USAir Flight 5050 was an "extra section" passenger flight to replace the regularly scheduled but cancelled flight 1846, from New York's La Guardia Airport to Charlotte International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 20, 1989. Michael Martin was a new Boeing 737 captain, logging only about 140 hours in the left seat of the 737. In spite of the fact that the weather was very poor (wet with low visibility, causing the cancellation of many flights that day at La Guardia), Captain Martin permitted First Officer Constantine Kleissas to make the takeoff on a short, wet runway, even though he would be conducting his first non-supervised line takeoff in a 737, and had not conducted any takeoffs during the last 39 days.
Read more about USAir Flight 5050: Accident Sequence, Accident Analysis, Testing of The Pilots For Drugs and Alcohol, NTSB Probable Cause, Dramatisation
Famous quotes containing the word flight:
“In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to create birds. The hawk which now takes his flight over the top of the wood was at first, perchance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)