4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL JANUARY 3, 2018
O PINION
Offbeat Oregon History: Lessons from plane crash
By Finn JD John
For The Sentinel
It was well after dark — 6:15 p.m. on a Thurs-
day night, three days after Christmas in 1978, in
a quiet suburban neighborhood of southeast Port-
land. Theresa Salisbury was having supper with
her two-year-old daughter in their home, located
on Burnside Street near 157th Avenue, when the
ground shook.
“My windows shaked and rattled,” Salisbury
told the Portland Oregonian’s reporter. “The door
fl ew open. So I grabbed my kid and ran to the back
of the house. When I didn’t hear anything else I
walked out to the front. I couldn’t see the house
across the street because of all this blue smoke.
It was choking me. When I walked outside, the
house next door was completely fl attened.”
The third-worst commercial airplane crash in
Oregon history had just happened — right outside
Salisbury’s dining-room window.
Soon Salisbury’s quiet neighborhood was alive
with emergency responders, curious locals, and
dazed-looking crash survivors. The nearby Com-
munity Free Will Baptist Church was quickly
set up to treat survivors, and the Red Cross put
the call out for blood donations; two hours later,
several hundred people had put their dinner forks
down and hurried in to give a pint.
And nearly everyone on the scene echoed the
same thought: A fully-loaded airliner, with 189
people on board, had crashed in the midst of Or-
egon’s largest city. Yet although there were some
people badly hurt, and 10 deaths, the vast major-
ity of passengers and crew, along with everyone
on the ground, was uninjured. All in all, were it
not for the deaths of those unlucky 10, the crash
would have been something of a Christmas mir-
acle.
United Flight 173 was a McDonnell-Douglas
DC-8-61, a stretched version of the four-engine
jet airliner that was McDonnell-Douglas’ answer
to the Boeing 707. The fl ight had started out in
New York City earlier that night, and following
a stopover at Denver, it was scheduled to land at
PDX, its journey’s end, at 5:13 p.m.
And all was going completely according to plan
until just before the scheduled landing, when the
landing gear was lowered.
When that was done, something went wrong
with the right main landing gear, and instead of
lowering into place in a controlled fashion, it
dropped into place with a boom that shook the air-
plane. The impact destroyed the sender that lit the
“landing gear locked in place” light on the dash-
board. The crew, fl ying around the landing strip,
had no way of knowing if the gear was locked in
place or not, and was faced with the possibility
that it would collapse when they tried to land the
plane on it.
The pilot in command of the plane, Capt. Mel-
burn McBroom, got permission to spend a little
time circling the airport to try to diagnose the
problem and give the stewardesses time to pre-
pare the passengers for a possible rough landing.
And for the next hour or so, the big bird fl ew a
pattern around the airport while the crew tried to
fi gure it out.
Meanwhile, unnoticed by McBroom, the fuel
was burning at an accelerated rate, because the
plane was trimmed for landing and the gear was
down.
The fi rst sign of trouble came at 6:06 p.m., just
after McBroom announced they would be landing
in about fi ve minutes.
“I think you just lost number four,” said First
Offi cer Rod Beebe. And, a few seconds later,
“We’re losing an engine.”
“Why?” McBroom said.
“Fuel.”
The crew scrambled to open cross-feeds from
the other fuel tanks, to get the dead engine started
again. This worked, and, realizing now how peril-
ously low fuel stocks were, McBroom started pre-
paring for an emergency landing at the Troutdale
airport.
But seven minutes later, fl ight engineer For-
rest Mendenhall said, “We just lost two engines,
guys.”
A few seconds later, Capt. McBroom said,
“They’re all going. We can’t make Troutdale.”
“We can’t make anywhere,” replied Beebe.
“OK. Declare a mayday,” said McBroom.
Beebe got on the radio: “Portland tower, Unit-
ed 173 heavy, mayday. We’re — the engines are
fl aming out. We’re going down. We’re not going
to be able to make the airport.”
That was the last radio transmission from Flight
173. Captain and crew had other things to worry
about. The big airliner was left ghosting through
the air over Portland, a high-speed glider, its pi-
lots desperately scanning the light-strewn city-
scape below for a safe place to land ... or crash.
And, because it was dark, the best they could do
was aim for a dark spot below, and hope any trees
weren’t too big.
As it turned out, they probably couldn’t have
picked a better spot.
The fi nal death toll in the ensuing crash-landing
was 10: eight passengers and two crew members
— fl ight engineer Mendenhall and senior fl ight
attendant Joan Wheeler. Another 23 passengers
and crew members were seriously injured, includ-
ing Capt. McBroom and 156 passengers and crew
members were unharmed or suffered injuries too
minor to require treatment.
The crashing airplane snapped off trees, tore
out power lines and fl attened two houses on the
ground. Both houses were vacant and dark. It’s
interesting to contemplate that if one of the vacant
houses had had its porchlight left on, McBroom
would probably have picked a different place to
land, and the death toll might have been different
— probably higher, possibly much higher.
Investigators determined that the initial prob-
lem was a maintenance one — the one that caused
the loud landing gear. Ironically, the landing gear
was just fi ne, locked in place and ready for ser-
vice; but, by fl ying around for an hour trouble-
shooting it, the crew had lost track of time and
fuel, and had come up about fi ve minutes short
on both.
