The Hijacking Of Flight 705: Attempted Murder At 39,000ft | Mayday S3 Ep3 | Wonder

[Music] fedex flight 705 positive rate here a routine trip from memphis tennessee to san jose california little do the crew know they will soon have to defend themselves against a determined attack intended to kill them all flight 705 will never reach its destination we've got an attempt to take over investigators will uncover a meticulous plan and a desperate motive we are in an emergency [Music] it's april 1994. a fedex cargo plane is on its way to california it's a perfect day for flying nines and twos here but behind the cockpit in the galley area a disaster is about to unfold the pilots of fedex flight 705 are seconds away from an unprecedented situation [Music] [Music] and uh we need armed intervention april the 7th 1994 worldwide headquarters of federal express in memphis tennessee servicing 171 countries the company delivers over 2 million packages per day and works to a tight schedule flying conditions are perfect at the memphis airport fedex flight 705 to san jose california is preparing to depart with the three-man crew as the afternoon flight to san jose got any jump seaters on it none at all 42 year old auburn callaway is a flight engineer he hopes to hitch a ride on flight 705 for pressing personal reasons thanks employees have the privilege of free rides they're known as jump seaters thirty-nine-year-old flight engineer andy peterson is the first of the flight crew to arrive on the plane any pieces he's surprised to find auburn callaway on board my first thought was well scheduling has gotten uh it's also called someone else out for the flight and now we've got two engineers so i said hey to him and then asked him if he was going to be riding out to san jose with us and he said he was that he was going to ride the jump seat out peterson a five-year flyer with fedex finds something unusual during his pre-flight check the breaker switch of the cockpit voice recorder or cvr is in the off position puzzled peterson resets it the cvr records all in-flight voice communications it's a crucial tool for investigating air disasters no large commercial airliner is allowed to fly without one the cockpit voice circuit breaker it had popped out which means the power's off to the cockpit voice recorder so i never seen that before and i thought well that's kind of weird 49 year old pilot david sanders and 42 year old co-pilot james tucker are next to board and prepare for departure do you mind if i hop around you guys california no no no no i don't see any problems today everything looks good you uh you play the guitar i play at it he was very cool uh calm collected nothing indicating anything was amiss actually noticing there was a guitar case off the right in front of the 9g net but i couldn't wait to get in the cockpit and start going through cockpit checks because we had a lot to do but something was amiss they didn't know it but callaway had originally been scheduled to be the flight engineer on this flight however he and his crew had exceeded their flying hours by just one minute the previous day so they'd been replaced but callaway was determined to make flight 705 no matter what i think she'll fly some bolts when i came back out on the airplane and went back up to the cockpit i noticed that that circuit broker had popped out again so i reset it and decided that i would see if it would stay in instead of calling maintenance at that time that i'd just wait and see if it popped back out that i would call maintenance because that is a no-go item if the cvr is turned off there will be no audio record of the events aboard flight 705. you want to fly this leg of the trip or do you prefer the return trip you never know when you're going to get another chance i met jim tucker that afternoon jim had been with the company for 10 years in fact he was an instructor in the dc-10 andy peterson and i had had a trip together in fact we flew to paris one time the crew is flying together for the first time both tucker and sanders are ex-navy sanders has been with fedex for 20 years james tucker who has a wife and three children at home has been with the company for 10 years none of the crew know callaway or his reasons for being on this flight 705 heavy runway 27 clear for takeoff express 705 cleared for takeoff lights if you want them i mean clocks if you want them lights are coming on we'll get the vertical speed wheel here in a minute how's the checklist though all right before takeoff is complete your airplane set standard power please before they change their mind [Music] power is set [Music] v1 rotate fedex flight 705 is airborne and westward bound the weather to california is clear and if all goes as planned they'll be back home within 10 hours but back in the cargo area auburn callaway is launching a different plan a plan he's been shaping and reshaping for several days like the brilliant chess player he is callaway has thought out all his moves being bounced from the crew of flight 705 today was an unexpected glitch but nothing he can't cope with at his home that morning callaway already had to make a small adjustment to his plans the flight bag he'd plan to take with him on his journey is in for repairs so instead he packs a guitar case as a company employee he's unlikely to be searched and a guitar case seems innocent enough [Music] here you have a man who made some accomplishments that no other african-american had ever made callaway graduated from stanford university in 1974. he became a top navy flyer then a commercial pilot but his five years at fedex have been as a flight engineer he was highly intelligent a driven person to accomplish goals and uh had before him a an opportunity of a a tremendously positive career he was married and had children and family and it just seemed as though he was almost part of the true american dream just about the american family before leaving for the airport callaway put some important documents on his bed among them his last will and testament fedex flight 705 is several minutes outside memphis still climbing and passing through 5 800 meters jim tucker is hand flying the airplane using control wheel steering mode and enjoying the clear afternoon skies a couple of meters away sits auburn callaway behind him live frustrated expectations of a brilliant career and a marriage that ended in tears after takeoff is complete callaway has a terrifying plan his guitar case is packed with several hammers and a spear gun out of sight of the crew he gets his weapons ready to be successful callaway will have to act quickly speed and strength will be critical callaway is a former navy pilot and a martial arts expert so speed and strength come as part of the package the original plan was to take out his original crew which would have only been two individuals one was a female much smaller than the crew that he wound up facing on flight 705. no i live in fisherville fisherville great spot i had the cockpit door locked open but i noticed that callaway was walking up into the cockpit i just caught him out of the corner of my eye and basically saw us you know his arm coming up and i thought well he's just coming up to sit and talk with us for a while excruciating pain blinding pain so much in fact that uh i never lost consciousness but i lost useful consciousness for at least 45 seconds a blow to the head will rattle the brain it will shake it enough that it the electrical connections momentarily are not working and it can be anywhere from a complete irretrievable loss of consciousness to simply a stun or to what he describes as as a period of time where he was somewhat aware of what was going on but but could not respond to it i was slumped back like this and he looked i remember right in my eyes as he passed over it was almost probably like well the lights are on but there's nobody home here this guy is out of action so i'll move on to the next person the crew is in shock and confused what i saw was simply a face in his eyes and an object coming down at me i didn't discern any emotion or hate or anger i just saw a threat and i didn't really know what the threat was because it's so shocking and for a crew member who is a pilot in uniform to attack another pilot is unheard of in the airline industry although terribly injured peterson and tucker are still alive callaway hurriedly retreats out of the cockpit unaware of each other's injuries the crew starts to mobilize callaway has a backup plan the spear gun stashed outside the cockpit is a deadly sit weapon get back to your seats this is a real gun and i'll kill you there was a loud ringing my ear and i was a little unbalanced but i saw this spear gun and i thought well the only thing i can do is try to grab it so i grab the spear it sticks out of the spear gun about i don't know four inches or so so i grabbed it right behind the barbs and tried to hang on to it real tight tucker does something that callaway is not expecting he pulls back the yoke and puts the plane into a sudden 15 degree climb it throws the struggling men out of the cockpit into the galley behind i had already figured out that what i had in my hands is probably one of the best weapons available and that was the aircraft itself tucker has not been just a navy pilot but a combat instructor flying a4s his fighter pilot experience would prove invaluable in the next few minutes i was looking at this whole situation as if it was an air combat maneuvering situation we're taught in the navy uh and in the fighter community as you know the first thing you want to do is engage the bogey and engage the bad guy you make him predictable by engaging him uh and and you use his predictability then against him and then you kill the bogey but the co-pilot doesn't stop there tucker immediately rolls the massive aircraft to the left in an acrobatic maneuver to try and disarm callaway the men roll along the smoke curtain to the left side of the plane i knew that i had to do something very abrupt and very very rough and something that he would not be expecting tucker has no idea whether rolling the plane is helping saunders and peterson as they try to restrain callaway the fight continues with the men pinned to the left side of the plane the crew members are rapidly losing blood and strength [Music] tucker continues to execute the role all the while trying to maintain a visual reference outside the captain's window get him get him andy i got the airplane so you roll the airplane over on its back and pull through completely in the vertical but at this particular point uh you know if i'd rolled the airplane over on its back i wouldn't really be able to see what i was doing this is not a bubble canopy that you have