Air Crash Tape Displays Calm During Ordeal

One minute before crippled United Airlines Flight 232 cartwheeled down a runway of the airport in Sioux City, Iowa, air traffic controller Kevin Bachman told the pilots that they were clear to land on any runway.

Laughing, a pilot answered: “You want to be particular and make it a runway, huh?”

That rare moment of humor in the tension-filled minutes leading up to the July 19 crash of the DC-10 was disclosed Friday in a tape of conversations between air traffic controllers and the United cockpit released by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The tape demonstrates the calm professionalism of Bachman and the United pilots, who had lost their plane’s steering mechanism when its tail engine exploded while the plane was en route from Denver to Chicago.

Both Bachman and United Capt. Alfred C. Haynes, 57, and his crew have been widely praised for their efforts to control the crippled DC-10, which broke up shortly after landing, killing 111 of the 296 persons on board.

Just Finished Training

Bachman, 27, said at a press conference Friday that he has been a fully qualified FAA controller for only three months, after training for almost two years in St. Louis.

At no time during the ordeal did the voices of Bachman or the pilots in the cockpit betray panic or fear.

“You just concentrate,” Bachman said. “You don’t even think about it.”

Hampered by missing parts, the National Safety Transportation Board has yet to determine why the engine exploded. The explosion destroyed the plane’s hydraulic system, which controlled its wing flaps, ailerons, elevators, rudder and other basic components.

Contact for 37 Minutes

Bachman received ground contact with the plane 37 minutes before it crashed. The cockpit immediately informed him:

“OK, so you know, we have almost no control ability, very little elevator and almost no aileron. We are controlling the turns by power. I don’t think we can turn right but I think we can only make left turns . . . I mean we can only turn right but we can’t turn left.”

“United 232 Heavy, understand sir, you can only make right turns?” Bachman asked. (“Heavy” is a code word for wide-bodied aircraft.)

“That’s affirmative,” the cockpit responded.

Bachman set the plane on a path for Sioux Gateway Airport. Six minutes later, one of the pilots calmly informed Bachman of the devasting scope of the plane’s emergency:

“We have no hydraulic fluid . . . . I have serious doubts about making the airport. Have you got some place near there that we might be able to ditch? Unless we get control of this airplane, we’re going to put it down wherever it happens to be.”

Steering in Circles

For next 30 minutes, the flight’s crew struggled to put the plane on a course toward the airport, steering the plane in circles while it was rapidly descending at a rate of 500 feet a minute. Investigators have said the pilots steered the plane by alternating power to the two remaining engines.

In one tense exchange, Bachman asked the flight crew if they could hold their present heading. “Where is the airport now for 232 as we’re turning around in circles?” the cockpit asked.

“United 232 Heavy say again?” said Bachman.

“Where is the airport for us now as we come spinning down here.”

“United 232 Heavy, Sioux City Airport is about 12 o’clock and three-six miles,” Bachman responded.

“OK, we are trying to go straight. We’re not having much luck,” the cockpit answered.

The plane “was doing great 360s (full circles) out there for 30 minutes or so,” Bachman said in the press conference. “I knew, whatever I did, I had to keep him away from the city.”

Bachman began to look for some place the plane could land if it could not reach the airport. Among the options he gave the flight crew were numerous small airports and a four-lane interstate highway.

“We’re going to try for the airport,” the cockpit told him. A few seconds later, when the crew had the runway in sight, a pilot said matter of factly to Bachman: “We’ll be with you very shortly. Thanks a lot for your help.”

Bachman radioed that the runway was 6,600 feet long. “At the end of the runway, it’s just a wide open field so, sir, so the length won’t be a problem.”

Amid the shrieks of the horn warning the crew that the plane was close to the ground, the last words to come from the cockpit were: “Pull up! Pull up!”--possibly the recorded words of a ground proximity alarm.

Bachman, who could see the plane from the control tower, said at the press conference that he turned away when the plane hit the ground, cartwheeling down the runway in a ball of flames.

“Right after it happened,” he said, “I went downstairs and cried.”

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