Page:CAB Accident Report, Eastern Air Lines Flight 663.pdf/3

Rh southerly direction or an approximate south direction." According to the caption the other aircraft was then about four miles away. He stated, "This caused us to monitor the progress of the beacon, the other flight, a little more continually and as it was approaching, our headings were more or less 180 degrees apart... the aircraft got closer, it looked like we may be on a course where this (the other aircraft) would overhead our aircraft, and to keep the aircraft in sight, I moved off, started a turn to the right and started the aircraft down. Somewhere in this right turn... (the first officer) whose monitor had been almost continuous on this aircraft, recognized what seemed to us to be a very rapid deterioration of altitude and the aircraft (EAL 663) seemed to no longer be moving where it would come by on our left but was going to cross, and somewhere very shortly after the initial indication of this right turn,... made the statement... 'No Bob down'... at about the same time it seemed to me that something had to be done very quickly to avoid what was becoming an imminent situation, so I pushed the aircraft down forcibly and rolled it hard to the left to roll underneath the target. It was a very short duration because the target was over and gone. At no time while I had the aircraft in sight did it cross the 12 o'clock position." The captain stated further, "The clearest recollection I have at this point is seeing a bright row of cabin window lights, - a great number of them. My impression was that the aircraft was in a vertical bank or close to a vertical bank and that I was looking at the right hand cabin light on the side of the fuselage. I felt as though I saw a silhouette of the aircraft standing on its right wing. The aircraft passed over my aircraft at an altitude of something below 500 and maybe above 200 (feet)... shortly after the crossover of the other aircraft we saw a very large red glow emanate from behind... while we were still in the left wing-down condition turning to the new heading (360 degrees) we were able to see the fire on the water." He estimated that the time between the initial and last sighting of the traffic (EAL 663) was about a minute and a half.

The first officer of PAA 212 testified, "As we were descending from an altitude of 4,000 feet to our last clearance limit altitude of 3,000 feet, I became concerned with traffic of which we had been notified and seen... This aircraft appeared to me to be making a climb, and, of course, it was moving from our left to the right, across our path of flight." He said that the other aircraft, identified by its beacon, started toward PAA 212 very close to their altitude; that the turn was then rapid and that he said to the captain, "This guy is getting too close, let's go down." The captain looked out at the traffic and started to roll the aircraft into a right bank. After the right bank was initiated, he related, "... I am getting a very definite impression that this altitude separation is really starting to deteriorate very rapidly. Now this thing is coming right down, and in my mind, I am also beginning to think that even though this is coming at us, I have the impression that it is going to possibly pass to the right of us. So immediately I want to stop this turn but I want to get down, I want to get away from this thing that is coming down on us. So apparently at this time when I said 'No down,' I reached for the control wheel. Well apparently (the captain) must have arrived at this same conclusion about the same time, because as I got my hand on the wheel - I think this is where the 'Yeoh' (an exclamation on the communication tape at 1826:19) came in... when I grabbed for the aileron, I caught the trigger switch on my boom mike,... but as I got my hand on the wheel I felt him rolling... out of the bank and starting to go forward on it. This is the time I noticed the forward push on the yoke because now I had my hand on it."