i want to ask is it possible a pilot flying to monitor the main display,the throttle levers,the flaps and landing gear from time to time from take off to 10 000ft at least...i seems to be possible to look for a second fot the problematic thrust levers at least...i used to drive very old and broken cars a lot and when you drive broken machine you FOCUS on the problematic component...why the FO didnt look at the levers...why he never tryied to counter the bank angle...what was he doing?man i am angry...this is not supposed to happen...r.i.p.
Great video, but just a couple of questions seem unanswered. Why was there not a bank angle warning? Was that considered lower priority than the auto pilot disconnect warning also? And did the first officer actually put in any control inputs at all to try correct the situation other than the one which deactivated the auto pilot? Do we even know what those inputs were?
I'm 42 years old and living a hemisphere away from my birth city. Needless to say, I have to fly lots. Problem is I've spent my life with a terrible fear of flying that makes this incredibly challenging. I have to take a horse dose of sedatives to do it and often that isn't even enough to stop my serious anxiety. Been binging your videos for last couple of months. And its been the single best thing for my anxiety. I had occasion to fly again for first time in years last month, and I was mostly fine. Your videos helped me because... 1. I now understand how many things have to go wrong for a serious crash to occur. It's nearly always multiple failure points, all of which were individually super unlikely. 2. I now understand how seriously safety is taken. 3. I also understand how incredibly clever planes are, and how much skill goes into being any part of the crew. 4. I also now understand that while the odds aren't good, they are still sometimes survival events. 5. At the beginning you always give the number of flights hours of the pilots. To imagine that many hours in the sky and still being ok, makes my once-every-4 years journeys seem just really unlikely to be the one time the plane is gonna run into a crash. 6. The happenings of the cockpit is now not some magical mystery I fully don't understand. Understanding more is empowering because you aren't just hoping for the best when you have some level of understanding about what's happening. Not saying I could fly a plane now (😂), but definitely it's not ALL some magical mystery now beyond my total comprehension either. Of course, all of these lessons would have been totally lost on me had the content not been also really engaging. So thank you for creating this for me and opening the world up for me again in a much less brutally terrifying way.
That's awesome! And very well put. About your point #5, I daresay it's actually even better than you say. Petter (Mentour Pilot) once stated that he has actually never himself even been involved in any kind of significant mishap, like an engine failure (which, as I'm sure you know by now, isn't even really as big of a problem as people usually think), and that's despite him being a very experienced captain (= many, many hours). AFAIK, pilots usually go through their entire careers without ever having anything particularly serious happening. I think I remember the statistic being that there's only a serious accident once per 11 _million_ flight hours... Meaning that you'd have to spend about 1,255 _years_ flying before you'd get in a crash, statistically speaking. I know that the numbers themselves might not help much, but the 'why' is another thing that's good to know and be aware of: we humans inherently _suck_ at *intuitively* understanding a lot of maths, such as exponential phenomena (we like things linear) and, more related to here, large numbers and probabilities. And worse, we often reactively fear/disparage what we don't understand, which, in our modern society, is a rather bad habit. I applaud you for having faced your fears through learning.
I know exactly what you mean and I related to it a lot in a lot of ways. I too live across a different continent (and hemisphere) from my home town, so I tend to fly a lot. Thankfully, I've been flying since I was a baby. I've been always used to planes, so I never suffered from anxiety or fear of planes or heights much. I may get a bit anxious now and then, but it usually goes away fast. I didn't know anything about flying either before, but binging Peter's videos have definitely made me understand it a lot better, and made me appreciate just how much time, effort and skill goes into flying an airplane. The awe and admiration I have for pilots now is a lot more than I had before. In a way, I think that's how it goes for a lot of things in life. Having dealt with homophobia for a portion of my life, I can definitely see the resemblance. People tend to fear, be scared of, or find potentially anxiety inducing things they don't understand well(flying/queer people). Understanding it doesn't necessarily mean you belong to the group/can do the thing (piloting/being queer) but it definitely makes you understand that it's not a magical realm where magical and weird things happen, and that people work together to make it work. And like you said, none of this would work if the content wasn't engaging. The fact that it's so well produced and Peter explains it in a rational way, while also showing his own experience in the area is definitely what makes it work out so well.
Isn't it so strange how learning about plane crashes makes you feel better about flying? The first time I was ever on a plane was in high school, and I basically started on hard mode: a 10+ hour transatlantic flight without my parents. As a teenager I was anxious about pretty much everything, so obviously the idea of flying scared the hell out of me. I think I spent at least six months before the flight reading everything I could about plane crashes and aviation safety, and I came out of it feeling so much better. When you really take in all the info, it becomes clear how wildly unusual crashes are, and how it's even rarer for them to have significant fatalities.
Like you, I used to be afraid of flying. One flight, I had an empty seat next to me, and a pilot got on (not the plane's pilot, but he also worked for the airline). Throughout the flight, he explained all the mechanics that kept a plane in flight. Never had an issue since. Knowledge is empowering.
That poor FO. His world was going insane nothing made sense and everything he did had the opposite effect from his intention. Alarms were blasting, his captain was dying and he couldn't even see where he was going. The panic and fear must have been horrendous. I hope that his family didn't have to put up with people blaming him for the crash. I hope he is flying in friendlier skies now.
That´s straight on the point. As an armchair pilot, sitting safe and dry in your home, you can easily state: aviate, navigate, communicate - but in his reality he had no chance. It was beyond his possibility to aviate the plane. I share your hopes deeply. RIP.
@@NicolaW72 The living can still learn from A-N-C. The 1st officer seems to have been put in an extremely unfortunate *series* of events that overwhelmed his ability to cope. It might save some lives, for those who come after, to remember that your colleague's medical emergency can only improve if you fly the airplane and get it back on the ground.
@@Nebbia_affaraccimiei It is explained in the video that he was steering his yoke to the right in an attempt to fix the roll, in fact that is the reason autopilot hasn't engaged. I think he wasn't familiar enough with Airbus's autopilot system, given the fact that most of his experience was on Ilyushins.
Usually panic is greatest, when you can't do anything and the development is slow. This was fairly quick, much quicker that it takes to tell the story.
I’m from Romania and this accident was all over media but never got a better explanation of what has happened as in this video. Great episode! Thank you
He is a trainer, backseat check pilot observing safety and service at times, and also is experienced in ensuring pilots given general licenses for his type of plane actually know how to fly it.
Cristian Stoi, the son of the FO of Tarom 371 that crashed near Bucharest, is now a pilot (captain) for Tarom. Cristian decided to become a pilot after his father crashed with ROT 371.
@@jennaeveliina313 Same, but perhaps some people feel like they should follow in the footsteps of their parents or take over their work in order to honour them. Take over the family business, so to speak.
@@feelthatfeelthat I find it remarkeble how much need to go wrong for a plane to crash, I mean here it is heart attack combined with too much familiarity with Russian build planes and a change in course all at exactly the same couple of seconds, I mean what are the odds of that such incredibly bad luck, it makes me want to fly watching this and I have watched every single episode of aircrash investigation on Netional geographic as well and it makes me happy to fly watching it.
@@feelthatfeelthat Okay you are more likely to be struck by lightning ⚡️ 15 times in 1 year then being in a air crash 💥 You are more likely to be killed in a car accident 100 times in a one year time period. Oh and if you swim in a pool 🏊🏻♀️ you are more likely to drown even if you can swim up to 30 times in one year. All true
Maintenance: “This component has failed in flight over 10 times, but we can’t find the issue on the ground. Should we just replace the whole assembly?” “Nah, just tell the pilots to keep an eye on it. What’s the worst that could happen?”
It was the simple solution, it was this Pilot aircraft anyway, he should learn about to how predict possible problems, and missgifts..... Real problem was copilot, even if he was more ready as captain, he was used to soviet made plane, and they are build and react diferently.
That's not a maintenance issue. It's the manufacturer's. Imagine knowing a component you sold is randomly failing, it has no redundancy checks, and could kill several people. And still waiting til many people die and there's a report out with your name on it before redesigning it. If instead of telling the maintenance crews to grease it up, if they had partially or completely disabled the ATS while developing and testing a new thrust lever design, this wouldn't have happened. No chance. But all large companies are reckless when it comes to safety, they prefer lawsuits over preventative solutions to existing problems
Wow.. this insanely unlucky string of coincidences is stunning. First the auto thrust issue with the plane, then the fact that the flight plan involved a left turn which matched the polarity of the auto thrust issue, then the fact that air traffic control cleared the left turn earlier than planned causing the captain to fiddle with nav instead of holding the thrust levers, then the captain is medically incapacitated right at the instant that the plane reaches an altitude that causes the auto thrust system to do work (kicking the auto thrust issue into motion), causes a huge distraction to the co-pilot who has the controls and thinks the plane is stable and focuses for too long on his struggling colleague, and finally when he turns his full attention back to the plane his piloting is stymied by the fact that he's in the clouds and instruments only, and the vast majority of his flight hours were on Soviet built planes that had a different style of artificial horizon. Unbelievable bad luck for all on that plane. Rest in peace.
I really appreciate that you played that alarm for us. I could not think straight as it played for the three or so seconds it did. Can't imagine having to try to get a plane back on course with a dying or dead pilot next to me with that dang noise the entire time. Playing the alarm really puts what that poor First Officer was going through into perspective.
Yes Lisa.... He was overwhelmed by a barrage of information , then confusion as regards the "False Horizon" compounding his understanding of the situation. But I am struggling to accept that three airlines knew this plane had a serious defect in the auto throttle on #1 engine..... I find that Criminally Negligent.
