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Ask the pilot
There we were, hanging sideways in the sky just a few feet from death. Never before had I seen the ground from such a terrifying perspective. What happened?
By Patrick Smith [2006-11-10]

  • Wake Turbulence

    Patrick, I have a similar horror story. I was the pilot flying from the left seat of a B727 landing Rnwy 27 at MEM. It was a calm summer night and we were about 3 miles in trail of a company 72. Everything was going routinely, we do this every night!, then at about 100 feet, the plane started to roll left. I applied opposite aileron and firewall power but still got the dreades electronic " Bank angle, Bank angle". Just as I hit the stops on the throttles, the mains touched. No point going around at this point and the engines hadn't even had a chance to spool up, so I pulled the throttles back, taxied to the ramp sure I caught a wing tip or flap. I was never so happy walking around the big jet and seeing no damage....got a bit lucky that night.

    Now Fedex is jamming more and more planes into MEM every night and they just ordered a bunch of 757's to replace the 72's. Yikes

    Tom

    -- tomontheroad
    [Read tomontheroad's other letters]
    Friday, November 10, 2006 09:03 PM
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