On the evening of August 2, 1985, Delta Air Lines Flight 191 was on final approach to Dallas Fort Worth with 163 people aboard a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar.
In the cockpit were Captain Edward "Ted" Connors, 57, First Officer Rudolph "Rudy" Price Jr., 42, who was flying that leg, and Flight Engineer Nicholas "Nick" Nassick, 43. Between them they had more than 42,000 flight hours.
Connors was known for being careful with weather. The NTSB's own report noted he deviated around thunderstorms even when other flights took more direct routes.
But an isolated storm had built directly over the approach path. As they descended toward it, Price noticed it. "Lightning coming out of that one," he said.
At 18:05, the TriStar flew into the rain.
Inside was a microburst, a column of air that collapses out of a storm, hits the ground and spreads outward. For an aircraft low and slow on approach it is close to unsurvivable. First it hits you with a headwind, which lifts you. Seconds later that headwind becomes a tailwind, and the lift vanishes.
Their airspeed rose from 150 knots to 173, then collapsed. Price pushed the throttles forward and the aircraft climbed briefly before falling away again. The whole sequence took less than 40 seconds.
The TriStar struck the ground about a mile short of the runway, crossed a highway and hit a car, killing the driver, then struck two water tanks and broke apart. Only the tail section stayed largely intact. Everyone who survived was sitting in it.
136 people aboard died, along with the motorist. 27 lived. None of the three men in the cockpit survived.
Weather instruments at the centre of the airport were reading calm winds. Nobody knew the microburst was there.
It was the third crash in a decade in the United States to kill more than 100 people because of a microburst. The FAA responded by ordering windshear detection systems onto airliners, installing Doppler weather radar at high-risk airports, and requiring pilots to train for microburst encounters.
No US airliner has been lost to windshear since 1994.
In the cockpit were Captain Edward "Ted" Connors, 57, First Officer Rudolph "Rudy" Price Jr., 42, who was flying that leg, and Flight Engineer Nicholas "Nick" Nassick, 43. Between them they had more than 42,000 flight hours.
Connors was known for being careful with weather. The NTSB's own report noted he deviated around thunderstorms even when other flights took more direct routes.
But an isolated storm had built directly over the approach path. As they descended toward it, Price noticed it. "Lightning coming out of that one," he said.
At 18:05, the TriStar flew into the rain.
Inside was a microburst, a column of air that collapses out of a storm, hits the ground and spreads outward. For an aircraft low and slow on approach it is close to unsurvivable. First it hits you with a headwind, which lifts you. Seconds later that headwind becomes a tailwind, and the lift vanishes.
Their airspeed rose from 150 knots to 173, then collapsed. Price pushed the throttles forward and the aircraft climbed briefly before falling away again. The whole sequence took less than 40 seconds.
The TriStar struck the ground about a mile short of the runway, crossed a highway and hit a car, killing the driver, then struck two water tanks and broke apart. Only the tail section stayed largely intact. Everyone who survived was sitting in it.
136 people aboard died, along with the motorist. 27 lived. None of the three men in the cockpit survived.
Weather instruments at the centre of the airport were reading calm winds. Nobody knew the microburst was there.
It was the third crash in a decade in the United States to kill more than 100 people because of a microburst. The FAA responded by ordering windshear detection systems onto airliners, installing Doppler weather radar at high-risk airports, and requiring pilots to train for microburst encounters.
No US airliner has been lost to windshear since 1994.
