Fire
aloft! /By William Garvey
“Twelve
lives were down to seconds as the smoking aircraft went through its final,
dreadful descent”
Pilgrim Airlines Flight 458 to Boston was ready for
boarding at Groton-New London Airport in Connecticut, on a damp Sunday
afternoon in February 1982. Lyle Hogg, the 27-year-old co-pilot, assisted
passengers into the 18-seat de-Havilland Twin Otter. Then he climbed in
himself, closed the door and made his way to the flight deck. With Captain
Thomas Prinster, 36, he went through the pre-flight check-list and radioed
Quonset TRACON, the air-traffic-control centre, for clearance to Boston.
Since joining Pilgrim five months earlier, Hogg had 500
hours as co-pilot in Otters. Prinster had flown three years with Pilgrim, 2,700
hours in Otters.
As the aircraft began taxiing, Hogg turned on his public
address system and told the ten passengers the emergency procedures. Prinster
maneuvered the Otter to the runway. At 3.10 p.m. Pilgrim 458 was off and
climbing towards the 900-metre, solid ceiling.
Harry Polychron, 35, in seat 4C, was on his way to work.
A flight engineer with USAir, he would report to his line’s flight operations
in Boston. Since he planned to play tennis during his halt in Pheonix, he had
brought along a racket, now propped between his knees.
At one point Polychron noticed the pilot’s windshields
had glazed over with ice. But that was not altogether unexpected in New England
clouds in February. Soon after, however, he detected an unusual odour. It smelt
like rubbing alcohol. Something was wrong.
Lance Theobald, in the last row, right seat, was on his
way to visit the University of Maine, where he had the offer of a football
scholarship. The young man dozed off after the Otter left New London, but he
was soon awakened. The pressures and sounds told him the aircraft was
descending rapidly. As he sat up and looked forward, he saw a vision of hell.
“The cockpit was on fire,” he recalled later. “ There was
smoke all over the place. It was hard to see, but it looked like the pilot was
on fire too –and he was flying the plane!”
About ten minutes out of New London, ice had begun to
accumulate on the windshields. Hogg reached for the toggle switch that
activated the windshield washer/de-icer.
The 14-year-old plane was equipped with an alcohol spray
system for washing and de-icing, rather than the electrically heated windshield
of newer Otters. Located beneath the captain’s seat was a plastic container
filled with six litres of pure isopropyl alcohol. Protruding from the bottom of
this reservoir was a plastic line routed through a hole in the floor to an
electric pump below. A second length of tubing ran from the pump to two spray
nozzles in front of the windshields
When Hogg pressed the de-ice toggle, some spray spit out
on to the captain’s windshield, but very little appeared on his own. He hit the
windshield-wiper switch in case the blades were blocking the spray flow. Then
he held the de-ice toggle down for a couple of seconds. Almost immediately
there was a smell of alcohol.
Moments later a wisp of grey smoke rose from the yoke
hole, the floor opening for the plane’s control wheel. Then black smoke, thick,
choking and hot, began to billow up. Hogg turned to Prinster, but the pilot,
just a metre away, was completely masked by smoke.
Prinster, his voice distinct and controlled, was already
on the radio: “Quonset, Pilgrim 458. We need a direct Providence. This is an
emergency.”
“Pilgrim 458. That you calling?”
Prinster again: “Directly to Providence, please. There is
a fire on board.”
“Pilgrim 458, Roger. Turn right, on a heading of one five
zero to Providence.”
Pilgrim 458 was 20 kilometres north-west of Providence’s
T.F. Green State Airport. The time was 3.28 p.m.
Although the aircraft was on fire, the more immediate
danger confronting Prinster and Hogg was one of control. They were deep within
clouds, with ice-blocked windshields and the instrument panel completely
obscured by smoke. Without any visual references, they had to turn their
aircraft 90 degrees, descend through 750 metres of clouds, follow directions
from ground radar controllers to Green State, and land.
Despite the fire building beneath him, Tom Prinster was
still flying the plane. The Otter began a rapid, turning descent.
“Pilgrim 458, how many people on board?”
Hogg: “We’ve got ten people.” In fact, there were 12. The
co-pilot forgot to include himself and his captain.
Harry Polychron had seen the white/grey puff in the
cockpit and the black eruption that followed, completely obscuring the pilots.
The smoke was making it difficult for the passengers to breathe, so he knew the
pilots must be in real distress.
