American 191

[Mugs]

Hard to believe that it has been 25 years today. It still leaves me at a loss for words just thinking about it.



AA191

 

[miles otoole]

Holy Smokes!

Yikes- May 25, 1979- My 10th Birthday.

 

[eaglefly]

I remember that windy day in suburbs of Chicago like it was yesterday.

 

[Huck]

My dad was on the -10 panel at NWA back then, and the whole fleet was grounded for a while.

 

[race#53]

i was just reading about Delta 191 L1011 that landed short of 17L at DFW in a microburst and hit a water storage tank in 1985.
Flight 191 needs to be retired, anyone know if it has been?

 

[Mugs]

My dad was a DC-10 F/O for AA back then. I remember that afternoon sitting around playing Monopoly (the board game) with my brother. I'll never forget the look on my dad's face when he came upstairs and told us what had just happened. As we started watching the news reports, I remember the phone started ringing off the hook as all our relatives started calling. Like eaglefly said, it is one of those events that you remember as if it happened yesterday.

 

[banned username 2]

I remember that windy day in suburbs of Chicago like it was yesterday.

It was quite a beautiful day... clear skies and light winds... I remember feeling the house shake slightly...

 

[Steve 737]

I was a college kid at home for summer break........heard the news on the radio and looked out my window to the west and saw the smoke rising up......... a moment in time one never forgets.................

 

[Flyforyou]

For anyone interested there will be a show on the History Channel tommorrow night about this ... 8 or 9 pm I think.

Fly

 

[redshirt]

I was having dinner about 15 years ago at a friend's parents place. I can't remember how flight 191 came up, but here is the story that was told:

My friend's father was holding tickets for that Flight 191. He was walking through the terminal to his gate. On the way, he ran into a friend of his that he had served with in Viet Nam. Apparently, they had not seen each other since they were discharged. They went and had a couple of beers, one thing leads to another, and he missed his flight.

Crazy.

 

[eaglefly]

Wrong Falcon, the winds were gusting well over 25 knots that day.

I remember walking to my buddies house down an alley and watching a garbage can lid rolling down the alley on it's side (gravel alley too) and trees swaying quite agressively. It was an hour or so later I heard about the crash (although this had nothing to do with the crash).

They're currently in the process of redevelopment of that parcel of land off 32R and I've heard that there is still some debris that has been discovered.

The trailer park that got nicked is still there though.

 

[HerrJeremy]

Watched it

For anyone interested there will be a show on the History Channel tommorrow night about this ... 8 or 9 pm I think.

Fly

I didn't finish watching after they explained they hydrolic problem, but i'm still curious.... I know that the heavy metal procedures will definatly differ from the dutchess I trained in. However, in training I was taught that after full trottle, that gear and flaps came up after a failure.

Anyone know the procedure for the DC-10?

(maybe they explained that later on in the tv show, but i was watching the 1am rerun)

 

[AAsRedHeadedbro]

In any Transport Category jet the gear will be brought up but the flaps will be left at the takeoff setting until reaching acceleration altitude which is usually somewhere between 400 and 800 feet, depending on the airplane.

 

[AA717driver]

I believe the problem was that the slats were held in the extended position by hydraullic pressure. With the loss of the engine on that side and the associated hydraullic system, the slats retracted.

They reduced to v2/v2 +10 and that caused the "clean" wing to stall.

But, that's just what I was told once in L1011 ground school. Anyone know the straight story?TC

 

[Huck]

The -10 at that weight couldn't retract flaps and slats until about 220 or so (it's been a few years, I may be off).

Imagine if you took that Seminole to about 60 knots with full power and full flaps, then lost an engine. If you retracted flaps you'd stall.

We used to do this in the simulator: lose the first engine during rotation, then lose another engine at 1000 feet. The drill was to immediately descend at 500 fpm and clean up the flaps / slats ASAP. Hopefully you'd get a clean wing and about 260 knots before impact - then the old bird would actually climb on one engine.

No idea about the gear - were they up or down?

By the way, I always heard that the "forklift" was holding up the engine, with only one bolt holding the pylon on, when the mechs went to lunch. The forklift bled down and the bolt was overstressed, and that was the one they found laying on the runway.... Wish I could have seen the documentary.

 

[generaltso]

I was in my mommies womb.

 

[TCAS]

By the way, I always heard that the "forklift" was holding up the engine, with only one bolt holding the pylon on, when the mechs went to lunch. The forklift bled down and the bolt was overstressed, and that was the one they found laying on the runway....

You're right about the forklift bleeding down. That caused a bending moment and fatigue crack on the rear rear pylon to wing attachement fitting. That attachment fitting is what eventually failed. The broken bolt found on the runway was a result of the failure of the attachment, not the cause of the failure.

 

[FlyinT]

Pilot Humor

The day that 191 went down.....

There was a DC-10 model over the desk in Dorm 1 at ERAU (DAB) before the day was out, the plastic model was missing and engine and in a steep nosedown descent.. No one took responsibility for the 'broken' model airplane. As I recall, it stayed hanging for about a week til it disappeared one night.

...that's all I have to say about that.... "forest gump"

 

[NuGuy]

Hi all,

I was talking to dude who knew quite a bit about this accident. Apparently, the captain, who was the pilot flying, did a superb job at flying the airplane, everything on the mark and right on speed.

Problem was that the generator on the lost engine powered the captain's flight instruments, and there was no cross-tie mechanism. To add to the problem, on the DC-10 at the time, a stick shaker on the FOs side was an option, and not installed.

So the captain was flying V2 (as he should), the electrics on his side died. The slats on the affected wing came up as the hydraulics bled down, and at V2 the wing stalled. Because the only stick shaker on the aircraft was powered by the captain's side electrics, he had no stall indication.

Lots of changes were made to the DC-10 after this.

Best,
Nu

 

[PHX767]

The history channel special said that the FO was flying, and had functioning instruments.

The stick shaker controversy:
A stick shaker is indexed to a predetermined AOA to determine the stall threshold. This is obviously based on configuration, as the threshold would be different with slats extended, flap position, etc. Even with an operating shaker on the FO's side, it would be indexed to the slat/flap configuration that existed, or was commanded. So, since the slats were in the EXT position because of the takeoff flap setting, would the shaker onset reset itself to a RET condition after the loss of hyd pressure and the collapse of the slats? So it seems that the shaker onset would be for the wrong configuration. Granted, if the FO's yoke was shaking he could have had additional info about the ship even if it was for the wrong configuration.

What was not discussed is the hydraulically powered flight controls. Did the loss of the #1 hyd system fluid (I believe, it's a long time since KC-10 school) leave the ailerons unpowered? The film of the crash is chilling. Looks like a classic Vmc rollover.

Also the special did not mention the UAL Sioux City DC-10 which suffered a loss of all hydraulics after a turbine failure. The crew did an awseome job of getting it down.