Pilots, heroes, friends remembered, saluted
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The two pilots who died in the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 were honored yesterday during an emotional ceremony marked by words about "grace under pressure."
More than 500 people crowded into a ballroom at the DoubleTree Hotel across from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to pay tribute to Capt. Ted Thompson and First Officer Bill Tansky, who were killed along with 86 others when the MD-83 they were piloting plunged into the Pacific Ocean off Southern California one year earlier.
Thompson was 53, Tansky 57. Both lived in California.
Later in the day, Alaska Airlines executives spoke to several hundred employees who gathered at a park adjacent to the corporate headquarters in SeaTac to mark the first anniversary of the crash of Flight 261. Among the crash victims were three Seattle-based flight attendants as well as seven other employees of Alaska Airlines and its affiliate, Horizon Air, who were traveling as passengers.
"Anniversaries are a time to pause, to reflect, to remember," said John Kelly, Alaska's chairman and chief executive. "We came here today to honor those who perished."
At the ceremony for the pilots, amid a sea of navy-blue uniforms worn by Alaska pilots and flight attendants, tears flowed as Thompson's wife, Marilyn, and Tansky's wife, Bonnie, were presented with the Air Line Pilot Association's highest award, the Gold Medal for Heroism.
"They never lost their focus in trying to recover the ailing aircraft," said Alaska Capt. Bill Wolf, the ALPA's chief accident investigator for the crash.
Thompson and Tansky were piloting the flight from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco and Seattle. Early on, they encountered a problem with the horizontal stabilizer. That small wing on the tail can be tilted to change the plane's angle of flight, and on Flight 261 the mechanism that adjusts it would move in only one direction - the one that would make the plane's nose tend to drop. To keep the plane flying level, the pilots had to hold back the control wheel with some force.
As the plane cruised north along the coast, the crew was in contact with maintenance and dispatch personnel on the ground but couldn't resolve the problem, so they planned to land in Los Angeles. But about 11 minutes before the crash the MD-83's nose dropped and the plane dived from 31,000 feet to 23,700 feet.
"Whatever we did was no good," Tansky said after they regained control somewhat. "Don't do that again." After a further exchange, Thompson said, "Yeah, yeah, we're in much worse shape now."
During the next minutes, according to a transcript of the cockpit voice recorder, they got clearance to land in Los Angeles, which was within sight. Twice they tried extending slats and flaps on the front and rear edges of the wings to see how the plane flew in its landing configuration. After the first attempt, Thompson described the plane as "pretty stable."
The second time, the plane suddenly dived. They managed to keep it flying for more than a minute, upside-down, but it was in a final descent and plunged into the sea about 10 miles off the coast, near Port Hueneme, Calif.
Thompson and Tansky worked together like a "Swiss watch," said Alaska Capt. Cress Bernard, ALPA executive vice president. "This was their finest hour," he said, noting the two would not give in even as they tried to fly the plane upside-down. "They would not go gently into that good night."
Recalling the last recorded words from the cockpit - Thompson's matter-of-fact "Ah, here we go" - Bernard said the two pilots "left us as heroes."
Bernard said he had known Thompson for 18 years and Tansky for 15 years.
"Ted and Bill were absolutely loved in our Los Angeles base," Bernard said, drawing laughter as he recounted how over the years everyone there came to know the soccer scores, grades and other life events of Thompson's two children.
Bernard said the decision to bestow the award, which has been given to only 12 others since it was created in 1952, was easy.
Thompson and Tansky are the first to receive the award posthumously. Other pilots have been honored for actions such as subduing hijackers and evacuating passengers.
Although heroism isn't clearly defined, Bernard said, "you know it when you see it."
Bernard said the best definition he could find was in the writings of Ernest Hemingway, who described heroism as "grace under pressure."
The ALPA's president, Capt. Duane Woerth, presented the gold medals to the men's widows. Joining the two women on stage were other family members, including Thompson's children, Fred, 25, a law student, and Beth, 24, a college student.
Speaking for both families, Fred Thompson thanked the audience, saying that's all he had originally planned to do. But then he explained he had more to say, drawing laughter as he reminded the audience, "I am my father's son."
He said his father and Tansky would be mystified as they looked down on the ceremony because they certainly felt "they were just doing their job."
At the SeaTac ceremony, chief executive Kelly announced that a permanent memorial for the crash victims would be built at an Alaska Airlines operational facility at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. To be completed this fall, the memorial will include a plaque with the names of all Alaska Airlines employees who have died on the job.
After employees sang songs and read poems dedicated to those who perished, a bagpiper played "Amazing Grace."
Then, Kelly and Alaska Airlines President Bill Ayer led a procession of employees across Angle Lake Park to the airline's corporate headquarters, and back to work.
"It's been a tough year for everyone," said Susan Peterson, who works in an electronic-commerce division at the airlines. "I see it getting easier for everyone. We're going to move on from here."
Seattle Times aerospace reporter Chuck Taylor contributed to this story.