![]() 4,500 feet on the altimeter," Capt McMahan says. Even so, as the plane climbed out over the Pacific Ocean, it pitched up more and more, far above the normal 15 degrees. Both the captain and the copilot got on the controls, exerting full forward force on the control column. By 3,000 feet altitude, all emergency procedures concerning pitch and trim had been tried, and the crew couldn't find out what was wrong.Īir-traffic control was notified of the plane's plight by radio. Using control-panel devices, the engineer then double-checked the hydraulic systems. ![]() Will Radford, the copilot, checked control-panel warning lights to make sure they were working properly. McMahan unlatched and reset all switches associated with the plane's trim, or angle of flight. "At this time," the captain adds, "I wasn't too upset, as the £1011 has four independent hydraulic systems - plenty of redundancy - and I was sure that one of several possible procedures would fix our problem."Ĭapt. He tried both again, with no effect.Īt 800 feet, with the plane climbing into thick clouds, the captain asked Steve Heidt, the engineer, to check the hydraulic system through which most of the controls work. "There just wasn't any response," he says. He tried "manual trim." That didn't work either. "According to our control panel," he says, "the stabilizer was set correctly." The captain retracted the landing gear, switched off the landing lights and turned off the "no smoking" signs in the passenger cabin.Īt an altitude of 400 feet, however, the plane began nosing up again, and the pilot began to use "electric trim," another system for setting the stabilizer. McMahan, "the first thing I did was to check the setting for the stabilizer" (the two horizontal extensions on the tail, which control the plane's pitch). ![]() McMahan shoved the control column forward in reponse to the too-steep climb, the plane's nose came down slightly and, at least momentarily, the plane seemed to return to a normal climb. Eight stewardesses were aboard, and in the cockpit were Wilbur Radford, the copilot, and Steven Heidt, the engineer.Īs Capt. Although the Lockheed plane carries up to 293 passengers, only 41 were on board the night. On Flight 1080, jack McMahan was piloting a Lockheed £1011 wide-body. During 36 years of flying, he has piloted biplanes, Grumman Wildcats (as a Marine Corps pilot during World War II) and over a dozen passenger planes, including all models of jumbo jets. A burly, affable 56-year-old, he is one of Delta's most experienced captains. ON DELTA'S Flight 1080 leaving San Diego, the passengers were lucky enough to have Jack McMahan at the controls. In the case of the San Diego crash, Pilots of the small private plane and the Pacific Southwest Airlines plane had been warned of each other's presence, but the two planes inexplicably collided anyway. The crash of two jumbo jets on the runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands last year, killing 579, was blamed on a pilot in a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines plane who tried to take off without getting proper clearance. Still, even the best of systems has its flaws and loop-holes, and in the end, passengers' lives often depend on the skill of the pilot up in the cockpit. More reliable aircraft engines, backup control systems built into the newer planes and generally better air-traffic control are some of the major reasons for the improving records. During the last three years, it's come down even further to. For the next decade, safer jets brought the range down to. ![]() But improvement in overall safety records is clearly shown by statistics of the National Transportation Safety Board.Īccording to the board's figures, the number of fatal accidents per million commercial aircraft miles flown ranged between. Tragic crashes still occur, like the one in San Diego last month that killed at least 150 people. The story of Flight 1080, as it turned out, illustrates how much airlines safety has improved in recent years. Indeed, at least one of them was furious about being delayed. Although the passengers had been told of a control problem, they never learned how close they had came to tragedy. After a series of potentially disastrous maneuvers, the plane landed safely as Los Angeles International Airport. It was also the beginning of one of the most harrowing 55 minutes in recent aviation history. This was the beginning of Delta Flight 1080 on April 12 last year. The amazed pilot desperately slams the control column forward as far as possible to try to force the nose back down. Speeding into the heavy clouds over the ocean, the nose pitches even higher. When it hits 126 knots, the plane unexpectedly noses up before the pilot pulls on the control column for takeoff. ITS NEARLY MIDNIGHT at the San Diego airport as the Delta Air Lines jet accelerates down the runway, bound for Los Angeles. ![]()
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