The disc wasn’t totally GE’s fault. The subcontractor that made the raw material was to melt the material 3 times before pouring a blank. After the machining process they either X-ray the part or check it with ultrasound. Either way a serious crack would have been detected. Actually any crack would have been detected. Since the part was only melted twice it allowed for microscopic particles to exist. And after 16 years of almost constant running the normal vibration caused a very fine particle to become a catastrophic crack. After the thousands of CFM-6’s built. The crack appeared on 3 engines. Unfortunately the first was found the wrong way. The contractor had to pay a healthy portion of the costs, which unfortunately doesn’t heal the dead and injured. I worked for GE and handled many of the found parts during our investigations.

If anyone is interested there is a book about this incident and it is the single best book about aviation I have ever read. Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival by Laurence Gonzales It covers every { and I do mean every }aspect from what happened, what happened to the passengers and crew and a minute detail stripping down of the part that failed, even to the block of titanium the disk was made from. IF you love aviation buy it, borrow it or If you must steal the dame thing lol. Mr Gonzales is a brilliant investigative writer and everything is checked and re checked, the detail is staggering but the book is much more than that, we see who survived and why they survived when others did not, how the experience effected them and the people on the ground that had the awful job of making some sense of the crash. We even get the farmers who found the bits. The book is an Incredible experience.

It is my understanding that in the years following this crash,many pilots in flight simulators programmed with flight 232's problems,all failed the exercise & crashed. When Al Haynes & his crew did the seemingly impossible, they definitely earn the right to be called heros forever.

This was a terrible tragedy. As a private pilot and an engineer, I have always had a problem with putting an engine in the tail of an aircraft. Structurally this is the weakest place you could put an engine. There are a lot of hydraulic lines in that area. And if an engine has a catastrophic failure, and damages the structure around it, at best you will lose both elevator and rudder control.

It is much safer to have the engines under the wing, mounted on pylons, where it is possible for an engine explosion to cause the engine to break away from the wing with no damage to the wing. IMO, flight control hydraulics should never go near an engine.

To all good pilots especially the ones gone home who served in WWII and WWI. One told of being so" nervous" landing on the carrier that he started to fog up his goggles. Then,his willpower kicked in to stop it. Haha. God is with you guys. Thank you for this video and comments. Confidence over fear and best training in the world.

My boss from work was on this flight. Her daughters saw the plane crash on the news and it was quite a while before they found out that she had survived with hardly any injuries. She flew home from this crash which amazed me so much. I would have walked home to Chicago before I would have ever got on another airplane. Cannot believe so many people survived such a terrible crash.

I have heard (but have had no confirmation) that this scenario was loaded into a simulator, and most pilots who tried to manage the aircraft in simulation were not successful. Al Haynes and his crew nearly pulled off a miracle. Once the plane got into ground effect and crosswinds at Sioux City with almost no way to control roll once the plane began to roll on final approach it was game over.

They wouldn't have landed that plane at all without Denny Fitch. Amazing that he chose that flight. All of these men were brilliantly skilled and just so happened to be in the right place at the right time. They saved as many lives as they were able to. This story is always awe-inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time.

Too often, I hear/read about hydraulics failing -- makes me glad I fly by the "seat-of-my-pants" MOST of the time today, in smaller, probably safer aircraft and situations -- plain old "stick & rudder" flying, without computers and auto-pilots and hydraulics that fail! You HAVE to trust maintenance in huge aircraft, but it can be scary! Maintenance negligence is the second-most common reason for aircraft accidents, right after pilot error and before weather. All, in this incident acted very bravely and competently to reduce lives lost. Now, if they can just figure a way to keep aircraft from cart-wheeling after landing too fast, it would help. (Maybe an automatic, rocket-propelled parachute pod that shoots up and inflates and stops the aircraft from flipping over and spiraling along the ground or even crashing at all!)

It's a testimony to the great DC-10 and how tough it was that this plane was able to land and have survivors. There were a lot of kids on this flight as it was "A child flies free with a paying adult" day. I know I am biased as the DC-10 and Boeing 707 are my favorite jets with the L-1011 running a close second. Of course, without the exemplary piloting skills of Capt. Al Haynes and Training Capt. Denny Fitch, along with the 2 F/Os, this could have very well been a fall from the air.

We have some fine pilots from the past and present who have saved many lives with their calm, professional manner and excellent piloting skills. When something goes wrong, it is your pilots who are in control of the thin line between life and death. Thank you gentlemen, for the lives you saved this summer day in 1989. RIP to those who didn't make it. You were brave souls. X PIlot, thank you for another amazing video. My criteria for grading these recreation videos is if the families of those lost would find these respectful. In yours, I very much think they would.