I spent most of 1979 in the beautiful country of Finland. A couple weeks after returning to my parents' home in Fremont, California, on November 28, I heard some terrible news: 257 people were killed on a DC-10 sight-seeing flight out of New Zealand.
The DC-10 had collided with Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises 12,448 feet above sea level in Antarctica. Here's a photo of some wreckage - and of the same aircraft a couple years before the accident in London:
It was not pilot error, as was immediately assumed. It was not a mechanical failure. After extensive investigation what had happened became very clear. The night before the flight, the flight path was altered by two degrees. The pilots were not notified of the change, and instead of flying safely above McMurdy Sound, they were flying directly toward Mount Erebus.
2 degrees + hundreds of miles = 27 miles off course.
To compound the problem, this was Antarctica. Mount Erebus did not look like a mountain at all. The white of the ice blended into the white of the clouds in the sky. By the time alarms were warning that ground was rapidly approaching, it was too late. More on this story can be found here.
Lesson 1:
There are Mount Erebuses everywhere. They can be tough to discern until it is ever-lastingly too late.
Lesson 2:
Being off course by only a few degrees can put you on a collision course with the wrong destination.
Make good decisions!
The DC-10 had collided with Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises 12,448 feet above sea level in Antarctica. Here's a photo of some wreckage - and of the same aircraft a couple years before the accident in London:
It was not pilot error, as was immediately assumed. It was not a mechanical failure. After extensive investigation what had happened became very clear. The night before the flight, the flight path was altered by two degrees. The pilots were not notified of the change, and instead of flying safely above McMurdy Sound, they were flying directly toward Mount Erebus.
2 degrees + hundreds of miles = 27 miles off course.
To compound the problem, this was Antarctica. Mount Erebus did not look like a mountain at all. The white of the ice blended into the white of the clouds in the sky. By the time alarms were warning that ground was rapidly approaching, it was too late. More on this story can be found here.
Lesson 1:
There are Mount Erebuses everywhere. They can be tough to discern until it is ever-lastingly too late.
Lesson 2:
Being off course by only a few degrees can put you on a collision course with the wrong destination.
Make good decisions!