@@patagualianmostly7437unfortunately, autopilot is not legally required to be operating so I can see why it was neglected. You’d think they would label and disable it, however, because that IS legally required.
That alarm woke me from a dead sleep after I spent hours trying to fall asleep due to insomnia. I'll be watching this channel with the volume off and closed captioning on from now on...
i'm honestly surprised and confused that it was designed to behave that way. i'm very sure there's good reason for it, but based on my minimal knowledge i'd think that any alarm should only sound for as long as it needs to in order to prevent overloading the cockpit. i'm really wondering now what condition it needed fulfilled before that alarm would stop.
As Mentour Pilot takes 20 minutes to calmly and clearly go through the scenario unfolding on the flight it's easy to forget how much time was elapsing in reality. 2 minutes in this case; and with so much happening too.
@@AW-kr9flseconds if it’s close to the ground or something but if they’re at cruising altitude 35,000 even an 8K decent would take 3 minutes to get to 11,000. Assuming the planes just dropping instead of coasting or anything like that
I really appreciate your respect for the loss of life. You don't just talk about a statistic, you show us the memorial, you play music, you give us a moment to mourn because these are people who deserve to be mourned. It's clear this isn't just an academic interest for you; this is a responsibility for lives that you take seriously every time you fly or teach others to fly.
I don’t think you could be a pilot and not appreciate the loss of life. Pilots are aware of how quickly things can go wrong with disastrous outcomes. Flying is a fickle game where minor errors can have life altering and life ending outcomes.
@@mikes-b6009 Flying isn't fickle at all... it's one of, if not, the safest form of commercial transport. You're more like to be killed driving to the shops to get some milk or while catching a train to work. The fact that if there is a malfunction of some type you're in a dire situation is just obvious as you're at the mercy of gravity.. that's not fickle.. that's physics.
@Ali Al-Mahdi I’m a father of two adult daughters who I raised on my own throughout their teens. I was also a health care professional and I find your ‘theory’ of menstruation and blood to be both concerning and I’ll-informed. I’m unable to rationalise how menstruation has anything to do with flying an aircraft!!!!
I feel really sad for the first officer in this case, it seems very likely that his genuine concern for the Captain distracted his attention for just a moment but that was all it took for everything to overwhelm him, it just feels unfair!
As an aircraft mechanic, the most frustrating thing is not being able to replicate the issue and you’re left trying to decipher what was really going on in relation to the troubleshooting manuals. The troubleshooting manuals will normally go through an operational check and if it works that time, then the system is ok. But when it’s the third time it’s happened in a week, then it’s difficult to decide where to begin.
@@nigelturner9606 we don’t have access to black box, dfdau, and flight recordings during troubleshooting. And most troubleshooting is performed during a 2 day AOG window at max. We can’t be in the cockpit to see or feel what is happening so all we have are our manuals and intuition. If the system checks out ok during our tests then it’s legal to sign it off. Usually when it’s a repeat or chronic issue and cannot determine the cause on the ground, then we will start changing out the most likely suspected LRUs.
@@nigelturner9606 Investigators literally got to the bottom of the problem. A flat spotted roller bearing from the throttle quadrant was found at the bottom of the 30 ft crater. Investigators and Airbus knew exactly what they were looking for. The flat spotted roller was known to Pan Am Maintenance when they operated the very aircraft 5-years earlier but the PIREP was signed off as "lubed." There was an undisclosed settlement with the plaintiffs after the investigation was completed.
The strangest thing for me these plains have a GO even though they are experiencing some critical issues. Sounds very unprofessional to try to replicate the issue during the ground time and if it is not replicated by the technician the action is to simply let the plane fly again. With this kind of issue, no flight should be accepted until it is clear what is the cause. Really shocking!
I’m a 767 Captain and I learn something from every horrible event you detail very thoroughly. Love this channel even though it’s sad to see what leads up to many of these disasters. Keep up the work you do. It’s valuable information. Footnote. There have been quite a few accidents that you have profiled that concern the differences in the attitude indicators on western built and Russian built aircraft. Thats tragic.
The unique thing with Petter is that he has the ability to explain the accidents in a way so both you, a captain, and I, an artist learn something. From different perspectives, but still. He makes me much less nervous. 😌
Yeah when Russia opened up (temporarily lol) and their airlines began buyong Western jets you suddenly had hundreds or even thousands of pilots who spent their entire life with Soviet artificial horizons having to use the Western style, which look a lot like the opposite (L bank looks like bank to the right) and in an emergency with startle effect plus trying to figure out you tend to revert to instinct and habit. So there's been a bunch of incidents. Most you probably never hear of. Probably just some momentary "holy shit" followed by recovery and a few embarassed looks in the cockpit and an awkward announcement to the cabin with passengers muttering, something like "this is what I get for flying Aeroflot".
When I took A&P classes at Miramar my instructor (a licensed pilot and Vans RV-7 owner) had four rules for flying that he always observed. #1 was to never fly the “A” model, #2 was to never fly anything Russian-built, probably for exactly this reason.
Also, if the FO is trying to reach over to help the pilot with his left hand while steadying the controls with his right hand, he will maintain his bank angle. Any erratic motion with his left hand will tend to pull the controls left at the exact worst time.
Have not viewed this clip for a while. Even so they did receive a change in flight a turn earlier that inspected. The question is would they have been able to whatever they were experiencing or not. recover or not ?
This video brings up some unpleasant memories as a colleague of mine was on that flight. But it is first time I see a really comprehensive explanation of what happened. Really appreciate that. Thank you.
This is my 2nd time re-watching this incident and I wanted to bring a special attention to one detail. Before the captain was potentially incapacitated, the first-officer asked the captain to retract the flaps and the captain did. Now, the flap lever is on the right side of the thrust levers. There is no way the captain could have missed the asymmetrical thrust. It's literally in the line of sight. The only reason I can think of is the captain was already feeling what he was feeling at that time with his mind only fixated on the task at hand (retracting the flaps) and not the surroundings, whilst experiencing the pain. A real terrible coincidence of tragedy indeed.
@@Eet0saurusWe'll never know, sadly. In the end, there's a myriad of potential health issues that could have caused it - while not a lot of stuff kills you immediately, pretty much any extremely painful issue can literally cause people to pass out from the pain alone for a few minutes (which would have been enough here). After all, we don't know if he only lost consciousness or died right away. Just horrible that it happened with the worst possible timing :(
Related to the artificial horizon .... indeed, for planes built in the west, the reference position to the horizon is inside the plane and moves with it, while for the Russians it is fixed, placed outside the plane. I'm not a pilot but I have a friend who was a military pilot on MIG 21. I don't know why there are such differences and my friend didn't manage to give me an explanation either. From my point of view, the western approach is more logical because it looks at the horizon through the eyes of the pilot, but in the end it is a matter of habit and routine. And you are certainly right when you say that it is possible that this difference in design and his long experience on Eastern aircraft is one of the causes. I make an analogy with a driver who has driven on the right all his life and ends up driving in a country where he drives on the left. He can drive very well but in a critical situation he is very likely to react instinctively completely the opposite of how he should be in the new condition in which he drives.
Dacă nu ești pilot, de ce îți dai cu părerea atât de critic la adresa piloților? Doar pe motivul ca ai auzit tu la un prieten? Prietene, ești pe dinafară și faci praf niște piloți foarte buni, școliți în academia militară și cu foarte multa experienta. Iti garantez ca dacă avionul ala nu ar fi fost defect l ar fi pilotat cu ochii închiși. Chiar îl crezi pe ăsta ca nu au putut citi orizontul? Pe bune? Scuza ma dar ești dus.
@@HadrianTAZ Hai sa le luam pe rand sa vedem cat de idioata este interventia ta. Am spus ca nu sunt pilot si ca stiu de la un prieten de aceasta diferenta de abordare intre vest si est. Ce este critic si ce este neadevarat aici? Am mai spus ca nu stiu si nici prietenul meu nu stie explicatia dar este o diferenta in modul in care este perceputa relatia dintre pilot si aparat intre conceptia vestica si cea estica. Nu am incercat sa ma dau mare sa arunc ipoteze, am spus clar ca nu stiu de ce, dar fie ca iti place sau nu, aceasta diferenta exista. Cand am spus ca eu prefer abordarea vestica nu am afirmat ca ar fi mai buna sau mai proasta decat cea estica, am spus doar o preferinta personala. Unde este aici critica si cu ce am facut prin asta praf pilotii scoliti in academia militara? Am mai spus ca un om obisnuit cu un anumit mod de reactie, cand trece pe alt sistem oricat de bun este in situatii critice poate sa reactioneze in modul in care a fost obisnuit ani de zile si am dat ca exemplu un sofer care ani de zile a condus pe stanga, pus sa conduca pe dreapta. Este un fapt normal, se poate intampla oricui oricat de bine este pregatit. Unde este aici critica si cu ce am facut praf generatii de piloti? Asa ca inca odata afirm, amice, tu esti praf si comentator doar de dragul comentariului fara sa argumentezi cu nimic decat cu ura ca cineva indrazneste sa aiba o opinie.
This is my first viewing. For a non pilot ( and let's face it, most of us are here but we really want to understand as best we can everything going on ) I really appreciate all the angles that Mentour is giving us, technical and human . Won over sir !
