707飞机俯冲向网球冠军约翰·麦肯罗的私人属地，

　　Seventy—three of the 158 passengers aboard died.

　　飞机上158名乘客中的73人丧生在牡蛎海湾美丽的长岛小镇。

　　It took less than a day for the cause of the crash to be determined: "fule exhaustion."

　　经过不到一天时间的调查，事故产生的原因被定义为“燃油不足”。

　　There was nothing wrong with the aircraft. There was nothing wrong with the airport.

　　不是飞机的原因，不是机场的原因，

　　The pilots weren't drunk or high. The plane had run out of gas.

　　飞行员既没有酒醉驾驶，也没有神志不清，只是飞机燃料用尽。

　　"It's a classic case," said Suren Ratwatte, a veteran pilot with Emirates Airlines, who has been involved for years in "human factors" research,

　　“这是个经典的案例”，身为阿拉伯皇家航空公司资深飞行员的苏伦·怀特瓦特说。怀特瓦特曾参与“人为因素”的调查工作达数年之久，

　　which is the analysis of how human beings interact with complex systems like airplanes.

　　该调查主要分析人类与核能源站和飞机这种比较复杂的系统之间的相互影响。

　　Ratwatte is Sri Lankan, a lively man in his forties who has been flying commercial jets his entire adult life.

　　怀特瓦特是斯里兰卡人，他已经50多岁但却依然精力充沛，自他成年之后就一直驾驶商用飞机。

　　We were sitting in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan.

　　我们一起坐在曼哈顿的谢尔顿酒店大堂里，

　　He'd just landed an Emirates jumbo jet at Kennedy Airport after a long flight from Dubai.

　　他驾驶阿拉伯皇家航空公司的大型喷气式客机刚刚从迪拜飞到了肯尼迪机场，这是一段长途飞行。

　　Ratwatte knew the Avianca case well.

　　怀特瓦特十分了解阿维安卡事故，

　　He began to tick off the typical crash preconditions. The nor'easter. The delayed flight. The minor technical malfunction with the autopilot.

　　他开始叙述飞机失事的原因：东北风暴、飞机延误、自动飞行装置失灵。

　　The three long holding patterns, when air traffic control required the plane to circle round and round,

　　三段漫长的候降经历——空中交通管制要求飞机在空中多次盘旋。

　　which meant not only eighty minutes of extra flying time but extra flying at low altitudes, where a plane burns far more fuel than it does in the thin air high above the clouds.

　　这不但使他们在空中多盘旋了80分钟，而且同高空飞行相比，低空飞行会使飞机燃烧更多的燃料。

　　"They were flying a sevenohseven, which is an older airplane and is very challenging to fly," Ratwatte said.

　　“他们驾驶的是707，这种飞机不但很旧，而且很难控制。”怀特瓦特说道。

　　"That thing is a lot of work. The flight controls are not hydraulically powered.

　　“它是上一代的飞机，飞行中你需要做许多工作，它的控制系统也不是水力发电的。

　　They are connected by a series of pulleys and pull rods to the physical metal surfaces of the airplane.

　　而是由一系列滑轮和拉杆与机身的金属表面相连所组成的。

　　You have to be quite strong to fly that airplane. You heave it around the sky. It's as much physical effort as rolling a boat.

　　开这种飞机你一定要有很好的体能，在飞行中它很重，需要消耗很大的体力，就好比你在划船时一样。

　　My current plan I fly with my fingertips. I use a joystick. My instruments are huge.

　　我最近开的飞机可以一伸手就触到许多操纵装置，我也用指控杆。

　　Theirs were the size of coffee cups. And his autopilot was gone.

　　飞机的仪器都很大，像咖啡杯那么大。他们的自动飞行系统失灵。