Mayday (2013) s03e04 Episode Script
Fight for Your Life
FedEx Flight 705 Positive rate.
Gear up, please.
.
.
a routine trip from Memphis, Tennessee, to San Jose, California.
Little do the crew know they will soon have to defend themselves against a determined attack intended to kill them all.
Flight 705 will never reach its destination.
We've had an attempted takeover.
Investigators will uncover a meticulous plan and a desperate motive.
THEME MUSIC April 7, 1994.
Worldwide headquarters of Federal Express in Memphis, Tennessee.
Servicing 171 countries, the company delivers over two million packages per day and works to a tight schedule.
Flying conditions are perfect at the Memphis airport.
FedEx flight 705 to San Jose, California is preparing to depart with a three-man crew.
Has the afternoon flight to San Jose got any jump seaters on it? None at all? 42-year-old Auburn Calloway is a flight engineer.
He hopes to hitch a ride on Flight 705 for pressing personal reasons.
Employees have the privilege of free rides.
They're known as 'jump seaters'.
39-year-old flight engineer Andy Peterson is the first of the flight crew to arrive on the plane.
- Andy Peterson.
- Auburn Calloway.
He's surprised to find Auburn Calloway on board.
My first thought was, "Well, scheduling has gotten - "has also called someone else out for the flight, "and now we've got two engineers," so I said "hey" to him and then asked him if he was riding out to San Jose with us, and he said he was, that he was gonna ride the jump seat out.
Peterson, a five-year flyer with FedEx, finds something unusual during his pre-flight check.
The breaker switch of the cockpit voice recorder, or CVR, is in the 'off' position.
Puzzled, Peterson resets it.
The CVR records all inflight voice communications.
It's a crucial tool for investigating air disasters.
No large commercial airliner is allowed to fly without one.
I'd never seen that before, and thought, "Well, that's weird.
" 49-year-old pilot David Sanders and 42-year-old copilot James Tucker are next to board, and prepare for departure.
I'm Calloway.
Mind if I hop a ride to California? No, not at all.
I don't see any problems today.
Everything looks good.
You, uh, play the guitar? I play at it.
He was very cool, calm, collected - nothing indicating anything was amiss.
Actually, noticed there was a guitar case off to the right in front of the 9G net, but I couldn't wait to get into the cockpit, start going through cockpit checks, because we had a lot to do.
But something was amiss.
They didn't know it, but Calloway had originally been scheduled to be the flight engineer on this flight.
However, he and his crew had exceeded their flying hours by just one minute the previous day, so they'd been replaced, but Calloway was determined to make Flight 705, no matter what.
I think she'll fly.
Long as all the nuts and bolts are there.
When I came back out on the airplane and went back up to the cockpit, I noticed that that circuit-breaker had popped out again.
So I reset it and decided that I would see if it would stay in instead of calling Maintenance at that time.
I'd wait and see if it popped back out that I would call Maintenance, because that's a no-go item.
The crew is flying together for the first time.
Both Tucker and Sanders are ex-Navy.
Sanders has been with FedEx for 20 years.
James Tucker, who has a wife and three children at home, has been with the company for 10 years.
Power is set.
Eight knots.
Headchecks.
V1, rotate.
Positive rate.
Gear up, please.
FedEx Flight 705 is airborne and westward-bound.
The weather to California is clear, and if all goes as planned, they'll be back home within 10 hours.
But back in the cargo area, Auburn Calloway is launching a different plan, a plan he's been shaping and reshaping for several days.
Like the brilliant chess player he is, Calloway has thought out all his moves.
Being bounced from the crew of Flight 705 today was an unexpected glitch, but nothing he can't cope with.
At his home that morning, Calloway already had to make a small adjustment to his plans.
The flight bag he'd planned to take with him on his journey is in for repairs, so instead he packs a guitar case.
As a company employee, he's unlikely to be searched, and a guitar case seems innocent enough.
Calloway graduated from Stanford University in 1974.
He became a top Navy flyer, then a commercial pilot.
But his five years at FedEx have been as a flight engineer.
He was highly intelligent, a driven person to accomplish goals, and had before him an opportunity of a tremendously positive career.
He was married and had children and family and it just seemed as though he was almost a part of the true American dream, just about - the American family.
Before leaving for the airport, Calloway puts some important documents on his bed.
Among them, his last will and testament.
FedEx Flight 705 is several minutes outside Memphis - still climbing and passing through 5,800m.
Jim Tucker is hand-flying the airplane using control-wheel steering mode and enjoying the clear afternoon skies.
A couple of metres away sits Auburn Calloway.
Behind him lie frustrated expectations of a brilliant career and a marriage that ended in tears.
After Take-off is complete Calloway has a terrifying plan.
His guitar case is packed with several hammers and a spear gun.
Out of sight of the crew, he gets his weapons ready.
To be successful, Calloway will have to act quickly.
Speed and strength will be critical.
Calloway is a former Navy pilot and a martial arts expert, so speed and strength come as part of the package.
The original plan was to take out his original crew, which would have only been two individuals.
One was a female.
Much smaller than the crew that he wound up facing on Flight 705.
No, I live in Fisherville.
Fisherville? Great spot.
I had the cockpit door locked open and I noticed that Calloway was walking up into the cockpit.
I caught him out of the corner of my eye and basically saw his arm coming up and I thought, "Well, he's just coming up to sit and talk with us for a while.
" Excruciating pain, blinding pain.
So much, in fact, that I never lost consciousness but I lost useful consciousness for at least 45 seconds.
I was slumped back.
And he looked, I remember, right in my eyes as he passed over.
It's almost like, "The lights are on, but there's nobody home here.
"This guy is out of action, so I'll move onto the next person.
" The crew is in shock, and confused.
What the hell are you doing? DAVE SANDERS: What I saw was simply a face and his eyes, and an object coming down at me.
I didn't discern any emotion or hate or anger.
I just saw a threat and I didn't really know what the threat was, 'cause it's so shocking.
For a crew member who was a pilot in uniform to attack another pilot is unheard of in the airline industry.
Although terribly injured, Peterson and Tucker are still alive.
(all groan) Get him! Get him! Calloway hurriedly retreats out of the cockpit.
Unaware of each other's injuries, the crew starts to mobilise.
Calloway has a back-up plan.
The spear gun stashed outside the cockpit is a deadly weapon.
Sit down, sit down.
Get back to your seats.
This is a real gun.
And I'll kill ya! There was a load ringing in my ear and I was a little unbalanced.
But I saw this spear gun and I thought, "Well, the only thing I can do is try to grab it.
" So I grabbed the spear - it sticks out of the spear gun about four inches or so.
So I grabbed it right behind the barbs and tried to hang on to it real tight.
Tucker does something that Calloway is not expecting.
He pulls back the yoke and puts the plane into a sudden 15 degree climb.
It throws the struggling men out of the cockpit into the galley behind.
I had already figured out that what I had in my hands was probably one of the best weapons available, and that was the aircraft itself.
Tucker has not been just a Navy pilot, but a combat instructor flying A4s.
His fighter pilot experience would prove invaluable in the next few minutes.
I was looking at this whole situation as if it was an air-combat manoeuvring situation.
Get him! What we're taught in the Navy, and the fighter community is, the first thing you do is engage the bogey, engage the bad guy.
You make him predictable by engaging him and you use his predictability then against him and then you kill the bogey.
Get him, get him, get him! But the copilot doesn't stop there.
Tucker immediately rolls the massive aircraft to the left in an acrobatic manoeuvre to try and disarm Calloway.
I'm going to kill you.
The men roll along the smoke curtain to the left side of the plane.
I knew that I had to do something very abrupt, very, very rough and something that he would not be expecting.
Get him.
Tucker has no idea whether rolling the plane is helping Sanders and Peterson as they try to restrain Calloway.
The fight continues with the men pinned to the left side of the plane.
The crew members are rapidly losing blood and strength.
Tucker continues to execute the roll, all the while trying to maintain a visual reference outside the captain's window.
Get him, get him, Andy.
I've got the airplane.
So you roll the airplane over on its back and pull through completely in the vertical, but at this particular point, you know, if I'd rolled the airplane over on its back, I wouldn't really be able to see what I was doing.
It's not a bubble canopy that you have over the top, you're actually looking out It's got expansive windows, but nonetheless, you roll this airplane on its back, you can't really see that much of what you're doing.
So I rolled it to about 140 degrees where I could still see out over the side as the airplane's nose was starting to come through.
Tucker rolls the quarter-million kilogram DC10 to 140 degrees - almost on its back.
Commercial aircraft are never meant to roll more than 60 degrees.
The men continue their fight on the ceiling of the aircraft.
Calloway wrenches the hammer in his hand free and hits Sanders in the head.
Tucker decides to pull back on the yoke and put the plane into steep dive - a risky but cunning move.
The crew of FedEx Flight 705 has been attacked by a co-worker.
Copilot James Tucker is pushing the DC-10 to its limits.
Tucker decides to pull back on the yoke and put the plane into a steep dive.
The G-force of the dive pushes the men back along the ceiling to the smoke curtain.
The plane is travelling at a very dangerous speed.
Tucker is making demands of the aircraft for which it was not designed.
DC-10s are never meant to be flown past 695km/h.
Tucker is over 800km/h.
No DC-10 in history has been flown so fast and survived.
The air speed indicator was maxed.
It was all the way to what we call the barber pole - couldn't go any faster - but you could tell that you were going very quite a bit faster, because the things you don't normally hear in a jet that size and one is the incredible amounts of sound, of wind, coming across the cockpit.
The plane approaches supersonic speed.
With the increased air speed, the air flow over the stabiliser becomes disrupted.
The elevators begin to flutter back and forth.
If the flutter becomes more pronounced, they may become inoperable and Tucker will no longer have the means to pull the plane out of the dive.
If I didn't pull out soon, the airplane was probably going to come apart, because I was getting into a phenomenon known as mach tuck, where the airplane is pitching over because the air speed is increasing so much.
Thethe, ah, the wind flow over the surfaces of the wings is doing things that it's not even designed to do.
The injury to the left side of Tucker's brain is beginning to paralyse functions on the right side of his body.
Tucker notices something alarming.
The plane is travelling at this incredible speed, because the throttle levers have been left in their automatic climb setting from take-off.
The DC-10 is now in a vertical dive, with the engines at nearly full power.
Tucker must release his only usable hand from the yoke to pull back on the throttles.
With power reduced to idle, the DC-10 is still not out of danger.
Despite Tucker's manoeuvres, Calloway is gaining the upper hand.
Calloway hit me with the third blow, which was at the top of my head, nearly rendered me unconscious.
I began to grey out.
At that very same time, it occurred to me we might lose this thing.
As Tucker starts to pull the plane carefully out of the dive, the elevator flutter increases.
Balance panels, counterweights that help the pilots manipulate the elevator, break free and begin to wrinkle the skin of the stabiliser.
Tucker fears that if he pulls back too hard during the dive, all the surfaces on the tail section would be in danger of coming off.
Sanders' strength is nearly spent and Peterson's head is bleeding profusely from his ruptured temporal artery.
Somehow, they manage to pin their attacker down.
The G-forces began to be reduced as he began to level off from pulling out of the dive.
I saw the hammer in Calloway's hand.
I then reached for the hammer with both my hands and pulled the hammer out of his hand.
Sanders believes this is a turning point.
The plane is safe, for the moment.
About a minute after the attack begins, Tucker finally has a chance to radio Memphis.
Centre! Centre, emergency! Air traffic controller Kent Fleshman and his trainee receive Tucker's emergency request.
- Aircraft emergency.
Say again.
- TUCKER: Centre Aircraft emergency.
Say again.
Listen to me.
Express 705 have been wounded.
We've had an attempted takeover on board the airplane.
Give me a vector, please, back to Memphis at this time.
Hurry.
Express 705, flight heading zero niner five, direct Memphis.
(breathes heavily) Zero niner five, direct to Memphis.
Get me an ambulance and alert the airport facility.
Hey, Memphis, you still with me? Affirmative, 705, Descend and maintain one zero thousand.
Fleshman takes action in case the hijacker has a gun.
If he can get the plane below 3,000m, a bullet hole in the fuselage will not cause explosive decompression.
Tucker hears the fight increase in the galley.
Again, he uses his only weapon - the aircraft.
The manoeuvre throws the men onto the side of the plane.
Let go of the spear.
Look, just keep talking to me, okay? Express 705, affirmative.
If you need an ambulance, stand by and we'll get that for you.
Yeah, we need an ambulance and we need armed intervention as well.
Make sure and notify the SWAT team.
He's asking for armed intervention.
Fleshman recognises the term "armed intervention" as the most serious request from a pilot.
It means they want armed officials to storm the plane upon landing.
Memphis approach has to be alerted.
We have an emergency.
Express 705, he's had an attempted takeover on the aircraft.
He's had an attempted takeover? Okay.
Radar contact.
Put him on one one niner point one.
Paul Candalino, a 44-year-old veteran controller, now spots Flight 705 on his radar screen.
But something's wrong.
The plane is heading away from the airport.
It looks like the hijacker has seized the plane.
The crew of FedEx flight 705 has been attacked by a co-worker and have declared an emergency.
Air traffic control watches helplessly as they fly away from the airport while the fight for control of the plane continues.
Copilot James Tucker is pushing the DC-10, his best weapon, to its limits.
He now throws the wheel around, flipping the massive plane in the opposite direction.
Tucker, drawing on his military experience, reverses the role, keeping his manoeuvres unpredictable.
TUCKER: Here I am, all alone in the cockpit.
The fight is still going on in the back.
I don't know who's winning, I don't know who's losing.
That was about the only time I really had time to be frightened and it was a very horrifying situation at that point, thinking that, quite possibly, Auburn was winning.
3.
5 minutes after the attack, though pinned and injured, Auburn Calloway will not relinquish the spear.
Help! You son-of-a-bitch! Bite me! The anger was coming in then, and so, when I hit him, it was with the intent to disable him and eliminate his ability to fight.
Not kill, but to injure him sufficiently so he could fight no more.
So when I swung the hammer, it was with all the strength that I had.
Sanders and Peterson, momentarily subdue Calloway.
Put it on autopilot and get back here.
The captain's yelling at Tucker to come and help, but he's the one flying the plane.
Express 705, I've contact Memphis approach on one one niner point one.
They're aware of your emergency.
Request a single frequency approach.
Single frequency approach, roger.
We'll pass that along.
One one niner point one.
Put it on autopilot and get back here.
What you have to understand, that's probably the strangest request that I've ever had come my way, because here I am, the only one up at the cockpit.
For me to go ahead and get up and go to the back means I've got to, first of all, stand up, which I didn't know until the particular time I tried to stand up, it was very, very difficult to do so.
Jim Tucker, with a fractured skull and only one side of his body functioning, puts the plane on autopilot and struggles out of his seat to help.
Okay, wait a minute, I'm coming.
- ALARM SOUNDS - COMPUTER: Autopilot.
But the plane's gyros haven't stabilised sufficiently for the autopilot to take over.
Okay.
Now, no-one's flying the plane.
705, heavy, how do you hear? Paul Candalino tries to establish radio contact with flight 705, but there's no response.
Their radar screens show the aircraft turn to the north, then the west, finally south-west, heading away from the airport.
There's only an eerie silence.
Anything could be happening on board the plane.
So I stepped into forward cargo area.
I was absolutely amazed at what I was seeing.
All three of the individuals are completely covered with blood.
Auburn Calloway on his back.
There are papers everywhere in the back.
You can see where the jump seat's - which is just a normal commercial airline seat - has had the covers torn off.
There's bloody footprints on the top of the ceiling.
There are coats that have come out of closets - it's total carnage in the back.
Sanders has disarmed Calloway and handed the spear to Tucker.
You move, I'll kill you.
You keep him contained, I'm going to get the airplane.
Go get the airplane.
They decide that Sanders, the captain, should fly the plane back to Memphis.
Tucker wants the weapons as far away from Calloway as possible and asks Sanders to take them with him to the cockpit.
In an emergency situation, it's expected that the captain of the airplane will fly the airplane.
I was in somewhat of a daze because of the fight.
I wasn't sure of the direction of the airplane, I wasn't sure of the condition of the airplane, but it appeared to be flying okay.
I was bleeding excessively from the top of my head, I couldn't see out of my left eye.
I thought the fight was over.
I mean, I had hit Calloway four times in the head with a 20-ounce framing hammer as hard as I could swing it.
He had stopped fighting and he was bleeding and he looked like he was severely injured.
Tucker can't tell anymore whether his hand is gripping the spear.
The blows to his head have caused a blood clot on his brain and have damaged his sense of touch.
Let me up! Let me up! I won't fight anymore.
Please, I can't breathe.
Though several gashes have been opened in his skull, Auburn Calloway cannot be trusted.
Both pilots know their strength is quickly running out.
Sanders, safely back in the driver's seat, must get the plane on the ground, and fast.
Memphis, can you hear me? Is this Express 705 heavy? 705 heavy, yes.
Express 705, heavy.
Memphis, roger, I do hear you.
You can proceed direct to Memphis if able.
Expect runway niner.
Altimeter is 30.
2 niner.
You understand we're declaring an emergency? We need security to meet the airplane.
We'll stop on the runway if we can.
Captain Sanders, without his glasses and with blood dripping into his eyes, thinks that the plane is on a course back to the airport, but it's still heading south-west away from Memphis at over 550km/h.
Roger.
Express 705 heavy, is the situation under control or is it still in progress? We appear to have it under control.
Candalino wants to warn the pilot, but he's afraid the crew may still be under attack and try to mislead the hijackers by flying in the wrong direction.
Express 705, heavy, are you able to turn toward the airport? Yeah, give me a vector.
One zero zero vector Memphis.
Sanders takes the plane off autopilot and sets a course back to the airport.
We're turning to the airport now.
For now, aboard the DC-10, the situation seems under control, but a potential disaster is only moments away.
At the Memphis airport, emergency personnel begin to move into position.
We need security to meet the airplane.
We'll stop on the runway if we can.
A FedEx cargo plane is about to land after a would-be hijacker tried to seize control.
All members of the crew are badly injured.
The airplane is heading for the safety of Memphis airport, but that in itself presents another scary possibility.
The aircraft is more than 16,000 kilos over the recommended landing weight with more than 38,000 kilos of fuel still in its tanks.
In most emergency landing situations, there's time and opportunity to dump any excess fuel, but Sanders knows the switches and levers are too far away to access safely.
In the galley, Auburn Calloway still hasn't given up the fight.
Calloway drags himself towards the jump seats with Peterson and Tucker on top of him.
He hopes to gain enough leverage to get back on his feet, where he'll have an advantage.
He was using his thumbs to go ahead and try and push my eyes out, doing everything he possibly could to break Andy and I down as a team.
We could handle him together, but we couldn't handle it one on one.
It was certainly a fight against the clock.
Auburn's getting stronger and we're getting weaker.
Approaching 7,000 feet, the fight in the back started again.
It became so violent and loud that, approaching 7,000 feet, I decided that I was going to level the airplane turn on the autopilot, go to the back of the airplane and kill Calloway.
It was so severe, I thought that had to be done.
The DC-10 is less than 40km from Memphis airport.
- Is he under control? - (shouts) I don't know.
The sound of the struggle worries Sanders.
He decides this has to end.
I released the seatbelt, climbed out of my seat, headed to the back of the airplane and then Jim Tucker said to me, "David, I think we have him under control now.
" I said, "Are you sure?" Yeah, he is.
He said, "I think we have him under control.
" Went back to the seat, climbed into the left seat of the airplane, continued the descent on down toward the airport.
Express 705 heavy, verify the situation is still under control? Yeah, we'resort of under control.
Wind is zero three zero with five clear to land runway niner.
Clear to land? Now Sanders faces yet another possible disaster.
The delay caused by getting out of his seat means he's way over the normal approach speed.
Too high and too fast.
He'll not be able to slow the overweight plane quickly enough to land on runway niner.
I'm coming around to three six left.
Runway 36 left is longer at 2,800m, but it's perpendicular to his flight path.
To land there, he needs to make a series of turns - reasonable manoeuvres for a fighter jet or a crop-duster, but for an overloaded DC-10 with an injured pilot, nearly impossible.
First, he must turn 90 degrees to the right, fly parallel to the runway and then execute a tight 180-degree turn.
Sanders must ignore the computer warnings and push the plane beyond normal operating limits.
The plane is nearly on its side.
A hammer is lying in the galley.
The men struggle to reach it.
This could be Calloway's last chance to gain control.
Sanders has turned 90 degrees to the south, flying the downwind leg parallel to runway 36 left.
The airplane was probably at about 300 feet above the ground at that time.
The throttles are at idle.
They've been at idle since I left 7,000 feet.
That's an extremely unusual engine power setting to land a big airplane.
You always land - make the approach with power on, a lot of power on.
In this case, it was at idle, because I wanted the airplane to slow down so that we'd not exceed the limits of the landing gear and the flaps.
So that we would touch down at or below 195 knots.
INSTRUMENTS BEEP With flaps extended and landing gear down, Sanders is still coming in too fast and he's been bombarded by computerised auto-warning alarms.
The runway is 2,800m long.
A normal DC-10 needs only 1,900m to stop, but flight 705 is too heavy.
Even this runway may not be long enough.
INSTRUMENTS BEEP Peterson manages, for the first time in the fight, to get hold of a hammer but is extremely weak due to blood loss.
You've gotta hit him, Andy, you've gotta hit him.
I was almost like pleading with him, and I told him, I said, "Andy, you know, you've gotta hit him.
" You know, he's about ready to take us down.
