Cockpit Recording Portrays Calm, Professional Flight Pilot

ABC News broke the "news" Thursday that last month's incident involving a Midwest Airlines MD-81 chartered for Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was an actual emergency... but upon listening to the tapes, ANN was most impressed by the cool professionalism of the plane's flight crew in handling the crisis.

As ANN reported, the plane encountered thunderstorms shortly after takeoff from Chicago on July 7, on a flight to Charlotte, NC. The aircraft encountered turbulence -- described by ABC as "an abnormally large dip" -- after which the plane's crew reported difficulties controlling the aircraft's pitch.

The crew initiated a descent from FL320, and diverted to St. Louis. The crew regained full control authority as the plane descended out of 10,000 feet, and was able to bring the plane in for a routine landing at STL. The National Transportation Safety Board later found the aircraft's aft tailcone emergency slide had partially deployed, and chafed against the elevator control cables.

The FAA initially made a point of stating there was "no emergency" declared in the incident... but ATC recordings obtained by ABC show one of the plane's pilots declared an emergency 41 seconds after first telling controllers of the problem with "limited pitch authority."

"At this time we would like to declare an emergency and also have CFR [crash equipment] standing by in St. Louis," said the Midwest pilot in a calm, professional manner.

In fact... despite what had to be going through his mind as the flight crew worked to control the aircraft, that pilot never revealed any outward trace of anxiety in his communications with ATC, or his passengers. When asked which runway he'd prefer at St. Louis, the pilot replied coolly "Well, which one is the longest?"

The pilot also told ATC "....just for informational purposes, we have Senator Obama on board the aircraft and his campaign," noting there are "51 souls onboard," as well as telling controllers of the plane's fuel load. He then notified his passengers of the situation... without showing any fear, or patronizing them... saying the flight crew was experiencing "a little bit of controllability issue in terms of our ability to control the aircraft in the pitch, which is the nose up and nose down mode."

A trace of relief was evident in the pilot's voice, though, when he told controllers the crew had regained full control as the plane descended. "Ah, sir, we had a pitch authority problem," the pilot tells ATC. "Now that we've come down to a lower altitude, it seems to have rectified itself. We do have pitch control of the aircraft at this time."

After the ATC tape surfaced this week, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory told ABC "We later learned there was an emergency declared." But whether or not the situation was an emergency isn't the real story here, of course... but rather the fact that if you listened to the pilot's vocal tone, you'd have never guessed the seriousness of the situation.

And to that, we say nice job.

FMI: www.midwestairlines.com, www.barackobama.com