Ageing Airliners,
Aloha Airlines Flight 243 and
Korean Air Flight 007 All Featured In History Channel Appearance of AeroSpaceNews.com
Your humble editor and publisher of AeroSpaceNews.com will be making an appearance on the
History Channel, Thursday, December 22nd, 2005, from 8:00-10:00 pm ET/PT. He is appearing on two pilot episodes of a new series called
Secrets of the Black Box. The new show looks into the lessons taught by the so-called black boxes containing the flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorders (CVR).
Each hour long television program investigates a unique and compelling airline aircraft accident:
SECRETS OF THE BLACK BOX: Aloha Flight 243 (December 22nd at 8 p.m. ET/PT) – On April 28, 1988, a passenger boarding an Aloha Airlines flight from Hilo to Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands noticed what appeared to be a crack near the front entry door of the aircraft. She kept the observation to herself, however, and twenty minutes into the flight, the 95 people aboard the flight found themselves in the middle of the most terrifying ride of their lives. A huge section of the plane's roof ripped off at 24,000 feet above the sea, an altitude where there isn't even enough oxygen to allow passengers to breathe properly, let alone while moving at more than 300 mph. The pilots struggled bravely to keep the plane on course hoping to save the passengers and crew as they hung on for dear life in the exposed fuselage.
SECRETS OF THE BLACK BOX: Aloha Flight 243 re-creates the frightful 13 minutes that Aloha 243 experienced above Hawaii, from pilot communications to the frantic scene on the ground, documenting every problem along the way: faulty landing gear, a failing engine, and the imminent disaster of complete disintegration of the aircraft. The show also fully documents the resulting investigation, exposing what went wrong with the plane, why it went wrong, and what changes have been instituted today to try to ensure that it never happens again.
SECRETS OF THE BLACK BOX: Korean Air Flight 007 (December 22nd at 9 p.m. ET/PT) - KAL 007, carrying 269 passengers from Alaska to Seoul, Korea on the last leg of a flight from New York, disappeared over Russian airspace in September 1983. Efforts to find out what went wrong yielded more controversy than explanation, touching off one of the most explosive international incidents of the Cold War Era between the United States and the former Soviet Union.
Was the plane shot down by the Russian military? Had it been on a secret spy mission from the United States, unwittingly putting passengers in harm's way? Was it just in the wrong place at the wrong time? How could a commercial jet end up in such hostile airspace? SECRETS OF THE BLACK BOX: KAL FLIGHT 007 re-creates the flight from its inception, following individual passengers and speaking with their family members, charting the plane's course with computer-generated graphics, re-constructing what went wrong, and chronicling the diplomatic turmoil that ensued. Included is actual footage of the events that followed, including the incredible anti-Soviet public outcry that swept the US and the world, and also brand-new interviews with key figures, including former U.N. Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick.
Don't miss it - be sure to tune in!