was employed by Midwest Express in 1984 and later received his DC-9 type rating. At the time, he had accrued 5,197 total flight hours, including 1,640 hours on the DC-9 (500 hours as a First Officer of the DC-9 and 1,140 hours as a captain). He was a former employee of KC Aviation, the parent company of Midwest Express. Captain Weiss was also a former US Air Force pilot, flying an F-4. Flight Flight 105 took off at 15:20 with 27 passengers and 4 crew members. Flight 105 departed from Mitchell's Runway 19R en route to its destination of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Int'l Airport, Atlanta, Georgia. Before the flight, the plane had previously been operated as Flight 206 with the same flight crew. At 15:21, during its initial climb, at an altitude of 700 ft above the ground, the right engine exploded. Flight 105 swayed several times. Captain Martin heard the loud bang and reacted: "What the [expletive] was that?", which was not responded to by First Officer Weiss. Flight 105 was then instructed by the ATC to turn towards heading 175. At this stage, the ATC worker could see that smoke and flames were emanating from the right engine, with parts of the plane falling to the ground. First Officer Weiss declared an emergency. The plane then climbed with a high angle of attack. Due to the high angle of attack, the air speed decreased significantly. It began to roll to the right, and then stalled and rolled abruptly to an angle of 90 degrees, barrel-rolled at least once, and crashed into an open field in a wildlife preserve just several hundred meters from runway 19R. The aircraft was completely demolished by impact forces and fire, with nearly the entire structure fragmented. Investigation Roughly 100 eyewitnesses stated that they saw flames and smoke from the right engine shortly after the explosion and that some parts of the plane detached and fell to the ground. They also stated that loud bangs were continuously heard during the accident. Shortly afterwards, the crew lost control of the plane and the plane crashed into the field. Investigators then constructed several possible scenarios as to what might have caused the plane to lose control. Possible control failure due to turbine explosion Investigators immediately examined the fragments of the engine. They stated that the explosion might have been powerful enough to propel fragments of the turbine