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DC10 Image: Eduard Marmet - www.airliners.net/photo/Spanta...
This is the story of Spantax airlines flight 995. On the 13th of september 1982 a DC 10 started its day flying from palma de mallorca to madrid's barajas airport with a stop over in malaga. At malaga Later that day the plane was boarded by 381 passengers and 13 crew members As the passengers boarded and settled in for the flight the pilots were configuring the plane for takeoff, they set the flaps and calculated important speed information for this takeoff, including the V speeds. Today their V1 speed, or the highest speed at which they could reject the takeoff and have sufficient runway to stop was 162 knots. The plane left the gate and started to taxi towards the runway.All the while the crew carried out checks and checklists making sure that the plane was all set for takeoff.
As the plane lined up with the runway the pilots got their takeoff clearance from ATC, in the cockpit the pilots pushed all three of the DC-10s giant engines to maximum power. The huge plane barreled down the runway, it went through 80 knots, the engine parameters were all in the green, as the plane passed through 160 knots something was wrong, a strange vibration could be felt in the cockpit. This was anything but normal. The plane was picking up speed and the pilots had no idea what was causing these vibrations. The plane kept accelerating and the vibrations grew worse and worse, the pilots had no idea what was wrong with the plane, would it be able to stay in the air? They didnt know. Pilots had been taught to reject takeoffs at or below their V1 speed in this case 162 knots because that would given them more than enough time to stop the plane safely on the runway but in this case stopping on the runway would be hard as they were going so fast.
The captain couldnt fall back on his training. This was totally new, they had been trained for things like engine failures on takeoff but not this, whatever this was. Knowing that they had too little runway to stop the pilots deciding to take off, they raised the nose of the plane. But suddenly as flight 995 strained to get airborne the vibration increased, the pilots felt that it was coming from the back of the plane. The captain could feel the plane vibrating through his control columns. He had no idea what was wrong with his plane, he had no idea if the DC10 would be able to sustain flight, he knew that the plane was going too fast to stop in time but he decided to reject the takeoff anyway. Even as the pilots brought the nose wheel back onto the runway the plane was accelerating.
The captain engaged the reversers and the spoilers but the plane was just going way too fast, in the cockpit window the captain saw that they were headed for the building that housed the ILS equipment and he struggled to control his plane. When it became clear that they would hit the runway the captain ordered an engine shut off. As he did so the plane began crashing into the approach lights of runway 32, The dc 10 traveled another 290 meters after it overran the runway and it slammed into the ILS building destroying it , but the DC 10 still carried quite a bit of speed. It broke through the airport fence and went through a busy highway, damaging three vehicles, eventually the dc10 crashed into some farming equipment. Unfortunately 50 people on the plane and 1 person on the ground did not make it.
When compared to cruise takeoffs and landings are absolutely chaotic, theres so much going on. More importantly margins are razor thin, if you lose an engine at 35000 feet you have a few seconds to react, if you lose an engine on takeoff you literally have split seconds to make that decision. (Link to 737 crash), if you make the wrong choice at those speeds it wont take long for you to crash into something. After all the saying does go a pilots job is 99% boredom followed by a percent of sheer terror.