 |
Speaker Biography
James Morgan Tucker, born 1951, went to college looking at a law career before a carrier aviation poster in the recruiter's office caught his eye. In the Navy, he flew two carrier tours in A7s, stateside he flew as a weapons instructor and a combat maneuvering instructor in the A-4. After the Navy he flew B-737s for People Express. In 1984, he started flying B-727s with FedEx, then advanced to DC-10s, becoming a captain, check airman/flex instructor in the DC-10.
Below are brief excerpted clips (with permission) from Joe Godfrey PROFILE column on AvWeb.
Joe Godfrey: "Tell us what you can about the attack. What lessons are there about how to handle an emergency?"
Jim Tucker: "Every situation is different, and you just have to deal with what you've got at the time. Then again, it's the lesson we're always taught: Fly the airplane.
"We had passed 10,000 feet so it wasn't a sterile cockpit. We were shooting the breeze... ...We were passing through 18,000 feet and resetting altimeters, and everybody's back was turned to Auburn. I don't know if he was waiting for that moment, but it was shortly after that when I heard a horrible sound. I had never heard a sound like that on an airplane in my life. It was a ghastly sound, with a metallic quality. As horrible as it sounds, that metallic ring was the hammer peening off the skull of Andy Peterson. I heard it two or three times, and a lot of thrashing around back there. As I turned to my left, I was hit in the left parietal area (the area over the left ear)and the hammer penetrated the skull and drove bone fragments into the brain. I lost useful consciousness for about 45 seconds. I was hand-flying the airplane... ...After I was hit I could see what was going on around me. I could see Auburn go over and attack David... ...I was watching the blood fly, and there was a tremendous amount of it. About that time Auburn left abruptly, and we know now that he was going to get his spear gun, either to administer the coup de grace, or to try and get us to do his bidding with the airplane.
"Even in that mental state, I reasoned that Auburn's primary purpose in attacking was to take control of the aircraft. We were insignificant, disposable assets to be thoughtlessly dispatched. He had a definite mission, and we were in the way. He was cold, calculating and focused... He could have flamed out the engines, disabled the ignition, and there was no way we could have restarted the engines fighting him off. So I knew that he wanted the airplane. I could see David trying to unstrap and fight, and I could see Andy trying to gain his feet. I didn't know how seriously Andy was injured, but his temporal artery had been cut and his heart was pumping his blood over the side.... ...I had gone numb on the right side almost immediately after the hammer blow.
"...That's when Auburn emerged with a spear gun. It was divine intervention nothing will ever shake my resolve on that for we were dead men! Immediately I realized that the only thing that I had to fight with was the airplane. I pulled back on the yoke aggressively and David, Andy and Auburn exited the cockpit. They were all gone! They had all tumbled into the back. I was going to roll the airplane, but I was also thinking that Auburn might figure out that what I was going to do was a modified barrel roll, that he would just wait for it to come right side up again. I could hear yelling and fighting, but I didn't know who's winning. I didn't know if I was helping or hurting the situation. So I stopped the roll at 140 degrees according to the flight data recorder and kind of split-S'd it from about 18,000 feet to about 12,000... ...There was a lot of wind noise and I could feel the airplane entering mach tuck - buffeting..."***Jim's professional flying career was cut short by injuries sustained during the attempted hijack. He has received numerous individual military aviation awards. Collectively the crew of FedEx 705 received ALPA's Gold Medal award for heroism, and the Order of Daedalians, Lieutenant General Harold L. George Civilian Airmanship Award. Jim is still a positive man with a deep faith in God. He moved his family from Memphis to a rural area in the southeast. He is a dedicated husband, father of three, active with his local airport authority and interim lay minister at a Lutheran church. He keeps his Luscombe which he flies with a friend as PIC and an Airbike ultralight near his home.
In 1997, Dave Hirshman wrote an excellent book about Jim, Dave, Andy and their attacker. Used copies of Hijacked The True Story of the Heroes of Flight 705, are available through Amazon.com
|
|
Captain Jim Tucker
