1985: Eastern Airlines 980 FDR Recovered

[Don Hudson]

The expedition, by two guys from Boston:  http://m.imgur.com/gallery/lUyIz

Story:  https://www.outsideonline.com/2126426/what-happened-eastern-airlines-flight-980

Quote

 

Wiki:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_980

On January 1, 1985, Eastern Airlines Flight 980, a Boeing 727 jetliner, departed Asunción at 17:57. On board were 19 passengers and a crew of 10.

The Houston-based cockpit crew consisted of Captain Larry Campbell, First Officer Kenneth Rhodes, and Flight Engineer Mark Bird. The cabin crew comprised five Chilean flight attendants based in Santiago: Paul Adler, Pablo Letelier, Marilyn MacQueen, Robert O'Brien, and Paula Valenzuela.

The 19 passengers were from Paraguay, Ecuador, and the United States. Among the passengers was the wife of the U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay, Marian Davis, and two Eastern pilots flying as passengers.

At 19:37 the pilot told controllers in La Paz he estimated landing at 19:47. Flight 980 was cleared to descend from 25,000 feet to 18,000 feet. At some point after this exchange, the aircraft steered significantly off the airway for unknown reasons, possibly to avoid weather. The accident occurred 25 miles from runway 9R at El Alto Airport.[1]

On-site investigation

In October 1985, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) selected Greg Feith, an air safety investigator, to lead a team of U.S. investigators and Bolivian mountain guides to conduct an on-site examination of the wreckage of Flight 980, which had come to rest around 6,126 metres (20,098 ft). Feith conducted the on-site investigation with the goal of finding the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), as well as retrieving other critical information; however, because the wreckage was spread over a vast area and covered by 6 to 9 m (20 to 30 ft) of snow, his fellow team members and he were unable to locate either of the "black boxes". He did retrieve various small parts of the aircraft cockpit, official flight-related paperwork, and some items from the passenger cabin. To date, this remains the highest controlled flight into terrain commercial aviation accident site in history.[2]

Discovery of the wreckage

Over the years, the debris moved along with the glacier and eventually emerged enough that climbers were able to uncover wreckage in 2006. No bodies were found, though various personal effects of the passengers were recovered. Local climbers believed it was only a matter of time before bodies, the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder emerged from the ice.[3]

Discovery of flight recorder remnants

On June 4, 2016, after one of the warmest years on record in the area, human remains, the cockpit voice recorder and many smashed parts of the plane's flight data recorder were recovered by a team of three in the Andes mountains. The box was in several pieces and is unlikely to contain much, if any, recoverable data from the crash 31 years prior. Dan Futrell and Isaac Stoner of Operation Thonapa recovered six large metal segments and several damaged pieces of magnetic tape.[4][5][6][7]

On January 4th, 2017, Futrell and Stoner met with NTSB investigator Bill English[8] to officially hand off the recovered components, following the approval in December 2016 of the Bolivian General Directorate of Civil Aviation for the NTSB to proceed with the analysis attempt.

 

[DEFCON]

I was unaware of this crash. What a fascinating investigation story. Feith was young and in good shape back then, which would have been a requirement to work at those elevations, but I didn't know he was a mountain climber.  

[Kip Powick]

19 hours ago, Don Hudson said:

To date, this remains the highest controlled flight into terrain commercial aviation accident site in history.[2]

If they, (the investigators) have no real data how can this statement be true??  (CFIT) ????

[Don Hudson]

I was unaware too, and I know most of them.

This reminded me of the TCA North Star Slesse crash of 1956, a site to which I've hiked many times, guiding various interested parties. Similar conditions in terms of wreckage distribution and glaciers redistributing parts, but of course much lower altitudes!

Slesse was one of the "test" peaks that Don Bateman employed in the early days of developing GPWS at Honeywell.

From one of the trips, (took my 4x5 view camera on that trip):

 

[Don Hudson]

Kip - I think none of them are investigators and aren't using the term specifically, but generally to describe what it did, but not why. Indeed it could be a loss of control, mechanical and so on. I believe they're probably right though - it probably was a CFIT on the descent - no ATC radar, limited (compared to today) cockpit instrumentation, low experience levels on the part of the captain, (not criticizing, just observing), with the environment & airport, etc.

[DEFCON]

Great pic Don; it looks like it came right out of the Ansel Adams collection.

I climbed the mountain next door almost four decades ago. When we arrived at the top we were looking across and down a bit on Slesse's peak while the story was told. The feature story in the ALPA's monthly magazine approximately 15 years back was written by a couple of member amateur archaeologists that climbed Sleese and examined wreckage; it was all very interesting.

 

[Kip Powick]

2 hours ago, Don Hudson said:

Kip - I think none of them are investigators and aren't using the term specifically, but generally to describe what it did, but not why. Indeed it could be a loss of control, mechanical and so on. I believe they're probably right though - it probably was a CFIT on the descent - no ATC radar, limited (compared to today) cockpit instrumentation, low experience levels on the part of the captain, (not criticizing, just observing), with the environment & airport, etc.

Thanks Don, for the reply. Quite a mystery and I wonder if we'll ever know.

I have done about 6 or 7 approaches into La Paz with the C 130 as it was one of many routes we used to check out FOs to see if they were ready to proceed onto the  Aircraft Commanders course. The biggest concern was calculating wt and Bal with the loss of an engine after Take-off.

 It can be a scarey place in the dark.

Your photo of the mountain and the accident with TCA 810 dredged up memories of my one and only flight in the RCAF North Star. When we finished primary flight school on the Chipmunk at Centralia in 1962 we were herded on a "noisy" Star and flown out to Alberta to continue on the Harvard. My most vivid memory was the noise from the engines, I believe they were Merlins but perhaps they had converted to P&Ws.... but I don't think so. The aircraft was strictly a freighter. The noise was deafening and what surprised me was the rate of climb. There couldn't have been more than 20 of us onboard but our rate of climb was only 500 fpm shortly after T/O !!!

As a youngster I thought a 4 engine bird would be just soaring into the blue !!! 

 

PS : Nice photo....2003...was that before or after you were "punted through the goal posts" ????

[Don Hudson]

Wal', that was 4 years before they dropkicked me through the goalposts o' life, or dotted me, as you say, ...been using a 4x5 since the early 70's, and still use it and an 8x10 camera and digital since 2000. I scan the 8x10 negatives for digital printing.

The North Star was, as you say, extremely noisy - TCA engineers had designed a "cross-over" exhaust manifold that poured the noise out on the outboard sides of each engine. I think it was like moving another 50' away from a turbojet at full thrust...

Larry Milberry wrote a great book on the North Star and its U.S. Douglas variations. There's an RCAF one at the Ottawa flight museum. I remember them as a kid at VR on the south side - very smooth running compared to the Pratts which coughed & spat & smoked...first time I realized felt something related to the V8 gene. Malcolm Hamilton wrote an article for the RapCan magazine a while back and I think did a presentation late last year on the crash. We met on one of my trips up the mountain. O'Keefe & MacDonald wrote about the crash in, "Disaster on Mount Slesse", (Caitlin, 2006)

I think the DC4Ms were all Merlins, (#1 was rolled out at Cartierville in early 1946 and named then, the "North Star", had RRs. It first flew on July 15 of that year). From Milberry, the P&W R2800s version was the DC6, (and to put some polish on it, the Connie had Wright R3350's).

I've only had a couple of flights in the Harvard, (both logged as "therapy"), and it's to be preferred over the North Star... ;-)

I can't imagine operating into an airport at such high altitudes...Denver doesn't come close!!