Here are two more incidents that deserve mention:

1) World Airways (Flight # unknown): In 1975, prior to the beginning of Operation Babylift, Ed Daly decided that his airline would participate in the evacuation of refugees from Da Nang, and take them to Saigon. This was done without military support. When 727 pilot Ken Healy (?) came in for landing, the Da Nang airfield looked clear, but when the plane touched down, it was mobbed by civilians and soldiers desperate to escape on the plane. There were far more than would fit in the 727. The aircraft was chased and mobbed by the crowd, which contained armed soldiers that were supposed to help defend them. Instead, these soldiers tried to get on the plane themselves, hanging onto the rear stairs and some men actually shot and killed other people in their way. Ed Daly himself tried to block them from the stairs because he intended the flight for refugee women and children, but eventually he and the crew just had to yank them onboard, because it was clear no one else would get through them.

Once the cabin was filled past capacity, the pilot wanted to take off, but the runway was blocked. So, with the plane loaded approx. 20,000lbs overweight, the 727 began its takeoff roll on the taxiway. Angry people left behind fired at the plane, severely damaging the wings and fuel tanks. Several people fell to their deaths hanging from the stairs, which wouldn't close. The plane couldn't pressurize because of that. Also, an additional 90 or so people had crammed themselves into the cargo hold, and about 20 or 30 had taken up residence in the wheel wells. Some fell to their deaths when Healy attempted to raise the gear, and one man's body got jammed in the gear, so it couldn't be retracted. Despite the fact that the flight was only supposed to take 50 minutes, it took 1.5 hours as the plane had to be flown below 10,000 feet, leaking fuel, with another World Airways jet flying alongside to assess the damage. Healy did manage to land the plane safely at Saigon. It was estimated that he carried approximately 330 people, on a plane that was only meant for a little over 100.

2) Taca Flight 110: In 1988, Captain Carlos Dardano, a young but experienced pilot who only had one eye, suffered a dual engine flameout over New Orleans when his engines ingested too much rain and hail on descent. His engines did restart, but it was a hot start, and they had to be shut down to prevent an explosion. He was only a few thousand feet in the air when this happened. Unable to reach any airport, and unwilling to entertain the idea of killing many motorists by landing on a highway, he and his copilot were planning to ditch the 737 in the canal when they spotted the levee parallel to it. They lined up with the levee by side-slipping (much like Pearson in the Gimli Glider). Despite concerns that they would hit a concrete wall they passed over, or that they would slide off the edge of the slippery surface, or that they would overrun the relatively short levee, Dardano and First Officer Lopez managed a perfect landing, with none of the 40+ passengers being hurt. The plane was also undamaged, except for needing its engines repaired. Interestingly enough, they landed at the Michoud Facility, which featured an out-of-use runway that had been used in WW2. Reports on whether they landed on the runway or very close to it are unclear. However, the plane was in such good condition that it was flown off the levee via the old runway a few days later.

Tomorrow morning they'll lay the remains of Glenn Rojohn to rest in
the Peace Lutheran Cemetery in the little town of Greenock, Pa., just
southeast of Pittsburgh. He was 81, and had been in the air
conditioning and plumbing business in nearby McKeesport. If you had
seen him on the street hewould probably have looked to you like so
many other graying, bespectacled old World War II veterans whose
names appear so often now on obituary pages.

But like so many of them, though he seldom talked about it, he could
have told you one hell of a story. He won the Distinguished Flying
Cross and the Purple Heart all in one fell swoop in the skies over
Germany on December 31, 1944.

Fell swoop indeed.

Capt. Glenn Rojohn, of the 8th Air Force's 100th Bomb Group, was
flying his B-17G Flying Fortress bomber on a raid over Hamburg. His
formation had braved heavy flak to drop their bombs, then turned 180
degrees to head out over the North Sea.

They had finally turned northwest, headed back to England, when they
were jumped by German fighters at 22,000 feet. The Messerschmitt
Me-109s pressed their attack so closely that Capt. Rojohn could see
the faces of the German pilots.

He and other pilots fought to remain in formation so they could use
each other's guns to defend the group. Rojohn saw a B-17 ahead of him
burst into flames and slide sickeningly toward the earth. He gunned
his ship forward to fill in the gap.

He felt a huge impact. The big bomber shuddered, felt suddenly very
heavy and began losing altitude. Rojohn grasped almost immediately
that he had collided with another plane. A B-17 below him, piloted by
Lt. William G. McNab, had slammed the top of its fuselage into the
bottom of Rojohn's.
The top turret gun of McNab's plane was now locked in the belly of
Rojohn's plane and the ball turret in the belly of Rojohn's had
smashed through the top of McNab's. The two bombers were almost
perfectly aligned – the tail of the lower plane was slightly to the
left of Rojohn's tailpiece. They were stuck together, as a crewman
later recalled, "like mating dragon flies."

No one will ever know exactly how it happened. Perhaps both pilots
had moved instinctively to fill the same gap in formation. Perhaps
McNab's plane had hit an air pocket.

Three of the engines on the bottom plane were still running, as were
all four of Rojohn's. The fourth engine on the lower bomber was on
fire and the flames were spreading to the rest of the aircraft. The
two were losing altitude quickly. Rojohn tried several times to gun
his engines and break free of the other plane. The two were
inextricably locked together. Fearing a fire, Rojohn cuts his engines
and rang the bailout bell. If his crew had any chance of parachuting,
he had to keep the plane under control somehow.

