Crash course in survival

No time? No fuel? No autopilot? No sweat. Three flight crews are honored for averting disaster.

By BILL ADAIR, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 22, 2002

On a rainy night in Mexico City last September, DHL Flight 951 was roaring down the runway at 115 mph, about to take off, when flight engineer Scott McDorman noticed a Boeing 777 straight ahead.

"Airplane!" he screamed to the captain and first officer.

DHL Capt. Steve Norris stomped on the brakes and slammed on the thrust reversers, the engine devices that usually slow a plane. But the big DC-8 just slid on the wet runway.

The Air France 777 loomed in their windshield. McDorman could now see passengers in the windows of the French plane, and figured there was no way to avoid a collision. Norris had only a split second to react.

Tonight in Washington, the Air Line Pilots Association will present "Superior Airmanship" awards to the DHL crew and to pilots in two other harrowing incidents last year. In all three cases, the pilots had little time to think about their dire situations. They just reacted from instinct and years of training.

The awards are a reminder that, despite tremendous automation in modern airplanes, pilots can still make the difference between life and death.

DHL in Mexico City: 'Leaving the runway!'

The Mexico City airport is a congested and confusing place, especially on rainy nights. The runways and taxiways are close to each other, so it's not unusual for pilots to mistakenly turn onto Runway 5-Left believing they are on a taxiway.

The 777 was said to be fully loaded, which meant it had more than 250 passengers. When McDorman spotted it, the plane was completely on the runway, preparing to turn its nose toward the oncoming DC-8.

As the 120-ton DHL plane slid down the runway, it got so close to the 777 that the landing lights illuminated the right side of the French plane.

Capt. Norris stomped on the right rudder pedal.

"Leaving the runway!" he yelled.

The 160-foot-long plane veered right at about 100 mph.

McDorman, who was sitting a few feet behind the captain, thought: We are dead meat.

The planes missed by about 100 feet.

The DHL plane bounced through the muddy turf and somehow managed to avoid several concrete drainage ditches. It came to a stop in a swampy field.

No one on either plane was injured, but the DHL jet sustained about $1-million damage.

Looking back on that night, the pilots thank each other.

Norris, 48, of Stuart, refers to McDorman as "Eagle Eye Scott" and is grateful that he saw the 777 in time. McDorman, 38, of Richmond, Va., is amazed at Norris' fast reflexes.

"He's a very wiry guy. He is just 100 miles-a-minute all the time."

Air Transat: no time to be scared

High over the Atlantic Ocean, the pilots of Air Transat Flight 236 realized they had a massive fuel leak.

Their Airbus A330, which carried 291 passengers and 13 crew members, was about 90 minutes from its scheduled landing in Lisbon, Portugal, on Aug. 24 when gauges showed fuel levels falling dramatically.

Capt. Robert Piche couldn't figure out why. He spoke by radio with mechanics at the charter airline's headquarters in Canada, but they had trouble diagnosing the problem because the plane's instruments gave conflicting information.

It's not clear why the plane, a state-of-the-art jet, was in this predicament. Investigators have focused on the possibility that mechanics improperly installed the right engine and caused a fuel leak. The pilots may have exacerbated the problem by trying to "crossfeed" that engine from the left tank, which inadvertently drained both tanks.

Piche declined to discuss what led to the leak because of pending lawsuits, but he provided this account:

After pilot efforts to stop the leak failed, the right engine died.

Warnings flashed in the cockpit. Piche decided they couldn't make it to Lisbon, so he declared an emergency and said they would land on the island of Terceira in the Azores. They were at 39,000 feet and began to descend.

About six minutes after the right engine quit, the left engine stopped.

In the cabin, there was an eerie quiet. Instead of the normal rumble of the engines, passengers heard a strange whistling as the plane glided through the air.

The plane not only lost its normal thrust from the engines, but also the electricity and hydraulic power the engines usually provide. However, the plane had a backup power source -- a rarely used device called the Ram Air Turbine, or RAT.

