They had a tailwind component from the git-go. They took off on RWY 16 and the tower reported a wind direction of 270. So the wind was coming from their right rear quarter when they started.
0:08 Many, many thanks for your innovation of the countdown clock timing how long before the informative text disappears. The simplest solutions are the best. Bravo ragazzo!
For all the non-pilot keyboard warriors out there...When a headwind turns into a tailwind, the aircraft's indicated airspeed reduces along with the lift force. To counter this, the crew pitches down to decrease the angle of attack and regain the speed so the aircraft does not stall and fall out the sky.
Here is one for you: even if the wind was shifting, what considering the 4 knots at the time of the clearance and all the environmental cues is unlikely - the it is a WINDSHEAR and the maneuver for that is: Thrustlever TOGA, follow SRS or 17,5 degrees pitch up ( 17,5 is for A320 family and might differ slightly on the A340) but surely YOU NEVER REACT WITH PITCH DOWN. Way more likely is that the performance/ weight and balance numbers were wonky (whoevers fault that was).
@@DanBirasi keyboard expert from Holiday Inn here and the crew pitching down not to stall but maintain horizontal flight sounds right. Off to test it on War Thunder, ciao.
@@eurekamoe3744you may have missed the first instruction - it was to increase throttle to TOGA (max). You would risk over speeding your flaps and gear, if the pitch wasn't adjusted, I am willing to bet.
@@eurekamoe3744 At low speeds, increasing the AOA increases lift but increases drag by greater amount. The key input in the lift equation in the situation is airspeed. Hope you find yourself a new instructor or hit the books mate
Hopefully the Swiss air accident investigation team have access to this comment section. The case has been solved and the aircraft hasn’t even touched down …
If the female pilot is on the radios it means she's Pilot non flying, so whether you hate women or wokeness, it was probably her male colleague on the other seat doing the actual flying.
@@Fatpumpumlovah2. The calm female voice on the radio is operating a multimillion dollar airplane going 500 miles an hour, and you are crying about DEI on a computer keyboard. She doesn’t need DEI: you might. @easypeasy-analytics has it right: the flight data recorder in the A340 had already transmitted to the ground what had happened before the airplane got to 10,000’. They already know what happened, and what the cause was.
Been a GA pilot for 22 yrs and come to these sites to read the informative comments. It’s like a refresher in lift, AOA, etc. Thanks for all those great comments
A340 has an excellent safety record. Not one fatality in over 30 years of service. How many twin engine types in service that long can match that record?
Curious that there is smoke or steam rising vertically in the background (about 1 minute 02 seconds) suggesting that the wind was very local to the runway.
Most comments here concentrate to issues of aviating. Let me add remarks as to the location LSZH / ZRH and the meteorological situation on April, 6, 13:00L: Prevailing wind was weak and constantly changing direction. Historical data show 8 kn from 150. ATC's 4kn 270 shows that wind was indeed oscillating. It could have changed in a matter of seconds to the prevailing wind, a favorable headwind for that plane, departing from RW 16. Now that favorable wind could then have been spontaneously superseded by a thermal mountain wind. Even more so at 13:00 hrs on a very sunny April day, with the ground still being cool, heated air raising above Zurichberg (approx 4 miles SSE to the airport) could create a wind gust directed at roughly 160 = tailwind for the departing plane. Assuming that this tailwind was only 10 knots that makes for a difference of 18 knots of airspeed. Not enough to stall given the 1.3 factor between VRef and Stall/Stick shake speed, yet probably enough to produce a sudden drop in lift. Experienced aviators are welcome to challenge my last statement.
Your last comment is exactly what the problem is. I'm an experienced boundary layer meteorologist so I guess I cannot challenge your statement. The arrogance of pilots is second only to medics and they both have a lot in common: that arrogance has led to a lot of deaths.
@@typhoon2827 great comment :) I'm a aeronautical meteorologist, and it's bit funny how tis guys think they know MET. At the end, my bet is Wake turbulence.
@@gligormitkovski9536 mmm, I'm not so sure. I'd have thought the pilot would've come out with wake turbulence if it had been so. Instead he was straight out with 'tailwind'. My money is on a bad weight or speed calculation or erroneous input for take off. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough but in the meantime, pilots will be pilots and call each other heroes. I'd like to think the correct response would've been "we don't know, we're just trying to work things out", but that would require someone's ego to be less inflated.
@@gligormitkovski9536 The really funny thing is that you think that your blind bet is somehow more likely than my educated and well reasoned guess about surface wind occurrences in a specific place which I happen to know very well.
@@typhoon2827 Fortunately your reading and comprehension skills are surely good enough to understand that words which I used - "could" and "assuming that" indicate possibilities of a tailwind occurring. And not certainty. Unfortunately your self-restraint was not enough to stop you from stating the obvious - that we do not know yet.
Power about the A340 ? Must be a joke… 4 small engines . When it takes of from airports located high from the ground level and the temperature is warm it needs a mega long runway, and the airline operating the aircraft has to desembark either passengers or cargo load … what a wonderful plane 😂… nobody wants to buy the A340 on the market …
Just had a similar experience but not as dramatic out of Denver CO. Started to rotate then back on the runway for a bit more until finally took off. I presume we had a sudden tailwind.
