On April 7, 1994, Federal Express Flight 705, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 cargo jet carrying electronics equipment across the United States from Memphis, Tennessee, to San Jose, California, was the subject of a hijack attempt by Auburn R. Calloway, a Federal Express employee facing possible dismissal for having lied about his flight hours.

[3] Calloway boarded the scheduled flight as a deadhead passenger carrying a guitar case concealing several hammers and a speargun.

He planned to crash the aircraft hoping that he would appear to be an employee killed in an accident, so that his family could collect on a $2.5 million life insurance policy provided by Federal Express.

[3] Also in the airplane was 42-year-old FedEx flight engineer Auburn Calloway, an alumnus of Stanford University and a former Navy pilot and martial-arts expert.

Calloway, who was divorced from his wife four years earlier, wanted to ensure that their two children were financially secure enough to attend college.

Furthermore he was facing a hearing scheduled the following day for falsifying his flight hours, and believed that dismissal was inevitable, although a colleague who had previously flown with Calloway stated that it was unlikely that FedEx would terminate an employee for such an offense.

[6] Before takeoff, as part of Calloway's plan to disguise the intended attack as an accident, he attempted to disable the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) by pulling its circuit breaker to interrupt power.

When the flight crew arrived they noticed that Calloway's presence in the cockpit was a breach of etiquette for a deadheading passenger, although they did not suspect hostile intent at the time.

During the standard preflight checks, Peterson, the flight engineer, noticed the pulled breaker and reset it before takeoff, reactivating the CVR.

[6] The blow to Tucker's head drilled shards of bone into his brain and temporarily rendered him unable to move or react, but he was still conscious.

Tucker, an ex-Navy pilot, performed extreme aerial maneuvers with the aircraft as the struggle between Calloway and the other crew members ensued.

At a speed of 460 knots (850 km/h; 530 mph), the plane's elevators fluttered so much that the control surfaces became unresponsive due to the disrupted airflow.

[4][10] As the DC-10 leveled off at 5,000 feet, Calloway managed to hit Sanders again while the struggle continued, and this time the blow nearly knocked him unconscious.

Sanders communicated with air traffic control, preparing for an emergency landing back at Memphis International Airport.

[6] The left side of First Officer Tucker's skull was severely fractured, causing motor control problems in his right arm and right leg.

Captain Sanders suffered several deep gashes in his head, and doctors had to sew his right ear back in place.

[citation needed] Later, on June 7, 2022, the aircraft experienced a fire in the rear lower cargo hold but was able to successfully divert to Tulsa.