Guy Eby
Guy Eby was an American airline captain who kept the commercial airplane he was flying from colliding with another one on November 26, 1975, following a mistake from an air traffic controller in Cleveland, Ohio.
Early life
Eby was born on November 9, 1918, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. He received the Air Medal in 1946 for his services for United States Navy against Japan in 1945 towards the end of World War II. He flew in the Berlin Blockade. He joined American Airlines in 1950.1975 Michigan mid-air incident
The two planes, carrying a combined 319 passengers and crew members—192 passengers and 13 crew members on board American Airlines Flight 182, plus 103 passengers and 11 crew members on board Trans World Airlines Flight 37—were reportedly just away from each other as they flew over the city of Carleton, Michigan. Eby's plane was headed towards Newark, New Jersey, from Chicago, Illinois; it had originated in San Francisco, California. The other plane was heading from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Los Angeles, California.Eby quickly lowered his plane's altitude at amidst a significant cloud cover, an action which ultimately saved the lives of his passengers and the flight crew. All 10 flight attendants plus 14 passengers suffered injuries on the American Airlines plane, and it was forced to make an emergency landing in Detroit. At the time, Eby had already logged flight time of nearly 22,000 hours. Had the collision not been avoided, it would have been the deadliest aviation disaster in the history of United States up to that time.
The TWA plane involved in the incident was later destroyed by a fire on July 30, 1992, while flying as TWA Flight 843.