35 Miles from Shore (34 page)

Emerson told his lawyers that if they were willing to accept $3,500 that was fine with him. He walked back into the room and told the lawyers for the insurance company that he would settle for $25,000 plus $3,500 dollars for his attorneys. The lawyers for the insurance company smiled and agreed to the settlement.

The investors who had given Emerson $350,000 in cash to take with him to St. Maarten lost their money. It remains in a briefcase at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea.
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Lastly, for the families of those still listed as missing, there will always be questions about that fateful day. For them there can never be a sense of closure. Most refused to have funerals. They have no burial site to visit. Unlike similar disasters today, there is no beach-side memorial. Even the exact resting place of the aircraft is unknown. For these people, it's hoped that the detailed account given here can at least offer some comfort by keeping alive the memories of those who were lost.

T
HE TERM “DITCHING” IS NORMALLY DEFINED AS A
controlled descent and landing on water. The emphasis here is that the aircraft is intentionally set down on water, and the crew has adequate time to prepare the passengers for a water landing.
¹
Accidents involving aircraft that end up in the water unintentionally are known as “unplanned water contact” accidents. There have been numerous accidents that fit the latter category. Aircraft ditchings involving large transport category aircraft, however, are extremely rare.

One of the first forced water landings involving a commercial airliner occurred in 1956.
²
A Pan American Stratocuiser en route from Honolulu to San Francisco was forced to ditch in the Pacific after experiencing a runaway propeller.
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There were no serious injuries thanks to a number of factors: For one, the crew had over five hours to prepare for the ditching. (The problem had been encountered at
night and the captain elected to wait until daylight to ditch.) Secondly, a Coast Guard cutter was standing by to recover the passengers as they exited the aircraft and boarded life rafts launched by crewmembers. Lastly, the sea conditions were ideal, with only a light northeast wind and swells of only two feet. Despite the favorable conditions, the tail of the plane separated from the fuselage during the landing. Pictures taken by a passenger on the flight were later published by
Life
magazine, which also ran a story on the ditching.
³

The advantage of having adequate time to prepare for a ditching was also demonstrated in the ditching of a Northwest Airlines DC-7 on October 22, 1962. The DC-7 was operating as a Military Air Transport flight from McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Washington to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska. While cruising at 20,000 feet, the number two engine experienced a partial loss of power. The propeller subsequently oversped, and the crew was unable to feather the propeller. The captain alerted the steward and told him to prepare the cabin for ditching. The following preparations were made: all passengers were wearing life vests; the passengers were instructed to remove sharp objects from their persons; carry-on baggage, food trays, galley equipment, and other loose items were stowed out of the way so as not to impede the evacuation; the flight attendants demonstrated the brace position; passengers seated near the emergency exits were instructed in the operation of the exits as well as the launching of life rafts; and four twenty-man life rafts were repositioned near emergency exits with their static lines secured to nearby seats.

After informing the captain that the cabin was secured, the steward made a PA announcement instructing the passengers to assume the brace position. The plane was ditched shortly thereafter. Approximately forty-five minutes had elapsed from the initial notification. After impact, a total of six rafts were launched successfully
by crewmembers and passengers. All ninety-five passengers and seven crewmembers escaped without injury. The success of this ditching was attributed to a number of factors: ideal weather conditions; crew familiarity with ditching procedures; ample time to prepare the passengers; and finally, the military passengers' receptiveness and responsiveness to instructions.
⁴

Since the advent of modern day jet travel, there have been only a handful of ditchings involving a commercial jet. The first ditching of a commercial jet occurred on August 21, 1963. The accident involved a Russian Tupolev 24. The plane, which was operated by Aeroflot, was on a flight from Estonia to Moscow. On departure, the pilot could not retract the landing gear. The crew elected to divert to Leningrad because of fog at the departure airport. The plane ran out of fuel while circling over Leningrad waiting to land. The plane ditched in the nearby Neva River. There were no fatalities. The aircraft, with all fifty-two occupants aboard, was towed to shore.
⁵

There would not be another ditching involving a commercial jet until May 2, 1970, when ALM 980 ditched in the Caribbean.

