Captain Haynes took the controls and saw he could turn the plane to the right but not the left. After the flight engineer announced to the passengers that an engine had failed, an off-duty United check pilot named Dennis Fitch, seated in the main cabin, came up front and offered to help. Captain Haynes welcomed him into the cockpit.
This type of emergency was so rare that there was no training for it, no checklist. It would later be determined that the odds of a simultaneous failure of three hydraulic systems approached a billion to one. But Captain Haynes played the hand he was dealt, and relied on his decades of experience to improvise and to lead. He and the others realized that the only way to control the airplane was to manipulate the throttles. The four men in the cockpit flew like that for more than forty minutes, trying to brainstorm ways they might get the damaged airplane to the ground in one piece. In essence, they had forty minutes to learn a new way of flying an airplane.
Traditionally in the airline industry, there had been a steep hierarchy in cockpits, and first and second officers had been reluctant to offer many suggestions to a captain. The fact that Captain Haynes solicited and welcomed input that day helped the crew find ways to solve this unanticipated problem, and have a better chance of making it to a runway.
At first, air traffic controllers were going to send the crippled aircraft to Des Moines International Airport. But the plane was turning on its own, to the west, and so a decision was made to send it to Sioux City Gateway Airport. “I’m not going to kid you,” Captain Haynes told the passengers. “It’s going to be a very hard landing.”
The cockpit voice recorder captured both the collaborative professionalism and the poignant camaraderie that eased their tension.
At one point, Dennis Fitch said, “I’ll tell you what, we’ll have a beer when this is all done.”
Captain Haynes replied: “Well, I don’t drink, but I’ll sure as hell have one.”
They approached the airport at a speed of 215 knots, descending at 1,600 feet per minute, as they tried to slow down by raising the nose. The pilots did a remarkable job of touching down near the beginning of the runway. It looked like they might make it.
Then the right wing struck the runway. Witnesses said the aircraft was tumbling as it broke apart and into flames. There were 111 fatalities—some on impact, others from smoke inhalation—but 185 people survived that day because of the masterful work of Captain Haynes and his crew. (Though there were serious injuries, everyone in the cockpit lived.) An investigation later determined that a fatigue crack caused a fracture of the fan disk in the center engine.
In CRM training, Flight 232 is considered one of the best examples of a captain leading a team effort while being ultimately responsible for the decisions and the outcome. Captain Haynes turned to all the resources at his disposal on a plane in great jeopardy. Given what his crew was up against, this could well have been a crash with no survivors. Their work in the cockpit will be studied for generations.
I was honored to be contacted by Captain Haynes after my experience on Flight 1549. He has spent much of his life since the Sioux City accident speaking about it around the world. He has made more than 1,500 speeches, donating his fees or speaking pro bono. He talks about what the rest of us might learn from his experiences that day, focusing on the importance of communication, preparation, execution, cooperation, and the word he uses, “luck.” He also talks about the sadness that he’ll never shake regarding those on the plane who didn’t make it.
He told me these speeches, which he dedicates to those who died on his flight, have been therapeutic for him. Speaking about safety issues has helped him cope with survivor’s guilt. “My job was to get people from Point A to Point B safely,” he said. “For a while afterward, I felt I didn’t do my job.”
Captain Haynes, now seventy-seven, was my age, fifty-eight, on the day of the Sioux City accident. He told me that beyond what his crew did, there were other favorable factors that saved lives: It was a clear day without much wind. The Iowa Air National Guard happened to be on duty there and rushed to help. Rescue crews had recently received training for handling the crash of a large jet. And just when his plane hit, both hospitals in town were in the middle of a shift change, meaning twice the medical personnel were available to treat the many injured survivors, including Captain Haynes. He was brought to the hospital with a head injury that required ninety-two stitches. He had a concussion and his left ear was almost cut off.
So many people involved that day stepped up aggressively to do what needed to be done. I always keep in mind a remark made by the fire chief at the Sioux City airport: “Either you manage the situation, or the situation will manage you.”
In the years after the accident, Captain Haynes lost his oldest son in a motorcycle crash. His wife died of a rare infection. Then his daughter needed a bone marrow transplant. But, through all of this, he was buoyed to learn that his efforts on Flight 232 were not forgotten. When insurance wouldn’t fully cover his daughter’s procedure, hundreds of people, including survivors of the Sioux City crash, donated more than $500,000. His daughter even received donations from families who lost loved ones on Flight 232.
Captain Haynes told me he has continually seen the good in people, and they have helped him make peace with what he was able to do that day in 1989—and what he couldn’t do. Understandably, he has wondered what would have happened if his crew could have kept the wings level and landed flat. But even had they been able to do that, the plane might have hit the runway and exploded.
When we talked a few weeks after Flight 1549, Captain Haynes told me to be prepared for some anxious thoughts. “I’m sure you’ll feel there’s something more you could have done,” he said. “Everybody second-guesses themselves. We did, too, for a while. And then we decided there was nothing else we could have done.” He had read a great deal about my flight, and told me he agreed with the decisions Jeff and I made in the cockpit. This meant a lot to me.
