Analysis Of American Airlines Flight 1420

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Fifteen years have passed since American Airlines flight 1420 experienced a botched landing tragically killing 10 passengers, the captain, and injuring 110 others. Thankfully, 24 passengers were uninjured, and the first officer survived. This horrific accident could have turned out much worse, but it could have also been easily avoided. June 1st 1999, captain Richard Buschmann and first officer Michael Origel were about to embark on their third and final leg of the day after already working for ten hours on two other trip legs. They had arrived at Dallas/Fort Worth Texas around 2010 CST and were eager to proceed on their final trip of the day to Little Rock, Arkansas. Poor weather in the region prevented their assigned aircraft from arriving on time closely pushing them ever closer to their fourteen hour duty limits for the day. The first officer realizing their situation contacted the dispatchers to notify them they would need to find a substitute aircraft or the flight would need to be cancelled. Both pilots were well aware of the impending storms in the area, including around the destination airport, but they decided that they would be able to beat the storms there, one of the first signs of suffering from get-there-itis. Once an aircraft was substituted, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82, the pilots were able to depart at 2240, 2 hours and 12 minutes after their scheduled departure time, 12 hours into their 14 hour duty day. On this leg of their long day, the captain was the flying pilot in control of the aircraft, and the first officer was the non-flying pilot, handling such things as navigation and the radios. After only 14 minutes in the air, 2254, they received the first of many warnings. They received an ACARS message, the eq... ... middle of paper ... ...push forward no matter what warning signs were placed in front of them. Aside of some technological big-brother breakthrough that can monitor the decisions and behaviors of all pilots in real time, the only true way to lessen the chances of another accident such as this would be better human factors training and more regulations revolving pilot fatigue and weather. Some day technological advances will allow the computers onboard an aircraft to make safety determinations such as crosswind capability and visibility in real time and prevent pilots from making foolish decisions, but until that day arrives, education and training will be our only means to protect ourselves from accidents such as these. The training will never be perfect, humans will always be far from perfect, and we will always continue to have human related accidents, we can only hope to reduce them.

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