Kara Kovalchik
3 Plane Crashes and Amazing Survival Stories
by Kara Kovalchik - January 15, 2009 - 11:26 PM

U.S. Airways Flight 1549 crash landed into New York’s Hudson River on January 15 with 150 passengers and crew aboard. The most recent reports state that the plane had departed from LaGuardia Airport bound for Charlotte, North Carolina, when a flock of birds hit not one but both engines, disabling them and necessitating an emergency landing six minutes after takeoff. Ferry boats rescued passengers who’d evacuated to the wings of the plane, and although there were some injuries and cases of hypothermia, at this time it appears there were no casualties.

While this particular air disaster had a happy ending, we’re reminded of others that had more bittersweet resolutions, and we mention them now not only for historic purposes, but also in respectful memory of the families of the victims to let them know that their loved ones are not forgotten.

Air Florida flight 90 (and the Extraordinary Acts of Bystanders)

air2.pngThe Washington, D.C., area was hit by one of the worst winter storms in recent memory on January 13, 1982. Congress adjourned early in order to let employees make their way home on snow-clogged roads. Washington National Airport had been closed that morning but opened at noon, so that crews could plow the runways. Flight 90 was sitting at gate B12, scheduled to depart at 2:15PM. When the craft was finally cleared to push from the gate at 3:23, the Tug had difficulty moving the plane, so the Captain used reverse thrust to back the plane from the gate. Unfortunately, this maneuver sucked large amounts of storm debris into the engines. Later, while in line for takeoff, the Captain pulled close enough to the DC-9 ahead of him in order to let the hot exhaust melt the snow from his wings; however, the resulting slush re-froze on the trailing portion of the wing. Shortly after takeoff, the plane hit Washington’s 14th Street Bridge and then plunged into the icy Potomac River.

Roger Olian, a sheet metal worker on his way home from work was near the bridge when he heard cries for help. Realizing that the traffic and weather conditions would delay rescue workers, he jumped into the icy water and pulled survivors from the wreckage. People on the shore fashioned a rope from scarves and jumper cables and pulled him back to shore as a helicopter arrived. The helicopter then dropped a line down and towed the victims to shore. One man, Arland D. Williams, Jr., repeatedly caught the line and then passed it on to other survivors rather than using it himself. When a female passenger caught the line but was too weak to hold on, a 28-year-old bystander named Lenny Skutnik stripped off his coat and boots and swam out to assist her.

Northwest Flight 255 and the 4-year old Survivor

air1.pngIt was a balmy August evening when Flight 255 prepared for takeoff from Detroit’s Metro Airport, bound for Santa Ana, California, with a stop-off in Phoenix along the way. Northwest had recently eliminated flap settings as a requirement in the pre-takeoff checklist. Unbeknownst to the crew, an electrical failure failed to alert them that the aircraft was not configured properly. Had the system been working properly, the pilot would have been notified that the flaps had not been set.

Witnesses to the crash noted that the plane rolled right and left about 35 degrees upon takeoff, which caused the left wing to strike a light pole in a nearby car rental lot. The plane continued to list to the left and hit another pole and then the roof of the car rental building, after which it finally made contact with the ground and slid into a railroad embankment whereupon it burst into flames. As rescuers inspected the debris, they were surprised to hear a soft whimper. They found four-year-old Cecilia Cichan, who’d been headed for Phoenix with her parents and older brother, still belted into an overturned seat. She’d suffered some third-degree burns and a broken leg, but she ended up being the only survivor of the tragic plane crash. After being released from the University of Michigan hospital, Cecilia went to live with relatives in Alabama. She graduated from college in 2006 with a degree in psychology.

United Airlines Flight 232 (and the 185 Survivors)

air3.pngThere were 285 passengers aboard this DC-10 that was en route to Chicago from Denver on the afternoon of July 19, 1989. Shortly after crossing into Iowa, the pilot heard a loud “bang” that caused the entire aircraft to shudder. Captain Al Haynes noted that the number two engine had failed and ordered that the engine shutdown checklist be started. Shortly after that order, however, the flight crew discovered that all three hydraulic systems were losing pressure, and the plane, instead of straightening out, continued on a severe right turn.

