Jetliner rolled twice — pilot

Press, 9 April 1979, Page 8

Jetliner rolled twice — pilot

NZPA Detroit The pilot of the Boeing 727 that landed safely after flirting with disaster says the plane rolled over twice, not once, before its dramatic Bkm supersonic dive. But the pilot, Harvey Gibson says the 80 passengers on Trans World Airlines flight 841 on Wednesday night probably didn’t know they were upside down because “it was smooth, very smooth.” “I was aware that the passengers were probably walking around or something so I kept positive G (gravitational) force so that the people, even though we were bottomside up, didn’t know we were bottom-side up,” he

told the “Detroit Free Press.” Mr Gibson was at the controls when the airliner en route from New York to Minneapolis started to vibrate, yawed to the right, rolled over twice, nosedived, and was finally brought under control after a 60-degree 8800 m descent

To support his claim, Mr Gibson related that a cabin attendant reported he had been sitting across from a couple who were having wine at the time of the dramatic roll.

“When the thing was all over and done with, the guy and his wife both had their two glasses of wine sitting in front of them and they both had a drink” Mr Gibson said.