On July 19, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232 departed Denver for what should have been a routine flight to Chicago. At 37,000 feet over Iowa, a catastrophic engine failure led to the complete loss of all hydraulic systems - a failure so rare it was considered impossible, with odds calculated at a billion to one. With no flight controls, Captain Al Haynes and his crew faced an unprecedented challenge: how to land a DC-10 using only engine power. When passenger Dennis "Denny" Fitch, a DC-10 training instructor, volunteered to help, the stage was set for one of aviation's greatest demonstrations of teamwork and skill. Discover how their extraordinary crew resource management achieved what experts called "The Impossible Landing" and changed aviation safety forever.

Sources:

• Mayday: Air Disasters - Season 11, Episode 13, titled "Impossible Landing"
• NTSB Aircraft Accident Report NTSB/AAR-90/06
• United Airlines Flight 232 Wikipedia entry
• Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival by Laurence Gonzales

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Credits: Final Boarding Call is hosted by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas, researched and written by Alice Stern, produced and edited by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas.