Alltrikes

You remember TWA (Trans World Airlines) don't you? Well I do, as one day at LAX everyone in the tower held their breath at the same time.

Someone sent me a picture today of a B747 rotating on takeoff about 400' from the end of the runway. It brought back this memory.

It was a beautiful day at LAX. The sea breeze was blowing 15-20 kts. from the West and it had cleared out the LA basin of smog. TWA Airlines had a daily flight originating out of LA nonstop to London, he had taxied out of terminal 2 and was about to depart on runway 24L.

The jet was very heavy as he was full of fuel for the trip of over 4,700 nm. They flew the great circle route which would take them over Resolution Island and Greenland, then down into England.

The pilot brought all engines up to power before releasing the brakes. At about 3/4 of the way down the runway the plane rotated and held it's attitude waiting for liftoff. It was at that time that we noticed  vapor coming off both the aircraft's wings. The plane slowly left the runway and crossed the end of the runway. The plane was so low that the exhaust from the engines kicked up sand as it flew over the sand dunes at the runway's end. Note: We viewed this from the old control tower located in the middle of airport. The tower was at the top of 13 stories (approx 260'). After crossing the sand dunes the plane decended to the level of the ocean and we lost sight of him and he was not on our radar displays. We thought he had crashed into the ocean.

About 4-5 minutes later we got a radar "hit" on the plane as he continued Westbound. The vapor that we had seen was fuel being dumped as the plane had lost an engine at the point of no return on takeoff. The pilot had decended to the ocean level to use the water as a ground effect to try and stay airborne. TWA flew 60 nm straight ahead before he was able to attempt a turn back to the airport. The reason we lost him on radar was because he was "under" our radar coverage. We saw him again as he slowly was able to climb and return to the airport.