The DC-10 is only metres above the runway travelling at 382km/h.
Sanders can only hope he won't explode the tyres or crash beyond the runway.
Luckily, all 10 tyres withstand the landing impact.
Captain David Sanders has landed the plane with only 300m of runway to spare.
The crew of Flight 705 is safely on the ground, but not out of danger.
Blow the door.
The police and firemen tried to climb up the slide.
One fireman made it almost all the way to the top and I leaned out the door of the airplane and pulled him on board.
Who's the bad guy? That's the attacker.
- You got any handcuffs? - No.
If not, you better get some, 'cause that son-of-a-bitch is still dangerous.
I need handcuffs.
Can you throw me some handcuffs? Teague is thrown a pair of handcuffs.
Stand here.
In the middle of the chain.
Ouch! Get your foot off! You're hurting me! Sanders holds Calloway down as Teague examines Peterson, who barely has a pulse and is the first crew member to leave the plane.
Sanders is the last member of the crew on board.
Standing in the door of the airplane, I had a sense of euphoria I have never experienced before or since.
It was the sense of we had been there, and, uh .
.
and we came back and we won.
Due to the strength and courage of its crew, a FedEx DC-10 has safely landed back home.
The three men have weathered the attack of a co-worker, but they are badly injured.
Copilot Jim Tucker has bone chips driven into his brain.
Flight engineer Andy Peterson's life is in danger from massive blood loss.
Both are in critical condition.
The wounded men are rushed to the Regional Medical Centre at Memphis.
The pilot, Dave Sanders, shares an ambulance with Tucker.
It's only during this ride that he realises the extent and severity of his copilot's injuries.
Tucker is taken to Emergency by stretcher.
Sanders is helped, but can walk.
Restrained and under guard, Calloway is also taken to the same emergency facility.
But the important question still remains - why did Auburn Calloway attack the crew of Flight 705? The full story is beginning to unfold.
Divorced in 1990, Auburn Calloway still tries to support his ex-wife and their two children and wants to secure their financial future.
He was very interested in the welfare of his children.
Very interested that they not live the kind of childhood he had lived.
The evidence for a suicidal mission against FedEx grows as investigators search the aircraft and find a letter to Calloway's estranged wife.
(reads) "Dear Pat, I want you and the kids to know "that I lived for you.
"I thought of your welfare every day.
" I tend to believe he was interested in his marriage.
I know his marriage had come apart, basically, at the time of this incident.
But I suspect he was also a difficult man to be married to.
By April 7, 1994, Calloway may be thinking his career is over.
Life had been one disappointment after another.
The failed marriage, the kids he can't afford to send to university, the brilliant pilot who ends up as an engineer on a cargo plane, and now even that may be about to go.
The following day, he's supposed to report to a FedEx hearing about falsified information he'd given the company.
During our investigation, it appeared that he had overestimated the number of hours of flight experience that he had and that the company was taking a look at this.
Calloway may be afraid he'll be fired.
At just 42, his professional life could be finished.
He comes up with a solution.
"The goal is to leave my children well off.
" Calloway cashes in all the funds he can lay his hands on and sends a total of $54,000 to his ex-wife.
But his life insurance is worth about $2.
5 million if he dies in a work-related accident.
"I would much rather go on a date, time, place "and a method of my own choosing.
"I resolved some time ago that the next time "my security and future is threatened "or seriously jeopardised, "It's time - my time to go.
" Perhaps he believes his family would receive the maximum insurance payout if he crashed the plane in an apparent accident.
If this was Calloway's idea, he was planning it perfectly.
He was armed with unusual weapons for a hijacking - hammers and a spear gun.
After injuring the crew, he could take control of the plane.
A bomb or gun could leave traces at the scene of a crash, but if investigators found a spear gun or hammers, it would be very difficult to tie them to an attack on the crew.
I believed it would have been impossible to tell the difference in the type of injuries that a hammer would have made with the type of injuries that you might sustain in a large crash.
Auburn had spent the week leading up to this incident preparing to, uhto die and basically get his affairs in order.
Calloway even goes to a lawyer to change his will before boarding the FedEx flight.
He left his will and testament on his bed so that it would be easily found.
For any crash to look like an accident, there is a key obstacle - the plane's cockpit voice recorder.
Switching off the CVR's power would disable any recording.
I think she'll fly.
Long as all the nuts and bolts are there.
If Peterson in his pre-flight inspection discovers the thrown switch, it would be a setback, but Calloway would know he simply has to fly the airplane for half an hour.
That's the length of the tape's recording time.
After 30 minutes, any incriminating recording would be gone forever.
I think he was gonna do something very, very horrible with it.
Something along the lines of what we've seen on 9/11.
Had Calloway been able to seize control of the plane, he could've crashed the DC-10 with over 38,000kg of fuel aboard into any site, including the FedEx headquarters, the hub, crippling his employer and killing a large number of workers on the ground.
It would have been the ultimate revenge for perceived injustices by the company.
The company may never have figured out exactly why that airplane crashed back into the hub.
The flight of FedEx 705 took about 30 minutes, but the impact it had will last for years.
He was convicted of Attempt Aircraft Piracy, an offence that carried a minimum of 20 years confinement and up to life imprisonment.
Although Auburn Calloway pleaded temporary insanity at his trial, the jury didn't believe him, and found him guilty.
On August the 11th, 1995, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a federal penitentiary.
He has no chance of parole.
The pilots on Flight 705, they are the real heroes.
It is amazing that they were able to do what they did, given the injuries that were inflicted upon them.
When someone's struck with a hammer on the skull, there could be linear radiating cracks that go out on the skull and then if it's hard enough, they may well be in-driven bone right at the site where the hammer head hits the skull and drives it into the skull.
This is a replica of my skull cap.
It was put together by use of a CAT scan protocol to give the proper shape of my skull and also the shape of the defect that we're dealing with here.
This is the area that I was hit, on the left parietal.
For a year and a half, I was actually walking around in this configuration.
It took 2.
5 years to recover completely, because I had to learn how to walk, talk and chew gum all over again.
I had three major operations.
I operated on him twice more after his initial injury and then followed him through his rehabilitation.
They can fashion a piece of material to fit the exact size of the defect, the shape of the skull and of course the thickness of the skull as well.
It's a blown acrylic called a HTR or Hard Tissue Replacement.
He had difficulty with speech, difficulty with sensation and motor strength on the right side and he came back to where he can now, probably, if he wanted to, break my fingers with a handshake.
On May 26th, 1994, the crew of FedEx flight 705 was awarded the Airline Pilots Association gold medal award for heroism, the highest award a civilian pilot can receive.
However, because of the legacy of their injuries, none of the crew has been certified as medically fit to fly commercially.
TUCKER: I always thought, I'm going to fight, I'm gonna overcome this thing, except that's when they found out I had a slight seizure disorder.
I'm seizure-free, that's because I take medication.
And the only way for me to be able to fly without somebody with me is to be off medication.
At this particular point it's been .
.
it's been ascertained that I'll never be able to do that.
I'll be on medication for the rest of my life.
I'll be on medication for the rest of my life.
I miss the flying.
Every time I see an airplane go over, I wonder where it's going.
So I miss that part of it, but I've really cherished the fact that, you know, I'm still alive and able to be with my family.
The bond of pilots .
