Carrier Says Safety of Obama's Plane Was Not in Question(NTSB Investigating)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: ABC News

The National Transportation Safety Board said Monday that it is investigating what caused Senator Barack Obama’s plane to make an unexpected landing today in St. Louis.

The presumptive Democratic nominee for president was traveling from Chicago to Charlotte when the pilot's first officer announced that they were experiencing controllability issues with the pitch of the MD-80 series aircraft.

Those on board were told the issue was a "minor little problem," and the plane remains in St. Louis this afternoon for maintenance. In statements today, the NTSB called the incident "an uneventful precautionary landing" and Midwest Airlines, the carrier that runs the charter plane, said "there was never an issue as to the safety of the flight."

The carrier said an emergency slide in the tail cone of the plane had inadvertently deployed in flight. The Federal Aviation Administration said today that a slide deploying in flight does indeed happen from time to time, and could cause flight control problems.

Indeed, on Monday NTSB chairman Mark Rosenker called this a "serious incident. It is extremely serious in this particular case," Rosenker said. "There are hydraulic lines back there. There are control cables that deal with the elevators and other areas of control surfaces for the aircraft, and could potentially make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to fly the aircraft."


Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/e_scapes/2008/07/carrier-says-...

[Cronus Protagonist]

1. Sounds like the same thing that made that plane split in half over NYC

I remember the tail falling off due to a similar problem, and the plane broke into pieces in the sky.

[RamboLiberal]

6. That was an Airbus and a newer plane

One questionable item about the American Airlines Airbus in that incident was that composites were used in the tail not metal.

MD-80s are an older generation of planes that did not use composites.

This incident with Obama's plane sounds more serious than it was first portrayed.

Controls problems in the tail have taken quite a few planes down. I'll never forget what happened to US Air 427 in my hometown of Pittsburgh with the infamous 737 rudder problems.

[bigworld]

2. Sounds like it's a lot more serious than Midwest is letting on

[truthisfreedom]

3. The FAA said today that a slide deploying in flight does indeed happen from time to time...

If I'm not mistaken, flights dropping out of the sky happen from time to time as well.

WTF??? Was Obama's plane sabotaged?

[high density]

5. I've ridden on a plane with the slide deployed

I don't remember it but my parents do...

[high density]

4. MD-80 problems while his 757 is getting ready for general election mode

Interesting.

[RamboLiberal]

7. Passengers were told they might have to assume brace position

By the time we all heard about it the unscheduled stop that the campaign plane of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, made in St. Louis yesterday was ultimately uneventful. But the incident was quite dicey there for a spell.

As the pilot struggled to re-gain control of the pitch of the plane - the angle of the nose of the plane - Obama was told that he and the other 44 passengers on board might have to assume the brace position upon landing, bending forward with their heads between their knees.

That ultimately did not happen, but National Transportation Safety Board chairman Mark Rosenker told ABC News' Dennis Powell yesterday that the incident "is extremely serious in this particular case."

An inflatable slide in the tail cone of the plane had deployed, making control of the plane tough. "There are hydraulic lines back there," Rosenker says. 'There are control cables that deal with the elevators and other area's of control surfaces for the aircraft, and could potentially make it extremely difficult if not impossible to fly the aircraft."

-----

This was not Obama's regular campaign plane, which is being overhauled. It was a loaner, having previously been used by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY. For the


http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/obamas-...

As I said in a previous post this sounds like it was a helluva lot more serious than was let on.

[stillcool]

8. could have been a 'catastrophic' event

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. Here's what the NTSB is saying, so far:

NTSB TO INVESTIGATE INCIDENT INVOLVING MIDWEST AIRLINES PLANE CARRYING SENATOR OBAMA

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating an incident at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in which a chartered Midwest Airlines airplane carrying Senator Barack Obama made an uneventful precautionary landing due to a suspected flight control anomaly.

At about 9:30 a.m. CDT this morning, a McDonnell Douglas MD- 81 airplane (N804ME), operated by Midwest Airlines as Flight 8663, diverted to St. Louis, Missouri, during a flight from Chicago, Illinois to Charlotte, North Carolina. There were no injuries to the 48 passengers and crew.

NTSB Chairman Mark V. Rosenker has designated Todd Fox as the Investigator-in-Charge for this incident. Fox is expected to arrive on scene this afternoon.

Post-flight inspection of the airplane revealed an in-flight deployment of the aft emergency exit slide within the tail cone.

Preliminary information indicate that the crew disconnected the autopilot during climbout from Chicago, while being vectored around thunderstorms, when they reportedly felt elevator control forces that were heavier than normal. They therefore elected to make a precautionary landing at St. Louis. After landing, it was learned that the aft emergency exit slide had deployed within the tail cone. The tail cone did not separate from the airplane.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2008/080707a.html

In the DC-9/MD-80 series aircraft there is an escape slide in the tail cone that is designed to deploy and inflate automatically when the tail cone is jettisoned by pulling a handle. It's possible the fiberglas container the slide is packed in somehow got dislodged in a way that caused the slide to inflate, which, depending how it inflated, might have interfered with some of the control tab cables to the elevator.

I don't see any reason to put on my tinfoil hat here.