Pan Am Flight 009
The year is 1939 the Boeing 314 Clipper has just been introduced. This is the first double decker plane ever introduced for the commercial market. It is able to carry seventy-four passengers in total comfort. Only twelve of these beautiful planes have ever been produced, and nine of those have been sold straight to Pan American World Airways also known as Pan Am. Today is the opening day to introduce the new airliner and show off all of its advancements in aviation. The pilot is Captain Derik Segar; he has been flying for over 17 years and has been with Pan Am since they first opened their company in 1927. The Co-Pilot is Michael DèGrasse; he has also been with the company since they first started in 1927. These are the company’s
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best pilots, and are honored with the title as “Father of the Sea Clippers”. The Pan Am brand was known for calling all of their jets, Clippers. Today they are flying the brand new Clipper Constellation. The Clipper Constellation is the most advance aircraft of the time, being able to go two times the distance the leading aircraft is able to go, while also carrying three times the amount of passengers. Pan Am is the only airline to feature such an incredible, and expensive plane. Because of the high cost factor of the planes Pan Am is constantly at risk of attacks on the airline to crush this American company. An unconfirmed person has warned them that there will be attack on one of their most prized planes. They look into this threat very closely, but they see no merit in it, they continue with the inaugural flights as planned. Most people who fly on Pan Am are wealthy, it is a special occasion to be able to fly at this point in time. There are no major security checkpoints, and people are able to bring whatever they like on the plane. Today the flight is filled with very wealthy people as well as children who have shown excellence in their education, they have been allowed a free pass to join today’s expedition. Some noteworthy people on this flight are: Abdul DeShira, a rich middle eastern man who has large stake in the oil industry, and Ferdinand Porsche, the owner of Porsche motorcars and close friends with the founder of Pan Am. The flight is traveling from Key West, Florida to Havana, Cuba. This is one of the most popular routes as it is beautiful, and normally very easy with little turbulence. The flight will leave at 9:00 in the morning to symbolize the inaugural flight, 009. This is the ninth inaugural flight Pan Am will have on the new Boeing 314 Clippers. This is the most important as this clipper has been fitted with a new fuel system that should reduce fuel cost by seventy percent, a dramatic drop. At 8:00 that day Pan Am begins loading up their Clipper Constellation, with the seventy-four passengers, and eight crew totaling eighty-two souls on board. Mrs. Amandine is the head stewardess for the flight today there is five other stewardesses aboard. “Hello! Welcome aboard the Pan American Clipper Constellation, may I see your ticket?” says Amandine to each and every one of the customers as they board the plane. It is a clear day outside, almost surreal as the beautiful Florida weather makes today an exceptional day for flying. No one could of asked for better weather. The time is 8:45; fifteen minutes until the Clipper Constellation will make its first ever voyage. It is now for the safety briefing that goes along with all Pan Am flights, although the passengers should not have to worry about anything as they are in great hands with experienced crew, and a brand new airplane. “Hello and welcome aboard the Clipper Constellation” says Mary, one of the other stewardesses. “We thank you for choosing Pan Am on this very special day! We would like to go over some safety instructions in the event that an emergency does occur.” As she is speaking Captain Derik and Co-Captain Michael begin to push the throttles of the clipper to align them to the runway. Four Curtiss-Wright Twin Cyclone props power the Clipper Constellation, producing 1500 horsepower. These are newly developed engines, just introduced for this plane. They are the ultimate in speed, and range, just what Pan American World Airways wants, and requested. The time is 8:55, five minutes until take off, and five minutes until the ride of their lives. “It should be a marvelous day for flying Michael, I do not even expect for they’re to be any turbulence.” “Well if what the traffic control tower workers said was correct, it should