I write about this story for a couple of reasons.
We rely on others.
Not only do we rely on others, but we also have a responsibility to others, to the world, to the Universe.
The following sad stories details these two ideas in a horrific and tragic way. It took place on today’s date, March 3, 1974.
A little back story goes into this. Drop backward a couple of years. The story involves a plane full of passengers on their way to do this and that. Perhaps visiting a sick aunt or attending some business meeting. Maybe they were going to see Niagara Falls for the first time. Who knows. But, on June 6, 1972, they were all together on a plane — an American Airlines DC-10.
They were flying over Ontario, Canada, when the rear-hatch door blew off the plane and tore a hole in the fuselage. The plane’s cabin lost pressure, and the cabin floor collapsed. The scene quickly became chaotic when the plane’s interior filled with flying debris. Significant cables were severed and hanging frayed. Remarkably, miraculously, the pilot was able to get the jet under control. That pilot managed to safely land the plane in Detroit. The investigation found that the latching mechanism on the door had a faulty design. They said the defective lock led to the catastrophe.
How does the old saying go? The best-laid plans of mice and men? You see, the investigators recommended that modifications should be made, but no one followed through. Dummies. Not only were the old planes not fixed, but the new DC-10s also came off the assembly line with those same old locks. And the chain of events continued. One of these planes was sold to Turkish Airlines. They put it into their lineup immediately.
This entire story is like a line of dominoes, one tipping over, hitting the next, causing a cascade of events.
Meanwhile, British European Airways was not making their scheduled flights. Their workers had decided to strike for better working conditions. But everyone else was flying around the planet on March 3, 1974, including Turkish Airlines Flight 981. It arrived in Paris from Istanbul. There were a lot of passengers who were scheduled to fly on British European Airways. Instead, they transferred to 981 for its final leg to London.
It keeps going. The maintenance on that DC-10 went completely awry. The station mechanic was supposed to inspect the rear hatch door. All a part of the regular preflight checkups. However, the station mechanic was on vacation. No one picked up the slack that day.
So, that plane took off, faulty hatch door, and all. At 12:30 p.m., the aircraft reached an altitude of 11,000 feet, not long after takeoff. And that is when it happened. The rear hatch door blew off. Rapid decompression followed. Instantaneously, the last two rows of seats, and the six people in them, were sucked right out of a large hole in the fuselage. Of course, they were gone forever.
Maybe those six had been the lucky ones. The other 340 people on board had to endure 90 more seconds of terror in the air. The pilots couldn’t control a thing, and the plane slammed into the ground at 500 miles per hour. Everyone on board was killed, most beyond any recognition.
Of course, people wanted answers. The plane’s manufacturer, McDonnell Douglas, tried to blame the baggage handler for not securing the hatch. The baggage handlers’ union wasn’t taking the blame. They boycotted all DC-10s until McDonnell Douglas apologized. After this horrific event, all DC-10s were recalled, and the rear-hatch latching mechanisms were fixed. More than 350 people had to die to get the ball rolling.
So there it is. One thing, leading to the next. The oversights. The coincidences. The dependencies. The missteps. The eventualities.
But this sad story reminds us of the bigger scope of things.
Life is a series of events, one thing leading to the next. We are all connected to one another and to the outcomes of our actions. We rely on one another and are affected by each other. Therein lies our culpability. And so we go.
===========
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
— Abraham Lincoln
===========
Quality is everyone’s responsibility.
— W. Edwards Deming
============
Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.
— Helen Keller
===========
Crash. How we connect. The fault in the fault.
