IUBio

the 'aviation flight-reconfiguration' thing

Hugh Dickson hnlhugh at pixi.com
Thu Feb 3 18:03:23 EST 2000



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






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