be an easy flight. Of course with you Derik it’s always an easy flight.” They both shared a quiet laugh “Would you care for me to make the announcement for the passengers?” “Yes I think that would be great if you would do that, I will double check the instruments.” “Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I am Michael DèGrasse your co-captain, and I want to thank you for choosing Pan Am for this special inaugural flight.” Everyone in the cabin began to faintly clap his or her hands as a sign of overcoming emotions. “Today is a great day for flying and in one minute we will show you just how great these new engines really are!” he laughed, “We expect there to be no turbulence so just sit back and relax.” “Good job Michael, let’s begin. Throttles at maximum thrust.” “Throttles are now at maximum thrust captain.” It was unnecessary to say that, everyone in the plane could know that those throttles were at maximum. Everyone was pushed deep into their seats as the plane quickly accelerated to V-One. The acceleration was like nothing else at the time. Michael continued to call out the speed in ten-knot increments, “90, 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150, 160, 170, 180” Finally the time had come “Rotate.” It was in this moment that there was no going back, there was no stopping now; they were committed to take off. “Wow! These engines really pack a punch. I’m glad they decided to go with the uprated engines, instead of the old Roller engines.” “They may have been luxurious captain, but we both know how badly they lacked power, even I sometimes worried if we would be able to get the plane in the air.” They laughed and agreed with one another. A jubilant air in the cockpit, everyone was giddy and excited to be in the air. “Ya know what girl, I’m actually sort of really excited today! This is the first time in history I’ve been able to make it on one of these inaugural flights. Sure makes my day a whole lot better!” Exclaimed Stacy, a senior flight attendant from originally from Texas. “Yes, Stacy this is definitely a great experience, I’m glad that you got to be on this one! I mean this is an entirely knew jet completely.” “For sure Samantha!” As the time went on the Clipper Constellation continued to climb to 25,000 feet into the air, it reaches a top speed of one hundred and eighty knots. The flight went well, with little to no turbulence at all. The flight stewardess served the first course meal that was included with all Pan American flights, but this one was special. They handed out beautiful slices of cake with the company’s logo in blue gnocchi. Everyone was treated to some of the finest champagne of the year, Krug Brut Vintage. Everything was going exactly to plan. “Well Derik, this is very uneventful flight, I almost want something to happen so we can have a little fun!” He laughs quietly to himself. “Just joking, even though I know this plane can handle anything we throw at it.” “Well of course Michael, these planes are the finest on mother earth. Nothing even comes close to these, and of course no other company can come close to us!” They laugh in unison, knowing that Derik is right. Pan Am has had a spotless record of safety, a record that no other American company has been able to meet. As they approach Cuba something is undiscovered. There is something wrong with the jet, but no one has any clue of what will happen in ten minutes. KRAZAAAAAAAM! The cabin begins filling with a thick white smoke. Everyone on the jet has an awe struck terror look on his or her face. “What the heck was that! I have never seen anything like this before! We’re losing all hydraulics.” “I don’t know captain!
Are we going to be able to make it to Havana?”
“Contact the control tower and request an emergency landing at once, clear the runway of any other planes and get the fire emergency team ready at once! We may not be able to control the plane even if we do get it down.”
“Yes sir captain, I will also tell Amandine to prepare for the emergency landing.”
As the captain struggles for control over the wounded bird, all hope is lost. Would this plane ever be savable? It would require an act of God. Unbeknownst to them the plane has had a rapid decompression that is causing the entire plane to rebel against all inputs of the captain. The hydraulic lines have been severed, which means that the plane has no control what so ever.
Amandine and the other stewardess struggle to see in the plane due to the thick white smoke that has been filling the cabin, since the emergency started.
