Word: runway
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...rarely in recent years has this tale been told in such an agreeably inventive way. The scene in which Sonny abducts Rising Star is a case in point. The cowboy simply hops aboard the animal and clippety-clops him straight down the runway of the industrial show in which they're both appearing, past the dancing girls, past the hysterical director, through the audience, past the slot machines in the lobby and on down the Las Vegas strip. The scene is an outrageous assault on probability, but in its unexpectedness, it is a delight. Fonda's pursuit...
...Runway...
...yells. The jump master arranges us in a small Cessna with flaking paint. I sit next to the pilot, my back to the controls, staring out the window of the door through which I will soon exit. I watch as the plane rumbles down the runway, lifts and spirals over the center, the lakes, the large clumps and bands of trees and the long strings of high tension wires. The master standing at the door of the plane, straddles my legs, smiles and shouts over the din of the wind and machinery. "I'm hooking you up now." He attaches...
...tragically wrong. The DC-10 touched down on the closed runway and headed toward a dump truck. Gilbert apparently realized his mistake and tried, too late, to lift the DC-10 back into the air. The plane smashed into the truck, veered wildly to the right, wound up slamming into an Eastern Air Lines maintenance building and burst into flames. The final death count was 73: a total of 60 passengers, eleven crew members, including Gilbert, and two people on the ground...
What caused Gilbert's error? That will take weeks to determine. But the cockpit crew seemed fatigued; Gilbert and his aides were late in doing their final checks as they approached the runway. In addition, Benito Juarez Airport is one of 250 with a redstar rating from the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations, meaning that the airport is "severely deficient." The only worse rating is a black star for "critically deficient," which the IFALPA has given to 19 airports (the only one in the U.S. is Los Angeles International). Among the reasons for the Mexico City...