It's called a microburst, but the havoc it wreaked on Delta Airlines Flight 191 was anything but minuscule.It's called a microburst, but the havoc it wreaked on Delta Airlines Flight 191 was anything but minuscule.It's called a microburst, but the havoc it wreaked on Delta Airlines Flight 191 was anything but minuscule.
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Jonathan Aris
- Narrator
- (voice)
Jimmy Byron
- William Mayberry
- (as James Byron)
- Director
- Writers
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Did you know
- TriviaTitle of episode changed to "Slammed to the Ground" when broadcast as Air Crash Investigation.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Air Crash Investigation: Runway Runoff (2019)
Featured review
Force of Nature.
This episode bills the Lockheed L-1011 as one of the safest planes in the air. I say Hah Hah. Not only does THIS airplane go down but about the same time I was taking an L-1011 from Miami to Puerto Rico. I confessed to the flight attendant that I was a bit nervous about flying, this in response to his asking why I was trying to swallow my own tongue. He brushed off my anxiety. A week later an L-1011 from the same airport landed in the Everglades. Don't try to kid the kid.
In this case, an L-1011 is approaching Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) which is literally the size of Manhattan. It's pretty busy. The temperature is 101F and some thunderstorms have kicked up in the afternoon. The pilot, Connors, would rather not fly through them and asks for permission to outflank them, which is reluctantly granted by the ATC. No warnings of unusual conditions are issued either by the tower or by neighboring aircraft.
The approach is normal except for a deluge of rain until about one mile from the field when the airplane is thrust sharply downward. After a brief recovery, it's slammed into a field, bounces a few times, and crashes into a building and explodes with such force that the tail section is expelled backwards, away from the flaming wreck. That's where the few survivors were seated. More than 130 passengers and crew died.
The NTSB investigators are on the scene promptly and run through the usual protocol -- configuration of the airplane, lightning, mini-tornadoes, and so forth. The culprit was found to be a microburst, a sudden powerful downdraft in the middle of a thunderstorm. It does far more than simply push an airplane to a lower altitude -- in this case, too low to avoid a crash. I won't describe the dynamics but the program delivers an excellent analysis.
In fact, the entire series is quite good, combining drama with information, and perfectly blending actors, newsreel footage, and graphics. In some ways, one of the most touching features is the recitation of witnesses and survivors. The crashes themselves are too far in the past to generate much in the way of raw emotion. Nobody breaks into sobs.
Yet the descriptions themselves -- the particularly words, images, and speech peculiarities -- carry their own powerfully dramatic weight. "I'd been a medic in Vietnam and had seen death but nothing like this." It's reassuring once in a while to be reminded that human beings can be empathic as well as brutal.
In this case, an L-1011 is approaching Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) which is literally the size of Manhattan. It's pretty busy. The temperature is 101F and some thunderstorms have kicked up in the afternoon. The pilot, Connors, would rather not fly through them and asks for permission to outflank them, which is reluctantly granted by the ATC. No warnings of unusual conditions are issued either by the tower or by neighboring aircraft.
The approach is normal except for a deluge of rain until about one mile from the field when the airplane is thrust sharply downward. After a brief recovery, it's slammed into a field, bounces a few times, and crashes into a building and explodes with such force that the tail section is expelled backwards, away from the flaming wreck. That's where the few survivors were seated. More than 130 passengers and crew died.
The NTSB investigators are on the scene promptly and run through the usual protocol -- configuration of the airplane, lightning, mini-tornadoes, and so forth. The culprit was found to be a microburst, a sudden powerful downdraft in the middle of a thunderstorm. It does far more than simply push an airplane to a lower altitude -- in this case, too low to avoid a crash. I won't describe the dynamics but the program delivers an excellent analysis.
In fact, the entire series is quite good, combining drama with information, and perfectly blending actors, newsreel footage, and graphics. In some ways, one of the most touching features is the recitation of witnesses and survivors. The crashes themselves are too far in the past to generate much in the way of raw emotion. Nobody breaks into sobs.
Yet the descriptions themselves -- the particularly words, images, and speech peculiarities -- carry their own powerfully dramatic weight. "I'd been a medic in Vietnam and had seen death but nothing like this." It's reassuring once in a while to be reminded that human beings can be empathic as well as brutal.
- rmax304823
- Jan 29, 2017
- Permalink
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