Modern Cockpits Rest On Pioneers’ Shoulders, Part 2

Had there been confusion and discussion in the cockpit of Pan American Flight 151 concerning the interference from Dakar? Pilots knew they were in the area of their destination, but they couldn’t receive the tower on VHF. Did they discuss that? Did they think they’d overflown the station when, in fact, they were miles away on the wrong side of the station?

What perceived pressure could have existed to try the approach if pilots weren’t sure of their position? Did they think they were on course, over the ocean southwest of Liberia’s Roberts International Airport, and therefore able to descend looking for the lights? Regardless, the Civil Aeronautics Board report concludes they must have thought they did everything right, but the outcome was catastrophic.

The captain of the Lockheed L-049 Constellation was 37 and had 7,800 flight hr., but only 426 hr. in the type. The copilot, 34, had 5,400 hr. but more than 2,400 hr. in type. The remainder of the crew consisted of a 31-year-old navigator as second officer, with 5,696 hr. total and over 3,027 hr. in type. There was a third officer, a fourth officer, two flight engineers, a purser and a flight attendant.

They were as ready and competent as training could make them at that time.

The flight in 1951 demonstrates the absolute madness, by today’s standards, that marked the early days of our endeavors. Not one of the people involved thought they were being careless, only that they were working hard to accomplish the goal of safe, dependable scheduled international airline flying.

The flight was a building block of the rules we use today governing operating certificates, regulations, navigation and comm equipment, airframes and engines that make air travel so safe.

A modern carrier would never give a crew one or two days off and then have them launch on a flight that could easily go through the night and exceed 24-hr. duty days. Yet all the international carriers of the time were doing that. Read about Ed Musick, Pan America chief pilot in the 1930s, when flights of 13-23 hr. duration were followed by 12 hours of crew rest and then another such day.

How many accidents occurred due to “lessons as yet unlearned” on that long road?

The Constellation had engine trouble after the first two flight legs and had to be repaired. A flight engineer had to supervise that repair while the rest of the crew hung around a hot and steamy passenger lounge in the middle of Africa in summer. Nowadays, after making the abnormal landing, the flight would be terminated and the crew sent to rest, hopefully to return the following day.

There was no radar tracking of the flight enroute. They pilots could only be traced by reporting where they were at the time they were supposed to be there.  Given that this was before the installation of airborne radar, they couldn’t even follow the coast West as they cruised at 16,500 ft.

There was no multifunction display showing the crew its position. The approach aids could not be received until the aircraft was in the vicinity of the airport itself.

Positional Awareness

That was worse, in terms of range, than the comm radios. They were flying a low frequency range approach. These approaches required the pilot to know his or her position in relation to “home” and then using heading, make the “dash dot” of the N sector and the “dot dash” of the A sector (see diagram above) come together in a solid tone, fly the depicted leg (227) outbound with a procedure turn and then inbound, all via timing. That’s probably what led to the headings that people on the ground saw as the flight descended—northerly finishing the procedure turn and southerly perhaps figuring they had overshot the inbound course.

We’ve come a long way since 1951 and a lot more people would pay a price for the knowledge we’ve gained.

Another improvement we’ve made in the intervening 70 years is the concept of crew interactions or “crew resource management” in our vernacular. The captain is the person responsible for the final decision, but through CRM, any crew member should be able to have input in that decision, time permitting.

The second officer, navigator on the Constellation, although the youngest and relatively new with the company, was a Pennsylvanian farm kid who was the first in his family to attend college. After that he’d joined the Army Air Corps and found himself on Tinian Island in the Pacific flying 15-16 hr. missions in B-29s against Japan.  

His aircraft commander was wounded early on and he took over that position. He continued to fly the B-29 as an aircraft commander for several years before being hired by Pan Am. He was known to have told his brother that he was expected to get the aircraft across the ocean.

After that his opinion was not sought. His years of experience were not available as he was not a “pilot” in these circumstances. His name was Ray F. Detwiler and he was my uncle, my dad’s kid brother. Dad had helped him join Pan American World Airways after the war. He’d been raised during the depression and came up through the military at a time when superiors were not questioned or, in some cases, engaged with professionally.

Sometimes I think about how far we’ve come, when flying in a sealed container nine miles up in the air, with a cabin altitude of only 4,000 ft., with my position plotted to less than a few feet of accuracy, able to see weather 100 mi. in front of me; when I can learn the weather at my destination before departure and anytime thereafter; when I’m able to fly instrument approaches to the end of the runway with accuracy measured in inches.

In 50 years of professional aviation, I only once had to shut down a turbine engine, and that was precautionary. I received ample time off between flights and never flew more than 12 hr. duty days (Desert Storm was the exception, with augmented crews).

Putting all that aside, the thing I remember most is how a family like mine is still silenced when that terrible day is mentioned, even 70 years later.  We’ve made a lot of improvements, but so many of our lessons were learned the hard way, on pioneers’ shoulders.

For Modern Cockpits Rest On Pioneers' Shoulders, Part 1, click here.