The autopilot was disconnected, but instead of leveling out the plane began to descend. The flight attendants were advised to prepare the passengers for a crash landing, and that’s when passenger Dennis Fitch offered to help. Fitch was a United training pilot with over 3,000 hours experience on the DC-10, so Haynes asked him to look out the windows for any structural damage. Fitch reported that none of the controls appeared to be damaged, and he was then asked to take control of the throttle levers while the rest of the crew prepared for an emergency landing (dumping fuel, extending landing gear, etc.).

Captain Haynes got permission from Sioux City airport to land in an open field at the end of one of their runways (since he had very little control of the aircraft at this point). The crew managed to fly straight, but they were unable to control their airspeed or sink rate. While the plane burst into a huge fireball upon landing, thanks to the expertise and dedication of the crew, 185 people survived the crash.

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Comments (21)

  1. Flying from Oregon to Atlanta a couple of years ago, we sucked a heron into the left engine of our plane, taking it out. When it happened there was this huge sound like SHOONK! BurrrrrrRRRRRRR, (world’s largest meat grinder) and the entire cabin filled with the smell of burning meat. We didn’t know what was going on, but kept staying really low instead of climbing. Finally, we had to turn around and make an emergency landing. The captain was really great–he came on the intercom and said, “Ladies and Gentleman, we’re happy to inform you that lunch will now be served on this flight. The menu will consist of chopped duck in orange sauce…” He made everyone laugh and feel immediately better.

    My dad’s been a pilot since he was 16 years old–both in the air force and for commercial airlines. I always knew that a lot went into the training, but you don’t realize how well-trained these people are until something like these incidents happen.

    Thanks for the great post. The Air Florida post got me choked up. It’s nice to be reminded once in a while that the vast majority of humanity are good people.

    posted by JenPo on 1-16-2009 at 2:04 am

  2. Last year there was a catastrophic crash in Barajas (Madrid airport). One of the few survivors was Ligia Palomino, a rescue worker herself who was rescued by the very same colleagues she works with on a daily basis.

    posted by Ann on 1-16-2009 at 5:13 am

  3. **Fun Fact!**

    My dad used to work in airports as a falconer to prevent crashes due to birds getting in engines (called “Bird Strikes”).

    The falconer patrols the air base every day with hawks, falcons, eagles, etc, and lets them fly around in areas where smaller birds hang out. When smaller birds see that these raptors have become a daily fixture, they tend to move away from the runways and find somewhere safer to nest.

    It’s a really great program that I think every airport should have and is proven to work quite well. Hell, about a year into it the birds would even recognize my dad’s car driving around and would take off before he even let the hawks out!

    posted by Jenny on 1-16-2009 at 9:29 am

  4. As I started reading through the UA Flight 232, it sounded familiar to me but I thought the pilot at the time was Dennis Fitch because I went to school with his son and I remember how traumatized he was about this crash.

    Reading about it now, I’m thankful that Dennis made it. And despite going through this, his son went on to become a pilot himself.

    posted by JCizzle on 1-16-2009 at 11:08 am

  5. I bit more info about flight 232; the loss of the hydraulic systems was complete; debris from the failed engine had ruptured all three hydraulic lines (something which has been designed not to happen in later planes). This means that there was no way to maneuver the plane with the control surfaces (flaps, ailerons, rudder, etc.) so they had to do it simply by controlling the engine thrust (more thrust in the left engine to go right, more or less thrust in both to go up or down). To have any survivors at all in this situation is nothing short of miraculous; the NTSB said that a “safe landing was virtually impossible” and that the “flightcrew performance … greatly exceeded reasonable expectations.” It looks like the accident on Jan 15th was also pretty miraculous. According Reuters sources, crash-landing on water can be much more damaging than on land, and planes usually break up.

