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The Bloody Ordeal of FedEx Flight 705

© Patrick Worden

Flight Engineer Auburn Calloway knew his career was about to end. His employer, Federal Express, had recently uncovered a series of irregularities and outright falsifications in both his original employment application and in hundreds of hours of flight records. He was ordered to appear at a disciplinary hearing in the second week of April, 1994. He understood that the likeliest outcome of such a hearing would be his termination, and subsequently the loss of his FAA flight certification.

His solution was as simple as it was horrifying. He would provide for his family financially, end his own life, and in the process he would punish FedEx in the worst way imaginable.

April 7, 1994: FedEx Flight 705 was scheduled to depart the company’s home hub of Memphis, Tennessee for a routine flight to San Jose, California at a little after 3:00 in the afternoon. As Captain David Sanders, co-pilot Jim Tucker and engineer Andy Peterson boarded the aircraft, they were somewhat startled to see Auburn Calloway already on board, settled into the flight engineer’s station and initiating pre-flight procedures. Although it was not unusual for FedEx employees to hitch rides on regular flights—a practice termed “jumpseating”—it was a pronounced breach of protocol for such deadheaders to interfere with flight operations. They said nothing, though, and Calloway wordlessly gave his seat to Andy Peterson. He strapped himself into a jumpseat aft of the cockpit. At his feet was a guitar case, the only baggage he had brought on board.

Less than thirty minutes into the flight, the bloodbath began.

The weapons that Calloway chose for his attack seem bizarre and indicative of a deranged mind. When one understands the cold calculation of his plan, though, the terrible logic becomes clear. The guitar case contained two claw hammers, two sledge mallets, a knife and a speargun. Calloway could have easily smuggled a gun on board Flight 705, but he wanted to inflict no injuries that were inconsistent with an air crash—for that was at the heart of his plan. Having already purchased thousands of dollars worth of death and dismemberment insurance, he planned to bludgeon to death the crew of Flight 705, then crash the DC-10 into the terminal of the Memphis Superhub. His own death would secure his family’s future, while the devastating crash would likely destroy FedEx. But first he had to kill the crew; it was their will to survive that foiled Auburn Calloway’s plan.