Crash test of Boeing 727 conducted in hope of enhancing aviation safety
Skift Take
The operation sounds amateurish, and there is only a remote chance that the purposeful crash of a Boeing 727, partially using remote control, for test purposes will do much to enhance passenger safety.
Retired Navy pilot Dave Kennedy sat in the Mexicali airport tower as the passenger jet began a steep descent toward the Sonoran desert.
The Thousand Oaks man was a part of a team spread out in the air and on the ground as the seconds ticked down and the pilot of the Boeing 727 climbed out of the cockpit and parachuted out of the plane.
Three minutes later, the airliner smashed into the dry lake bed, sending up a plume of dirt and wreckage. Its cockpit buckled as a wave of debris rushed through the inside of the cabin.
It was just as they had hoped.
Four years earlier, Chip Shanle -- CEO of a company called Broken Wing, a colleague of Kennedy and an airline pilot by day -- got an unusual request. Broken Wing, which provides aviation expertise for films and other projects, was asked to purchase an airliner, design a remote control system to operate it, and then crash it.
Downing the Boeing 727 was part of an experiment aired recently as the premier episode of "Curiosity" on the Discovery Channel. It was the first time a plane was crash-tested since 1984, when N
