Insight: Keeping cool under pressure

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

While serving in the U.S. Air Force, I learned that training to handle emergency situations is essential but staying calm in a potentially disastrous situation can be of help too.

On Saturday morning May 28, 1983, I was at home listening to music in my apartment in Avondale, Arizona when my phone rang. That happened to be my weekend for CQ duty, which meant I was the Public Affairs representative on call in the event of an emergency development at Luke Air Force Base. The Air Force lieutenant on the other end of the telephone told me to report to the base immediately as an emergency was about to unfold there.

When I arrived at the base’s Command Post, I learned that the crew of a civilian DC-9 aircraft had requested permission to land on our runway as it only had seconds of fuel left to remain in the air. It was a Republic Airlines flight with 86 people on board that had left that morning from Fresno, California bound for Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix about 22 miles away from Luke Air Force Base.

The Brigadier General who served as the base commander was notified of the Republic crew’s request to land, instructed our air traffic control personnel to let them land and was on his way to the command post to assess the situation.

When the general arrived, I briefed him about what had transpired. While on approach to Phoenix, the Republic Airlines pilots radioed that they needed to land because aircraft gauges showed they had “zero fuel” remaining and they were concerned that the jet’s two engines would stall and shut down.

Once on the ground, logistics became another question for our Command Post team. The flight was supposed to arrive at Sky Harbor International Airport, but how would the passengers get there and did we want to allow members of the public onto the Air Force base to retrieve them. Because the DC-9 was out of fuel and the temperature outside had reached 105 degrees that morning, the air conditioning system for the aircraft wasn’t operating and the heat inside the airplane was rising.

The first thing I did was make a call to the base recreation officer and I briefed him what was going on. He advised that he could have two Air Force buses and drivers ready to transport passengers to Sky Harbor International Airport in 40 minutes. He also told me that the base Officer’s Club could be opened for passengers to wait in air conditioning until the buses arrived. Passengers were offered water and soft drinks as they waited.

As the passengers got off the airplane and gathered at the Officer’s Club, the general told the passengers about how we planned to get them to the airport. Many passengers were angry or had questions about their baggage. My job was to answer their questions the best I could.

I had at least 10 passengers yelling and screaming at me for ruining their day. I told them I understood and it was the best plan we could come up with when all the Air Force did was allow the aircraft to land at the base and save lives.

About the same time that the passengers were leaving the base on the buses, I received notification that the media, including reporters and film crews from three television stations, four daily newspaper reporters and photographers and two staff members from the Associated Press were waiting for me at the base’s front gate seeking information about the incident.

The general told me to be candid and up front with them and he instructed me to allow them only to take photos of the Republic Airlines jet on the tarmac. My mission was clear and that was to cast the Air Force’s involvement in this situation in a positive light and emphasizing that our humanitarian concerns prompted our response.

I was bombarded with questions from reporters and shared what details I knew about at that time. I gave them the time that the DC-9 had asked for permission to land, the reason they had asked to land, and how many passengers and crew members were on board the aircraft. I discussed how the base had opened the Officer’s Club for them and how we had transported the passengers and flight crew to the airport.

The subsequent National Transportation Safety Board investigation revealed that the jet’s three fuel tanks had just 4 5/8 gallons of fuel left after landing at the base. The plane had flown from Phoenix to Fresno the day before with the same two pilots. It had left Phoenix with 15,000 pounds of fuel. Before taking off Saturday, the pilot had inquired about fuel and was told that no fuel had been added overnight and there was 15,000 pounds on board.

About 65 miles west of Phoenix, a master caution warning light came on, followed by a low pressure fuel light. The pilots discovered a circuit breaker in the fuel system had tripped and when reset, the fuel gauge indicators dropped to zero.

It was certainly a tough day but one I am proud to have played a role in. <