He also said that after Flight 1549, a few passengers from his flight got in touch with him, just to touch base and commiserate. Airline accidents are always reminders of past airline accidents. “It brought back memories for all of us,” Captain Haynes told me.
He said he felt a kinship with me, given the traumas associated with both of our flights, and the ways in which we were tested. We talked of how we’re members of a select group now. And then he gave me advice: “Wait until you’re ready, and then go back to work. You’re a pilot. You should be flying.”
IN CRM training, we also taught the details about United Airlines Flight 811, bound from Honolulu to Auckland, New Zealand, on February 24, 1989. It was a Boeing 747-122 with 337 passengers and a crew of eighteen.
At about 2:08 A.M., sixteen minutes after taking off from Honolulu, the forward cargo door blew out. The floor in the passenger cabin, above the door, caved in because of the change in pressure, and five rows of seats with nine passengers were sucked out of the jet and fell into the Pacific below. A huge hole was left in the cabin, and two of the engines were in flames, severely damaged by debris ejected from the plane during the incident.
The pilots, who had been climbing to just over twenty-two thousand feet, decided to make a 180-degree turn. Their hope was to make it back to Honolulu, seventy-two miles behind them. It would be a terrifying ride for passengers, as debris and baggage from damaged overhead bins swirled through the cabin. Some said it felt like a tornado.
Captain Dave Cronin, First Officer Al Slader, and Second Officer Randal Thomas knew that this emergency involved much more than just a loss of cabin pressurization. It also involved engine failures. With half their engines out, they had difficulty maintaining altitude that would be needed to make it back to Honolulu.
Slader used the fuel control switches to shut off the two engines, but opted not to pull the engine fire shutoff handles, which were designed to prevent further fires. He was procedurally required to pull those handles when engines are severely damaged, but he realized
if he did so, two hydraulic pumps would be lost, which would affect the crew’s ability to maintain control of the aircraft. So he did not pull them.
The pilots dumped fuel to make the plane lighter. The flight attendants had passengers put on life jackets and then told them to “Brace!” After landing, fire trucks put out the flames. Though 9 people had died in the wake of the cargo door explosion, 346 people survived the flight.
An investigation determined that the cause was a faulty switch or wiring in the cargo door control system, and problems with the design of the cargo door.
The crew acted heroically because they knew, from their deep knowledge of the systems on that plane, that they would have to improvise and modify procedures in order to deal with this unexpected emergency. They acted bravely in getting the plane safely to the ground.
As I studied that accident, I filed away the fact that I might one day have to rely on my systems knowledge, not only on a checklist. Not every situation can be foreseen or anticipated. There isn’t a checklist for everything.
I’VE COME across a number of people over the years who think that modern airplanes, with all their technology and automation, can almost fly themselves.
That’s simply not true. Automation can lower the workload in some cases. But in other situations, using automation when it is not appropriate can increase one’s workload. A pilot has to know how to use a level of automation that is appropriate.
I have long been an admirer of Earl Wiener, Ph.D., a former Air Force pilot who is now retired from the University of Miami’s department of management science. He is renowned for his work in helping us understand aviation safety.
He once told me about an appearance he made at a forum in which another speaker’s topic was “the role of the pilot in the automated cockpit.” When it was Dr. Wiener’s turn to speak, he noted, wryly but rightly, that the session should have been called “the role of automation in the piloted cockpit.”
Whether you’re flying by hand or using technology to help, you’re ultimately flying the airplane with your mind by developing and maintaining an accurate real-time mental model of your reality—the airplane, the environment, and the situation. The question is: How many different levels of technology do you want to place between your brain and the control surfaces? The plane is never going somewhere on its own without you. It’s always going where you tell it to go. A computer can only do what it is told to do. The choice is: Do I tell it to do something by pushing on the control stick with my hand, or do I tell it to do something by using some intervening technology?
The Airbus A320, the aircraft we were flying as Flight 1549, has a fly-by-wire system, which in essence means the flight controls are moved by sending electrical impulses, rather than having a direct mechanical link between the control stick in the cockpit and the control surfaces on the wings and tail. The fly-by-wire system keeps you from exceeding predetermined values, such as the degree of pitch (how low or high the plane’s nose can be versus the horizon), the bank angle (how steep a turn you can make), and how fast or slow you can go.
Dr. Wiener worried, and I agree, that the paradox of automation is that it often lowers a pilot’s workload when that load is already low. And it sometimes increases the workload in the cockpit when it is already high.
Take, for instance, a last-minute runway change. In the old days, you could easily tune your radio navigation receiver to the frequency for the approach to the different runway. Now it might take ten or twelve presses of buttons on the computer to arrange for a runway change.
