He Had To Land A Passenger Jet On A Highway | Southern Airways 242
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This is the story of southern airways flight 242, on the 4th of april 1977 a southern airways DC 9 was on the way from northwest alabama regional airport to the hartsfield atlanta international airport with a stopover in huntsville madison county. Flight 242 made it to huntsville with no issues whatsoever and landed at about 3:44 pm. The hop on over to atlanta would be a short and simple one. Taking just 25 minutes the pilots of flight 242 just had to fly towards the rome VOR and then just make their way to runway 26 of atlanta. The 85 people onboard expected a quick flight. They should be on the ground in no time at all. With all of the departure information sorted out the pilots of flight 242 took the DC 9 into the skies of alabama. ONce in the in the air the pilots were in contact with departure control. They cleared the pilots to take the plane upto 17000 feet and to make a bee line for the rome VOR. But things wouldnt be as simple as going in a straight line the controllers and the planes weather radar had some bad news for the pilot. The controllers let the pilots know that they had some heavy precipitation in their way at a range of about 5 nautical miles. Looking at the weather radar the captain remarked “Well the radar is full of it, take your pick” then responding to the controllers the captain said “Okay were in the rain right now it doesnt look much heavier than what were in right now, does it?” , the controller said that according to his instruments the rain would get a bit worse as they went into the cloud mass. The first officer was now looking at the weather radar trying to make sense of what he was seeing on the radar. He said “I cant read that it just looks like rain bill, what do you think theres a hole” the first officer might have found their ticket out of the storm system, a break in the weather. They were quite close to it and they should be able to push through riding out the storm. The captain agreed,” Theres a hole right there thats all i see, then coming over we had pretty good radar. I believe right straight ahead, there the next few miles is about the best way to go”. So the pilots of flight 242 were going to thread the needle. The needle being a massive weather system that had boxed them in from both sides. The controller than came on and he did not have good news for the pilots of flight 242 he said “ Youre in what appears to be the heaviest part of it now. What are your flight conditions. The captain replied with “were getting a little light turbulence and Id say moderate rain” With that flight 242 was handed off to the memphis center. Then the captain turned to the first officer and said “ As long as it doesnt get any heavier, well be alright” and the first officer just said “yeah this is good”. At 3:58 pm memphis control informed the pilots about a SIGMET that was active for the vicinity of tennessee, south eastern louisiana, mississippi north and western alabama. For those of you that dont know a SIGMET stands for a significant meteorological information and its only sent out when things things are relatively bad. Like tornadoes, thunderstorms, hail extreme turbuclence. You get the idea, if theres some weather phenomenon that could impinge on the safety of a flight a SIGMET was sent out and these guys were in the middle of one. As the plane was put into coatct with atlanta center the jet was rocked by some heavy turbulence. The captain exclaimed “ Here we go hold em cowboy”. As the pilots talked to the controllers about how to get the plane on the ground other planes in the air like TWA 584 were being re routed around the storm. In the cockpit the sound of the rain intensified, As the rain picked up the pilots slowed down. They were now engrossed in their weather radar, they were in a weather maze and they had to find a way through. The captain didnt like what he saw he said “ Looks heavy nothings getting through that” the first officer looked for a way through and he said “ thats a hole isnt it?” They then decided to hand fly the jet though the hole at a speed of about 285 knots. As all of this was happening Atlanta control was trying to get other planes through the weather. As - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
The so-called highway is to this day just a two lane road through some very hilly Piedmont country in the foothills of the Appalachians. The wingspan of the plane was instantly wider than the trees and telephone poles and blew apart after a fairly short distance.
My wife was a paramedic in the 90s and got at least one call a year to assist in the removal of remains found in the area of this specific crash by some farmer or land owner breaking into a piece of scrub land that hadn't been touched in years.
The pilots deserve the utmost of respect for managing to spare 20 passenger souls in this tree-covered region.
@whatsinanameish - Oh, yeah. Looking at 92 on a map gives a whole new perspective on the pilots' challenge.
I am not going to judge the pilots, looks like they did not have a better choice
Having been on countless road trips, two-lane is the state of most highways. They only get bigger near population hotspots.
What do you mean by remains? Human remains?
The real tragedy was that Cornelius Moore Airport (now Polk County Airport - Cornelius Moore Field) was within gliding range. However, because it was just outside the region covered by the ATC center handling the flight it wasn't shown on their displays or known to them or the pilots.