over the top you're actually looking out it's got expansive windows but nonetheless you roll this airplane over on his back you can't really see that much of what you're doing so i rolled it to about 140 degrees where i could still see out over the side as the airplane's nose was starting to come through tucker rolls the quarter million kilogram dc 10 to 140 degrees almost on its back commercial aircraft are never meant to roll more than 60 degrees the men continue their fight on the ceiling of the aircraft callaway wrenches the hammer in his hand free and hits sanders in the head tucker decides to pull back on the yoke and put the plane into a steep dive a risky but cunning move the g-force of the dive pushes the men back along the ceiling to the smoke curtain the plane is traveling at a very dangerous speed tucker is making demands of the aircraft for which it was not designed dc-10s are never meant to be flown past 695 kilometers per hour tucker is over 800 kilometers per hour no dc10 in history has been flown so fast and survived the airspeed engineer was maxed it was all the way to what we call a barber pole couldn't go any faster but you could tell that you're going very quite a bit faster because the things you don't normally hear in a jet that size and one is the incredible amounts of sound of wind coming across the cockpit the plane approaches supersonic speed with the increased air speed the airflow over the stabilizer becomes disrupted the elevators begin to flutter back and forth if the flutter becomes more pronounced they may become inoperable and tucker will no longer have the means to pull the plane out of the dive if i didn't pull out soon the airplane was probably going to come apart because i was getting into a phenomenon known as mock tuck where the airplane is pitching over because the air speed is increasing so much the uh the the wind flow over the over the the surfaces of the wings is doing things that it's not even designed to do the injury to the left side of tucker's brain is beginning to paralyze functions on the right side of his body tucker notices something alarming the plane is traveling at this incredible speed because the throttle levers have been left in their automatic climb setting from takeoff the dc-10 is now in a vertical dive with the engines at nearly full power tucker must release his only usable hand from the yoke to pull back on the throttles with power reduced to idle the dc-10 is still not out of danger despite tucker's maneuvers callaway is gaining the upper hand [Music] callaway hit me with the third blow which was in the top of my head nearly rendered me unconscious i began to gray out at that very same time it occurred to me we might lose this thing as tucker starts to pull the plane carefully out of the dive the elevator flutter increases balance panels counterweights that help the pilots manipulate the elevator break free and begin to wrinkle the skin of the stabilizer tucker fears that if he pulls back too hard during the dive all the surfaces on the tail section would be in danger of coming off sanders strength is nearly spent and peterson's head is bleeding profusely from his ruptured temporal artery somehow they managed to pin their attacker down the g-forces begin to be reduced as he began to level off from pulling out of the dive i saw the hammer in callaway's hand i then reached the hammer with both my hands and pulled the hammer out of his hand sanders believes this is a turning point [Music] the plane is safe at the moment about a minute after the attack begins tucker finally has a chance to radio memphis center center emergency [Music] air traffic controller kent freshman and his trainee received tucker's emergency request aircraft with emergency say again aircraft emergency say again listen to me it's express 705. i've been wounded we've had an attempt to take over and aboard the airplane give me a vector please back to memphis at this time hurry express 705 fly heading zero niner five direct memphis 095 direct to memphis get me an ambulance and alert the airport facility affirmative 705 descend and maintain one zero thousand fleshman takes action in case the hijacker has a gun if he can get the plane below 3000 meters a bullet hole in the fuselage will not cause explosive decompression tucker hears the fight increase in the galley again he uses his only weapon the aircraft the maneuver throws the men onto the side of the plane look just keep talking to me okay express 705 affirmative if you need an ambulance stand by and we'll get that for you yeah we need an ambulance and uh we need armed intervention as well make sure and notify the swat team he's asking for armed intervention fleshman recognizes the term armed intervention as the most serious request from a pilot it means they want armed officials to storm the plane upon landing memphis approach has to be alerted [Music] we have an emergency express 705 he's had an attempt to take over on the aircraft he's had an attempted takeover okay paid our contact put him on 119.1 paul candelino a 44 year old veteran controller now spots flight 705 on his radar screen but something's wrong the plane is heading away from the airport it looks like the hijacker has seized the plane [Music] the crew of fedex flight 705 has been attacked by a co-worker and have declared an emergency air traffic control