Highway to Ruin: The crash of Southern Airways flight 242 (2022)

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/highway-to-ruin-the-crash-of-southern-airways-flight-242-7eb1433281fe

by vinnyglennon • 3 years ago

115 81 3 years ago

admiralcloudberg.medium.com

I wonder about the "Last" in the title, and how common road landings are in general. We had one not far from us awhile back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QOMDyMZD3k, saw the plane from a bridge on my bike commute home... a strange day was had by all, with zero casualties.

gpderetta4• 3 years ago

I guess the article implicitly refers to commercial aviation.

wlesieutre• 3 years ago

One in Knoxville earlier this year as well, small plane and no injuries. I guess the article is talking about large commercial flights.

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/2023/01/21/small-p...

eigenhombre2• 3 years ago

Amazing video in that link!

GavinMcG• 3 years ago

The article did not use that headline, and is explicit about what it claims:

no passenger jet pilot has tried again since (emphasis added)

mindcrime• 3 years ago

There was at least one (successful) such landing (small plane, not commercial) in NC last year as well[1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCgrGTZdd4A

rob743• 3 years ago

That's why HN has a rule to post articles with their original title... and that is "Highway to Ruin: The crash of Southern Airways flight 242".

nanidin• 3 years ago

I agree, the headline has been editorialized in order to drive engagement.

robohoe• 3 years ago

There was another one recently this past year where the pilot landed on Interstate 355.

buildsjets• 3 years ago

What a cute little Ercoupe. Also, I really appreciated the CBS2 headline shot at 0:26 - "PLANE ON LSD."

outworlder2• 3 years ago

An Ercoupe needs about 300m to land normally.

matthewdgreen• 3 years ago

The article says the following: "it seems that the crash permanently killed the idea of landing large airliners on highways. This Hollywood staple makes for good cinema, but in real life it usually ends in catastrophe — and while McKenzie and Keele were not the first to discover this, they were the last,no passenger jet pilot has tried again since."

zokier2• 3 years ago

Some countries maintain special segments of highways specifically for aircraft operation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_strip

Apparently they are uncommon in US? I guess there are enough general airstrips and open space to make them not necessary

gpderetta4• 3 years ago

I guess these were mostly built in Europe for warplanes, in preparation of a conflict between NATO and USSR, with the expectation that most military airports would be out of commissions after the initial exchanges.

ano-ther• 3 years ago

Wouldn’t they be kind of obvious targets too?

jltsiren• 3 years ago

I think it's more about protecting the aircraft, which are vulnerable on the ground. If you disperse your air force, your casualties will be lower when the enemy attacks your bases.

jefftk• 3 years ago

"The highway strips can be converted from motorways to airbases typically within 24 to 48 hours."

Sounds like it wouldn't work for an emergency landing?

zokier2• 3 years ago

Idk what that is referring to, the ones I've seen have been mostly straight segments with extended shoulders (and I suppose reinforced beneath but that is difficult to eyeball); definitely something that could be used in emergency without any prep.

Xylakant• 3 years ago

They have a few properties that could make them more attractive for emergencies. There are no objects around the highway that would interfere with wings, especially no overpasses, poles or trees. The stretches are long and straight, as well as reasonably flat. The road surface was/is kept in a good enough condition for planes to land.

There’s still the middle barrier etc., so in a planned conversion that would be removed, a control tower of sorts set up etc.

But in todays traffic, you’d probably not find a gap large enough to squeeze an airliner in. And I don’t think these are still maintained as air strips, at least in Germany.

SkyPuncher• 3 years ago

Based on the images, it still would. You might just end up with damage to a wing or engine.

Wider runways also make it easier to land/takeoff in a wider range of weather conditions. If you plan to routine use something, it's worth removing the barriers.

local_crmdgeon2• 3 years ago

The issue is weight - state highways are frequently used for landings in Alaska. That doesn't mean they're good to go for a 737.

dsfyu404ed2• 3 years ago

This is misleading. Road weight limits are for wear and tear reasons, not safety.

The actual "failure" loads are orders (yes, plural) of magnitude higher and most failures aren't the kind of catastrophic thing that people on the internet typically try and imply unless you get really unlucky and your mountainside shelf road turns into a landslide. Failure usually means you park a heavy object somewhere and come back hours/days/weeks/months later and find that it sank or slid slowly downhill in that time.

AlbertCory4• 3 years ago

Indeed. The hugely popular Cessna 172 weighs less than most cars, though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_172

bell-cot• 3 years ago

The US Air Force experimented a bit with highway landings (in the US) recently:

https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2721902/a-10...

jcrawfordor2• 3 years ago

The US embarked on a huge effort in the early airmail days to build enough airports that aircraft could follow federal airways without ever being out of glide range of one of them - these were the CAA intermediate fields, many of them not much more than a grass strip with a beacon, but many others were built up over time and remain municipal airports today.

