Error Chain

Trans American Airlines (TAA) Flight 514 departed from Weir Cook Municipal Airport (IND), Indianapolis, Indiana, at 0853 EST, on December 1, 1974, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. After an intermediate stop at Port Columbus International Airport (CMH), Columbus, Ohio, the flight took off again at 1024 EST for its scheduled destination: Washington National Airport (DCA) in Washington, D. C. The first link in the error chain dated back about a decade before that day's departure. Certainly, one important link in the chain was the bad weather - snow, sleet, freezing rain and high winds. Another, was an enroute change of destination. High westerly crosswinds prevented landing at National Airport with its north-south approach. The flight was diverted to Dulles International Airport. The airport was only five years old at the time. Arrivals and departures were minuscule compared to DCA, the airport that was preferred by flyers with business in the nation's capital. Flight 514's pilots had never landed at Dulles. They were unfamiliar with its approach charts and landing procedures. Planning the flight to their new destination occupied much of their time and conversation. There was confusion between the Air Traffic Controller at Dulles and the pilots. as to the minimum altitude to maintain while crossing Mount Weather on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Should they maintain flight level two-three-zero (2,300 feet) as the unfamiliar chart seemed to indicate? Or had the controller cleared them to the minimum approach altitude of 1,800 when he cleared the for landing at Dulles? While the book follows the story of the flight, the focus is on the four flight attendants, the most senior of which had been on the job only eighteen months. Two of the flight attendants had started flying only three weeks earlier. It was purely by chance that they were present at the bitter end, the last link of the chain.