There is a YouTube interview linked further up where the passenger pilot himself answers just that question. He was very generous. He says something like, you can’t afford to just let those controls go, on the theory that their situation was so unique, who is to say if there effort might not be helping just a tiny bit. But, yes, he was doing all the heavy lifting with the throttle.
Apparently the pilot and copilot with the rudder and pedals were exerting a HUGE amount of force to keep the controls in the position called for, whether it was doing any good or not.
I had a minor fender bender when I was picking my mom up from work. Since it involved a taxi, we had to wait for the police to give us an official report. He took a while to get out there, in fact we had already popped out the dent from the taxi so the only evidence was a small dash of yellow paint on my car. The cop leisurely got our information and went back to his squad car. No big deal, this was going to be the easiest call of his day.
A few minutes later, he came rushing back, clearly in a hurry. I can’t remember if I asked him what was going on, but he quickly mentioned that there was an accident at the airport. I distinctly remember saying that I hoped everyone would be okay, thinking that it was probably just a private plane or a small puddle jumper that usually serviced Sioux City. Drove home wondering if it would even be covered on the local news only to see that clip of United 232 crash rolling across the runway.
Even though she was only a dietitian and not a front line medical provider, my mom was called right back in to work and I didn’t see her for 3-4 days. I’m sure they’re secondhand, but she’s got some stories from those days. The one that remains etched in my mind was a triage specialist going through the corn field with other first responders pointing out who was “salvageable” and who was “not salvageable.” One survivor overheard them and asked if they were salvageable. (The way my mom tells the story, they were.)
And although he retired (and died) several years before this, my grandfather was an ATC at the Sioux City airport. I’m so glad he didn’t have to go through that. I didn’t learn about it until a few years ago, but he was involved in a private plane fatality in the late 60s early 70s, so having to go through that again would’ve been… I don’t want to think about it. He was also an amateur photographer. Among his photos, I found this random picture of an Ozark Airlines jet on the tarmac in Sioux City but couldn’t figure out why he took it. Did some research and found that it was involved in an accident.
