SUPER LONG - READ TO THE END BEFORE YOU ROAST ME - IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THE WHOLE THING, JUST READ #13.
Hey everyone, I've made quite a bit of progress in my efforts to compile the multiple different tellings of this story. So far I've compiled 12 different times this story has been told.
Of those 12 times, 7 times, Nelson either wrote the story (i.e. a book), or he was speaking (i.e. conference talk, youtube video).
There was one instance where an article was written, but the article did not use quotation marks for parts of the story. I'm going to call that story a "paraphrasing".
There were also four instances of Nelson telling the story in Spanish, followed by someone translating it back into English and then paraphrasing what was said.
Lastly, we have Sheri Dew's second hand account.
What I present below is the compiled version of Nelson's 7 times telling the story. I am negating the five other instances as they were not in Nelson's words. The earliest of these tellings occurs in 1979, the latest is 40 years later in 2019. I'm going to assign a "truth" score to each of the 13 separate portions of the story.
1)
Type of plane - In all seven instances, he describes flying on a "small airplane", or a "Twin propeller airplane", or a "small commuter airplane".
True - This is consistent with what is in the Civil Aeronautics Board Reports
2)
Direction of flight - In two instances, he says he was flying from Salt Lake to St. George. In one instances he says he was flying to the inauguration of a university president to offer the innovcation.
True - This is consistent with what is in the Civil Aeronautics Board Reports
3)
Number of passengers - In one instance, he claims he was "a passenger", in another he says there were "about six passengers". In a third, he says there were four passengers.
Close enough - The Civil Aeronautics Board Reports state that there were "3 passengers". If this was a single pilot operation, that would make four people. If this were a two pilot operations, then it would be five people. The Navajo would have max seating for eight. The first statement about the number of people on the plane was made in 2003, 27 years after the incident. I'm not getting hung up on this.
4)
Location of "situation" - In two instances, he says they were about half way there. In one of those two instances, he says the pilot stated they were past the "point of no return". He acknowledges that this was a strange thing for the pilot to say.
True - But kind of weird. The "point of no return" comment is obviously an embellishment that he states to dramatize the situation. But the fact that they ended up landing at Delta Airport (not field) per the Civil Aeronautics Board Reports does corroborate that they were about half way.
5)
Engine trouble - In all seven instances he is very consistent with what happened to the engine. He phrases it slightly different each time. In one instance he says the "engine exploded". In another he says it burst open and caught on fire. On two occasions, he does say it was the right engine. But across all seven tellings, there is no contradictory information presented (with respect to the other instances).
Oh boy, this is where things get dicey...
Significantly exaggerated - but somewhat plausible-ish - I'm sure most people here will not agree with me. But that's fine. This is subjective, and I'm sharing my opinion. Feel free to disagree. "Fire" and "explosion" and "burst" are all words that are subjective. And it doesn't help that Nelson is making this very dramatic. He's painting a picture that looks like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtMZSyjXQUU
And that is most certainly not what happened. But, based on the failure mode described in the CABR, I think it’s very likely that oil was leaking out of the cylinder. And it’s possible that some of that oil got on a turbo charger, and that there could have been some indications of smoke, or if you really stretch it, there could have been the presence of flames for a short period of time. I think that is the most generous you can be to Nelson.
I think one of the challenges here is that so many people commenting already have an opinion of Nelson. And that makes it difficult to be objective. I posted some details of this situation over on a pilot forum, and asked people what they thought. There were two comments I got back that I thought were interesting.
“A Navajo had something similar happen here not too long ago. The engine lost partial power and was running extremely rough. All of the oil dumped out since the cylinder was coming loose from the crankcase. There is potential for fire if the oil got onto the hot turbocharger on the engine. In the one here it luckily didn't.”
“One man’s explosion is another man’s “engine done come from together”.
One man’s fire is another man’s engine smoke.
One man’s steep spiral is another man’s emergency descent procedure.
Sounds plausible to me, especially if one version is an aviation expert’s and another is a bystander, passenger, or other layperson.”
(quick note - "come from together" is a phrase used on this forum to mean that it "blew up" - it's an inside joke over there.
Now, as Dr. W has pointed out, if there was an engine fire, there should be an NTSB report. And there IS NO NTSB report. But what does the lack of a report mean? That is difficult to say, because we don’t have the report that doesn’t exist. Was there a puff of smoke? Was there a short lived lick of flame? In my personal opinion, that is possible.
6)
The side of the plane - In three instances he talks about fuel, oil or "flaming fuel" flowing down the side of the plane. This is the most internally inconsistent information Nelson presents. "Flaming Fuel" = / = an oil leak cascading down the side of the plane.
Dubious - This is the single portion of Nelson's story that is the most internally inconsistent. Was it oil streaking down the side? Or was it flaming fuel. Given the engine's failure mode, I would expect to see oil coming out of somewhere on the right side of the plane. Was it burning and did it engulf the right side of the plane? No.
7)
The Propeller - In three instances he describes the propeller being stopped.
True - This is consistent with what is in the Civil Aeronautics Board Reports
8)
Death Spiral - In six instances, he described some kind of "death spiral". He uses slightly different verbiage in various tellings, but there is some version of this six times. Four times it's a "spiral", and two times it's just a "dive". I personally don't find these different tellings to troubling if we're only evaluating the internal consistency of the different stories.
