Word: shears
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Flying Tiger DC-8 cargo jet approached Runway 22-L. Suddenly, the unpredictable winds shook the 350,000-lb. plane. Pilot Jack Bliss fought to retain control. "Wind shear on approach," he warned the tower. "The wind pulls you down and turns you over ... you should close that runway." But he landed on it anyway, safely...
...Eastern Air Lines Flight 902, a Lockheed Tristar jumbo jet, descended toward the same runway. It was caught in the same turbulence, measured at up to 90 m.p.h. Pilot Clifton Nickerson alerted the tower to the "wind shear and turbulence." Struggling, in his term, to "save it," he prudently pulled the huge craft back into the air and off to a safe landing at nearby Newark Airport. Some of his passengers grumbled about the "poor service...
...same runway. A stretched version of the Boeing 727, its three jet engines mounted at its tail, the plane carried 116 passengers and a crew of eight. Its pilot, Captain John W. Kleven, 54, only minutes earlier had been advised by the tower of the complaint about wind shear made by Eastern 902's pilot. Unlike his fortunate predecessor, however, Kleven was unable to "save...
Although wind shear is invisible to the eye, the conditions that make it probable can be spotted by radar and detected by weather instruments. Any violent thunderstorm, of course, raises a possibility of such dangerous air currents. But the problem in combatting this hazard is that it is capricious, its intensity is unpredictable, and to close down airports every time the wind shear possibility remotely exists would seriously disrupt air travel. U.S. investigators have, in fact, cited wind shear as contributing to the probable cause of only one previous accident: the crash of an Iberia Airlines DC-10 at Boston...
Facing Backward. Last week's tragedy at Kennedy, however, raises serious questions about the reaction of airport authorities, pilots and air traffic controllers to the wind-shear menace. In this case, at least two pilots had detected the danger and alerted the tower. But no move was made to close the affected runway. Although the ill-fated Eastern pilot had acknowledged his awareness of the danger, he might have been lulled into a belief that it had passed by the successful landing of the two intervening nights. At issue is a longstanding and sensitive dispute over who must decide...