science

USAir Flight 1016

USAir Flight 1016 is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand USAir Flight 1016 rather than just read about it. In short: USAir Flight 1016 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight in the southeastern United States, between Columbia, South Carolina, and Charlotte, North Carolina. On July 2, 1994, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 operating the flight encountered heavy thunderstorms and microburst-induced windshear while attempting to land, and crashed into heavy trees and a private residence near the airport.

Key takeaways

USAir Flight 1016 belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect USAir Flight 1016 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of USAir Flight 1016 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

USAir Flight 1016 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight in the southeastern United States, between Columbia, South Carolina, and Charlotte, North Carolina. On July 2, 1994, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 operating the flight encountered heavy thunderstorms and microburst-induced windshear while attempting to land, and crashed into heavy trees and a private residence near the airport. The crash and ensuing fire caused 37 fatalities and seriously injured 20 others.

Aircraft The aircraft involved was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31, MSN 47590, registered as N954VJ, which was manufactured by McDonnell Douglas in 1973. In its 21 years of service, the aircraft had logged approximately 53,917 airframe hours and 63,147 takeoff and landing cycles. It was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7B engines.

Flight

History of the flight On Saturday, July 2, 1994, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9, that was flying as USAir Flight 1016 departed Columbia Metropolitan Airport at 18:15 EDT for the 35-minute flight to Charlotte/Douglas International Airport. The crew consisted of Captain Michael R. Greenlee (38), First Officer James P. "Phil" Hayes (41), and three flight attendants. There were 52 passengers (including two infants) on board. The flight was uneventful until the approach to Charlotte, where several severe thunderstorms were in the vicinity of the airport. At 18:38, Flight 1016 was cleared by Charlotte approach control for an instrument landing system (ILS) approach to Runway 18R (now 18C), with Hayes at the controls in heavy rain. The flight switched over to the local tower controller that was handling landings for 18R, and at 18:39, the controller gave the crew clearance to land. Captain Greenlee asked the controller for a weather report from the plane ahead of Flight 1016, a Fokker 100 that had just landed on 18R. The tower told Flight 1016 that the Fokker pilot reported "smooth sailing." In post-crash interviews, passengers and flight attendants told the NTSB that the flight seemed normal until the plane entered the heavy rain on final approach. At 18:40, a tower controller issued a windshear warning to all aircraft, but on a different radio frequency than that used by Flight 1016. About a minute later, as Flight 1016 was on final approach, the captain, realizing that his aircraft was in a serious predicament, attempted to abort the landing by instructing the first officer to "take it around, go to the right." The captain then radioed the control tower and stated "USAir ten sixteen's on the go"; the tower acknowledged the missed approach and cleared Flight 1016 to climb to 3,000 feet (910 m). The plane struggled to climb in the severe weather conditions, veered to the right and rapidly descended. The flight crew desperately tried to control the airplane as it plummeted toward the ground. It was later determined that the windshear alert system did not alert the crew with a red indicator and aural warning because of a software discrepancy that lowered the sensitivity while the flaps were in transit from 40 to 15 degrees during the go-around procedure. A Honeywell engineer stated that the pilots should have received a warning eight to nine seconds before impact.

Crash

At 18:42 EDT, the DC-9 touched down in a field within the airport boundary, about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) from the threshold of Runway 18R. It then crashed through the airport fence and impacted several trees, breaking apart while skidding down a residential street that was on the airport boundary. The plane broke into four major sections, and the front 40 feet (12 m), including the cockpit and the unoccupied first class passenger cabin, came to rest in the middle of Wallace Neel Road. The rear section of the fuselage, including the tail and the rear-mounted engines, came to rest in the carport of a house. Of the 52 passengers, 37 died from blunt force trauma, burns from the fire or carbon monoxide inhalation. An additional 14 passengers suffered serious injuries, and one had minor injuries. Of the five crew members, both pilots suffered minor injuries, two flight attendants were seriously injured and the remaining flight attendant sustained minor injuries. No one on the ground was injured. The airport's previous major incident occurred on September 11, 1974, when Eastern Air Lines Flight 212, also a DC-9, crashed during approach, killing 72.

Investigation and response The NTSB immediately dispatched an investigation team, which recovered the CVR and FDR from the plane's wreckage. After a lengthy investigation, the NTSB concluded that a microburst generated by the thunderstorm over the airport at the time of the crash was the probable cause of the accident. The NTSB listed these contributing factors:

The flight crew's decision to continue an approach to an area where a microburst was likely. The failure of the flight crew to recognize wind shear quickly (exacerbated by an error in the wind shear alert software; the wind shear alert system should have warned them about 8–9 seconds prior to impact) The failure of the flight crew to establish proper pitch and engine power that would have brought them out of the wind shear The lack of timely weather information by air traffic control to the crew of Flight 1016

In the media The Flight 1016 crash is discussed in a Mayday (Air Disasters in the U.S.) television series episode, "Racing the Storm" (S1E2), about American Airlines Flight 1420, which also crashed while landing in inclement weather. The accident was later featured in Mayday episode "Storming Out" (S17E6). Flight 1016 was also the subject of an episode of The Unexplained, a Biography Channel series.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with USAir Flight 1016

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what USAir Flight 1016 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to USAir Flight 1016 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about USAir Flight 1016 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of USAir Flight 1016

In research: USAir Flight 1016 appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses USAir Flight 1016 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: USAir Flight 1016 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1994 in North Carolina, Airliner accidents and incidents caused by microbursts, Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for USAir Flight 1016 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study USAir Flight 1016 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what USAir Flight 1016 means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain USAir Flight 1016 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is USAir Flight 1016 in simple terms?

Why does USAir Flight 1016 matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study USAir Flight 1016?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on USAir Flight 1016.