Highest Duty (15 page)

At thirteen thousand feet, the narrow trail crossed over the top of the mountain and there was a sheer drop-off. We were well above the tree line at this point, and it looked as barren as the surface of the moon. Lorrie got teary, in part from exhaustion and also, she admitted, out of fear. It was pretty intimidating looking down. She wondered if we really needed to reach the exact summit to release my mother’s ashes.

“Why don’t we just let your mother out here?” she asked. “Your mom would understand. I know she would.”

I wanted to keep going. “We can do it,” I told her. She smiled weakly at me, and we pressed on.

By one-fifteen, we were within sight of the summit—maybe an hour from reaching it. But hours earlier, when we began the hike, we had established a turnaround time of one
P.M.
We knew
we needed enough energy and daylight to make our descent, and we didn’t want to take any risks that would hamper our ability to return safely. Part of us wanted to continue on. But we deferred to good judgment. We resisted temptation and made a smart decision: We had come far enough.

I was understandably emotional as I reached into my backpack and took out my mom’s ashes. I opened the bag, and it was a powerful moment when I let go of her ashes, and watched them take off so easily into the wind. It was a clear blue day, not a cloud in the sky, and the ashes fluttered into the breeze and just kept going.

“I hope she enjoys her travels,” Lorrie said, and I wasn’t able to say much in response. I just watched.

Once that simple ceremony was over, Lorrie and I allowed ourselves to appreciate the majesty of the view. “Our worries seem pretty small in comparison to all of this, don’t they?” Lorrie said to me. “It puts life in perspective.”

We rested for a bit, taking it all in. But we couldn’t stay there too long. Our hike was only half over at that point.

Descending the mountain was almost harder than the hike up, because we were so drained emotionally and physically. By the end of a hike like this, every part of your body that could possibly chafe against another part of your body has done so.

When we reached the bottom of the trail at 8:15
P.M
., again in darkness, we felt absolutely exhilarated despite our exhaustion. We were immensely proud of ourselves. Lorrie, who had spent years believing her body had let her down, recognized that in so many ways, her body had come through for her.

Flying home the next day in the rented plane, I circled over the mountain a few times, and we looked down at it with awe. We both joked that it was a good thing we hadn’t flown over it on the way there, because from the air it looked too formidable and steep.

“Wow,” Lorrie said to me. “Can you believe we did it?”

On the plane, as we headed over the mountain and then northwestward toward home, Lorrie, inspired, took out a pen and wrote a “gratitude letter.”

She wrote of how the mountain helped bring clarity to her life: “I realized how small our daily ‘stuff’ is. The mountain was here long before we were, and will be here long after we are gone. The fabric on my family room chairs really seemed insignificant by comparison. But what seemed supremely important during the hike was the giggling and laughter of Katie and Kelly, even when we want it quiet, and the love of our family—those living and those who have left us.”

Lorrie is well on her way to having led “a well-lived life.” She makes her way with passion and purpose, and by doing so reminds others of what is possible. I’m grateful to have shared the trail for so much of it.

L
ORRIE IS
always on the lookout for inspiration, and a couple of years ago, she heard Maria Shriver speak at her annual California Governor and First Lady’s Conference on Women. At one point, Maria recited a Hopi Indian poem that had touched Lorrie deeply. It reads, in part:

Lorrie said this poem moved her to tears. She recognizes that all of us have to find the courage to leave the shore. That means leaving the crutch of our lifelong complaints and resentments, or our unhappiness over our upbringing or our bodies or whatever. It means no longer focusing negative energy on things beyond our control. It means looking beyond the safety of the familiar.

Lorrie loves the image of letting go of the shore, finding the middle of the river, and letting the river take us. It’s a reminder that our lives are a combination of what we can control, what we can’t, and the results of the choices we make.

The river analogy works in our marriage and it helps us cope with matters such as our financial difficulties. “As long as we can keep our heads above the water,” Lorrie says, “we can make it.” It’s a beautiful way of looking at life.