“Please fasten your seat belts, put all personal items in the bag in front of you, please take off your shoes, and go into the brace position, we will be attempting a crash landing. Please be praying for this aircraft.” Amandine has a shaky tone in her voice, causing even more discomfort to the passengers; she knows the ultimate doom this flight is destined to
have. The passengers in distraught quickly do what the flight stewardess tell them to do. With haste they begin a short checklist of what is needed. “We are not going to make it Derik.” These words take the captain by surprise, but he ultimately knows what he must do. The plane is dropping at a rapid feet, although it has only been five minutes, the plane is now only five thousand feet above the sea. Without any control the plane will crash. The captains merely become passengers on this tragic tale. Six minutes have passed since the original emergency, another emergency has come up, the number two and number three engines have gone up in flames. Toxic smoke comes into the cockpit choking out any life. There is no hope. “Lord help us, bless all of us on this day.” These are the last words ever spoken by Captain Derik Segar; if anyone spoke in the cabin it would also be there last words. The plane is now going over five hundred knots! This is two times the maximum speed of the Boeing 314 Clipper. The airplane begins to fall apart. There is no going back. Seconds seem like hours, minutes seem like days. How is it possible to be calm when someone knows that they are going to die and they can do nothing to stop it? With an abrupt thud the Boeing 314 Clipper crashes into the ocean. The plane splits into three different sections. The nose of the plane shatters completely. This is utter disaster; all eighty-two people on board are dead. There have been no survivors. “Today early this morning at about 9:45 a.m. a Pan American World Airways Clipper Constellation has crashed into the ocean killing all passengers and crew. There has been no accident report yet, but we will keep you all updated as soon as we find anything.” Every news station said the same thing; this was the biggest aviation disaster from a United States airline. People immediately begin speculating of a terrorist attack on the world’s most prestigious airline. Riots begin in Washington D.C. to attack back at the supposed terrorist. The NTSB begins an investigation on what actually caused the Pan Am disaster around 11:00 a.m. that fateful day. They will not have a conclusion until two years later. What they find will shock the world, and shake up some of the biggest airplane manufactures. “We know that this is a complete tragedy, and we send all of our condolences to the family of those who have lost their life. I could stand up here and B.S. saying how I know how you feel, but I just can’t do that to you all. We are truly heart shattered about what happened and we will do whatever to ensure that an accident like this never happens again. We have several people working day and night to find the cause of this disaster.” This was a heart touching speech by Pan American’s CEO and founder, Juan Trippe. The date is September 9, 1941, almost exactly two years after the crash; the NTSB comes up with the conclusion and results on which the fault will lie. They find that the crash was due to a manufactured error of the cargo door, and the overall shell of the airplane. The weak steel Boeing used cracked in flight due to the intense stress airplanes undergo while in the air. This caused the cargo door to completely disconnect from the airplane resulting in rapid decompression, which in turn killed the bird. A shocked public turns to hatred on the American company; riots begin over the death of all of those people. People are fighting over a death that could have been prevented with better engineering of the aircraft. Boeing has to pays the price; they take all of the 314 Clippers off the market, forever. They will not produce another large, long-range, airplane until five years later. Pan American World Airways suffers the ultimate price. They are forced to have the reputation of “The Falling Star” the name that was pasted over all the news and magazines of the year. The public understands that Pan Am had nothing to do with the tragic accident, and people continue to fly on the best airline in the world. Pan American. With all things in life, they are teachers. Boeing learns that if they mix steel with glass, and expensive task, it makes the shell of the aircraft fifteen times stronger. There will not be another accident like this until 1989 when a United Airlines Boeing 747 loses it cargo door do to electronic failure. If the Clipper Constellation would not have crashed no one would have been aware of the faulty flaw in the Boeing 314 Clippers, they would have been sold to thousands, and each one could be considered a death trap. This report is dedicated to all those who have lost their life on that fatal day. May their souls rest forever in peace.
On November 28, 2004 at about 10:00 a.m. mountain standard time, a Canadair (now Bombardier) CL-600-2A12 (Challenger 600), tail number N873G, crashed into the ground during takeoff at Montrose Regional Airport (MJT), Montrose, Colorado. The aircraft was registered to Hop-a-Jet, Inc., and operated by Air Castle Corporation doing business as Global Aviation. (Insert Here)The flight was operating under Part 135 Code of Federal Regulations. The captain filed the flight under an IFR Flight plan. Of the six passengers on board, three died from fatal injuries and the other three sustained major injuries. The aircraft was totaled due to the impact with the ground and a post-crash fire.