In a crucial moment as the rotation, a sudden tailwind of only 5 knots can have a significant implication on an aircraft’s performance. Of course that gets worse if you are in an aircraft with quite bad performance anyway. The flight crew did the only thing they can, lower the nose, build up speed and try to get out of there. Low level inversions are very common, so a sudden change of temperature, wind speed and also wind direction only a few feet above the runway are a very likely scenario actually. Good thing the crew didn’t retract the gear at the first signs of a positive climb.
Barely out of ground effect, too. This was a clinic on proper response to a surprise tailwind encounter. At least the turbines were spooled up. (Quick! You in the back! Pedal faster!)
sorry . any plane must not react to such a little bit of tailwind. The pilots must choose a speed for rotation that is safe above the minimum take off speed including 5 knots of tailwind , there was clearly something wrong, I mean how slowly the front wheel left the runway, they were just way too slow.
Doesn’t look like a tailwind to me. The smoke in the background is going straight up. More likely they calculated the wrong V-speeds, Which would indeed make the aircraft want to settle back down again. Would like to see the FDR trace. R
I DOUBT IT WAS TAILWIND. If you zoom in you can see the elevators of the horizontal stabilizers go neutral right before the aircraft started to pitch down
Kudos to the cockpit crew if that was really the case. They or rather the single person who was commanding the controls at the time took splitsecond decisions to fix things.
The issue is not the strength of wind. But its unexpected appearance. A mere 5-10 knots of tailwind (EDIT 1: as opposed to a previous headwind) can produce the effect we could see. And yes, wind gusts can spontaneously occur in very confined spots, especially in regions close to mountains and hills and large lakes. Even more so when the ground is cold, but the sunshine already intense. Say, like in April in Zurich. EDIT 2: They took off from ZRH's longest runway 16 (roughly SSE) allegedly with 4kn of a generally westerly (270) wind, so a weak crosswind from starboard. However that information from ATC is at odds with historical data for wind, which is approx. 150 (nearly headwind), 8 knots. So if they got a tailwind of 5-10 knots instead, that makes 13-18 knots of a difference in airspeed. Not enough to stall, but enough to produce an unexpected drop of lift.
@@Chris56456 Between 0:46 and 0:52 she is rotating very slowly. Apparently, the real airspeed is significantly lower than what was calculated based on the expected wind. However she is not stalling yet. To prevent that they pitch down, to gain speed while riding the ground effect. However starting at 0:55 she starts to sink slowly. This effect to my understanding is the net of: reducing the angle of attack (-), reducing drag (+), increasing the forward vector in relation to the vertical vector of their flight path, thereby increasing speed (+). So how does all this give a slightly negative net effect ? Probably that tailwind increasing all the time, offsetting the net gains on climbing. Anyway they pitch up again, probably touching ground at 0:58 (which would reduce speed) yet start climbing slowly (probably engaging full thrust), gaining a visible climbing speed only from 1:05. What is your view ?
@@andy99ish I think the indicated airspeed would react immediately to the gust/shear. If they rotated at the proper speed, it would take a lot of wind shift to get a low speed cue if a standard Vr safety factor of 20-30% was applied. Like you would need a 30kt negative performance shear to cause this if the calculations were correct
Would be interesting to know whether there was a departure on the crossing runway just before this A340 took off, if so I would argue that the wake vortex of the other aircraft could have impacted the airspeed of the A340 similar to a Tunisair B737 at Frankfurt a few years ago. Just visually it would make sense, but well, we are not in the cockpit here..
that was a landing in Frankfurt mind, and rotation on 28 typically occurs only on the crossing, unless we are talking bizjet, in which case the vortex would be negligible. The effect here was well beyond the crossing and is very much consistent with a burst of tailwind
bsh, the elevator was raised during rotation and detachment and the plane began to climb, then the elevator was lowered and the plane leveled off and began to sink, so the elevator was raised again and the plane began to increase the pitch again so as not to hit the runway. if there was a tailwind, the elevator would have remained raised or they would have raised it even more, but they would have never lowered it
@@sirifail4499past and present at RCA, as I fly I look at the plane and follow its behavior, this plane behaves according to the movements of the elevator
Podľa mňa to bola predčasne vykonaná rotácia a nie zadný vietor, protože vzadu je vedieť dym ako stúpa kolmo hore, teda počasie bolo stabilné, takmer bezvetrie. Chrbtový, alebo premenlivý vietor vzniká pri veľmi turbulentnom počasí.
This plane is underpowered...flew on one out of Zurich in 2005...could hardly remain airborne for over 1 hour after take off....I met the pilots after landing I said what do you reckon about this plane his reply was it's okay..
Smokestack showing no wind, both airport windsocks showing no significant wind. Perhaps the W&B numbers were off and the wrong rotation speed was input?
This chimney is quite far away and just at the end of the video you can see the smoke leaning *towards the direction of flight*. Matches a gust reaching it. The wind is variable, which makes it tricky.
