Word: runway
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...passengers and six crew members--were being tossed around by winds up to 80 m.p.h. And in the cockpit, the pilot and co-pilot were getting two separate wind-shear alerts. When the wheels of the twin-engine Super MD-80 finally touched down, it was on a runway made slick by heavy rain and marble-size hail...
...storm-tossed landing was a disaster. The plane skidded wildly, at one point rotating 150[degrees]. It slid off the end of the runway, broadsiding a steel tower that held landing lights. When the plane finally came to rest on a bank of the Arkansas River, it had split in three, and a fire had broken out near its left wing. As it erupted in flames, passengers fled for their lives. Nine people, including veteran pilot Captain Richard Buschmann, died--the first fatalities on a major U.S. airline in nearly a year and a half--and 83 were injured...
...weather and land," says former Department of Transportation inspector general Mary Schiavo. "At a certain point, you have to say the weather wins." Co-pilot Michael Origel, who survived the crash, disagrees. He told investigators Friday that the plane approached through a break in the clouds and that the runway was largely visible at all times. But if the plane was facing winds of over 50 m.p.h., it was in danger, says Flight Safety Foundation president Stuart Matthews. "That's a helluva lot of wind, and most aircraft can't handle it." Even American Airlines vice president Cecil Ewell told...
...time to be winging it. NTSB investigators haven't yet determined exactly why American Airlines Flight 1420 skidded off that wet runway in Little Rock last Tuesday night, but it seems the pilots are back atop the list of suspects. Sources close to the investigation told USA Today that chief pilot Richard Buschmann and copilot Michael Origel seem to have skipped all or part of their landing "checklist" that airlines use to make sure their pilots follow proper procedure, especially during takeoff and landing. (Buschmann was killed in the accident; Origel survived.) Did the pilots chuck the book when they...
American Airlines Flight 1420 came in during a thunderstorm just before midnight Tuesday, and the rain-slicked runway just wasn't long enough. The twin-engine Super MD-80 outran 7,200 feet of asphalt, careened past an access road and whipped around a metal tower that peeled back the plane's thin shell on the left side, said one passenger, "like a sardine can." Then the spilled fuel caught fire, and the race to get out was on. Of 139 passengers and six crew members on board, 80 people were injured and taken to hospitals. Fifty-one others...