necessary to protect markets and national security.
- • Confirm the plane's physical safety by getting visual verification.
- • Prevent public disclosure to avoid market panic and security exposure.
- • Keep reporters on a benign cover story until resolved.
- • Operational safety requires confirmation beyond cockpit instruments.
- • Public knowledge of in-flight vulnerability would produce real harm (market, security).
- • Staff can and must manage the information flow tightly.
Not shown directly; represented as calm/operational through secondhand report.
The co-pilot is cited by C.J. as the source that the problem originated on the ground; their offstage report becomes the team's anchor for the cover story presented to the press.
- • Provide accurate technical assessment to cockpit and support teams.
- • Offer a down-to-earth explanation that can be used publicly.
- • Cockpit diagnostics are credible and often misread indicators.
- • Informing the crew accurately supports safe resolution.
Efficient and neutral; operating under protocol to prioritize high-level pages.
Signal (the switchboard operator) is called by C.J. and tasked to page Leo McGarry and hold a line. Signal's role is the rapid, behind-the-scenes routing of critical communications.
- • Deliver the page to Leo quickly and hold the line as requested.
- • Prevent misrouted or delayed communications during an emergent situation.
- • Timely, accurate paging is essential to centralized decision-making.
- • Discretion is important when handling sensitive calls.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The presidential/office phone is central to the exchange: Bartlet is on the line with Leo at the start, hangs up to conduct the in-room briefing, and C.J. later uses a phone to page Leo — the device mediates urgent, high-level coordination.
An F-16 fighter jet is referenced as the operational tool ordered to fly alongside Air Force One to visually confirm the nose gear is down; it functions here as both a safety measure and a visible complication to the press narrative.
A runway maintenance truck is invoked as the centerpiece of the improvised cover story — blamed for causing a fuel spill that prevents landing — making it a narrative prop to deflect reporter scrutiny away from a mechanical failure.
The 'Supposed Fuel Spill at Andrews' is a fabricated object/incident the staff deploys to account for the delay; narratively it stands in for deliberate obfuscation and buys time while technical confirmation is sought.
Air Force One itself (the Andrews fly-by context) is the implicit stage for the event: airborne with a failed indicator, its situation frames every decision — from secrecy to the need for an F-16 visual check.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The West Wing hallway functions as the transitional space where C.J. and Will step out to coordinate the press cover — it connects decision-making rooms and the press areas, enabling rapid movement and private strategizing in a public building.
West Virginia is the airspace over which Air Force One currently flies; invoked to underscore national-security sensitivity and the risky optics of broadcasting a plane unable to land there.
The staff cabin is the semi-private space where C.J. and Chris step aside for a confidential exchange — it's where the Kuhndu casualty news is delivered off the record and triage decisions accelerate.
The press cabin is where the administration's narrative is tested — crowded with reporters demanding answers — and becomes the front line for C.J.'s cover-story delivery and where Arthur and Chris press for information.
Teteboro Airport is evoked via Leo's anecdote about a Beechcraft incident; it operates as a narrative stabilizer — an aviation parable meant to normalize indicator failures and calm the room.
Throgs Neck Bridge is cited in Leo's story as the geographic point where a Beechcraft was ditched; the location deepens the anecdote's concreteness and illustrates the stakes of aviation mishaps.
Andrews Tower is evoked as the control point for the planned low fly-by visual inspection; it concretizes the logistics of the F-16 maneuver and the hazard of being seen from the ground.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The U.S. Armed Forces are implicitly involved: they scramble/coordinate the fighter jet visual inspection and are the institutional actors behind the Kuhndu casualties that now complicate the White House response.
The White House as an institution orchestrates damage control: senior staff coordinate safety checks, message discipline, and internal paging while balancing political and market consequences.
The Nikkei (representing international markets) is invoked as an external stakeholder whose imminent opening increases incentive to suppress alarming news; market timing shapes the White House's messaging choices.
The Air Force One press corps functions as the immediate audience whose questions force the administration to craft a plausible, simple explanation; their presence creates the pressure that shapes the cover story.
Signal (communications/paging) is the operational node that delivers critical pages and holds lines; C.J. calls Signal to page Leo, demonstrating reliance on established communications protocol in crisis.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Bartlet informing Leo about the problem aboard Air Force One leads to his briefing of Charlie, C.J., and Will about the need to keep the issue secret from the press."
"Bartlet informing Leo about the problem aboard Air Force One leads to his briefing of Charlie, C.J., and Will about the need to keep the issue secret from the press."
"C.J. and Will's crafting of the fuel spill cover story directly leads to C.J. informing the press about it, managing their suspicions."
"C.J. and Will's crafting of the fuel spill cover story directly leads to C.J. informing the press about it, managing their suspicions."
Key Dialogue
"BARTLET: The light that indicates that the landing gear is locked didn't go on, which usually indicates that there's something wrong with the light. But what they're going to do is, they've sent a fighter jet to fly up alongside and get visual confirmation that it's down, and then we land. Here's the tricky part."
"C.J.: A maintenance truck caused a fuel spill on our runway a few minutes ago, and they're cleaning it up."
"CHRIS: That was a stringer we use on the Ivory Coast. He's got double confirmation that there were friendly fire deaths in Kuhndu a few hours ago."