The issue is not the strength of wind. But its unexpected appearance. A mere 5-10 knots can produce the effect we could see. And yes, wind can spontaneously occur in very confined spots, especially in regions close to mountains and hills. Even more so when the ground is cold, but the sunshine already intense. Say, like in April in Zurich.
Sudden tail wind is more of a wind shear issue and warning when gutsy winds are detected should be provided. Vertical radars echoing air masses layers exist for this protection. Typically, the risk is high while landing against a strong head wind which suddenly collapses and the plane has then not enough total energy of speed and altitude left to reach safely the runway. Another tragic error is to fly at a slow air speed against a strong head wind for instance to take a picture of a site and then turn 180 degree while loosing more air speed by turning and ending at opposite side into strong tail wind now and miserably stall with NO airspeed and a heavy plane taking way too much time to accelerate.... Here at take off, although fast enough to take off and go up fast, the excessive rotation and then the excess frontal area presented with the rotation inertia and horizontal move inertia of a long body “slow him down” almost…and this ends a good acceleration…quickly regained by a short dive…the A340 being well known for being underpowered and heavy since Cancun is quite far away from Zurich.😮
I dont see why they would lower the pitch for a "tailwind on rotation" aka WINDSHEAR I'm pretty sure the standard would to be TOGA -> increase pitch verify positive rate you know like the standard windshear procedure??
Looks like they rotated early in a low powered aeroplane, leaving them vulnerable to low level wind shear. It looked like it was hauled off the ground before it was really ready to fly. Vr and V2 are calculated, so that shouldn't happen.
I think they rotated to early and/or the PF was concerned about a tailstrike and didn't apply enough or the proper amount of back pressure on the sidestick.
In my most humble armchair opinion this had nothing to do with wind shear. There was a noticeable change in pitch immediately after liftoff causing the plane to lose altitude and touch down. I’ve never seen that before. If you look at the smoke stack in the background the smoke is rising straight up. Not conducive for wind shear. It’ll be interesting to see.
I'm a Nasa Pilot with 30 years of flying experience. I would have just ignored the wind and keep flying in an upward direction. Not sure why they didn't do that.
Most airlines have 10kt max tailwind component for T/O. Variable winds at 4kts should have been no issue. Obviously that was not the case. Well piloted
What if it was an incorrect take-off and the pilot just quickly blamed the wind to cover up an error.. seems like they knew they had a tail wind and did not adjust accordingly
Seems as a bit too much down elevator by the FBW or the pilot? You never know in an airbus. Corroborating is the fact that a 4 engined aircraft has less excess thrust than twin engine.
The FAA wouldn't be interested. There was no accident and it was a Swiss registred aircraft that was departing from a Swiss airport. Only the airline would have an interest in what hapenned.
@@ksm1985 As I understand it, because there was no accident nor failure of any aircraft component or injury to passenegers or crew, there is no requirement by the aviation authorities to investgate. I believe that the airline may be obligated to do so. I can't quote that as 100% fact, but that's how I understand it to be.
@@ksm1985 You're welcome. As I said, that's how I understand it from my years within the airline industry, but at the same time I'm not a legal expert!
Looks like they rotated too early…. Plane wasn’t ready to fly… the plane didn’t come off the runway when they initially rotated, I think they got airborne at a very low airspeed and needed to level off to gain airspeed
It didn't look like it wanted to fly at any point in that video. The chimney in the background suggests theres little wind. I'd expect a bit better from such an overpowered aircraft.
A 340s can be real dogs on climb out. One driver when asked by ATC to increase climb rate on departure responded at max climb. I think 1200 feet/min was mentioned. Then said motors are like having blow dryers on the wings.
She sounded very calm for what they just experienced. Nice recovery. Probably the worst plane to have that experience. The A340's have a reputation of being a bit under-powered.
@@Flyingcircusclown25 I have a friend who was a captain on A-300's and then 777's, and he always said that the A340's were powered by Conair hair dryers, with the exception of the A340-600.
It doesn't look like a tailwind to me, that change on the AOA looks more like pilot input, like pushing FWD or simply letting the column go. Although I have to admit that unlike everybody else on youtube, I'm not a pilot. Yet.
V1 and V2 were wrongly introduced in the flight parameters. Clearly they rotated before having enough speed for the load in the aircraft. They were fast to find an excuse for their mistake.
ATC told them 4 kn wind from West (270). However historical data show 8 kn on average from generally 150, so they generally had headwind. Not sure if that was a classical Föhn with its markedly shifting wind speeds. Assuming that they had just the 8 kn of headwind: If they suddenly got a tailwind of merely 10 knots, that makes 18 knots less airspeed. Quite significant. Re wind change: A weak wind from 150 can easily be superseded by a thermal wind. Say, on a very sunny April day, with the ground still being cool, the heated air (13:00 hours!) raising above Zurichberg and creating thermal wind gusts towards it = at 160 = tailwind.
I don’t know if being a Tailwind Expert is even a thing. But what I do know is that an A340-300 with its weak engines, as well as a takeoff without TOGA, will struggle to climb out of any runway
Hmm. I would have waited till I was gear and flap up climbing away safely before worrying about explaining to observers why my take off was wonkey. As my military instructor drilled into me. Aviate, navigate then communicate.