Later, WWII lead to the construction of even more airfields for pilot training. So many pilots were being trained that the training bases didn't have the capacity for the pattern practice, so many training airfields had multiple "outlying fields" that were just extra sets of runways a few miles away. Some of these turned into municipal airports later, but many more were abandoned for lack of need. By the time the freeway system was built, the US was positively lousy with airports, much denser than seen in most other countries.

phkahler• 3 years ago

> But the reason they didn’t try to land there was simple: neither the pilots nor the Atlanta controller knew it existed. The airport, not being intended for use by large aircraft, was not marked on the pilots’ charts, and because it lay outside Atlanta Center’s area of responsibility, it wasn’t on their charts either.

Or maybe one of the pilots had turned toward it, having spent time in the area during his military service (see earlier in the article). Maybe they turned toward it but the weather in that direction turned out to be terrible so they tried for the recommended airports... Maybe.

ChrisMarshallNY3• 3 years ago

I'm told that the reason for the wide powerline/signpost margins of midwest highways, was so that B-52s could land on them.

There was a fascinating book, called Outside Lies Magic[0], where he talks about these kinds of things.

[0] https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-r-stilgoe/ou...

wombatpm2• 3 years ago

I57 near Rantoul, IL near Chanute AFB has a particularly straight section of road with no overpasses (any cross roads go under) for just this reason.

Kon-Peki• 3 years ago

This seems rather unlikely. I-57 parallels the old Illinois Central rail route, with a jog to the west and then south every time it needs to avoid a town along the railroad. It seems rather certain that the southerly sections are perfectly straight because they take over existing county roads, which are a perfectly square grid of streets thanks to the Land Ordinance of 1785 and Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

This approach would have resulted in the absolute minimum cost of acquiring the land to build the highway, so it is probably why I-57 looks the way it does. It's pretty easy to imagine that the only reason I-57 exists is as a political quid-pro-quo and therefore they'd try to build it as cheaply as possible. If you wanted to go from Chicago to Memphis & New Orleans, you could take I-55, but then you also have to go through the state capital and St. Louis. So instead, if you live in the politically-powerful areas on the Southside of Chicago (where the first mayor Daley lived - perhaps the most powerful mayor in America back when the Interstate system was started), you could have a highway built specifically for you! You don't have to waste time driving past the people you hate on the west side, you can skip the people you hate in Springfield, you can skip the people you hate in St. Louis, and then the Interstate ends when it connects back up with I-55 north of Memphis.

PS - Chanute got BRACC'ed about 30 years ago.

lb1lf• 3 years ago

The Finns did the same thing on a grand scale - out in the boonies, there are many stretches of main road where they suddenly go straight and go wider, to be suitable for use as ad-hoc airstrips in case the Russians came knocking.

Brilliant move - suddenly there's an abundance of airstrips all over.

kqr• 3 years ago

...but for it to work, you also need aircraft designed to be serviced by a small number of people with the supplies that can be kept on hand out in the boonies.

jeffreygoesto• 3 years ago

Germans as well... [0] Let's hope we don't need them...

[0] https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/the-h...

oehrksjfk2• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_90

dredmorbius2• 3 years ago

Finnish forces specifically train for this as well, not just landings but takeoffs and refueling, with numerous videos to be found online. Examples from a quick search:

<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Vj_eJxy8ojk>

<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=D0KADbVDkn8>

<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=UUr5KWEQNxc>

Note the full deployment of speed brakes in the 1st & 2nd videos particularly. I've never seen the F-18 Hornet rear brake (between the twin tails) before.

bityard• 3 years ago

There are a number of myths around the idea of interstate highways serving as emergency runways in wartime, these all appear to be false.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/landing-of-hope-and-glory/

The two biggest arguments against using highways as runways are:

1. Airports are not at all rare, even in rural areas. If an enemy could succeed in making all airports (even in just a single region) unusable, they could do the same to major cities, and have pretty much already won the war.

2. Sacrificing a lot of ground mobility for a little bit of air power is extremely unlikely to ever be a worthwhile trade-off.

ChrisMarshallNY3• 3 years ago

That sounds quite specific. It is talking about the "one in five" thing.

It may, indeed, be false, but I'm not sure if that Snopes thing is really saying that. It's talking about a fairly specific example.

kube-system3• 3 years ago

Like a lot of urban legends, there is a mix of truth.

* No, interstate highways in the US are not required by regulation to be designed for military use.

* Yes, the military is aware that highways are an option for landing if need be, and they have even trained to do this.

