In June of '83 a Reeve Aleution Airways Electra departed Cold Bay, Alaska headed to Seattle (IIRC). The crew noticed a vibration, before they could trouble-shoot it the prop and gearbox of the #4 engine tore off the nacelle moving left and hitting the lower intake on the #3 engine before continuing to the left and sawing a huge slice through the lower fuselage at the wing leading edge. Elevator control cables, throttle cables and some other systems were damaged. The crew was able to use trim to control pitch, the power was stuck at "cruise", flaps limited in deployment, and they did not have brakes or nose-wheel steering. The huge gap in the fuselage was allowing the fuselage to flex. IIRC there was a crew of 4 or 5 and 11 passengers on the aircraft.
They diverted to Anchorage where they were able to make a safe landing. Since they had no throttle control they shut-down and feathered the #2 engine to reduce thrust. They would "fly" the airplane onto the runway, shutdown the remaining engines and do pilot stuff to steer and get her stopped. I was in a crash truck at the approach end of the runway, the first approach they were very fast and just a bit high. As they passed my position I pulled out to chase and was heartbroken because I knew they weren't going to be able to land/stop on the runway. We had been told the gear would be lowered by emergency means so the last thing I expected was a go around by a damaged 4 engine airplane flying with limited controls and 2 engines. It was a wonderful sight to see the Electra pitch up slightly and the gear start retracting. They made a low, wide pattern and the second approach was flown lower and appeared slower. They were able to get the airplane on the ground about 1/2 way down the 10,000 runway. They shut the engines off and set the emergency brake system locking the main-wheels causing a fire to start in the tires as they scrubbed on the pavement. As the airplane slowed and they lost rudder control the Electra drifted to the left off the runway (the dirt putting most of the wheelfire out) and came to a stop with the nose wheel dropping into a drainage ditch. The crew and pax evacuated (the flight deck crew taking the time to put their jackets and caps on) with no injuries to anyone. Woohoo!
A Youtube video taken by a friend of mine of the landing. The audio is the actual radio coms but isn't dubbed at the correct times for all of it.....the female dispatcher was a great gal....once pulled me out of a burning fuselage....ah the memories.
I really do have to go through my steamer trunk and get some of my old photos scanned in. I have several of the Reeve Electra as well as pics of the DC-10/Piper Navajo collision and the JAL 747 that landed and hit one of our field maintenance pickups that was doing a runway check. (FYI, I don't care what you Ford guys say an F-150 will not carry a 747)
What a great story, complete with video! Good pic's of Boeing 767 and 747 taking off also. This story reminds me of the reasons we all trained as hard as we did when flying, YOU have to be prepared for the unexpected and unforeseen! One of the truly great accounts of pilots doing what they had to do was the crash of a DC-10 in an Iowa corn field.
Survivors
185
Aircraft type
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10
Operator
United Airlines
Registration
N1819U
Flight origin
Stapleton International Airport
Stopover
O'Hare International Airport
Destination
Philadelphia International Airport
United Airlines Flight 232 was a scheduled flight from Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado, to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, with continuing service to Philadelphia International Airport. On July 19, 1989, the DC-10 (registration N1819U) operating the route crash-landed in Sioux City, Iowa, after suffering catastrophic failure of its tail-mounted engine, which led to the loss of all flight controls. Of the 296 people on board, 111 died in the accident while 185 survived. Despite the deaths, the accident is considered a prime example of successful crew resource management due to the manner in which the flight crew handled the emergency, and the high number of survivors considering that the airplane was landed without conventional control. The flight crew became well known as a result of their actions, in particular the captain, Alfred C. Haynes, and a DC-10 instructor on board who offered his assistance, Dennis E. Fitch.
The uncontained manner in which the engine failed resulted in high-speed shrapnel being hurled from the engine; this shrapnel penetrated the hydraulic lines of all three independent hydraulic systems on board the aircraft, which rapidly lost their hydraulic fluid. As the flight controls on the DC-10 are hydraulically powered, the flight crew lost their ability to operate nearly all of them. Despite these losses, the crew were able to attain and then maintain limited control by using the only systems still workable: the two remaining engines. By utilizing each engine independently, the crew made rough steering adjustments, and by using the engines together they were able to roughly adjust altitude. The crew guided the crippled jet to Sioux Gateway Airport and lined it up for landing on one of the runways. Without the use of flaps and slats, they were unable to slow down for landing, and were forced to attempt landing at a very high airspeed. The aircraft also landed at extremely high rate of descent due to the inability to flare (reduce the rate of descent prior to touch down by increasing pitch). As a result, upon touchdown the aircraft broke apart, rolled over and caught fire. The largest section came to rest in a cornfield next to the runway. Despite the ferocity of the accident, approximately two-thirds of those on board survived due to multiple factors including the relatively controlled manner of the crash and the early notification of emergency services.
The cause of the engine failure was traced back to a manufacturing defect in the fan disk, which had microscopic cracks due to impurities. The cracking was present during maintenance inspections and should have been detected by maintenance personnel, revealing shortcomings in the maintenance processes.
The accident had a strong impact on the industry. DC-10s were modified with hydraulic fuses to prevent catastrophic loss of hydraulic fluid should a similar failure occur again. These modifications were also included in the DC-10's direct successor, the MD-11. Research has been conducted to see if computers might be able to control aircraft using the engines alone, improving on what humans can do unaided. The accident is cited as an example of why "lap infants"—children without a seat of their own—should have their own seat and be properly restrained on all flights. This campaign has been led by the chief flight attendant aboard flight 232, Jan Brown-Lohr, one of the notable survivors of the accident. Several other notable people survived, and the news photography in the direct aftermath led to an iconic image being produced; that image was transformed into sculpture and now serves as flight 232's memorial.
This pic was taken by an emergency worker and was later molded into a statue, which stands as a memorial to the ill fated flight and the heroic actions of crash crews in helping save those 185 people who lived.
Many improvements in flight control systems were made after this crash so that in the event that it happened again, the crew would have some way to control the aircraft. Most noteably was the addition of "hydraulic fuse", a device in the event of rapid loss of hydraulic pressure, the "fuses" would shut and retain whatever fluid was in the lines at that time.
