Hijacking
As part of his plan to disguise the intended attack as an accident, Calloway attempted to disable the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) by tripping its circuit breaker. During standard pre-flight checks, Peterson noticed the tripped breaker and reset it prior to take-off so the CVR was reactivated. About twenty minutes after takeoff, as the flight crew carried on a casual conversation, Calloway entered the flight deck and commenced his attack. Every member of the crew took multiple hammer blows which fractured both Peterson's and Tucker's skulls, severing the former's temporal artery. A lengthy struggle ensued with the flight engineer and captain as Tucker, also an ex-Navy pilot, performed extreme aerial maneuvers with the aircraft, at times flying upside down, with the intent to keep the hijacker off-balance.
The flight crew eventually succeeded in restraining Calloway, though only after moments of inverted and near-transonic flight beyond the designed capabilities of a DC-10. Sanders took control and Tucker, who had by then lost use of the right side of his body, went back to assist Peterson in restraining Calloway. Sanders communicated with air traffic control, deactivated the autopilot and prepared for an emergency landing back at Memphis International Airport. Meanwhile, complaining that he could not breathe, Calloway started fighting with the crew again.
Heavily loaded with fuel and cargo, the plane was approaching too fast and too high to land on the scheduled runway 9. Sanders requested by radio to land on the longer runway 36. Ignoring warning messages from the onboard computer and using a series of sharp turns that tested the DC-10's safety limits, Sanders landed the jet safely on the runway at well over its maximum designed landing weight. By that time, Calloway was once again restrained. Emergency personnel gained access to the plane via escape slide and ladder. Inside, they found the cockpit interior covered in blood.
Read more about this topic: Federal Express Flight 705