Soccer Dad

Sharkey's flying machine

One of the most amazing articles I've seen in newspaper recently was James Sharkey's account of his close call at 37000 feet.

With the window shade drawn, I was relaxing in my leather seat aboard a $25 million corporate jet that was flying 37,000 feet above the vast Amazon rainforest. The 7 of us on board the 13-passenger jet were keeping to ourselves.

Without warning, I felt a terrific jolt and heard a loud bang, followed by an eerie silence, save for the hum of the engines.

And then the three words I will never forget. “We’ve been hit,” said Henry Yandle, a fellow passenger standing in the aisle near the cockpit of the Embraer Legacy 600 jet.

The article goes on to explain how the pilots saved the 7 aboard the plane

I saw the body language of the two pilots. They were like infantrymen working together in a jam, just as they had been trained to do.

For the next 25 minutes, the pilots, Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, were scanning their instruments, looking for an airport. Nothing turned up.

They sent out a Mayday signal, which was acknowledged by a cargo plane somewhere in the region. There had been no contact with any other plane, and certainly not with a 737 in the same airspace.

Mr. Lepore then spotted a runway through the darkening canopy of trees.

“I can see an airport,” he said.

They tried to contact the control tower at what turned out to be a military base hidden deep in the Amazon. They steered the plane through a big wide sweep to avoid putting too much stress on the wing.

As they approached the runway, they had the first contact with air traffic control.

“We didn’t know how much runway we had or what was on it,” Mr. Paladino would say later that night at the base in the jungle at Cachimbo.

We came down hard and fast. I watched the pilots wrestle the aircraft because so many of their automatic controls were blown. They brought us to a halt with plenty of runway left. We staggered to the exit.

It brought them a measure of relief

We were the Amazon Seven, living now on precious time that no longer belonged to us but somehow we had acquired. We would have a reunion each year and report on how we used our time.

It would have been a moment of unadulterated triumph except

About 7.30 p.m. Dan Bachmann, an Embraer executive and the only one among us who spoke Portuguese, came to the table in the mess hall with news from the commander’s office. A Boeing 737 with 155 people on board was reported missing right where we had been hit.

Subsequent to the accident both American pilots have been detained, while authorities attempt to fix blame for the accident.

According to a Washington Post article on the crash, the worst in Brazillian history, many in Brazil blame the American pilots of the smaller plane.

They are accused of flying at the wrong height, turning off the transponder that would have alerted the passenger jet to their presence and/or not following radio instructions.

Searching the internet for more information on this crash, I see that a lot of commenters blame Sharkey for not acknowledging the deaths of the 154 people on board the jet. In fact he did express regret. Not only that but he credited the pilots of the 737 for maneuvering their plane so that it didn't do worse damage to the plane he was on.

I later thought that perhaps the pilot of the Brazilian airliner had also saved our lives because of his quick reactions. If only his own passengers could say the same.

The characterizations of Sharkey as being callous to the other deaths are patently unfair.

He also describes some of the controversies from quite a different perspective that what was reported in the Washington Post in his own blog.

Finally, I'd add that I don't blame Sharkey for defending pilots, Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino; they saved his life. If they made a mistake we'll hopefully find that out. Until then, they should be judged favorably and not be branded killers.

Upgrade: Travel Better has it right.

Technorati tags: Joe Sharkey, Air Disaster, Brazil.

Posted by SoccerDad at October 19, 2006 10:52 PM