While this was a general aviation airfield and had runways that were short for a DC-9 it would have been immeasurably superior to a road that wasn't even wide enough to accommodate the aircraft's wingspan, not to mention careering through a petrol station. More importantly it would have dramatically reduce the potential for injuries to people on the ground.
As my flying instructor hammered into me me way back when I was training for my private pilots license "It's better to run into the last fence at 10 kts than the first fence at 70 kts (or petrol station in at 110 kts this case)".
There are always more things that we don't know than things we do know. ATC and pilots did everything they could do to save as many passengers as possible.
Just to complement your information, back then on the 70s, those planes were flying using only Radio aids, like VORs and NDBs. They didn't have a FMC (Flight Management Computer) or GPS. If they had so, doing a "nearest airport" search either on a FMC or on a GPS could have gotten them that information and guidance instantly. Back then, the only way to check for the nearest airports would be resorting to aeronautical charts, which was something pretty much impossible to do on that situation.
Too bad you weren't in the jump seat to advise the pilot of this
Hmm, that suggests an app that locates and grades all airfields along a flight path before a flight commences. It would at least lessen the workload in an emergency.
nothing but a dirt strip in the litteral middle of nowhere..... ATC should have sent them back to huntsville...
RIP to Edna Griffin Gamel (23) her children John (6) and Courtney (1) her sister Kathy (19) and Kathy’s baby Jeffrey, and their sister in law Faye (23) and her baby Larry who were all killed when the plane hit the gas station where their car was parked.
😢
RIP
Wow. Maybe he should have stuck with the field.
We’ll never know if those 7 lives saved those who ultimately survived on board
@@somethingsomething404 NTSB doesn’t count fatalities more than 30 days after a crash but there was an 8th victim who died from her injuries after she was hit by debris in front of her home 😔
I know this took place in the '70s, but I would like to think in today's world there would be some kind of way to relay a message from ATC to local authorities about a plane needing to come down. If local police on the ground knew a plane would be coming down in the area, especially on a state highway, it would easily be possible to close it down and evacuate buildings close to it.
It would have to be done in 10's of minutes, but with modern communication tech there really aught to be some way to do it...
I live close to the crash site and see the memorial as I drive through the area all the time. It's a nice large polished black granite monolith.
The crew trusted the instruments. They believed what the radar told them.
This was an incident that changed a lot of things because there were systemwide issues that allowed the pilots to believe that they would be okay and led them into a place that was NOT okay and that they could not get out of.
30 years later Scott Crossfield entered a similar situation in a Cessna 210 about 30 miles NE from where this plane crashed. His plane had an unscheduled disassembly in flight.
Systemic issues were found on that one, too.
I'm familiar with this area and it has very hilly and mountainous terrain and a lot of trees. The chances of finding a field on which to land was virtually impossible. Highway 52 was about the only option other than just flying into trees or the side of a mountain. They were just simply out of options.
Fair enough. I was firmly on team field until I read your comment.
Don't buy it. Even parallel to a road would have been better.
@@trevorsmith7753 this isn't the Midwest. That highway is a 2 lane state highway. Parallel to the highway is trees, mountains, and ravines.
@@trevorsmith7753Look at the damn photos! Heavily wooded and rolling hills surrounding the roads. What were the pilots supposed to do?
Thanks for the context
I was at Auburn University when this happened. A friend’s grandparents owned that service station that was hit…fortunately neither were injured. Quite a hot topic for several weeks.
Well....THAT did not turn out like I hoped/expected...
I thought it was gonna be a Captain Sullenberger scenario.
I mean, what the fuck do you do in that situation? Do you go in a field and risk the plane digging in and cartwheeling or do you go on the road and risk crashing into cars and the side scenery ?
Furthermore, I already predicted the "hole" in the radar was no such thing. Surely by then airmen had worked that out?
@@mrkiplingreallywasanexceed8311 Chances are, "instincts take over"... You'll probably end up exactly as these folks did... maybe a little better off, and maybe a little worse...
You can't turn a DC-9 around in a 20 acre field, and there wasn't anything likely bigger than 10 cleared at all... It's all hills where it isn't MOUNTAINS and rocks, and trees... From the air, it's damnably tough to see that the cut for the highway just isn't bigger than a 2 or 3 lane rural route... and by the time you reach that realization, you're already committed.