Picture yourself, for a moment, among 243 passengers on a Boeing jumbo jet. It is two days before Christmas of 1988, and you are excited to see your family in New York. You are sitting comfortably in your coach class window seat in row 40, reading a poetry book by Charles Baudelaire. It’s 7:00 pm and about 35 minutes after takeoff; the plane is just leveling off at its cruising altitude. You hear the captain throttle back the engines now. Everything is perfect in this aircraft; in fact, it’s not really an aircraft at all. It’s more like a room than a metal tube; a room with perfectly vertical walls. By now, most people have actually forgotten that they are, in fact, inside an airplane. They are in a movie theater, a bar, or even their own home relaxing in their favorite recliner. Suddenly, you hear a loud noise from the front of the plane. You feel extreme pressure on every square inch of your body, like you have been hit by a train. Screams and shrieks fill the cabin, and then, very abruptly, everything ends, forever. This is precisely what happened to David Dornstein before he fell, already dead, 6 miles to the ground in Ella Ramsden’s front yard, the landing site for about 60 other individuals when the plane exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Terrorism – This is a word that many people are terrified of. When a terrorist attack occurs, people’s daily routines are shattered. Things change instantaneously the moment the bomb goes of. When we think about a terrorist attack that really impacted the world, we immediately think about 9/11. On that day many people were hurt directly and indirectly. People were disorientated and scared. The moment there is change, the world panics. Unfortunately, 9/11 was not the only day where people panicked. On 1988, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 occurred. This terrorist attack was not as massive as 9/11; but, it did leave scares especially to the Syracuse University community.
The Colgan Air Flight 3407 was a very interesting case to look at. On February 12, 2009, at 10:17 pm, flight 3407 crashed at a house in New York after the pilots experience a stall. Flight 3407 was scheduled to fly from Newark, New Jersey to Buffalo, New York. The NTSB reported the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) revealed some discrepancies both pilots were experience. The first officer did not have any experience with icing condition but icing was one of the reasons the plane went into a stall. On the other hand, the captain had some experience flying in icing condition. The captain was experiencing fatigue, which indeed, made him unfit to recover from a stall. With that in mind, the Human Factor Analysis Classification System (HFACS) will give insight of some errors both pilots made.
Although the flight was scheduled to depart from JFK Airport at about 7:00 p.m., it was delayed due to a disabled piece of ground equipment and concerns about a suspected passenger mismatch with baggage. The airplane took off at 8:18 p.m., shortly at 8:25 p.m., Boston air route traffic control center (ARTCC) instructed the pilots to climb and maintain an altitude of 19,000 feet and then lower down to 15,000 feet. However, at 8:26 p.m., Boston ARTCC amended TWA flight 800's altitude clearance, advising the pilots to maintain an altitude of 13,000 feet. At 8:29 p.m., the captain stated, "Look at that crazy fuel flow indicator there on number four... see that?" One minute later Boston ARTCC advised them to climb and maintain 15,000 feet to which the pilot replied: “Climb thrust”. After an extremely loud and quick sound, the cockpit voice recorder stopped recording at 8:31 p.m. At that moment, the crew of an Eastwind Airlines Boeing 737 flying nearby reported an explosion in the sky. TWA Flight 800 aircraft had broken up and crashed into the sea, 8 miles south of East Moriches, killing all on board. (1,2)
This report is on the Crossair flight 3597 crash which happens at Zurich airport on 24th November 2001. Analysis of Crossair flight 3597 will be covered, which includes details such as facts of Crossair flight 3597 crash, and the three contributing factors involved in the air accident. The three contributing factors are mainly Crossair, pilot error and communications with air traffic controllers.
Can you define freedom? A Dutchman in Europe said, “You can’t. You don’t know what freedom is until you lose it” (Guarnere xxii). Freedom is what American soldiers fought for in WWII. The 101st Airborne was on the front line of every major battle in the European theater with enough men, weapons, artillery, ammunition, supplies, and trooper clothing to survive. The 101st was the army’s elite paratrooper division and was always on the front lines. During WWII, Easy Company, the best and the toughest, a part of the 101st, froze, starved, got covered in filth, became exhausted, and lost good men every day. They inflicted more casualties on the Germans than the Germans inflicted on the Americans or their Allies (Guarnere XX).
