Obama campaign plane emergency could have led to disaster

[RamboLiberal]

Source: LA Times

Airplane control problems last summer could have led to disaster for then-Sen. Barack Obama and his presidential campaign, according to a report released Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

On July 7, 2008, a McDonnell Douglas MD-81 en route to Charlotte, N.C., and carrying Obama and 50 other passengers and crew made an emergency landing in St. Louis. An evacuation slide within the tail cone had inflated shortly after takeoff from Chicago.

Although the NTSB's final report -- and determination of probable cause -- is not expected until later this summer, Friday’s report suggested that the inflated slide and a nearby fractured walkway railing may have "impinged" on a set of elevator cables, interfering with the cockpit's ability to control the plane's angle, or pitch.

After liftoff, the captain reported that the airplane's pitch continued to increase without a corresponding flight control input and that the pressure required by the crew to level the airplane was "higher than normal." The airplane's pitch reached 20 to 25 degrees before the captain regained control, according to the report.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-plane11-2009jul11,0,6369778.story?track=rss

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Whew! Glad he now flys Air Force One!

[BlooInBloo]

1. WTF?????

[amabo]

2. Gravity?

Wasn't there a Senator flying a plane a few years ago, when the propeller fell off?

[maseman]

7. That's scary.

Pitch up means the plane will stall and crash.

I will say though I don't think for the consipracy theorists that deploying an emergency slide would be the ideal way to bring a plane down. I think the Shrubby people would do a better job than that.

[Robb]

8. How common is this?

I'd be curious if this has happened before. You know, before I put on my tinfoil hat and admit a one-in-a-million slide inflation is a pretty darned good sneaky trick.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. It has happened to me.

And the replacement plane was then hit by a de-icing truck.
:grr:


I never saw the slide but that was the reason given.

[Robb]

10. LOL

Sorry to laugh, but that's gotta be one hell of a bad day. :hi:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. A bad TWO days!

:cry:

[RamboLiberal]

19. Story cited two other instances

The NTSB report cited only two similar incidents involving tail cone slide inflations -- in 1991 and 2002.

[maseman]

20. Good lord not often

As a pilot (private) I pay a lot of attention to airplane problems, air traffic problems, etc. I fly nearly every week with my job also.

There's a lot of "other" things you could do to a plane to bring it down. People tend to forget that accidents DO happen. These big buckets of bolts, wires and cables are not 100% failsafe.

[benh57]

3. photos

This is really not LBN at all... but it's interesting, so thanks for the link!
From http://www.ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2008/080710.html

Here is a pic of the deployed slide from Obama's plane, you can see the control cables it touched:


Undeployed:

[go west young man]

5. The release of the report is.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5805598/Evacuation-

[No Elephants]

6. If you have a problem with a thread, please use the board's Alert feature or the Hide Thread

feature, or just don't open the thread.

Otherwise, threads just get cluttered with posts about whether the thread belongs in LBN or not. Those debates can be more annoying for some of us than having a thread in LBN that may or may not technically belong there.

thank you, and welcome,

[Optical.Catalyst]

4. .

Former Vice President Dick Cheney hid a major secret counter terrorism program from Congress and the people of the United States. No one in Congress seems interested in pursuing this information.

There is absolutely no link between the activities of Dick Cheney and a near fatal accident of Mr. Obama's MD-81.

Nothing to see here folks, just move along.

[rocktivity]

11. Candidate for this year's "You Call This NEWS?" award

Can't ALL plane emergencies lead to disaster?

:headbang:
rocktivity

[McCamy Taylor]

13. This is preemptive news for when the GOP demands he stop flying AirForce 1 to save $$$.

And since they complain about everything he does, I am sure that complaint is out there, too.

[RamboLiberal]

18. It's news when it happened to a presidential candidate

and now president of the United States. History sure could've been grossly changed that day.

[Hawkeye-X]

14. Bit more detail plus the link to the NTSB report

http://www.avherald.com/h?article=409524e2/0000&opt=0

[mitchum]

15. Better luck next time, Mr Cheney

[truthisfreedom]

16. Darth's luck has run out.

[mitchum]

17. True, but I won't celebrate until his oxygen runs out