watches helplessly as they fly away from the airport while the fight for control of the plane continues co-pilot james tucker is pushing the dc-10 his best weapon to its limits he now throws the wheel round flipping the massive plane in the opposite direction [Music] tucker drawing on his military experience reverses the role keeping his maneuvers unpredictable here i am all alone in the cockpit the fight is still going on in the back i don't know who's winning i don't know who's losing that was about the only time i really had time uh to be frightened and it was a very horrifying situation at that point uh thinking that quite possibly uh auburn was winning three and a half minutes after the attack though pinned and injured orban callaway will not relinquish the spear [Music] the anger was coming in then and so when i hit him it was with the intent to disable him and eliminate his ability to fight not kill but to injure him sufficiently that he could fight no more so when i swung the hammer it was with all the strength that i had sanders and peterson momentarily subdue callaway the captain's yelling at tucker to come and help but he's the one flying the plane contact memphis approach on they are aware of your emergency request a single frequency approach single frequency approach roger we'll pass that along 119.1 put it on autopilot come on jim come back here but you have to understand that's probably the the strangest request that i've ever had you know come my way because here i am uh the only one up front the cockpit now and for me to go ahead and get up and go to the back means i've got a uh first of all stand up which i didn't know until the particular time i tried to stand up it was very very difficult to do so jim tucker with a fractured skull and only one side of his body functioning puts the plane on autopilot and struggles out of his seat to help hey wait a minute i'm coming but the plane's gyros haven't stabilized sufficiently for the autopilot to take over okay now no one's flying the plane 705 heavy how do you hear paul candelino tries to establish radio contact with flight 705 but there's no response their radar screens show the aircraft turn to the north then the west finally southwest heading away from the airport there's only an eerie silence anything could be happening on board the plane as i stepped into the ford cargo area uh i was absolutely amazed at what i was seeing all three of the individuals are completely covered with blood auburn callaway on his back there are papers everywhere in the back you can see where the jump seats which is just a normal commercial airline seat has had the covers torn off there's bloody footprints on the top of the ceiling there are coats that have come out of closets um it's total carnage in the back saunders has disarmed callaway and handed the spear to tucker you move up to it you keep them contained i'm going to get the airplane go get the airplane they decide that saunders the captain should fly the plane back to memphis you take this tucker wants the weapons as far away from callaway as possible and asks sanders to take them with him to the cockpit in an emergency situation it's expected that the captain of the airplane will fly the airplane i was in somewhat of a daze because of the fight i wasn't sure of the direction of the airplane i wasn't sure of the condition of the airplane but it appeared to be flying okay i was bleeding excessively from uh from the top of my head it couldn't see out of my left eye i thought the fight was over i mean i had hit callaway four times in the head with a 20 ounce framing hammer as hard as i could swing it he had stopped fighting and he was bleeding and he looked like he was severely injured tucker can't tell anymore whether his hand is gripping the spear the blows to his head have caused a blood clot on his brain and have damaged his sense of touch let me out let me up i won't fight anymore please i can't [Music] though several gashes have been opened in his skull auburn callaway cannot be trusted both pilots know their strength is quickly running out sanders safely back in the driver's seat must get the plane on the ground and fast memphis can you hear me is this express 705 heavy 705 heavy roger i do hear you you can proceed direct to memphis if fable expect runway niner the altimeter is 30.29 you understand we're declaring an emergency we need security to meet the airplane we'll stop on the runway if we can captain sanders without his glasses and with blood dripping into his eyes thinks that the plane is on a course back to the airport but it's still heading southwest away from memphis at over 550 kilometers per hour roger express 705 heavy is the situation under control we appear to have it under control candelino wants to warn the pilot but he's afraid the crew may still be under attack and trying to mislead the hijackers by flying in the wrong direction express 705 heavy are you able to turn toward the airport yeah give me a vector one zero zero vector memphis sanders takes the plane off autopilot and sets a course back to the airport we're turning to the airport now for now aboard the dc-10 the situation seems under control but a potential disaster is only moments away at the memphis airport emergency personnel begin to move into position we need security to meet the airplane we'll stop on the runway if we