Engineering animation: United Airlines flight 232

HDDownload full HD version
(right click, choose "Save target as")

July 19th 1989 will forever be written into the history books of memorable flights. For 44 minutes check airman Dennis E. Fitch managed to navigate and land a McDonnell Douglas 10-10 aircraft with zero hydraulic pressure. In a terrible strike of bad luck, the triple redundant hydraulic system was punctured by debris originating from a fractured fan disk in engine #2. The actual events of that flight are featured in this showcase from Serpent 3D.

United Airlines Flight 232 was a scheduled flight from Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado, to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, with continuing service to Philadelphia International Airport. On July 19, 1989, the DC-10 (Registration N1819U) operating the route crash-landed in Sioux City, Iowa, after suffering catastrophic failure of its tail-mounted engine, which led to the loss of all flight controls. 111 people died in the accident while 185 survived.  Despite the deaths, the accident is considered a prime example of successful crew resource management due to the manner in which the flight crew handled the emergency, and the high number of survivors considering that the airplane was landed without conventional control. The flight crew became well known as a result of their actions that day, in particular the captain, Alfred C. Haynes, and a DC-10 instructor on board who offered his assistance, Dennis E. Fitch.

The manner in which the engine failed resulted in high-speed shrapnel being hurled from the engine; this shrapnel penetrated the hydraulic lines of all three independent hydraulic systems on board the aircraft, which rapidly lost their hydraulic fluid. As the flight controls on the DC-10 are hydraulically powered, the flight crew lost their ability to operate nearly all of them. Despite these losses, the crew was able to attain and then maintain limited control by using the only systems still workable: the two remaining engines. By utilizing each engine independently, the crew made rough steering adjustments, and by using the engines together they were able to roughly adjust altitude.

The crew guided the crippled jet to Sioux Gateway Airport and lined it up for landing on one of the runways. Without flight controls, they were unable to slow down for landing, and were forced to attempt landing at much too high a speed and rate of descent. On touchdown, the aircraft broke apart, caught fire, and rolled over. The largest section came to rest in a cornfield next to the runway. Despite the ferocity of the accident, approximately two-thirds of those on board survived due to multiple factors. The cause of the engine failure was traced back to a manufacturing defect in the fan disk, which had microscopic cracks due to impurities. The cracking was present during maintenance inspections and should have been detected by maintenance personnel, revealing shortcomings in the maintenance processes.

When ordering an animation or illustration from Serpent 3D you can trust correct proportions and measurements are taken into account. If the scene includes an aircraft flying 37.000 feet in the air, it will do so: In the speed that you request, naturally blending in with the landscape below. In fact, 47 individual high resolution satellite photos were used to recreate the western area of Iowa, which w as the scene for the dramatic flight in this video.

To transform your illustration into a realistic 3D representation, Serpent 3D use a wide variety of software and techniques. Not only size, shape and texture will reflect reality: Movements and timing can also be calibrated to portray an accurate simulation of your real world object. The sky is the limit!