Читать книгу Air Disasters: Dramatic black box flight recordings - Malcolm MacPherson, Malcolm MacPherson - Страница 8

With fifty-two passengers, two cockpit crew and three flight attendants aboard, US Air Flight 1016 was executing a ‘missed approach’ while attempting to land on runway 18R at 6.42 p.m. in ‘meteorological conditions’.Itwas raining hard. ‘Convective activity that was conducive to a microburst [wind shear]’, according to the NTSB, punched the Douglas DC-9-31 to the ground, where it collided with trees, breaking up, skidding like a toboggan down a residential lane and smashed into a private residence, catching fire. The captain and one flight attendant suffered minor injuries. The first officer, two flight attendants and fifteen passengers sustained serious injuries. The remaining thirty-seven passengers died. Impact forces and a post-crash fire destroyed the aeroplane. No one on the ground was injured or killed.

Despite a thunderstorm ‘cell’ advancing on the area, the cockpit crew had every reason to believe that a smooth approach and landing were possible.