July 26, 2005
Kerry McMahon and his co-pilot: "Is that an aircraft in front of us?"
A Dark Night and Then, 'Is That an Aircraft in Front of Us?' - New York TimesThe captain who gave the account was acting as the co-pilot, and as his eyes alternated between the windows and the instrument panel, he looked ahead but did not see anything. But the first officer saw what he thought were lights, the captain said, and asked again, "Is that an aircraft in front of us?" He swiftly took action, pulling back on the yoke and lifting the roaring jet's nose sharply into the air.
A disaster was averted by the narrowest of margins: the ABX Air DC-8 missed a fully loaded Israir Boeing 767, with 262 people on board, by 75 feet at the nose, the captain estimated, and as little as 45 feet at the tail, which was much lower because of the angle of the plane during its ascent. The July 6 incident, in which the 767 taxied onto an active runway shortly before 2 a.m. while preparing to take off, is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
In an interview on Sunday night, the captain of the cargo plane, Kerry McMahon, gave his first public account of the dramatic seconds when the two planes nearly collided. The first officer, who has not been identified by ABX, "did an outstanding job," Mr. McMahon
Whoa
Posted by TY at July 26, 2005 9:03 PM
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