United Airlines Flight 232: The Crash Landing at Sioux City, 1989
The short version
Fascinating Horror's short documentary on United Airlines Flight 232 covers the flight from Denver on 19 July 1989, the tail engine failure that took out all three hydraulic systems, and the crew's effort to reach Sioux City. It describes the crash and rescue, the search for the missing fan disk and the changes that followed. 184 of the 296 people on board survived.
Full written account
This short documentary tells the story of United Airlines Flight 232 in chronological order, from the airline's DC-10 fleet to the memorial in Sioux City.
The aircraft and crew
The DC-10, registration N1819U, was 18 years old and had flown 43,401 hours. The video introduces the crew, including Flight Engineer Dudley Dvorak, who had only 33 hours on the DC-10, and notes that there were 285 passengers on board, many with young children on their laps because United was running a children's fare promotion that day.
The failure
At 3:16 p.m. a violent jolt and a loud bang shook the aircraft. The autopilot disconnected and the No. 2 engine, in the tail, had failed. The crew shut it down and then found they had lost hydraulic pressure. There were no procedures for this, and a call to United's maintenance base brought no answer.
Flying with the throttles
Denny Fitch, a DC-10 flight instructor travelling as a passenger, came forward to help. According to the video, he had studied the crash of Japan Air Lines Flight 123 and practised flying with only the throttles in a simulator. Captain Al Haynes gave him the throttles. The video quotes the crew's calm exchanges, including Fitch's promise that they would have a beer when it was all over.
The landing
The crew could not line up with runway 31 as planned and instead came in on runway 22, where emergency vehicles had gathered. The vehicles were moved. The aircraft approached high and fast, then banked sharply just before touchdown, and broke apart. The video says 185 people survived the crash and one later died of their injuries. It describes passengers helping one another out of the wreckage.
The fan disk
The engine's maker offered a reward for the missing parts of the fan, and they were found in a farmer's field three months later. The video explains that the disk had a defect from its manufacture in 1971 that caused it to crack over time, and that United's inspections did not find the crack. It ends with the changes to hydraulic design and maintenance, and with the memorial in Sioux City.
Note: the video describes the material of the disk as steel with an impurity. The NTSB report describes a titanium alloy disk with a hard alpha inclusion, a defect formed when the metal was made.
Questions this video answers
What happened to United Airlines Flight 232?
A violent jolt and loud bang at 3:16pm, about an hour into the flight, when the number two engine failed and the hydraulic systems were fully depleted.
How many people died?
112 people died. 185 people lived through the crash, and one survivor later died from injuries.
What caused the crash?
The NTSB found the number two engine's fan disc, which had an impurity in its steel from manufacture in 1971, fatigued and cracked, then failed with explosive force. The blast damaged part of the tail, the rear elevators and the hydraulics.
Who helped the crew control the plane?
Denny Fitch, a DC-10 flight instructor travelling as a passenger, joined the cockpit and worked the throttles so the crew could steer using power on the remaining engines.
Where did it land?
The crew steered the plane toward Sioux Gateway Airport and aimed for Runway 22, but the aircraft approached high and fast and the right wing struck the runway before touchdown.
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