Yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the L’Express Flight 508 crash in Ensley, just west of downtown Birmingham. Bill Murray wrote an excellent piece here late last night on the disaster (scroll down to read it); The Captain and one passenger were the only survivors. The First Officer and twelve other passengers were killed in the crash, which was ruled as weather-related (the plane encountered severe wind shear on the approach to the Birmingham Airport).
On July 10, 1991 I was the chief meteorologist at Birmingham’s ABC affiliate at the time, WBRC-TV. We had just completed the 6:00 news on that summer evening, and instead of going home for dinner, I decided stay in the office and get some work done. First word of the crash shortly after 6:30, and my long time associate Bill Castle (who is now the chief photographer) somehow had a live truck at the scene within minutes of the crash, and had live pictures back to us by 6:45. We stayed live for a long time; I even recall Dan Satterfield (who was our morning meteorologist at the time; he is now chief meteorologist at WHNT-TV in Huntsville) bringing gas down to the live trucks so they would have an adequate supply of fuel for the night.
I happened to be recording our live radar at the time of the crash (which was during the 6:00 news), and I had to appear in court a few times during the ensuing litigation with that radar footage. It was pretty obvious to me that the plane went down because of the storm; it was not severe in the classic sense, just your typical thunderstorm on a summer afternoon in Alabama. But, even those kind of storms can produce a violent in vertical wind speed, and that was responsible for bringing the plane down. Convective wind shear is now taken very seriously, and hopefully won’t be responsible for any more tragic loss of life.
On July 10, 1991 I was the chief meteorologist at Birmingham’s ABC affiliate at the time, WBRC-TV. We had just completed the 6:00 news on that summer evening, and instead of going home for dinner, I decided stay in the office and get some work done. First word of the crash shortly after 6:30, and my long time associate Bill Castle (who is now the chief photographer) somehow had a live truck at the scene within minutes of the crash, and had live pictures back to us by 6:45. We stayed live for a long time; I even recall Dan Satterfield (who was our morning meteorologist at the time; he is now chief meteorologist at WHNT-TV in Huntsville) bringing gas down to the live trucks so they would have an adequate supply of fuel for the night.
I happened to be recording our live radar at the time of the crash (which was during the 6:00 news), and I had to appear in court a few times during the ensuing litigation with that radar footage. It was pretty obvious to me that the plane went down because of the storm; it was not severe in the classic sense, just your typical thunderstorm on a summer afternoon in Alabama. But, even those kind of storms can produce a violent in vertical wind speed, and that was responsible for bringing the plane down. Convective wind shear is now taken very seriously, and hopefully won’t be responsible for any more tragic loss of life.