Flight Safety Foundation
Professionalism Award in Flight Safety

is presented to

First Officer Mitchell Merchant
NetJets

For his decisive and skilled actions, along with Capt. Annette Saunders, in landing their severely damaged passenger airplane despite the nonfunctional cockpit instrumentation and restricted flight controls.

Capt. Saunders and First Officer Merchant were descending the Hawker 800XP through 16,000 feet when the wing of a glider sliced through the airplane’s nose, separating the radome and puncturing the cockpit. The instrument panel disintegrated, the cockpit filled with debris, Saunders’s headset was detached and the aircraft cabin was depressurized.

Saunders and Merchant quickly assessed the situation despite the difficulty in communicating with each other because of the 300-knot airstream roaring through the opening in the cockpit. Both pilots struggled to maintain control of the aircraft and fly it to an emergency landing at a nearby airport. Having reached the approach to the airport with the airframe badly compromised and the flight controls barely operable, the pilots then found they could not lower the landing gear because of the extreme structural damage. They coordinated control inputs to touch down as smoothly as possible as the airplane slid to a stop.

The pilots executed the emergency egress procedures and both crew and passengers escaped serious injury. Only after exiting the airplane did the pilots realize that a large section of the right wing had been lost. In addition, the right engine was inoperative because of structural failure.

Flight Safety Foundation is pleased to recognize First Officer Mitchell Merchant for his outstanding display of professionalism in an emergency.

FSF 52nd annual Corporate Aviation Safety Seminar
Tucson, Arizona, U.S.
May 9, 2007

William R. Voss
President and CEO
Flight Safety Foundation

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