.
and what you do together in the airplane and outside the airplane, I miss that.
I miss it very much.
Gear up, please.
.
.
a routine trip from Memphis, Tennessee, to San Jose, California.
Little do the crew know they will soon have to defend themselves against a determined attack intended to kill them all.
Flight 705 will never reach its destination.
We've had an attempted takeover.
Investigators will uncover a meticulous plan and a desperate motive.
THEME MUSIC April 7, 1994.
Worldwide headquarters of Federal Express in Memphis, Tennessee.
Servicing 171 countries, the company delivers over two million packages per day and works to a tight schedule.
Flying conditions are perfect at the Memphis airport.
FedEx flight 705 to San Jose, California is preparing to depart with a three-man crew.
Has the afternoon flight to San Jose got any jump seaters on it? None at all? 42-year-old Auburn Calloway is a flight engineer.
He hopes to hitch a ride on Flight 705 for pressing personal reasons.
Employees have the privilege of free rides.
They're known as 'jump seaters'.
39-year-old flight engineer Andy Peterson is the first of the flight crew to arrive on the plane.
- Andy Peterson.
- Auburn Calloway.
He's surprised to find Auburn Calloway on board.
My first thought was, "Well, scheduling has gotten - "has also called someone else out for the flight, "and now we've got two engineers," so I said "hey" to him and then asked him if he was riding out to San Jose with us, and he said he was, that he was gonna ride the jump seat out.
Peterson, a five-year flyer with FedEx, finds something unusual during his pre-flight check.
The breaker switch of the cockpit voice recorder, or CVR, is in the 'off' position.
Puzzled, Peterson resets it.
The CVR records all inflight voice communications.
It's a crucial tool for investigating air disasters.
No large commercial airliner is allowed to fly without one.
I'd never seen that before, and thought, "Well, that's weird.
" 49-year-old pilot David Sanders and 42-year-old copilot James Tucker are next to board, and prepare for departure.
I'm Calloway.
Mind if I hop a ride to California? No, not at all.
I don't see any problems today.
Everything looks good.
You, uh, play the guitar? I play at it.
He was very cool, calm, collected - nothing indicating anything was amiss.
Actually, noticed there was a guitar case off to the right in front of the 9G net, but I couldn't wait to get into the cockpit, start going through cockpit checks, because we had a lot to do.
But something was amiss.
They didn't know it, but Calloway had originally been scheduled to be the flight engineer on this flight.
However, he and his crew had exceeded their flying hours by just one minute the previous day, so they'd been replaced, but Calloway was determined to make Flight 705, no matter what.
I think she'll fly.
Long as all the nuts and bolts are there.
When I came back out on the airplane and went back up to the cockpit, I noticed that that circuit-breaker had popped out again.
So I reset it and decided that I would see if it would stay in instead of calling Maintenance at that time.
I'd wait and see if it popped back out that I would call Maintenance, because that's a no-go item.
The crew is flying together for the first time.
Both Tucker and Sanders are ex-Navy.
Sanders has been with FedEx for 20 years.
James Tucker, who has a wife and three children at home, has been with the company for 10 years.
Power is set.
Eight knots.
Headchecks.
V1, rotate.
Positive rate.
Gear up, please.
FedEx Flight 705 is airborne and westward-bound.
The weather to California is clear, and if all goes as planned, they'll be back home within 10 hours.
But back in the cargo area, Auburn Calloway is launching a different plan, a plan he's been shaping and reshaping for several days.
Like the brilliant chess player he is, Calloway has thought out all his moves.
Being bounced from the crew of Flight 705 today was an unexpected glitch, but nothing he can't cope with.
At his home that morning, Calloway already had to make a small adjustment to his plans.
The flight bag he'd planned to take with him on his journey is in for repairs, so instead he packs a guitar case.
As a company employee, he's unlikely to be searched, and a guitar case seems innocent enough.
Calloway graduated from Stanford University in 1974.
He became a top Navy flyer, then a commercial pilot.
But his five years at FedEx have been as a flight engineer.
He was highly intelligent, a driven person to accomplish goals, and had before him an opportunity of a tremendously positive career.
He was married and had children and family and it just seemed as though he was almost a part of the true American dream, just about - the American family.
Before leaving for the airport, Calloway puts some important documents on his bed.
Among them, his last will and testament.
FedEx Flight 705 is several minutes outside Memphis - still climbing and passing through 5,800m.
Jim Tucker is hand-flying the airplane using control-wheel steering mode and enjoying the clear afternoon skies.
A couple of metres away sits Auburn Calloway.
Behind him lie frustrated expectations of a brilliant career and a marriage that ended in tears.
After Take-off is complete Calloway has a terrifying plan.
His guitar case is packed with several hammers and a spear gun.
Out of sight of the crew, he gets his weapons ready.
To be successful, Calloway will have to act quickly.
Speed and strength will be critical.
Calloway is a former Navy pilot and a martial arts expert, so speed and strength come as part of the package.
The original plan was to take out his original crew, which would have only been two individuals.
One was a female.
Much smaller than the crew that he wound up facing on Flight 705.
No, I live in Fisherville.
Fisherville? Great spot.
I had the cockpit door locked open and I noticed that Calloway was walking up into the cockpit.
I caught him out of the corner of my eye and basically saw his arm coming up and I thought, "Well, he's just coming up to sit and talk with us for a while.
" Excruciating pain, blinding pain.
So much, in fact, that I never lost consciousness but I lost useful consciousness for at least 45 seconds.
I was slumped back.
And he looked, I remember, right in my eyes as he passed over.
It's almost like, "The lights are on, but there's nobody home here.
"This guy is out of action, so I'll move onto the next person.
" The crew is in shock, and confused.
What the hell are you doing? DAVE SANDERS: What I saw was simply a face and his eyes, and an object coming down at me.
I didn't discern any emotion or hate or anger.
I just saw a threat and I didn't really know what the threat was, 'cause it's so shocking.
For a crew member who was a pilot in uniform to attack another pilot is unheard of in the airline industry.
Although terribly injured, Peterson and Tucker are still alive.
(all groan) Get him! Get him! Calloway hurriedly retreats out of the cockpit.
Unaware of each other's injuries, the crew starts to mobilise.
Calloway has a back-up plan.
The spear gun stashed outside the cockpit is a deadly weapon.
Sit down, sit down.
Get back to your seats.
This is a real gun.
And I'll kill ya! There was a load ringing in my ear and I was a little unbalanced.
But I saw this spear gun and I thought, "Well, the only thing I can do is try to grab it.
" So I grabbed the spear - it sticks out of the spear gun about four inches or so.
So I grabbed it right behind the barbs and tried to hang on to it real tight.
Tucker does something that Calloway is not expecting.
He pulls back the yoke and puts the plane into a sudden 15 degree climb.
It throws the struggling men out of the cockpit into the galley behind.
I had already figured out that what I had in my hands was probably one of the best weapons available, and that was the aircraft itself.
Tucker has not been just a Navy pilot, but a combat instructor flying A4s.
His fighter pilot experience would prove invaluable in the next few minutes.
I was looking at this whole situation as if it was an air-combat manoeuvring situation.
Get him! What we're taught in the Navy, and the fighter community is, the first thing you do is engage the bogey, engage the bad guy.
You make him predictable by engaging him and you use his predictability then against him and then you kill the bogey.