What do you do??? You find the clearest spot you can, do your best to analyze the landing it's going to offer and whether to put landing gear down for "solid" ground like concrete or asphalt, or leave it up for mud (mostly) and whatever vegetation you're about to tear out... and then you PRAY...
If you're absolutely hell-bent not to hurt anyone on the ground, you can kick the yoke into the dashboard and hope to nose-down far enough away that you only annihilate the plane and yourself and everyone onboard as quickly and painlessly as possible... but that's really all you get for options. ;o)
U lie
Isn’t New Hope like 150 miles away from Auburn? I feel like that’s a tad bit far but eh.
I was in the air at that exact time. My sister and I had been to see our ailing father in Jacksonville and were on our way back to Chattanooga. When our second flight took off from Atlanta that day I knew it was going to be a rough ride. It was the most turbulent two hours I've ever experienced. Yes, two hours from Atlanta to Chattanooga because the pilots had to fly around (mostly through) this massive storm. When we landed and got to a phone booth to to call my mom & step-dad in Ohio, my mom was a basketcase. All she heard was a plane was down in Georgia and she thought it was ours.
This video is great. However for those saying stupid pilots or why would they go that way don’t understand the technology at the time. The weather radar the pilots are looking at are monochrome. The radar only shows a return or no return not intensity. Then we talk about attenuation. Attenuation is the fact rain can be so intense it can hide the next cell behind it. So as the video put it the pilots thought they had a path (an out) but it was actually the worst of the storm. The pilots literally had no way of knowing this.
Then a Highway Vs trees…. Well your doing both at best. It is the American south east. Thier isn’t a field, lake, or River you wouldent hit some trees in this situation in a DC-9
I respect your response & the obvious technical knowledge that's evident. However, the response is aimed at those attempting to discuss this with little understanding & logic. This isn't about understanding the limitations of the tech & the crews' competence at interpreting the info.
I support the commenters who are focusing on the initial decision to fly through the weather in the first place. The pilots had more than enough information to make a rational decision, without any complex radar analysis, to fly around the weather and accept that it would cost them more time. The weather and altitude through which they were to fly are synonymous with hail. This was lazy decision-making & a lack of safety consciousness. When the captain says, "We should be okay if it doesn't get any worse...", this shows he realized that they were cutting things close & taking risks they hadn't considered. Even at this point, he could have chosen to swallow his pride & just head out of the developing system. The events that followed was more bad luck on an already bad siutation.
Please feel free to show me anything I might be missing. I interact like this to learn more and grow-not to troll. Cheers,
Obviously a super tough decision. Land on a field, which may protect people on the ground while decreasing the odds of survival for your passengers.. or land on a highway which may give passengers a better chance of survival while endangering those on the ground. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
In the southeast there are few fields and lots of forrest. Going north the hills give way to low mountains, still covered with trees.
Along the gulf coast its largely flat with many miles of rice fields.
As a avionics tech, Every fall season I repaired wx radar systems Old RCA AVQ 10's 50 KW-Usual complaint did not show wx systems,(The absorbed micro wave system) no returns show on ind.,Years later 1990's now as an A M E avionics Installed the new Doppler low power (300) watt systems On aircraft with new slot dishes. Then no more complaints every fall and they worked like a dream, So goes technology. This video is exactly why the old system was useless and 5.4 gigs is now part of the internet
Thanks for the upload! Was waiting to see how you would handle this and I must say that it was indeed impressive. One thing that I must say stands out to me is the fact that the pilots didn't give up in the worst of circumstances. Though ik that that is their duty to land their plane and passengers safely, they appeared to be calm and rational and did their best to help their passengers. I'm not sure if you are familiar with this, but according to a documentary from the 2000s there was apparently a closer airport than either flight crew or ATC realized. Not sure how true that is. And, up-and-coming singer Annette Snell was among those who perished in the crash. Also, if you want to see news coverage on the crash, WHNT 19 TH-cam channel actually has the original 1977 footage there....along with an unusual (at least to me because I've never seen anything like it before) weather segment I might add.
Yeah, I remember that documentary. As I recall, the pilots knew about Dobbins, coz 1 of them had been stationed there or at least flew there in the Air Force, but neither of them knew about the small airport, that was quite close to them. And tragically, it was just outside the ATCs area, so it wasnt on any ATC info, so he didnt know about it either.
