Menace To Society

hot croc bun

the captain, carlos dárdano, already had a crazy backstory; while flying in el salvador during the civil war his plane was caught in crossfire and he was shot in the head. he lost an eye but returned to flying after his recovery and became a commercial pilot

in 1988, while flying a brand new boeing 737 to new orleans, dárdano & his crew entered an intense thunderstorm. water ingestion caused both engines to flame out at 16,500 feet

briefly there was not even electrical power on the aircraft, causing them to lose radio, vital flight instruments, and the engine starters, but the pilots managed to get the auxilliary power unit going at 10,500ft

they managed to restart the engines but they only produced idle power, and when the pilots tried to advance the throttle the engines just started overheating instead. so the only thing they could do was uh, turn the engines off again, this time on purpose

they had neither sufficient altitude or airspeed to glide to an emergency landing at either new orleans or the alternate airport suggested by air traffic control, and the crew began preparations to ditch into a canal

while descending, first officer dionisio lopez spotted a grass levee parallel to the canal and suggested they try landing there instead

in order to line up with the levee, dárdano had to execute a manoeuvre known as slideslipping, which is normally used on small aircraft and gliders, both terms i would not use to describe a boeing 737

here is where it’s also really important to remember that dárdano ONLY HAS ONE EYE so his depth perception is limited; when making a normal landing this disability is mitigated by runway lights & markings, aircraft instruments, et cetera. not so much when you are landing on a random grass levee that is not designed for landing planes

despite all this he landed the plane so successfully that not only was nobody injured (one passenger did require medical attention upon landing but only because she’d recently had an appendectomy and still had stitches), but the plane was in good enough condition to be flown away from the crash landing site following an engine replacement! it returned to normal passenger service and was finally retired in 2016

oh yeah, and the random levee they landed on was actually next to a NASA assembly facility. which was very convenient for repairing the plane on site and flying it out again

also a small detail i really love is that dárdano’s son and daughter both also grew up to become pilots. this pic is so cute <3

My AF attack on @theawesomeaki-kun (Also their AF)

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Paws Crossed chapter 2: Starved and the Starving