J. Michael Rodriguez 17

Retired United Airlines Capt.. Al Haynes credits luck and preparation on the part of the community of Sioux City, Iowa, for the large number of survivors in the 1989 crash of Flight 232.

The fact that 184 people survived the crash landing can be credited to five main factors:luck, communications, preparation, execution and cooperation, Haynes said. These factors allowed what at first appeared to be a non-survivable accident to become one in which most of those aboard survived.

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Haynes spoke to a crowd of about 150 students, faculty and SIUC aviation alumni in the Student Center Auditorium Thursday on how communication and preparation are important when what-if situations occur. The presentation was part of SIUC Aviation Day.

Haynes was the captain of Flight 232 on July 19, 1989, from Stapleton International Airport in Denver to Philadelphia, with an en route to Chicago.

The flight crashed because of a failure in the second engine of the 15-year-old passenger plane. The aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing, which caused the plane to nose-dive into a Sioux Gateway Airport runway, killing 112 of the 296 passengers.

A live drill conducted two years prior to the accident by the Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City, leading to improvements and better planning for a disaster, coupled with thorough training of the cabin and cockpit crews, prepared everyone for this seemingly impossible disaster, Haynes said. I can’t think of an airport any better for us to land at than Sioux City, Iowa. We were lucky that we were over the flat lands of the Midwest.

Haynes joined the Naval Aviation Cadet Training program in July 1952, before joining United Airlines in August 1956. Haynes served as a flight engineer for United Airlines, and he was in that capacity until his promotion to first officer in March 1965. He was promoted to captain in August 1985. Haynes retired in August 1991 after accumulating more than 27,000 hours of flight time.

The emphasis of Haynes’ discussion to the group Thursday was the lack of preparation that people have when situations like the Sioux City crash occur.

Businesses, universities and work places all over are not prepared, especially in communication, for when something goes wrong, Haynes said.

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Chris Gumm, a freshman in aviation from McHenry, said Haynes got his point across on how important cooperation and safety is when it comes to flying an aircraft as well as everyday life situations.

He demonstrated very clearly the importance of increase in safety regulations, Gumm said. Haynes took his experiences and got his message across on how important it is for people to work as a team when it comes down to getting out of a catastrophe.

David NewMyer, chairman of the Department of Aviation and Management Flight, said Haynes has generously contributed to SIUC by donating money for a scholarship in aviation as well as doing this presentation without charge.

Al is a very generous person for doing over 900 presentations since the crash and donating about $50,000 to an SIU aviation scholarship in memory of Jerry L. Kennedy, an aviation alum, NewMyer said.

Haynes has been donating money to the scholarship for the last five years.

Kennedy was on his way back from training as a flight engineer when Haynes met him in the cockpit the day of the crash. Haynes said that his donations and presentations to the aviation program are his way of remembering Kennedy. He has spoken twice at SIUC.

I enjoy coming back here and giving the proceeds of these seminars to SIU, he said, because I feel that I owe this to Janice (Kennedy’s wife).