in the u.s. territory of guam. more than 200 of his fellow passengers are killed. within hours, the rescue effort becomes an investigation scene. the ntsb has challenges from the outset. we re talking about take a day and a half to get there, then once there it was very rugged, hilly terrain, getting down to the accident site was hot, humid. it was kind of difficult conditions to work from. as with virtually all plane crashes, there s no single cause. investigators quickly uncover a long list of problems leading up to the accident. to begin with, a key navigational aid called a slide slope is out of service for a scheduled reconstruction. the glide slope is a radio signal being beamed up from the ground to the airplane that provides electronic vertical guidance. together with a localizer, which provides lateral guidance, pilots align the plane with the
red line. you want to be particular, make it a runway. runway united flight instructor danny finch flying in first class has offered to help and is now in the cockpit. captain haynes willingness to accept fitch s offer is crew resource management in action. he would not have said anything prior to crm because you don t go up to the cockpit and bother a captain when you ve got a problem. captain finch was a perfect addition to an already effective crew, but he was an additional asset. i said take the throttles. i was asking him to do this and do that and he kind of fell into the pattern of what to do and we didn t have to say so much anymore. as united 232 approaches the airport, the pilots dump as much fuel as they can. this lightens the plane which increases their ability to control it. meantime, in the cabin senior flight attendant jan brown following faa protocol advises parents to place lap children on the floor. those are kids under 2 years old without paid seats. she
said we re having a little trouble with the landing gear. we re going to be in the air just a little bit longer this is a pretty common problem, don t worry about it. captain mcbroom was a very experienced pilot, tens of thousands of hours and 5,000 hours as a captain of the dc 8 he was flying that night. so this was mr. dc 8 expert and that may have convinced him if if he just studied a little more into the manual and talked to the people in the maintenance center, he would figure out whether or not this landing gear would collapse. by 5:14 p.m., air traffic control knows united 173 has a problem. portland approach control clears the plane to enter a holding pattern, which it does for the next hour. during that time, the captain maintains close contact with the cabin crew. what he kept asking from the flight attendants was what was the status? were they ready? the cabin prepared?
passengers should brace for impact when captain haynes overrides her on the p.a. there was an announcement that this is going to be a seriously difficult landing. it s going to be rough. do the best you can. the plane is traveling at 247 miles per hour. 100 miles an hour too fast for a dc10 to land without hydraulic fluid, the controls that would normally slow the plane down don t work, and because they can t be properly configured the ground proximity warning system doesn t realize that the pilot is trying to land. it begins to sound, adding to the chaos in the cockpit. the left wing was coming up and we want the left wing down so we said left, left, left, left, left. i never thought it would be
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