Point Man: How a Man Can Lead His Family by Steve Farrar

Author:Steve Farrar
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780307564498
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
Published: 2009-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

HUSBAND AND WIFE TEAMWORK IN THE MARRIAGE COCKPIT

Two are better than one, because they have

a good return for their work:

If one falls down, his friend can help him up.

But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

ECCLESIASTES 4:9–10

I DO A FAIR amount of flying. That’s why I almost had a coronary when I read a Readers Digest report on the crash of Continental flight 1713.

It had been snowing hard in Denver on the day of the crash. That’s nothing unusual in Colorado. But a number of other things were unusual.

According to the magazine, “United Airlines, the other major carrier operating out of Denver, had canceled its Boise flights because of the storm.”1 Due to the United cancellations, Continental flight 1713 was almost full. Undoubtably, some of the passengers thought it unusual for one airline to cancel flights while another kept flying. But due to a myriad of unknown reasons, seventy-seven people boarded the plane despite the severe weather.

Something else was highly unusual. Kelly Engelhart, an experienced flight attendant, was concerned about the cockpit crew. “In an extraordinary step, she took Capt. Frank Zvonek aside at the gate and questioned him about the proficiency of the first officer. The man’s extremely youthful appearance worried her.”2

Her instincts, unfortunately, were on target. “He was Lee Bruecher, 26, and in fact had completed his DC-9 flight training only eight weeks earlier and had hardly flown since. Before joining Continental, he had been fired from another job for his incompetence as a pilot.… Captain Zvonek told Kelly not to worry. He assured her that he would not let Bruecher land the plane on their return flight to Denver later that day. The prospect of the captain’s letting the young first officer be at the controls during takeoff was so unthinkable to Kelly that it did not even occur to her to ask that question.”

Yet the unusual continued to happen. “As the DC-9 jetliner prepared for its roll down the runway … the captain was not at the controls. Instead, he had delegated primary flying duties to First Officer Lee Bruecher. In addition to his dismal record with small commercial aircraft, Bruecher had spent only 36 hours in his whole life flying big commercial jet aircraft. And Frank Zvonek himself, the commander who had turned the controls over to Bruecher, had only 33 hours of experience as DC-9 captain. Neither man had ever flown a DC-9 in weather like this.”

But one other irregular circumstance sealed the fate of flight 1713. “Not only are pilots required to visually check the wings every 20 minutes during freezing wet weather, but no more than 20 minutes should elapse between de-icing and takeoff.

“Particles of ice no larger than grains of coarse sandpaper can significantly disrupt the flow of air over the wing surface—a condition that has a critical effect on the plane’s ability to lift during takeoff. On this day, 27 minutes had elapsed since flight 1713 was de-iced—seven minutes beyond the maximum time—which gave ample opportunity for ice to form.

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