"We're going down"

BLOGGER'S NOTE. How quickly things change. In a heartbeat. From discussing pretzels and fruity juice cocktail to "Hang on. What the hell is this?". In this case, it looks as if mechanical failure was at fault, but how strange, the change - from major to minor - from lighthearted banter to certain death.

September 8, 1994
Aliquippa, Pennsylvania
USAir, Flight 427
Boeing B-737-300
N513AU

On a flight from Chicago to Pittsburgh, while on approach, the aircraft went into a sudden nose dive and crashed into a wooded ravine 6 miles northwest of the airport. The accident was caused by a loss of control of the aircraft resulting from the movement of the rudder surface to its blowdown limit or an uncommanded rudder reversal. The rudder surface deflected in a direction opposite to that commanded by the pilots as a result of a jam of the main rudder PCU servo valve secondary slide to the servo valve housing offset from its neutral position and overtravel of the primary slide. All 132 aboard were killed.

CAM-1 = Captain
CAM-2 = First Officer
CAM-3 = Cockpit Area Mike (cabin sounds and flight attendants)
RDO-1 = Radio Communications (Captain)
APP: Pittsburgh Approach

CAM-3: They didn't give us connecting flight information or anything. Do you know what gate we're coming into?

CAM-1: Not yet.

CAM-3: Any idea?

CAM-1: No.

CAM-3: Do ya know what I'm thinkin' about? Pretzels.

CAM-1: Pretzels?

CAM-3: You guys need drinks here?

CAM-1: I could use a glass of somethin', whatever's open, water, uh, water, a juice?

CAM-2: I'll split a, yeah, a water, a juice, whatever's back there. I'll split one with 'im.

CAM-3: Okey-dokey. Do you want me to make you my special fruity juice cocktail?

CAM-1: How fruity is it?

CAM-3: Why don't you just try it?

CAM-2: All right, I'll be a guinea pig.

CAM-3: [Sound similar to cabin door closing]

The crew receive instructions to reduce speed to 210kts, maintain FL100 and contact Pittsburgh

Approach at 121.25.

CAM-1: Two ten, he said?

CAM-2: Two ten? Oh, I heard two fifty ...

CAM-1: I may have misunderstood him.

Pittsburgh Approach asks Flight 427 to turn left heading 100.

CAM-3: [Sound of cockpit door opening]

CAM-3: Here it is.

CAM-1: All right.

CAM-2: All right. Thank you. Thank you.

CAM-3: I didn't taste 'em, so I don't know if they came out right.

CAM-1: That's good.

CAM-2: That is good.

CAM-3: It's good.

CAM-2: That is different. Be real good with some dark rum in it.

CAM-3: Yeah, right
.
APP: USAir 427, Pittsburgh Approach. Heading 160, vector ILS Runway 28 Right final approach course speed 120.

CAM-2: What kind of speed?

RDO-1: We're comin' back to 210 and, uh, one sixty heading, down to ten, USAir 427.

CAM-1: What runway did he say?

CAM-1: It tastes like a...

CAM-2: Good.

CAM-1: There's little grapefruit in it?

CAM-3: No.

CAM-2: Cranberry?

CAM-3: Yeah. You saw that from the color.

CAM-1: Else is in it?

CAM-2: Uh, Sprite?

CAM-3: Diet Sprite.

CAM-2: Huh.

CAM-3: And I guess you could do with Sprite. Probably be a little be

RDO-1: Cleared to six, USAir 427.

CAM-2: Oh, my wife would like that.

CAM-1: Cranberry, orange, and Sprite.

CAM-2: Yeah. I guess we ought to do a preliminary.

Pre-landing checks take place; Approach requests a left turn heading 140, and speed reduction to 190kts.

CAM-3: [Sound similar to flap handle being moved; sound of single chime similar to seat belt chime]

CAM-2: Oops. I didn't kiss 'em goodbye. What was the temperature? Remember?

CAM-1: 75.

CAM-2: 75?

PA: Seatbelts and remain seated for the duration of the flight.

