Escape From New York

This story was submitted by Captain Reese Wolff.


On a frigid, miserable Friday night in February, 1999, I was a young First Officer sitting in a DC-8 on the cargo ramp at John F Kennedy International Airport listening to the howling wind and feeling it rock the airplane while we waited for a late truck full of express packages. It turns out that said truck had gotten tipped over on an icy street by the wind.


The Captain, the Professional Flight Engineer and I all sat discussing the weather and speculating on what it would take to overturn a box truck as we were completing our respective preflight tasks. 


As the First Officer, one of my jobs was to calculate our performance requirements. The Flight Engineer got the current weather from the ATIS, wrote it on a plastic card with a dry-erase marker and handed it up to me. The weather was just lovely for New York that time of year; a 200 foot overcast ceiling and ½ mile visibility in fog and heavy, blowing snow. The wind was blowing out of the northwest. In fact, it was out of 310 degrees at 31kts gusting to 38, clearly favoring runway 31L. The runways in use were 22R for takeoff and 31L for landing. None of the other runways were plowed. 38kts is the maximum demonstrated crosswind component in a DC-8, but that’s for sustained wind, not gusts, so we were legal to take off on 22R, gnarly as it may be.


As I sat contemplating the snow swirling around the yellow mercury lights, I reflected on the fact that it was my leg and we would be taking off from a slippery runway at almost a max crosswind component. Additionally, it was my first trip back after a right knee reconstruction and I was a bit curious as to how it would work out if I needed to apply full rudder on that side, like in a heavy crosswind or an engine failure. With those thoughts in mind, I asked the Captain, “how about we ask for 31L instead of 22R?” Here’s the rub, 31L had 700 feet closed for construction, and we didn’t have the data for it. So, the Captain (very correctly) said “we don’t have data for that runway, we can’t use it.” 


Back then, we had a 4-inch thick 3-ring binder called the “Airport Analysis Book.” It had the normal data we needed for every runway at every airport we served. Usually, it would contain “Temporary Data” as well, but this closure wasn’t included. Nowadays, you can text your company’s performance people via a datalink and receive any information needed, including that for shortened runways.


Since our poor truck driver had suffered his misfortune, we had some extra time. I asked the Captain, “do you want to call Dispatch and see if we can get Temp Analysis Numbers?” His response was, “knock yourself out.” So, I called Dispatch through a radio phone patch (cell phones weren’t really a thing yet, unless you were a poor slob stuck on reserve). It turned out there was only one guy at our company who could generate Temporary Analysis Data and he was home sick that night, therefore there was no data for 31L for us. 


Runway 31L at JFK was over 14,000 feet long at that time. So, even with 700 feet closed it was still one of the longest commercial runways in the world. Longer, in fact, than 22R. More importantly to me, 31L was lined up perfectly into the wind whereas 22R had a 90-degree crosswind. So, again I tried to talk the Captain into it. 


“How about we just ask for 31L?”

“We don’t have data for 31L”

“True, and while it may not be the most legal answer, it’s definitely the safest answer”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter because if we don’t have data, sure as shit that’s the night something happens. So we’re using 22R.”

It was a short discussion.


Our beleaguered driver somehow finally got his freight to the airport, we got it loaded up and got the airplane deiced. The only positive thing that I could see about using 22R, other than the pesky legal issue, was that it was a shorter taxi for us. In the days before Type 4 anti-ice fluid, our holdover time was always a consideration, especially in a raging blizzard.


We taxied out, lined up on the runway and got our takeoff clearance as I watched the snow fly horizontally across my windscreen with nothing but inky blackness and blurry runway lights beyond.


“You Have Control,” said the Captain.

