{"id":1439,"date":"2012-11-18T14:33:48","date_gmt":"2012-11-18T21:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveltattler.com\/?p=1439"},"modified":"2012-11-18T14:33:48","modified_gmt":"2012-11-18T21:33:48","slug":"events-in-flight-entirely-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/library\/1439\/events-in-flight-entirely-possible","title":{"rendered":"EVENTS IN ‘FLIGHT’ ENTIRELY POSSIBLE"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Denzel Washington in "Flight" (Photo courtesy: Paramount Pictures)<\/p><\/div>\n

Audiences have filled the theaters to see the new Denzel Washington movie \u201cFlight,\u201d but it\u2019s doubtful they would buckle in for a flight captained byWashington\u2019s character, pilot Whip Whitaker. He managed the launch the plane through a fierce morning thunderstorm above\u00a0Orlando\u00a0for an on-time takeoff, but somewhere on the way to\u00a0Atlanta, the jetliner lost \u201celevator control\u201d (the flaps on the back of the tail) due to a mechanical difficulty, sending it diving toward a heavily-populated suburban neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Awakened from his cockpit nap, Whitaker, who\u2019d snatched three mini-bottles of vodka from the flight attendant cart to cure his hangover,\u00a0kept his cool. To the astonishment of his whimpering, young co-pilot, he saved almost every soul on board by dumping the fuel and rolling the aircraft to fly upside down at 500 feet until he could find a field, roll the plane back over, and\u00a0crash land. The miracle\u00a0touchdown made Whitaker a Sully Sullenberger-type hero, until incriminating results of the hospital\u2019s blood-alcohol test reached the NTSB and the airline\u2019s insurance company. Still, dozens of subsequent pilots in the film failed to replicate the crash landing on a simulator (though, albeit, they were sober when they tried it.)<\/p>\n

The events depicted in the film are entirely possible, according to Ace Abbott, a retired pilot and author of \u201cThe Rogue Aviator: In the Back Alleys of Aviation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRolling the aircraft upside down is very plausible. It was the only escape the pilot had since the elevator problem was pushing the plane into a dive. Therefore, once he \u2018inverted\u2019 the plane its\u2019 nose came up since the stuck elevator flaps pushed the nose in the opposite direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbott found watching the film emotionally draining because he says the cockpit scene was spectacularly directed\u2026with a little added drama.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drunken pilot character was radical. There are some pilots that are alcoholic – hopefully very few,\u201d Abbott explains. \u201cBut captains have a lot of power, and depending on the social dynamic of his crew, he might have been able to get away with that. But I have never heard of a pilot actually drinking on the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The possibility got even slimmer thanks to random drug testing of pilots and flight crew after a 1990 incident in which three Northwest Airlines pilots got prison time for flying a 737 after a layover during which they consumed, collectively, 15 rum and colas and six pitchers of beer the night before a 6:30 am flight from Fargo.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turned out some of the passengers had been partying with them at the bar,\u201d says Abbott. \u201cMore proactive techniques now prevent a drunken pilot from flying. Gate attendant and flight crew will intervene even if they think a pilot is hung over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted atInviteYourself@aol.com<\/span><\/a>\u00a0or via\u00a0www.TravelTattler.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Audiences have filled the theaters to see the new Denzel Washington movie \u201cFlight,\u201d but it\u2019s doubtful they would buckle in… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":1440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3665],"tags":[671165,671292,671529,671769,671928,660614],"class_list":["post-1439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-library","tag-flight","tag-flight-movie","tag-denzel-washington","tag-skip-whitaker","tag-ace-abbott","tag-rogue-aviator"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2012\/11\/28FLIGHT_SPAN-articleLarge-v2.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1449,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions\/1449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}