Obama's Plane Mishap More Serious Than Acknowledged

Sen. Barack Obama's plane had a serious malfunction in flight that required the crew to divert from their originally scheduled destination. At the time it was originally reported, it was made to appear to be a minor problem.

However, new details have emerged and the problem was far more serious.

Officials at Midwest Airlines, which operates the campaign charter, said that the plane's pilot was merely exercising a suitable precaution when he diverted during a planned flight from Chicago to Charlotte, N.C., landing safely at Lambert–St. Louis International Airport at 9:51 am local time. The pilot's reason: the plane had exhibited "controllability issues" after encountering turbulence following takeoff, and the pilot apparently had difficulty managing the pitch of the aircraft—that is, the extent to which the nose of the aircraft is pointed up or down. Pitch is critically important to aviation safety, as it determines the speed of the aircraft and its rate of climb or descent.

Examination of the aircraft on the ground revealed that turbulence had caused an emergency slide located in the plane's tail section to deploy in flight. The inflated slide then apparently pressed against hydraulic lines leading to actuators that move the elevator at the top of the aircraft's T-shaped tail.

Midwest Airlines downplayed the significance of the event, releasing a statement that "there was never an issue as to the safety of the flight." An Obama campaign spokesman said that the landing was a "minor and precautionary" step, according to the Associated Press. The pilot did not declare an emergency when requesting clearance to the alternate airport.

However, according to a mechanic familiar with MD-80 aircraft, inadvertent deployment of the slide could have put the airplane at serious risk. Mike Hatfield, an American Airlines mechanic who has worked on MD-80s for 20 years, called the slide's deployment "extremely dangerous" in an interview this afternoon with PM. "If it had caught on any of the control lines, they would have lost control of the aircraft," he said.

Jammie had tracked down who had chartered this plane previously. That would be Obama's former opponent in the Democratic primaries, Sen. Hillary Clinton:

Three fire trucks met the plane on the tarmac in St. Louis. Obama called his wife Michelle to let her know he was fine before she saw anything on TV about the plane's unscheduled landing. The plane was supposed to land in Charlotte, NC.

This was not Obama's regular campaign plane, which is being overhauled. It was a loaner, having previously been used by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY.

Thankfully, no one was injured and the pilots managed to safely and skillfully land the plane without further incident.

The plane involved in the incident, an MD-80, has been the focus of numerous air safety directives by the FAA, including a new one issued to airlines to inspect overwing frames for cracks. That came on the heels of grounding of hundreds of MD-80 planes after electrical problems were discovered and maintenance discrepancies were found at several airlines.

It is possible that this development might lead to additional directives to airlines to check certain related components.