can a fedex cargo plane is about to land after a would-be hijacker tried to seize control all members of the crew are badly injured [Music] paramedic david teague is one of the first to get the call they came over the loudspeaker system from the air traffic control center and i was new to the area so i wasn't able to understand them real well but i got the words hijacking and some other stuff and and was advised that there had been a hijacking on an airplane and then dispatched us out to the runway where the plane was going to be landed [Music] the airplane is heading for the safety of memphis airport but that in itself presents another scary possibility the aircraft is more than 16 000 kilos over the recommended landing weight with more than 38 000 kilos of fuel still in its tanks in most emergency landing situations there's time and opportunity to dump any excess fuel but sanders knows the switches and levers are too far away to access safely you'd have to get up and go back to the engineers panel where the fuel dumping switches are and set up the engineer's fuel panel to dump fuel so it's virtually impossible for say the captain uh to dump fuel while he's attempting to fly the airplane in the galley auburn callaway still hasn't given up the fight callaway drags himself towards the jump seats with peterson and tucker on top of him he hopes to gain enough leverage to get back on his feet where he'll have an advantage he was using his thumbs to go ahead and try and push my eyes out doing everything he possibly could to break andy and i down as a team you know we could handle them together but we certainly couldn't handle it one-on-one this is certainly uh a fight against the clock uh auburn's getting stronger i know we're getting weaker i know if he ever got back in the cockpit we were history i just know we had to keep him somehow we had to keep him from getting back in that cockpit approaching 7000 feet the fight in the back started again and it was as violent and as loud as when i was in the back in the midst of the fight it became so violent and loud that approaching 7 000 feet i decided that i was going to level the airplane turn on the autopilot go to the back of the airplane and kill callaway it was so severe i thought that had to be done the dc-10 is less than 40 kilometers from memphis airport is he under control the sound of the struggle worries saunders he decides this has to end i released a seat belt climbed out of my seat headed to the back of the airplane and jim tucker said to me david i think we have him under control now i said are you sure yeah he is he said i think we have him under control i went back to the seat climbed into the left seat of the airplane continued to descent on down toward the airport express 705 have you verified the situation is still under control uh yeah we're uh it's uh sort of under control zero three zero five cleared to land runway niner clear to land now sanders faces yet another possible disaster the delay caused by getting out of his seat means he's way over the normal approach speed too high and too fast he'll not be able to slow the overweight plane quickly enough to land on runway niner i'm going around two three six left [Music] runway 36 left is longer at 2 800 meters but it's perpendicular to his flight path to land there he needs to make a series of turns reasonable maneuvers for a fighter jet or a crop duster but for an overloaded dc-10 with an injured pilot nearly impossible first he must turn 90 degrees to the right fly parallel to the runway and then execute a tight 180 degree turn okay express seven zero five heavy runway three six left cleared to land cleared visual approach three six left wind is uh zero five zero at eight sanders must ignore the computer warnings and push the plane beyond normal operating limits the plane is nearly on its side all of a sudden he just turned it up on his wingtip looked like a fighter jet and put it in a real tight turn and then disappeared down behind the terminal when he got down low enough we couldn't see him and at first i thought he might have crashed because there was some construction going on on the run on the airport at that time and there was some smoke coming up south of the terminal kind of where we were going a hammer is lying in the galley the men struggle to reach it this could be callaway's last chance to gain control sanders has turned 90 degrees to the south flying the downwind leg parallel to runway 36 left the airplane was probably at about 300 feet above the ground at that time the throttles are at idle they've been at idle since i left seven thousand feet that's an extremely unusual engine power setting to land a big airplane you always land make the approach with power on a lot of power on in this case it was an idle because i wanted the airplane to slow down so that would not exceed the limits of the landing gear and the flaps so that we would touch down at or below 195 knots with flaps extended and landing gear down sanders is still coming in too fast and he's being bombarded by computerized auto warning alarms the runway is 2800 meters long a normal dc-10 needs only 1900 meters to stop but flight 705 is too heavy even this runway may not be long enough peterson manages for the first time in the fight to get hold of a hammer that is extremely weak due to blood hit him andy you loss hit