Lorrie and I don’t always succeed in staying optimistic, but we have tried our best to live our lives in the middle of the river. Or else we’re on our favorite hilltop, looking at the world below, reminding ourselves that anything is possible.

A
L HAYNES.

Pilots mention his name with reverence.

On July 19, 1989, he was the captain of United Airlines Flight 232, a DC-10 traveling from Denver to Chicago. There were 296 passengers and crew on board.

When I was a facilitator of the crew resource management course (CRM), the story of that flight served as one of our most useful teaching tools. And personally, Flight 232 has taught me a great deal about flying—and about life.

After taking off from Denver, Flight 232 flew uneventfully for about eighty-five minutes. Then, soon after crossing into the airspace above Iowa, with the plane at thirty-seven thousand feet and the first officer, William Records, at the controls, an explosion was heard coming from the rear of the plane. The cause was soon apparent: The center engine had failed. Captain Haynes,
who was approaching thirty thousand hours of flying experience, asked Dudley Dvorak, the second officer (flight engineer), to go through the engine failure checklist. As this was under way, the cockpit crew realized that all three hydraulic systems were losing pressure. Hydraulics are necessary to control this type of airplane. The first officer was having trouble controlling the aircraft.

Captain Haynes took the controls and saw he could turn the plane to the right but not the left. After the flight engineer announced to the passengers that an engine had failed, an off-duty United check pilot named Dennis Fitch, seated in the main cabin, came up front and offered to help. Captain Haynes welcomed him into the cockpit.

This type of emergency was so rare that there was no training for it, no checklist. It would later be determined that the odds of a simultaneous failure of three hydraulic systems approached a billion to one. But Captain Haynes played the hand he was dealt, and relied on his decades of experience to improvise and to lead. He and the others realized that the only way to control the airplane was to manipulate the throttles. The four men in the cockpit flew like that for more than forty minutes, trying to brainstorm ways they might get the damaged airplane to the ground in one piece. In essence, they had forty minutes to learn a new way of flying an airplane.

Traditionally in the airline industry, there had been a steep hierarchy in cockpits, and first and second officers had been reluctant to offer many suggestions to a captain. The fact that Captain Haynes solicited and welcomed input that day helped the crew find ways to solve this unanticipated problem, and have a better chance of making it to a runway.

At first, air traffic controllers were going to send the crippled aircraft to Des Moines International Airport. But the plane was turning on its own, to the west, and so a decision was made to send it to Sioux City Gateway Airport. “I’m not going to kid you,” Captain Haynes told the passengers. “It’s going to be a very hard landing.”

The cockpit voice recorder captured both the collaborative professionalism and the poignant camaraderie that eased their tension.

At one point, Dennis Fitch said, “I’ll tell you what, we’ll have a beer when this is all done.”

Captain Haynes replied: “Well, I don’t drink, but I’ll sure as hell have one.”

They approached the airport at a speed of 215 knots, descending at 1,600 feet per minute, as they tried to slow down by raising the nose. The pilots did a remarkable job of touching down near the beginning of the runway. It looked like they might make it.

Then the right wing struck the runway. Witnesses said the aircraft cartwheeled as it broke apart and into flames. There were 111 fatalities—some on impact, others from smoke inhalation—but 185 people survived that day because of the masterful work of Captain Haynes and his crew. (Though there were serious injuries, everyone in the cockpit lived.) An investigation later determined that a fatigue crack caused a fracture of the fan disk in the center engine.

In CRM training, Flight 232 is considered one of the best examples of a captain leading a team effort while being ultimately responsible for the decisions and the outcome. Captain Haynes
turned to all the resources at his disposal on a plane in great jeopardy. Given what his crew was up against, this could well have been a crash with no survivors. Their work in the cockpit will be studied for generations.

