Originally Posted by
rubik101
RIP Cpt Haynes. Just after the accident, I posted my opinion, which was roundly condemned by most but not everyone, thankfully. I made the point that Iowa is a largely flat state. I suggested that pilot's not unnatural desire to get their stricken aircraft back to an airport and to land on a runway made Cpt Haynes job a lot more difficult than if he had simply looked for the largest cornfield and glided it onto the ground. His ingrained attitude, save the aircraft and hence the passengers, led him to try what was proved to be an almost superhuman manoeuvre that sadly led to the loss of 110 lives. How about we just scrap the aircraft and save more lives, indeed, such is the strength of the DC10 that there may well have been no lives lost. Hypothetical, I know but I thought it bears repeating that there are often more than the obvious outcomes to such situations.
I'm not surprised your opinion was widely condemned. The fact that 185 survived is the story here. It's really outrageous given what those guys did to get the plane down.
This incident is used as a case study of effective emergency management. Bringing the plane into an airport saved many lives. Not taking anything away from Capt Haynes or the crew, because this was an exceptional example of crew resource management, a big factor in the survival rates of this incident was the efforts of Sioux City to engage in comprehensive emergency response planning and response which was led by Gary Brown, the Woodbury County Disaster and Emergency Services director. He is an unsung hero of this incident, and someone Haynes has said is the true hero. Disaster arrangements all around the world have been modeled on Gary Brown's emergency planning, which would not have worked anywhere near as effectively if the plane was "glided" into a random cornfield.
It's such an outstanding example of how people can and should respond to critical incidents in the cockpit and on the ground.