* Regardless, the military doesn't really need highways to be required by law to be designed for landing for them to serve that practical purpose. A scenario in which US military bases and airports are blown up is a pretty extreme scenario to plan for anyway. There are almost 20,000 airports in the US.

* Some other countries do impose design requirements by law for highways to be used as runways.

WalterBright• 3 years ago

Back in the 1960s, a 707 pilot landing at Heathrow got confused and landed at an abandoned WW2 airfield instead. Nobody knew how the pilot managed to get it stopped on its short runway.

The problem, though, was getting it off the ground. Mechanics stripped it of everything they could. Then put just enough gas in to get it to Heathrow. The pilot was one brave mofu, and he got the job done.

WeylandYutani• 3 years ago

I was shocked that Ukraine can't go into a counteroffensive because of mud. Mud as an impediment to warfare in 2023!

In the Netherlands you could drive an entire armored division straight into the capital over the many highways. Some of them you could land a Boeing 747 on. Roads are important Infrastructure that you take for granted like power and clean water.

dghlsakjg• 3 years ago

The problem with the mud is that it FORCES the use of highway infrastructure. It’s not that the Ukraine doesn’t have a ton of paved roads. It’s that you have to use them, just like the Netherlands

It’s pretty easy to defend against an invading force if they have to all go nose to tail in one line on infrastructure that you know everything about. You can further limit where they go by disabling choke points like bridges, and just destroying the roads faster than the engineers can repair them.

tomohawk• 3 years ago

a carrier specializing in short flights between cities across the South. Many of these routes would not be viable today due to improved roads, but in the 1970s it was still common to fly these brief “puddle-jumper” routes using midsized jet aircraft

It used to be that if it took 4 hours or more to drive to a place, it was worth taking a plane. I remember those days fondly. Flying was convenient, enjoyable, and drama free.

Now, with the TSA and the ever longer FAA delays, the cutoff is more like 10 hours.

AlbertCory4• 3 years ago

"Last Highway Landing" -- not!

Unless "of a commercial aircraft" is implied. Because a private plane landed on 280 (in the Bay Area) back in the 1980s. I actually met the pilot who did it; his engine threw a rod and he was not going to get back to Palo Alto Airport.

Fortunately, a freeway has plenty of room, if there aren't cars on it.

ledauphin2• 3 years ago

highway/road landings of small aircraft happen in the US on a pretty regular basis.

the biggest risk is still probably power lines, not cars. a small aircraft landing on a road will be going about the same speed as highway traffic, so unless it's really busy, drivers will usually notice an airplane in front of them and have time to slow down.

Turing_Machine• 3 years ago

People land their bush planes on roads here in Alaska all the time. Often without authorization, true, but it still happens.

CrazyStat• 3 years ago

From the post:

Lastly, one other safety lesson which came from flight 242 may not have come about due to any recommendation or research project: among pilots, it seems that the crash permanently killed the idea of landing large airliners on highways. This Hollywood staple makes for good cinema, but in real life it usually ends in catastrophe — and while McKenzie and Keele were not the first to discover this, they were the last, as no passenger jet pilot has tried again since.

I'm sure the author is aware that small planes still occasionally land on highways.

genewitch• 3 years ago

killed the idea of landing large airliners on highways

says so right there. The author explains stuff in a way for laypersons to understand. I actually prefer some of the imprecise "color" the author ads to his write-ups of crashes.

as an aside i imagine the damage to the road surface (and probably subsurface) would be astounding.

outworlder2• 3 years ago

Unless "of a commercial aircraft" is implied.

No - "large airliners" is specifically spelled out. Unless this private pilot was in a 737 or whatever, the statement is still true.

Since you are talking about KPAO, it was definitely a small aircraft.

GA aircraft land on highways often. The only reason that doesn't happen more frequently is that pilots are generally concerned about causing ground casualties. Usually what would prompt this would be an engine failure. A silent aircraft trying to land among high speed traffic makes for a dangerous scenario.

AlbertCory4• 3 years ago

The title is click bait. It doesn't say that.

Is it an oversight? Well, I once used a title that was different from the title of the URL, and it got Flagged. Dang upheld the flagging. Now I know better.

cozzyd• 3 years ago

More recently a small plane landed on Lake Shore Drive: https://abc7chicago.com/lake-shore-drive-plane-crash-lands-o...

dang• 3 years ago

Submitted title was "Last Highway Landing in USA". We've reverted the title now.

tspike• 3 years ago

Interestingly, the article gets the name of the lead flight attendant wrong. She is Catherine, not Anne. This article contains her statement and many additional photos.

https://ashevilleoralhistoryproject.com/2013/07/08/lucky-few...

Miraste• 3 years ago

The NTSB report this article draws on lists her as Anne:

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/... (page 50)

Nickname, maybe.

