hughes airwest crash impact with terrain

When the coast was clear, he’d open the baggage bin and sneak me into the cockpit! I thought flying with my dad was the greatest thing in the world.” “He was a captain for Pacific Airlines and several times he’d sneak me into the baggage compartment on his DC-3 or F-27. I think I take after my mother I get a panic attack when I walk into the kitchen,” laughs Clark. “We loved my dad’s cooking he was pretty good at it and he enjoyed doing it for us. I was never encouraged to grow up and become a ‘submissive little homemaker.’ And my father, well, he simply adored my mother they were really in love.”Ĭlark’s father would get the children up, make breakfast and get them ready for school. “She was always there for us, but she also worked as a real estate agent. “My mother was a role model,” Clark smiles. I was a tomboy!”Ĭlark said she was lucky to have had two parents who were both working professionals, which wasn’t a fashionable thing back in the 1950s.

I was usually late for dinner, showing up in torn or dirty clothes. We always had inspirational conversations at the dinner table, the hub of our home. We had a truly picture-perfect childhood. “They’d play with dolls I made model airplanes. “My sisters never had any interest in aviation, although they’re my biggest supporters,” says Clark. She spent her adolescent years there with fraternal twin Judy, and older sister Sharon.

After a few trips with him as a young girl, she made the decision that aviation would be her career, too.Ĭlark, born in Hayward, Calif., in 1948, later moved to San Carlos, Calif. It’s in her blood.įrom Tomboy to Miss San Carlos to Flying DivaĬlark’s father, Ernie Clark, was an airline pilot and mentor. It’s easily understood why one of the nation’s top aerobatic performer’s passion climbs to new altitudes in her T-34 Mentor, Free Spirit (N134JC), or her brightly colored yellow T-28, Top Banana (N128JC). “Planning to retire doesn’t mean slowing down.” “Before I retire, I’m going to get my Airbus rating, too,” she said. She’s ready to devote fulltime status to her aerobatic stunts after she retires from Northwest in 2003, but that’s about a year away. No way!” says Clark, who was inducted into the Women in International Aviation Pioneer Hall of Fame in March 2000.Ĭlark, 55, has logged more than 25,000 accident- and incident-free flight hours during her 30 years of commercial flying. “People think that just because I’m a senior captain for Northwest Airlines, my desire for aviation is completely satisfied. Relaxing at her dining room table, Captain Julie Clark confesses that she’s not happy unless she’s flying. Julie Clark’s T-34 is powered by a 285-hp, fully blueprinted, 24-karat gold plated, horizontally-opposed V-6 engine manufactured by Victor Aviation of Palo Alto, Calif.

Hughes airwest crash impact with terrain