The next ditching involving a commercial jet occurred on September 11, 1990. A Boeing 727 operated by Faucett Peru ditched in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland after the crew became lost on a ferry flight. The plane did not carry water survival equipment. The plane and the sixteen occupants on board were never found.
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The last and most recent ditching of a commercial jet occurred on November 23, 1996. The plane was a Boeing 767 belonging to Ethiopian Airlines. The aircraft had departed Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and was en route to Nairobi, Kenya, when it was hijacked by three Ethiopian males. The hijackers ordered the pilots to fly to Australia, where they hoped to seek political asylum. The co-pilot was beaten and forced from the cockpit. The captain elected to fly south along the
east coast of Africa rather than east across the Indian Ocean toward Australia. The hijackers ignored warnings from the captain that the plane was running low on fuel. When the engines quit, the captain attempted to reach the Comoro Islands. The hijackers struggled for control of the plane. The plane broke apart on impact some five hundred yards from the seaside resort of Galawa. Prior to the impact, the captain was able to make two announcements to the passengers. In the first announcement, he informed the passengers of their low fuel situation and advised them to prepare for an emergency water landing. Life vests were subsequently handed out by the flight attendants, who then helped the passengers don and secure the vests. The flight attendants briefed the passengers not to inflate their vests until they were in the water. Many passengers ignored this instruction. The second announcement came just before impact when the captain instructed the passengers to brace for impact. Of the 175 passengers and crew aboard, 123 died, including the three hijackers. Many of those who perished in the accident drowned as a result of not being able to exit the aircraft due to their life vests having been inflated prior to exiting the aircraft.
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A close look at these four accidents will reveal that ALM 980 stands alone in its uniqueness as the only open-water ditching of a commercial jet. The Aeroflot ditching in 1963 occurred in a river and did not involve the use of emergency equipment, or an emergency evacuation. The Faucett Peru accident was not a commercial airline flight. And finally, the Ethiopian hijacking accident occurred within swimming distance of a beach. It could also be argued that it was not a true ditching. Video shot of the accident shows the left wingtip striking the water first. The plane cartwheeled to the left and quickly broke into three large segments. It's not even clear who was at the controls when the plane hit the water.

In 1970, when ALM 980 ditched in the Caribbean, two-engine aircraft were not permitted to make extended over-water flights unless there was a suitable landing site within one hour's flying time. Today, two-engine aircraft routinely make extended over-water flights.
*
The chance of losing both engines is considered to be so remote that the airlines and the FAA consider it to be an acceptable risk. However, not only has it happened before, but there is one incident on record in which all three engines of a three-engine aircraft have failed. The flight was Eastern Airlines Flight 855. The Lockheed L-1011 departed Miami May 5, 1983 on a flight to Nassau, Bahamas. There were ten crewmembers and 162 passengers on board. While descending through 15,000 feet on their approach to Nassau, the crew noted a low oil pressure indication on the number two engine. The captain elected to shut down the engine and return to Miami, citing weather and traffic at Nassau as his reason for not landing there. On the return trip to Miami, the low oil pressure lights for both the number one and number three engine came on. All three crewmembers on board suspected faulty instrumentation, concluding that the odds of losing oil pressure to all three engines were astronomical. Approximately fifty-five miles outside of Miami, while descending through 12,000 feet, both of these engines failed. The aircraft was now powerless and sinking toward the ocean at a rate of 1,600 feet a minute. Fortunately, the crew had started their Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) and was able to maintain electrical and hydraulic power. The captain called for the lead flight attendant and told her to prepare the cabin for ditching. He said nothing about how much time remained before the expected ditching. The flight attendant used the PA in the cabin to instruct the passengers on how to don
their life vests and told them to prepare for ditching. Fearing that the ditching was imminent, the flight attendants hurried the passengers into their life vests and told them to assume the brace position. Some passengers were so panic stricken that they continued to scream throughout the emergency. Other passengers were so immobilized by fear that they were incapable of functioning and had to be assisted with their life vests. The panic in the cabin intensified when the flight engineer announced over the PA to prepare for ditching.