My parents flew this plane the day before, so me waking up and hearing at TV that this plane had a crash almost gave me a heart attack. There was no internet at that time so news was slower, so I had no idea the crash didn't happen a day before. Terrible tragedy.
My father was good friends with Captain Liviu Batanoiu. We lived pretty close to him in Bucharest. My dad and I were jus discussing this accident last weekend and he mentioned that they had met for a chat a couple days before the accident. My grandpa worked at Bucharest Otopeni International Airport (now Henri Coanda) and back in 1998 he took me to the hangar where the remains of flight 371 were still being stored. I remember getting very emotional just like back in 1995 when the accident happened.
@@neytiritetskahamoatite7688 all airplane crash are stupid, i would not put this on the copilot as much as i would put it on beoing for knowing that they had a problem and did not fix it. There are a lot of things going wrong in this accident.
@@alexandrul.9910 - so you wouldn't blame the airline who bought the plane knowing that it had this problem yet still didn't replace the component? You must be Romanian!!
Nat Geo is mostly crap because they spend 40% of the show covering stuff completely irrelevant to the crash. "Was it a failed engine that caused the crash?!?!" *30 minutes later* no. Pilot error.
@@PigeonPlucker Let me be your cheerleader for saying this. I want to watch a program about the event, maybe a little bit of personal info about key figures and possibly ironic/tragic vignettes related to it, and then the nuts and bolts of the investigation. Don't take me around in pirouettes for an hour just to add enough mattress stuffing to consider your work "a tv program" or "a documentary." Also, if the cause of the crash relates to other similar crashes, then you may add that, too (example: American Airlines Flight 96 (in 1972...all survived), arising from faulty design/incomplete closure of a cargo door on a DC-10, then the issuance of a Service bulletin, then again, Turkish Airlines Flight 981 (in 1974...346 dead)... all because of failure to repair the cargo door problem on their DC-10). One of several acceptable examples of an EXCEPTION to this is South African Airways Flight 295 (which became known as "The Helderberg Disaster"). The program that I saw was SO well done, because it DID focus on more than just the disaster, the investigation and the times, but the political situation at the time, with how apartheid had an effect on what potentially contraband cargo may have been transported on the 747 Combi (Passengers in the front, cargo in the back)... Cheers.
I don't know if it has any relevance, yet first officer Stoi was a friend of a friend of my grandfather's. As you mentioned in the video, it was a pretty well-regarded airman, and even entrusted (at least once) with flying Ceaușescu's backup plane in one of his visits abroad. Seeing such a skilful person not being able to gain control of the situation is a grim reminder that even the best of us can succumb to stress and maybe, as you said, certain mental patterns and habits.
@Tiberiu Danciu *Wow, that's quite a rarity that anyone would have piloted Ceausescu's plane! Did your Grandfather get to meet him??!?!* If so what did he think of the man?
@@watershed44 Maybe I didn't make it clear enough, but the story goes that he flew a backup/logistics plane in the presidential convoy, not Ceaușescu's plane itself. Sadly, he didn't get to meet him, so this is more of a "he said that he said" story. This led myself to believe that it could just be hearsay, so I tried to fact-check the little stuff I knew. Before the Boeing 707 presidential plane was bought, Ceaușescu flew on an Ilyushin Il-18 (YR-IMM, with YR-IMZ also being part of the presidential fleet). Stoi had 6,593 flight hours on the Il-18. He also worked for the TAROM state airline, which for all intents and purposes, operated presidential flights. So I think it's pretty plausible that the story is indeed true. Maybe the aircraft in question was the YR-IMZ. The location was in South America, so this would probably put the date in September 1973 (Also, my grandfather said something about a coup d'etat happening at the time - this checks out with the September 11th, 1973 coup in Chile). At the time, Stoi would have just celebrated his fifth year of being a pilot, so maybe the relative lack of experience is why he didn't get to fly Ceaușescu himself. In 1974, the aforementioned Boeing 707 was bought, and given the fact that Stoi didn't have a type rating for the 707, he probably didn't get another chance at flying a presidential plane. Funnily enough, in researching this, I discovered that captain Bătănoiu did have 5,151 flight hours on the 707 at the time of the incident. Given that TAROM wasn't flying too many western aircraft at the time, it would be worth looking if maybe he got to fly the newer presidential plane.
My best friend's dad was flying the A310s back then for Tarom. My dad was on the B707. They both knew the pilot and co-pilot. It shook them quite a bit.
This brings chills down my spine, because I was supposed to be on the flight but didn’t make it... one of those nine lives surely gone that day... Great analysis, as usual. Never thought about the potential confusion coming from the soviet attitude indicator. Kudos to Dmitri for spotting that out, it can explained the lack of stick correction.
So what was the reason back then for you not to embark on that flight? (Edited 21 hours later - after asking the question) Personally, i know somebody who was suppose to be on that flight as well, couldn't get a straight answer for him losing the flight. There were a few other persons who stated they were suppose to be on that flight, on different comment sources (youtube, personal vlogs, articles etc) who never answered my question "what was the reason for not embarking?"
@@raylopez99 It maybe their responsibility, but so much was happening at the same time. Far too simplistic to say it's their responsibility. Even with good training, this appeared to be a rare occurrence, imagine your colleague incapacitated without warning and dealing with a plane losing control. As i said your comment was simplistic.
@@greymark420 Not really. Crazy or incapacitated pilots are rather not uncommon, for example that FedEx flight, the golfer Payne Stewart private jet, that decompression incident with Aegion? from Cyprus (the flight attendant almost became a hero but not quite) and so on.
@@raylopez99 Always easy to make comparisons from an armchair. I work for the emergency services, very well aware how a high stress environment effects an individual. Even with good training, we are not infallible. That's what makes us human.
This is so damn sad, the Captain became incapacitated at the worst possible time. But i guess that's why flight instructors always beat it into students heads to always fly the plane no matter what is happening around you.
Indeed. The mathematical possibility that the incapacitation of the Captain happened at this moment and together with the other circumstances was nearly zero - but not fully zero - and here Murphy´s Law unfortunately stepped in: Everything what can happen will happen. And yes, I still think that the shocking of the FO was at least one reason why he was then unable to fly the plane.
@@NicolaW72 well perhaps not because presumably take off and stress increase chances of a heart attack - so more likely at times of stress - which is when you most need two pilots
@@jamesbirkin351 Still nearly zero, like he said. The increased risk of heart attack would still be well under 1%, but I'll be generous and let you have any medical condition, but you would still be very wrong. A study of16,000 commercial pilots found that the odds of a pilot becoming physically incapacitated on a flight at any time during that year was only 0.25% (exactly 40 pilots had a single episode in a year's time), and that's the chance for a year of flying. Commercial pilots can only fly a maximum of 1,400 hours in a year(edited, I incorrectly wrote 1,000 hrs in my initial post), and they are also checked annually for their health, and pilots are disqualified from flying with serious heart conditions or even diabetes requiring a hyperglycemic drug. So the odds in a years time this would happen to a pilot is nearly zero. Your already incorrect observation becomes a hundred times weaker when you adjust the odds of incapacitation from yearly probability to the probability over the course of a single flight. Therefore, assuming a very generous estimate of only 100 flights/year, the odds are now at 0.0025% of this happening during and given flight, which is very much nearly zero. The point about the pilot being in a stressful situation is not valid because they were climbing and having no major problems when he began to feel ill and it was his sudden incapacitation that set events into motion.
This, to me, is one of the saddest crash scenarios that I've seen. Though most (or all?) crashes have multiple causes or conditions occurring in combination, this one just seems as if events really conspired against the poor first officer. : (
@@zen4men You're right, it's all according to one's divine life plan, isn't it. I usually manage to remember that but sometimes get caught up in drama of events.
@@oneworldawakening I have "met" otherworlds/other beings, and know I have lived before / will again / never die, which does change one's perspective! We are in a World War. A spiritual struggle on a global scale. Orchestrated fear, globally.
@PsychoKaedeMode You see what you think you see I see what I know I see I have experienced things that most people only read books on. If you see that as "schizo", that says far more about you than it does about me. /
@@oneworldawakening Do you believe those people deserved to die then? There were children on board, 60 victims that did nothing and had no control over the situation and died as a result of that. You realize they had hopes, dreams, ambitions, same as you and me.
What's really insane is that they have all this technology out there that can rectify much of these situations yet there's no SOL threshold where the plane will say "F#@k it, I need to fix it!" and lockout pilot inputs temporarily to rectify to situation. I mean, it should be a no-brainer that a plane should not be going past a certain bank angle or damn near upside down. At that point what's the worst that could happen if the plane takes over?
Having flown both Russian as well as Western Fast Jets, I can testify to this problem arising due to different depiction of Artificial Horizon. That is why we are taught to always correlate the Artificial Horizon indications with secondary instrument, ie, the compass and the turn and slip indicator. That form the basis of recovery from unusual attitudes in actual IFR conditions when the visual horizon is not available. Another basic learning is that whenever you're facing an unusual situation, the first action is to level the aircraft and then do your trouble shooting. The Aviate part of Aviate, Navigate and Communicate. Such a sad waste of life. All the more important to never ever forget the basics of flying. Congratulations to you as well as your Patreon crew on this amazing deduction.
@@skiorclimb It is a matter of getting used to, but personally, I agree with you. The Russian depiction of Artificial Horizon (AGD, Agda, as they call it) is more intuitive.
