From "Flight," (2012).
Posted on 05/24/2018 8:40:58 AM PDT by BBell
It's a good thing Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans had an old abandoned airstrip on its property in 1988. Otherwise, a Boeing 737 from San Salvador might have had no place to land.
As The Times-Picayune reported in 1988, TACA Flight 110 lost engine power on its May 24 approach to New Orleans. The National Transportation Safety Board released a transcript of the cockpit voice recording later that year, and it shows the confusion of the pilot and first officer after the flight, en route from San Salvador via Belize, fell to an altitude of about 1,000 feet.
The transcript, combined with handwritten statements by crew members, seems to indicate that the TACA crew had little time and much to do from the time the engines quit until the plane landed -- a period of less than five minutes, the Picayune reported at the time.
"It's several tense moments and there's a lot happening in the cockpit," said Warren Wandel, the safety board investigator heading the crash study. But while the forced landing was required by engine failure, just why the engines died in midflight remains a mystery, Wandel said at the time.
The Picayune reported that after losing power in heavy rains over the Gulf of Mexico, the crew thought its engines had restarted when the plane reached Lake Borgne. Capt. Carlos Dardano at first told the New Orleans control tower he had one engine, then both.
Seconds later, he realized he had none.
"This (expletive) is not starting," Dardano told his crew at one point, according to the transcript.
He told the tower he could not land at New Orleans Lakefront Airport and Interstate 10 were beyond reach, too, he said.
Dardano told the tower he planned to make a 360-degree turn, head back toward Lake Borgne and
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
I’m surprised only three Passengers died in that crash.
How that Plane stayed in one piece is amazing.
In my best Soup Nazi voice, no Movie for you!
“That’s a pretty short landing! If the engines were off, how did it stop so short?”
Soft field landing. Really soft field. Probably nearly ripped the gear off.
No movie?.............Waterworld?......................
We were living in Fort Walton Beach at that time and some time later received an envelope that obviously been very wet. I often wondered if it came off that plane.
WOW!!
Thank you both for the information!
At what altitude? Do you recall?
There were no deaths in the TACA levee landing. All safe.
The three deaths occurred in a different TACA crash in the next article down. Empty aircraft, crew perished.
I live in Fort Walton Beach now.
It’s normal...................
I saw a show about this. The pilot was a man of steel.
Sully tough!
We saw this on Smithsonian Channel........Air Disasters. We love it even though it’s hard to watch sometime but the investigators get to the bottom of it and that in itself is awesome.
Glad it missed.
White people make some pretty cool sh!t!
From "Flight," (2012).
Rolling friction on the grass???
Soil compaction from the planes weight upon the landing gear applied the brakes—lucky the gear held up under that load. Better to conduct a forced landing/crash on concrete than soft soil—perhaps a field of tall corn...
The pilot also had only 1 eye!
FTA: Captain of the flight, Carlos Dardano of El Salvador, had lost one eye to crossfire on a short flight to El Salvador, which was undergoing a civil war at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TACA_Flight_110
I read that. He lost his eye to rebel gunfire. I did not know that you would be allowed to be a commercial pilot with only one eye.
He just asks the co-pilot what he sees when he needs to know....
The National Airlines 727 that crashed into the Ocean off Pensacola that killed three people is the one I was referencing .
There is a good post in the comments section where the person talks about the recovery of the aircraft.
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