That Snickers Advert is Right — You’re Not You When You’re Hungry, or Tired, or Stressed
The checklist for being optimising yourself
28th December 1978, United Airlines Flight 173 departed from JFK headed for Portland, Oregon. On paper, everything was perfect. The conditions were glorious, the captain (Malburn McBroom) was experienced and the flight was seamless.
Everything was set to be an eventless flight. Just how you’d like it.
And it was. Until it came to the landing.
At 17:10 the plane was cleared for the descent into Portland. As the captain initiated the landing gear, something went wrong. Instead of the usual ‘click’ that signalled the wheels locked in place, there was a loud thud.
Usually, a light would notify the captain that the landing gear was in place and the plane was ready to hit the runway. The light that was expected to come on didn’t.
So now there was a large thud and no landing gear light.
This, obviously, was a problem.
The pilot and crew set about the various checks. Frustratingly you can’t just pop your head out of the undercarriage to check whether the landing gear was in place. Instead, the crew would have to go through a series of checks to understand…