    posted by Matt on 1-16-2009 at 12:16 pm

  6. Actually, the extraordinary amount of people that survived the crash of flight 232 at the Sioux Gateway airport was due to the emergency response team that was able to be mobilized. About a year before the crash, an eerily similar drill was performed to measure the time it would take to respond, and the magnitude of emergency response teams that could respond. Although the pilots made a very skilled landing and saved many lives, it was the mobilization of the emergency response team that allowed for many more people to survive this crash that shouldn’t have. So, when remembering this crash, we should also remember the heroes on the ground. The movie A Thousand Heroes more or less accurately represents the dramatic unfolding. I would suggest watching that.

    posted by Rachel on 1-16-2009 at 12:39 pm

  7. Jenny, wouldn’t it be more dangerous to have falcons, hawks, eagles, around rather than smaller birds? (I assume these falcon wouldn’t go for anything bigger than themselves.) So while they’d be decreasing the danger of bird strikes in the long run, wouldn’t they be significantly increasing the danger in the short term?

    Besides, I think modern jet engines are designed to be able to ingest small birds. I have a friend who’s job involved pigeons into small jet engines.

    posted by Jim on 1-16-2009 at 12:43 pm

  8. In the United 232 crash, it was actually the mobilization of the emergency response teams on the ground that allowed for the magnitude of survivors in the plane crash. I will not discount the skill of the pilots, for they had many problems working against them. However, an eerily similar drill had been performed about a year before that measured the magnitude and time of response of emergency teams from the Siouxland area. It was due to the extraordinary preparation on the ground, paired with the skill of the pilots, that there were that many survivors. For the entire story, see the movie A Thousand Heroes. It more or less accurately represents the actual crash and what preceded it.

    posted by Rachel on 1-16-2009 at 12:47 pm

  9. I imagine the birds of prey are trained to return to their handler and make runs. I doubt they’re left to fly 24/7.
    In a similar vein one of my favorite airliner survival stories is Air Canada Flight 143 told quite nicely at the always entertaining Damn Interesting: damninteresting . com/?p=744

    posted by Bo on 1-16-2009 at 1:42 pm

  10. I retired from the Air Force and can attest that birds can inflict a lot of damage and bring down even large aircraft. And yes, pilots are very well trained.

    A few years ago an Air Force KC-135 in Alaska hit a flock of geese on takeoff and crashed.

    Years prior to that, an F-111 out of Mt. Home AFB flew head on into a large condor. It smashed the radome folding it back over the windscreen, crack the windscreen. The forward panels looked like an accordion. It also knocked out all their flight instruments. With the radome over the windscreen the pilots had no forward visibility. Without a radome, the front of the aircraft was flat. They were essentially flying a brick wall. They brought the plane back safely by watching their wingman flying alongside them and copying his movements and speed.

    Another F-111 flying near Turkey hit a sea gull. The bird hit just forward of the cockpit windscreen, entered the avionics, went clean through the avionics bay, hit the forward wall of the cockpit penetrating it and clean through the instrument panel ending up in the pilots’ laps. Fortunately by then it was moving slow enough so as not to hurt the pilots. The pilots brought it back safely despite having no instruments, no pressurization, and a howling wind entering straight into the cockpit.

    posted by Mick on 1-16-2009 at 1:49 pm

  11. My best friend’s older brother, Tony Feeney, was on the United 232 crash. We lived in Casper, WY. He was 13 years old, flying to visit his grandparents in Chicago for the rest of the summer. When it crashed, he said that it was spinning and that he saw a giant hole in the side of the plane, and that people were jumping out of it. A man told him that he should too, and he did. He broke some bones and had to get skin grafts from tumbling onto the runway, but everyone who was sitting around him died, so he made the right choice. There’s even an actor who plays Tony in the TV movie!

