.........we are going to die
Time: Mid 1980's
Place: IND Tower
Players: Captain and copilot of ATA L-1011, Mother Nature
I debated a long time with myself about how much detail to put in this story. After careful consideration I included as much as I knew. The reason I gave all the details is the pilot and copilot did everything right. The company did everything right. Even the FAA did everything right. In fact the pilot did a great service to relate this event to the controllers to add to their experience and knowledge.
It was a day shift and the weather was nice. I was in the tower talking about an extreme wind storm we had a few years back. The wind was at times 60 mph, gusting to more. It was sustained and out of the north west, knocked off power, damaged antennas, put one airport ILS system out of service. It was the worst wind storm I had or ever have seen, no tornado or thunderstorm, just wind. The wind storm was at night and lasted hours. As the storm was discussed I noticed two pilots in the tower for a familiarization visit along with myself and six controllers. As the story was unfolding the pilots were listening and looking around the tower. Finally one asked if there were only controllers present. I advised I was not a controller but worked for "the company" and had taken the vow of silence (until now). He began to tell his story. He was a captain for American Trans Air.
The Captain
It was a very windy night and we were departing for Chicago (from Indianapolis International) in an L-1011. I remarked to my copilot as we turned into position and were holding to be cleared for departure that the airplane was trying to fly just parked pointed into the extreme headwind. There was so much wind over the wings I could pull on the yoke and feel the aircraft lift some of the weight off the wheels with the brakes set. Tower cleared us for departure and we powered up and released the brakes. The L-1011 lifted off after a very short run on the pavement and leaped into the sky into the wind. I pulled the yoke back for a typical climb profile and we were at 3000 feet just as we crossed the airport fence on the north side of the airport, very unusual and fast climb in such a short distance. We were headed to Chicago on an excellent climb out. The wind stopped. The headwind that allowed the excellent climb out went to -0- knots. The airplane stopped flying and fell straight down like an elevator with the cables cut. It happened in an instant and with no warning of any kind. I grabbed throttles, the copilot grabbed the flap lever, anything we could do to get the airplane to fly. Of course that was futile, the reaction time of the engines and flaps was long enough we would hit the ground long before any corrective action we took would have any result. We fell to 2000 feet. We fell to 1000 feet and looked at each other, said nothing. The airplane hit the wind and went back into a good rate of climb. As we got to altitude I asked the stewardess to check in the passenger cabin and see if there were any dislodged items or injured passengers. She returned to the cockpit and advised the passengers were not aware of anything unusual, they thought we hit an "air pocket" and everyone had seat belts on for takeoff. I asked the copilot what he was thinking and it was exactly what I was thinking when we looked at each other word for word...."this is it, we are going to die". None of the passengers on that flight were ever aware that they were at 1000 feet falling straight down right over a trailer park with about 350 occupied trailers in a plane with a full load of jet fuel. If the wind had remained at -0- for about one more second they would have been the guests of honor at one of the top ten air disasters in aviation history. There would have been no survivors and the largest number of fatalities on the ground before or since this incident. As it turned out nothing happened and everyone got where they were going. No person or piece of equipment was at fault. Nothing was done wrong. At that time we knew about wind shear, but the equipment was not good enough yet to see that one. Only mother nature was at fault at that time and under those conditions. It was like the sinking of the Titanic where one factor was just enough different to prevent the disaster. The wind came back just in time. Everyone got to continue their life.