Obama plane crash scare was serious

WASHINGTON: The pilot of Barack Obama's chartered campaign plane declared an emergency and requested crash equipment at the site of an unscheduled landing last month.

Control tower tapes reveal that the July 7 incident, which ended safely, was more serious than previously thought.

The Democratic White House hopeful and 50 others including campaign staff and journalists were aboard the twin-engined Midwest Airlines MD-81 when its pilot detected problems with pitch controls, which keep the aircraft level in flight.

The plane had just departed Chicago en route to North Carolina but was forced to make an unscheduled landing in the midwestern city of St Louis, Missouri due to the mechanical problems.

At the time, the pilot told passengers they were never in danger, and the Federal Aviation Administration said no emergency had been declared.

But according to the tapes, 41 seconds after discovering he no longer had full control of the plane, the pilot told an air traffic controller, “at this time we would like to declare an emergency, and also have CFR (crash equipment) standing by in St Louis,” ABC News said.

Asked which runway he wanted to use, the pilot replied, “Well, which one is the longest?” then added, “We have Senator Obama on board the aircraft and his campaign.”

Over the plane intercom system the pilot told passengers there was “a little bit of controllability issue, in terms of our ability to control the aircraft in the pitch, which is the nose up and nose down mode,” according to ABC.

However, after a rapid descent from 32,000 feet, the pilot suddenly regained pitch control at 10,000 feet, ABC said.

An inspection on the ground revealed that the rear emergency evacuation slide had deployed inside the tail cone during flight, the National Transportation Safety Board said at the time. It is still investigating the incident.

After the plane landed safely, Senator Obama said that everything had “seemed under control, the pilots knew what they were doing”.

“Anytime a pilot says that something's not working the way it's supposed to, then, you know, you make sure you tighten your seatbelt,” he told reporters.

The charter jet was reportedly filling in for senator Obama's larger campaign plane, which at the time was being refitted for the general election.