The RAT is a small windmill that pops from beneath the right wing when there is a loss of primary power. It drives a generator that provides hydraulics and electricity for basic flight controls and flight instruments.

Ninety miles from Terceira, their plane was now the world's largest glider.

They had a bit of good fortune: they were at 33,000 feet, which meant they probably were high enough to glide the full 90 miles.

Yet Piche and co-pilot Dirk DeJager faced a rare and dangerous task. Their primary power came from the gravity pulling the jet toward the ground. If they got off course close to the airport, they could not abort the landing and try again. They had only one chance.

Back in the cabin, flight attendants prepared for the possibility the plane would have to ditch in the water. They directed the passengers to put on life jackets.

The plane had less hydraulic power than usual, but Piche could still maneuver the plane. The radio was powered by the plane's battery, enabling DeJager to talk with air traffic controllers.

The A330 turned out to be a very efficient glider. When they reached the island, the plane was still at 16,000 feet. Piche began his descent and saw the runway.

"It was a beautiful sight," he recalls.

The landing gear was down, but the early morning darkness made it hard for Piche to see the pavement. In the cabin, the passengers braced for the impact. The eerie silence continued as the plane glided down.

The plane smacked the runway with tremendous force, popping eight of the 10 tires. The friction ignited fires on the landing gear.

The plane came to a stop about three-fourths of the way down the 2-mile runway. Nine passengers sustained minor injuries evacuating the plane, but otherwise everyone was fine.

Once the pilots knew they were safe, they exchanged high-fives. Piche told DeJager, "I told you we were going to make it."

Continental Express in Newark: 'Just sound calm'

Bang!

Capt. David Vick didn't know what struck his Continental Express commuter plane, but he knew the plane was in trouble.

They were over Yardley, Pa., on Oct. 13, about 10 minutes from their scheduled landing in Newark. The ATR-42 plane started shaking and the autopilot chirped a warning.

Whatever hit the plane had caused the autopilot to shut down. In the cockpit, Vick's control wheel turned sharply as the right wing started to dip.

Vick grabbed the wheel and leveled the wings, but it took a lot of strength to hold the plane steady. It shook violently and wanted to roll to the right, like a grocery cart with a bad wheel.

He tried to use one hand to move the power levers but found he needed both hands to hold the wheel. He had First Officer Jason Foley operate the power levers.

"We need to declare an emergency," Foley told air traffic controllers. "We need to land immediately."

Newark was only 25 to 30 miles away, so Vick chose to continue there. The controllers cleared other planes out of their way.

Vick was scared, but figured they had a good chance to survive.

The hours he had spent training in flight simulators suddenly came to life. Although he had not trained for this particular problem, he knew what he had to do to keep the wings level and land the plane. He remembered that he needed to slow down, analyze every possible action and discuss it with Foley. The pilots kept the mood light with some dark humor and a little cursing.

He said Foley should make an announcement to the 26 passengers. He told Foley, "Just sound calm, just put some authority in your voice and sound like everything is okay."

Over the PA system, Foley said that the plane may have struck a bird and that they had declared an emergency.

"You can expect kind of a bumpy ride down and maybe a little bit of a firm landing at Newark, but we don't expect to have to evacuate the aircraft."

A firm landing?

They hoped.

They descended toward the Newark runway, where fire trucks were waiting with lights flashing.

"Good luck and Godspeed," the controller said.

Those words alarmed Vick. He thought, Maybe this is worse than we think.

Because of the damaged wing, Vick believed he needed more speed than usual to stay aloft as he approached the runway.

Another problem: The power lever on the right engine was jammed and was difficult to control. The plane was flying slightly cockeyed.

They landed fast, but the brakes worked fine. As Vick turned off the runway, he realized they had all survived.

When they stopped at the gate, the pilots saw the tremendous damage. Two Canada geese had struck the wing and broken through to the flight control cables. Blood and bird guts were everywhere.

The passengers applauded and thanked the pilots.

Vick says the experience "was probably the greatest feeling I've ever had flying -- you've had the test and you passed."

-- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report, which used information from Dateline NBC.

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