PA: Folks, from the flight deck, we should be on the ground in about ten more minutes. Uh, sunny skies, a little hazy. Temperature ... temperature's, ah, 75 degrees. Wind's out of the west around ten miles per hour. Certainly 'ppreciate you choosing USAir for your travel needs this evening. Hope you enjoyed the flight. Hope you come back and travel with us again. This time we'd like to ask our Flight Attendants please prepare the cabin for arrival. Ask you to check the security of your seatbelts. Thank you.

CAM-3: [Seatbelt chime]

RDO-1 : Did you say Runway 28 Left for USAir 427?

APP: Uh, USAir 427, it'll be 28 Right.

RDO-1: 28 Right, thank you.

CAM-1: 28 Right.

CAM-2: Right, 28 Right. That's what we planned on. Autobrakes on one for it.

CAM-1: Seven for six.

CAM-2: Seven for six.

CAM-1: Boy, they always slow you up so bad here.

CAM-2: That sun is gonna be just like it was takin' off in Cleveland yesterday, too. I'm just gonna close my eyes. [Sound of laughter]. You holler when it looks like we're close. [Sound of laughter]

CAM-1: Okay.

APP: USAir 427, turn left heading one zero zero. Traffic will be one to two o'clock, six miles, northbound Jetstream climbing out of thirty-three for five thousand.

RDO-1: We're looking for the traffic, turning to one zero zero, USAir 427.

CAM-3: [Sound in engines increasing rpms]

CAM-2: Oh, yeah. I see the Jetstream.

CAM-1: Sheez...

CAM-2: zuh?

CAM-3: [Sound of thump; sound like 'clickety-click'; again the thumping sound, but quieter than before]

CAM-1: Whoa ... hang on.

CAM-3: [Sound of increasing rpms in engines; sound of clickety-click; sound of trim wheel turning at autopilot trim speed; sound similar to pilot grunting; sound of wailing horn similar to autopilot disconnect warning]

CAM-1: Hang on.

CAM-2: Oh, Shit.

CAM-1: Hang on. What the hell is this?

CAM-3: [Sound of stick shaker; sound of altitude alert]

CAM-3: Traffic. Traffic.

CAM-1: What the...

CAM-2: Oh...

CAM-1: Oh God, Oh God...

APP: USAir...

RDO-1: 427, emergency!

CAM-2: [Sound of scream]

CAM-1: Pull...

CAM-2: Oh...

CAM-1: Pull... pull...

CAM-2: God...

CAM-1: [Sound of screaming]

CAM-2: No... END OF TAPE.

"They are not injurious": ten good reasons to smoke cocaine!

This ad has such sheer physical beauty that I don't want to add anything to it. At all. Except to say, if these suckers were around today, I wouldn't trust myself NOT to smoke them.They sound so fxxing GOOD, and besides, have many health benefits that I could use right now. But I won't, because at some point society became Enlightened, and smoking anything but pot (which you are now REQUIRED to smoke) became a very bad thing. So, no more Cocarettes. Which, by the way, is the best name of any product ever made in the history of humanity. 

Weird mystery! In the picture, it looks as if the smoke is coming out of the girl's ear, or perhaps even a hole in her neck. Could it be so? Just portraying a girl smoking was daring in those days. But this! 

And the more I look at it, the more this seems like a 12-year-old. Get 'em hooked early, I always say.

"Put it in the wrong way, huh?"

BLOGGER'S NOTE. I will confess these transcripts from actual plane crashes both horrify and infuriate me - not only because they are so tragic, but because they are so - preventable. In this case, idiotic pilots fiddled around with pliers and a piece of kleenex to fix a light, not noticing the autopilot had been accidentally turned off and the plane was headed straight for "impact". The crew had FOUR minutes to correct this problem, but didn't notice it because they were too busy diddling around with the busted light. Quite literally, the plane crashed because no one was flying it. Favorite quote: "We did something to the altitude." "What?" 

December 29, 1972
Everglades National Park, Florida
Eastern Air Lines, Flight 401
Lockheed L-1011 TriStar1
N310EA

The crew was preoccupied with a landing gear problem and was trying to replace the landing
gear light while on autopilot and in a holding pattern. As the captain got up to help, he
inadvertently pushed on the yoke releasing the autopilot. With no ground reference and
under nighttime conditions, the aircraft gradually descended until it crashed into Everglades,
18.7 miles west-northwest of Miami killing 100 out of 176 aboard. The failure of the crew to
monitor the flight instruments during the final 4 minutes of flight, and to detect a descent
soon enough to prevent impact with the ground.

