Read Online Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival by Laurence Gonzales - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Laurence Gonzales
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herself up as best she could. She looked in the mirror. She saw the young flight attendant in uniform, not ready to die. Especially not ready for all these others to die. “I finally had my dream job,” she later said, “and it’s turning into the nightmare of my life. You think you’re going to have this great job and this is what we all train for, but we hope that it never happens.” They had been less than an hour from Chicago. Now the captain was saying they were turning back west to make an emergency landing at Sioux City. She asked herself, “Where the heck is Sioux City?” She turned away from the mirror, closed her eyes, and then she prayed. She prayed and prayed. And when she emerged from the bathroom, she felt strong and ready to face whatever was coming. As she closed the door to the lavatory, she heard Jan Brown announce, “Demo positions,” so she strode forward to exit 3-Left, where she could stand before her congregation and demonstrate what needed to be done.
As Martha Conant watched White recede up the aisle, she thought, “Why won’t they tell us what’s going on?” Then again, Conant thought, perhaps she didn’t really want to know. Perhaps it would be quick and painless. She noticed a young woman ahead of her. Conant watched the woman—a girl, really, about college age—jump up, snatch an Airphone, and rush back to her seat. As Conant eavesdropped, twenty-one-year-old Kari Milford called her boyfriend, Kyle Persinger, the man she hoped would one day marry her. The cabin had fallen so quiet that Conant could hear everything Kari said. “Yeah, we’re going to be a little late, we’re having some kind of problem,” she said. “I’ll let you know.”
More than twenty-three years later, Susan Randa remembered nearly the same words: “We’ve had a problem with the flight. We’re going to be late coming into Chicago. So I’ll give you a call when we’re closer.”
Susan Randa realized that Kari was sitting with two children. She was traveling with her brother Jerry, thirty-eight, and his sons, David, seven, and Tom, nine.
“I’ve always remembered that,” Conant recalled, “because she was so matter-of-fact.”
And Susan Randa thought, as she later said, “Late coming into Chicago! You are so dreaming. Your reality is so much different from my reality.”
But she and Conant misunderstood what they were hearing. Kari had wanted to call her boyfriend to keep him from leaving for the airport, but he had already left. She reached his grandmother instead. Kari was trying not to upset her, even though she could feel her heart collapsing in her chest at the thought that she might never see Kyle again, might never marry or have children such as these two little boys traveling with her. And now she had missed her last chance to say good-bye.
At about nineteen minutes to four in the afternoon , as Jan Brown left the cockpit to prepare the cabin, the pilots were trying without success to point the plane toward Sioux City, as the rudderless ship continued its right-hand spirals. In addition, the pilots were still struggling with the oscillations that were carrying the nose slowly up and down from a few hundred to more than a thousand feet each minute in an irregular undulating wave. The DC-10 was flying the way a paper airplane would fly if thrown from a height—first nose down, then nose up, then nose down, then nose up. That motion is called a phugoid oscillation, and the crew well understood that they could not possibly land the plane safely without putting an end to it. So they had been trying to get ahead of the plane and to control how much the right wing dropped and how much the ship pitched up and down during each phugoid cycle. They tried to anticipate the behavior of the craft, and in fact, they were gradually “ getting in tune with the airplane,” as Fitch later put it.
Records said, “While Denny was in fact controlling the throttles, it was not without a lot of input
As Martha Conant watched White recede up the aisle, she thought, “Why won’t they tell us what’s going on?” Then again, Conant thought, perhaps she didn’t really want to know. Perhaps it would be quick and painless. She noticed a young woman ahead of her. Conant watched the woman—a girl, really, about college age—jump up, snatch an Airphone, and rush back to her seat. As Conant eavesdropped, twenty-one-year-old Kari Milford called her boyfriend, Kyle Persinger, the man she hoped would one day marry her. The cabin had fallen so quiet that Conant could hear everything Kari said. “Yeah, we’re going to be a little late, we’re having some kind of problem,” she said. “I’ll let you know.”
More than twenty-three years later, Susan Randa remembered nearly the same words: “We’ve had a problem with the flight. We’re going to be late coming into Chicago. So I’ll give you a call when we’re closer.”
Susan Randa realized that Kari was sitting with two children. She was traveling with her brother Jerry, thirty-eight, and his sons, David, seven, and Tom, nine.
“I’ve always remembered that,” Conant recalled, “because she was so matter-of-fact.”
And Susan Randa thought, as she later said, “Late coming into Chicago! You are so dreaming. Your reality is so much different from my reality.”
But she and Conant misunderstood what they were hearing. Kari had wanted to call her boyfriend to keep him from leaving for the airport, but he had already left. She reached his grandmother instead. Kari was trying not to upset her, even though she could feel her heart collapsing in her chest at the thought that she might never see Kyle again, might never marry or have children such as these two little boys traveling with her. And now she had missed her last chance to say good-bye.
At about nineteen minutes to four in the afternoon , as Jan Brown left the cockpit to prepare the cabin, the pilots were trying without success to point the plane toward Sioux City, as the rudderless ship continued its right-hand spirals. In addition, the pilots were still struggling with the oscillations that were carrying the nose slowly up and down from a few hundred to more than a thousand feet each minute in an irregular undulating wave. The DC-10 was flying the way a paper airplane would fly if thrown from a height—first nose down, then nose up, then nose down, then nose up. That motion is called a phugoid oscillation, and the crew well understood that they could not possibly land the plane safely without putting an end to it. So they had been trying to get ahead of the plane and to control how much the right wing dropped and how much the ship pitched up and down during each phugoid cycle. They tried to anticipate the behavior of the craft, and in fact, they were gradually “ getting in tune with the airplane,” as Fitch later put it.
Records said, “While Denny was in fact controlling the throttles, it was not without a lot of input
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