Get him, get him, get him! But the copilot doesn't stop there.
Tucker immediately rolls the massive aircraft to the left in an acrobatic manoeuvre to try and disarm Calloway.
I'm going to kill you.
The men roll along the smoke curtain to the left side of the plane.
I knew that I had to do something very abrupt, very, very rough and something that he would not be expecting.
Get him.
Tucker has no idea whether rolling the plane is helping Sanders and Peterson as they try to restrain Calloway.
The fight continues with the men pinned to the left side of the plane.
The crew members are rapidly losing blood and strength.
Tucker continues to execute the roll, all the while trying to maintain a visual reference outside the captain's window.
Get him, get him, Andy.
I've got the airplane.
So you roll the airplane over on its back and pull through completely in the vertical, but at this particular point, you know, if I'd rolled the airplane over on its back, I wouldn't really be able to see what I was doing.
It's not a bubble canopy that you have over the top, you're actually looking out It's got expansive windows, but nonetheless, you roll this airplane on its back, you can't really see that much of what you're doing.
So I rolled it to about 140 degrees where I could still see out over the side as the airplane's nose was starting to come through.
Tucker rolls the quarter-million kilogram DC10 to 140 degrees - almost on its back.
Commercial aircraft are never meant to roll more than 60 degrees.
The men continue their fight on the ceiling of the aircraft.
Calloway wrenches the hammer in his hand free and hits Sanders in the head.
Tucker decides to pull back on the yoke and put the plane into steep dive - a risky but cunning move.
The crew of FedEx Flight 705 has been attacked by a co-worker.
Copilot James Tucker is pushing the DC-10 to its limits.
Tucker decides to pull back on the yoke and put the plane into a steep dive.
The G-force of the dive pushes the men back along the ceiling to the smoke curtain.
The plane is travelling at a very dangerous speed.
Tucker is making demands of the aircraft for which it was not designed.
DC-10s are never meant to be flown past 695km/h.
Tucker is over 800km/h.
No DC-10 in history has been flown so fast and survived.
The air speed indicator was maxed.
It was all the way to what we call the barber pole - couldn't go any faster - but you could tell that you were going very quite a bit faster, because the things you don't normally hear in a jet that size and one is the incredible amounts of sound, of wind, coming across the cockpit.
The plane approaches supersonic speed.
With the increased air speed, the air flow over the stabiliser becomes disrupted.
The elevators begin to flutter back and forth.
If the flutter becomes more pronounced, they may become inoperable and Tucker will no longer have the means to pull the plane out of the dive.
If I didn't pull out soon, the airplane was probably going to come apart, because I was getting into a phenomenon known as mach tuck, where the airplane is pitching over because the air speed is increasing so much.
Thethe, ah, the wind flow over the surfaces of the wings is doing things that it's not even designed to do.
The injury to the left side of Tucker's brain is beginning to paralyse functions on the right side of his body.
Tucker notices something alarming.
The plane is travelling at this incredible speed, because the throttle levers have been left in their automatic climb setting from take-off.
The DC-10 is now in a vertical dive, with the engines at nearly full power.
Tucker must release his only usable hand from the yoke to pull back on the throttles.
With power reduced to idle, the DC-10 is still not out of danger.
Despite Tucker's manoeuvres, Calloway is gaining the upper hand.
Calloway hit me with the third blow, which was at the top of my head, nearly rendered me unconscious.
I began to grey out.
At that very same time, it occurred to me we might lose this thing.
As Tucker starts to pull the plane carefully out of the dive, the elevator flutter increases.
Balance panels, counterweights that help the pilots manipulate the elevator, break free and begin to wrinkle the skin of the stabiliser.
Tucker fears that if he pulls back too hard during the dive, all the surfaces on the tail section would be in danger of coming off.
Sanders' strength is nearly spent and Peterson's head is bleeding profusely from his ruptured temporal artery.
Somehow, they manage to pin their attacker down.
The G-forces began to be reduced as he began to level off from pulling out of the dive.
I saw the hammer in Calloway's hand.
I then reached for the hammer with both my hands and pulled the hammer out of his hand.
Sanders believes this is a turning point.
The plane is safe, for the moment.
About a minute after the attack begins, Tucker finally has a chance to radio Memphis.
Centre! Centre, emergency! Air traffic controller Kent Fleshman and his trainee receive Tucker's emergency request.
- Aircraft emergency.
Say again.
- TUCKER: Centre Aircraft emergency.
Say again.
Listen to me.
Express 705 have been wounded.
We've had an attempted takeover on board the airplane.
Give me a vector, please, back to Memphis at this time.
Hurry.
Express 705, flight heading zero niner five, direct Memphis.
(breathes heavily) Zero niner five, direct to Memphis.
Get me an ambulance and alert the airport facility.
Hey, Memphis, you still with me? Affirmative, 705, Descend and maintain one zero thousand.
Fleshman takes action in case the hijacker has a gun.
If he can get the plane below 3,000m, a bullet hole in the fuselage will not cause explosive decompression.
Tucker hears the fight increase in the galley.
Again, he uses his only weapon - the aircraft.
The manoeuvre throws the men onto the side of the plane.
Let go of the spear.
Look, just keep talking to me, okay? Express 705, affirmative.
If you need an ambulance, stand by and we'll get that for you.
Yeah, we need an ambulance and we need armed intervention as well.
Make sure and notify the SWAT team.
He's asking for armed intervention.
Fleshman recognises the term "armed intervention" as the most serious request from a pilot.
It means they want armed officials to storm the plane upon landing.
Memphis approach has to be alerted.
We have an emergency.
Express 705, he's had an attempted takeover on the aircraft.
He's had an attempted takeover? Okay.
Radar contact.
Put him on one one niner point one.
Paul Candalino, a 44-year-old veteran controller, now spots Flight 705 on his radar screen.
But something's wrong.
The plane is heading away from the airport.
It looks like the hijacker has seized the plane.
The crew of FedEx flight 705 has been attacked by a co-worker and have declared an emergency.
Air traffic control watches helplessly as they fly away from the airport while the fight for control of the plane continues.
Copilot James Tucker is pushing the DC-10, his best weapon, to its limits.
He now throws the wheel around, flipping the massive plane in the opposite direction.
Tucker, drawing on his military experience, reverses the role, keeping his manoeuvres unpredictable.
TUCKER: Here I am, all alone in the cockpit.
The fight is still going on in the back.
I don't know who's winning, I don't know who's losing.
That was about the only time I really had time to be frightened and it was a very horrifying situation at that point, thinking that, quite possibly, Auburn was winning.
3.
5 minutes after the attack, though pinned and injured, Auburn Calloway will not relinquish the spear.
Help! You son-of-a-bitch! Bite me! The anger was coming in then, and so, when I hit him, it was with the intent to disable him and eliminate his ability to fight.
Not kill, but to injure him sufficiently so he could fight no more.
So when I swung the hammer, it was with all the strength that I had.
Sanders and Peterson, momentarily subdue Calloway.
Put it on autopilot and get back here.
The captain's yelling at Tucker to come and help, but he's the one flying the plane.
Express 705, I've contact Memphis approach on one one niner point one.
They're aware of your emergency.
Request a single frequency approach.
Single frequency approach, roger.
We'll pass that along.
One one niner point one.
Put it on autopilot and get back here.
