By Seena Simon
Times staff writer

Off-off-Broadway theaters in Manhattan’s Lower East Side typically don’t attract
military audiences.

A person is more likely to find black-clad struggling artists and anti-globalization
protesters congregating around the Collective Unconscious Theater. But lately, the
60-seat theater has become a mecca for military and civilian aviators who’ve found a
product of the alternative arts community they can relate to.

The play “Charlie Victor Romeo” is based entirely on the unembellished transcripts of
black-box cockpit voice recordings from six aircraft emergencies, including one
involving an Air Force craft. The Spartan set consists of the cockpit, and the sounds
of instrument panels and the outside voice of air traffic controllers can be heard.

(Charlie Victor Romeo stands for “Cockpit Voice Recorder.”)

The play has received rave reviews from drama critics for its depictions of aircrews
struggling to control their disabled planes.

But one surprising fan has been the U.S. military. Aviators and aircrew trainers say
“Charlie Victor Romeo” gives realistic depictions of how cockpit crews interact with
one another during crises and offers valuable lessons on the right and wrong ways to
handle midair emergencies.

In fact, the Air Force videotaped the play and is using it as a training video for its
pilots and aircrews. The military uses training videos for everything from flight
training to sexual-harassment awareness. Many of these amateur-quality tapes aren’t
ready for prime time. But “Charlie Victor Romeo” will keep the crews’ attention,
because it packs more feeling than does a sterile safety tape, Air Force officials say.

“This is a fresh way to present the information to the aircrew,” says Air Force pilot
Maj. Kurt Meidel, who heads training for KC-10 refueling aircraft. “You get more of
the emotions.”

The play’s producers like to brag about its unlikely admirers.

“We’re the only off-off-Broadway theater in New York with a defense contract,”
says Bob Berger, one of the play’s creators and producers. “It’s a wonderful thing to
get a bunch of engineers and pilots coming to our little theater.”

Before they saw the play, some aviators were skeptical, wondering if the play would
sensationalize plane crashes for cheap thrills. But the play shows only the human
drama in the cockpits and cuts away before the crash.

Air Force Maj. John Varljen read about the play in Smithsonian magazine last year.
He went to see the show. Not only did Varljen give the play thumbs up, he saw a
practical use for it.

“I was surprised at how good it was,” says Varljen, an astronautical engineer. “It was
about halfway through seeing it that I realized this has great potential for us to use.”

He stayed after the play to talk to Berger about getting a tape made. Varljen brought
the idea back to his bosses at the Pentagon. The idea took root and the Air Force sent
a combat camera crew to film the stage play to be used as a crew training video.

The producers didn’t charge the Air Force royalties for the use of the material. Their
only financial request was that their actors be paid union wages.

Military people have commended the Collective Unconscious drama company for
“thinking out of the box,” a favored phrase in the military these days. But for people
in the free-flowing creative world of New York’s Lower East Side, “we’re not IN the
box,” Berger says.

Col. Jim Brooks, a fighter pilot, doesn’t focus on the culture clash.

“It could certainly be a study in contrasts,” Brooks says. “At the same time, it [the
play] is out there and it provides good training, and it doesn’t really matter who’s put
it together.

“It has lessons in it that are universal, across every kind of aircrew and for every pilot
and flight engineer that flies.”

The lessons shown in the dramatizations of the six midair emergencies are evident
even to members of the audience who never have flown in a plane.

Those insights aren’t about altimeter readings or hydraulic fluid levels, but about how
humans react to an impending catastrophe: Will they keep their wits, focus on the job
and work as a team?

Or will they panic?

The crew of AeroPeru panicked. As depicted in “Charlie Victor Romeo,” the
two-person AeroPeru crew’s panic upon discovering their cockpit instruments had
malfunctioned made a bad situation worse.

“They had no idea what they were confronted with, and they essentially panicked,”
the Air Force’s Brooks says.

And the AeroPeru pilots bickered with each other instead of concentrating on
regaining control.

“Right now, we are stalling,” one AeroPeru pilot says.

“We are NOT stalling,” the other pilot retorts.

The 1996 crash of AeroPeru Flight 603 killed all 70 people on board. Unknown to
the crew, ground maintainers had accidentally taped over flight sensors.

Meanwhile, the Air Force wants its crews to learn from a United Airlines crew that
heroically steered its runaway plane to a crash landing in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989.

Teamwork, coordination, leadership and good decision-making saved 185 lives,
including the crew, although 111 other passengers died as the United plane landed and
broke apart in a fireball, officials say.

The United aircraft had lost all the hydraulic systems, which control the plane.

“Charlie Victor Romeo” will be touring the country, including appearances at theaters
near military bases, through at least 2002.

For information about the play’s tour schedule, see
http://www.charlievictorromeo.com.

Seena Simon can be reached at (703) 750-8653 or at ssimon@airforcetimes.com