For those who believe technology is the answer to everything, Dr. Wiener would offer data to prove that isn’t the case. He said that automated airplanes with the highest technologies do not eliminate errors. They change the nature of the errors that are made. For example, in terms of navigational errors, automation enables pilots to make huge navigation errors very precisely. Consider American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757 flying from Miami to Cali, Colombia, on December 20, 1995. Because two different waypoints (defined points along a flight path) were given the same name and the flight management computer displayed the nearer one as the second choice of the two, the pilots mistakenly selected the more distant one, putting the plane on a collision course with a mountain. Just 4 of the 163 people on the plane survived.
Dr. Wiener is not antitechnology, and neither am I. But technology is no substitute for experience, skill, and judgment.
ONE THING that has always helped make the airline industry strong and safe is the concept that pilots call “captain’s authority.” What that means is we have a measure of autonomy—the ability to make an independent, professional judgment within the framework of professional standards.
The problem today is that pilots are viewed differently. Over the years, we’ve lost a good deal of respect from our management, our fellow employees, the general public. The whole concept of being a pilot has been diminished, and I worry that safety can be compromised as a result. People used to say that airline pilots were one step below astronauts. Now the joke is: We’re one step above bus drivers, but bus drivers have better pensions.
Airline managers seem to second-guess us more often now. There are more challenges. Thirty years ago, it would be unheard of for a mechanic or ramp worker to vociferously disagree with a captain. Now it happens.
I know that some captains don’t represent the best of us. There may be circumstances and times when it is appropriate to challenge a captain. But sometimes we are questioned because others in the airline system want the operation to go more smoothly or be more timely or less costly.
There was a scene in the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can that made me think. Set in the 1960s, and based on a true story, the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a con man who at one point impersonates a Pan Am pilot. In this particular scene, DiCaprio’s character is watching a handsome captain in full uniform walking into a hotel accompanied by several beautiful young Pan Am stewardesses. The front desk manager comes out from behind the counter to greet them, welcoming the captain and his crew back to the hotel. It’s just a passing moment in the movie, but it perfectly encapsulates the high level of respect given to airline crews then. I almost had tears in my eyes watching that reminder of what the Golden Age of Aviation was like—and how much flight crews have lost since then.
A few years ago, in Flying magazine, I read a column written by an airline captain who was nearing retirement. He was remembering his earliest days as a pilot, and comparing those days with today, when all airline employees, including pilots, are judged on their ability to follow rules. “We were hired for our judgment,” he wrote. “Now we are being evaluated on our compliance.”
In many ways, it’s good that all airlines are more standardized today. There are appropriate procedures and we are bound to follow them. These days there are virtually no cowboys in the skies, ignoring items on their checklists. At the same time, however, I am concerned that compliance alone is not sufficient. Judgment—like Al Slader’s decision—is paramount.
The way the best pilots see it: A captain’s highest duty and obligation is always to safety. As we say it: “We have the power of the parking brake.” The plane will not move until we feel we can operate the aircraft safely.
With authority comes great responsibility. A captain needs leadership skills to take the individuals on his crew and make them feel and perform like a team. It’s a heavy professional burden on the captain to know he may be called upon to tap into the depths of his experience, the breadth of his knowledge, and his ability to think quickly, weighing everything he knows while accounting for what he cannot know.
I long have had great respect for pilots such as Al Haynes, Al Slader, and many others. And I believe that my knowledge and understanding of their actions was of great help to me on Flight 1549 as I made decisions in those tense moments over New York City.
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THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
NO TWO AIRPORTS are exactly alike. They’re almost lik
e fingerprints in that way. Each one has a different geometry, runway layout, and arrangement of taxiways and terminal buildings. Each one differs in its direction and distance from the city center, and proximity to other landmarks.
I’ve never counted how many different runways I’ve landed on. I couldn’t tell you the exact number of cities I’ve seen from the air. But I try to pay attention to the specific details of a place, and to hold on to a mental picture of the view. It could be helpful the next time I return, even if it’s years later.
When pilots fly regular routes to a certain city, we become very familiar with what the area’s landmarks look like from the air. From as high as twenty-five or thirty thousand feet, we can identify the tallest buildings, the local stadiums, the nearest large bodies of water, the major highways. We know the configurations of the runways, the seasonal weather conditions, and, once on the ground, the best place to get a reasonably healthy lunch in the terminal.
Given the US Airways hub system, I’ve done a lot of flying into Charlotte, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, so takeoffs and landings in those cities are a pilot’s equivalent of driving your car out of your driveway and through your neighborhood.
On so many flights, I find myself thinking the same thoughts: about how beautiful Earth is—both the natural and the man-made beauty—and how lucky we are to call it our home.
There are many parts of the country I enjoy flying over or into. Approaching St. Louis on a clear day, you can see the 630-foot-tall Gateway Arch from ten miles away and 30,000 feet up. If the sun is at the right angle, you’ll find sunlight glistening off the edge of the arch.
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