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Part two excerpts
Excerpt 1
By now the low-fuel status was on the minds of everyone in the cockpit. All
eyes were glued to the spinning fuel totalizer. Balsey knew that he was
burning through his precious fuel at an alarming rate. Each thousand feet
higher he could get meant a little less fuel burn. Also in the back of his
mind was the idea of getting to an altitude that even if he did flame out he
could possibly still make it to the airport. He turned to Hugh and asked him
to get the charts out to see if there was anything closer than St. Thomas.
Hugh glanced at the chart and said that it looked like St. Croix was closer.
1934:30 SJU ARTCC: Antillean nine eighty climb and maintain flight level one
two zero. [12,000 feet]
1934:35 ALM980: Roger, up to one two zero out of four.
1934:50 ALM 980: Antillean nine eighty, do you have radar contact with us?
1934:55 SJU ARTCC: Antillean nine eighty that is affirmative. You�re on
radar.
1934:58 ALM 980: How far from St. Thomas are we?
1935:00 SJU ARTCC: Roger, from St. Thomas you�re nine two miles southeast.
1935:05 ALM 980: Say again that distance please for nine eighty.
1935:10 SJU ARTCC: Nine two miles southeast.
1936:10 ALM 980: San Juan, Antillean nine eight zero.
1936:12 SJU ARTCC: Nine eight zero, San Juan Center.
1936:15 ALM 980: How far am I from St. Croix?
1936:17 SJU ARTCC: Nine eighty, you�re from St. Croix�you�re seventy miles
northeast, seven zero miles.
1936:20 ALM 980: Okay, how�s the weather at St. Croix?
1936:25 SJU ARTCC: The St. Croix weather is�ah�two thousand scattered
(unintelligible) thousand overcast, visibility one five.
1936:30 ALM 980: Okay, I�d like to divert to St. Croix.
1936:35 SJU ARTCC: Nine eighty cleared present position direct St. Croix
maintain one two thousand.
1936:37 ALM 980: Roger nine eight zero.
Balsey turned to Harry and asked him to get the approach charts out for St.
Croix. Harry fumbled with the chart books trying to find the correct one.
�They�re in the Caribbean Jep book!� Balsey snapped. Harry grabbed the
Caribbean chart book and quickly thumbed through to where the St. Croix
charts were supposed to be. The St. Croix approach charts weren�t there.
Harry held the book up for Balsey to see that the charts weren�t where they
were supposed to be. The charts were most likely in the book but misfiled.
Balsey didn�t have time to look through the chart book himself. He�d have to
get the information from the controller later.
At some point after getting the clearance to St. Croix, Wilfred Spencer
opened the cockpit door and asked if anyone had called him. The red flight
attendant call light had come on, indicating a call from the cockpit.
Someone in the cockpit said that they hadn�t called him, and Wilfred closed
the door and returned to his seat. Later during questioning, neither of the
three cockpit crewmembers could remember this incident. While the three men
in the cockpit were busy with multiple tasks, Wilfred was not so
preoccupied. He is certain that the call light came on and that he was
turned away from the cockpit. The incident is important in the final outcome
because precious seconds would pass before Wilfred would once again be
called to the cockpit � seconds lost that could have been used in preparing
the cabin.
As they approached 7,000 feet, the ride improved and the fuel totalizer
indicated a steady 550 pounds. A few seconds later a yellow caution light on
the annunciator panel blinked on momentarily. It was on just long enough for
Balsey to see that it was the right fuel inlet pressure light. Balsey
reached up and turned on all the boost pumps, then opened the fuel crossfeed,
which allowed all four fuel tanks to feed fuel to the engines. He wanted to
squeeze every drop of fuel out of the tanks. If Balsey had any doubts about
the accuracy of his fuel readings before the light came on, he didn�t have
any now. For the first time since departing St. Maarten, Balsey seriously
considered the possibility that he might have to ditch the aircraft. He
turned to Hugh and told him that he�d better get the purser up to the
cockpit. One of the three men pressed the flight attendant call button.
Hugh, who had already come to the same conclusion as Balsey about the
seriousness of the situation, grabbed the spare life vest from under the
jump seat and was in the process of ripping open the plastic packaging when
Wilfred opened the cockpit door. Hugh looked at the startled Wilfred.
�Problems,� Hugh said, shaking his head, �we�re running out of gas.� Wilfred
stepped into the cockpit and closed the door behind him. �We�re running out
of fuel,� Balsey said. �We might have to ditch the aircraft.�
Wilfred could tell by the look on Hugh and Harry�s faces that the situation
was serious. Several seconds went by without anyone making a comment. When
nothing else was said, Wilfred asked, �Shall I inform the passengers?� Once
again the cockpit fell silent. Up until this point, everything that had
transpired could be chalked up to bad luck. If they were to make it to St.
Croix, it would probably be the last any of them would hear about the whole
incident. But telling the purser to prepare the cabin for an emergency
landing was a different matter altogether. Regardless of the outcome, there
would be some explaining to do.
