On the 19th of July, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232 took to the skies on what was to
be a routine trip from Denver’s Stapleton International Airport to Philadelphia International
Airport, with a stop on the way at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.
But Flight 232 would never make it to its destination: disaster would strike barely
an hour into the journey, leaving the airplane’s crew fighting for the lives of themselves
and every single passenger on board.
United Airlines is a US-based airline company that has been operating continuously since
1931.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, they were a popular choice, especially for shorter cross-country
journeys.
Though not the largest airline, they were still well-respected in the industry.
United boasted a fleet that remained modern throughout the years, with Douglas DC-7s,
giving way to Boeing 737s, then to McDonnell Douglas DC-10s as the company matured.
The plane flying as “United Airlines 232” on the 19th of July 1989 was a DC-10, with
the registration N1819U.
The aircraft itself was 18 years old and had seen a total of 43,401 flight hours – neither
brand new, nor so old that it was nearing the end of its life.
The crew on board had varying levels of experience.
57-year-old Captain Alfred Haynes had been with United since 1956 and had flown more
than 7,000 Hours in the DC-10.
First Officer William Records, 48 years old, got his start at National Airlines in 1969,
then flew with Pan American before joining United in 1985.
He had only around 600 flight hours in the DC-10.
Finally, 51-year-old Flight Engineer Dudley Dvorak, had been hired by United in 1986,
but had accrued only 33 hours in the DC-10.
Also on board were eight flight attendants and a total of 285 passengers, many of whom
were travelling with young children seated on their laps.
United was running a “Children’s Day” promotion at the time, whereby Children under
14 with an accompanying adult could fly for just a penny.
Many passengers had taken advantage of this promotion, hoping to reach their vacation
destinations with a massively reduced fare.
At 2:09pm, United 232 took off from Denver, with an uneventful climb to cruising altitude.
The aircraft leveled off at 11,277 meters (or 37,000 feet) and remained there for an
hour.
The flight proceeded exactly as scheduled until 3:16pm, when a violent jolt shook the
plane and everyone on board.
The jolt was accompanied by a loud bang.
Almost immediately, the autopilot disengaged, and indicators showed Captain Haynes that
the number two engine had malfunctioned.
He tried to reduce power to that engine but found the throttles jammed.
The crew were able to shut it down completely but as they did so they discovered they could
no longer control the plane with their control columns.
Flight Engineer Dvorak found that all the hydraulic systems – essential for controlling
the plane – were, alarmingly, fully depleted.
All attempts to use auxiliary power to bring these systems back online proved unsuccessful.
The plane entered a phugoid cycle – a pattern of flight where the plane moves up and down
in a wave-like pattern.
At the same time it began banking further and further to the right.
The crew could find no procedures for dealing with this situation.
Even a desperate radio call to United Airlines maintenance yielded no results.
In a stroke of good fortune, 46-year-old Denny Fitch, a DC-10 flight instructor, happened
to be on board as a passenger.
He recognized the rolling pitch effect the plane was experiencing.
Since becoming an instructor, he had studied the crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123, which
occurred just four years prior.
That flight had also lost all hydraulics and had also endured similar up-and-down phugoid
cycles before crashing.
After speaking to a flight attendant, Denny Fitch was taken up to the cockpit.
There he worked with the flight crew to quickly determine what the plane could and could not
do.
They found that they were able to exercise some rudimentary control, and “steer”
the plane to the right by adjusting the power to the remaining engines.
At the same time they could adjust their pitch to counteract the phugoid cycle.
Captain Haynes asked Fitch to take control of the throttles so he could focus on the
control column.
Despite the precarious situation, the crew remained calm and collected, even lightening
the tension with the occasional joke.
Fitch was recorded saying:
“I'll tell you what, we'll have a beer when this is all done.”
To which Captain Haynes replied:
“Well, I don't drink, but I'll sure as hell have one.”
The crew was able to turn the stricken plane towards Sioux Gateway Airport.
As they did so, Captain Haynes requested that Air Traffic Controllers keep them well away
from the city itself – a sign that, despite his calm humor – he understood the gravity
of the situation.
As Flight 232 came in to land a last minute adjustment was made.
Unable to line the plane up properly with Runway 31 as planned, the crew aimed instead
for Runway 22… the exact place where rescue vehicles had assembled to await their landing.
These vehicles were quickly moved out of the way.
The plane approached high and fast – much faster than was safe – with the landing
gear deployed.
Before the plane touched down, it began to bank sharply to the right.
The crew increased thrust to the right engines to counteract this roll, but it was too late.
The right wing struck the runway, breaking off as the rest of the aircraft slammed into
the ground.
The fuselage broke apart from the impact, and the fuel ignited.
The aircraft disintegrated in a massive fireball, with the mostly-intact cockpit and tail sections
coming to rest in the cornfields adjacent to the airport.
Even with fire engines already on scene, the fire was so intense that it burned for more
than five hours.
The crash and fire were so violent that first responders were doubtful anyone could have
survived… and yet many did.
185 people lived through the crash, with one survivor later dying from their injuries.
Indeed, not only did many people survive, but in many cases they helped one another
escape the burning wreckage of the plane.
Passenger Jerry Schemmel, for example, lost a friend in the crash, but escaped the wreckage
himself… only to go back in to save an 11-month-old child.
Despite the actions of the surviving passengers, and the prompt response of emergency services,
112 people lost their lives in the disaster.
The investigation into the crash of Flight 232 was swift but not straightforward.
The main focus of the investigation, the number two engine, was missing crucial disc fan components
that could not be found at the crash site or in the immediate area.
Its manufacturer, General Electric, put up a bounty for the missing components, which
was claimed when a farmer found them in her field three months later.
Test results were conclusive - the engine disc fan had developed a fault when it was
manufactured back in 1971.
The steel used had an impurity, which caused it to fatigue and crack over time, finally
giving way mid-flight.
United Airlines maintenance personnel should have caught this fatigue crack early on, but
it was found that procedures at United Airlines paid little attention to faults such as this
one.
The NTSB found that when the disc failed, it did so with explosive force, which damaged
not only the engine assembly itself but also part of the tail, rear elevators, and the
hydraulics – causing them to leak out until empty.
This explained why the crew had experienced so much difficulty controlling the plane.
After the investigation was concluded and the findings published, many changes were
made in the aviation industry.
Newly-built aircraft were given upgraded hydraulic systems to prevent a loss of hydraulics, United
updated its maintenance procedures, and Flight 232 became a case study demonstrating excellent
crew resource management in a crisis.
Indeed, the crew worked together so well that, when challenged with a recreation of the disaster
in a simulator, test pilots could not match or exceed their performance.
The crew was highly commended for carrying out what was referred to as an “impossible
landing”.
Captain Haynes received many awards and much of the recognition, though he always insisted
that credit was shared equally with his fellow crewmembers, who had all survived the crash
with serious injuries.
Captain Haynes would go on to be a public speaker on aviation safety and would appear
in many interviews describing his experience that day.
A memorial to those who lost their lives was erected years later.
The DC-10s in United’s fleet would continue to fly for a number of years, until they were
eventually retired in 2001.
Though the crash of United 232 resulted in the loss of many lives, were it not for the
teamwork, ingenuity and incredibly calm response of the crew, the end result could have been
significantly worse.