a l-1011 is on approach in august 2 1985 to dallas texas from florida on a stormy afternoon and its hot which has delayed a few flights. the delta crew are quite experienced and are supprised by the heat captain ed connoos and fo rudy price are the pilots with flight enginner nick nasic 152 passengers and 11 crew are on board with an eta of just before 6pm but 10-15 minute delay is expected. the weather is not improving with storms the crew are worried about a route they are given due to heavy storms and are given clearence to avoid it. they are expected to land on runway 17left at dfw. the delta crew are closing in on a learjet ahead of them so the tristar is asked to slow down. a weather update is missed by atc due to a freequency change and its not good the weather. only 30 kms from the airport they notice rain ahead but nothing alarming yet they need to slow down to keep their space from the learjet as well. only 9 kms from the runway they are handed to another controller. they are not expecting a bad wind though but all of a sudden encounter first with lightning that doesn’t damage the plane at 1000 feet but than the winds get worse the learjet lands safely but the l-1011 tristar is in trouble with the storm first driving rain and than the wind causes the speed to increase all of a sudden but than they lose control due to the wind it drops fast towards the ground they can’t get the plane to climb or speed up they briefly recover but than lose control again seeing the plane roll hard and drop to the ground they touch the ground 2kms from the runway hits a car on the highway killing the occupent and than crash and a hanger after getting back in the air. the post crash fire kills a lot of people but there are survivors to the crash everyone who lives was at the back of the plane. the cause of the crash was determined to be a microburst a type of windsheer that caused the plane to lose control in the storm. only 27 survive the crash.
next time a miracle glide might end with ground fatalities.
Harrison’s world 