4 kt wind is nothing they pushed the stick forward look at the rear stab makes an abrupt move and then the nose pitches down and lift goes away... they were configured wrong hence the meagre lift off and had to correct it but did a bad job...total pilot error on that one.
What's really interesting is how soon the pilot communicates the issue with ATC. Gear still down, ~50ft above the ground and in suspected windshear. I know of airlines where that alone would be a de-briefing topic.
Ahemahembullshitahem. That pesky headwind that turns into a tailwind without any crosswind as it swings around... When are we going to stop blowing bubbles up pilots' aresholes?
They had a tailwind component from the git-go.
They took off on RWY 16 and the tower reported a wind direction of 270. So the wind was coming from their right rear quarter when they started.
Pilot was very chilled about it ….. good training and experience clearly on display.
They have already accepted their fate every time they enter this aircraft.
Ohh! I felt the butterflies in my stomach watching that takeoff!
0:08 Many, many thanks for your innovation of the countdown clock timing how long before the informative text disappears.
The simplest solutions are the best.
Bravo ragazzo!
Glad you like, cheers ☺
For all the non-pilot keyboard warriors out there...When a headwind turns into a tailwind, the aircraft's indicated airspeed reduces along with the lift force. To counter this, the crew pitches down to decrease the angle of attack and regain the speed so the aircraft does not stall and fall out the sky.
Here is one for you: even if the wind was shifting, what considering the 4 knots at the time of the clearance and all the environmental cues is unlikely - the it is a WINDSHEAR and the maneuver for that is: Thrustlever TOGA, follow SRS or 17,5 degrees pitch up ( 17,5 is for A320 family and might differ slightly on the A340) but surely YOU NEVER REACT WITH PITCH DOWN. Way more likely is that the performance/ weight and balance numbers were wonky (whoevers fault that was).
@@DanBirasi keyboard expert from Holiday Inn here and the crew pitching down not to stall but maintain horizontal flight sounds right. Off to test it on War Thunder, ciao.
@@DanBirasi Even a pilot with only 50 hours knows that decreasing the pitch will decrease the angle of attack and that will reduce lift!!!
@@eurekamoe3744you may have missed the first instruction - it was to increase throttle to TOGA (max). You would risk over speeding your flaps and gear, if the pitch wasn't adjusted, I am willing to bet.
@@eurekamoe3744 At low speeds, increasing the AOA increases lift but increases drag by greater amount. The key input in the lift equation in the situation is airspeed. Hope you find yourself a new instructor or hit the books mate
Even in perfect weather conditions, this plane has an initial clime rate of 3' per hour...
@@DaveP-uv1ml 🤣🤣🤣
@@DaveP-uv1ml A340-200/300 is basically powered by 5 APUs 🤣
Hairdryers under the wings.
Hopefully the Swiss air accident investigation team have access to this comment section. The case has been solved and the aircraft hasn’t even touched down …
No accident, no case, no investigation. There's a thing called weather. Or maybe they rotated a bit early.
DEI hire (female pilot) calls her Fart a tailwind.. you can see the elevator pitch down!!!! (probably hands not on controls during the fart)
If the female pilot is on the radios it means she's Pilot non flying, so whether you hate women or wokeness, it was probably her male colleague on the other seat doing the actual flying.
@@Fatpumpumlovah2. The calm female voice on the radio is operating a multimillion dollar airplane going 500 miles an hour, and you are crying about DEI on a computer keyboard. She doesn’t need DEI: you might. @easypeasy-analytics has it right: the flight data recorder in the A340 had already transmitted to the ground what had happened before the airplane got to 10,000’. They already know what happened, and what the cause was.
@@spitfireinvasion Are you suggesting that a female pilot must be accompanied by a male pilot ?
Been a GA pilot for 22 yrs and come to these sites to read the informative comments. It’s like a refresher in lift, AOA, etc. Thanks for all those great comments
They always know better than you(!)
A340 has an excellent safety record. Not one fatality in over 30 years of service. How many twin engine types in service that long can match that record?
787 and A350 both on their way there.
it also helps that there were much less A340s ever in service than other types like 777 and A330
@@Gusearth Still can't beat zero :)
Curious that there is smoke or steam rising vertically in the background (about 1 minute 02 seconds) suggesting that the wind was very local to the runway.
Most comments here concentrate to issues of aviating.
Let me add remarks as to the location LSZH / ZRH and the meteorological situation on April, 6, 13:00L:
Prevailing wind was weak and constantly changing direction. Historical data show 8 kn from 150. ATC's 4kn 270 shows that wind was indeed oscillating. It could have changed in a matter of seconds to the prevailing wind, a favorable headwind for that plane, departing from RW 16.
Now that favorable wind could then have been spontaneously superseded by a thermal mountain wind. Even more so at 13:00 hrs on a very sunny April day, with the ground still being cool, heated air raising above Zurichberg (approx 4 miles SSE to the airport) could create a wind gust directed at roughly 160 = tailwind for the departing plane.