Edit: It's one of her middle names, which I learned from her obituary, rest in peace.

http://www.southernairways.org/obit-catherine-cooper.html

reso• 3 years ago

Strange to read a flight transcript from before cockpit hygiene training. Transcripts of major incidents today sound like office meetings. These pilots sound emotional and disorganized comparatively.

gpderetta4• 3 years ago

A slightly more recent (and famous) highway landing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

Not in the US but in Canada, and technically not an highway but a racetrack.

dmckeon• 3 years ago

a former Royal Canadian Air Force base in Gimli, Manitoba, which had been converted to a racetrack

Technically.

mikestew• 3 years ago

It says in the first paragraph of your link that it was an Air Force base. There's no "highway" to it, technically or otherwise: they landed at an airport.

stall84• 3 years ago

Allow me to rant:

    As a CFI, and lifelong aviation nutcase.. one who has been described by a few of my instructors in the past as 'morbidly' researching aviation accidents kind of obsessively (other instructors of mine realize on the contrary its a very wise past-time), this is a particular MASSIVE peeve of mine. 

    Just a few months ago here in Atlanta a small single engine plane made an emergency landing on I-985 (actually on an exit ramp leading off of it), around 5PM .. Anyone around here knows that interstate and exit ramp would be packed around that time of day. But somehow, thankfully, no cars were wrecked and the plane/pilot survived with just a collapsed main gear.

So what's the problem with that?

    Well.. directly adjacent, and in the exact same direction of travel of the exit ramp was a wide opened, plowed, clay field that was being prepped for a building construction. 

    I don't know if flight simulator (how i started as a kid actually) or something else is to blame, but so many new pilots get this idea in their head of emergency landing on roads/highways .. and that is such a horrible idea with reasons that should be obvious to anyone.. regardless of being a pilot or not.

    Imagine for a second your wife/gf or partner were picking up the kids or whatever and driving home on that exit ramp that day.. All of a sudden a plane comes out of  nowhere and of course frightens the heck out of them.. they regain focus on the road to see the car in front has slammed on brakes for the same reason.. before they know it.. a high-speed impact has happened, with injuries or worse to the occupants (all the while the emergency landing plane glides effortlessly to a stop on the exit ramp.. leaving a wake of destruction.)

    That example is just showing what can happen to everyone else, the story this is attached to is a perfect example of what can actually happen to the plane and occupants itself. 

    Power lines, tree limbs, cars, power poles, .. all exist around roads. If you are making an emergency landing.. look for a field first, only if everything on the ground is covered by trees and no grass/dirt/field exists to land on should you resort to landing on a road.

    In the case of an airliner its the same story, even though yes they are heavier.. and there will be more landing gear "dig" into the turf/soil/grass than in a small plane.. but the fundamental reasons why you want to avoid roads are the same.. you'll just have to compensate with your angle and velocity at landing.. oh btw.. soft grass/turf do also help with absorbing some of the E from the landing.

Just some things I wanted to get off my chest, and the title of this article seemed the perfect opp to do so.

AlbertCory4• 3 years ago

There's a big difference between "a good idea" and "sometimes it happens"

pfdietz• 3 years ago

It mentioned TACA 110!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5UUr9RXfTY

meowitzer• 3 years ago

1. aviate, 2. navigate, 3. communicate.

There's a reason they come in this order, because in a total loss of power situation your best bet is to preserve your gliding ability as much as possible (for which any maneuver could compromise) until you know for sure where you want to touch down.

oehrksjfk2• 3 years ago

PaulDavisThe1st3• 3 years ago

I know nothing about planes or flying or landing beyond what any commercial airline passenger does. But I have to believe that if you had to, landing on a section of interstate out here in New Mexico would be a fairly good and safe choice. None of the hazards in the article exist, e.g:

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.3953268,-104.5952232,3a,75y,...

aidenn0• 3 years ago

The fields next to that interstate is rather more safe since it's far less likely to have passenger vehicles on it.

PaulDavisThe1st3• 3 years ago

Ever driven I-25 north of Las Vegas, NM. Less likely? yes. Far less likely? no. Especially at night, but even by day, that is one empty highway (for its size).

jcrawfordor2• 3 years ago

But Springer, just a bit further south, has a pretty nice municipal airport. Sort of underscores why road landings aren't all that common, freeways tend to have airports adjacent to them at pretty frequent intervals. In NM it's common enough for small airports to be immediately adjacent to the freeway with the runway parallel to it that people joke about mixing them up.

PaulDavisThe1st3• 3 years ago

Excellent rebuttal of my point. Springer even has 5k' to land on, large enough for a moderate size commercial plane.

Highway to Ruin: The crash of Southern Airways flight 242 (2022)

Related Stories