United Airlines Flight 232, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 en route to Chicago from Denver, experiences a catastrophic failure of the titanium fan disk in its tail engine. The pilots try to land at Sioux City, Iowa. As the DC-10 descends it rolls right just above the ground. The DC-10 crashes and explodes into a fireball, killing 112 of the 296 people on board. 184 people survive the accident, in part thanks to a deadheading training-check and an airman named Dennis Edward Fitch who was able to provide assistance to the flight crew in controlling the DC-10.