What you have to understand, that's probably the strangest request that I've ever had come my way, because here I am, the only one up at the cockpit.
For me to go ahead and get up and go to the back means I've got to, first of all, stand up, which I didn't know until the particular time I tried to stand up, it was very, very difficult to do so.
Jim Tucker, with a fractured skull and only one side of his body functioning, puts the plane on autopilot and struggles out of his seat to help.
Okay, wait a minute, I'm coming.
- ALARM SOUNDS - COMPUTER: Autopilot.
But the plane's gyros haven't stabilised sufficiently for the autopilot to take over.
Okay.
Now, no-one's flying the plane.
705, heavy, how do you hear? Paul Candalino tries to establish radio contact with flight 705, but there's no response.
Their radar screens show the aircraft turn to the north, then the west, finally south-west, heading away from the airport.
There's only an eerie silence.
Anything could be happening on board the plane.
So I stepped into forward cargo area.
I was absolutely amazed at what I was seeing.
All three of the individuals are completely covered with blood.
Auburn Calloway on his back.
There are papers everywhere in the back.
You can see where the jump seat's - which is just a normal commercial airline seat - has had the covers torn off.
There's bloody footprints on the top of the ceiling.
There are coats that have come out of closets - it's total carnage in the back.
Sanders has disarmed Calloway and handed the spear to Tucker.
You move, I'll kill you.
You keep him contained, I'm going to get the airplane.
Go get the airplane.
They decide that Sanders, the captain, should fly the plane back to Memphis.
Tucker wants the weapons as far away from Calloway as possible and asks Sanders to take them with him to the cockpit.
In an emergency situation, it's expected that the captain of the airplane will fly the airplane.
I was in somewhat of a daze because of the fight.
I wasn't sure of the direction of the airplane, I wasn't sure of the condition of the airplane, but it appeared to be flying okay.
I was bleeding excessively from the top of my head, I couldn't see out of my left eye.
I thought the fight was over.
I mean, I had hit Calloway four times in the head with a 20-ounce framing hammer as hard as I could swing it.
He had stopped fighting and he was bleeding and he looked like he was severely injured.
Tucker can't tell anymore whether his hand is gripping the spear.
The blows to his head have caused a blood clot on his brain and have damaged his sense of touch.
Let me up! Let me up! I won't fight anymore.
Please, I can't breathe.
Though several gashes have been opened in his skull, Auburn Calloway cannot be trusted.
Both pilots know their strength is quickly running out.
Sanders, safely back in the driver's seat, must get the plane on the ground, and fast.
Memphis, can you hear me? Is this Express 705 heavy? 705 heavy, yes.
Express 705, heavy.
Memphis, roger, I do hear you.
You can proceed direct to Memphis if able.
Expect runway niner.
Altimeter is 30.
2 niner.
You understand we're declaring an emergency? We need security to meet the airplane.
We'll stop on the runway if we can.
Captain Sanders, without his glasses and with blood dripping into his eyes, thinks that the plane is on a course back to the airport, but it's still heading south-west away from Memphis at over 550km/h.
Roger.
Express 705 heavy, is the situation under control or is it still in progress? We appear to have it under control.
Candalino wants to warn the pilot, but he's afraid the crew may still be under attack and try to mislead the hijackers by flying in the wrong direction.
Express 705, heavy, are you able to turn toward the airport? Yeah, give me a vector.
One zero zero vector Memphis.
Sanders takes the plane off autopilot and sets a course back to the airport.
We're turning to the airport now.
For now, aboard the DC-10, the situation seems under control, but a potential disaster is only moments away.
At the Memphis airport, emergency personnel begin to move into position.
We need security to meet the airplane.
We'll stop on the runway if we can.
A FedEx cargo plane is about to land after a would-be hijacker tried to seize control.
All members of the crew are badly injured.
The airplane is heading for the safety of Memphis airport, but that in itself presents another scary possibility.
The aircraft is more than 16,000 kilos over the recommended landing weight with more than 38,000 kilos of fuel still in its tanks.
In most emergency landing situations, there's time and opportunity to dump any excess fuel, but Sanders knows the switches and levers are too far away to access safely.
In the galley, Auburn Calloway still hasn't given up the fight.
Calloway drags himself towards the jump seats with Peterson and Tucker on top of him.
He hopes to gain enough leverage to get back on his feet, where he'll have an advantage.
He was using his thumbs to go ahead and try and push my eyes out, doing everything he possibly could to break Andy and I down as a team.
We could handle him together, but we couldn't handle it one on one.
It was certainly a fight against the clock.
Auburn's getting stronger and we're getting weaker.
Approaching 7,000 feet, the fight in the back started again.
It became so violent and loud that, approaching 7,000 feet, I decided that I was going to level the airplane turn on the autopilot, go to the back of the airplane and kill Calloway.
It was so severe, I thought that had to be done.
The DC-10 is less than 40km from Memphis airport.
- Is he under control? - (shouts) I don't know.
The sound of the struggle worries Sanders.
He decides this has to end.
I released the seatbelt, climbed out of my seat, headed to the back of the airplane and then Jim Tucker said to me, "David, I think we have him under control now.
" I said, "Are you sure?" Yeah, he is.
He said, "I think we have him under control.
" Went back to the seat, climbed into the left seat of the airplane, continued the descent on down toward the airport.
Express 705 heavy, verify the situation is still under control? Yeah, we'resort of under control.
Wind is zero three zero with five clear to land runway niner.
Clear to land? Now Sanders faces yet another possible disaster.
The delay caused by getting out of his seat means he's way over the normal approach speed.
Too high and too fast.
He'll not be able to slow the overweight plane quickly enough to land on runway niner.
I'm coming around to three six left.
Runway 36 left is longer at 2,800m, but it's perpendicular to his flight path.
To land there, he needs to make a series of turns - reasonable manoeuvres for a fighter jet or a crop-duster, but for an overloaded DC-10 with an injured pilot, nearly impossible.
First, he must turn 90 degrees to the right, fly parallel to the runway and then execute a tight 180-degree turn.
Sanders must ignore the computer warnings and push the plane beyond normal operating limits.
The plane is nearly on its side.
A hammer is lying in the galley.
The men struggle to reach it.
This could be Calloway's last chance to gain control.
Sanders has turned 90 degrees to the south, flying the downwind leg parallel to runway 36 left.
The airplane was probably at about 300 feet above the ground at that time.
The throttles are at idle.
They've been at idle since I left 7,000 feet.
That's an extremely unusual engine power setting to land a big airplane.
You always land - make the approach with power on, a lot of power on.
In this case, it was at idle, because I wanted the airplane to slow down so that we'd not exceed the limits of the landing gear and the flaps.
So that we would touch down at or below 195 knots.
INSTRUMENTS BEEP With flaps extended and landing gear down, Sanders is still coming in too fast and he's been bombarded by computerised auto-warning alarms.
The runway is 2,800m long.
A normal DC-10 needs only 1,900m to stop, but flight 705 is too heavy.
Even this runway may not be long enough.
INSTRUMENTS BEEP Peterson manages, for the first time in the fight, to get hold of a hammer but is extremely weak due to blood loss.
You've gotta hit him, Andy, you've gotta hit him.
I was almost like pleading with him, and I told him, I said, "Andy, you know, you've gotta hit him.
" You know, he's about ready to take us down.
The DC-10 is only metres above the runway travelling at 382km/h.
