Pilot and copilot, both young and experienced, lift a heavy Boeing 747 off the ground at Dubai Airport in the Middle East. The airplane belongs to PBS and is carrying a cargo of several tons. Some half hour into the flight, a warning light appears on the instrument panel, reporting a fire in one of the several dozen cargo holds aft.
The crew go through the checklist and perform the recommended operations -- activating the fire extinguishers and venting the cargo hold to reduce the amount of oxygen. Then the pilot contacts ground control, informs them that they're returning to Dubai, and makes the turn.
They've done everything according to the book, and they've done it right. Yet what follows is a terrifying series of mounting assaults on the aircraft's integrity. The fire spreads, the flight deck fills with blinding smoke, the oxygen supply to their masks fails, the pilot is disabled, radio contact is inadequate, and the airplane crashes and barely avoids a residential neighborhood in Dubai.
I don't think I'll reveal the several technical failures and inadequacies that led to the disaster, except to say that corrective measures have been deployed. The pilot and copilot used all their skill to save the airplane and themselves but, as a famous psychiatrist once phrased it, "the dice of the gods are loaded."
The crew go through the checklist and perform the recommended operations -- activating the fire extinguishers and venting the cargo hold to reduce the amount of oxygen. Then the pilot contacts ground control, informs them that they're returning to Dubai, and makes the turn.
They've done everything according to the book, and they've done it right. Yet what follows is a terrifying series of mounting assaults on the aircraft's integrity. The fire spreads, the flight deck fills with blinding smoke, the oxygen supply to their masks fails, the pilot is disabled, radio contact is inadequate, and the airplane crashes and barely avoids a residential neighborhood in Dubai.
I don't think I'll reveal the several technical failures and inadequacies that led to the disaster, except to say that corrective measures have been deployed. The pilot and copilot used all their skill to save the airplane and themselves but, as a famous psychiatrist once phrased it, "the dice of the gods are loaded."
