Delta Air Lines Flight 191 was an
airlineAn airline provides air transport services for passengers or freight, generally with a recognized operating certificate or license. Airlines lease or own their aircraft with which to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for mutual benefit.Airlines vary...
service from
Fort Lauderdale, FloridaFort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of Broward County. According to 2007 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the city had a population of 183,606...
's
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International AirportFort Lauderdale – Hollywood International Airport is an international commercial airport located in Dania Beach, three miles southwest of the central business district of Fort Lauderdale, a city in Broward County, Florida, United States...
, bound for
Los Angeles International AirportLos Angeles International Airport is the primary airport serving Los Angeles, California, the second-most populated metropolitan area of the United States. It is often referred to by its airport code LAX, with the letters usually pronounced individually...
in
Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles is the largest city in the state of California and the second largest in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California...
, by way of
Dallas-Fort Worth International AirportDallas/Fort Worth International Airport is located between the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, and is the busiest airport in the U.S. state of Texas....
. On the afternoon of August 2, 1985,
Delta Air LinesDelta Air Lines, Inc. is a United States airline based and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Delta operates an extensive domestic and international network, spanning North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Australia...
flight 191 crashed while on a routine approach to the
Dallas-Fort Worth International AirportDallas/Fort Worth International Airport is located between the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, and is the busiest airport in the U.S. state of Texas....
, killing 8 of 11 crew members and 126 of the 152 passengers on board and one person on the ground: a total of 135 deaths. This accident is one of the few commercial air crashes in which the meteorological phenomenon known as
microburstA microburst is a very localized column of sinking air, producing damaging divergent and straight-line winds at the surface that are similar to but distinguishable from tornadoes which generally have convergent damage. There are two types of microbursts: wet microbursts and dry microbursts...
-induced
wind shearWind shear, sometimes referred to as windshear or wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere...
was a direct contributing factor.
Aircraft
The airplane used on that day was , a
Lockheed L-1011-385-1 TriStarThe Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, commonly referred to as just L-1011 or TriStar, is a medium-to-long range, three-engine, widebody passenger jet airliner. It was the third widebody airliner to enter commercial operations, following the Boeing 747 and the McDonnell Douglas DC-10. Between 1968 and...
, a workhorse in
DeltaDelta Air Lines, Inc. is a United States airline based and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Delta operates an extensive domestic and international network, spanning North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Australia...
's fleet at the time. The flight was
piloted by Captain Edward "Ted" Conners, First Officer Rudolph Price and Second Officer Nick Nassick.
Crash
As the aircraft flew over
LouisianaThe State of Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state divided into parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, a
thunderstormA thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, a hailstorm, or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically-assigned cloud type associated with the...
formed directly in its path. The aircraft began its descent procedures over Louisiana, heading over the planned descent route. Captain Conners then recognized the forming thunderstorm and took action to change the plane's heading to avoid the turbulent weather.
At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, weather was also poor and an isolated thunderstorm developed near DFW. The Captain and copilot noticed the isolated storm ahead, but decided to proceed through it anyway, which resulted in the aircraft getting caught up in a microburst.
At about 1500 feet above ground level (460 m), First Officer Price (as heard in the cockpit voice recorder) reported seeing lightning in one of the clouds ahead.
At 800 feet (240 m) above ground level, the airspeed increased without crew intervention. Although the aircraft was supposed to land at 149
knotsThe knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour, which is equal to exactly 1.852 km/h and approximately 1.151 mph. The abbreviation kn is preferred by American and Canadian maritime authorities, and by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; however, the...
IASIndicated airspeed is the airspeed read directly from the airspeed indicator on an aircraft, driven by the pitot-static system. IAS is directly related to calibrated airspeed , which is the IAS corrected for instrument and installation errors....
(276 km/h), its airspeed instead increased to 173 knots IAS (320 km/h). Price tried to stabilize the aircraft's speed, but Conners had recognized the aircraft's speed increase as a sign of
wind shearWind shear, sometimes referred to as windshear or wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere...
