RIP Denny Fitch...Sioux City Flight 232 Throttle Man

[ClearOfCloud]

Sad to hear of his passing. In case you don't remember the name; Denny Fitch was the the off-duty United Airlines DC-10 instructor who worked the throttles in the crash landing of Flight 232 at Sioux City in 1989

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=denny-fitch&pid=157525448

[wessex boy]

Great, clear thinking by the flight crew on that flight, amazing that so many survived

I recall the interview with the Captain from his Hospital Trolley with him being broken about the 100 that died when he and the crew actually saved 120 people that would have also died

[Iceman]

For some reason, his name has always stuck in my mind. The crew learnt on the job that day, in a very short space of time, how to fly an aircraft without any flight controls. They did a brilliant job getting to a runway, a feat that no crews subsequently managed to emulate in a simulator. I always remember the Captain's RT comment on being told "You are cleared to land any runway" .... "You want to be particular and make it a runway, huh?". Professional and cool to the end

Iceman

[Dave W]

Bob Collins, a Minnesota RV builder and professional radio journalist, has a blog post up about Capt Fitch today.

It includes a video interview with him from the MGM "First Person" series.

[joe-fbs]

Just watched the videos on the blog page linked above. I'm lost for words.

[JonathanB]

That incident came up in our CISM (Critical Incident Stress Management) talk at college - the controllers on duty went home thinking everyone had died as no one bothered to let them know the outcome was rather better than that.

An incredible story and outcome.

[Charles Hunt]

My goodness. Completely humbling. Every one on this forum should follow the link in DaveW's post.