I was honored to be contacted by Captain Haynes after my experience on Flight 1549. He has spent much of his life since the Sioux City accident speaking about it around the world. He has made more than 1,500 speeches, donating his fees or speaking pro bono. He talks about what the rest of us might learn from his experiences that day, focusing on the importance of communication, preparation, execution, cooperation, and the word he uses, “luck.” He also talks about the sadness that he’ll never shake regarding those on the plane who didn’t make it.

He told me these speeches, which he dedicates to those who died on his flight, have been therapeutic for him. Speaking about safety issues has helped him cope with survivor’s guilt. “My job was to get people from Point A to Point B safely,” he said. “For a while afterward, I felt I didn’t do my job.”

Captain Haynes, now seventy-seven, was my age, fifty-eight, on the day of the Sioux City accident. He told me that beyond what his crew did, there were other favorable factors that saved lives: It was a clear day without much wind. The Iowa Air National Guard happened to be on duty there and rushed to help. Rescue crews had recently received training for handling the crash of a large jet. And just when his plane hit, both hospitals in town were in the middle of a shift change, meaning twice the medical personnel were available to treat the many injured survivors, including Captain Haynes. He was brought to the hospital
with a head injury that required ninety-two stitches. He had a concussion and his left ear was almost cut off.

So many people involved that day stepped up aggressively to do what needed to be done. I always keep in mind a remark made by the fire chief at the Sioux City airport: “Either you manage the situation, or the situation will manage you.”

In the years after the accident, Captain Haynes lost his oldest son in a motorcycle crash. His wife died of a rare infection. Then his daughter needed a bone marrow transplant. But, through all of this, he was buoyed to learn that his efforts on Flight 232 were not forgotten. When insurance wouldn’t fully cover his daughter’s procedure, hundreds of people, including survivors of the Sioux City crash, donated more than $500,000. His daughter even received donations from families who lost loved ones on Flight 232.

Captain Haynes told me he has continually seen the good in people, and they have helped him make peace with what he was able to do that day in 1989—and what he couldn’t do. Understandably, he has wondered what would have happened if his crew could have kept the wings level and landed flat. But even had they been able to do that, the plane might have hit the runway and exploded.

When we talked a few weeks after Flight 1549, Captain Haynes told me to be prepared for some anxious thoughts. “I’m sure you’ll feel there’s something more you could have done,” he said. “Everybody second-guesses themselves. We did, too, for a while. And then we decided there was nothing else we could have done.” He had read a great deal about my flight, and told me
he agreed with the decisions Jeff and I made in the cockpit. This meant a lot to me.

He also said that after Flight 1549, a few passengers from his flight got in touch with him, just to touch base and commiserate. Airline accidents are always reminders of past airline accidents. “It brought back memories for all of us,” Captain Haynes told me.

He said he felt a kinship with me, given the traumas associated with both of our flights, and the ways in which we were tested. We talked of how we’re members of a select group now. And then he gave me advice: “Wait until you’re ready, and then go back to work. You’re a pilot. You should be flying.”

I
N
CRM training, we also taught the details about United Airlines Flight 811, bound from Honolulu to Auckland, New Zealand, on February 24, 1989. It was a Boeing 747–122 with 337 passengers and a crew of eighteen.

At about 2:08
A.M.
, sixteen minutes after taking off from Honolulu, the forward cargo door blew out. The floor in the passenger cabin, above the door, caved in because of the change in pressure, and five rows of seats with nine passengers were sucked out of the jet and fell into the Pacific below. A huge hole was left in the cabin, and two of the engines were in flames, severely damaged by debris ejected from the plane during the incident.

The pilots, who had been climbing to just over twenty-two thousand feet, decided to make a 180-degree turn. Their hope
was to make it back to Honolulu, seventy-two miles behind them. It would be a terrifying ride for passengers, as debris and baggage from damaged overhead bins swirled through the cabin. Some said it felt like a tornado.

Captain Dave Cronin, First Officer Al Slader, and Second Officer Randal Thomas knew that this emergency involved much more than just a loss of cabin pressurization. It also involved engine failures. With half their engines out, they had difficulty maintaining altitude that would be needed to make it back to Honolulu.

