The Risk Of Low-Level Windshear: A Timeline Of Events
On the stormy afternoon of Aug. 2, 1985, I drove out of the north tollbooth at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport (KDFW), headed for my home in Dallas. As I accelerated, I felt my car begin to rock from side to side with increasing force. In order to maintain control of the car, I slowed way down and crept along the divided highway at about 10 mph. About 30 min. later, I heard that a Delta Air Lines L-1011 had crashed into a water tank located only a few hundred yards to the east of where I had been driving when the winds struck me. The cause of that crash was low-level wind shear.