What a disgusting, sick POS. He never once repents to the crew, Captain David Sanders, First Officer Jim Tucker and Flight Engineer Andy Peterson. He has the gall to state that "no one was killed." Yet that is exactly what he attempted to do to these three men and they were all severely inured and had medical issues for life to deal with. And what......he considers himself as "good people who have served our country honorably and sacrificially in every branch of the U.S. military, but have also suffered misfortunes under the criminal justice system?" You have to be kidding me. Then he goes on to state that what he did and his actions were "a self-victimizing "crime" with no criminal intent." Murder and the crashing/destruction of a DC-10 which he intended to fly into Fed Ex at MEM killing who knows how many people, had he succeeded.
He fractured both Peterson’s and Tucker’s skulls. Tucker’s jaw was dislocated. Tucker had multiple cuts because Calloway had tried to gouge out one of his eyes and stabbed his right arm. In addition to the multiple injuries to his head, David Sanders suffered several deep gashes. Doctors had to sew his right ear back into place. Flight engineer Peterson's temporal artery severed. The plane incurred damages in the amount of $800,000. That plane still flies in the Fed Ex Express fleet, btw.
Due to the extent and severity of their injuries, none of the flight crew has been able to medically return to commercial aviation. However, Jim Tucker took advantage of the Light Sport regulations and he taught his son, Andy, to fly in a Luscombe 8A.
Captain Sanders
Calloway should have been executed. Here is the summary and ruling on his sentence and conviction:
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-6th-circuit/1058021.html
Part of an interview with Jim Sanders:
"I remember thinking that I had lived through the flight, but I might not make it beyond that. All of us were facing some life-threatening injuries. David nearly had an ear torn off, had multiple lacerations, fractures and concussions, and the spear just missed one of his arteries. Andy had lost lots of blood — he was five minutes from bleeding to death — and got a secondary infection afterwards. I got the worst of it as far as head trauma, with a depressed skull fracture and associated subdural hematoma — they had to go in and relieve the building pressure and remove the clot. About a week later, I developed a brain abscess and they weren't sure I was going to make it. They removed the offending bone flap — a craniotomy — irrigated what they could, closed me up (minus the bone flap), and prayed for the best. I had six hours of IV therapy a day for six weeks, until it wore out the veins in my arms. Then they put a catheter in my chest — using a local anesthetic because I was a neurological patient — and that was very uncomfortable, but at least I was through with needles. Then I began two and a half years of intensive physical therapy, speech therapy, cognitive therapy, occupational therapy — you name it, I had it. It was a race against time, because the more progress you make in a short time the greater your chances are for a full recovery.
I spent quite a bit of time in therapy at the Med, then at Baptist Central and graduated to a place called Physiotherapy Associates. I met Dr. Morris Ray early on in my treatment at the Med. He is chief neurosurgeon at Semmes-Murphy Clinic. He performed both the craniotomy and the cranioplasty which — in my operation — replaced the bone flap with a polymer acrylic substance that was machined to fit the cranial defect. Morris is a pilot and I've flown his airplanes, flew with him at Oshkosh, and did some formation flying with him. There are so many great people that helped me out. Dr. Robert Reeder, who is no longer with us — he succumbed to cancer — was an AME and plastic surgeon and he and Morris and Dr. Burriss patched me up when I had my last neurosurgery in 1996.
Not long after my last surgery, I was diagnosed with a seizure disorder. I didn't want to admit it or acknowledge it, and I reacted with shock, dismay and anger. I was a pilot, and pilots can't have seizure disorders. All through my life when I had a score to attain or a skill to acquire or a task to accomplish, there wasn't anything that hard work and a good attitude couldn't get you through. So I started working out again and began studying in depth about seizure disorders and their treatment. There are many kinds that manifest themselves in different ways, but they all mean the death knell for a medical certificate. I don't agree with that, but the FAA answers only to Congress. When you talk to the FAA about neurology, they tell you the answer is "no" before they know what the question is.
The maddening thing about this is I'm not talking about getting a first class medical to exercise an ATP rating. Obviously it's over for me. I have to adhere to a very regimented schedule, get up and go to bed on time, do the healthy things we all should do. But some days I'm like a NiCad battery — I can go and go and then, boom, that's it, I have to stop what I'm doing and rest. So as far as working on the back side of the clock, that's over. In fact, if I have a restless night, I'm fried the next day — and that didn't use to happen. A recreational license doesn't apply to a Luscombe — a Champ or a Cub, yes, but not a Luscombe.
So I fly with a good friend named Dirk Merrill, who is an aerial applicator — a crop duster. He's one of the finest men I've ever met and I really enjoy flying with him. Being a single-seater, I never really got used to flying with people, but I really enjoy flying with Dirk. There are a couple of guys from the company that drop in once in a while and we hop in the Luscombe and go for a ride."
And just in case you are wondering, Fed Ex stepped up big time and has taken very good care of these three pilots.