    Oh, and he got a huge settlement and now lives on the beach in Costa Rica. So there’s that.

    posted by Laura on 1-16-2009 at 1:57 pm

  12. Does anyone know if there were any animals traveling in the cargo section of the USAirways plane yesterday?

    posted by Karen on 1-16-2009 at 3:59 pm

  13. I live right next to a major airport and there are several hawks that hang out by the airport. I’m not sure if it’s true, but I’ve heard that they are brought in by the airport. And in answer to Jim’s comment about the danger posed by the hawks, I have noticed that the hawks, very conspicuously, avoid the paths of the runway. I don’t know if they’ve been trained to do that or not, but I’ve seen one hawk in particular, that seem to have my house in his territory, that wil fly in circles but never pass over the runway that is a block down the street.

    posted by Jennifer on 1-16-2009 at 4:37 pm

  14. Birds don’t just bring down airplanes. I work at a large hospital in St. Louis with a big transplant program. A few years ago, a medical helicopter was bringing in patient for a heart transplant. On the approach to the helipad, a duck flew right through the windshield and landed on the patient’s lap. The pilot had flown combat helicopters and although he was bleeding profusely from a huge gash to his forehead, he set the chopper down safely and the patient got her new heart.

    posted by Kathy on 1-16-2009 at 4:57 pm

  15. Birds don’t just bring down airplanes. I work at a large hospital in St. Louis with a big transplant program. A few years ago, a med-evac helicopter was bringing in a patient to get a heart transplant. On the approach to the helipad, a duck flew through the chopper’s windshield and landed right on the patient’s lap.

    The pilot, who had flown in the military, was able to set down safely despite a bleeding profusely from a large gash in his forehead, and the patient got her transplant.

    And I absolutely swear this part is true — in an eerie coincidence, the patient met her heart donor’s family and found out that her donor’s nickname as a child was “Ducky.”

    posted by kathy on 1-16-2009 at 5:04 pm

  16. What a great entry for any site. I fly a lot and am scared #$%^less when I do.

    I was one of the first on the recovery of SwissAir Flt 111 off of Nova Scotia Canada. I’ve never seen such destruction.

    I think that we take for granted what pilots do and the responsibility that they have. What happened in New York was a miracle because no one, no one, trains for water landings.

    BZ’d as the Navy lingo says. A job well done beyond expectations.

    posted by Craig on 1-17-2009 at 9:55 am

  17. One further point about Arlan Williams is that as a result of continuing to refuse the rescue lines lowered to him, instead handing it to other passengers, he ultimately perished in the frigid waters, giving his life so that the other passengers could survive.

    posted by Michael on 1-17-2009 at 1:44 pm

  18. What about Aloha Airlines flight 234 which lost 30 feet of cabin fuselage while flying at 24,000 feet?

    The flight landed safely at Kahului Airport on Maui with only a single lost of life, Flight Attendant C.B. Lansing.

    The aircraft should have broke in two, but with great credit and skill to the 2 pilots and one very important forward lower cargo door, the aircraft held together.

    This flight could have ended in more death and passenger bodies scaddered over a large area in the Pacific, but they all came home.

    posted by Kawika on 1-17-2009 at 3:31 pm

  19. Craig,

    at USAFA the cadets are trained to land the planes in the middle of the river to minimize loss of life. Captain Sullenberger did just that to perfection.

    posted by Karen on 1-17-2009 at 4:47 pm

  20. The story of United Flight 232 is much, much more interesting. Including things like after the engine went, the pilots called the maintenance base for United and said the hydraulics had failed. The people at the maintenance facility refused to believe it was possible to lose ALL the hydraulics in the airplane and offered no assistance to the pilots. In the end, the pilots would have come to a much less tragic landing had they not miscalculated at the very last second. The plane was set up for a gear up (though much too fast) landing, but at the last second (I can’t remember exactly what happened) something kicked the right side of the plane out of order and they nearly cartwheeled.

    Very interesting story all in all.

    posted by Genevieve on 1-18-2009 at 9:36 am

  21. I don’t know much about flight, but I think it’s the birds getting sucked into the engines that ultimately cause the crashes, not breaking through the windshields.

    posted by jiminyjillikers on 1-18-2009 at 3:20 pm

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