@@catherinearangie2311 The plane is moving, but the pilot is moving with it. Relative to the plane-pilot reference frame the horizon will change the angle. The eastern system shows the view from someone outside (behind) the plane who is sitting upright aligned with the horizon. The western system shows the view from inside the cockpit and what the pilot would see if looking out the window.
@@benhetland576 I could agree that anyone would prefer the method that they started out with but in all objectivity there is nothing intuitive about the soviet model. The western model is much more intuitive and makes much more sense because in essence it shows the same image/view as what a pilot would normally see from the cockpit window just in a simplified digital form.
So interesting the way you explain what happened but so very sad to understand what they must have been through in the few minutes of this flight. R.I.P. to the crew and passengers that lost their lives so tragically.
@@MentourPilot I don't exactly understand something. It is a theory that he interpreted the horizon the opposite way, and it seems like it is an unsolved mystery. But why there isn't an answer to this in the recorded flight data that he turned into the wrong side?
I have actually watched a feature (Discovery, I guess) documentary about this flight and they inserted audio records, including the sounds made by the captain and the last few seconds of the flight (the terrified scream of the FO upon coming out of fog a few hundred meters above the impact site). Also, in that documentary they touched on the difference between western and soviet dials, so Dimitri might've watched it too.
I knew of someone that died in this crash, and I was always curious to know more about what happened. Thank you so much for this thorough and enlightening episode. Great work.
I absolutely love the way you tell the story and explain everything in a technical way but still manage to make it very clear. It's a talent in itself.
Wow - what a catastrophic set of coincidences. The fact they were initiating a left turn as the thrust changed in a way that was consistent with the effects if making a turn, and the Captain apparently experiencing a health event as the same time. Kind of ridiculous that the autothrottle malfunction was well known and left for pilots to deal with. Excellent analysis of the potential for artificial horizon instrumentation being the most critical factor.
@@JudeLawKingKlaus the Pilot, in the left hand seat, was the one watching the throttles and handling all the other inputs required, as the Copilot was the one who was actually hands on, flying the aircraft. The pilot had to take his attention off the throttle levers in order to enter the changes required to make an early turn, so he did not see the left hand lever continue to move lower, nor see the right hand lever stuck. And by the time the call for flaps happened, it seems the pilot had had what I can only assume is a heart attack, thus completely distracting the copilot from anything else going on to the aircraft. Unfortunately, the cabin crew and the passengers, having nothing to distract them, would have noticed rather quickly that something was very wrong, but with neither the time or ability to do anything about it. As for the throttle difference, yea, eventually they would have noticed the results, but from what I can tell, the right engine was at climb setting, call it 90%, and the left engine was probably around 70% or so? That is based on what I assume are the thrust dials shown a few times, and where the indicators were pointing. Also, a change is much harder to notice when it is happening slowly, than when it is happening rapidly.
@@JudeLawKingKlaus No no no, you don't "feel". Pilots have said they are instructed to ignore the body feel because it's misleading them and they die if they do that, they have to follow their cabin instruments, they rely on them. Due to the weather they could not see outside the windows, they had no feeling in the human body if they were going up/down, you could be falling and think you are going up - in the airplane, if you don't see anything. Expecially when the entire flight took 1min30 and previously they thought everything was ok, then everything didn't make sense. This after being given a defective airplane to fly + told to take a left turn earlier than they were indending to. Even with the captain pilot still alive this would have been from bad do still a catastrophe.
The biggest thing I'm taking away from this series of yours is just how many things have to go wrong for an accident to happen. If just a single part of these things did not happen, everything would've been fine.
That's very true but it's less often that the timing makes such a big impact. They turned early, causing a masking of the symptom and at the same time the pilot becomes incapacitated. That's incredibly bad luck.
So true. Pretty much all of the major air crashes that I can think of have consisted of a chain of cascading events which end in disaster. Thankfully, the chances of so many things going wrong at the same time are exceedingly rare.
26:05 The Western artificial horizon is showing a RIGHT bank while the Soviet is showing a LEFT bank. I can see why he might have thought that the plane was level, but the angle between the background and the aircraft symbol should be the same in both versions.
I'm a bit confused why he made such a glaring mistake in the video. Having no experience in flying I found that section super confusing because the western meter visually made no sense to me. But I'm glad my instincts are right. I hope he fixes this
It took me a couple of minutes being dazzled at the instruments as I contemplated what the co-pilot may have been experiencing - then I resolved that confusion by realizing that the left AH indicator was a right bank as you stated .
I noticed this as well, as a non-pilot. Strange mistake to make by a pro while explaining the possible misinterpretation of the instrument. Or are we all mistaken? I'm confused.
@@viggotannhauser7251 We are right. A quick Google search proves that. The strange thing is that not many people noticed this in the comments. And certainly Mentor himself hasn't responded to the error.
I remember this like it was yesterday. Living in Romania, I was in my first year of highschool, and I remember reading daily newspapers that had full double and quadruple pages dedicated to this accident.
18:22 THE MEMORIAL OF THE VICTIMS OF BALOTESTI At 31 march 1995 , at 08:08, the flight Tarom RO371 going to Brussels, with a plane Airbus A310-324, registered YR-LCC "Muntenia" crashed in the vicinity of this place. 60 people with different nationalities lost their lives in what was then the biggest aeronautic catastrophe in Romania. The monument situated at the end of the alley was build in the memory of those who died then, and was renovated by volunteers in 2017. Please keep the place clean.
The wife of a good friend of mine was supposed to be onboard but she canceled her flight the day before. The memory of this still lingers around. Thank you for explaining it so well.
My dad was working in airport security at that time in Bucharest airport. He told me that he talked with the pilots and the flight crew before they embarked in the plane, they told some jokes, etc. They all seemed fine. He was shocked when he found out about the crash... :| he couldn't believe it.
I am so sorry for his loss ! :( My father was about to fly back to Otopeni that very day, we had heard about a plane crash but didn't know details, so we went in with lots of fear. Only when we saw him coming up smiling did we finally feel relief.
I remember. My aunt woke me up. I knew them, as the chief pilot for the Airbus program at Tarom was a close family friend. I flew with most of them, and flew on Muntenia...I have photos of that plane before the crash. Noroc.
Learning about things like this have made me a lot more tolerant of mistakes made by people elsewhere in life. The same cognitive biases exist outside of the cockpit and have caused people to make some truly tragic mistakes.
I remember many years ago when I first got interested in aviation accidents the crash investigator said something that has always stuck with me and it was that the pilots job first and foremost was to fly the aircraft and unfortunately so many accidents happen because the pilot forgets that and gets distracted, if the first officer had followed that principle then this could have been averted but he got distracted with what happened to the captain , thoroughly enjoyed your post and looking forward to the next one
Flying while trying to figure out whether the ill pilot caused a configuration change is not practiced in training. This extreme coincidence occupied a massive percentage of brain capacity trying to see if his hands or feet were affecting any controls….
@@jeffstillwell6802 No button or switch to hit which would completely take all control over by the copilot no matter what (on his side) the pilot was touching?
@@Maxfli82 He also doesn't treat us like we're idiots. I like that he uses technical information and more complicated language than the "accessible" TV shows. To me, the only thing I miss about those shows is the interviews with the people involved.
Like seconds from disaster or air crash investigation, but straight to the point, the survivor interviews are interesting sometimes, but all the re-enactments with bad actors are terrible.
It took me a couple of minutes being dazzled at the instruments as I contemplated what the co-pilot may have been experiencing - then I resolved that confusion by realizing that the left AH indicator was a right bank as you stated .
I was in highschool when this happened. I remember firefighters and policemen so devastated by what they saw at the crash site that were unable to speak coherently in front of the news cameras, some barely holding their tears. Years later in my residency I had the chance to talk to one of the first responders who came in as a patient, he still had nightmares about the event and I was shocked by his description (I won't go into the gruesome details, as there may be kids reading these comments). I'm glad you covered this accident with your usual professionalism and attention to detail, the official investigation was kinda hushed up and the following public statements were rather brief and unsatisfactory. Many people felt a political cover-up, possibly regarding financial issues with the state hold airline, as less than an year prior to the accident there were some controversies about the acquisition and maintenance of those Airbus planes.
It's good for us to be reminded that first responders can be so traumatized by the terrible things they encounter. We owe them all the help we can give to deal with those traumas.
My father was there when it happened, he was being a soldier at that time, At Otopeni (Bucharest, a few kilos away). What he saw that day he will never forget. R.i.P. to all the victims.
This is mind blowing. Those things will never cause a crash on their own, but a combination of them and you're in big trouble. I'm a drone pilot, shooting for my advanced Canadian license. We are expected to know a lot about aviation and that's where your videos really help. Thanks for doing them.
The captain had a heart attack. The timing of all events seems “perfect” for this disaster to occur. Of cause, no postmortem can be done, but based on all of the events, this seems to be the most likely scenario. Poor people… :(
The sudden incapacitation suggests a cerebral vascular problem - a serious stroke. It could go either way, though. Blockage of the circumflex artery stops the heart very rapidly.
@@FreedomIsNotGoingToBeFree he looked down to adjust the flaps, saw the left thrust lever was like 10 degrees off from the right, and several organs just went “ah. No” simultaneously.
Mentor, there is another person that does an excellent job on animation of aircraft accidents but he lacks a real airline pilot with a wealth of knowledge as yourself. How you explain these accidents is just fantastic!! Thank you very much!