The other lesson that investigators took from
the crash was a big one, and it has unquestionably
saved lives in the years since this crash — prob-
ably hundreds of them: The lesson was that com-
mercial jetliners are too complicated to be fl own
according to a strict chain-of-command hierarchy,
in which the pilot barks orders and information
only fl ows back to him if he asks for it. Instead, a
more collaborative team approach was needed, so
that one person’s momentary weakness or distrac-
tion would not be deferred to by members of the
team who happened to be in a position to know
better.
The result was an initiative called Crew Re-
source Management, or CRM, developed sever-
al months after the crash by NASA psychologist
John Lauber, who had extensively studied cock-
pit communication under even more complicated
fl ight conditions. The most important element of
CRM is a recognized way for authority to be re-
spectfully questioned.
CRM was adopted by United in 1981, and other
airlines quickly followed suit. By the mid-1990s
its benefi ts were so obvious — especially in con-
trast with certain other countries that at that time
were still following the old model — that the FAA
made it mandatory.
So the family members of the 10 victims of the
Flight 173 crash have that much consolation for
their loss: their loved ones’ deaths on that winter
night continue to save uncountable others from a
similar fate.
Dr. Fuhrman: Low-glycemic sweeteners and your health
Added sugars come in several forms other than sugar, evapo-
rated cane juice and high fructose corn syrup. Calorie-containing
sweeteners such as maple syrup, honey, agave and coconut sugar
are marketed as “natural” and often touted as healthier alternatives
to regular sugar. Is there any truth to these claims?
Similar to sugar, these are low-nutrient concentrated sweeteners;
they add substantial calories to the diet while contributing very lit-
tle nutritional value. Maple syrup and honey elevate blood glucose
similarly to sugar (sucrose), leading to disease-causing effects in
the body. Agave and coconut sugar rank lower on the glycemic in-
dex but are still empty calories and may have other negative effects.
Repeated exposure to these excessively sweet tastes dulls the taste
buds to the naturally sweet tastes of berries and other fresh fruits,
which perpetuates cravings for sweets and can undermine weight
loss. Since some natural sweeteners undergo fewer processing
steps than sugar, they may retain some phytochemicals from the
plants they originate from, but their nutrient-to-calorie ratio is still
very low, and they contain minimal or no fi ber to slow the absorp-
tion of their sugars. The negative health effects of added sugar and
high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) are well documented, including
increased risk of weight gain, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and
C ottage G rove
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cancers.
Agave nectar is marketed as a low-glycemic sweetener due to
its high fructose content (agave is approximately 90 percent fruc-
tose). Sucrose is half fructose and half glucose, made up of one
fructose molecule linked to one glucose molecule. HFCS contains
55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose. All sweeteners (and
fruits) contain some combination of glucose, fructose, and the two
bound together as sucrose. Maple syrup contains about 90 percent
sucrose, so it is very similar to regular white sugar. Coconut sugar
contains 70-80 percent sucrose, and honey contains 49 percent fruc-
tose and 43 percent glucose.
Fructose and glucose are broken down differently by the body.
When fructose is absorbed, it is transported directly to the liver,
where it is broken down to produce energy. Fructose itself does
not stimulate insulin secretion by the pancreas. However, much of
the fructose is actually metabolized and converted into glucose in
the liver, so it does raise blood glucose somewhat (although not
as much as sucrose or glucose). Despite its low glycemic index,
added fructose in the form of sweeteners still poses health risks.
Fructose stimulates fat production by the liver, which causes el-
evated blood triglycerides, a predictor of heart disease. Elevated
IN BRIEF JAN. 3-JAN.10
The Primary Stroke Center team at PeaceHealth
Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend offers a
free support group for stroke survivors and caregiv-
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The next meeting is Wednesday, Jan. 3, from 2 p.m.
to 3:30 p.m. in Room 200A at RiverBend, at 3333
RiverBend Dr. in Springfi eld. This month’s topic is
“Living with Chronic Conditions, presented by Les-
lie Gilbert, MPH, Living Well program coordinator
for Lane Council of Governments Senior Disability
Services. All are welcome; no registration is re-
quired. For information, call 541-222-5144.
Auditions for Cottage Theatre's next show, Legally
Blonde will be held on Jan. 6 and 7 at 4 p.m. Any-
one interested can audition at 700 Village Dr. in
Cottage Grove.
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triglycerides have been reported in human studies after consum-
ing fructose-sweetened drinks, and this effect was heightened in
the participants who were insulin-resistant. Fructose, when used
as a sweetener, also seems to have effects on hunger and satiety
hormones that may lead to increased calorie intake in subsequent
meals.
When you ingest any caloric sweetener, you get a mix of dis-
ease-promoting effects: the glucose-elevating effects of added glu-
cose and the triglyceride-raising effects of added fructose. Sweet-
eners, unlike whole fruits, are concentrated sugars without the
necessary fi ber to regulate the entry of glucose into the bloodstream
and fructose to the liver. All caloric sweeteners have effects that
promote weight gain, diabetes and heart disease, regardless of their
ratio of glucose to fructose, or what type of plant they originate
from.
Dr. Fuhrman is an author and board certifi ed family physician spe-
cializing in lifestyle and nutritional medicine. Visit his informative
website at DrFuhrman.com. Submit your questions and comments
about this column directly to newsquestions@drfuhrman.com. The
full reference list for this article can be found at DrFuhrman.com.
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