him i was almost like pleading with him and i told him i said andy you know you gotta hit him you know he's he's about ready you know to take us down and i guess i gave him kind of a blank stare of you know what are you talking about and he looked at me real stern like a father would look at his son saying you've got to do this and he said hit him the dc10 is only meters above the runway traveling at 382 kilometers per hour sanders can only hope he won't explode the tires or crash beyond the runway [Music] luckily all 10 tires withstand the landing impact captain david sanders has landed the plane with only 300 meters of runway to spare the crew of flight 705 is safely on the ground but not out of danger [Music] blow the door the chute is covered with kind of a talcum powder so it won't stick when it needs to be deployed and but it made it slick trying to go up the police and firemen tried to climb up the slide one fireman made it almost all the way to the top and i leaned out the door of the airplane and pulled him on board who's the bad guy that's the attacker there was blood all over the floor all over the ceiling uh the seats in the in the little area uh were were just covered with blood you got any handcuffs if not you better get some because that son of a [ __ ] is still dangerous i need handcuffs can you throw me some handcuffs teague is thrown a pair of handcuffs saunders holds callaway down as teague examines peterson who barely has a pulse and is the first crew member to leave the plane [Music] sanders is the last member of the crew on board standing in the door of the airplane i had a sense of euphoria i've never experienced before since it was the sense of we had been there and uh and we came back and we won due to the strength and courage of its crew a fedex dc10 has safely landed back home the three men have weathered the attack of a co-worker but they're badly injured co-pilot jim tucker has bone chips driven into his brain flight engineer andy peterson's life is in danger from massive blood loss both are in critical condition the wounded men are rushed to the regional medical center at memphis the pilot dave sanders shares an ambulance with tucker it's only during this ride that he realizes the extent and severity of his co-pilot's injuries tucker is taken to emergency by stretcher sanders is helped but can walk restrained and under guard callaway is also taken to the same emergency facility but the important question still remains why did auburn calloway attack the crew of flight 705 the full story is beginning to unfold divorced in 1990 auburn callaway still tries to support his ex-wife and their two children and wants to secure their financial future he was very interested in welfare of his children very interested that they not live the kind of childhood he had lived the evidence for a suicidal mission against fedex grows as investigators search the aircraft and find a letter to callaway's estranged wife dear pat i want you and the kids to know that i lived for you i thought of your welfare every day though for example how can i guarantee having enough money for keil and bernie stanford education he was obsessed with his financial well-being he was interested in his children i tend to believe he's interested in his marriage and i know his marriage was coming apart had come apart basically at the time of this incident but i suspect he was also a difficult man to be married too by april the 7th 1994 callaway may be thinking his career is over life had been one disappointment after another the failed marriage the kids he can't afford to send a university the brilliant pilot who ends up as an engineer on a cargo plane and now even that may be about to go the following day he's supposed to report to a fedex hearing about falsified information he'd given the company during our investigation it appeared that he had overestimated the number of hours of flight experience that he had and that the company was taking a look at this callaway may be afraid he'll be fired at just 42 his professional life could be finished he comes up with a solution the goal is to leave my children well off the goal is to escape i guess the pain of this life i can't continue to participate in this life and still leave them well off because i'm fixing to lose my career and i won't have the ability to provide for them like i'd like to but my life has value if it's given in an accident callaway cashes in all the funds he can lay his hands on and sends a total of fifty four thousand dollars to his ex-wife but his life insurance is worth about two and a half million dollars if he dies in a work-related accident i would much rather go on a date time place and a method of my own choosing i resolved some time ago that the next time my security and future is threatened or seriously jeopardized it's time my time to go perhaps he believes his family would receive the maximum insurance payout if he crashed the plane in an apparent accident [Music] if this was callaway's idea he was planning it perfectly he was armed with unusual weapons for hijacking hammers and a spear gun after injuring the crew he could take control of the plane a bomb or gun could leave traces at the scene of a crash but if investigators found a spear gun or hammers it would be very difficult to tie them to an attack on the crew [Music] i believe it would have