But hindsight is 20-20, theoretically they couldve made it there and landed safely, but, again as I recall from that documentary, it wouldve required them to divert there immidiately upon losing the engines without first trying for the known airport, and it still probably wouldnt have given them time to run through the options and make a decision. Its 1 thing knowing, whats happening and trying it in a simulator, quite another up in the air, when they first had to figure things out.
Still, it was very tragic, they might have had a chance. As it was, they did their very best until the end, they really were out of options.
This incident kept me off the DC-9 until the MD-80 because of the water ingestion problem.
Fcuking-A ... drive crap planes out of business!
Your telling of this was better than Mayday. You had explained the inadequacy of the weather radar. Please tell me how technology and weather teporting has improved, thus helping to prevent tragedy like this.
This so called signal attenuation was due to the design of the weather radar systems in use at that time in that too much rain and hail was absorbing these micro waves rather than reflecting them back to the receiving antenna (a flat dish inside the radome). Hail returns especially weak echos, compared to rain, btw. Newer radars are of the 'doppler type', e.g. they send radio waves at different and varying frequencies which eliminate said attenuation effect to a large extent.
HTH. Charles ex avionics tech and ex atpl.
@@charlesschneiter5159 thank you Sir. Appreciate your reply. 👏
I used to fly on Southern when this happened. I remember it was reported the hail they encountered was so bad the windscreens were damaged to the point it would have been hard to see ojt of them.
Precipitation attenuation happens when the rain is too heavy for the radar to penetrate it. Looks like a narrow band directly ahead and clear beyond. A classic "sucker hole". Once they were in it their options were very limited.
Worked on a navy C-9 at Nellis . The tire lost the tread on takeoff ingested into #2 they made the pattern and landed compressor blades bent tire marks in the intake but it kept turning and burning probably lost some thrust.
Hail as BIg as BaseBalls.....
I was in my dorm at Georgia Tech when this happened. Not that close. But I remember the rain and hearing all the emergency vehicles.
Great video! Youre back to good quality, and youre speaking slowly enough to understand you. Amazing work. Keep it up.
in sweden the air force can utelise higways and runways alike.
but landing a comcerial jet on a high way is a tricky one as shown above.
keep up the good work.
👍👍👍👍🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪
I have a friend who was a flight attendant on THAT flight. She fights PTSD to this day.
So sad!😔 I was a AA flight attendant myself. If I had been in a crash such as this one, I too, would have PTSD. God Bless her!🙏
@@tracycolvin7789 "God bless her"? Really? So where was your god when it crashed and killed all those people? How insensitive.
@@DixtunBabyAngel I wasn't being insensitive! Actually, since your dogging my God, you're being insensitive! I feel sorry for you..
There's quite a good book about this crash called "Southern Storm-The Tragedy of Flight 242". It talks about the crash and goes into more detail about the people who were killed when the plane hit the country store/gas station.
Highway or trees..I know what I would’ve chosen
Man I feel bad, and I don't like YT's algorithm. At some point your videos just stopped popping up on my feed, but I love these. :D Now I have many to binge watch :D
This crashed happened about 20 minutes west of me when I lived in Smyrna, Ga. I remember that day well. It's not a 'so called" highway, it's a two lane state highway. It was rural at the time, now it's a suburb of Atlanta.
They were completely behind the situation. They had no margins of safety whatsoever. The fact that they made the fateful decision to fly into the supposed hole despite having no information about nearby airports or even actual weather reports indicates just a severe multifaceted lack of care and safety when it came to making any of their choices.
I agree, once he said “we will be okay if it doesn’t get worse” meant they were backing into a corner
I remember that day the Southern Airways DC-9 crashed in New Hope, GA. I lived in Rome, Ga and I was 12 years old at the time. The weather was severe that afternoon and a tornado warning was issued for Floyd county. The tornado came within a 1/2 mile of my home and caused a lot of property damage in the area around Rome, Ga. This was the storm front that Southern Airways flight 242 decided to fly through that caused the crash. 😢
Landing on a highway isn't too outlandish, to be fair. A lesser-known fact about the U.S. highway system and particularly the interstates is that, as I recall, they're supposed to have sections that are a certain length of straight specifically for aircraft operations. Military aircraft, to be sure--but aircraft nonetheless. It's one reason why it's not uncommon to pick general aviation birds off of some highway or other after a rough landing.
