Blame the weather.
Blame the weather.

Blame the weather.

On July 9, 1982, a Pan American Boeing 727-235 operated a passenger flight on the Miami-New Orleans-Las Vegas-San Diego route. The first stage (Miami-New Orleans) flew flawlessly. In New Orleans, the crew began to prepare for the flight to Las Vegas. In total, there were 7 crew members on board the aircraft, 1 Pan American employee flying as a passenger in a reclining seat in the cockpit, as well as 137 passengers in the cabin.

In New Orleans, the weather was lousy that day. A thunderstorm front passed over the city, accompanied by moderate rains and partly cloudy. While taxiing, the co-pilot requested a wind report, to which he received data on its direction and speed (14 km/h). Three minutes later, the taxi controller alerted the crew to a low wind shear hazard. A minute later, the co-pilot again requested information about the wind. This time, his speed was twice as high (31 km/h), and the controller again warned of a low danger of wind shear.

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Nevertheless, the liner began to take off. He pulled away from the runway and rose about 38 meters above the ground, when he suddenly began to lose altitude. The crew did not understand what was happening. The upturned nose did not help to rise. Then the pilots transferred the plane to level flight in order to increase speed in this way, but this did not stop the decline.

30 seconds after liftoff, at a height of 15 meters above the ground, the liner crashed into three trees with its left wing, significantly damaging it. After that, the plane went into a left roll, flew over the airport fence and also over the road adjacent to it, almost knocking down a truck with sweets. Then, being 1410 meters from the end of the runway, the Boeing crashed into trees, demolished 6 residential buildings, hit the ground, exploded and completely collapsed. All 145 people on board were killed. On the ground, 8 local residents became victims and 16 more were injured.

Investigators concluded that the cause of the disaster was a microburst that led to wind shear. The aircraft was caught in a downdraft with a simultaneous decrease in the headwind. This led to a loss of altitude, and the crew did not have time to recognize this and prevent a collision with trees.

Factor contributing to the disaster was the lack of equipment at the airport that could effectively detect microbursts. Also, information about the weather reached the crews with a strong delay, almost two hours.

As a result, millions of dollars were spent on payments to the victims and families of those who died in the disaster. Three years later, Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashed under similar circumstances. Since then, an airborne wind shear detection and warning system has been developed and implemented.

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