Even the least superstitious of travelers might want to avoid Flight 191.
The flight number, which has already been linked to a number of tragedies, hit the headlines again this week when a JetBlue pilot suffered an apparent breakdown on flight number 191 from New York to Las Vegas.
The Captain began shouting "Iraq, al-Qaeda, terrorism, we’re all going down" before being subdued by passengers. The flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Texas.
"191 is one of the most tragic of flight numbers," reported Scott McCartney in his Wall Street Journal column The Middle Seat.
The history is unsettling.
Delta Air Lines Flight 191, an L-1011 wide-body, crashed in wind shear just before landing at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in 1985, killing 137, including one man on the ground, according to the Journal.
American Airlines Flight 191 was the DC-10 that had an engine rip off from under the wing, severing hydraulic lines and sending the jumbo jet into a field near the end of the runway. The 1979 crash killed 271 people on board and led to a grounding of all DC-10s until technical issues were resolved, the newspaper said.
"You won’t find a flight 191 at either Delta or American anymore. Airlines eliminate crashed flight numbers from use," McCartney writes.
Since the most recent 191 incident, Capt. Clayton Osbon, 49, has been suspended from his duties.
Osbon, a commercial pilot since 1989, was not at the controls but "began acting erratically, flipping switches in the cockpit and appearing confused," according to some accounts.
They said his co-pilot tricked him into going to the passenger compartment to check something out, then locked the door and changed the security code behind him.
"Osbon also yelled jumbled comments about Jesus, September 11, Iraq, Iran, and terrorists," according to the criminal complaint. "He also yelled, ‘Guys, push it to full throttle.’"
The FAA called the incident a medical emergency, but law enforcement sources have called the outburst a panic attack.
By David Wilkening