TWR = Tower

APP = Approach
CAM = Cockpit area mike
CAM 1 = Primarily Captain
CAM 2 = Primarily First Officer
Cam 3 = Primarily Flight Engineer
?? = unknown.
### = expletive
RT = Radio transmission

23.32:52	RT	Miami Tower, do you read, Eastern 401? Just turned on final.
23.32:56	TWR	Eastern 401 Heavy, continue approach to 9 left.
23.33:00	RT	Continue approach, roger.
23.33:00	CAM 3	Continuous ignition. No smoke.
	CAM 1	Coming on.
	CAM 3	Brake system.
	CAM 1	Okay.
	CAM 3	Radar.
	CAM 1	Up, off.
	CAM 3	Hydraulic panels checked.
	CAM 2	Thirty-five, thirty three.
	CAM 1	Bert, is that handle in?
	CAM ?	??
	CAM 3	Engine crossbleeds are open.
23.33:22	CAM ?	Gear down.
	CAM ?	??
	CAM 1	I gotta.
	CAM ?	??
23.33:25	CAM 1	I gotta raise it back up.
23.33:47	CAM 1	Now I'm gonna try it down one more time.
	CAM 2	All right.
23.33:58		[sound of altitude alert horn]
	CAM 2	Right gear.
	CAM 2	Well, want to tell 'em we'll take it around and circle around and ... around?
23.34:05	RDO 1	Well ah, tower, this is Eastern, ah, 401. It looks like we're gonna have to  circle, we don't have a light on our nose gear yet.
23.34:14	TWR	Eastern 401 heavy, roger, pull up, climb straight ahead to two thousand, go back to approach control, one twenty eight six.
23.34:19	CAM 2	Twenty-two degrees.
	CAM 2	Twenty-two degrees, gear up
	CAM 1	Put power on it first, Bert. That-a-boy.
	CAM 1	Leave the ... gear down till we find out what we got.
	CAM 2	All right.
	CAM 3	You want me to test the lights or not?
	CAM 1	Yeah.
	CAM ?	... seat back.
	CAM 1	Check it.
	CAM 2	Uh, Bob, it might be the light. Could you jiggle that, the light?
	CAM 3	It's gotta, gotta come out a little bit and then snap in.
	CAM ?	??
	CAM ?	I'll put 'em on.
23.34:21	RT	Okay, going up to two thousand, one twenty-eight six.
23.34:58	CAM 2	We're up to two thousand
	CAM 2	You want me to fly it, Bob?
	CAM 1	What frequency did he want us on, Bert?
	CAM 2	One twenty-eight six.
	CAM 1	I'll talk to 'em.
	CAM 3	It's right ...
	CAM 1	Yeah, ...
	CAM 3	I can't make it pull out, either.
	CAM 1	We got pressure.
	CAM 3	Yes sir, all systems.
	CAM 1	??
23.35:09	RDO 1	All right ahh, Approach Control, Eastern 401, we're right over the airport here and climbing to two thousand feet.in fact, we've just
23.35:20	APP	Eastern 401, roger. Turn left heading three six zero and maintain two thousand, vectors to 9 Left final.
23.35:28	RT	Left three six zero.
23.36:04	CAM 1	Put the ... on autopilot here.
	CAM 2	All right.
	CAM 1	See if you can get that light out.
	CAM 2	All right.
	CAM 1	Now push the switches just a ... forward.
	CAM 1	Okay.
	CAM 1	You got it sideways, then.
	CAM ?	Naw, I don't think it'll fit.
	CAM 1	You gotta turn it one quarter turn to the left.
23.36:27	APP	Eastern 401, turn left heading three zero zero.
	RT	Okay.
23.36:37	RT	Three zero zero, Eastern 401.
23.37:08	CAM 1	Hey, hey, get down there and see if that damn nose wheel's down. You better do that.
	CAM 2	You got a handkerchief or something so I can get a little better grip on this? Anything I can do with it?
	CAM 1	Get down there and see if that, see if that ### thing ...