I think the captain might have been partially incapacitated earlier on, changing the FMC to go direct to a fix already in the flight plan is very simple, It's about 3 button presses and should go very quickly if I'm correct. If the captain was starting to get incapacitated at this time he might have problems with it and it would take longer. (stroke or similar) This would also explain the lower perceptive and cognitive functions required to remember and notice the differential thrust. Just some thoughts
Could certainly be. I tend to think it was a heart attack… usually there’s a minute or two of mounting pain or disorientation that you can ignore at first, but slowly degrades you until the real, sudden shock hits. What happens then is highly variable, but it’s completely possible to grunt once and fall over, unconscious.
@@obitouchiha4739 isn’t the module like right next to the thrust? My question is how can you not see it even if you are working on that different system, I feel like peripheral would catch it easy. Just a thought, I have zero experience so just if anyone has an answer please let me know.
@@Aquasliph That was exactly the point of OP's comment: that if the captain was already starting to become incapacitated because of, say, a beginning stroke (but before it _really_ hits) when he was working on the navigation system, that might help to explain why he didn't notice the position of the thrust levers.
There are just two aviation channels that I LOVE. Your channel and Kelsey’ s. As a life long aviation enthusiast and a “grounded” private pilot, I can express my thanks to both of you. I love learning about safety, systems and aircraft in general. Be well
As a person who has never flown an airplane, the Soviet artificial horizon makes slightly more sense to me, since it is, in fact, the airplane that tilts. But as you pointed out, it’s a matter of what you get used to. Thanks for this excellent video.
I think the opposite. The western system mimics where the horizon actually is. Superimpose the attitude indicator with the horizon and they are the same. It's like x-ray vision through the clouds or night and seeing where the horizon actually is. Same as heads up displays for fighter pilots.
The western one is more of a first person indicator, rather than a third person. Being inside the plane, and not behind it, the western one seems to make more sense.
@@kingsleykronkk3925 I agree with you. But conversely, I've always thought that the Soviets got it right with 'cosmonaut' and we got stuck with the not-exactly-accurate and inherently limiting 'astronaut', lol.
At 26:05, western attitude indicator actually shows 53 degree RIGHT bank angle, as opposed to the description in the video. The differences between Western and Soviet built PFDs You describe are correct, however, the graphics is wrong. It's still possible that your theory about copilot's confusion is correct, though. Despite that, very great video! Keep up the good work.
Yup... doesn't matter whether the horizon moves or the little plane moves, they would look the same relative to each other on either bank... could be that the pilot was confused, but this explanation is not quite correct.
Very sad to see that Captain was incapacitated and F/O didn't know what to do and calling his Captain. It's also very frightening that all passengers are screaming before crashed. It is the most deadly plane crash :( RIP to all on board who died :(
Susie Q I know it's not the world's deadliest accident in the world. But thanks for the Country name. Because I don't know which country it crashed. Thanks for that :)
Actually, the FO knew what to do, but unlike today's airlines where a pilot could fly 4 sectors with 4 different colleagues, at that time TAROM had 3 A310 aircrafts and not many pilots typerated for them, so, most likely, more than half of the FO's experience was acquired while flying alongside that captain. That man watched his best friend dying, and even if it was wrong, it was at least understandable for him to be a bit more concerned than in other cases.
Family of mine sailed around the world and returned safely after 8 years. Their motto was it only takes 3 factors to lead to a potential shipwreck. This made them very conservative when it came to fixing any single problem. It's worth remembering that in any undertaking. I particularly appreciate MP's respect for those who died - silence, cut to the grave in silence. It gives one a moment to pay respect. Thank you!
I really appreciate the depth of detail Peter puts into his explanation. It brings home a whole different respect for pilots and what they and all professionals have to go through.
May all of them rest in peace! My father was a Tarom pilot, he made it through retirement but was killed by cancer ten years later, as were many, many more of his colleagues. Aviation is a beautiful and noble profession but exacts a high toll, either before or after you exit the cockpit.
@@maxavail I didn't know there was a correlation between flying and cancer. May your father rest in peace and I hope someday science and technology will find a way to guard or better protect our pilots against this.
I am not other than a casual FS2020 pilot and I always have had interpretation difficulties with the virtual horizon instrument and as you brought this item that it is different in Russian airplanes I immediately understood what the airplane was by looking to the VH(Russian way). So this should be in all training a very important point when a pilot with Russian system experience to turn over the brain to the other situation! BTW excellent explanations about these accidents. Even better than the very detailed documentaries of Geographic Channel! There might be this other thing in the cockpit where the copilot(now being 1st officer) does not dare to correct the captain's responsibilities and did not look after the throttle, because this was clearly put into the hands of the captain.
This is nightmare fuel. I was almost 12 when this happened and it was the first aircrash I've ever heard about. Or maybe it just stuck to me because I am Romanian and this felt close. It probably played a major role in my ongoing fear of flying. Condoleances to the families affected, I cannot imagine what the passengers went through :( This disaster seems caused by exactly the same kind of issue the 737 Max had. Ofcourse, technically, it's completely different. But corruption and greed (of the airplane manufacturers - AIRBUS, BOEING, of the airlines too) can cause such major tragedies. Airbus knew there was a potentially fatal flaw and did nothing about? Delta and Tarom knew about and still flew like nothing was going on? Every executive involved in trading that airplane or in deciding that it should have been allowed to fly should be IN JAIL with a LIFE SENTENCE. Technicians who haven't sounded the alarm too. Companies involved should be bankrupt.
I'm Romanian, too, and this accident was the reason I was terrified of flying for 20 years. What I saw on TV the days after the crash, and how my family talked about it, will stay with me for life. RIP to everyone who passed. Dumnezeu sa-i odihneasca.
@@MentourPilot Nice. Didn't know this kind of training was a thing. Do you train cases when a pilot lands on the yoke and pushes it forward or backwards? Ho would you handle that?
Not sure how to feel about that. What if in the simulator one of the pilots becomes incapacitated for real? Then the help for the incapacitated pilot is delayed without necessity.
I imagine that the possibility of it happening for real at the exact same moment that the crew commands it through the headset is miniscule. If someone acts dead without being asked to the people behind the scenes will probably act upon it soon enough as they know they didn't command it.
It is clear to me that there is too much Avionics that end affecting the ability to fly. Pilots should get back to a PA 11 and renew their skills. The A Horizon was in your video showing the attitude of the plane all the time and at the begining it was easy to correct the problem. It us quite worrying to think that these crews can only fly strait and leveled. The training should put them back to the flying basics even it should include some basic acrobatic manuvers. Excellent your videos Cogratulations from Argentina
As an airline pilot with 35 years of experience, I find these air crash videos really informative. All the other 'air crash investigation' videos tend to dramatise events far too much and minimise technical detail. I was working for British Midland on the DC-9 during the Kegworth crash and this is the clearest and, most importantly, impartial review of that unfortunate series of events that I have ever seen. I'm currently getting ready to return to flying after nearly 2 years on the ground due to covid after my fleet was scrapped. I have a conversion course looming and can fully understand Mentor Pilot's apprehension and tension prior to his return to flying duties 3 months ago. I'm sure it will all come back and these videos are reminding me of lots of important aspects for safe flight. Many thanks MP!
Thank you for your comment, Paul Curran. As an airline pilot maybe you can explain to the rest of us why it seems like in so many of these crashes no one is looking at simple instruments like the artificial horizon. I fully understand what caused the airplane to roll like this but I have to believe that had any pilot at the wheel noticed the artificial horizon once it reached beyond 45° would have made immediate corrections to roll the plane back to the right. It seems to me that they are so focused on other switches and buttons and other things today don't notice these very rudimentary yet important flight instruments
If you are genuinely interested, then I respectfully suggest you watch the video again. This time with the sound turned up. This was a ‘cascade’ event, eruditely precised by Sophie Paterson below…
@@paulcurran5117 Interesting reply. "If I'm genuinely interested" followed by a suggestion to watch the video again and an assumption that I did not have the sound up. I even made it a point to thank you for your comment so your reply is... curious to say the least but your condescending tone was well received. While I am not a commercial pilot I do fly therefore I do have a clue and I've seen enough these videos to realize that a great many of these pilots are sorely lacking in basic flight skills and instrument awareness. Maybe you are one of these and why you take offense.
I was saying there was a lot more going on here than a straightforward bank exceedance. A lot more and I think you have either missed them or underestimated the compounding effect they would have had on that poor FO.
@25:00 Regarding Artificial Horizon (western vs soviet), i think the graphic is wrong. From my understanding - if the plane banks left, the horizon on a western plane will turn the opposite way from what is shown. It is logical, because if you bank left - the ground will be on your LEFT and sky on your RIGHT. I searched other videos on how AH works, and they confirm that. The confusion that a pilot could have is not as shown here, but because a pilot might treat the AH Western line as a if its the airplane wings line.
I was living in Bucharest at that time and some of the first responders on site were from an army unit situated nearby (where I did my military service a few years later); the officers who arrived at the accident were telling us their eyewitness story, it was a terrible sight ... BTW, I was waiting for you to make an episode treating this accident, thanks! :)
Under stress we revert to the oldest and most primitive learning and instincts that we have. I compare this to braking on ice and how we can see how it is not working and yet we instantly push harder locking the BRAKES. That only makes it worse. I love this episode! Thank you MP!