Those straights are meant to be used in emergencies like wars when runways at airbases are destroyed by enemies. The people on the ground should never be subjected to a disaster they don’t have anything to do with. They shouldn’t be hit by a plane they’re not in.
You’re 100% correct
@@hassamarifraja5234Hard to be hit by a plane that you're in.
@@doomsdayrabbit4398 so now we're gonna talk about semantics? lol. That was the whole point, they shouldn't be hit by a plane THAT THEY ARE NOT IN. Essentially it means they shouldn't be hit by any plane.
Best depection of what the sky actually looked like that day..... but much darker and greener....
Well done 👍 😊😊😊😊
So tragic...a hopeless situation for everyone...so sad so many perished 😢❤
I flew on this very flight in 1975 twice from Atlanta to Huntsville, and 3 months later back to Atlanta.
Another excellent episode of a very tragic event, thank you Sir!!!🙏😢🛬❣️
I did see a plane land safely on a highway, route 50 in eastern ohio, I heard the plane flying very low then saw it behind my truck, my truck had strobe lights so I turned them on and hit the brakes, the plane landed right in front of me, it was all good, they had a fuel pump problem, were able to take off and get to an airport
My guess on decision to set plane down on a highway & not a field? It was there best option to try save the most life's as possible. My Cousin lived in that area traveled that same road a lot during that time period. He told me they had some heavy timber in that area. Trees you would not want to hit.
I understood from these comments here, that there was another small airfield not shown on the avaible maps at the moment, but would have been better than a highway with trees and buildings, cars and so on. That makes me think, that it´s a field that should be improven for flight controllers, so they have better informations avaible. Maybe even an onboard computer screen, that can give fast and easily readable advices about that directly in case of an emergency
#251👍🤔I flew into a sigmet in a C-182. I thought from what ARTCC was telling me we would pass by the leading edge of the squall line avoiding the dangerous weather. I received a pirep from a DC-9 that it had just passed through the same area with only light rain. The storm was moving much faster than I knew and Seattle center misled me too. I flew into a terrible cumulonimbus! The updrafts were so strong the vertical speed pegged at 2,000 fpm climb then we flew into a strong down draft that set off the ELT. I made a 180 at maneuvering speed and we flew back out. Declared an emergency and landed in Olympia. Turned off the ELT which was making radio useless after landing. If I were that Captain I would fly over the tops or turn back. He didn't check the weather!! Unbelievably stupid.
ERAU 80 CFIA&I ret.
I would say the highway was was much longer than any of the fields near them. .... I too would have chose the highway as a last resort.
Your average field certainly has less utility lines, street lights, embankments, traffic, traffic signs, bends, gas stations, truck stops and all that. Sure, landing gear likes paved surfaces but you have to think about the wings, too.
So I'd rather go for a nice water-logged empty field, with gear up, I'd think.
To all those unfamiliar with the area at the time, no fields, none, only forested land. Landing in the trees would have killed everyone, the pilots chose the road in an effort to save some passengers.
Yes I do agree with using the highway. In rain that heavy any fields would be enough mud where it would be uncontrollable and possibly rip the landing gear off the aircraft
Thinking that too. There might not have been a field available.
Furst officer had flown off carriers in vietnam. Im sure he was doing his damndest to try to get the plane down as safely as possible.
The pilots thought they saw a hole in the weather, according to the radar. They did the best they could do. A bad storm should not take out two engines. They tried to land in a place that had a chance of smoothness and survival. There were no smooth fields around. The hero pilots sacrificed their lives to help 20 passengers survive.
I flew from Birmingham to Atlanta that day, just after hearing on the radio about the Southern crash. Terrible weather. Not my bravest trip as an air traveler 😢
I think they knew it was a rural area and had hoped for a clear highway but once they got close it was too late to change course
It kinda depends on the surrounding area of the where the plane could touch down. If it’s full of trees, the opening of the highway could’ve been the only possible area to save some lives. The pilots could’ve chosen the middle of a forest, but the plane would most likely have been completely destroyed, killing everyone. There may have been a better area, or there might have not, but based off the results, the pilots did save lives.
bad decisions seem to spawn poor choices, which develop into untenable positions.......
Considering the conditions, it is amazing that so many people survived. This could have been so much worse.
Having said that, it would be a good idea to give pilots more instruction on how to read radar when the weather is that heavy.
It's better than the Hudson? I guess Captain Sully had an easier choice and a simpler problem. Since he didn't have to deal with a storm.