Sanders can only hope he won't explode the tyres or crash beyond the runway.
Luckily, all 10 tyres withstand the landing impact.
Captain David Sanders has landed the plane with only 300m of runway to spare.
The crew of Flight 705 is safely on the ground, but not out of danger.
Blow the door.
The police and firemen tried to climb up the slide.
One fireman made it almost all the way to the top and I leaned out the door of the airplane and pulled him on board.
Who's the bad guy? That's the attacker.
- You got any handcuffs? - No.
If not, you better get some, 'cause that son-of-a-bitch is still dangerous.
I need handcuffs.
Can you throw me some handcuffs? Teague is thrown a pair of handcuffs.
Stand here.
In the middle of the chain.
Ouch! Get your foot off! You're hurting me! Sanders holds Calloway down as Teague examines Peterson, who barely has a pulse and is the first crew member to leave the plane.
Sanders is the last member of the crew on board.
Standing in the door of the airplane, I had a sense of euphoria I have never experienced before or since.
It was the sense of we had been there, and, uh .
.
and we came back and we won.
Due to the strength and courage of its crew, a FedEx DC-10 has safely landed back home.
The three men have weathered the attack of a co-worker, but they are badly injured.
Copilot Jim Tucker has bone chips driven into his brain.
Flight engineer Andy Peterson's life is in danger from massive blood loss.
Both are in critical condition.
The wounded men are rushed to the Regional Medical Centre at Memphis.
The pilot, Dave Sanders, shares an ambulance with Tucker.
It's only during this ride that he realises the extent and severity of his copilot's injuries.
Tucker is taken to Emergency by stretcher.
Sanders is helped, but can walk.
Restrained and under guard, Calloway is also taken to the same emergency facility.
But the important question still remains - why did Auburn Calloway attack the crew of Flight 705? The full story is beginning to unfold.
Divorced in 1990, Auburn Calloway still tries to support his ex-wife and their two children and wants to secure their financial future.
He was very interested in the welfare of his children.
Very interested that they not live the kind of childhood he had lived.
The evidence for a suicidal mission against FedEx grows as investigators search the aircraft and find a letter to Calloway's estranged wife.
(reads) "Dear Pat, I want you and the kids to know "that I lived for you.
"I thought of your welfare every day.
" I tend to believe he was interested in his marriage.
I know his marriage had come apart, basically, at the time of this incident.
But I suspect he was also a difficult man to be married to.
By April 7, 1994, Calloway may be thinking his career is over.
Life had been one disappointment after another.
The failed marriage, the kids he can't afford to send to university, the brilliant pilot who ends up as an engineer on a cargo plane, and now even that may be about to go.
The following day, he's supposed to report to a FedEx hearing about falsified information he'd given the company.
During our investigation, it appeared that he had overestimated the number of hours of flight experience that he had and that the company was taking a look at this.
Calloway may be afraid he'll be fired.
At just 42, his professional life could be finished.
He comes up with a solution.
"The goal is to leave my children well off.
" Calloway cashes in all the funds he can lay his hands on and sends a total of $54,000 to his ex-wife.
But his life insurance is worth about $2.
5 million if he dies in a work-related accident.
"I would much rather go on a date, time, place "and a method of my own choosing.
"I resolved some time ago that the next time "my security and future is threatened "or seriously jeopardised, "It's time - my time to go.
" Perhaps he believes his family would receive the maximum insurance payout if he crashed the plane in an apparent accident.
If this was Calloway's idea, he was planning it perfectly.
He was armed with unusual weapons for a hijacking - hammers and a spear gun.
After injuring the crew, he could take control of the plane.
A bomb or gun could leave traces at the scene of a crash, but if investigators found a spear gun or hammers, it would be very difficult to tie them to an attack on the crew.
I believed it would have been impossible to tell the difference in the type of injuries that a hammer would have made with the type of injuries that you might sustain in a large crash.
Auburn had spent the week leading up to this incident preparing to, uhto die and basically get his affairs in order.
Calloway even goes to a lawyer to change his will before boarding the FedEx flight.
He left his will and testament on his bed so that it would be easily found.
For any crash to look like an accident, there is a key obstacle - the plane's cockpit voice recorder.
Switching off the CVR's power would disable any recording.
I think she'll fly.
Long as all the nuts and bolts are there.
If Peterson in his pre-flight inspection discovers the thrown switch, it would be a setback, but Calloway would know he simply has to fly the airplane for half an hour.
That's the length of the tape's recording time.
After 30 minutes, any incriminating recording would be gone forever.
I think he was gonna do something very, very horrible with it.
Something along the lines of what we've seen on 9/11.
Had Calloway been able to seize control of the plane, he could've crashed the DC-10 with over 38,000kg of fuel aboard into any site, including the FedEx headquarters, the hub, crippling his employer and killing a large number of workers on the ground.
It would have been the ultimate revenge for perceived injustices by the company.
The company may never have figured out exactly why that airplane crashed back into the hub.
The flight of FedEx 705 took about 30 minutes, but the impact it had will last for years.
He was convicted of Attempt Aircraft Piracy, an offence that carried a minimum of 20 years confinement and up to life imprisonment.
Although Auburn Calloway pleaded temporary insanity at his trial, the jury didn't believe him, and found him guilty.
On August the 11th, 1995, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a federal penitentiary.
He has no chance of parole.
The pilots on Flight 705, they are the real heroes.
It is amazing that they were able to do what they did, given the injuries that were inflicted upon them.
When someone's struck with a hammer on the skull, there could be linear radiating cracks that go out on the skull and then if it's hard enough, they may well be in-driven bone right at the site where the hammer head hits the skull and drives it into the skull.
This is a replica of my skull cap.
It was put together by use of a CAT scan protocol to give the proper shape of my skull and also the shape of the defect that we're dealing with here.
This is the area that I was hit, on the left parietal.
For a year and a half, I was actually walking around in this configuration.
It took 2.
5 years to recover completely, because I had to learn how to walk, talk and chew gum all over again.
I had three major operations.
I operated on him twice more after his initial injury and then followed him through his rehabilitation.
They can fashion a piece of material to fit the exact size of the defect, the shape of the skull and of course the thickness of the skull as well.
It's a blown acrylic called a HTR or Hard Tissue Replacement.
He had difficulty with speech, difficulty with sensation and motor strength on the right side and he came back to where he can now, probably, if he wanted to, break my fingers with a handshake.
On May 26th, 1994, the crew of FedEx flight 705 was awarded the Airline Pilots Association gold medal award for heroism, the highest award a civilian pilot can receive.
However, because of the legacy of their injuries, none of the crew has been certified as medically fit to fly commercially.
TUCKER: I always thought, I'm going to fight, I'm gonna overcome this thing, except that's when they found out I had a slight seizure disorder.
I'm seizure-free, that's because I take medication.
And the only way for me to be able to fly without somebody with me is to be off medication.
At this particular point it's been .
.
it's been ascertained that I'll never be able to do that.
I'll be on medication for the rest of my life.
I'll be on medication for the rest of my life.
I miss the flying.
Every time I see an airplane go over, I wonder where it's going.
So I miss that part of it, but I've really cherished the fact that, you know, I'm still alive and able to be with my family.
The bond of pilots .
.
and what you do together in the airplane and outside the airplane, I miss that.
I miss it very much.