Assuming that this tailwind was only 10 knots that makes for a difference of 18 knots of airspeed. Not enough to stall given the 1.3 factor between VRef and Stall/Stick shake speed, yet probably enough to produce a sudden drop in lift. Experienced aviators are welcome to challenge my last statement.
Your last comment is exactly what the problem is. I'm an experienced boundary layer meteorologist so I guess I cannot challenge your statement.
The arrogance of pilots is second only to medics and they both have a lot in common: that arrogance has led to a lot of deaths.
@@typhoon2827 great comment :)
I'm a aeronautical meteorologist, and it's bit funny how tis guys think they know MET. At the end, my bet is Wake turbulence.
@@gligormitkovski9536 mmm, I'm not so sure. I'd have thought the pilot would've come out with wake turbulence if it had been so. Instead he was straight out with 'tailwind'. My money is on a bad weight or speed calculation or erroneous input for take off. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough but in the meantime, pilots will be pilots and call each other heroes. I'd like to think the correct response would've been "we don't know, we're just trying to work things out", but that would require someone's ego to be less inflated.
@@gligormitkovski9536 The really funny thing is that you think that your blind bet is somehow more likely than my educated and well reasoned guess about surface wind occurrences in a specific place which I happen to know very well.
@@typhoon2827 Fortunately your reading and comprehension skills are surely good enough to understand that words which I used - "could" and "assuming that" indicate possibilities of a tailwind occurring. And not certainty.
Unfortunately your self-restraint was not enough to stop you from stating the obvious - that we do not know yet.
Zoom in the video and watch the "rear wings" operation. Absolutely fantastic pilot-in-control reaction
I was on a Delta 727 once that touched rotated, came off the runway, settled back down, then took off again. Scary
If the same thing happened on a Boeing, the media would be blaming Boeing
A340-300 showing its immense power
I hope it's sarcasm... 😂
The aircraft with 5 APU's
@@CaptainB747 You made my day
Power about the A340 ? Must be a joke… 4 small engines . When it takes of from airports located high from the ground level and the temperature is warm it needs a mega long runway, and the airline operating the aircraft has to desembark either passengers or cargo load … what a wonderful plane 😂… nobody wants to buy the A340 on the market …
Immense power from 4 B737 motors
I like that growly sound of the engines.
B757 "hold my beer"
Props to the flight crew for managing those seconds with a calm and professional demeanor 😮
Worst possible aircraft to have this happen to. A tailwind on rotation on an A340-300
Why the worst? I do believe many aircrafts suffer from this kind of scenario
Because its powered by hairdryers 😅
@@macky4074🤣🤣🤣
HeathGallagher-xc1bhexactly! Would’ve been much more difficult otherwise
It could have been worse, it could have been a Boeing 737 Max series plane 😅
Just had a similar experience but not as dramatic out of Denver CO. Started to rotate then back on the runway for a bit more until finally took off. I presume we had a sudden tailwind.
The pilot was so calm n composed. I on the other hand as a passenger wud have shat my pants.
The "TAILWIND" factor was likely a result of wrong pre-flight, take off performance calcs input by the crew.
True
I don't want to imagine what it feels like as a passenger!
In a crucial moment as the rotation, a sudden tailwind of only 5 knots can have a significant implication on an aircraft’s performance. Of course that gets worse if you are in an aircraft with quite bad performance anyway. The flight crew did the only thing they can, lower the nose, build up speed and try to get out of there. Low level inversions are very common, so a sudden change of temperature, wind speed and also wind direction only a few feet above the runway are a very likely scenario actually. Good thing the crew didn’t retract the gear at the first signs of a positive climb.
Barely out of ground effect, too. This was a clinic on proper response to a surprise tailwind encounter. At least the turbines were spooled up. (Quick! You in the back! Pedal faster!)
sorry . any plane must not react to such a little bit of tailwind. The pilots must choose a speed for rotation that is safe above the minimum take off speed including 5 knots of tailwind , there was clearly something wrong, I mean how slowly the front wheel left the runway, they were just way too slow.
@christianbayerstein5243 yes pilots did something
Danke. Tschüss
Doesn’t look like a tailwind to me.
The smoke in the background is going straight up.
More likely they calculated the wrong V-speeds,
Which would indeed make the aircraft want to settle back down again.
Would like to see the FDR trace.
R
Yes this is not tail wind
How far away is the smoke? Wind direction can shift suddenly and take a few seconds to reach the smokestack.
Windspeed obviously changed to an extreme degree over the length of the runway. So this is a localised event, e.g. a downburst.
I DOUBT IT WAS TAILWIND. If you zoom in you can see the elevators of the horizontal stabilizers go neutral right before the aircraft started to pitch down
You are right. I saw that as well.
@@KenHashno tailwind here .pilots did something wrong
I love the swiss accent of the tower.
Kudos to the cockpit crew if that was really the case.
They or rather the single person who was commanding the controls at the time took splitsecond decisions to fix things.
