RIP Al Haynes

[Johnny_L.A]

Al Haynes, pilot of Flight 232 that crash landed in Sioux City in 1989, dies at age 87

He did a hell of a job of flying.

[OttoDaFe]

Al is God’s co-pilot.

He (and his flight deck crew, plus a DC-10 flight instructor who happened to be a passenger) did indeed do a hell of a job.

[nearwildheaven]

I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard about it. I was still living in Des Moines, working as a second-shift data entry operator, listening to NPR on my Walkman, when the local announcer said, “We interrupt this broadcast of ‘All Things Considered’ for a local news bulletin.”

When the first responders saw that plane crash, they couldn’t believe ANYONE survived it, let alone walked away unhurt and in some cases not even dirty.

[Llama_Llogophile]

I happen to be at training for a new type rating this week, which means I’m in a simulator having all kinds of emergencies thrown at me. It gets tiresome, but thinking of Haynes is a good reminder why we do it.

[carrps]

@nearwildheaven

I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard about it. I was still living in Des Moines, working as a second-shift data entry operator, listening to NPR on my Walkman, when the local announcer said, “We interrupt this broadcast of ‘All Things Considered’ for a local news bulletin.”

When the first responders saw that plane crash, they couldn’t believe ANYONE survived it, let alone walked away unhurt and in some cases not even dirty.

I still remember getting tears in my eyes hearing eye witnesses talk about seeing survivors walking out of the cornfield and not believing what they were seeing. That and the baby that survived.

[Machine_Elf]

@OttoDaFe

Al is God’s co-pilot.

He (and his flight deck crew, plus a DC-10 flight instructor who happened to be a passenger) did indeed do a hell of a job.

This. Haynes is the most famous name from that incident, but he was part of a team who showed what is possible with crew resource management. From one of his speeches:

@Wikipedia

…the preparation that paid off for the crew was something … called Cockpit Resource Management… Up until 1980, we kind of worked on the concept that the captain was THE authority on the aircraft. What he said, goes. And we lost a few airplanes because of that. Sometimes the captain isn’t as smart as we thought he was. And we would listen to him, and do what he said, and we wouldn’t know what he’s talking about. And we had 103 years of flying experience there in the cockpit, trying to get that airplane on the ground, not one minute of which we had actually practiced [under those failure conditions], any one of us. So why would I know more about getting that airplane on the ground under those conditions than the other three. So if I hadn’t used [CRM], if we had not let everybody put their input in, it’s a cinch we wouldn’t have made it.

An old-school captain would have said “all of you shut up while I figure this out,” and would have promptly crashed. Haynes had the humility to know he wasn’t the resident expert on what was happening, and that they needed to work together to achieve the best outcome they could.