Slader used the fuel control switches to shut off the two engines, but opted not to pull the engine fire shutoff handles, which were designed to prevent further fires. He was procedurally required to pull those handles when engines are severely damaged, but he realized if he did so, two hydraulic pumps would be lost, which would affect the crew’s ability to maintain control of the aircraft. So he did not pull them.

The pilots dumped fuel to make the plane lighter. The flight attendants had passengers put on life jackets and then told them to “Brace!” After landing, fire trucks put out the flames. Though 9 people had died in the wake of the cargo door explosion, 346 people survived the flight.

An investigation determined that the cause was a faulty switch or wiring in the cargo door control system, and problems with the design of the cargo door.

The crew acted heroically because they knew, from their deep knowledge of the systems on that plane, that they would have to
improvise and modify procedures in order to deal with this unexpected emergency. They acted bravely in getting the plane safely to the ground.

As I studied that accident, I filed away the fact that I might one day have to rely on my systems knowledge, not only on a checklist. Not every situation can be foreseen or anticipated. There isn’t a checklist for everything.

I
’
VE COME
across a number of people over the years who think that modern airplanes, with all their technology and automation, can almost fly themselves.

That’s simply not true. Automation can lower the workload in some cases. But in other situations, using automation when it is not appropriate can increase one’s workload. A pilot has to know how to use a level of automation that is appropriate.

I have long been an admirer of Earl Wiener, Ph.D., a former Air Force pilot who is now retired from the University of Miami’s department of management science. He is renowned for his work in helping us understand aviation safety.

He once told me about an appearance he made at a forum in which another speaker’s topic was “the role of the pilot in the automated cockpit.” When it was Dr. Wiener’s turn to speak, he noted, wryly but rightly, that the session should have been called “the role of automation in the piloted cockpit.”

Whether you’re flying by hand or using technology to help, you’re ultimately flying the airplane with your mind by developing and maintaining an accurate real-time mental model of your
reality—the airplane, the environment, and the situation. The question is: How many different levels of technology do you want to place between your brain and the control surfaces? The plane is never going somewhere on its own without you. It’s always going where you tell it to go. A computer can only do what it is told to do. The choice is: Do I tell it to do something by pushing on the control stick with my hand, or do I tell it to do something by using some intervening technology?

The Airbus A320, the aircraft we were flying as Flight 1549, has a fly-by-wire system, which in essence means the flight controls are moved by sending electrical impulses, rather than having a direct mechanical link between the control stick in the cockpit and the control surfaces on the wings and tail. The fly-by-wire system keeps you from exceeding predetermined values, such as the degree of pitch (how low or high the plane’s nose can be versus the horizon), the bank angle (how steep a turn you can make), and how fast or slow you can go.

Dr. Wiener worried, and I agree, that the paradox of automation is that it often lowers a pilot’s workload when that load is already low. And it sometimes increases the workload in the cockpit when it is already high.

Take, for instance, a last-minute runway change. In the old days, you could easily tune your radio navigation receiver to the frequency for the approach to the different runway. Now it might take ten or twelve presses of buttons on the computer to arrange for a runway change.

For those who believe technology is the answer to everything, Dr. Wiener would offer data to prove that isn’t the case. He said that
automated airplanes with the highest technologies do not eliminate errors. They change the nature of the errors that are made. For example, in terms of navigational errors, automation enables pilots to make huge navigation errors very precisely. Consider American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757 flying from Miami to Cali, Colombia, on December 20, 1995. Because two different waypoints (defined points along a flight path) were given the same name and the flight management computer displayed the nearer one as the second choice of the two, the pilots mistakenly selected the more distant one, putting the plane on a collision course with a mountain. Just 4 of the 163 people on the plane survived.

Dr. Wiener is not antitechnology, and neither am I. But technology is no substitute for experience, skill, and judgment.