Submitted by: Submitted by schrothm
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Pages: 15
Category: Science and Technology
Date Submitted: 01/29/2015 06:22 PM
Matthew Schroth
Hughes Airwest Flight 706
Embry Riddle Aeronautical University
On June 6th 1971 at approximately 6:11 P.M., Hughes Airwest Flight 706, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 commercial airliner, collided in mid-air with a United States Marine Corps F4 Phantom II. The accident occurred over the San Gabriel Mountains close to Duarte, California. The aircraft was carrying 44 passengers and 5 crewmembers who all immediately perished in the accident. This accident in particular became very famous, mostly due to the notoriety of one of the passengers on board. This passenger was Howard Hughes, owner of Hughes airlines. At this time, he was one of the most famous men in America. In the F4 was a pilot and a navigator, who were both killed in the collision. This accident was very important to aviation safety because it marked a mile-stone in causing changes to be made in both military and commercial aviation. It will be discussed throughout this case study, that this accident could have been very much preventable with changes in aviation safety.
On the day of the accident, the pilot who was flying the commercial plane, was Captain Theodore Nickoli and First Officer Price Bruner. The aircraft was a “city hopper,” and they were flying from Los Angeles, California to Salt Lake City, Utah. While in the beginning stages of flight, approximately four minutes after takeoff, First Officer Bruner contacted a control tower north of Las Angeles for traffic clearance. The air traffic controller that responded was Roger Anderson and his trainee. Roger Anderson was the head controller and was very seasoned in his career field. At the time that Flight 706 was communicating with the air traffic controller trainee, the trainee was also directing 5 or 6 other flights at the same time. The air traffic controllers continued to track the flight via radar using what, at the time, were called, “shrimp boats,” which were little pieces of plastic used to keep track where each flight...