Word: plane
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...control the rudder, elevators, wing flaps and ailerons that steer the jet. Too massive to be manually manipulated, these control surfaces are normally powered by fluid pumped by pressure from the jet engines through a series of stainless-steel tubes that snake throughout the aircraft. Since each of the plane's three redundant hydraulic systems is powered by a separate engine, the loss of power from the No. 2 engine should have left two of them intact. No complete failure had ever been reported...
Responding to Haynes' distress call, air controllers directed the plane to continue eastward for an emergency landing at Dubuque, Iowa, 240 miles away. The pilot sensed a momentary regaining of some control. But then he lost it again. At 3:20 he declared that he faced an "emergency" and had to find the nearest landing spot. Controllers suggested he turn back to the west to reach Sioux City, a Missouri River town where one of the airport's runways is 9,000 ft. long. That could easily handle a DC-10. But Sioux City was 70 miles away...
...Some travelers noticed the wide turn to the southwest and heard the thrust in the two wing engines change, alternately increasing and decreasing. Haynes was apparently relying on a technique that pilots call "porpoising," adjusting the thrust of his two remaining engines in a desperate effort to control the plane. Passenger Kathleen Batson joked that the engine problem would get them priority-landing rights in Chicago. "We won't be circling O'Hare," she quipped...
Something unprecedented had happened. Not only had the plane's tail engine lost its cone, but its fan had literally shattered. The disintegrating engine somehow flung shrapnel-like chunks of hot metal past the chamber designed to contain any such breakup. The pieces apparently ripped into all three hydraulic lines that converge at the tail, killing or at least vastly reducing hydraulic pressure...
...aircraft rolled drunkenly from side to side, off-duty United Captain Dennis Fitch rushed to the cockpit to help Haynes and First Officer William Records, getting down on his knees to gingerly manipulate the throttles. Second Officer Dudley Dvorak walked to the back of the plane, trying to assess the damage. Haynes told controllers he could only make wide turns to the right and was worried about whether he could reach the airport. Alerted to the emergency, the tower at Sioux City informed local police and rescue units to prepare for either a crash landing on the runway...