Talk:Pan Am Flight 845

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Great article, SuperJumbo, thanks! I was an eyewitness to the landing of PA845, from a nearby hilltop. There was ongoing radio news coverage after the takeoff accident, and my mother and I (I was a teenager at the time) walked a few blocks from home with binoculars and a VHF aviation-band radio. There were a few dozen people who watched and listened. Very memorable. MCB 00:54, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

A coworker, who was aboard this aircraft, read this at my desk on 15 May 2006. He says the account is extremely accurate and adds these nits:

He sat near row 30, left side. Though all injuries and most of the damage were behind him, he could see the Pacific Ocean thru the floor while they dumped fuel. This rupture was apparently caused by the landing gear.

The aircraft was about half-full of passengers, so except for the injured and two medical doctors, everyone donned life preservers and moved to forward cabins.

A six-year-old boy was spared when a flying piece of debris (probably angle iron from an Approach Light Structure) stopped a few inches in front of his chest.

The landing was only partially controlled as they'd lost most of the hydraulics and had no brakes. At the first touch down, the plane bounced and blew out all the tires. It bounced a second time and then skidded right. Had the plane not stopped, they would have plunged into the ocean.

He could not egress through his designated exit door, as it was effectively blocked by the evacuation slide which high winds had blown over the top of the aircraft. Instead, he followed the pilot to the rear of the aircraft and simply stepped onto the ground (the plane tilted back onto its tail).

After landing, the plane suddenly tilted back so the front evacuation slides were some 50 feet off the ground, which caused most of the injuries.

During and after the thumps, scrapes and flying debris, he heard very few screams. Even though they circled for nearly two hours dumping fuel, virtually all passengers were quiet, orderly and surprisingly calm. Many got religion. He was disappointed that he's left his shoes and paperback book in the back, as he wanted something to read while they circled. Ironically, he found a newspaper with headlines of a 747 crash in Tokyo the day before.

Pan Am personnel asked him to return his life preserver. He refused and today still has it as a souvenir. User:RobertKeller