Curtis L. Olson

Olson Family Trip to KMHV (Mojave, CA)

We flew from MSP to LAX on July 22, 2005 returning to MSP July 28. While out there we visited the National Test Pilot School at the Mojave Airport to discuss a simulator project.

The view ...

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The airport entrance "billboard"

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Driving up to the "old" tower

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Story Time #1

On the flight out to LAX (from MSP) we were on a Northwest Airbus A320. We had just taken off and cleared 10,000'. The flight attendant made the announcement that it was ok to turn on approved portable electronic devices. We were 5-10 minutes past that announcement and at maybe 20,000' (my estimate.) Without any warning, the right engine made a rapid series of 3-4 clunking/banging noises, and immediately began to spin down. It ran at slow speed for a while causing a moderate amount of vibration throughout the airplane. After a few minutes the pilots got the engine completely shutdown and the vibration smoothed out.

I was sitting with my wife and two daughters. My wife was clearly shaken (as were many of the other passengers.) To this point we hadn't gotten any word from the cockpit, and only were treated to one of the flight attendants jogging from the front of the cabin to the rear telling everyone to keep calm, although clearly she was not 100% calm herself.

I could tell immediately from the first noises that we lost an engine, so I explained that to my wife, and explained that this is probably the one failure pilots train the most for. These airplanes are designed to be able to fly with only one engine, and we lost our engine at a safe altitude, which is the best possible place if it's going to happen. My wife was on the aisle so she could look around. There were a lot of people freaking out in various ways. One women just across the aisle explained that her husband was flying jump seat and they had their 4 kids on board, so there was a little extra motivation for them to do everything possible.

I figured there was very little to worry about, unless the engine managed to shed parts into the wing and cause some sort of secondary failure. And fortunately that was not the case. Gear, flaps, ailerons, spoilers all worked perfectly. The fly-by-wire system on the A320 also handled the situation beautifully and if I hadn't heard the engine die, I might not have felt anything out of the ordinary.

We declared an emergency, and KMSP immediatelly cleared us for a straight in landing. I told my wife that this will probably be the nicest landing she'll ever experience because the pilots will be paying extra attention to what they are doing. :-)

We landed without further incident (but with a slightly longer rollout.) Passengers, baggage, and crew were transfered to a different A320 and we completed the flight on our second try. Our youngest daughter slept through the whole thing.

A little something tucked away in one of the hangers.

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Story Time #2

We arrived at Mojave on Sunday night. The NTPS person I was to meet with on Monday was at the airport working late and he mentioned they were shooting the ending to a movie that evening. So, with nothing better to do, we headed over to check it out. We had the inside track with airport security, so they took us around back to where all the movie crew was setup with their tents and trailers and food table and all. We had a perfect view of the movie set.

They turned 95 degree Mojave airport into sub-freezing Goosebay, Newfoundland. They had fake snow plowed up against one of the hangers (made out of some sort of paper product.) They had a water truck spraying down the tarmac so it looked like it had been plowed/melted after a snow storm. The cars had some sort of dry ice rigged up in their tail pipes to make them look like they were running in extreme cold. They even rigged up a fake manhole cover with steam/vapor coming out. There was goosebay cops and emergency vehicles running around all over the place. Even an anti-terrorism unit with M-16's.

Apparently they were reshooting the ending to "Flight Plan" with Jody Foster. The movie is due out in Sept. so I assume the test audiences must not have liked the original ending. I hope this isn't a spoiler, but somehow the plane ends up on the ground in Goosebay for an exciting explosion filled climax. This doesn't make a lot of sense from the trailer, but who am I to argue with the test audiences.