I am a retired BA pilot, John Chapman. My history is: Copilot on Vickers Vanguard; Copilot, Flight Engineer and Captain on Lockheed Tristars; Captain on Avro 748; and last 10 years as Captain on Boeing 747-400. I have not flown an Airbus. My comment on this accident is that the Captain should not have been fiddling with the FMC at such a low altitude and immediately after takeoff. The correct action, in my opinion, upon receiving the ATC instruction for the early left turn, was for the Captain to press Heading mode and turn the Heading pointer towards the target fix, an action of 2 or 3 seconds, and to continue to monitor the flight and to keep a lookout, especially upwards and to the left, in the direction of the turn. Plenty of time once the turn is complete to fiddle with the FMC! I am perhaps 'old school', but the fundamental function of the pilot(s) must always be to FLY THE AIRCRAFT!
I am not a pilot. But I'm with you. Re entering code to a computer is not something I would do whilst driving a car let alone flying an aircraft Also. Isn't that computer right next to the thrust lever. So he was actually looking right there? The more of these I watch the more I'm thinking the Auto Pilot is actually inside the pilots head and when something out of the ordinary happens it's down to the pilots ability to re engage his internal manual pilot. Also came to mind that a 3rd officer or flight engineer would have been monitoring engines. This being back in the days when 2 person cockpits where still quite new.
Good to hear that there are still old school pilots in those big airplanes. From some accidents I get the feeling that some pilots are little too reluctant to switch off the autopilot when there is something strange going on and their situation awareness is questionable, while others fly the plane perfectly. I remember the record of stick position in Tu-154 Smolensk tragic accident showing that after the plane stalled few feet over the ground and flips upside down, PIC pushes like he is going to fly the plane inverted. Best possible action, but I believe it must be completely instinctive (I know many aerobatic beginners tend to do the opposite) and this instinct was probably gained from his aerobatic training. Not sure how this is common among non-army pilots.
I too thought it would have been easier and faster to adjust the heading rather than mess with the FMC. If it was even possible on this particular aircraft
This is a fantastic series! Though I am not a pilot, I am an Ergonomics Engineer and Human Factors Engineer. I did take ground school while in high school as a for-credit class a long while ago. I watch this series to hone my root cause analysis skills. Root cause analysis is a large part of creating design parameters for individual projects in ergonomics and human factors engineering. I am also preparing for chiropractic college. Root cause analysis is a major part of what chiropractic physicians do as primary care physicians. I am melding the two fields. Thus, I am very busy, but use my organizational time, filing paperwork, etc. to watch/listen to these videos. Thank you!
I will always remember this - My father was flying back to Otopeni that very day and we went to pick him up. We had heard about a plane crash but didn't know details (departing or arriving), so we went in with lots of fear. Only when we saw him coming up on the corridor did we finally feel relief.
As a non-pilot, I enjoy your presentations because they are so clear and easy to follow. After watching quite a number of yours and other presentations on flight mishaps, it is clear to me that the number one attribute of all members of a flight crew is situational awareness at all times. Now....I'm very curious to know and see some of the new training procedures being used as well as ways that potential flight crew candidates are accurately evaluated for their abilities to think under pressure.
@Mentour Pilot I love watching Air Crash Investigations, and yours are by far the best. You really put in the ground/home work into this series. As much as I love them, I also hate them. I hate them when someone is injured. When everyone survives it's a happy story to me, because something was learned and nobody was killed. I watching them because I learn so much, and as an aspiring ATP myself, I love to learn about aviation. Anytime I learn something about aviation (or anything really) is a good day. Thank you Peter, keep up the amazing work. Safe flying, always!
My Brother should have been on this flight to Brussel, but a last minute call, made him to cancel his ticket. After the plane was anounced as crashed in Balotesti my Brother and us, realised what a lucky coincidence it was to get that call that made him cancel that flight to Brussel. Anyway,it was a verry sad incident that shouldn't happen. R.I.P. to the one's that died on the crash. Thank you @MENTOUR PILOT for the great content's of youre video's.
reason it takes a year or two to write up these MoT reports is that the experts would like to firmly know how this can teach the flying public how to be safer persons in the aviation community, such as technical and service improvements.
I always wonderee about these things. There is a very real possibility thins crash would never have happened had he got on that flight. Events would have occured differently at the airport due to luggage and weight calculation, delays etc. The pilot may have been crook before or after or not at all. A butterfly in America could technically cause a tsunami in Japan if it were to make one single change.
@@michaelthompson9548 Exactly. Accidents take so many unlikely factors to occur, it's possible that a seemingly trivial change might have made the difference that would prevent it from happening at all. (For example, if the plane had been held up for a minute or two by a passenger slow to board, the captain might have suffered his heart attack before the takeoff roll.) We will never know.
I'm from Romania and was 11 when the accident happened. I kept hearing contradictory reports about the accident: that it was an autopilot issue, that it was piloting error. It's the first time I hear the full story and it's different from what other people told me. Poor FO, that was a lot to happen to him. Even if he had a chance to save the plane I don't blame him at all. Faulty airplane + medical emergency + bad weather + low altitude...all the odds were stacked against him. My belated condolences to crew and family members. This was a freak accident
@Gary Hochstetler Having an entry in the tech logbook isn’t unusual and doesn’t qualify the aircraft to be defective. But am just a private pilot thus mindful it might be different on commercial planes
@Gary Hochstetler In the video it is said that every time they reported it, the airvraft was brought in for repaors and they followed the recommendations from Airbus, that is lubricating the parts and changing the bearings. However, it looks like the problem would occur nevertheless. What else could they do ? They changed the entire part. They knew they weren't more knowledgeable than Airbus, so they followed what they said
@Gary Hochstetler - The report seemed to leave out a critical cause of the crash which was, once again, a failure in an aircraft's automation initiated this whole sequence of events. Tasks pilots used to do are now automated and what used to be muscle memory is now lost. This crash would never have happened with a pilot moving those levers. A human brain would have immediately recognized a lever was sticking and compensated for it. A computer can only do what it's programmed to do, it doesn't have the capacity to think. So the engineers foolishly told the computer to keep pulling back on both levers until they both were at climb out power never even considering the possibility that they could go asymmetric. This was a disaster waiting to happen. How do I know the engineers didn't consider the problem, I don't, but if you think about it why would you not monitor position sensors on the thrust levers and monitor other engine sensors to determine if you were going into asymmetric thrust and stop pulling on the dang thrust levers _and_ alert the pilots of the condition? There's two possibilities, 1) management overruled you do to TTM excuses, Boeing, or 2) you didn't think of it, Airbus.
When I was in pilot training I had to practice accelerated stalls which always scared me, probably why my instructor made me do them so often. Once they start you need to act quickly. This video reminded me of those times. Thanks
Oh goodness this one took me a while to understand, thought I was the only one but I think I get it now. I think the point being illustrated is that a western bank right could be interpreted as a russian bank left by a disoriented pilot trained on the russian style. The confusion would stem from interpreting the horizon line on the western style as the wings on the russian style. So right at 26:05 (both green arrows pointing upper-left), the pilot sees the left image (western bank right) and thinks it is the right one (russian bank left) by confusing the horizon line for the wings. To correct for the bank left he thinks he is seeing, he would instinctively bank right, which would cause the plane to bank even further to the right. (So for the incident in the video, the first officer would see the western style bank left, but interpret it as a russian style bank right and instinctively input bank left to correct, which worsens the situation.) I guess the horizon/wings confusion would be that for someone trained on the russian style, the mental model is "important moving line = my wings". Since we humans are really good at detecting lines and seeing movement, the horizon line probably registered before the colors of the attitude indicator. Then couple that with being in the heat of the moment, the older training/mental model kicked in leading to the unfortunate accident. Pretty sure I saw a similar incident covered on air crash investigations long, long ago but never really understood the explanation. Really thankful for Mentour Pilot covering these stories as he does, it primed my brain to actually think about the "why" behind the "how" that leads to these types of incidents.
I have been on a binge lately, watching your videos nonstop. I’m a mechanic in a regional in the US and find myself enjoying your attention to detail in your videos. Thank you for all the time you have vested into these.
I was a teenager at the time an remember what a tragedy it was. In my memory was something to do with a cable and the captain's heart stroke. Thank you for the video and properly explaining the final report!
@@watershed44 As it was 1995 in a country where even in 2021 they'd show live on TV all kind of dramatic images, which in the west would be blurred (e.g. car crash victims), imagine that this accident was also covered in detail (not technical details, but "catchy" and upsetting details). I remember seeing the coverage live on TV that morning. Although I was a teenager, I still remember clearly the feeling. Very sad...
I remember this very well. This flight went down the day before I went to India for the first time. The day after the incident on 1st April, I flew to New DelhiI on a Tarom flight, via Bucharest. It was supposed to be a standard 3 or 4 hour transit at Bucharest. When we got to Bucharest, we learnt that all flights were grounded and we were to stay in a hotel overnight in the city. It was upsetting knowing that we flying with aircrew who has lost friends and colleagues the day before.
I was a student pilot years ago. Life happens, so I never finished my training. With that said, your content is great. I can't get enough of your videos. Thank you again.
I find your videos extremely interesting and it makes me regret choosing my current career and not going into flying as an airline pilot. Also, I love the fact that all your sponsors are educational websites encouraging youth to learn and explore science. Last but not least, as I found Kelsey first, I am extremely glad you guys are such great human beings and chose to become friends inspite the competing channels. Great job sir.
Really appreciate these videos, feel like they may help keep the industry accountable. Makes me feel more at ease when flying that there are people like you who take safety very seriously.
It was enlightening to know that the GPWS only looked "down". If the GPWS was an EGPWS, which looks " down and forward" then F/O Stoi would likely have received a warning and might have had a chance of pulling out of the 90 degree pitch.
