thewinchester
Established Member
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2006
- Posts
- 1,771
Just read it this morning, and let's say it's a gripping account of how a pilot and his crew managed to get a plane back safely after the rudder went 31 degrees hard over left.
http://jalopnik.com/5629528/how-i-saved-a-747-from-crashing
http://jalopnik.com/5629528/how-i-saved-a-747-from-crashing
How I Saved A 747 From Crashing
By Capt. John Hansen
Former Northwest Airlines Capt. John Hansen flew the airline's Boeing 747 route from Detroit to Toyko for years. In 2002, the plane tried to kill him and 400 passengers. This is the never-before published story of how he saved them.
Hansen told the story in a 2006 court hearing, and the version below is his own words edited from the transcript. After taking off from Detroit in October 2002 and reaching the halfway point over the Bering Sea, Hansen and his co-pilot were retiring to the crew bunk while the other two officers took over for the remainder of the trip:
...
We got it down to taxi speed, and you could hear all four pilots exhale at the same time.
The tower said that must have been quite a ride, when you get to the gate you're going to want to go back and look at that rudder.
As I parked the airplane, I looked down and here was Sterling Benson, the Anchorage chief pilot. He told me later that as we taxied up, it was a very impressive sight because the wheels and brakes were all cherry red they were so hot.
I said to Sterling, I'd like to go down and see that rudder. And he said, oh, sure, come on, I'll take you.
It's hard to envision how big that lower rudder really is. But when you consider that the wing span of this airplane is a couple hundred feet, you can imagine that's a huge rudder. And it was impressive.
It was hard over to the left thirty-one and a half degrees by the time we landed. And there was hydraulic fluid running down the bottom of the airplane and pooling on the ramp beneath it.