Remembering a pilot's 1985 disaster-avoiding heroism

A car struck and killed retired Northwest Airlines pilot and longtime St. Paul resident Carl Simmons during his after-lunch walk Jan. 29 near his wintertime condo in Orange Beach, Ala. He was 82. The tragic accident came practically 36 years to the day after Capt. Simmons heroically maneuvered a suddenly crippled Boeing 727 into a safe landing at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport — narrowly avoiding a tragedy that easily could have claimed the lives of 52 passengers and nine crew members onboard Northwest Flight 573. “He was Sully before there was a Sully — only difference was Dad made it back to the runway instead of the Hudson River,” said Charlie Simmons, the younger of Carl’s two sons, referring to Capt. Chesley Sullenberger deftly ditching his Airbus A320 into the river in 2009 after losing his engines to a flock of geese, saving 155 lives. Simmons’ quick decision­making on Jan. 26, 1985, earned him the Superior Airmanship Award from the national Air Line Pilots Association, which he received from Vice President George Bush in Washington, D.C. But Simmons’ lifesaving role won little attention at the time. The Minneapolis Star and Tribune ran a brief on Page 3B about an emergency…
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