The issue is not the strength of wind. But its unexpected appearance. A mere 5-10 knots of tailwind (EDIT 1: as opposed to a previous headwind) can produce the effect we could see. And yes, wind gusts can spontaneously occur in very confined spots, especially in regions close to mountains and hills and large lakes. Even more so when the ground is cold, but the sunshine already intense. Say, like in April in Zurich.
EDIT 2: They took off from ZRH's longest runway 16 (roughly SSE) allegedly with 4kn of a generally westerly (270) wind, so a weak crosswind from starboard. However that information from ATC is at odds with historical data for wind, which is approx. 150 (nearly headwind), 8 knots. So if they got a tailwind of 5-10 knots instead, that makes 13-18 knots of a difference in airspeed. Not enough to stall, but enough to produce an unexpected drop of lift.
What safety factor does Vref have over the stick shaker speed?
@@Chris56456 They were not stalling. So the .3 margin is not relevant here.
Also note my edit in my original comment.
@@andy99ish what’s happening then? What is the effect that we see?
@@Chris56456 Between 0:46 and 0:52 she is rotating very slowly. Apparently, the real airspeed is significantly lower than what was calculated based on the expected wind. However she is not stalling yet. To prevent that they pitch down, to gain speed while riding the ground effect. However starting at 0:55 she starts to sink slowly. This effect to my understanding is the net of: reducing the angle of attack (-), reducing drag (+), increasing the forward vector in relation to the vertical vector of their flight path, thereby increasing speed (+). So how does all this give a slightly negative net effect ? Probably that tailwind increasing all the time, offsetting the net gains on climbing. Anyway they pitch up again, probably touching ground at 0:58 (which would reduce speed) yet start climbing slowly (probably engaging full thrust), gaining a visible climbing speed only from 1:05.
What is your view ?
@@andy99ish I think the indicated airspeed would react immediately to the gust/shear. If they rotated at the proper speed, it would take a lot of wind shift to get a low speed cue if a standard Vr safety factor of 20-30% was applied. Like you would need a 30kt negative performance shear to cause this if the calculations were correct
Not sure about what the PNF said here …. the plane was slow to lift from the ground, I will look at the VR speeds if I have to do an investigation
How common is this? I felt like we were falling on a recent flight upon takeoff. Someone even screamed.
Would be interesting to know whether there was a departure on the crossing runway just before this A340 took off, if so I would argue that the wake vortex of the other aircraft could have impacted the airspeed of the A340 similar to a Tunisair B737 at Frankfurt a few years ago. Just visually it would make sense, but well, we are not in the cockpit here..
that was a landing in Frankfurt mind, and rotation on 28 typically occurs only on the crossing, unless we are talking bizjet, in which case the vortex would be negligible.
The effect here was well beyond the crossing and is very much consistent with a burst of tailwind
bsh, the elevator was raised during rotation and detachment and the plane began to climb, then the elevator was lowered and the plane leveled off and began to sink, so the elevator was raised again and the plane began to increase the pitch again so as not to hit the runway. if there was a tailwind, the elevator would have remained raised or they would have raised it even more, but they would have never lowered it
Are you a pilot? I didn’t think so.
@@sirifail4499 former,and current on RCA,i watch my aircraft while i fly it and this plane followed elevator movement
@@sirifail4499past and present at RCA, as I fly I look at the plane and follow its behavior, this plane behaves according to the movements of the elevator
@makantahi3731 it wasn't tailwind for sure .the pilots did something
@@AnetaMihaylova-d6f yes, pilots did what we saw
I love it when these clowns “flying” in their parents basement give input on something they are absolutely clueless on!🤣
What is the pilot doing on the radio 50 feet off the ground???
There are two pilots.
@@TesterAnimal1 No shit! :D
Podľa mňa to bola predčasne vykonaná rotácia a nie zadný vietor, protože vzadu je vedieť dym ako stúpa kolmo hore, teda počasie bolo stabilné, takmer bezvetrie. Chrbtový, alebo premenlivý vietor vzniká pri veľmi turbulentnom počasí.
Was it the Airbus automatic systems pitching down or the pilot . . . ❓
I don't know what she thought the guy in the tower could do. "Err, sorry about that" ??
Tell the next departing pilot to use caution.
Very interesting how quickly they could put the nose down.
The nose was still above the horizon but they reduced the pitch, for whatever reason
still climbing to cruise to this day
There's no wind. This was a pilot input error. There was no wing drop at all. Look at the smoke stack in the background. There's no wind.
This plane is underpowered...flew on one out of Zurich in 2005...could hardly remain airborne for over 1 hour after take off....I met the pilots after landing I said what do you reckon about this plane his reply was it's okay..
Smokestack showing no wind, both airport windsocks showing no significant wind. Perhaps the W&B numbers were off and the wrong rotation speed was input?
This chimney is quite far away and just at the end of the video you can see the smoke leaning *towards the direction of flight*. Matches a gust reaching it. The wind is variable, which makes it tricky.
The issue is not the strength of wind. But its unexpected appearance. A mere 5-10 knots can produce the effect we could see. And yes, wind can spontaneously occur in very confined spots, especially in regions close to mountains and hills. Even more so when the ground is cold, but the sunshine already intense. Say, like in April in Zurich.
