This is the story of the 2021 crash of the 987 investments Md87 crash. On the 19th of October 2021 an MD87 owned by 987 investments LLC. this was a private charter flight meant to take a few people all the way from houston executive airport to boston to watch the houston astros play the red sox. So this wasnt a normal regularly scheduled flight, the pilots of the flight today usually flew for everets air cargo out in fairbanks alaska but with the pandemic and everything, they were probably getting work wherever they could find it. A lot of pilots had to adapt during the pandemic. Heres the thing though the MD87, hadnt flown for a while as well. The last time it was flown was on the 26th of april 2021. After a couple of months on the ground, this jet was ready to get back in the air. The captain had flown this jet before and this was the first officers first time flying the MD 87. The pilots got to the airport at 8 am local time and the first officer did a walk around of the plane to make sure that its extended stay on the ground hadnt done anything to the plane. Think bird nests in the engines or corrosion on the control surfaces that sort of thing, he was looking for anything that might make the plane unsafe to fly. Everything checked out. But just to be safe an airframe and powerplant technician from 987 Investments also performed a walkaround of the plane and noted nothing out of the ordinary. Two sets of eyes are better than one after all. But all seemed to be okay.
The first officer and the captain started powering the plane on while the passengers boarded. They ran checks and went through the procedures that you needed to do to get this jet into the air. The captain told the first officer that theyd be using the procedures developed by the company that they used to fly for, everts. Telling the first officer that they would only reject the takeoff after V1 only if the plane wouldnt fly. For those of you that dont know V1 is the highest speed at which you can safely reject takeoffs, with there being enough runway left to stop the plane in time. At 9:52 am the engines were started and the pilots started taxing the plane to the runway. On the way the pilots did a control check, where the first officer pushed the yoke all the way and then back to make sure that the plane was responding to all the commands as expected. Everything was a okay and so the plane continued to the runway. The air traffic controller at this time chimed in and cleared the MD87 to take off from the runway 36. The captain set the thrust levels that they would have to hit, the pilots looked over the instruments and everything looked good. The flaps, slats and the stablizer were all set for take off now the onlything that was left was to push the engines to takeoff thrust and get the jet into the air. The jet started rolling, slowly at first but then it picked up speed. At 9:59 and 26 seconds the first officer called 80 knots followed by V1 at 9:59 and 47 seconds, this jet was going too fast to stop on the runway that they had left now.They would need to takeoff if something went wrong. Just a second later they called rotate, this is the indication for the pilot flying, in this case the first officer to pull back on the yoke and raise the nose of the plane into the air. He pulled back but nothing happened. The jet accelerated but it stayed firmly on terra firma. iT was like the controls were stuck in concrete. Nothing they did had any effect. The first officer then made the V2 call out. This is the minimum speed that must be maintained if an engine fails after V1. But the plane was still on the ground it should have lifted off by this point. Both pilots were now pulling back on the yoke. The CVR picked up the captain saying “come on” as he strained to get the jet into the air. At 9:59 and 53 seconds the first officer made the call he said abort and before the captain could react the first officer reached for the throttles and put both engines into idle and the captain activated the reversers. At the back of the plane, the huge buckets were pushed into the
26 авг 2024
