IUBio

the 'aviation flight-reconfiguration' thing

Arthur T. Murray uj797 at victoria.tc.ca
Thu Feb 3 14:02:36 EST 2000


Somebody wrote in bionet.neuroscience (of all places!):

>> the MD-80 plane crash yesterday. the stabilizer problem is analogous to
>> the nervous system 'lesion'. the pilots tried desperately to correct for
>> the malfunction induced by the stabilizer failure, but because the
>> failure of the stabilizer =separated= the stabilizer's functionality
>> from the rest of the plane's controlable dynamics, the efforts of the
>> pilots 'only' led to the deterioration of the functionality of the
>> remaining control systems.

The following may be a dumb and naive question, and may have already
been asked, but:

Could the Alaska Airline pilots have saved the aircraft by asking
all the passengers to walk to the back of the cabin, thus, by their
body weight, forcing down the tail area which had been elevated by
a jammed stabilizer wing?  Would the weight of 88 passengers and crew
have been enough to level out the flight of the airplane?

A hideous thought because it is in hindsight, but, might it have worked?

--
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/7256/mind4th.html PD AI




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