I recall maybe this flight flew into hail as well and shattered the windshield.
Back then pilots were way over worked before all the regulations were enacted to reduce pilot fatigue.
Try to find a field in heavy storm. Meanwhile, a highway is easy to spot.
To all those unfamiliar with the area at the time, no fields, none, only forested land. Landing in the trees would have killed everyone, the pilots chose the road in an effort to save some passengers.
That area was very rural at the time and heavily wooded. So a road was their best bet. That area is rolling hills with few very straight roads even now.
I don't fly Civilian Aircraft. I drive. Not to say I won't die in a Motor Vehicle crash. But I am in control of the equipment.
The American interstate highway system was created so we could have a large number of save places to land military aircraft in an emergency.
So trying to land on them is not a horrendous idea
all centers I talked to regularly - Atlanta, Cleveland, Memphis, NY, Jacksonville - scary. Glad I just fly a little plane (52 bonanza v tail) Think the day the music died.
RIP to the survivors....✝✝✝✝✝✝✝✝
Current thinking is gear up and choose a long flat field with no animals or furrows.
If only they’d had a highway like the one in the thumbnail to land on…
in the "thread the needle", the plane would be the needle and the storm would be the fabric. the needle goes through tiny hole in giant fabric, aka plane going through hole in the storm.
11:54 Their computer said that? I doubt radar was computerized back in the mid 70s; it was just an analog display and it was up to the pilots to interpret what the reflected radio waves might mean.
Incredible that only 5 cars on the highway were hit. Must not have been much traffic. If you see the sim (great sim btw), there is more traffic, but not very crowded. The sim plane hit dozens of cars. So it could have ended much worse.
There are numerous stories when pilots sacrificed their hope of a ground landing and crashed in the ocean if they thought they would crash on houses. Its a pilots duty to try to save his passengers IF POSSIBLE, but a highway is a perfectly legitimate place to attempt a landing if the only other choice is crashing in trees. At least some people might live if they land on a highway. I do wish they had a big old horn though. At least cars would be notified to look around and might avoid them.
This sound somewhat similar to the Braniff flight 352 that was rushing to make its on time precentage and gambled with a hole in the clouds in 1968 and didn't listen to ATC who had rerouted scores of other flights out of harms way.
83 on the plane.
Field: 83 dead (almost certain)
Highway: 72 dead
So, still tragic, but choosing the highway looks like the winner.
Actually, landing on a flat field isn't impossible, in fact on Feb 2, 1970 an F 106 landed belly up in a wheat field near Big Sandy, Montana with very little damage AND NO PILOT.
After entering into a flat spin and unable to recover, Lt Gary Faust punched out at 14,000 ft. The Dart straightened out and glided to a smooth landing. The field was too rough to fly it out. In 1979 Faust and his Dart reunited at Eglin AFB and flew training missions until both retired.
The Dart resides in a USAF museum, Cmdr Faust visited his Dart often for decades posing for pictures and telling his story to many visitors.
1:23 Never underestimate Nature
It is terrible to think in all these years NO emergency places had been made for planes to touch down
in other places than airports,
Really hard decision to make, and having only minutes to decide. Looks as though at that time it was the only decision that could have been made. Hind sight is 20/20 as you know, they should have gotten instructions to fly around the storm. Easy to say now, judging the results. New to the channel, like it so far. TY
🤔🤔@3:48..."The TWA jet...punched through the weather??" I thought you were referring to the Southern Airways jet??🤔🤔
It did NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN! The crew ignored the policy about dealing with storms, they were being warned that there was storms in the area and ignored them. The company that designed the radar is also at fault as blank did not mean that there was nothing unfortunately.
That’s horrifying
Dobbins was a full Air Force Base and did not become a reserve base until the early 90s. Just a small nitpick.
In my Cessna 172 I _might_ take a highway or road with an engine failure, but in a large passenger jet, no! Unless everything else was trees & hills, which might've been the case here. I would rather pick a field and land gear-up. Or a river, even, like Sully did. I have a commercial certificate & instrument rating, don't fly large jets, but there's no way I'd pick a road or highway unless that's all I had & it was absent/mostly absent of cars.
So question.
I know the crew were advisd of severe weather, but were they given any updated info on route? I've heard conflicting things and digging in EIM's database, I've not found a whole lot
The radar back them was early and limited. They aimed for what they thought was a break in the clouds what was actually a storm so strong that the radar signal just died.
