“Fly the airplane” is a time-honored maxim among pilots at all experience levels. It’s something that flight instructors should drill into their students from Day One, and which often is forgotten at some point in an accident sequence. The idea is that—no matter what challenge we may be facing—a flight’s successful outcome depends on keeping the dirty side down and the aircraft headed where you want it to go. The corollary is that we can’t let distractions divert our attention from the basic task of aviating.
A poster-child accident highlighting the constant, basic need to fly the airplane comes courtesy of Eastern Airlines Flight 401, a nearly new Lockheed L-1011-1 TriStar, which impacted the Florida Everglades on December 29, 1972, killing 101 passengers and crew. Seventy-five people survived.