Critique of “First Flight” The “First Flight” is an excellent short story that made pathos for the reader to portray in the life of an everyman who has to deal with exclusion and people’s bad choices. Gregory is an 18 year old who just wants to be sociable but everyone just shuts him out and doesn’t pay attention to him. He stops in a train station to warm up and is ridiculed on a false accusation of stealing a pilot uniform. W.D Valgardson perfectly shows both of the main themes.
After that he heard someone else yell, ‘Hey, the guys in the middle are running!’ Then suddenly the airship made a very sharp downward motion above him. “It was coming down, and I started to run. I ran about 20 yards, and then heard this eerie sound of metal crunching against the ground. I stopped and turned around.” He witnessed the wreckage of the framework and people trying to escape. He saw them stumbling, falling, and burning. “It was a horrible sight. We stood for a moment and then we rushed back toward the flames, but what could you do? I tried to help, but you couldn’t get that close because of the billowing
The excitement among people was cut short by the unfortunate delay in flight, because of maintenance on one of its engines. The passengers boarded the plane a couple of hours after the scheduled time. Finally, it was cleared for taxi on runway 26-Right. The pilots lined the aircraft parallel to the runway. A tragic accident, however, was about to happen.
...rcraft to decent to 1,200 meters to land. So the pilot blows another chance to save the aircraft from crash landing by not resuming all the decision with the first officer. To control the decent the pilot increase the throttle of the left engine without realising it will cause a fatal blow to the engine. By increasing the fan speed caused the fracture fan blade deep into the engine and the engine started to tear apart. Then the engine loses all the power and catches fire. In desperation, the pilot try to restart the right engine with the wind mill start using the plane speed to spin up the engine blade. But it is too late because the air speed is too low. The pilot managed to stretch the glide by pull the nose up to avoid crashing into the village of Kegworth before crashing into the embankment of the M1 motorway. This accident saw 47 out of 126 people abroad died.
In this case, US Airways flight 1549 has become a prime example of a miraculous outcome of an aviation incident. For this flight both of the pilots were in good physical condition, without any external stimuli or lack of sleep taking a toll on them. This allowed them to be fully alert to perform their flying obligations. In addition to having adequate physical capabilities, these pilots were well trained in their art form, and were able to do the single most important aspect when it comes to operating an aircraft: actually flying the airplane. Once the bird strike occurred, they were able to assess the situation and remain calm while working through possible solutions. Thanks to the frequent training in accident recovery, the First Officer was able to flip straight to the engine failure checklist, which the pilots then put into action. While this was crucial, the Captain was knowledgeable and experienced enough to take the liberty of skipping over steps on the checklist which ended up making a significant difference in the end result. Amongst the various other components that went into making this flight a successful recovery, communication was probably one of the most largely influencing factors. Throughout the entire situation the two pilots had professional communication between each other and the rest of the
He starts out the chapter by telling two stories about airline crashes that happened in 2009 that claimed nearly 300 lives. Both of these incidents were blamed on pilot error. Throughout time aviation has become more and more automated. From the very first automated flight in 1914 to now, airlines and plane manufacturers have been working on shifting the work from humans to machines. Today, pilots only control a total of three minutes between take-off and landing. Though plane crashes have been declining, there has been this new type of crash, which is due to human
The future of passenger aircraft and their manufacture has an amazing outlook. Every year, the brightest minds in aviation compile the greatest technological advances towards creating the safest and most economical aircraft on the planet. No detail is over looked, and the bottom dollar is the controlling factor. From private aircraft to public aircraft, space exploration and beyond, the future is bright for the passenger aircraft market, and everyone who purchases air travel should be excited to see how the industry unfolds. Let's kick this off!