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Last Updated Wednesday, May 05, 2004

The Rant of the Retired Government Worker

"What my copilot means is ..."

By AV8

McBlah Contributor

In last week’s rant, I told a couple of the old radio conversation stories that I have remembered from my years in Alaska. This week, I want to add another story, this time a story that I have heard many times, and then tell the version of the story that I have gotten from “official” sources.

In the mid-80’s, I worked in the FAA Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center. One of the stories that floated around the center at that time was about an audio tape of a radio conversation between the cockpit crew of a Reeve Aleutian Airways plane and the personnel on the ground who were trying to assist them with an in-flight emergency.

The story that made the rounds went something like this:

A Reeve Lockheed Electra was in-flight between somewhere in the Aleutians and Anchorage, when a propeller came off of one of the engines and sliced through the fuselage like a giant saw blade, ripping out several of the control cables that went from the cockpit to the engines and to the control surfaces of the plane. The plane immediately became nearly uncontrollable, and the crew was only able to regain control by turning on the autopilot. The crew radioed Anchorage and told the people on the ground what the problem was. In a manner worthy of a thriller movie, an “expert” on the ground contacted them to give them advice on how to handle the problem.

One of his first pieces of advice was to turn off the autopilot, and to try experimenting to see just how much control was available.

According to story, the response from the air was a single word: “B#$%^&*!”

Then, again according to story, after a short pause, another radio transmission followed, this time from a different voice: “Ah, what my copilot means is, we are doing pretty well right now. Let’s leave it on the autopilot until we have burned off some more fuel, and we’re in closer to Anchorage, where we’ll have more access to help in case things go really wrong. We’ll leave everything just as it is for right now. We are not touching anything.”

The plane flew on for some time, and when it got closer to Anchorage, the crew turned off the autopilot, experimented to find out which controls worked and which ones didn’t, and made a good landing at Anchorage International Airport.

That’s the way the oral history “coffee shop” version of the story went.

The web site www.ntsb.gov shows that on June 8, 1983, near Cold Bay, Alaska, during the cruise climb portion of a flight, the crew of Reeve Aleutian Airways Electra N1968R, noticed an unusual vibration. A little while later, at somewhere around 20 thousand feet of altitude, the propeller of the number 4 engine separated from the engine, and struck the aircraft. This caused major damage to the lower fuselage and resulted in decompression of the cabin. The flight controls became jammed and the engines would not respond to throttles. The crew regained minimal control by using the autopilot, and diverted the flight to Anchorage. Once there, they used what controls they did have to land safely, without injury to any of the 15 people aboard.

The book Flying Beats Work; the Story of Reeve Aleutian Airways tells the tale in a slightly different way: According to this book, the plane had taken off from Cold Bay on a flight to Seattle. The same story of vibration, separation of propeller, and damage to controls was told. The writer of the story, who, by the way, was the copilot on the flight, goes on to tell of sending a radio mayday call, and of getting an escort first from another Reeve flight, then from a Coast Guard C-130, and then from an Air Force C-130. He tells about conferring over the radio with company personnel who “pored over technical manuals” in an effort to help. He also tells of a flight attendant seeing a hole in the floor of the cabin, through which she could see the North Pacific Ocean 20 thousand feet below!

The crew first flew the plane back to Cold Bay, and then decided to fly on to Anchorage, and make the landing there, as Anchorage had more and better crash equipment. After seven hours in the air, they made a successful landing at Anchorage International Airport, using what controls still worked. After they had touched down on the runway, had the engines shut down, and were coasting, the plane started pulling to the left. They did not have enough control remaining to keep the plane on the runway, and it slowly drifted off the runway to the left. When the landing gear hit a ditch beside the runway, the plane stopped very fast. There was considerable damage to the plane, but no injuries to the crew of 5, nor to any of the 10 passengers.

So, did the copilot actually say the nasty word, as the “Alaska non-urban legend” claimed that he did? I have no idea, but either way, it is a great story.

N1968R was rebuilt by Reeve Airways, and was still used by them when I was flying to the Aleutians in the 1990s. I rode on “good old six eight Romeo” many times.

AV8

AV8 recently retired from a long career working for the Federal Aviation Administration.

He now spends his time writing aviation history books, Geocaching, playing with his grandchildren,

writing his famous Rants and enjoying the AARP-lifestyle with his wife and fellow McBlah.com family member, GMAK.

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