	CAM 2	This won't come out, Bob. If I had a pair of pliers, I could cushion it with that Kleenex.
	CAM 3	I can give you pliers but if you force it, you'll break it, just believe me.
	CAM 2	Yeah, I'll cushion it with Kleenex.
	CAM 3	Oh, we can give you pliers.
23.37:48	APP	Eastern, uh, 401 turn left heading two seven zero.
23.37:53	RT	Left two seven zero, roger.
23.38:34	CAM 1	To hell with it, to hell with this. Go down and see if it's lined up with  the red line. That's all we care. ### around with that ### twenty-cent piece ...
	CAM ?	??
23.38:46	RT	Eastern 401 I'll go ah, out west just a little further if we can here and,  ah, see if we can get this light to come on here.
23.38:54	APP	All right, ah, we got you headed westbound there now, Eastern 401.
23.38:56	RT	All right.
	CAM 1	How much fuel we got left on this ###
	CAM ?	Fifty two five.
	CAM 2	It won't come out, no way.
23.39:37	CAM 1	Did you ever take it out of there?
	CAM 2	Huh?
	CAM 1	Have you ever taken it out of there?
	CAM 2	Hadn't till now.
	CAM 1	Put it in the wrong way, huh?
	CAM 2	In there looks ... square to me.
	CAM ?	Can't you get the hole lined up?
	CAM ?	??
	CAM ?	Whatever's wrong?
	CAM 1	What's that?
23.40:05	CAM 2	I think that's over the training field.
	CAM ?	West heading you wanna go left or ...
	CAM 2	Naw that's right, we're about to cross Krome Avenue right now.
23.40:17	CAM	[Sound of click]
	CAM 2	I don't know what the ### holding that ### ...
	CAM 2	Always something, we could'a made schedule.
23.40:38	CAM	[Sound of altitude alert]
	CAM 1	We can tell if that ### is down by looking down at our indices.
	CAM 1	I'm sure it's down, there's no way it couldn't help but be.
	CAM 2	I'm sure it is.
	CAM 1	It freefalls down.
	CAM 2	The tests didn't show that the lights worked anyway.
	CAM 1	That 's right.
	CAM 2	It's a faulty light.
23.41:05	CAM 2	Bob, this ### just won't come out.
	CAM 1	All right leave it there.
	CAM 3	I don't see it down there.
	CAM 1	Huh?
	CAM 3	I don't see it.
	CAM 1	You can't see that indis ... for the nose wheel ah, there's a place in there  you can look and see if they're lined up.
	CAM 3	I know, a little like a telescope.
	CAM 1	Yeah.
	CAM 3	Well ...
	CAM 1	It's not lined up?
	CAM 3	I can't see it, it's pitch dark and I throw the little light I get ah nothing.
23.41:31	CAM 4	Wheel-well lights on?
	CAM 3	Pardon?
	CAM 4	Wheel-well lights on?
	CAM 3	Yeah wheel well lights always on if the gear's down.
	CAM 1	Now try it.
23.41:40	APP	Eastern, ah 401 how are things coming along out there?
23.41:44	RT	Okay, we'd like to turn around and come, come back in.
	CAM 1	Clear on left?
	CAM 2	Okay
23.41:47	APP	Eastern 401 turn left heading one eight zero.
23.41:50	CAM 1	Huh?
23.41:51	RT	One eighty.
23.42:05	CAM 2	We did something to the altitude.
	CAM 1	What?
23.42:07	CAM 2	We're still at two thousand right?
23.42:09	CAM 1	Hey, what's happening here?
	CAM ?	[Sound of click]
23.42:10	CAM ?	[Sound of six beeps similar to radio altimeter increasing in rate]
23.42:12		[Sound of impact]

Varied thrush: extreme closeup

Bird sounds, rain, and cat

SUPERMARKET FRENZY!

Cookie dough spoons and other things I'll never make

AGAIN I die!

