Airline Crash in Sioux City

Imagine the moment of terror.

A jolting crash out of nowhere like someone had just backed into you at the supermarket. The plane takes a sickening drop in altitude.

Inside the cockpit, the crew discovers that the controls of the giant aircraft have incredibly, inexplicably turned to mush. The one-in-a-million nightmare, every airline pilot’s worst fear, has become a horrible reality. The United Airlines DC-10 wobbles uncertainly across the sky. Mortally crippled.

So begins the harrowing odyssey of Flight 232.

A tremendous amount of credit must be given to the heroic efforts of Capt. Alfred C. Haynes and his crew for doing the impossible--bringing a fully loaded jumbo jet, disabled with only two engines and a complete loss of hydraulic control, back to a major disaster-prepared airport, thereby reducing the huge loss of human life that is inevitable in any large airline disaster.

It’s good to know that with so many airplanes falling apart lately in this country we still have strong-willed, courageous and highly gifted professionals up in that hot seat. Men we don’t see too much, only occasionally hear but who carry all the weight on every flight home.

G.R. SCHERMERHORN

Anaheim