- Daily Express - Fact Check and Transparency Report (United Kingdom) . Traffic jams have been reported at several places in Delhi on Tuesday morning, specifically in the central and southern parts. Nine people on the ground were also killed, including a family of seven. Breaking up as they went, and surrounded by flames, the remains of the plane continued across several fields and into a forest, trees ripping into the fuselage with terrible force, one after another. A number of other passengers succumbed to inhalation of smoke and fumes, including some who were unable to escape due to their injuries. Lets get the next clear, open field! McKenzie argued. By the time the flaming wreckage came to a halt, 72 people were dead: 63 of the 85 aboard the plane, and nine on the ground. Several hours later, now nearing the end of their shift, McKenzie and Keele departed the town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, before landing in nearby Huntsville 23 minutes later. Southern's initial funding was secured by a group of unknown investors, many of whom are believed to be connected to the University of Mississippi, the alma mater of Little and co-founder Keith Sisson. Part of the reason that such an incident did not happen until 1977 was that the relatively weak and inefficient engines of that era were rarely operated at flight idle even during descent, thus steeling them against the worst effects of water ingestion. The boys wanted to help their mother get ready for whatever was on the way, be it a twister or a thunderstorm with lightning. Advertising Notice We're 30 minutes from Branson, 30 minutes from Eureka Springs, AR, 15 miles from Bull Shoals lake, 15 miles from Buffalo National River and we can accommodate all your commercial airline needs! Meanwhile, lead flight attendant Anne Lemoine picked up the intercom to talk to Sandy Ward in the back. Excerpted from Southern Storm: The Tragedy of Flight 242 by Samme Chittum published by Smithsonian Books. As the aircraft ran out of altitude and options, gliding with a broken windshield and no engine power, the crew made visual contact with the ground and spotted a straight section of a rural highway below. The crew attempted to pick out a path through the cells using their on-board weather radar display, but they were apparently misled by the radar's attenuation effect, and they proceeded toward what they believed was a low-intensity area, when in fact it was the peak convective activity point, attenuated by rain. It was blue skies, white clouds, with a slight breeze, sun shiningjust gorgeous.. The NTSB's final report lists a total of 70 fatalities from the crash of Flight 242, including 2 flight crew, 60 passengers, and 7 persons on the ground. On the 4th of April 1977, a brief flight from Huntsville, Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia took a terrifying turn when the DC-9 encountered a powerful thunderstorm at 17,000 feet. The DC-9 broke into several large pieces; the cockpit had separated mostly intact and came to rest upside-down. Minutes after takeoff, Flight 242 entered a heavy thunderstorm. about the experience, and is a motivational speaker. While not an exhaustive look at the impacts of weather on aviation, these three plane crashes arguably had some of the biggest impacts on aviation safety in adverse weather conditions. What are your flight conditions?. Clad in ragged, fire-singed remnants of clothing, they resembled sleepwalkers. The reliability of jet engines had proved so high in service that the DC-9s emergency handbooks didnt even include a procedure for a dual engine failure. What else could it be, she thought, but a twister bearing down on them? That lovely spring afternoon, she stood in her living room and witnessed a scene almost out of a horror film. Negative, no engines, McKenzie reported. While the boys tended the radio, she scanned the sky for black clouds that would signal the approach of a severe storm. She would lead the way out the back door, across the creek, and uphill to safety. Stay tuned for the second installment of this three-part series focusing on Delta Airlines Flight 191, to be published on Tuesday, Feb. 28. Immediately, the investigation's focus turned toward the weather. But the controller couldnt see this identification signal on radar because the planes transponder had failed. Flight 242 reached its cruising altitude of 17,000 feet. I dont know why I did that. In 1977, there was no procedure for dealing with a double engine failure they were on their own. Southern Airways is located in the center of the terminal building. This Hollywood staple makes for good cinema, but in real life it usually ends in catastrophe and while McKenzie and Keele were not the first to discover this, they were the last, as no passenger jet pilot has tried again since. And so, after a brief passenger swap, Southern Airways flight 242 taxied away from the ramp with 81 passengers and four crew on board, bound for Atlanta, Georgia. [19], The Weather Channel featured the crash in an episode of its TV series Why Planes Crash.