Back in the cockpit, the crew frantically tried restarting the number two engine. They managed to get the engine started just 4,000 feet above the water. They were twenty-two miles from Miami. The aircraft was able to climb and continue on to Miami, where it landed safely.

The postflight investigation revealed several problems related to the donning of life vests. Many passengers had difficulty removing the life vests from under their seats. Others struggled with the plastic packages in which the vests were stored. Passengers found it difficult to don the life vests while seated with their seatbelts fastened. Some had to undo their seatbelts and lean forward; others found it easier to stand. There were problems lowering the back flap of the life vests. Many of the passengers wore their life vests unsecured around their waists. More than one passenger inflated their life vest even after having been instructed not to. One passenger stated that he had inflated his life vest because he didn't want to find out in the water that it wouldn't inflate.
*

The loss of oil pressure on all three engines was later determined to be a result of the omission of an O-ring seal on the master chip detector of each engine.
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Another dramatic near-ditching occurred on Aug. 24, 2001. Canadian-based charter airline Air Transat was operating an Airbus A330 on a flight from Toronto, Canada to Lisbon, Portugal. En route, the crew noticed a fuel imbalance. The crew crossfed fuel to correct the imbalance. Unknown to the crew was the fact that the imbalance had been caused by a fuel leak on the right engine. By the time the crew realized what was happening, it was too late. The plane subsequently lost both engines due to fuel exhaustion and began a powerless glide toward the water. Miraculously, the captain managed to glide the aircraft in for a power-off night landing in the Azores. All 304 people on board escaped without serious injury.
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The most recent ditching of a commercial aircraft, as of this writing, occurred on August 6, 2005. The plane was a Tuninter ATR-72 turboprop en route from the Adriatic port of Bari to the Tunisian resort of Djerba. The plane ran out of fuel and was forced to ditch in the Mediterranean off Sicily's northern coast. The plane broke apart on impact, but a large section of fuselage remained floating long enough for survivors to cling to it until rescued. Twenty-three of the thirty-nine people on board survived. Investigators determined that mechanics had inadvertently replaced the fuel gauge on the plane with one from an ATR-42, which is a smaller version of the ATR-72.

Statistics show that there are approximately twelve to fifteen aircraft ditchings a year, almost exclusively involving light aircraft. Examples include general aviation aircraft, banner pilots, fish spotters, ferry flights, and smaller commuter aircraft. There are 171 airports in the U.S. located within five miles of a body of water of at least one-quarter square mile in surface area.
¹⁰
The number worldwide is manyfold that of the U.S.

Today, passengers traverse the world's oceans giving scarcely a thought to the vast expanse of open water beneath them. Yet if history is any indication, it is only a matter of time before another commercial airliner finds itself at the end of an error chain that leads to another ditching. It's hoped that when that time comes, the lessons learned here will make a difference in the final outcome.

B
ALSEY
D
E
W
ITT WAS THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD AT
the time of the ditching of ALM 980. He had accumulated over 12,000 hours of flight time. It was all he knew how to do. Balsey would never again pilot another aircraft. The FAA revoked his Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) certificate after the public hearings in San Juan. According to Balsey, the FAA cited improper preflight planning as one of the reasons for the revocation, pointing out that Balsey didn't have the appropriate approach charts for St. Croix.
*
Balsey claims that information pertaining to the missing St. Croix approach charts was only brought up during questioning in St. Croix, and he had been told that none of the information from that meeting with investigators could be used against him. Balsey could have elected to go through the lengthy process of retaking the various written and flight tests needed to re-acquire his ratings, but he didn't have the time, money, or drive. He turned his focus on dealing with his financial crisis caused by the loss of his job. He traded in two new
cars for a less expensive one. He moved his family back to upstate New York and rented out his house in Hopewell Junction. The rental income on the house covered both his mortgage and the car payments. He then started work on building a new house with savings and some help from his family. His wife Edith went to work for a nursing home. Balsey worked part time, doing odd jobs. He also made money selling logs that had been cut down on land that he owned.