My brother was flying a corporate jet into Las Vegas and heard a Southwest airliner contact tower with hydraulic failure problems. Checked your News & Media section–no listing. Any news?
Thanks!
It would be better to check google or yahoo for news about the Southwest flight. The news and media link you mentioned is more for news about FlightAware.
I did a quick google news search and didn’t find anything. It’s more than likely a non-story.
Well, let’s hope it isn’t news worthy.
I’ve been scanning the news sites–nothing yet.
Thanks.
EDIT :: Nevermind, should’ve known better 
Planes leave their gear down longer than usual sometimes, especially if the brakes are hotter than usual. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything is wrong.
Hydraulic failures are probably more common than you might realize.
As for leaving your gear down, yeah, there might be a good technical reason to do so ( the aircraft might have been in the pattern back to land), but sometimes…pilots just forget to put them up.
For your first paragraph, do you have anything to back up your statement??? I’d say on the contrary, hyraulic failures are far more rarer then you imply. The only hydaulic failure I know of in a commercial flight was in Iowa City, and that failure was secondary to a catastrophic engine failure. Commercial airlines have backup of backups when it comes to hydraulics from what I read.
I have been flying for 5 years, and I have heard many emergencys called over the frequency, and only one made the news (off field landing) and none of those were hydraulic problems in nature (smoke in the cockpit, gear wouldn’t extend, VFR pilot caught over a cloud deck are first emergencies that come to mind). Remember, landing gears can be manually cranked down, and do not require hydraulics.
Heck, I had an in flight engine failure (exhaust valve bit the dust) and didn’t even make the news.
For your second paragraph, we are talking about a “heavy” 737. It’s not likely he (or she) would be hanging around the pattern.
While I don’t fly heavy iron (in fact, I don’t fly complex), but I think there is a “maximum speed” landing gear extension that pilots have to adhear to? Sure that more of my complex flying buddies can chime in 
Allen
I was a controller since about 1971…hydraulic failures on all sorts of aircraft were not unusual. They were a bit more serious “back in the day” but in modern, multi redundant systems aircraft, they weren’t much of a problem, at least for the controllers. I’m sure some pilots will have better information.
Ok, so the 737 had his gear down.
Either:
they couldn’t put them up for some reason.
or
They forgot. It happens. More than you might think.
Sorry guys, I guess I was just used to seeing the constant stream of WN 737’s climbing out with their gear already well retracted… Didn’t even cross my mind that they had hot brakes/forgot or whatnot
The important thing is that you were observant enough to notice.
Remember, landing gears can be manually cranked down, and do not require hydraulics.
Just a minor technical correction: Many Cessna singles have hand pumps for emergency gear extension, not cranks. They still require hydraulics. If the hydraulic line is broken they are screwed.
In aircraft that are certificated under FAR 25 transport category (this includes all airliners and most bizjets) redundancy is required. The landing gear in most all of these aircraft are actuated hydraulically, but controlled electrically - with some exceptions.
In addition to normal operations, there must both be a way to put the gear down if the electrical power fails and a way to put the gear down if the hydaulic power fails.
Hydraulics may operate other systems as well, typically flaps, brakes, nosewheel steering and thrust reversers.