a embrarer 120 brasila departs atlanta for gulfport missipi with 29 people (26 passengers two pilots and a flight attendant). captain ed ganaway is not the first pilot in his family fo matt wormadam is a big fit in the cockpit of the small aeroplane. the flight is slightly late by 30 minutes the takeoff is normal. the climb is smooth early. the plane doesn’t reach crusing height of 24000 feet as a bang is heard and its clear theres a problem with the left engine (its a propeller plane) and the plane starts to go left passengers immediatley see a damaged engine the autopilot goes off captain tries to get the plane under control but at the rate there falling it won’t be long before they crash at 17500 feet. they want to return to atlanta but adjusting the engine doesn’t help and they get a fire warning from the engine. the plane is falling fast and are struggling to fly straight the captain doesn’t know how bad the damage is. the planes decent is slowed but not halted and they are going fast the captain has landed a plane with a engine failure before but not this bad. they head back to atlanta but its 90kms away. the pilots tell the flight attendant that they declared an emergency and they will be diverting back to atlanta she doesn’t tell the pilots the damage the plane is decending too fast to make atlanta so they need another airport they also ask for the fire trucks but they are never called they head for west georgia regional airport which is a small airport. more warnings go off and they are at 7000 feet which is giving the controller problems finding them. they ask for more info about the airport which is ok. they are falling too fast to make it and atlanta centre can’t find them so they are eventually handed to atlanta approach who run west georgia regional airport as 4500 feet is out of there radar range. they are 13 kms away from theairport 2 minutes flying time but even thats out of range now. ganaway spots the damage for the first time and is shocked at the bad damage and thinks he will have more trouble landing. the crew tell atlnata they declare an emergency but the controller wants them to go south of the airport which is not going to work at all so the pilots ask for the quickest route. at this point they can’t find the airport and are out of the clouds the flight attendant is also nervous the pilots are at1900 feet and out of the clouds. 6 miles though is too far and radar contact is lost at this point having dropped well over 400 meters in a minute. but 6 kms is too far and have to belly land as its to late to lower the gear. the plane crashes into a field but no one is killed initally and the people who own the field finally call 911 and get rescue veichles to find it. the plane crashes fire on impact and the captain is knocked out the first officer has to get out of the cockpit using the crash axe and gets help from a passenger dave mckorckell everyone else has escaped normally but are injured or on fire. dave comes to the resuce of the first officer after the rescuers get there even though the oxygen cylinder raptures both of them are safe but the captain dies of his injuries before fully being rescued. the ntsb investigate the crash and are worried after recent brasila crashes so its not an isolated case they figure out the propller is the problem the corosion on the blade is a likely suspect and the repair reports point to one man christopher bender who didn’t know how he was involved initally the propller manufacturer and a fatigue crack caused the crash but the ntsb don’t figure out why the post crash fire killing people 9 people also die of their injuries (all of them passengers) but the first officer flight attendant and the guy who rescued the first officer all live.
next time a christmas hijacking goes for 3 days.
Harrison’s world 