The smoke stack is probably like 5 kms away.
Sudden tail wind is more of a wind shear issue and warning when gutsy winds are detected should be provided. Vertical radars echoing air masses layers exist for this protection. Typically, the risk is high while landing against a strong head wind which suddenly collapses and the plane has then not enough total energy of speed and altitude left to reach safely the runway. Another tragic error is to fly at a slow air speed against a strong head wind for instance to take a picture of a site and then turn 180 degree while loosing more air speed by turning and ending at opposite side into strong tail wind now and miserably stall with NO airspeed and a heavy plane taking way too much time to accelerate.... Here at take off, although fast enough to take off and go up fast, the excessive rotation and then the excess frontal area presented with the rotation inertia and horizontal move inertia of a long body “slow him down” almost…and this ends a good acceleration…quickly regained by a short dive…the A340 being well known for being underpowered and heavy since Cancun is quite far away from Zurich.😮
The windsock is clearly showing a tailwind.
Not much, but sufficient as an explanation.
I dont see why they would lower the pitch for a "tailwind on rotation" aka WINDSHEAR I'm pretty sure the standard would to be TOGA -> increase pitch verify positive rate you know like the standard windshear procedure??
I am assuming they had to reduce the wing’s angle of attack due to the loss of air speed over the wing. To avoid a stall.
And the smoke on the chimney climbing straight.🤷
Looks like they rotated early in a low powered aeroplane, leaving them vulnerable to low level wind shear. It looked like it was hauled off the ground before it was really ready to fly. Vr and V2 are calculated, so that shouldn't happen.
Rotated too early, then over compensated pushing the nose down too much. Only rear wind was from her arse when she nearly shat herself.
Maybe … the plane was slow to lift itself from the ground, I will look at the VR speeds if I have to do an investigation
I think they rotated to early and/or the PF was concerned about a tailstrike and didn't apply enough or the proper amount of back pressure on the sidestick.
In my most humble armchair opinion this had nothing to do with wind shear. There was a noticeable change in pitch immediately after liftoff causing the plane to lose altitude and touch down. I’ve never seen that before. If you look at the smoke stack in the background the smoke is rising straight up. Not conducive for wind shear. It’ll be interesting to see.
Looks like she dropped the nose 5 degrees, I’ve rotated 10,000 times never had a tailwind on rotation.
I agree. Her pitch over was far too aggressive that low to the ground. I think maybe they were heavier than the dispatcher's paperwork.
Ich liebe Edelweiss wir fliegen seit Jahren nur mit Edelweiss liebe Grüsse Ch
I'm a Nasa Pilot with 30 years of flying experience. I would have just ignored the wind and keep flying in an upward direction. Not sure why they didn't do that.
I love the A340 I’ve only flown on a pair of 200/300 srs always enjoy the leisurely and lengthy take off .😃
True the a340-300 is so underpowered
Most airlines have 10kt max tailwind component for T/O. Variable winds at 4kts should have been no issue. Obviously that was not the case. Well piloted
What if it was an incorrect take-off and the pilot just quickly blamed the wind to cover up an error.. seems like they knew they had a tail wind and did not adjust accordingly
Seems as a bit too much down elevator by the FBW or the pilot? You never know in an airbus. Corroborating is the fact that a 4 engined aircraft has less excess thrust than twin engine.
WOW!
Well done the crew
Real footage of what? The voice recording? The video footage is from MSFS... O.o
And I am piloting one of the most underpowered airliners built?
Nice flying. Clearly very alert to the potential for it and dealt with it brilliantly.
The investigation will come forward with not so nicely. 😉
No no no! Stop blowing bubbles up pilots' backsides. WTF is wrong with you people? They're not all heroes!
@@typhoon2827 Yes 🙌 we are 😂😂😂😉
@@credera 😂👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Does anyone know if this reported to the FAA? Because i will be passing this information on. It needs to be investigated
The FAA wouldn't be interested. There was no accident and it was a Swiss registred aircraft that was departing from a Swiss airport. Only the airline would have an interest in what hapenned.
@@dodahspeak what about the CAA of that country or local police/government
@@ksm1985 As I understand it, because there was no accident nor failure of any aircraft component or injury to passenegers or crew, there is no requirement by the aviation authorities to investgate. I believe that the airline may be obligated to do so. I can't quote that as 100% fact, but that's how I understand it to be.
@@dodahspeak thank you for the clarification
@@ksm1985 You're welcome. As I said, that's how I understand it from my years within the airline industry, but at the same time I'm not a legal expert!
Were the power settings 100% or something less than 100% for this takeoff? (Prior to the dip.)
"Tailwind" = aluminum, barium,strontium etc
To be fair, it's almost 300 tons of aircraft powered by four hairdryers.
Someone must have walked slowly past it.
That's impressive!
Typical Swiss: “ATC, we almost crashed but had a chocolate and are on our way now” Stress level 0.5%😅
A340 with GE hairdryers for engines. Glad they Changed them for Rolls Trent 500s
Those A340’s engines are a lot week.
Looks like they rotated too early….
