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Even though I have been in commercial aviation for 30 years nothing has really had an impact on me. The closest was when a Piper Aztec in Alaska crashed on landing killing everyone onboard. The plane was returning to it's base after dropping off my mom and dad.
I've been to the scene of - or investigated - about a dozen ACs around the world. The F-20 Tigershark in Korea was a fascinating study - for lots of reasons.
The one I learned from the most was United 232 into Souix City. (I wasn't there.) The PIC worked for an hour trying to figure out how to steer the aircraft with nothing more than throttles. Then he requested to land. He was cleared to land, any runway.
"Oh, you want this thing on a runway?" he quipped.
Well, he started on a runway... then it all kinda went south. He saved 185, lost 111 SOB.
Anybody who is professional enough to work through a problem that intense for more than an hour and still keep his humor about him gets my respect.
Any disaster. I watched Air Disasters on Smithsonian channel for awhile. Every episode is chilling. One of the worst was when a plane leaving Orlando, I think, had something on it that combust. The fire sucks all the oxygen. Everyone, including the pilots, suffocated. The plane crashes in the everglades. And it's EXTREMELY difficult to recover the wreckage because of that terrain. Heat, Swamp, snakes, mosquitoes, etc.
Eight years ago we were on our way to Crete in Greece..on our approach I had noticed that we had passed the same swimming pool three times and said to my hubby who hadnt a window seat..... Another twice passed the same area and pool and I got to thinking , now what can be wrong..... then I noticed the cabin staff getting a big flustered and their smiles disappearing then a message from the Captain....."this is your captain speaking... we cant land in Crete as the mist is over the sea and the airstrip is very near the sea so we cant land .... AND were running out of fuel.......Well you should have seen the panic start on that plane.. What the hell was he thinking.... he could have stated his case but missed out the fuel part..... He came back on...."This is your Captain speaking, were now heading for Athens to land there and refuel"..... so now were all thinking, Do we have enough fuel to get us there..., Next we were told not to leave our seats and keep our belts on.... wed had them on to land for over an hour now... and people were desperate to do the toilet, We couldnt have any drinks either...Not sure of how long it took to get to Crete but we landed safely.. and still werent allowed to use the cabin toilet... The passengers were now every restless , worried and angry...Some of the crew went off and 15 mins later came back to tell us........."your not getting off, Crete wont accept us"........it was like some kind of farce or we were illegal immigrants.. still no one could get into the toilets and some passangers now got up and very angry with staff shoviing them to get to the toilets, and people were shouting .. no the staff woulldnt allow it... we were then told that we were being refuelled and would leave soon for Crete....By this time it felt like a prison in there and now nearly two hours had passed.....We took off and here we go again... circling Crete once more for three times..... captain speaking " I must aplologise but I cant land the plane." now people were swearing, kids crying , adults crying, it was horrendous... so back the aliens went to Athens...this time for some reason they opened the toilet doors and we all flooded in... hurrying each other on... and the doors of the plane opened.... and we were told to get our bags and get off in an orderly fashion.. they might have well attached the chute to the side of the plane the way we all got off........then we were grouped into three separate groups and told which hotel woudl take us at such short noticed... Our group pulled the short straw it seems as we were put into a hotel that had been closed for three years, Although big and had been a lovely place, it was musty and smelled heavily of tobacco smoke,the room we got had nicotine on the headboard and wardrobes, it was think and I had to wash them down with wipes ..... but wait for this...... we got there at eight at night but were told that our flight to Crete would be early in the mroning and the bus would pick us up at 1am.... so we had to try to get a few hours sleep which wasnt possible,we dosed in and out of sleep teill we all stood on the steps of the hotel in the dark like zombies,not one could or wanted to talk.. the holiday start was ruined...........We did make Crete that day and were given no compensation in any way for what happened...It put me right off flying and now its only been short journeys over to Ireland.
I think all of the plane crashes disturb me equally with a slight edge to the ones with the rogue pilots. I think about that every time I'm on a plane. That and the human error equation on whomever did the maintenance on the plane. I would be perfectly happy if I never had to set foot in a plane again for the rest of my life, but I love my adventures and flying is a necessary evil.
The Concorde. I am somewhat afraid of flying but had overcome this fear so that I could go to England. I heard the news the night before I was to board a plane for home.
In London, I was standing on a street corner with an English cousin when a guy selling newspapers was hollering that the Concorde had crashed, read all about it!
Although I felt horrible for the loss of life, I felt less fearful that my own plane would crash. It would have been very unusual for two airliners to crash within hours of each other, so somehow I felt "safer." (Later I married a British man who practically worships Concorde--we have pictures of it all over the house. So it's still with me!)
For a while, the investigators were baffled as to the cause of the crash and the prevailing logic at the time was it was due to the effect of the turbulent air patterns from the jet in front of this one during the approach to landing. The official cause was ruled to be a failure in the rudder system in response to air pattern.
This incident followed another US Air crash in Charlotte just a month or two before.
What bothered me about this one was the unexplicable rolling and stalling of the jet and then its violent impact as it crashed into the ground. At the time, I was flying all over the east coast on US Air (and 737's) mainly using the hubs in Pitt and Charlotte. These two crashes were hitting too close to home!
To this day, I still think about this crash during my travels. I guess you just have to resign your fate to all things mechanical and within pilot expertise.
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