In My Room

In my room, way at the end of the hall
I sit and stare at the wall
Thinking how lonesome I've grown, all alone
In my room

In my room, where every night is the same
I play a dangerous game
I keep pretending he's late
So I sit, and I wait

Over there is the picture we took when he made me his bride
Over there is the chair where he held me whenever I cried
Over there by the window, the flowers he left - have all died

In my room, way at the end of the hall
I sit and stare at the wall
Thinking how lonely I've grown, all alone
In my room

So why would I feature such a morbid little ditty on a normal, dull Tuesday afternoon? It popped into my head for no known reason today, and I assumed finding it on YouTube would be the usual breeze. It wasn't. At all. when I tried to find some, ANY recording of it, by anyone, all I could find was the Beach Boys singing:

. . . THAT song, also called In My Room. The one covered by dozens of bands, badly, because no matter how odd and strange Brian Wilson was, he sure wrote beautiful songs. 

But there HAD to be a song like the one I remembered! I heard it on the radio all the time, on CKLW ("Windsor and Detroit know/It's Radio Eight-Oh!"). I started googling "songs titled In My Room," "covers of In My Room", and finally, I got a bingo: a song by some boy group called the Walker Brothers. They had a few minor hits which I am too lazy to dig up. It was definitely the right song, but I wasn't able to listen to it all the way through because it just wasn't a guy song. It didn't sound right. The one I remembered was sung by a woman. So I had to keep digging. 

I dredged it up finally on one of those lists-of-songs pages, and even found some Youtube videos. Someone named Verdelle Smith had a modest hit with it, though I think it was the B-side of a record called Tar and Cement (which, in turn, was a knockoff of the Shangri La's You Can Never Go Home Any More).

Connie Stevens

Nancy Sinatra

Verdelle Smith

I prefer the Julie Rogers version, if only for the giant spider web on the wall and the elegant way she's dressed. I love '60s videos, usually filmed for TV variety shows (of which there were many). The song must have made some sort of minor splash for these high-end performers to do covers. But now and forever, the lyrics will bring to mind that godawful Vikki Carr song of howling female rage and loss.  

 

I tell myself what's done is done
I tell myself don't be a fool
Play the field have a lot of fun
It's easy when you play it cool

I tell myself don't be a chump
Who cares, let him stay away
That's when the phone rings and I jump
And as I grab the phone I pray

Let it please be him, oh dear God
It must be him or I shall die
Or I shall die

Oh hello, hello my dear God
It must be him but it's not him
And then I die
That's when I die

After a while, I'm myself again
I take the pieces off the floor
Put my heart on the shelf again
You'll never hurt me anymore

I'm not a puppet on a string
I'll find somebody else someday
That's when the phone rings, and once again
I start to pray


Let it please be him, oh dear God

must be him , it must be him

or I shall die, 

Or I shall die

Oh hello, hello my dear God
It must be him but it's not him
And then I die
Again I die

Salmon arches sparkle

I'm going to post some of my own handmade videos over the next while. I never get a lot of views, but slowly I'm building my subscribers. It's so nice when one of them notices my stuff or enjoys it! So far the comments have been so positive and uplifting.

This short video was taken at Lafarge Lake, a favorite spot for walking and bird-watching. The salmon arches are part of a new amphitheatre, which I loathed at first because they had to dig up the ground to make it. But Lafarge is such a popular spot that they are "developing" it (moannn), hopefully leaving my beloved lake alone.

The Madam Warren Corset: A TRUE STORY!

"OH! How horrible I look in this old corset."

"What an improvement the Madam Warren corset and how comfortable."

"How delightful to be admired by everybody"

THE HAPPY RESULT

One of my all-time favorite Harold posters: gorgeous!

Shrooms! Shrooms! Shrooms!

\


Click on lower right corner to view full-screen (and get sound! Mushrooms make sounds.)

Elizabeth Holmes: this thing just got weirder

WAAAAAAAYYY weirder.

At first it was one of those "oh come ONNNN" things, rumor piled on top of innuendo, and I didn't believe a word of it, until I saw some recent photographs taken at that weird, avant-garde, only-the-cool-people-can-afford-it Burning Man festival. It's the kind of thing Elizabeth Holmes would go to these days, since she seems to be on some sort of delirous, careening manic high.

