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| Seconds to disaster | |||||||||
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| By Ron Banks | |||||||||
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It's a natural human tendency to want explanations for such a tragedy, hoping to find the kind of extenuating circumstances that suggest the event was so rare it could never possibly happen while we were flying. In most cases the explanations come when the black box flight recorder is recovered from the wreckage and air authorities painstakingly pour over the evidence. With the events of September 11 still so painfully alive, and given the recent crash over New York of a plane bound for the Dominican Republic, a play about air crashes might seem timely for the Perth International Arts Festival - or too much horror for one year. Nevertheless, audiences will get the chance to understand what goes on in the cockpit during in-flight emergencies in Charlie Victor Romeo, performed by the New York-based small theatre troupe Collective Unconscious. The collective operates from a 60-seat shopfront theatre in lower Manhattan that was at various times a tailor's store and even a brothel. The origins of Charlie Victor Romeo go back a couple of years to a chance encounter in a New York book store. "Bob Berger, one of Collective Unconscious' founders, was looking for something that could be performed for the millennium," explains his colleague Patrick Daniels on the phone from the US. "He picked up a book called The Black Box, a series of transcripts taken directly from the voice recordings of the flight crew as the plane was going down," says Daniels, who will appear in the play in Perth. "There were more than 25 incident reports, edited for clarity by Malcolm MacPhearson." While Berger was browsing through the book, colleague Irving Gregory looked over his shoulder and suggested there might be dramatic possibilities in its contents. The pair took the book back to the theatre where they began discussing ideas with the rest of the collective. Eventually they selected six incidents to dramatise, each illustrating a different type of air crash and how the crew coped with the problems of trying to correct a plane spinning out of control. In many of the crashes, the death toll was incredibly high, though in some incidents there were survivors, with one crew even managing to put the plane down without loss of any life. The most spectacular crash detailed in Charlie Victor Romeo was the air industry's worst fatality - the crash of a Japanese plane taking off from Tokyo. Japanese Airlines flight 123 crashed with the loss of 520 of the 524 aboard when mechanical problems caused a bulkhead to rupture, spinning the plane into the ground. Taken in their totally, the incidents in Charlie Victor Romeo (the title is the call-sign for Cockpit Voice Recorder) reveal how mechanical failure, bad weather, pilot error and - in one case - a flock of birds flying into the engines triggered flight emergencies. One of the most heroic incidents occurred in a United Airlines DC flight over Sioux City in the US in 1989. The crew lost control when an engine explosion took out the hydraulics, but the plane's captain, Al Haynes, fought to bring it into land. It slammed into the runway, spiralling over and over in a huge fireball. Miraculously, the pilot survived, along with 185 people of the 296 on board. "It was an amazing piece of flying," says Daniels. "Al Haynes now travels the US talking about air safety and the importance of correct maintenance. He even came to see our show and talked to us about it backstage." Daniels says that despite Collective Unconscious' close relationship with the horrors of air crashes, none of its members has developed a fear of flying. "From a statistical point of view, flying is still one of the safest means of transport and having studied these incidents closely we know a little better what goes into keeping these incredibly complex machines in the air," he says. Charlie Victor Romeo premiered in Collective Unconscious' small theatre in October last year for what was to have been a short season. However, its popularity led to so many extensions that the season ran until April. Since then it has gone on tour around the US. The events of September 11 caused a good deal of soul-searching about the wisdom of continuing to perform a play about air crashes, but only one theatre that had booked the show cancelled it."Our show is not directly related to the terrorist attacks, which were perpetrated by some evil bastards," says Daniels. "The play has a reputation for being intense and realistic, but it helps people confront their fears about danger and risk. Our message is don't let fear get the better of you." Charlie Victor Romeo will be at the Octagon Theatre from February 13-24. | |||||||||
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