been impossible to tell the difference in the type of injuries that a hammer would have made with the type of injuries that you might sustain in a large crash uh auburn had spent the week leading up to this incident preparing to uh to die and basically get his affairs in order callaway even goes to a lawyer to change his will before boarding the fedex flight [Music] he left his will and testament on his bed so that it would be easily found for any crash to look like an accident there is a key obstacle the plane's cockpit voice recorder switching off the cvr's power would disable any recording i think she'll fly there's all the nuts and bolts in there yeah if peterson in his pre-flight inspection discovers the throne switch it would be a setback but callaway would know he simply has to fly the airplane for half an hour that's the length of the tape's recording time after 30 minutes any incriminating recording would be gone forever i think he was going to do something very very horrible with it something along the lines of what we've seen on 911. had callaway been able to seize control of the plane he could have crashed the dc-10 with over 38 000 kilos of fuel aboard into any site including the fedex headquarters the hub crippling his employer and killing a large number of workers on the ground it would have been the ultimate revenge for perceived injustices by the company the company may never have figured out exactly why that airplane crashed back into the hud well after 9 11 there were a lot of improvements to our security program both in the united states and worldwide our cockpit crew members are the most highly checked and monitored group of people in the world i only know of this one incident in my 46 years of aviation experience where a crew member was involved in something like this the flight of fedex 705 took about 30 minutes but the impact it had will last for years he was convicted of attempt aircraft piracy an offense that carried a minimum of 20 years confinement and up to life in prison although auburn calloway pleaded temporary insanity at his trial the jury didn't believe him and found him guilty on august 11 1995 he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a federal penitentiary he has no chance of parole the pilots on flight 705 they are the real heroes it is amazing that they were able to do what they did given the injuries that were inflicted upon them when someone struck with a hammer on the skull there could be linear radiating cracks that go out on the skull and then if it's hard enough there may well be a in driven bone right at the site where the hammer head hits the skull and drives it into the skull this is a replica of my skull cap it's uh it was put together by by use of a cat scan protocol to give the the proper uh you know shape of my skull and also the shape of the defect that we're dealing with here this is the area that i was hit on the left parietal for a year and a half i was actually walking around in this configuration it took two and a half years to recover completely because i had to learn how to walk talk and chew gum all over again i had three major operations i operated on him twice more after his initial injury and then followed him through his rehabilitation they can fashion a piece of material to fit the exact size of the defect uh the shape of the skull and of course the thickness of the skull as well it's a blown acrylic called an hdr or hard tissue replacement he had difficulty with speech difficulty with with sensation and motor strength on the right side and he uh came back to where he can now uh probably if he wanted to break my fingers with a handshake on may the 26th 1994 the crew of fedex flight 705 was awarded the airline pilots association gold medal award for heroism the highest award a civilian pilot can receive however because of the legacy of their injuries none of the crew has been certified as medically fit to fly commercially i always thought i'm going to fight i'm going to i'm going to overcome this thing except that that's when they found out that i had a slight seizure disorder i'm seizure free but it's because i had to take medication and the only way for me to to be able to fly uh without somebody with me is to be off of medication at this particular point it's been it's been ascertained that i'll never be able to do that i'll be on medication for the rest of my life i miss the flying every time i see an airplane go over you know i wonder where it's going so i miss that part of it but i really cherish the fact that you know i'm still alive and able to be with my family the bond of pilots and what you do together in the airplane outside the airplane i miss that i miss it very much

Channel: Wonder

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Keywords: Wonder, wonder channel, survivial videos, survival stories, i shouldn't be alive, wonder i shouldn't be alive, outdoor channel, extreme documentary, flight 705 federal express, flight 705 movie, flight 705 cockpit voice recorder, flight 705 cvr, fedex flight 705 - fight for your life, fedex flight 705 animation, express flight 705, federal flight 705, federal express flight 705 landing, federal express flight 705 landing animation, federal express flight 705 animation

Id: sQRb7VT3q2g

Length: 49min 58sec (2998 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 17 2021