Sioux City DC10 Captain Has Died

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FD2
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Sioux City DC10 Captain Has Died

#1 Post by FD2 » Mon Sep 16, 2019 11:29 am

Al Haynes, captain of the United Airlines DC10 which crash landed at Sioux City Airport has died. A subject discussed during CRM courses for many years, as a prime example of how to utilise all your resources.

https://siouxcityjournal.com/news/al-ha ... 9176e.html


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Re: Sioux City DC10 Captain Has Died

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Sep 16, 2019 12:47 pm

A good modest man who clearly was made of the right stuff, as were his fellow pilots that tragic day...

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Re: Sioux City DC10 Captain Has Died

#3 Post by Undried Plum » Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:04 pm

United invented CRM.

This 1986 documentary told the story of how they did it.






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Re: Sioux City DC10 Captain Has Died

#4 Post by Undried Plum » Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:05 pm


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Re: Sioux City DC10 Captain Has Died

#5 Post by boing » Mon Sep 16, 2019 2:22 pm

I knew Al quite well, I flew co-pilot for him on the 727 a number of times. The stories about him are not inflated, a modest Gentleman, excellent pilot and laid-back Captain.


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Re: Sioux City DC10 Captain Has Died

#6 Post by FD2 » Mon Sep 16, 2019 7:16 pm

The 1972 BEA Trident crash at Staines was also cited in courses, but as an illustration of the way a flight should not be conducted. Apparently the captain and co-pilot had had an argument in the crewroom prior to the flight which affected his state of mind. Combined with the standard method of handling problems in the cockpit at the time - captain barking orders at co-pilot- it caused a further risky shift in the cockpit exchanges as the captain's fury overcame his commonsense and he totally ignored his co-pilot's warnings.


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Re: Sioux City DC10 Captain Has Died

#7 Post by Capetonian » Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:25 pm

Alfred Haynes, pilot who saved 184 lives following a mid-air explosion – obituary


Telegraph Obituaries

15 September 2019 • 6:09pm

Captain Alfred C Haynes, who has died aged 87, was hailed a hero in 1989 when, with the help of his crew, he managed to land his stricken United Airlines DC-10 aircraft at Sioux City Airport in Iowa despite having no conventional control over it; 184 of the 296 people on board survived, and in simulated tests afterwards not one of 57 pilots could replicate what Haynes had accomplished.

On the afternoon of July 19 1989, UA Flight 232 took off from Denver, Colorado, bound for Chicago. About an hour into the journey, while the aircraft was at 37,000 feet over Iowa, the foot-wide titanium fan disk in the tail engine exploded. Shards from the debris penetrated all three of the aircraft’s hydraulic systems in the area, causing all of the fluid in them to leak out in a matter of seconds.

Haynes was a highly experienced pilot, and when he became aware that there was a problem of some kind, he shut off fuel to the rear-mounted engine, knowing that the DC-10 could fly on its other two. Yet his first officer, William Records, told him that whatever he did with the control column, it did not manoeuvre the tail or the wings. The loss of hydraulics meant that the aircraft was almost impossible to fly, let alone to land.

They and flight engineer Dudley Dvorak were joined in the cockpit by Dennis Fitch, a United training captain who was one of the passengers. With his aid, and with Fitch kneeling between the seats, they switched the thrust between one engine and the other to provide a crude form of control.

Nevertheless, all they could achieve was to straighten out the jet as it made a series of right-handed spirals and descended at about 1,000ft per minute for the next half an hour. Haynes said later that he was too busy to be scared.

He was keenly aware that about 50 of the passengers were children – the airline had been running a cheap-fares promotion – some seated on their parents’ laps. Retaining his composure, he told all aboard to brace for a bump harder than any they had experienced as the aircraft came in to make an emergency landing at Sioux City. When the controllers said they could land on any runway, Haynes, with humour, said: “You want to be particular and make it a runway?”

Fitch said he would buy him a beer afterwards. Haynes replied: “I don’t drink, but I’ll sure as s––t have one.” Flight 232 made its approach at 220 knots, instead of the usual 140, dropping through the air at a rate six times faster than normal. The tip of its right wing struck the ground first, gouging a hole 18 inches deep in the concrete. The jet pivoted, broke up and burst into flames as it ploughed into a cornfield. Haynes was knocked out, but when the shattered remains of the cockpit were found half an hour later, all four men in it were alive.

An investigation later identified the cause of the crash as a fatigue crack in the fan blade which should have been spotted. Haynes was praised publicly by President George Bush and was subsequently played by Charlton Heston in a television movie about the disaster, A Thousand Heroes.

Haynes gave much of the credit to others, including those in the control tower and the emergency workers, and to luck – having good weather, for instance. For a time, he said, he had felt guilt, wondering why 111 people had died. Then he had started to wonder how it was that 185 had survived. It was the passengers’ behaviour during the flight and its aftermath that stayed with him: “I will stand in awe of them for the rest of my life.”

Alfred Clair Haynes was born at Paris, Texas, on August 31 1931. He was educated at Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, graduating in 1948, before going to A & M College (as it then was) to study Industrial Technology. There he joined the cadet corps.

After three years he was asked to take a term off to catch up, which made him eligible for the draft for the Korean War. His brother, who was an Air Force pilot, counselled him to avoid the infantry and so Haynes tagged along with a friend who wanted to fly for the US Navy. He was commissioned as a pilot in the Marine Corps and served for four years.

He joined United in 1956 and would be based in Seattle for almost all of his 35-year career, largely flying domestic routes, although he had a spell going to Hong Kong as the airline expanded internationally. Haynes began as a flight engineer on piston-engined aircraft and steadily worked his way up to captaining the Boeing 727.

He switched to the DC-10 when approaching retirement. His pension would be based on what he had flown for three of his last five years, and when a friend died prematurely he realised he could not be sure he would live that long.

Haynes resumed flying three months after the crash and retired in 1991. Several survivors of Flight 232 accompanied him on his last flight. Thereafter he became a public speaker, extolling the value of teamwork and speaking about post-traumatic stress disorder. He raised more than $1 million in donations for the accident’s survivors.

In 1996 he suffered more tragedy when his elder son, Tony, was killed in a motorcycle accident. The following year, his wife of four decades, Darlene, died of a rare infection. Haynes said that what he had learned was that there were no healing explanations for such events; they simply had to be accepted.

Several years later, his daughter Laurie needed a bone-marrow transplant, but her insurance did not cover the operation. An appeal by Haynes raised some $550,000, much of it coming from the crash survivors and enabling the procedure to be carried out successfully.

He is survived by his daughter and by his younger son.

Alfred Haynes, born August 31 1931, died August 25 2019

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Re: Sioux City DC10 Captain Has Died

#8 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Sep 17, 2019 8:19 am

FD2 wrote:
Mon Sep 16, 2019 7:16 pm
The 1972 BEA Trident crash at Staines was also cited in courses, but as an illustration of the way a flight should not be conducted. Apparently the captain and co-pilot had had an argument in the crewroom prior to the flight which affected his state of mind.
There was a planned strike at BEA and the Captain was set dead against it and he had become very angry during a verbal dispute with various colleagues before the flight. This case was noted during the Human Performance Factors segment of the IR course and it was stated that there were indications that the pilot may have been in the first stages of an incipient heart attack prior to and during the flight. Sometimes CRM starts well before you even board the aircraft and the culture of the airline and employers is a big factor in flight safety as well.

The other case used a part of the CRM segment of the course was this tragic one.

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Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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