“I Have Control”

“Set Max Power”

“Max Power Set, Engine Instruments Normal”

“80kts”

“Check”

“V1, Rotate…V2”

“Positive Rate”

“Positive Rate, Gear Up”


Other than me working my ass off to keep a 187 foot long airplane going straight in a 38kt, 90-degree crosswind at night in an epic blizzard, it was a normal takeoff…until about 300 feet AGL. At that point, I heard and felt an explosion. I saw the Captain silhouetted by a giant flash out of the corner of my left eye, and suddenly, I needed right rudder as opposed to the left I had used on takeoff.


Now, what I should have heard from over my left shoulder was my Flight Engineer’s very calm statement: “Power Loss, Engine Number 1.” Instead, my crusty ex-Air Force Flight Engineer chose that moment to let his New Jersey upbringing through, and this is how it went:

BOOM (Big flash and Bang)

Simultaneously: “Oh fuck, look at that fucker, I’m shuttin’ that fucker down!”

And he did just that; he immediately put the Number 1 Engine Fuel Shutoff lever to Off. As he was doing that, I saw the #1 EGT (the engine temperature gauge) peg to redline.

The Captain looks at me and very dryly says “Welp, I guess the Engine Securing Checklist is complete.”


By now, were climbing through around 1,000 feet, and the Captain said, “does anyone wanna go back to Kennedy?”


Securing one engine in a 4-engine airplane is not automatically an emergency; under the right circumstances you can continue to your destination or land somewhere other than the “Nearest Suitable Airport.” Given that JFK was having a blizzard like the one that made Rudolph famous and our home base, KILN, was only an hour away with beautiful clear weather, and all three of us were headed to a Ft. Lauderdale weekend layover as our next trip, that decision was made rather quickly.

The Captain said to ATC, “Kennedy Departure, ABX 387 has lost an engine. We’re not declaring an emergency at this time, proceeding on course.” We then finally completed the proper Engine Securing Checklist, uneventfully climbed to 31,000 feet and headed home.

As I said earlier, it was my leg to fly. But the closer we got to the airport, the more the Captain was fidgeting and I knew why. If I busted the airplane during a three-engine landing, it would still be his fault. He was under no formal requirement to land the airplane himself, but he was also not obligated to let me land it. I could actually feel him struggling with that from all the way over in my seat. But he didn’t say anything, so we briefed the arrival and approach as we normally would and at our Top of Descent point I clicked the auto-pilot off and started down. I knew he would be more comfortable flying it himself, but he also knew I was fully qualified and capable, and I wanted to land it, so I was in no hurry to let him off the hook.

Finally, in the airport traffic pattern when we were all set up for the visual approach, he couldn’t stand it anymore. “Reese, I really hate to do this, I know you’re fine to land it, but I really think I should make the landing. That way, if anything happens, it’s all on me.” I said, “I was wondering how long before you said that. Yeah, I could land it, but I totally understand…You Have Control.”

He made an uneventful landing and we taxied to parking. Before we were even out of our seats, there was a crowd of emergency personnel and mechanics gathered around our #1 engine. The JT3D engines on the -60 series DC-8s had a bullet-style spinner that was about 3 feet long. Our spinner was no longer mounted on the front of the engine. It was now laying sideways in the inlet. The JT3D had anti-surge valves that were meant to unload excess air pressure from the engines during acceleration, like on power up for takeoff. They would occasionally freeze shut in snowy, icy conditions therefore failing to relieve the pressure, causing the engine to compressor stall. That night, our engine had such a violent compressor stall that it blew the bullet off the front of the engine, whereupon it got sucked back in the inlet, blocking the airflow and cooking the engine instantly. It then somehow made the entire trip from New York to Ohio without falling out and was still lying in the engine inlet when we parked. The maintenance guys later told me the entire engine core was melted.

But we made it home! We wrote our debriefs, jumped in a fresh DC-8 and headed to Ft. Lauderdale. By 8am we were having beer and eggs at the marina and by noon there may have been a bikini contest at a bar with a pool in it! Ah, but that’s a tale for another day…



Captain Reese P. Wolff

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