Finally, Harry Evans turned toward Balsey. �Captain, I think we have to
inform [them] now.�
�Go ahead, Spence,� Balsey said. �Inform the passengers.�
Excerpt 2
Tobias and Margareth grabbed their life vests from under the flight
attendant jump seats and took their positions in the cabin � Margareth in
front and Tobias in the middle. Wilfred used the PA system in the rear of
the cabin. Wilfred had had his share of non-routine flights himself. This
one, however, he sensed was different. He had seen the navigator holding his
life vest. He heard the tension in the voices of the crew members. Still,
there was no indication that a ditching was imminent. He proceeded under the
assumption that there would at least be a warning should the aircraft
actually be forced to ditch. He told the passengers that the plane was
running low on fuel and that the captain had requested that they prepare for
a possible ditching as a �precautionary measure.� He gave the instructions
in English and from memory. He instructed them to not inflate their life
vests until they were in the water. There are several reasons for this: An
inflated life vest is constraining and could interfere with the person�s
ability to exit the aircraft. An inflated life vest is also vulnerable to
puncture inside the aircraft. The most valid reason for not inflating the
life vest inside the aircraft is that if the cabin were to rapidly fill up
with water, the wearer might be unable to reach the exit. The passengers
were also told to tighten the straps around their waists, but not too
tightly. The rationale behind this policy was to prevent a feeling of
constraint. But many passengers were rightfully confused by this
instruction. How tight is too tight? Why wouldn�t you want the straps as
tight as possible?
Nothing was said about life rafts. Wilfred also failed to mention where the
life vests were located. Most passengers knew to look under their seats
either from the previous briefing or from the emergency briefing cards.
Those who didn�t know where to find their vests quickly observed the other
passengers or were assisted by the flight attendants. There was also no
attempt made to enlist the help of passengers by placing them in seats where
they could help with the launching of life rafts. In Wilfred�s defense,
after he made the announcement about the life vests, he was immediately
preoccupied with helping passengers. He also had other duties to perform �
such as positioning the forward life raft and removing the slide bars from
the two front doors. He did what he thought was the most prudent thing to do
with the information he had at the time, and that was to get the passengers
into their vests as soon as possible.
Excerpt 3
Lt. Commander James Rylee and his crew had departed from the Roosevelt Roads
naval station some twenty-five minutes after the four marine helicopters had
departed off the Guadalcanal. They were soon confronted with the same poor
weather conditions that the marine pilots were dealing with. Rylee brought
the helicopter down to four hundred feet to stay below the overcast. He
tried using the heading hold on the autopilot, but when he let go of the
pedals the helicopter wouldn�t hold its heading. He also discovered that the
radio altimeter wasn�t working. The radio altimeter gives the pilot his
height above the ground, or in this case, height above the water. Loss of
either component meant the loss of auto-hovering capability. He would have
to hand-fly the entire flight.
Approaching St. Croix, Rylee was told that a Coast Guard HU-16 Albatross was
circling the scene. He tried contacting the Coast Guard aircraft using
several UHF frequencies but was unable to establish radio contact. He did,
however, pick up a Morse code signal on the guard frequency. He tuned his
ADF to 243.0 and noticed that the needle was picking up a signal, so he
started tracking toward the station. He was certain that it would lead him
to the accident scene. He and Hartman kept their eyes peeled outside,
looking for any sign of the survivors. At 17:20 (5:20 p.m.), Rylee came upon
the accident scene. They were the first rescuers to reach the scene. The
survivors had been in the water for just over an hour and a half
The first thing Rylee and Hartman saw was the large group of survivors
gathered around what looked like a life raft. They also saw a number of
people floating independently from the main group. The scene was littered
with debris: seat cushions, small pieces of metal, insulation, suitcases,
articles of clothing, and a few larger pieces of a honeycomb material that
were two to three feet in diameter. There were also bodies floating face
down in the water. Lindley opened the side door of the helicopter and rigged
up the hoist system. They had two methods of hoisting people into the
helicopter: the standard rescue sling and the Boyd seat, also referred to as
a rescue seat. The Boyd seat resembles a boat anchor with three
symmetrically spaced prongs designed to allow a person to sit on the prongs.
The advantage of the Boyd seat was that two people could be hoisted up at
the same time. Lindley first hooked up the rescue sling but changed his
mind, thinking he could get more people into the helicopter faster with the
Boyd seat.
The first person they came to was a lone male in a large life raft. Rylee
maneuvered the helicopter directly over the raft and set up a hover at about
fifty feet. Lindley leaned out the right side and lowered the rescue seat to
the occupant in the raft. The rescue seat was immediately caught by the
strong winds. The pendulum like motion of the seat made it impossible for
the man inside the raft to grab hold of it. Lindley told Rylee to let down
another twenty feet, hoping that the shorter distance would negate the
effect of the wind. But as the helicopter inched lower, the downwash from
the rotor blades pushed the raft away from the helicopter. Normally, in a
low hover situation like this one, Lindley would have had lateral control
over the helicopter through the use of a joystick located at the rescue
station. But the loss of the auto-hover meant that Lindley could not use the
joystick to control the lateral movement of the helicopter. He had to give
Rylee constant voice commands: left, right, forward, up, down, back. Lindley
guided Rylee back over the raft, but the raft, with nothing to weigh it
down, was tossed around like it was a child�s bathtub toy. Before they could
back off and make a third attempt, the raft folded in two, trapping the lone
occupant. Lindley watched helplessly as the man struggled to extricate
himself from the sandwiched life raft. Eventually, the man was able to free
himself. He jumped into the water and swam a safe distance away. Seeing
this, Lindley lowered the rescue seat into the water. This time the man had
no trouble grabbing and climbing onto the rescue seat. As the survivor was
raised toward the helicopter, Lindley noticed that the man was wearing
epaulets; he counted four stripes. �I�m the captain,� the man said as he was
pulled inside. Lindley directed him to the cockpit so he could brief the two
pilots. He then removed the Boyd seat and replaced it with the rescue sling,
feeling that the Boyd seat was too dangerous to use in these conditions.
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