It was, what I'm more intereste in, is, were they given any updated weather info while up in the air though? I'm curious if Southern Airways got in touch with the crew to advise them, or they got updated weather info and for whatever reason, didn't pass it along or couldn't due to limitations. The NWS were not sitting idly by and not doing their jobs on the ground after all, they were issuing watches and warnings along the route due to the squall line and severe weather alerts, they had, after all been dealing at the same time with a full on severe weather outbreak that spanned multiple states, had an F5 rated tornado and you had multiple WFO all working together on it.
From the dissenting opinion in the report, courtesy of Wikipedia:
McAdams also wrote in his dissent that he would add, as a contributing factor, the "inadequacies of the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control system, which precluded the dissemination of real-time hazardous weather information to the flight crew."[
So, my question is okay, so the ATC couldn't give real time weather updates. Could the airline do this via radio or some other method?
I gave you Like #666! LOL! I enjoy your videos.
Proper radar training, seldom done back then, could have prevented this disaster. There are clues to distinguish between clear (no returns) and occluded returns (false holes).
The main thing is to know if you're wrong, you die, so make decisions based on that level of finality.
Maybe this story is told in flight schools as to why it’s a good idea to avoid storms.
I guess landing or not on highway in that context was the same of scape from the lion and fall into alligator bite!😢
I appreciate your videos, but just be aware that as you're telling the story, the information shown on the instruments is often wildly different from what you're describing (i.e. wrong altitude, fuel quantity jumping up and down, engine instruments showing all is well when apparently the engines have failed etc).
Lets say 1 pilot wants a wide radar view and the other wants a narrow view. Does the radar change the beam or just the view to the screen? Does that make sense?
Well, there's a difference between landing on a highway and landing on a BUSY highway - especially if it's tree-lined with a lot of gas stations... 😒
Georgia is perhaps one of the best states to have a situation like this happen in. Georgia has some of the most occupied military bases in America. Not to mention, NATO pilots occasionally do takeoffs and landings on highways, the pilots were ex-mil so they probably would’ve had experience in landing on a highway. They did perhaps the best job they could’ve at the foot of the Appalachians.
i do feel that a field would have been a save place to try and land, no cars or petrol stations there to hit
Yeah, they probably wouldn't have made it, but at least you don't hit people on the ground.
No fields to land on.
The entire area was very hilly and forest covered. There were no fields in the area at the time.
When you can't even turn a DC-9 around in less than a 40 acre field, you'll want better than a 10-acre "nothing" that gets cleared by the locals for "farming"...
May as well tell them to just nose-down into the farthest patch of woodland they can find. It's relatively the same thing. ;o)
My opinion is that they should have land on a field and focus on reducing the speed of the plane. I think it had better chance of better outcome.
There were no fields, just acres and acres of forest and a road.
The video is of a long body MD80 whereas the accident aircraft was a DC9.
It IS a DC-9 .. a DC-9 ‘Super 80’ .. the ‘real’ name of most MD-80s.
@@TimSmyth23 The problem though is that the accident aircraft, N1335U, was a DC-9-31. It was not a Super 80 MD-80 DC-9 derivative. It was just a DC-9. It looks far different.
My way or the highway… I guess sadly they picked the highway
I think, unless you've walked in those pilots' shoes, you don't have the right to judge.
In my old country all pilots know that emergency landing on public road is prohibited…In other words if you are in deep s..t, you solve it without dragging enyone else into it!
I enjoy your videos but even at volume set to max, I can barely hear this one.
Last findings showed, that weather was not the only cause of this disaster. Pilots did some crucial mistakes and cooked up the engines....
The pilots fell for the "sucker hole"
Same as TACA110...
Should have glided the plane to nearest runway even if short...
No pan or mayday?
Do pilots still use the phrase "sucker hole"?
Too bad they weren't able to make it to I-75.
Imo, they had no right landing on a highway on which there were many cars. I believe the pilots have an obligation to avoid harming innocent people on the ground. However, I also understand their own survival instincts.
I am a complete novice about airplanes, but I would have put the plane down on some fields. However, I don't know the full circumstances so I cannot judge.
It's all rolling hills covered in trees. There are NO fields.
Go to 7:45 to see real pics.
The animations until that point are masterful, too. Al little bit long if you are no professional or have some other connection to the crahs or it's victims.
Turn around?