The first 1000 people to use this link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/mentourpilot04211
are you swedish?
i want to ask is it possible a pilot flying to monitor the main display,the throttle levers,the flaps and landing gear from time to time from take off to 10 000ft at least...i seems to be possible to look for a second fot the problematic thrust levers at least...i used to drive very old and broken cars a lot and when you drive broken machine you FOCUS on the problematic component...why the FO didnt look at the levers...why he never tryied to counter the bank angle...what was he doing?man i am angry...this is not supposed to happen...r.i.p.
Great video, but just a couple of questions seem unanswered. Why was there not a bank angle warning? Was that considered lower priority than the auto pilot disconnect warning also? And did the first officer actually put in any control inputs at all to try correct the situation other than the one which deactivated the auto pilot? Do we even know what those inputs were?
Please make a video about PAN AM and KLM flight incident on the runway
Your left eyelid droops? Didn't notice this before.
I'm 42 years old and living a hemisphere away from my birth city. Needless to say, I have to fly lots. Problem is I've spent my life with a terrible fear of flying that makes this incredibly challenging. I have to take a horse dose of sedatives to do it and often that isn't even enough to stop my serious anxiety.
Been binging your videos for last couple of months. And its been the single best thing for my anxiety. I had occasion to fly again for first time in years last month, and I was mostly fine.
Your videos helped me because...
1. I now understand how many things have to go wrong for a serious crash to occur. It's nearly always multiple failure points, all of which were individually super unlikely.
2. I now understand how seriously safety is taken.
3. I also understand how incredibly clever planes are, and how much skill goes into being any part of the crew.
4. I also now understand that while the odds aren't good, they are still sometimes survival events.
5. At the beginning you always give the number of flights hours of the pilots. To imagine that many hours in the sky and still being ok, makes my once-every-4 years journeys seem just really unlikely to be the one time the plane is gonna run into a crash.
6. The happenings of the cockpit is now not some magical mystery I fully don't understand. Understanding more is empowering because you aren't just hoping for the best when you have some level of understanding about what's happening. Not saying I could fly a plane now (😂), but definitely it's not ALL some magical mystery now beyond my total comprehension either.
Of course, all of these lessons would have been totally lost on me had the content not been also really engaging. So thank you for creating this for me and opening the world up for me again in a much less brutally terrifying way.
That's awesome! And very well put.
About your point #5, I daresay it's actually even better than you say. Petter (Mentour Pilot) once stated that he has actually never himself even been involved in any kind of significant mishap, like an engine failure (which, as I'm sure you know by now, isn't even really as big of a problem as people usually think), and that's despite him being a very experienced captain (= many, many hours). AFAIK, pilots usually go through their entire careers without ever having anything particularly serious happening. I think I remember the statistic being that there's only a serious accident once per 11 _million_ flight hours... Meaning that you'd have to spend about 1,255 _years_ flying before you'd get in a crash, statistically speaking.
I know that the numbers themselves might not help much, but the 'why' is another thing that's good to know and be aware of: we humans inherently _suck_ at *intuitively* understanding a lot of maths, such as exponential phenomena (we like things linear) and, more related to here, large numbers and probabilities.
And worse, we often reactively fear/disparage what we don't understand, which, in our modern society, is a rather bad habit.
I applaud you for having faced your fears through learning.
I know exactly what you mean and I related to it a lot in a lot of ways. I too live across a different continent (and hemisphere) from my home town, so I tend to fly a lot. Thankfully, I've been flying since I was a baby. I've been always used to planes, so I never suffered from anxiety or fear of planes or heights much. I may get a bit anxious now and then, but it usually goes away fast.
I didn't know anything about flying either before, but binging Peter's videos have definitely made me understand it a lot better, and made me appreciate just how much time, effort and skill goes into flying an airplane. The awe and admiration I have for pilots now is a lot more than I had before.
In a way, I think that's how it goes for a lot of things in life. Having dealt with homophobia for a portion of my life, I can definitely see the resemblance. People tend to fear, be scared of, or find potentially anxiety inducing things they don't understand well(flying/queer people). Understanding it doesn't necessarily mean you belong to the group/can do the thing (piloting/being queer) but it definitely makes you understand that it's not a magical realm where magical and weird things happen, and that people work together to make it work.
And like you said, none of this would work if the content wasn't engaging. The fact that it's so well produced and Peter explains it in a rational way, while also showing his own experience in the area is definitely what makes it work out so well.
Isn't it so strange how learning about plane crashes makes you feel better about flying? The first time I was ever on a plane was in high school, and I basically started on hard mode: a 10+ hour transatlantic flight without my parents. As a teenager I was anxious about pretty much everything, so obviously the idea of flying scared the hell out of me. I think I spent at least six months before the flight reading everything I could about plane crashes and aviation safety, and I came out of it feeling so much better. When you really take in all the info, it becomes clear how wildly unusual crashes are, and how it's even rarer for them to have significant fatalities.
If you are scared of flying, you probably shouldn't get in a car, a bus, or a train. There's no safer means of transportation than flying.
Like you, I used to be afraid of flying. One flight, I had an empty seat next to me, and a pilot got on (not the plane's pilot, but he also worked for the airline). Throughout the flight, he explained all the mechanics that kept a plane in flight. Never had an issue since. Knowledge is empowering.
That poor FO. His world was going insane nothing made sense and everything he did had the opposite effect from his intention. Alarms were blasting, his captain was dying and he couldn't even see where he was going. The panic and fear must have been horrendous. I hope that his family didn't have to put up with people blaming him for the crash. I hope he is flying in friendlier skies now.
That´s straight on the point. As an armchair pilot, sitting safe and dry in your home, you can easily state: aviate, navigate, communicate - but in his reality he had no chance. It was beyond his possibility to aviate the plane. I share your hopes deeply. RIP.
@@NicolaW72 The living can still learn from A-N-C. The 1st officer seems to have been put in an extremely unfortunate *series* of events that overwhelmed his ability to cope. It might save some lives, for those who come after, to remember that your colleague's medical emergency can only improve if you fly the airplane and get it back on the ground.
i still would like to know what his inputs were on the flight controls, if any. I feel like this part has been left out.
@@Nebbia_affaraccimiei It is explained in the video that he was steering his yoke to the right in an attempt to fix the roll, in fact that is the reason autopilot hasn't engaged. I think he wasn't familiar enough with Airbus's autopilot system, given the fact that most of his experience was on Ilyushins.
Usually panic is greatest, when you can't do anything and the development is slow. This was fairly quick, much quicker that it takes to tell the story.
I’m from Romania and this accident was all over media but never got a better explanation of what has happened as in this video. Great episode! Thank you
Best explanation ever!
He is a trainer, backseat check pilot observing safety and service at times, and also is experienced in ensuring pilots given general licenses for his type of plane actually know how to fly it.
Mayday Air Crash Investigation do ofer the same explanations aside from the F/O training on Soviet type aircraft with different artificial horisons.
Government: ITS ALL FINE DONT WORRY
@@brav0wing but that is the really brilliant insight
Cristian Stoi, the son of the FO of Tarom 371 that crashed near Bucharest, is now a pilot (captain) for Tarom. Cristian decided to become a pilot after his father crashed with ROT 371.
Really??
Ive always thought these things are weird.. If my mom drowned in a ship that sank, i sure as hell would not go anywhere near ships..
@@jennaeveliina313 Same, but perhaps some people feel like they should follow in the footsteps of their parents or take over their work in order to honour them. Take over the family business, so to speak.
@@jennaeveliina313its not weird. It makes perfect sense.
you're afraid. Some people can overcome theirs.
@@a.nobodys.nobodyyes it could be the only way to slay your demons
I am not a pilot but find these videos fascinating. I have a greater appreciation for pilots and their workload now.
For me I no longer want to fly.
I show my appreciation by paying for my ticket so they get a nice salary.
@@feelthatfeelthat I find it remarkeble how much need to go wrong for a plane to crash, I mean here it is heart attack combined with too much familiarity with Russian build planes and a change in course all at exactly the same couple of seconds, I mean what are the odds of that such incredibly bad luck, it makes me want to fly watching this and I have watched every single episode of aircrash investigation on Netional geographic as well and it makes me happy to fly watching it.
@@feelthatfeelthat Opposite for me. Shows how much it really takes for a plane to go down.
@@feelthatfeelthat Okay you are more likely to be struck by lightning ⚡️ 15 times in 1 year then being in a air crash 💥 You are more likely to be killed in a car accident 100 times in a one year time period. Oh and if you swim in a pool 🏊🏻♀️ you are more likely to drown even if you can swim up to 30 times in one year. All true
Maintenance: “This component has failed in flight over 10 times, but we can’t find the issue on the ground. Should we just replace the whole assembly?”
“Nah, just tell the pilots to keep an eye on it. What’s the worst that could happen?”
It was the simple solution, it was this Pilot aircraft anyway, he should learn about to how predict possible problems, and missgifts..... Real problem was copilot, even if he was more ready as captain, he was used to soviet made plane, and they are build and react diferently.
why not just disable the autothrottle and just have retraining for the crews? Aviation safety is a joke at best.
I'm inclined to agree with you.
@@miroslavdockal9468 The copilot who was incapacitated?
That's not a maintenance issue. It's the manufacturer's.
Imagine knowing a component you sold is randomly failing, it has no redundancy checks, and could kill several people. And still waiting til many people die and there's a report out with your name on it before redesigning it.