[20]. Southern Airways Express is a commuter airline operating across the United States with headquarters in Palm Beach, Florida. Captain William McKenzie ,54, and First Officer Lyman Keele Jr ,34,. landed the plane, and neither pilot survived the accident. Mokulele averaging 70 to 85 hours per month or more. The circumstances for a surge occur when the delicate balance of temperatures and pressures within the various compressor stages, which compress and accelerate the air to generate thrust, is disrupted. Captain McKenzie has logged 19,300 hours including 3,200 flight hours on DC-9 while First Officer . I heard the baby [Eddie] saying, Monster, mommy, monster, she said. In principle, the pilots should have known exactly what they were getting into but for some reason, they didnt. Fly Easy to Washington-Dulles! Roads are not runways; they are covered in power lines, light poles, and cars full of children. So I knew it really wasnt a tornado, but I just didnt know what it was.. You dont want them to, you dont ask for them, but you cant stop them. Barefoot, bewildered passengers emerged from the cloud of smoke and came stumbling toward the Burkhalters house. Curiosity got the best of me, and I wanted to make sure Mother was okay. As I got to the top of the steps, there was a large man. A worker searches through the wreckage of a Southern Airways DC-9 that crashed on a highway in New Hope, Ga., on April 4, 1977, killing 63 people aboard and nine on the ground. Flight attendant Catherine Cooper survived unscathed because she was sitting in an area that provided her with relative protection from impact forces. Southern pilots are averaging 85 plus hours a month (some as high as 100 to 120 per month). The DC-9s captain, William Wade McKenzie, had been killed upon impact; the first officer, Lyman W. Keele Jr., who had been flying the plane, died while being airlifted to Kennestone Regional Medical Center in Marietta, Georgia. The federal program guarantees smaller communities. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine But there is a concern. He said, Honey, weve got some bad weather coming. Southern is the only US Commuter Airline serving America's 5 Busiest Airports! It was therefore entirely possible that the pilots thought they saw a gap when none existed a figment of the imagination, appearing ephemerally on the radar screen due to the systems simple failure to pick up the heaviest part of the storm. The air was thick with the hot, roiling fumes generated by burning plastic and jet fuel. Give me Im familiar with Dobbins, he said. Southern also began weekly seasonal service from Lancaster, PA, to Nantucket in 2021. First Officer Keele had another idea. The road section used for the forced landing, formerly called Georgia State Route 92 Spur, is now called DallasAcworth Highway (formerly Georgia State Route 381).[8]. Lastly, one other safety lesson which came from flight 242 may not have come about due to any recommendation or research project: among pilots, it seems that the crash permanently killed the idea of landing large airliners on highways. Within two minutes after takeoff, it started picking up a solid line of thunderstorms a few miles ahead, stretching in a long line across northwestern Georgia. Southern Airways Express - Chicago O'Hare Airport (ORD) Terminal Arrivals Terminal: Southern Airways Express does not have a defined terminal at O'Hare Airport. Seven members of one family were killed when the plane struck their Toyota compact, which was parked in front of Newmans Grocery; the plane also destroyed the stores gas pumps before veering off the highway and cartwheeling onto the Burkhalters front yard, where it broke into five sections. Bend down and grab your ankles!. From his vantage point in the basement, Steve saw the same flames through the windows at the top of the garage door. As of May 2021, Southern/Mokulele was operating 220 peak-day departures system-wide, with approximately 120 of those in Hawaii. She tried twice to climb out, falling back both times before succeeding the third time. No fire damage occurred to the fuselage until behind the wings, which area had been subjected to an intense conflagration, but most of the passenger section up to the wings had been demolished by impact forces. The inquiry therefore also had to explain why flight 242 ended up in the heart of what turned out to be the strongest thunderstorm system observed in the United States in more than three years. Both pilots attempted to use their in-flight weather radar to find a region of clear air. And I said, You dont understand, I have nothing to help you with.. It could catch on fire really quicklyand she was well aware that the people in her home needed to be taken to a hospital as soon as possible. The people were saying, Help me, help me, please. But they werent screaming, they werent yelling, they were quiet, because the smoke they had inhaled made their voices hoarse. As torrential rain and hail slammed the plane, the pilots quickly found themselves in a nightmare scenario, as both engines failed in the heart of the storm, sending the powerless plane plummeting from the sky. I dont know whether we can make that or not, McKenzie grimly reported. Southern Virtual Airways welcomes pilots of all skill levels! Southern Airways Express offering scheduled regional air service to over twenty cities and spans 5 time zones. Do you want to go around that right now?. Could the accident have been prevented? ), Three of the NTSB's four board members signed the final report. Theres not enough fire departments, not enough ambulances. Salary information comes from 2 data points collected directly from employees, users, and past and present job advertisements on Indeed in the past 36 months. At that moment, Memphis Center broadcast a new SIGMET warning applicable to parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. ] saying, Monster, mommy, Monster, she scanned the sky for black clouds that would signal approach..., and is a motivational speaker Memphis center broadcast a new SIGMET warning applicable to parts of,... 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