Countless times on FB and other sites,. I see fake pics and true stories....But why? Especially when there are real pics out there?
How do people make money doing this? Only 1000 reactions....
Case in Point.
Here is a know true story...probably one of the best airliner saves in history.
FactDrop ·
The flight simulator couldn't do what this 59-year-old captain did. Here's why Captain David Cronin is a legend. (edit: should have said real pilots in flight simulators)
Captain David Cronin was 59 years old and counting down the flights until mandatory retirement.
At 1:52 AM on February 24, 1989, he pushed the throttles forward on United Airlines Flight 811 — a Boeing 747 bound from Honolulu to Auckland. Three hundred thirty-seven passengers. Eighteen crew. Twenty-eight thousand hours in his logbook. He was about to cash in every single one.
Sixteen minutes after takeoff, climbing through 22,000 feet over the black Pacific, a thud. Then a blast.
The forward cargo door tore off. Explosive decompression ripped a hole in the fuselage. The cabin floor caved in. Ten seats — with nine passengers still strapped in — vanished into the night. Their bodies were never recovered.
In the cockpit, the crew's first thought: bomb. Lockerbie had happened just two months earlier.
A massive section of the fuselage was gone. Engines #3 and #4 on the right wing were shredded and shut down. They were over open ocean. In the dark. With a full fuel load for a Pacific crossing — way too heavy for a normal landing.
Captain Cronin turned the crippled 747 around and aimed it back at Honolulu.
Here's where it gets wild: the damage took out most of the flaps. The crew had to land using only 10 degrees of trailing-edge flaps — a configuration no training manual covered, at a speed pushing 200 knots. Way faster than normal.
They stuck the landing. All 346 people still on board got off alive. Evacuated in 45 seconds.
United later put their check pilots in the simulator and ran the scenario over and over. They couldn't land it. Not once.
The NTSB investigation revealed the cargo door locking mechanism had a fatal design flaw — and Boeing and the FAA had known about similar incidents since a Pan Am 747 event in March 1987. Airworthiness Directive 88-12-04 required fixes, but the terminating action (reinforced steel lock sectors) hadn't been installed on N4713U yet — it was scheduled for April 1989. It never made it.
On what should have been one of his final flights, Captain Cronin did the impossible. He saved 346 lives with skill, calm, and 28,000 hours of instinct that no simulator could replicate.
Fake pics.
Real pics
How do people make money doing this? Only 1000 reactions....
Case in Point.
Here is a know true story...probably one of the best airliner saves in history.
FactDrop ·
The flight simulator couldn't do what this 59-year-old captain did. Here's why Captain David Cronin is a legend. (edit: should have said real pilots in flight simulators)Captain David Cronin was 59 years old and counting down the flights until mandatory retirement.
At 1:52 AM on February 24, 1989, he pushed the throttles forward on United Airlines Flight 811 — a Boeing 747 bound from Honolulu to Auckland. Three hundred thirty-seven passengers. Eighteen crew. Twenty-eight thousand hours in his logbook. He was about to cash in every single one.
Sixteen minutes after takeoff, climbing through 22,000 feet over the black Pacific, a thud. Then a blast.
The forward cargo door tore off. Explosive decompression ripped a hole in the fuselage. The cabin floor caved in. Ten seats — with nine passengers still strapped in — vanished into the night. Their bodies were never recovered.
In the cockpit, the crew's first thought: bomb. Lockerbie had happened just two months earlier.
A massive section of the fuselage was gone. Engines #3 and #4 on the right wing were shredded and shut down. They were over open ocean. In the dark. With a full fuel load for a Pacific crossing — way too heavy for a normal landing.
Captain Cronin turned the crippled 747 around and aimed it back at Honolulu.
Here's where it gets wild: the damage took out most of the flaps. The crew had to land using only 10 degrees of trailing-edge flaps — a configuration no training manual covered, at a speed pushing 200 knots. Way faster than normal.
They stuck the landing. All 346 people still on board got off alive. Evacuated in 45 seconds.
United later put their check pilots in the simulator and ran the scenario over and over. They couldn't land it. Not once.
The NTSB investigation revealed the cargo door locking mechanism had a fatal design flaw — and Boeing and the FAA had known about similar incidents since a Pan Am 747 event in March 1987. Airworthiness Directive 88-12-04 required fixes, but the terminating action (reinforced steel lock sectors) hadn't been installed on N4713U yet — it was scheduled for April 1989. It never made it.
On what should have been one of his final flights, Captain Cronin did the impossible. He saved 346 lives with skill, calm, and 28,000 hours of instinct that no simulator could replicate.
Fake pics.
Real pics