, and he warned Price to watch the speed. Conners told Price, "you're going to lose it all of a sudden, there it is." Suddenly, the airspeed dropped from 173 to 133 knots IAS (320 to 246 km/h), and Price pushed the throttles forward, giving temporary lift. The airspeed then suddenly dropped to 119 knots IAS (220 km/h); on the
cockpit voice recordingA Cockpit Voice Recorder , sometimes referred to as a "black box", is a flight recorder used to record the audio environment in the flightdeck of an aircraft for the purpose of investigation of accidents and incidents. This is typically achieved by recording the signals of the microphones and...
Conners can be heard saying "Hang on to the son of a bitch!" In addition to the sudden tailwind, the aircraft also experienced a downdraft of more than 30 feet per second. This downdraft would reverse itself several times over the final moments of the flight.
As Price struggled to maintain control of the aircraft through rapidly changing wind conditions, it was hit by a sudden sideward gust, causing a rapid roll to the right and an increase in the aircraft's angle of attack. Price attempted to regain control by pushing the aircraft's nose down to avoid a stall, but the severe wind conditions continued to force the airplane towards the ground. Its descent rate reached 5,000 feet per minute at 280 feet above ground level. Price pulled the aircraft's nose up forcefully just before impact as the captain called "TOGA" ("Take Off/Go Around"), reducing the airplane's descent rate to 10 feet per second at the initial touchdown.
Delta Flight 191 first struck the ground on a field about 6,300 feet north of the approach end of runway 17L and bounced back into the air. Then, while crossing
State Highway 114State Highway 114 or SH 114 is a state highway that runs from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex westward across the state to the state border with New Mexico, where it becomes New Mexico State Road 114, which eventually ends at Elida, New Mexico at US 70/NM 330.-History:The route was originally...
, it came down again, with an engine striking a black 1971 Toyota Celica vehicle, killing its occupant, William Hodge Mayberry. The aircraft also struck a highway light pole near its wing root, igniting the wing fuel tank, before skidding onto the airfield in
IrvingIrving is a city located in the U.S. state of Texas within Dallas County. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the city population was 191,615; the 2006 estimate was 201,927 according to the North Central Texas Council of Governments, and 196,084 according to the U.S. Census Bureau...
, colliding with two 4-million US gallon (15,000 m³) water tanks at a speed of 220 knots, and exploding into flames. Most of the survivors of Flight 191 were located in the rear section of the aircraft, which broke free from the main fuselage before the aircraft hit the water tanks.
Most of the survivors sat in the
smokingSmoking is a practice where a substance, most commonly tobacco, is burned and the smoke tasted or inhaled. This is primarily practised as a route of administration for recreational drug use, as combustion releases the active substances in drugs such as nicotine and makes them available for...
section. Authorities took most of the survivors to
Parkland Memorial HospitalParkland Memorial Hospital is a hospital located at 5201 Harry Hines Boulevard, just west of Oak Lawn in Dallas, Texas . It is the main hospital of the Dallas County Hospital District and serves as Dallas County's public hospital.- History :The original hospital opened in 1894 in a wooden...
.
Two of the passengers who initially survived the impact died more than 30 days after the accident. On the ground, an airline employee who assisted the rescue of the passengers became hospitalized overnight after feeling chest and arm pains.
Delta Air Lines Flight 191 has the second highest death toll of any aviation accident involving a Lockheed L-1011 anywhere in the world after
Saudia Flight 163Saudia Flight 163 was a scheduled passenger flight of Saudia that caught fire at Riyadh's International Airport after a flight from Karachi, Pakistan...
.
Investigation
After a lengthy investigation, the
National Transportation Safety BoardThe National Transportation Safety Board is an independent U.S. Government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incidents, certain types of highway crashes, ship and marine...
deemed the cause of the crash to be attributable to pilot error, combined with extreme weather phenomena associated with microburst-induced wind shear.
