Word: takeoff
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...from jet lag. Yet today's highly automated cockpits require pilots to be especially vigilant in monitoring dials and digital displays. Says one pilot for an international air courier: "There have been times I've been so sleepy I was nodding off as we were taxiing to get into takeoff position." As the workplace becomes ever more technologically sophisticated, the price of disaster is higher. "So many more people can be hurt when a train engineer or a nuclear technician falls asleep in 1990 than when a stagecoach driver fell asleep in 1890," notes psychologist Merrill Mitler, director of sleep...
...airplane passengers face grave danger even on the ground. The accident, in which eight people were killed and 24 injured, raised a life-and-death question: If runways are so foggy that a pilot can miss two turns and wind up in the path of a plane rolling toward takeoff, why is the airport still open...
Landings had been banned at Metro because of the fog, but takeoffs were allowed to continue because visibility on the runways was declared to be above the required quarter-mile minimum. Captain William Lovelace, making only his 13th flight after a five-year absence (he had left to get treatment for a kidney-stone ailment and later opened a gift shop), apparently became disoriented in the murk shortly after pulling his DC-9 away from the gate. According to investigators, he made a left turn onto a wrong taxiway, then failed to turn right onto a second taxiway that would...
...late. Northwest Flight 299, a 727 carrying 153 people, had just been cleared for takeoff, and was already roaring toward the DC-9. Unable to get above the lost aircraft, pilot Robert Ouellette felt his right wing rip into the DC-9's cabin and tear off one of its tail engines. Despite his shattered wing, Ouellette skillfully retained control and braked to a stop. Said an aide at the National Transportation Safety Board: "He damn well could have cartwheeled down the runway into another fireball. He saved his people...
...excuse for protecting gold-plated weapons systems of dubious military value. The House had proposed halting production of the B-2 Stealth bomber beyond the 15 currently authorized. But House-Senate conferees approved $4.1 billion to continue the program. The Pentagon has been trying to kill the vertical-takeoff V-22 Osprey aircraft, but Congress, seeking to protect jobs in 34 states, voted to spend $603 million to keep the program alive. The trouble-plagued Strategic Defense Initiative survived with a $2.9 billion appropriation, $1.6 billion less than the Administration requested. While the Pentagon sought $1.7 billion...