The ball turret, hanging below the belly of the B-17, was considered
by many to be a death trap – the worst station on the bomber. In this
case, both ball turrets figured in a swift and terrible drama of life
and death. Staff Sgt. Edward L. Woodall, Jr., in the ball turret of
the lower bomber, had felt the impact of the collision above him and
saw shards of metal drop past him. Worse, he realized both electrical
and hydraulic power was gone.

Remembering escape drills, he grabbed the handcrank, released the
clutch and cranked the turret and its guns until they were straight
down, then turned and climbed out the back of the turret up into the
fuselage.

Once inside the plane's belly Woodall saw a chilling sight, the ball
turret of the other bomber protruding through the top of the
fuselage. In that turret, hopelessly trapped, was Staff Sgt. Joseph
Russo. Several crewmembers on Rojohn's plane tried frantically to
crank Russo's turret around so he could escape. But, jammed into the
fuselage of the lower plane, the turret would not budge.

Aware of his plight, but possibly unaware that his voice was going
out over the intercom of his plane, Sgt. Russo began reciting his
Hail Marys.

Up in the cockpit, Capt. Rojohn and his co-pilot, 2nd Lt. William G.
Leek, Jr., had propped their feet against the instrument panel so
they could pull back on their controls with all their strength,
trying to prevent their plane from going into a spinning dive that
would prevent the crew from jumping out.

Capt. Rojohn motioned left and the two managed to wheel the
grotesque, collision-born hybrid of a plane back toward the German
coast. Leek felt like he was intruding on Sgt. Russo as his prayers
crackled over the radio, so he pulled off his flying helmet with its
earphones.

Rojohn, immediately grasping that crew could not exit from the
bottom of his plane, ordered his top turret gunner and his radio
operator, Tech Sgts. Orville Elkin and Edward G. Neuhaus, to make
their way to the back of the fuselage and out the waist door behind
the left wing.

Then he got his navigator, 2nd Lt. Robert Washington, and his
bombardier, Sgt. James Shirley to follow them. As Rojohn and Leek
somehow held the plane steady, these four men, as well as waist gunner
Sgt. Roy Little and tail gunner Staff Sgt. Francis Chase were able to
bail out.

Now the plane locked below them was aflame. Fire poured over
Rojohn's left wing. He could feel the heat from the plane below and
hear the sound of .50 caliber machinegun ammunition "cooking off" in
the flames.

Capt. Rojohn ordered Lieut. Leek to bail out. Leek knew that without
him helping keep the controls back, the plane would drop in a flaming
spiral and the centrifugal force would prevent Rojohn from bailing. He
refused the order.

Meanwhile, German soldiers and civilians on the ground that
afternoon looked up in wonder. Some of them thought they were seeing a
new Allied secret weapon – a strange eight-engined double bomber. But
anti-aircraft gunners on the North Sea coastal island of Wangerooge
had seen the collision. A German battery captain wrote in his logbook
at 12:47 p.m.:

"Two fortresses collided in a formation in the NE. The planes flew
hooked together and flew 20 miles south. The two planes were unable to
fight anymore. The crash could be awaited so I stopped the firing at
these two planes."

Suspended in his parachute in the cold December sky, Bob Washington
watched with deadly fascination as the mated bombers, trailing black
smoke, fell to earth about three miles away, their downward trip
ending in an ugly boiling blossom of fire.

In the cockpit Rojohn and Leek held grimly to the controls trying to
ride a falling rock. Leek tersely recalled, "The ground came up faster
and faster. Praying was allowed. We gave it one last effort and
slammed into the ground."

The McNab plane on the bottom exploded, vaulting the other B-17
upward and forward. It hit the ground and slid along until its left
wing slammed through a wooden building and the smoldering mass of
aluminum came to a stop.

Rojohn and Leek were still seated in their cockpit. The nose of the
plane was relatively intact, but everything from the B-17's massive
wings back was destroyed. They looked at each other incredulously.
Neither was badly injured.

Movies have nothing on reality. Still perhaps in shock, Leek crawled
out through a huge hole behind the cockpit, felt for the familiar pack
in his uniform pocket and pulled out a cigarette. He placed it in his
mouth and was about to light it. Then he noticed a young German
soldier pointing a rifle at him. The soldier looked scared and
annoyed. He grabbed the cigarette out of Leek's mouth and pointed down
to the gasoline pouring out over the wing from a ruptured fuel tank.

Two of the six men who parachuted from Rojohn's plane did not
survive the jump. But the other four and, amazingly, four men from the
other bomber, including ball turret gunner Woodall, survived. All were
taken prisoner. Several of them were interrogated at length by the
Germans until they were satisfied that what had crashed was not a new
American secret weapon.

Rojohn, typically, didn't talk much about his Distinguished Flying
Cross. Of Leek, he said, "In all fairness to my co-pilot, he's the
reason I'm alive today."

United 811 – off Honolulu, HI – 1989 – 747-100 loses cargo door over Pacific at FL240. Nobody knows how Capt. Cronin & crew were able to get this bird down – every time the accident was recreated in the simulator – the plane was lost.

American 96 – Detroit, MI – 1972 – DC-10 loses cargo door and partial flight controls. This accident preceeded the grusome THY-981. Capt. McCormick & crew were able to land this bird with no elevator or rudder controls.

Air Transat 236 – Azores – 2001 – This was a modern day Gimli Glider, when an A330 ran out of fuel at FL390. However Capt. Piche & crew were facing the same challenge over the ocean, with a larger, more complex aircraft. They also accomplished the longest glide by a commercial airliner in history.