Spider-Webbed Window
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It would not have been possible for me to have enjoyed a career as a pilot without the support of countless individuals on the ground – aviation mechanics, avionics technicians and dispatchers/flight followers as well as the people who serviced, loaded, cleaned and handled the airplanes.
When I hired on at Airborne Express in 1989, I was immediately impressed by the company’s commitment to maintenance. Although we were flying older airplanes that had long-ago been retired from passenger service, it was then and remains today my belief that we had the best maintained fleet in the aviation industry.
Deferred items were a rarity. It is no exaggeration to say that many times we had no sooner completed the shutdown checklist than a mechanic entered the cockpit to ask if we had any writeups. When there were, most times the discrepancies were fixed before the airplane pushed back on the outbound leg a few hours later. I had complete confidence in our maintenance department.
That commitment to excellence started at the top and flowed all the way through the department. We had a dedicated team keeping us safe.
One example that stands out in my mind occurred in Anchorage, Alaska. We had just departed Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, loaded with freight and bound for Wilmington, Ohio with a through stop in Billings, Montana. During climbout I noticed arcing on my front window pane. It wasn’t Saint Elmo’s Fire, the type arcing you see when you are flying in the vicinity of thunderstorms. It’s quite fascinating, in a way beautiful to witness the various neon-like glowing blue and violet colors.
St. Elmo's fire is not a hazard in itself, but it can be an indication you are in the vicinity of thunderstorm activity and may be a precursor to a lightning strike. But, as I said, there were no thunderstorms in the area. The problem was with the electric heating to my front windowpane.
It is common practice for jet aircraft to fly with window heat on. This allows the window to be more flexible and less likely to shatter in the event of a bird strike.
The first officer was flying, so there was no need to transfer control. I half-turned in my seat to pull the window heat circuit breaker. Before I could reach it, the window cracked, forming a spiderweb pattern.
I pulled the circuit breaker, then took a moment to evaluate the situation. A DC-9 cockpit window typically has three layers of glass panes. These layers are bonded together to form a single unit, with a vinyl laminate in between the outer and inner panes. The spiderweb only affected one of the panes, but we were nearly 1,700 nautical miles from Billings, and we were still working with Anchorage departure. Temperatures at cruise altitude were forecast to be -40* C. There was nothing to debate. I informed Anchorage of our situation and requested vectors back to Stevens International for landing.
Landing was uneventful, as the First Officer could still see through her window just fine. I ran the checklists and made callouts as I would on an instrument approach. Taxiing into the ramp was a bit more challenging but presented no major problems.
We were obviously done for the day, but it was a while before crew scheduling released us to go to the hotel. The new plan was for a mechanic to ride from Wilmington, Ohio on the next day’s flight, bringing with him a new window.
The following evening, we stopped for groceries on the way to the airport so we would have something to sustain us through the night. We made sure to get a little extra for the mechanic, who would be riding back with us.
And now I get to the part of the story that is my main emphasis. The mechanic had worked a full shift in Wilmington the day before and was then sent to Alaska. The only rest he got was in the jumpseat of the DC9.
He had no food that night.
Upon landing in Anchorage, he had to remove and replace the cockpit window on the ramp. In the winter. Cold. Snow. Still no food. No chance to go inside to warm up. No hotel room to go to when he finished the job. He had to ride back with us.
We gladly shared our food with him, and to say he was grateful would be an understatement.
It was none of my business, but I never understood why our mechanics chose not to unionize. If they had, such working conditions would not have occurred. But the bottom line, the point I want to make here is that even in such adverse conditions, our guys got the job done. They made sure we had safe airplanes to fly. And to his credit, he didn’t complain – at least not to us.
We had some good chief pilots at ABX. And some not so good. The one who spoke with me was not so good. He made it clear that he thought I should have pressed on to Billings. “Those other panes probably would have held up just fine,” he said. To which I shrugged and said, “Yeah. Probably.” And that was the end of that conversation.