Jean-Claude was in the left seat. He was senior to me, but I was flying. We were near the equator, where Mermoz and Guillaumet had once flown — but they, poor fellows, had not been at 35,000 feet! We entered the clouds at what looked like a soft spot in a squall line. At first it wasn’t bad, but then the turbulence came, and with it lightning that never stopped, as if ogres with lanterns were laughing around us.
This Did Not Happen
Key Takeaways:
- A flight crew encountered severe weather and pitot icing, leading to instrument failure and an autopilot disconnect, which escalated into a dangerous deep stall when the pilot incorrectly pitched up.
- Veteran Captain Dubois, awakened by the crisis, took control and, against the crew's instinct to pull up, decisively pushed the aircraft's nose down, successfully recovering the plane from the deep stall.
- The article highlights Dubois' exceptional, instinctual mastery of basic aerodynamics, which allowed him to diagnose and recover from a critical, novel flight problem that manufacturers had not anticipated.
- The narrative concludes by lamenting the loss of such experienced, intuitive pilots, contrasting Dubois' life-saving actions with a later fatal AirAsia crash under similar circumstances due to the absence of such unique expertise.
Key takeaways sponsored by Aviator Pro | Start Your Training ->
See a mistake? Contact us.
