Arthur T. Murray wrote:
> 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?
>>
Aloha, Only time I know of that pax were used to change
CG during an emergency was Pan Am, B-747, SFO, very early 70s.
Hugh