True (in Nelson's head) - I'll probably get beat up for this. But again, it's my opinion. Whether the pilot used an emergency descent maneuver or not, I believe Nelson felt like they were in a "death spiral". Nelson says the woman was across the aisle. He also says she was next to the "flames". That would put him on the left side of the plane. Twin engine planes with an engine out will turn in the direction of the good engine. Nelson was sitting on the side of the good engine (this is important for later on).
No matter what kind of turn was made, turns would have been required to get pointed at the airport. Those turns would have happened to the left, and Nelson would have been on the left side of the plane. As the plane turns to the left, if he looks out the window, he'll be looking at the ground.
I ran some numbers and calculated the bank angle for a standard rate turn at 200 knots. It works out to almost exactly 30 degrees. So the plane would have been banked at least 30 degrees (possibly more if pilot was using emergency decent manuever). Thirty degrees might not sound like much, but given the situation, I can definitely see why a non-pilot passenger would feel this way.
9)
Extinguishing the flames - In six instances, he states that the dive extinguished the flames. This is very internally consistent.
Misunderstanding / Emelishment - The decent didn't put any flames out. Is it possible that he thinks that what happened? Maybe, but saying this sure makes the story sounds good.
10)
Other passengers - In four versions, he discusses other passengers. Twice he says that "other passengers" (note the plural) screamed. On two occasions he refers to a woman that was hysterical. In one instance, he does say that she was on the right side next to the engine and that he was across the aisle from her.
Close enough - I don't find this part terribly important. This is just part of the story. I do think this detail is important because it puts Nelson on the left side of the plane, which I think is important in the "death spiral" portion of the discussion.
11)
Going to die - In five instances he states he expected to die. He uses different phrasing, but that point is made in five tellings.
Probably True - The passengers didn't know what was going to happen while they were in the air. It's very likely that all the passengers were contemplating their mortality in those few minutes.
12)
The "other" engine - In five instances, he states in one way or another that the second engine was restarted at some point before landing. Again, he is internally consistent in this detail.
Plausible - from a non-pilot perspective - misinterpretation - Slight embellishment This is the single most interesting statement in the entire story to me. I've tried to think through, If I was Nelson, and I wanted to make this story as juicy as possible, what would I do? Well, I'd definitely say I thought I was going to die. And hey, let's throw in the "point of no return" for fun as well. But why would he say this? He's been talking about the right engine the whole time and hasn't said ANYTHING about the left engine. What gives?
I think there are two things that could have happened that explain this. Remember, Nelson is on the left side of the plane, next to the "good" engine. During the decent, power to the "good" engine would have been reduced to idle. As the plane is coming in to land, at some point, the throttle for the good engine would have to be advanced. A non-pilot passenger could interpret this as "restoring power" to the good engine. What is problematic, is that he's using the words "restarting" to describe what happened to the other engine. It most certainly was not restarted.
Another explanation is that if the emergency decent procedure was used, that procedure calls for the power to the good engine to be reduce to idle. As the pilot rolled out of the emergency decent, he would have advanced the throttle. This could make it appear that the engine, that Nelson is staring out his window looking at, was "restored" right as they rolled out of the "death spiral". "Restart" is certainly an embellishment.
13)
The landing - In four instances, he talks about the landing. On three occasions he refers to it as just a "safe landing". On one occasions he does say that they landed, "in a field". Nelson never states that it was in a farmer's field. Curiously, he also never states that they landed at an airport. In Shery Dew's version of the story, he landed in a "farmer's" field. Also, the statement about landing in a "field" does show up several times in the Spanish versions after being translated back to English, and then paraphrased.
False - To me, the landing is the single biggest hole in the story. Nelson, in his own words, in this video, at 0:53 states that they landed "out in a field"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMwKxmTLaCs
In the CABR on page 783 it states that they landed at the "closest airport". On page 1090 it states that they landed "at Delta Utah".
At first, this threw me off. Nelson never claimed that they landed at an airport. On page 1090 it states that they landed "at Delta Utah". I couldn't help but think of Alma talking about Jesus being born "at Jerusalem", and laughing to myself. But then, then I found it. Back on page 783, I found the statement that they had landed at the "closest airport".
I really tried to give Nelson the benefit of the doubt here. I've made every effort here to be as kind to him as possible. I've contorted the definitions of words (explosion, fire, fuel, oil, burst) to try and find a possible version of what could have happened that fits his narrative. I was actually fairly impressed that over 40 years, his story stayed fairly consistent.
But they didn't land in a field. (Note, Nelson never claimed it was a farmer's field, that was Sherri Dew) They landed at an airport. I even emailed the Millard County Assessor to see if I could find aerial photographs of the airport from 1976 to see if you could mistake the airport for a field. I was able to find google earth images from the 80's that are kind of grainy. Those didn't help much. But all of this is just a stretch too far. All of the other details are subjective.
1) There could have been a puff of smoke.
2) What is an explosion? An internal combustion engine runs on a series of thousands of controlled explosions.
3) One mans' standard rate descending turn is another man's death spiral.
4) Could advancing the throttle on an engine look like "restarting" an engine?
All of these things are subjective in my mind. They are open to interpretation.
But Delta airport, in 1976, was a thriving airport. The late 70's were the hay-day of aviation. The runway is a mile long and 75 feet wide.
IT IS NOT A FIELD.
This is very last point is extremely misleading and a fabrication of a material detail. It is not subjective, it is binary. And this one detail for me, causes me to question all the good faith I gave him on items 1 - 12.
