Sometimes these things happen the other way round – one should never tempt fate.
Back in 1966 I was the co-pilot of a VC10 on a flight from New York to Prestwick in Scotland. The crew consisted of the captain, a wartime ex-RAF bomber pilot; a senior first officer, ex-RAF national service and short service commission; a senior engineer officer whose background I can’t remember and me - the junior first officer, ex-Hamble with all of three and a half years in BOAC. As was usual in those days, I navigated the outbound Atlantic sector and was due to sit in the right hand seat on the return.
The night before the flight in question, and this is eerie, I was discussing flying experiences with the S/F/O in a bar in New York, saying I was still wet behind the years, nothing much had ever happened to me. He described a couple of very close shaves he had had, and I clearly remember saying that I had never had any kind of emergency or anything frightening happen to me in an aircraft and that one part of me hoped it would, just so I would know how I would react and whether I could cope. I am not superstitious, but as events turned out…… I never said such foolish things ever again.
Next evening we made a normal max weight take-off from 31L, turning out over Jamaica Bay and climbing to altitude over Long Island Sound heading towards Newfoundland and the Atlantic. The night was clear, with no significant weather problems. At some stage during the climb we started to smell a hot burning smell that seemed slightly electrical, but none of us could really put our finger on it. The S/F/O went back to see if the stewardess had burnt the first class hot towels, a not unusual occurrence as they used to be warmed in the galley oven and sometimes forgotten – but that was not the cause. The smell became slightly stronger and the engineer went back to see if there was anything wrong in the galley because it really did smell electrical, and we also looked around the cockpit – but there was nothing. I can clearly remember switching off the aileron upset at 24,000ft., so I know that we were just above that altitude when it happened. Suddenly, from all around, from under the instrument panel, from above my head, from behind my seat thick smoke poured out completely blocking all visibility. Someone shouted; “Get on oxygen” the autopilot come out and the captain shouted we were on fire and must make an emergency descent and depressurise. Whether he disengaged the autopilot or it fell out I will never know. At this stage visibility in the cockpit was down to about six inches.
Then someone shouted that he thought we should kill the radio master switches. It seemed a good idea at the time. BIG MISTAKE. On the VC10 these also switched off the main flight instruments (Horizon, Compass and Altimeter).
Everything was happening very fast, I have no idea of the timescales, but the next thing I was aware of was the captain shouting that he could not see his flight instruments and the high speed warning horn going off. Whether the sequence was in that order or whether the captain shouted he could not see his instruments before the radio switches were switched off, or whether it was all at the same time I do not know. What I do know is that I put my chin on the top of the control column, pressed my forehead hard against the coaming and could just see the horizon and the other instruments, but only one at a time as I moved my head around. I clearly remember seeing the warning flags on the horizon, on the compass and on the altimeter but did not associate these with having switched off the radio master switches. What did chill me was the altimeter stuck at 18,000ft., and the VSI pointer on the stops pointing down at over 6000ft/min and thinking at any moment; ‘There is going to be a bloody great bang’ and then thinking you can’t just sit there – you have to do something. I shouted I could see my instruments and started to try to fly the aircraft too.
By this time I could see the airspeed needle somewhere on the right hand side of the ASI, I could see the VSI needle on the stops down, I could see the turn and slip (I think it must have been showing a hard left turn because in my memory all I can remember is turning the control wheel to the right) as I realised we were in a spiral dive. I shouted: “I have it, I can see my instruments” but I am sure the captain did not relinquish control, so I suppose we both flew it out. I knew I first had to get the turn needle into the centre, and only then pull back until the VSI started to come back to a normal reading, and to very carefully check the airspeed so as not to overdo it. I don’t remember the high speed warning horn stopping, but it must have. Gradually the smoke began to clear and I became aware of the S/F/O lying across the centre console and that we were climbing gently (he said later he had had his head up against the standby horizon so that he could call out the attitude, but I was totally unaware of that). He also told me the G forces had pinned him there but, again, I don’t remember any G forces.
At some stage the engineer must have switched on the radio master switches and I became aware of ATC calling us. The captain asked for an immediate return and that we would land overweight without dumping fuel because we were still convinced we had a fire somewhere on board. ATC were excellent, they had cleared all the other traffic off the frequency, they asked about the nature of the problem, and I can remember saying something about smoke and that we thought we were on fire, and they gave us vectors to 31L that were exactly right – neither too rushed nor too long, I felt so grateful to that controller. The approach and landing was normal, but at a suitably faster speed. The aircraft stopped with lots of runway to spare, and then we were surrounded by fire engines. As there was no sign of fire it was decided to taxi in without evacuating the passengers.
When on stand, the local manager and ground engineer piled onto the flight deck and there were a lot of other people around, but I do not remember much as I think I was just doing a normal shut down checklist probably taking refuge in a normal activity. The passengers were offloaded, one was a priest who made a sign of the cross and blessed us; another man was on his first flight and said he would never fly again – I don’t blame him.
Next morning I went for a walk in Central Park and have never seen the world looking so beautiful before or since. We had made lots of mistakes – BUT – it changed my attitude to aviation and I vowed never again to tempt fate.