Fate is the Hunter
Great job, UPS crew! Seeing the intensity of the fire and reading that it was first detected by the crew only about five miles from their destination made me think about the sad alternative outcome that may have happened had the fire started earlier in their flight.
I personally had an electrical fire inside a Beechjet at night with a new student in the left seat. Fortunately, we were only 30 miles from the home airport in the decent through 13,000' in severe clear VMC and flew 300 KIAS all the way there to get it on the ground. The man upstairs looked out for us that night.
I heard Capt Al Haynes speak about UAL flight 232 in Sioux City and he commented on the divine providence that seems to throw aviators a bone when the chips are down. He said that if they had not been immediately over an airport to which they could spiral down while able only to make right turns, in CAUV daylight conditions, they would not have had any chance of success. By the way, it was the one airport for miles around that had just rehersed a mass causualty drill.
Please be safe out there, look out for our brothers and sisters in the business, lend a helping hand to those aspiring to be where you are, avoid complacency or dejection when management doesn't treat you right and thank your personal savior when life throws you a bone.
Here is something I found Googling for UAL 232 info:
http://yarchive.net/air/airliners/dc10_sioux_city.html
I think there are five factors that contribute to the
degree of success that we had at Sioux City: that is, luck,
communications, preparation, execution, and cooperation. And I would
like to talk about those five things today.
First of all, we all have our own personal beliefs and convictions, and
I would never intrude on yours, so for the sake of discussion, we call
our first factor "luck." You may call it whatever you wish.
