Air Disasters: Dramatic black box flight recordings

There was so much debris, and I remember one of the main-wheel tyres was standing right there next to the house, just within the debris, and I couldn’t see the guy. I couldn’t really make out anything in that area, and I yelled for him to cover his mouth if he had anything to cover his mouth with, and he said he didn’t, and then I shouted for him to stay calm, try to relax, breathe slowly, just to stay calm, that help was on its way. At that point I heard the fire trucks arriving. I said [to the man], ‘Somebody’s here to help.’

I ran to tell [the rescuers] that somebody was in that carport area. The fire trucks couldn’t get in because we did crash in a residential neighbourhood, and [the aircraft had] sheared some telephone poles. [Another guy and I] moved the telephone poles so that [the fire trucks] could get out, or get back in to a closer area, and I told them that there was somebody [in the carport]. The gentleman did survive. He was a passenger.

So the fire and the rescue trucks were arriving. [I] helped [the fire fighters] pull out some hose [from the fire trucks] and then was asked to get away. I was told, well, you know, ‘Your job’s done. Just get away.’

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, USA 8 September 1994 (#ulink_f66705b0-24e5-57f0-93ea-e4266c819efd)

USAir Flight 427, a Boeing 737-3B7, departed Chicago-O’Hare Airport for Pittsburgh at about 6.10 p.m. with two pilots, three flight attendants and 127 passengers. Flight 427 was approaching Pittsburgh for a landing on runway 28R when Pittsburgh air traffic control reported trafficin the area that Flight 427’s first officer confirmed by sight. The aircraft was levelling of at 6000 feet at a speed of 190 knots and rolling out of a 15 degree left turn with flaps at 1, with its gear still retracted and autopilot and auto throttle systems engaged, when the aircraft suddenly entered the wake vortex of a Delta Airlines Boeing 727 that preceded it by approximately 69 seconds and 4.2 miles. Over the next three seconds Flight 427 rolled left to an approximately 18 degree of bank. The autopilot initiated a roll back to the right as the aircraft went in and out of a wake vortex core, resulting in two loud ‘thumps’. But the first officer manually overrode the autopilot without disengaging it by making a large right-wheel turn. The aeroplane started rolling back to the right, but it never reached a wings-level attitude.