‘To keep the bad guy off his feet, the first officer threw the FedEx DC-10 cargo aircraft into all sorts of maneuvers, including inverted flight,’ Keith Shergold, former airline transport pilot
Auburn R. Calloway attempted to hijack Federal Express Flight 705 (FedEx Flight 705) on April 7, 1994, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 cargo jet transporting electronic equipment from Memphis, Tennessee, to San Jose, California. The prosecution claimed Calloway was attempting suicide.
Three members of the flight crew were present in the cockpit during this flight, according to Wikipedia: 49-year-old Captain David G. “Dave” Sanders, who had worked for FedEx for 20 years and previously served with the US Navy for nine years during the Vietnam War; 42-year-old First Officer James M. “Jim” Tucker Jr., who had worked for FedEx for 10 years and previously served with the US Navy for 12 years during the Vietnam War and People Express Airlines for three years; and 39-year-old Flight Engineer Andrew H. “Andy” Peterson, who had worked for FedEx for 5 years.
In the aircraft was Calloway, a 42-year-old FedEx Flight Engineer, Stanford University alumnus, former Navy pilot, and expert in martial arts who was in danger of losing his job due to fabricating his flight log.
Arriving on time, he was a deadhead traveler with a guitar case that included a speargun and multiple hammers. He attempted to turn off the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the airplane before takeoff and then, after it was in the air, killed the crew members with hammers so that their wounds would seem more like those of an accident than a hijacking. However, the flight engineer realized he had forgotten to turn on the CVR and turned it back on.
Former airline transport pilot Keith Shergold recalls on Quora;
‘Basically, a deranged flight engineer who was traveling as a passenger on a FedEx cargo DC-10 was suicidal and had brought a hammer, spear gun, and other crap with him. His intention was to kill the crew and die in the crash. Because he was an employee and it was a cargo plane, he was able to smuggle his weapons aboard.
‘Once in the air, he came into the cockpit and used his hammer to bash in the heads of the pilots and the flight engineer. Despite receiving terrible brain injuries, the Captain and the Flight Engineer went into the back to fight the bad guy, while the third tried to control the plane. To keep the bad guy off his feet, the first officer threw the plane into all sorts of maneuvers, including inverted flight. His brain injury made it impossible to control half of his body, but he used his remaining one arm and leg to do aerobatics in this enormous jetliner until his mates in the back managed to subdue the bad guy. Despite their horrifying injuries, the three crewmates then landed the plane. None of them were ever able to fly again. The bad guy is in jail for two consecutive life sentences, obviously.’
The tale of Federal Express Flight 705 and its heroic crew is presented in the video that follows.
Photo by X Pilot