The NTSB attributed the accident to lack of the ability to detect microbursts aboard aircraft; the radar equipment aboard aircraft at the time was unable to detect wind changes, only thunderstorms. After the investigation,
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program. NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for...
researchers at
Langley Research CenterLangley Research Center is the oldest of NASA's field centers, located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It directly borders Poquoson, Virginia and Langley Air Force Base. LaRC focuses primarily on aeronautical research, though the Lunar Lander was flight-tested at this facility and a number...
modified a
Boeing 737The Boeing 737 is a short to medium range, single aisle, narrow body jet airliner. Originally developed as a shorter, lower-cost twin-engine airliner derived from Boeing's 707 and 727, the 737 has nine variants with the -600, -700, -800 and -900 currently in production.Originally envisioned in...
as a testbed for an on-board
DopplerPulse-Doppler is a radar system capable of not only detecting target location , but also measuring its radial velocity...
weather radarA weather radar, or weather surveillance radar , is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, estimate its type , and forecast its future position and intensity....
. The resultant
airborne wind shear detection and alert systemThe Airborne wind shear detection and alert system detects and alerts the pilot both visually and aurally of a wind shear condition. In case of reactive wind shear detection system, the detection takes place when the aircraft penetrates a wind shear condition of sufficient force, which can pose a...
was installed on many commercial airliners in the United States after the
FAAThe Federal Aviation Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Transportation with authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S...
mandated that all commercial aircraft must have on-board windshear detection systems.
Legacy
The crash of Delta Flight 191 was later the subject of a
television movieA television movie is a feature film that is produced for and originally distributed by a...
called
Fire and RainFire and Rain is a television movie released in 1989, based on the plane crash of Delta Air Lines Flight 191 at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on August 2, 1985....
.
The crash of Delta Flight 191 was also shown on an episode of When Weather Changed History on
The Weather ChannelThe Weather Channel is a U.S. cable and satellite television network that broadcasts weather forecasts and weather-related news 24 hours a day. In addition to its cable TV programming, TWC also provides forecasts for terrestrial and satellite radio stations, newspapers, and websites, and maintains...
.
"Slammed to the Ground" of
MaydayMayday is a documentary television program produced by Cineflix in Canada. It is aired on Discovery Channel Canada and the National Geographic Channel...
(
Air Crash Investigation or
Air Emergency) on
Discovery Channel CanadaDiscovery Channel is a Canadian English language cable television specialty channel devoted to nature, adventure, science and technology programming. Discovery Channel is currently owned by CTV Speciality Television Inc...
and National Geographic dramatized the disaster.
The flight number "191" has been associated with numerous crashes and incidents over the years, including the deadliest crash in United States History. It has even prompted some airlines to stop the use of this number. See
flight 191Flight Number 191 has refered to a number of plane accidents over the years. It has even prompted some airlines to stop using the number 191 completely.* X-15 Flight 191 , experimental test plane, broke apart in flight, killing its test pilot....
for more information.
Passengers
- Don Estridge
Philip Donald Estridge , known as Don Estridge,led development of the original IBM Personal Computer , and thus is known as "father of the IBM PC"...
, known to the world as the father of the IBM PCThe IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
, died aboard this flight along with his wife, Mary Ann, two IBM summer interns, and six additional family members of IBM employees.
See also
- Microburst
- Lists of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
- Air safety
Air safety is a term encompassing the theory, investigation and categorization of flight failures, and the prevention of such failures through regulation, education and training. It can also be applied in the context of campaigns that inform the public as to the safety of air travel.-United...
- Flight 191
Flight Number 191 has refered to a number of plane accidents over the years. It has even prompted some airlines to stop using the number 191 completely.* X-15 Flight 191 , experimental test plane, broke apart in flight, killing its test pilot....
- Pan Am Flight 759
Pan Am Flight 759, operated by a Boeing 727-235, N4737 Clipper Defiance, was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Miami to Las Vegas, with an en route stop at New Orleans...
External links