Word: descente
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...unclear why the plane was descending so quickly, but Kennedy may have been trying to drop below the haze. For nearly five minutes, the plane's descent continued at this relatively steep rate, losing about two-thirds of its altitude until it was just 2,300 ft. above the Atlantic wavetops. Martha's Vineyard was by now only 20 miles away, but if the Piper kept dropping at this rate, it would hit ocean well before it reached the landing strip. For a pilot flying in better conditions--even an inexperienced pilot--the next step would be obvious: look...
Evidence is mounting, meanwhile, that pilot disorientation may have been the cause of the fatal crash. Radar data released by the NTSB Tuesday shows that Kennedy turned out of his descent 20 miles from the airport and climbed back to 2,600 feet, leveling off briefly before making a second turn to the right and starting a precipitous plunge that may have exceeded 5,000 feet per minute, 10 times the normal speed. "A pilot not rated to fly by instruments can very easily lose his orientation when the horizon disappears in the darkness and the haze," says TIME aviation...
Whatever went wrong, it was more than Kennedy could handle. New radar data released Monday showed that the plane dropped toward the water at 4,700 feet a minute ? 10 times faster than the normal rate of descent. Investigators aren?t sure what that says about the cause of the crash, other than that the problem was severe, and the plane was out of control. To TIME aviation correspondent Jerry Hannifin, that final plummet is a sign that the pilot simply took on more than he was qualified for. "Anyone who has flown regularly on the East Coast in summer...
...landings until they almost drilled the juice out of them. The first words spoken after the Apollo 11 lunar module actually touched down were not, as most people believe, "Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed." Rather, they were "ACA out of detent...mode control, both auto; descent engine command override, off," as Aldrin reconfigured his instrument-panel switches. It was only after that pedestrian bit of business was done that Armstrong spoke for the ages...
...another in which a 13-year-old sleeps with her mother's boss (Brock Cole's The Facts Speak for Themselves). They were followed by Melvin Burgess's even more graphic Smack, a British novel imported by Henry Holt, which details a middle-class 15-year-old's descent into the world of heroin addiction and prostitution...