Alfred C. Haynes
Encyclopedia : A : AL : ALF : Alfred C. Haynes
Alfred C. "Al" Haynes (born 1932 in Dallas, Texas) is a former airline pilot and a regular guest speaker at social events. Haynes gained international fame in 1989, when he successfully crash-landed United Airlines Flight 232, a DC-10 jetliner, at Sioux City Airport.
Haynes attended Texas A&M University, where he became a member of the university's corp of cadets. He took off one semester to learn about aviation at a naval station.
In 1956, he graduated from aviation school and joined United Airlines, eventually climbing up the airline's pilots' ranks until he became a main captain. He started flying for United on Boeing 727 airplanes as co-pilot, and was later promoted to DC-8 and DC-10 co-pilot, before becoming a pilot on the Boeing 727s. Haynes later became a DC-10 pilot. As a worker for United, Haynes was based at Seattle, Washington. In 1964, his daughter, Laurie Haynes-Arguello, was born.
On July 19, 1989, Haynes became famous in the middle of tragic events, during a DC-10 flight headed to Chicago, Illinois from Denver, Colorado. With Haynes as main pilot, the airplane suffered damage to its number two engine, which in turn made the jetliner's hydraulic systems fail. Haynes, remembering that DC-10s had been grounded ten years earlier due to engine failure, realized the airplane couldn't be airborne much longer, and decided to land the airplane at the Sioux City, Iowa airport, where a fuselage section ended up in an adjoining cornfield. While 112 people died, 184 survived.
Subsequently, Haynes gained major media attention. He retired in 1991, but Charlton Heston played him in a 1992 movie named "A Thousand Heroes". The story of Flight 232 was played constantly on television in the United States and abroad, and Haynes started addressing attenders of such social events as lunches, meetings and other types of activities. He also became a post traumatic stress disorder speaker and emergency situations trainer.
In 1997, his oldest son died after a motorcycle accident, and his wife died in 1999. His daughter Laurie gained media attention in 2001 when she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. By 2003, her disease was in an advanced stage and she required a bone marrow transplant. Because his daughter's insurance would not cover the operation, Al Haynes needed help from the Air Line Pilots Association, which donated money and brought the Haynes' monetary plight to light. Many survivors of Flight 232 found out about the case and they also helped raise money. Eventually, his daughter was able to get the transplant.
In 2005, a national magazine once again published Mr. Haynes' story.
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.