Plane crash theatre

A play based on black box recordings has stunned America and is set to do the same for Fringe audiences, writes JACKIE McGLONE

IN JULY 1986, UNITED AIRLINES Flight 232 lost an engine and all steering controls. Its pilot, Al Haynes, managed to land the plane, a DC-10, on Sioux City airstrip. One hundred and eleven people died in the crash; 186 lived.

It was Haynes's skill and immense courage, according to aviation experts, that prevented what could have been an even more disastrous landing and many more deaths. He became famous worldwide for his resourceful actions, resigning from the airline 12 years ago to travel around the United States talking about his experience to corporations and community groups.

One day, he discovered that the Collective Unconscious Theatre Company from New York was using Flight 232's black box transcript as part of a play, Charlie Victor Romeo. Based on six major airline emergencies – five disasters and one close call – the play's title is military phonetic alphabet code for cockpit voice recorder.

At first Haynes was sceptical. But he went to New York to see the production and, he says, was mesmerised by it.

There were two moments that deeply affected him, he says – hearing again the moment when he said: "Good luck, sweetheart," to flight attendant Jan Lohr as she came into the cockpit, and the sound of the impact. "I don't want people just to go watch this show so that they can be entertained by the ghoulishness of what takes place," he says now. The play's message, he says, is that pilots are only human, that teamwork can save lives, and communication is a two-way street. Nonetheless, the play is chilling. The dread words "We're going down" are followed by a co-pilot's exclamation: "Crash landing!"

The other crashes in the play include a 1985 mountain accident that killed 520 Japanese passengers and a 1994 Indiana crash in which a jet plummeted 8,000 feet in 35 seconds. But co-creator and director Bob Berger insists it is no sensationalist death trip.

"The play actually depicts unbelievable heroism on the part of people who are possibly aware, on an academic level, that there might not be anything they can do, but who are fighting to perform and persevere at a pitch that is just incredibly courageous," he says.

"It's about the human animal. What do you do if something horrible happens?"

Berger, a former CNN cameraman, says the play was partly inspired by his own powerful experiences covering the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800.

"I had some glimpses of what it was like to see the humanising effects of tragedy," he says. Covering the event led him to read obsessively about the aviation industry. However, it was while browsing in a Manhattan bookstore with his friend – and co-creator of the show – Irving Gregory, who had worked in intelligence in the US Army, that he discovered a copy of a book, The Black Box: All-New Cockpit Voice Recorder Accounts of In-Flight Accidents, by Malcolm Macpherson, which he had first read after covering the TWA crash.

He recalls looking over Gregory's shoulder as he read a transcript and saying that maybe they could do a play using that.

With colleague Patrick Daniels, they assembled the text of the play using transcripts that are all in the public domain.

"Sure, we had to deal with the ethics of this," he concedes. "We felt it was really important to treat the material with respect and with understanding of each actual event's impact. Therefore the script contains every um and ah, every cough and spit, because it's about how real people dealt with the most intense experience of their lives – their talent, their heroism and their grace under pressure."

The company first staged the show off-off-Broadway in 1999 and it's been playing across America ever since. Simply staged, its design includes a cockpit, the tip of the aircraft and a screen that introduces each episode.

The US Air Force has videotaped the show and now uses the tape to help members of the military recognise that every team job – from pumping the correct amount of fuel, to scanning a runway for debris before take-off, to actually piloting a plane – is vital. The tape is used to train people in understanding how team dynamics make the difference between life and death.

Pilots and air crew crowd into post-show discussions with Berger and company. "We were so moved by the fact that they felt the piece was being staged with integrity and forensic accuracy," he says.

Survivors of the disasters have seen the show, too. Wayne and Donna Buxton were on American Airlines Flight 1572, a 1995 Connecticut crash depicted in the play. It was the first time they had flown. They saw the production in Boston in 2006.

Later, Mrs Buxton said that she had not been sure it was something she wanted to see, but was glad that she went, "although," she says, "I felt like I was hit by a truck." Her husband admitted: "I never realised the fear the pilot and co-pilot must have had until I saw the play."

Berger has even had a letter from a general at the Pentagon thanking the company for saving the lives of government employees. "That is incredibly rewarding for us, regardless of our political beliefs, because we're talking about safety," he says. "To be of use outside the arts community with a piece of art that is a good piece of art, and also potentially something that is life-saving, is the most rewarding thing that's ever happened to me."

• Charlie Victor Romeo is at the Udderbelly Pasture, Edinburgh, 31 July until 25 August, as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.