On the Crash of Flight 427

On the Crash of Flight 427

It's very interesting, in a ghoulish sort of way, to live in a city which hosts a major airplane crash. We are subjected here to a continuous stream of sights and sounds of the accident and its aftermath. 132 lives were snuffed out in a split second last Thursday evening at about 7:15 pm when USAir Flight 427 fell like a jet-propelled rock from 6000 feet in 23 seconds and struck a wooded hillside a few miles from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania airport (30 miles from our house) at an angle of 80 degrees with the horizon. There was no chance that anyone could survive. The nose of the plane was embedded 19 feet into the ground.  There was, evidently not a single body that escaped in one piece. Mercifully the Post Gazette hasn't yet discovered color, so we didn't have the gut-wrenching opportunity to see the crash site in its full glory until we glanced at a color photo in a neighbor's rival paper Saturday night. Actually, I have well nigh lost my dinner a time or two just listening to descriptions over the radio.  Several g-words come to mind, like gruesome and grisly and ghastly and gory. 

Sick jokes proliferate, but it's not a subject to be taken lightly, for each of the 132 innocent victims has family and friends, co-workers and neighbors. A family of five was wiped out in an instant, twelve Department of Energy managers and engineers, deleted in one stroke, giving new meaning to the word attrition. The region is awash in soul-searching and sympathy and help. Clergymen, counselors, therapists, psychiatrists stand at the ready to assist not only loved ones, but the workers who are cleaning up this mess.

The crash site is sealed off as a bio-hazard area and all entering there have to have shots for hepatitis and the like, must be dressed in protective clothing and have a strong-smelling salve pasted under their noses to counter the stench.  They are only allowed to work for two hours at a time, and we see pictures of them resting between stints in the area, with downcast eyes and somber countenance. They have placed little red flags to mark human body and key airplane parts until they can be catalogued and retrieved. A morgue has been established at a local county airport hangar. They think maybe by Thursday, one week after the event, the gathering of human remains will be done. They are reassembling the plane to the extent possible as part of the investigation.

Today there was an interdenominational memorial service for the dead, or rather for the living, but about the dead. It was carried on all the local radio and television stations and curiously featured local politicians offering prayers along with clergy.  It was a touching and transcendent event and it sort of characterized in some way the measure of trauma being suffered by everyone living here.

We see on television and in the papers, the never-ending lists of obituaries.  And we see countless sidebars about the proverbial would-be passenger who was bumped, or changed flights at the last minute, or the one who ran as fast as he could, and in spite of all odds, just made the flight.

There have been a few curious if not bizarre related events, things that make you go HUH!?!  We heard a local newscaster speak of the accident and use words like tragedy and disaster. The station then quick cut to a news conference with the baseball owners' representative, where he used the same words, tragedy and disaster, describing the baseball strike. The CEO of USAir spent considerable time on camera explaining how his airline was perfectly safe and we shouldn't worry, he flies it all the time.  I wanted to hear him describe an intensive investigation and renewal program underway within the corporation to make absolutely certain that training, maintenance and procedures are strictly adhered to and that safety is made better. There was no mention of this, just some spare and lonely platitudes about all being well. Everything else seemed to be left up to the Federal Agency in charge. I wondered where the leader is, taking responsibility.  I was not reassured.

Whenever there is an accident of any kind, anywhere, in my line of work (the naval nuclear business), we study it in infinite detail, we explore all kinds of related scenarios, we install new and wonderful protection devices and systems, we engage in soul-searching ad infinitum.  And if there is a near accident in one of our plants, all hands stand down and go through intensive retraining on all aspects of their proficiency, before any more operation is permitted.  Is this sort of thing happening behind the scenes with the airlines?  I hope so.  Oh, I'm not paranoid about this.  I know that air travel is very safe, much safer than driving, which we do without a thought. I just don't like smugness, especially in the CEO of an airline company which has had five fatal accidents in as many years.

All in all, it has been a sobering experience and an unforgettable one. I suppose I should be thinking about the frailty of existence and what thoughts must have passed through the minds of the doomed those last fateful 23 seconds.  But I keep thinking of the black box and the recording. And I keep thinking what it would be like to have your last words recorded for posterity, when those last words were "expletive deleted."

13 September 1994