Joseph Balzer - Flying Drunk: The True Story of a Northwest Airlines Flight, Three Drunk Pilots, and One Mans Fight for Redemption

T he first week of March 1990 was one I will never forget. But not for the reasons I had hoped.

The sacrifices I had made for the previous twelve years had just begun to pay off. I was a newlywed, married to a lovely woman with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. We had just spent a wonderful vacation with friends, skiing in the magnificent high country of Colorado.

I left for work with optimism and hope for our future, knowing that I was about to finish probation as a new hire pilot with Northwest Airlines. My evaluations from previous Captains had all been excellent, which meant I was passing my probationary period with flying colors.

My wife Deborah and I were looking forward to my full pilot status and a healthy raise, finally putting behind us the low first-year pay an airline pilot receives. We were so close to buying our dream house on a lake in Nashville, Tennessee, that we were giddy with excitement. Everything was going our way. We had nothing to fearor at least, thats what we thought.

And then my world crashed down around me on the morning of March 8, 1990.

Outside it was a cold, wet morning in Fargo, North Dakotabut not as cold as inside the cockpit, due to the working relationship between the Captain and the other two pilots of our jet. That morning I was the Flight Engineer on a Northwest Airlines Boeing 727. As the plane entered the dark runway for takeoff, then raced down the runway, accelerating to attain takeoff speed, my insides were ripping apart in turmoil. I watched as the First Officer pushed the three engine throttles forward. The air inside the engines was being compressed under tremendous pressureas were the thoughts overwhelming my brain. Fear bounced between my ears; the situation was rapidly spiraling out of control.

With the engines developing thousands of pounds of thrust, the aircraft rapidly approached the speed necessary to develop sufficient lift on the wings to become airborne. The shaking of the airframe paralleled the shaking inside me. I was aching to scream Stop! and return to the gate, but I could not form the words. Im convinced no one there would have listened to me, anyway; nonetheless, had I known what was waiting for us later, I would have done things differently.

Something that rarely happens in a modern commercial airliner was taking place. The crew coordination, communication and teamwork so important for the safe outcome of a flight had been completely compromised days earlier by the poor leadership of the overbearing Captain. This officer, rude to the point of being downright mean, had nothing but criticism to offer anyone. The icy air hanging between all of us comprised a dangerous element in the cockpit.

The gear handle was raised and the landing gear rumbled into the wheel wells. The airspeed increased dramatically as the drag from the main gear was eliminated from the slipstream. As the airplane climbed higher into the dark morning sky, I contemplated the unfolding situation. Earlier, my repeated requests and desperate attempts to prevent this flight from ever taking place had failed miserably. Now everything I had ever worked for was at stake. My short airline careera career that I had made so many personal sacrifices to attainmight end with this flight.