With her world crashing down around her ears, everything she built over ten years in a smoking ruin, facing up to twenty years in prison for fraud and endangerment of human life, WHEEEEEE! She's off with her hunky new boy friend (and to tell you the honest truth, he looks a bit like a prop, sort of like Balto, that poor wolf/dog she's dragging around with her) to get her man burned or whatever they do there, stand around with drinks and listen to techno while waving their arms in the air. Word on the street is that she is positively jubilant.

Meanwhile, and even more alarmingly, more has been revealed about the original Balto, her wolf-dog's namesake, the "hero" husky who ran through snow and sleet and dark of night to deliver antibiotics to Nome, or tea to China, or something. Turns out that Balto was just the dog who ran the last couple of miles of the arduous journey, so the press quickly caught on - his name was so catchy, you know? Never mind that he was just one of a dozen dogs who made the trip, and never mind that it was all set up so that the dog with the nicest fur should get there with the drugs in a keg around his neck. Hardly winded - wasn't that a miracle? Yes, since he'd only run about a hundred and fifty yards.

It's all just SOOOOO appropriately fraudulent for this fraudulent freak show that just gets weirder with each passing day. Now that the photos are all over the internet, I think the top is about to blow right off this thing. But then, I thought that when I read Carreyrou's book. Carreyrou's book has nothing in it about dogs, or dishy boy friends, or Burning Men. It's all moving so fast, I can't keep up.

These photos were apparently taken about half a year ago, if you're to believe they're on the level - well, it really does LOOK like Elizabeth, though my first thought was, naaaaahhhh. . . 

Can you blame me for thinking it just might be another fraud?

UPDATE. Another one. Or several! Every day, new photos are dredged up, and since they are on social media, it's plain Elizabeth wants the world to know what she's up to. She's still posing with her magazine-cover (mail order?) boy friend at some green event, and doing some soulful camera trick with yellow light.

There is a whole series of these, mostly boring, of Elizabeth out in the snow. The Daily Mail article was aghast that she was toting her own suitcase. Maybe it's a Fendi or something. But - out in the snow? Her??

POST-BLOG REVELATIONS. Even more is coming out about Elizabeth's new fiance, William "Billy" Evans. He's a rich kid like her, a hotel heir who works for some sort of Silicon Valley startup (!), so they sort of gravitated to each other. I wonder what his family thinks of this. But I sense that things are ricocheting Elizabeth back into the public's favor, if only because of its obsessive need to stalk celebrities, whether they're genuine or not.

So here's some bumph about Evans, which may or may not be true. It may be just a memorizing-Jane-Austen-fluent-in-Mandarin-reading-Moby-Dick-in-a-single-sitting-at-age-nine type of deal, meaning it's all hype. He may even, like the technology at Theranos, merely be a figment of Elizabeth's imagination. But here goes:

He attended prep school in Chicago from an early age, enrolling at Francis W Parker when he was in kindergarten and remaining there until he went off to college.

Evans chose MIT for college, and was able to also spend time in China at Fudan University.

He graduated in 2015 with a Bachelor's Degree in Science and Economics, at which point he took a post at LinkedIn before making the move in 2017 to Luminar Technologies.

That is the company which is currently hard at work attempting to create and then mass market driverless cars.

Evans is one of three children born to William and Susan Evans. 

#EveryWomanCan   Change the World    Elizabeth Holmes     Glamour

The family grew up in the San Diego area, which is where Evans' grandparents, William and Anne, started the Evans Hotel Group in 1953.

The hotel group now owns three major resort properties on the west coast: the Catamaran, the Baha and The Lodge at Torrey Pines.

Anne remains the chairman emeritus of the company, and when her husband passed away in 1984 her children William and Grace joined the company.

They were soon followed by their spouses, and those five now comprise the leadership team for the hotel group.

On the company website, Evans' father is described as 'a passionate collector of California Impressionist art, rare specimen palm trees and subtropical plants, and antique racing automobiles'.

Evans' mother, it is noted, 'made the commitment to dedicate herself to raising their three children – Billy, Rex, and Gracie—before accepting her current position.'

Banana phone incident