The Flight of the Enola Gay

© Patrick Worden 

August 6, 1945-8:15 a.m. local time-the age of atomic warfare begins.Three Boeing B-29 Superfortresses circle high above the city of Hiroshima. They are noticed and dismissed by both civilian and military observers on the ground. The Japanese had noticed lately that small flights of B-29s had taken to flying above key cities, occasionally dropping single bombs. Since it was flights of 500 bombers and more that were systematically dismantling the Imperial Japanese war machine, these comparatively tiny missions were met with puzzlement, but little worry, by the observer corps that tracked them.

They were practice missions-test runs, in other words-flown by the 509th Composite bomb group, the world’s first nuclear-capable fighting force. The crews chosen to fly for the 509th knew little more than they were training to drop some kind of superbomb. Those among them who had read the science fiction of H. G. Wells might have suspected that it was a bomb that harnessed the power of the atom, but the implications of that were unknown. Would it be capable of destroying several city blocks, an entire harbor, perhaps? Few of them had ever heard of the Manhattan Project, or Los Alamos, or the Alamagordo Test Site. The bomb crews of the U.S. Air Force had yet to begin thinking in terms of kilotons of explosive power. Later, after the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki became clear to all, the prophetic words of J. Robert Oppenheimer spoken upon the first nuclear detonation must have made perfect sense: “I am become Death, the Destroyer, Shatterer of worlds.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Bloody Ordeal of FedEx Flight 705

© Patrick Worden

Sep 7, 2001

Flight Engineer Auburn Calloway knew his career was about to end. His employer, Federal Express, had recently uncovered a series of irregularities and outright falsifications in both his original employment application and in hundreds of hours of flight records. He was ordered to appear at a disciplinary hearing in the second week of April, 1994. He understood that the likeliest outcome of such a hearing would be his termination, and subsequently the loss of his FAA flight certification.His solution was as simple as it was horrifying. He would provide for his family financially, end his own life, and in the process he would punish FedEx in the worst way imaginable. Read the rest of this entry »

SPECIAL—History in the Making

© Patrick Worden

Oct 7, 2001

Twenty-six days after the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, the United States, supported by the United Kingdom and other allies, have struck back.The first wave of attacks against the Taliban regime have consisted of sea- and air-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, as well as laser-guided munitions delivered by B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit bombers. The likeliest targets will be command and control centers and elements of Afghanistan’s air defense system. U.S. air campaign strategy, in the post-Viet Nam era, has shown itself time and time again to be one of systematic establishment of theater air superiority, followed by combat air patrol en masse, followed by massive targeting of military ground targets, followed presumably by joint service ground operations. This particular operation, according to both the White House and the Pentagon, will be enhanced by humanitarian missions which will likely begin with airdrops of food, medical supplies and other emergency provisions. Operations will also likely include the greatest contribution from Special Forces yet seen. Read the rest of this entry »

SPECIAL—The Anthrax Scare

© Patrick Worden

Oct 16, 2001

Since October 4th of this year, all regions of the United States have been wracked by a decades-old nightmare that has suddenly come to life. Bioterrorism has arrived.Subsequent to the first documented case of anthrax infection at American Media Incorporated in Boca Raton, Florida, a handful of other cases and scores of false alarms have occurred throughout the country. “White powdery substance” has suddenly become America’s terrifying new bugaboo; in my own region—and just in the last 24 hours—the discovery of unidentified powder has grounded an airliner, caused three consecutive evacuations of the post office, and lit up the 911 banks with the calls of frightened people who don’t want to be alarmists, but who also don’t want to die. Read the rest of this entry »

FOLLOW UP: D.B. Cooper…Identified?

© Patrick Worden

Oct 20, 2001

Jo Weber just might have the answer to an enduring mystery.Her late husband, Duane, made a deathbed confession as he lay dying from cancer in 1995.

“I’m Dan Cooper,” he said. The name, unfortunately, meant nothing to Jo Weber.

Like most Americans, Jo would have instantly recognized the more famous alias, D.B. Cooper. Also like most Americans, she was unaware that “D.B.” was a misnomer. The hijacker of Northwest Flight 305 on 24 November, 1971—a hijacker that got away with $200,000 ransom and who has thus far gone officially unidentified—had actually given his name as “Dan Cooper.”

Duane Weber, an antiques dealer from Florida, apparently attempted to lay claim to that legacy. It was only later, as Jo began to examine facets of his mysterious life prior to their marriage, that the truth gradually became clear. When she learned of the “Dan Cooper/D.B. Cooper” confusion, she became convinced. A brief overview of the evidence: Read the rest of this entry »

Air Safety - America’s Achilles’ Heel

The American political process, where it concerns and confronts the regulation of everyday life, is built around the time-honored tradition of closing the barn door after the horses are long gone.As for the long vital, but suddenly immediate issue of airline safety, we begin to suspect that Washington is content leaving the barn door wide open. Read the rest of this entry »

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

© Patrick Worden

Dec 29, 2001

The 20th century was a time of unprecedented technological development. One area of technology in particular—aviation—has been emblematic of 20th century advancement; the century’s dawn saw the birth of heavier-than-air powered flight, while the close of the age is a time of space flight and next-generation jet propulsion.Armed conflict, regrettably, seems to be the major impetus for innovation in flight. Each major conflict since the days of Kitty Hawk has wrought vast changes in how war is waged from the air. Even now, as we greet both a new century and a new millennium, this strange, horrible and fascinating pattern continues. Read the rest of this entry »

The A-12 Debacle

© Patrick Worden

Stealth technology has arguably been one of the most dramatic advances in military aviation since the end of the Second World War. Experiences in Viet Nam, particularly, convinced the Pentagon that some mitigation had to be found to counter the radar-guided anti-aircraft forces that were so effectively blunting America’s air campaigns.Development and deployment of Stealth began in the ‘70s, gained steam during the ‘80s and came into its own in the 1990s. By the turn of the century, the United States Air Force still finds itself relying heavily on the battle-proven F-117 and the B-2 Spirit, while squadron-level service of the stealthy F-22 Raptor is just around the corner. The Army, meanwhile, is close to deploying the first Stealth chopper, the Comanche. Read the rest of this entry »

Special–A Look at the Mid East Today

Peering thru the murk of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is difficult indeed. Outrages have been committed, are being committed, and will continue to be committed by both sides. Were it not for the human toll, the respective governments on both sides would look like spoiled children. But these spoiled children kill the innocent and ruin lives.But who bears the greatest blame? There’s no subjectively satisfying way to answer that question, and by that I mean, no matter which side you come down on, no matter how convincingly you argue the case, you’ll still hear a chorus of very vocal and possibly dangerous voices that will never be swayed by your logic. Read the rest of this entry »

Singapore Airlines Flight 006 was a scheduled flight from Singapore Changi Airport to Los Angeles International Airport via Chiang Kai-Shek Airport (now Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport) in Taiwan. On October 31, 2000, at 15:17 UTC, 23:17 Taipei local time, a Boeing 747 on the route took off from the wrong runway in Taipei during a typhoon, destroying the aircraft and killing 83 of the 179 occupants.

SQ006 was the first fatal crash of a Singapore Airlines aircraft; prior to the SQ006 crash, the sole fatal incident involving SIA was the crash of SilkAir Flight 185, operated by subsidiary SilkAir .