Polychron grabbed his tennis racket and drove the shaft
through the acrylic window at his side. As smoke was being sucked out of the
hole, he moved to the next row forward and smashed out that window. As
Polychron continued forward, he saw flames coming through the floor just aft of
the captain’s seat. He grabbed a coat and threw it on the flames, but he
couldn’t smother them. The pilots were now flying with their heads half-way out
of their side windows.
As the Otter zoomed through the cloud base at 500 metres,
the flames were coming through cracks in the floor. Prinster and Hogg were
being roasted in their seats. Their uniforms, part synthetic, were melting to
their bodies. The heat and the flames were charring their arms, legs and
torsos. But they remained at their stations, flying their burning craft through
its final, dreadful descent.
Below the passenger seats, just aft of the fire, were two
tanks brimming with 750 litres of fuel. There was no chance that Pilgrim 458
would ever reach Green State.
Looking forward Hogg saw the edge of a large, frozen
lake, the Scituate Reservoir. Unable to see or hear his captain, he decided to
reach for the control wheel. Just then the aircraft banked slightly to the
left, moving in line for a letdown on the reservoir. Prinster was still in
command.
Harry Polychron glanced out of a cabin window and caught
sight of the ground. He lunged for the cabin bulkhead and braced himself.
Prinster had managed to fly the Otter through 1,200
metres of sky in less than four minutes, but even so, 12 lives were now down to
seconds.
He rammed the Otter down on to the reservoir with such
force that the landing gear gave way and the right wing was severed. But the
ice underneath held. The burning, smoking fuselage skidded another 150 metres
before coming to a halt.
Passenger Paul Hainsworth rushed from his seat to the
main door, which he tried, but failed, to open. He saw an opening in the
fuselage aft of the door, and he began kicking away the aluminium skin to
enlarge the hole. Then he jumped on to the ice. Others followed. Siegfried Kra,
an New Haven cardiologist, made his way aft and found Sophie Geidt, nine, lying
near the exit. He picked up the child and lunged through.
The crash dislocated Harry Polychron’s shoulder. As he groped
for the exit, he heard a woman call out, “Somebody please help me. I’m blind.”
Polychron grabbed Laurel Magee and dragged her out with him.
With Laurel safe, he started back in towards a young man
he had spotted motionless on the floor in the rear. But the separated shoulder
and his smoke-filled lungs would not allow it. He yelled for help, and Paul
Hainsworth went back and pulled Lance Theobald to safety.
Within seconds the flames ate through the bulkhead and
set fire to the fuel tanks. The broken Otter was almost totally consumed.
As Lyle Hogg staggered across the ice, he saw an awful
figure moving slowly towards him. “Are you okay?” the Pilgrim pilots each asked
of the other. Prinster and Hogg were alive, but they were by no means okay.
Both men were burnt extensively and, as they made their way towards the shore,
400 metres away, lumps of charred flesh fell from their arms and legs.
Before the survivors reached the shore, the Scituate
police and several motorists were on the scene. There was confusion as to how
many had been on board. The word relayed from Quonset was ten, but the head
count came to 11, and the true count was 12.
Lorretta Stanczak died from asphyxia due to smoke, carbon
monoxide and hot-gas inhalation. The smoke had been so thick after the landing
that no one had spotted the unfortunate woman.
While none of the survivors went unscathed, Prinster and
Hogg, rushed by ambulance to a hospital, were the only ones critically injured.
Hogg was burnt over 25 percent of his body. His left leg
and hand were his most seriously injured limbs, but his face and right hand and
leg were burnt too. Transferred to another hospital, he underwent a series of
successful skin grafts and a month later returned home. An intensive
physical-therapy programme followed, and
Hogg is doing well. He returned to work at Pilgrim in April.
Prinster’s condition was more critical. Seventy per cent
of his body was burnt and much of that was third degree. He was moved to a
hospital in Boston still in serious condition. He faces several operations and
physical therapy for some months to come.
A few days after the crash, the US Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) instructed all operators of Twin Otters fitted with the
alcohol de-icer to inspect the systems. The FAA has since required regular
inspections until November 30, after which the alcohol de-icer may not be used.
Harry Polychron, whose quick action saved several lives,
is the first to testify to the courage and fortitude of Prinster and Hogg.
“What they did,” he says, “was just a miracle.”
In
its subsequent analysis of the accident, the US National Transportation Safety
Board cited the two pilots for “their prompt and heroic responses.” Among the
other commendations bestowed on Prinster and Hogg was the prestigious Heroism
Award for 1982 from the international Flight Safety Foundation.
“All
men like to think they can do it alone, but a real man knows there’s no
substitute for support, encouragement or a crew.” --Tim
Allen
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