5 ms·
My father was a survivor of China Airlines Flight 006, which in 1985 fell 30,000 feet over 2.5 minutes and corrected tens of seconds before impact with the Paci
by neomantra 5y ago
My father was a survivor of China Airlines Flight 006, which in 1985 fell 30,000 feet over 2.5 minutes and corrected tens of seconds before impact with the Pacific. The incident was caused by human error, but also recovered by the skill of the same Captain; after it, the FAA made new guidelines about crew schedules and mandatory rest times.
Stephen passed away January 2021 from COVID (but had an amazing 85-year life) and I was just reading his diary from the incident. The gist:
There was still an hour left before an emergency landing at SFO. The cabin was festering with vomit and tears, but there was a profound sense of love and connectedness and compassion among every passenger. Every one felt touched by a Divine Grace.
However, after a only few hours at the terminal and people could finally leave, it was every person for themselves as they physically and verbally harassed each over to get to where they were going. So quickly back to being selfish humans...
My Mom said she would drive from Los Angeles to get him, but he said that if he didn't get on a plane right then, he would never be able to fly again. So he courageously flew SFO->LAX right away, one of many flights he would continue to take throughout his life.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_006
- avh02 5y agoholy crap - i've read about that flight so many times - it's one of the stories that keeps me relatively calm in turbulence* (along with the video of the famous 777 wing failure test) - they both give me solace in how much a plane is built to survive (yet, i read a lot about plane crashes, and also know what small things/mistakes/flaws lead to the opposite outcome) * (obvi unfortunate that it happened and people had to experience that) and sorry to hear about your father.
- logshipper 5y agoI am somewhat interested in reading about plane crashes and such. Are there any books/resources you can recommend to me?
- avh02 5y agoPersonally I just go through Wikipedia articles, some are a little short on details but will often enough link you to more I'm depth information. I end up just jumping from one article to another through the "see also" links and similar accidents Edit: occasionally you'd also find a podcast episode covering a particular crash or documentaries like air crash investigation or similar
- ohdannyboy 5y agoIf you like documentaries there is a whole genre on Youtube that covers air incidents. Lots exist but the ones I follow are Mentour Pilot (technical / crew focused analysis from an airline pilot), Wonder (more TV style focused on the passengers and stories), Air Safety Institute and FlyWire- scott perdue (small-time incident analysis geared towards educating private pilots).
- interestica 5y agoMore than just the accidents, you can keep up with all the random incidents that are reported (and could potentially have been worse). Eg last month "Screwdriver tip left in engine during maintenance results in engine failure on take-off" https://aviation-safety.net/ https://aviation-safety.net/
- randycupertino 5y agoThe youtube video of the guy hangliding which took off without him strapped in is pretty incredible. He survived by holding on, only ended up breaking his wrist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLBJA8SlH2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLBJA8SlH2w
- mardifoufs 5y agoThere's a guy on reddit making a written series on air crashes, with articles every Saturday and it's been going for a few years now. https://www.old.reddit.com/r/AdmiralCloudberg/ https://www.old.reddit.com/r/AdmiralCloudberg/ It's obviously not extremely technical (though a lot more than I'd have thought), and it's probably nothing you can't get from more in depth websites but it's neatly organized, well written and the articles are getting better and better. I like that he keeps conjecture to a minimum too but still points out what lessons can be learnt from the tragedies. The only thing is that I'd recommend reading it through the Medium link he posts in the comments instead of the linked imgur albums. It's a much better experience
- firecall 5y agoAgreed, and I like to always think of turbulence as a demonstration that the plane is working as intended!
- e40 5y agofell 30,000 feet over 2.5 minutes and corrected tens of seconds before impact with the Pacific What does "corrected tens of seconds before impact" mean here? Thanks.
- bombcar 5y agoIf they hadn't leveled out and stopped descending, in a few more seconds they would have impacted the Pacific Ocean.
- neomantra 5y agoCorrect, that's what I meant, thanks.
- heliodor 5y ago"Tens of seconds" versus "a few seconds" is quite different in this scenario.
- hallway_monitor 5y agook