Plane wasn’t ready to fly… the plane didn’t come off the runway when they initially rotated, I think they got airborne at a very low airspeed and needed to level off to gain airspeed
It didn't look like it wanted to fly at any point in that video. The chimney in the background suggests theres little wind. I'd expect a bit better from such an overpowered aircraft.
The A340-300 is notoriously UNDERpowered for it's size and weight
SCARY !
A 340s can be real dogs on climb out. One driver when asked by ATC to increase climb rate on departure responded at max climb. I think 1200 feet/min was mentioned. Then said motors are like having blow dryers on the wings.
So a two stroke powered R/C plane can outclimb it.
@@GWNorth-db8vn RC model can outclimb everything because it's power to weight ratio is totally unrealistic. Which makes RC aerobatics boring.
driver?
@@michaelbowers3842 Mhm.
@@GWNorth-db8vn I wanted to answer sooner, but this description made me sleep.
(Oh, I see you deleted it. Good move.)
She sounded very calm for what they just experienced. Nice recovery. Probably the worst plane to have that experience. The A340's have a reputation of being a bit under-powered.
The A340 are somewhat under powered, but this only applies to the 200/300. The 500/600 have a much better performance thanks to their bigger engines.
That’s because she usually flies with her wing-mounted APUs. Wait until she fires up the engines.
@@Flyingcircusclown25 I have a friend who was a captain on A-300's and then 777's, and he always said that the A340's were powered by Conair hair dryers, with the exception of the A340-600.
It doesn't look like a tailwind to me, that change on the AOA looks more like pilot input, like pushing FWD or simply letting the column go.
Although I have to admit that unlike everybody else on youtube, I'm not a pilot. Yet.
Hundreds of hours on MSFS never exoerience this. Drunk pilot perhaps, DEI hire...
Earlier A340 model with the stupid small engines.Hope Capt.selected toga power is on flex power…..
V1 and V2 were wrongly introduced in the flight parameters. Clearly they rotated before having enough speed for the load in the aircraft. They were fast to find an excuse for their mistake.
Because: women
@@pedrorivolta5769Men never make mistakes.
Unless it was an all-female crew, it would've been a male flying if it was a female on the radios.
Always have your excuses ready.
I’m still trying to pronounce the airline name correctly.
Gegen den Föhn und dann Rückenwind?? und alle anderen hatten nichts dergleichen?
Laut METAR war der Wind umlaufend. Heißt er variiert deutlich, 5-10 Knoten von hinten reichen, und die Leistung sieht so aus
ATC told them 4 kn wind from West (270).
However historical data show 8 kn on average from generally 150, so they generally had headwind.
Not sure if that was a classical Föhn with its markedly shifting wind speeds.
Assuming that they had just the 8 kn of headwind: If they suddenly got a tailwind of merely 10 knots, that makes 18 knots less airspeed. Quite significant.
Re wind change: A weak wind from 150 can easily be superseded by a thermal wind. Say, on a very sunny April day, with the ground still being cool, the heated air (13:00 hours!) raising above Zurichberg and creating thermal wind gusts towards it = at 160 = tailwind.
Maybe rotation a bit too early…
I don’t know if being a Tailwind Expert is even a thing. But what I do know is that an A340-300 with its weak engines, as well as a takeoff without TOGA, will struggle to climb out of any runway
You don’t know anything about aviation
Show the wind data weather data. Prove it
Hmm. I would have waited till I was gear and flap up climbing away safely before worrying about explaining to observers why my take off was wonkey. As my military instructor drilled into me. Aviate, navigate then communicate.
Weird stuff happens when the Fohn is blowing.
A340-300, the aircraft that flies only due to the curvature of the earth. No wonder…
Planes do not gain or lose height: they gain or lose ALTITUDE.
@ChucklesMcGurk Not really. An airplane's height is the vertical distance from its bottom to the top of its vertical stabilizer.
QNH or QFE?
Height is above ground level. Altitude is above mean sea level.
it’s an A340 underpower problem? or pilots got the settings wrong, so blame it on the wind..
Yeah no, tail waind maybe, miscalculation YES!
Rotated too early, he was doing a wheelie on the runway lmao
Swiss German sounds so cute
edälwiiis
4 kt wind is nothing they pushed the stick forward look at the rear stab makes an abrupt move and then the nose pitches down and lift goes away... they were configured wrong hence the meagre lift off and had to correct it but did a bad job...total pilot error on that one.
You can also clearly see how underpowered the A340 is..
Stop posting ignorant nonsense
Great video but it’s not cool to use somebody else’s footage without asking.
Thank you. I have already asked him. I have the permission 👍
Prove they didn't
An a340 is the worst thing u can be in when that happens u barley have enough power 🤣
What's really interesting is how soon the pilot communicates the issue with ATC. Gear still down, ~50ft above the ground and in suspected windshear. I know of airlines where that alone would be a de-briefing topic.
oh.. that terrain ahead...
It's further away than it looks on camera.
Not a nice feeling for the passengers, I am sure.
Ahemahembullshitahem.
That pesky headwind that turns into a tailwind without any crosswind as it swings around...
When are we going to stop blowing bubbles up pilots' aresholes?