Instead of being able to pilot the plane, they were briefly transformed into helpless spectators. "The pilots are real heroes," Cave said ecstatically after an emergency landing at a tiny military base on the west coast of Australia.īut if the pilots are heroes, they are tragic heroes at best. The forces that had suddenly been unleashed seemed capable of controlling the passengers' bodies like puppets on a string. All around him, passengers were suddenly flying into the air, their bodies smashing against the plastic ceiling, where they remained frozen in place. 7, 2008, en route from Singapore to Perth.
"My head hit the cabin ceiling," says Cave, remembering his experience on that Oct. The aircraft quickly picked up speed and the sound of air rushing by grew louder. The nose of the aircraft was suddenly pitched sharply downward, 8.4 degrees over the horizon, headed toward the earth. A few moments later, at 12:42 and 27 seconds, it became clear that it was not going to be business as usual on board Flight QF 72. "What's this thing doing now?" the irritated pilot usually says at such moments, and in most cases all it takes to fix the problem is to restart the computer, or simply wait until the computer resets itself.īut this time it seemed as if an invisible hand had taken control of the aircraft. The engines were running normally, the aircraft was perfectly positioned in the airstream and the weather radar was not reporting any turbulence. Then there was another warning sound and the words, in red, appeared on the screen: Overspeed! Overspeed! Overspeed! The aircraft is too fast!įor a few seconds, the captain and the co-pilot must have thought that they were merely dealing with the quirks of a flight computer.
The airstream over the wings is about to decrease! Then a metallic voice said, ominously: Stall! Stall! Stall! Danger: The aircraft is too slow. Error codes flashed onto the central monitor: AUTO FLT AP OFF, NAV IR1 FAULT. While the unsuspecting Cave was digging around in the overhead luggage compartment, lights were flashing and alarms were going off in the cockpit. and 28 seconds, the autopilot in the cockpit suddenly disabled itself. That was when the longest few minutes of his life began.Īt 12:40 p.m. The flight attendants were clearing away the last of the lunch trays into their trolleys, some of the 303 passengers were waiting near the toilets, and others were passing the time with stretching exercises.īen Cave unfastened his seatbelt, stood up, opened the overhead luggage compartment and fished around for a magazine and a pen, hoping to make the remainder of the flight pass more quickly. The calm of modern jet travel, accentuated by the monotonous drone of the engines, prevailed on board the aircraft. The Airbus A330 was flying at a cruising altitude of 11,278 meters (37,000 feet). The Australian had been sitting in his seat for more than three hours, and he still had two hours left before the Qantas jet was scheduled to touch down in Perth. Aug— - Ben Cave was starting to get bored.
0 kommentar(er)