If instead of telling the maintenance crews to grease it up, if they had partially or completely disabled the ATS while developing and testing a new thrust lever design, this wouldn't have happened. No chance. But all large companies are reckless when it comes to safety, they prefer lawsuits over preventative solutions to existing problems
Wow.. this insanely unlucky string of coincidences is stunning. First the auto thrust issue with the plane, then the fact that the flight plan involved a left turn which matched the polarity of the auto thrust issue, then the fact that air traffic control cleared the left turn earlier than planned causing the captain to fiddle with nav instead of holding the thrust levers, then the captain is medically incapacitated right at the instant that the plane reaches an altitude that causes the auto thrust system to do work (kicking the auto thrust issue into motion), causes a huge distraction to the co-pilot who has the controls and thinks the plane is stable and focuses for too long on his struggling colleague, and finally when he turns his full attention back to the plane his piloting is stymied by the fact that he's in the clouds and instruments only, and the vast majority of his flight hours were on Soviet built planes that had a different style of artificial horizon. Unbelievable bad luck for all on that plane. Rest in peace.
Usually is a lot of individually small issues that in isolation probably wouldn't cause an accident, but when they all add up it ends in tragedy
great summary. shows how quick things can turn bad. and then the insticts kick in.
The Swiss cheese alignments analogy.
When I was a little girl I used to believe in superstitions, coincidences and the horoscope, then I graduated the 5th grade.
I really appreciate that you played that alarm for us. I could not think straight as it played for the three or so seconds it did. Can't imagine having to try to get a plane back on course with a dying or dead pilot next to me with that dang noise the entire time. Playing the alarm really puts what that poor First Officer was going through into perspective.
Yes Lisa.... He was overwhelmed by a barrage of information , then confusion as regards the "False Horizon" compounding his understanding of the situation.
But I am struggling to accept that three airlines knew this plane had a serious defect in the auto throttle on #1 engine..... I find that Criminally Negligent.
@@patagualianmostly7437unfortunately, autopilot is not legally required to be operating so I can see why it was neglected.
You’d think they would label and disable it, however, because that IS legally required.
That alarm woke me from a dead sleep after I spent hours trying to fall asleep due to insomnia. I'll be watching this channel with the volume off and closed captioning on from now on...
i'm honestly surprised and confused that it was designed to behave that way. i'm very sure there's good reason for it, but based on my minimal knowledge i'd think that any alarm should only sound for as long as it needs to in order to prevent overloading the cockpit. i'm really wondering now what condition it needed fulfilled before that alarm would stop.
wrong time to freeze up.
As Mentour Pilot takes 20 minutes to calmly and clearly go through the scenario unfolding on the flight it's easy to forget how much time was elapsing in reality. 2 minutes in this case; and with so much happening too.
Yeah this fatal crashes often happen so quickly. In seconds rather than minutes
And ironically enough those 2 minutes probably felt like the longest two minutes ever
@@AW-kr9flseconds if it’s close to the ground or something but if they’re at cruising altitude 35,000 even an 8K decent would take 3 minutes to get to 11,000. Assuming the planes just dropping instead of coasting or anything like that
I really appreciate your respect for the loss of life. You don't just talk about a statistic, you show us the memorial, you play music, you give us a moment to mourn because these are people who deserve to be mourned. It's clear this isn't just an academic interest for you; this is a responsibility for lives that you take seriously every time you fly or teach others to fly.
I don’t think you could be a pilot and not appreciate the loss of life. Pilots are aware of how quickly things can go wrong with disastrous outcomes.
Flying is a fickle game where minor errors can have life altering and life ending outcomes.
music is the worst part, triggeres too much emotions.
@@mikes-b6009
Flying isn't fickle at all... it's one of, if not, the safest form of commercial transport. You're more like to be killed driving to the shops to get some milk or while catching a train to work. The fact that if there is a malfunction of some type you're in a dire situation is just obvious as you're at the mercy of gravity.. that's not fickle.. that's physics.
@Ali Al-Mahdi
??? Wrong channel maybe??
I think the "meaningless opinions from assholes no one gives a shit about" is down the road. Take a hike.
@Ali Al-Mahdi I’m a father of two adult daughters who I raised on my own throughout their teens. I was also a health care professional and I find your ‘theory’ of menstruation and blood to be both concerning and I’ll-informed.
I’m unable to rationalise how menstruation has anything to do with flying an aircraft!!!!
I feel really sad for the first officer in this case, it seems very likely that his genuine concern for the Captain distracted his attention for just a moment but that was all it took for everything to overwhelm him, it just feels unfair!
As an aircraft mechanic, the most frustrating thing is not being able to replicate the issue and you’re left trying to decipher what was really going on in relation to the troubleshooting manuals. The troubleshooting manuals will normally go through an operational check and if it works that time, then the system is ok. But when it’s the third time it’s happened in a week, then it’s difficult to decide where to begin.
I struggle with the fact that you can't replicate the issue, but somehow the crash investigation gets to the bottom of the problem.
hindsight is 2020 @@nigelturner9606
@@nigelturner9606 we don’t have access to black box, dfdau, and flight recordings during troubleshooting. And most troubleshooting is performed during a 2 day AOG window at max. We can’t be in the cockpit to see or feel what is happening so all we have are our manuals and intuition. If the system checks out ok during our tests then it’s legal to sign it off. Usually when it’s a repeat or chronic issue and cannot determine the cause on the ground, then we will start changing out the most likely suspected LRUs.
@@nigelturner9606 Investigators literally got to the bottom of the problem. A flat spotted roller bearing from the throttle quadrant was found at the bottom of the 30 ft crater. Investigators and Airbus knew exactly what they were looking for. The flat spotted roller was known to Pan Am Maintenance when they operated the very aircraft 5-years earlier but the PIREP was signed off as "lubed." There was an undisclosed settlement with the plaintiffs after the investigation was completed.
The strangest thing for me these plains have a GO even though they are experiencing some critical issues. Sounds very unprofessional to try to replicate the issue during the ground time and if it is not replicated by the technician the action is to simply let the plane fly again. With this kind of issue, no flight should be accepted until it is clear what is the cause. Really shocking!
I’m a 767 Captain and I learn something from every horrible event you detail very thoroughly. Love this channel even though it’s sad to see what leads up to many of these disasters. Keep up the work you do. It’s valuable information. Footnote. There have been quite a few accidents that you have profiled that concern the differences in the attitude indicators on western built and Russian built aircraft. Thats tragic.
The unique thing with Petter is that he has the ability to explain the accidents in a way so both you, a captain, and I, an artist learn something. From different perspectives, but still. He makes me much less nervous. 😌
Yeah when Russia opened up (temporarily lol) and their airlines began buyong Western jets you suddenly had hundreds or even thousands of pilots who spent their entire life with Soviet artificial horizons having to use the Western style, which look a lot like the opposite (L bank looks like bank to the right) and in an emergency with startle effect plus trying to figure out you tend to revert to instinct and habit. So there's been a bunch of incidents. Most you probably never hear of. Probably just some momentary "holy shit" followed by recovery and a few embarassed looks in the cockpit and an awkward announcement to the cabin with passengers muttering, something like "this is what I get for flying Aeroflot".
When I took A&P classes at Miramar my instructor (a licensed pilot and Vans RV-7 owner) had four rules for flying that he always observed.
#1 was to never fly the “A” model, #2 was to never fly anything Russian-built, probably for exactly this reason.
Personally, I prefer the Russian as the Western makes no damn sense to me.
@@shanestachwick4784Mas miramar?
That moment when you said, "....but because they are in a left hand turn..."
-And you see it all come together....Oh....Oh no.
Yeah, that just about told the whole story. (at about 10:20) And at only around 1500 feet AGL, there's no extra seconds for correction.
Also, if the FO is trying to reach over to help the pilot with his left hand while steadying the controls with his right hand, he will maintain his bank angle. Any erratic motion with his left hand will tend to pull the controls left at the exact worst time.
Its so cruel. What a load of crap. Cmon God that's just a cheap shot....
Have not viewed this clip for a while. Even so they did receive a change in flight a turn earlier that inspected. The question is would they have been able to whatever they were experiencing or not. recover or not ?
This video brings up some unpleasant memories as a colleague of mine was on that flight. But it is first time I see a really comprehensive explanation of what happened. Really appreciate that. Thank you.
How's he doing now
@@bmw_m4255 Bruh
😢🎉
I’m sorry for your loss
I hope your colleague wasn't working on the Bucharest subway...
This is my 2nd time re-watching this incident and I wanted to bring a special attention to one detail. Before the captain was potentially incapacitated, the first-officer asked the captain to retract the flaps and the captain did. Now, the flap lever is on the right side of the thrust levers. There is no way the captain could have missed the asymmetrical thrust. It's literally in the line of sight. The only reason I can think of is the captain was already feeling what he was feeling at that time with his mind only fixated on the task at hand (retracting the flaps) and not the surroundings, whilst experiencing the pain. A real terrible coincidence of tragedy indeed.
I agree..... he must have been distracted by his own pain and merely concentrated on his task in hand....the flap lever. Just so sad....all of it.
To me it sounded like he had a heart attack
@@Eet0saurusWe'll never know, sadly. In the end, there's a myriad of potential health issues that could have caused it - while not a lot of stuff kills you immediately, pretty much any extremely painful issue can literally cause people to pass out from the pain alone for a few minutes (which would have been enough here). After all, we don't know if he only lost consciousness or died right away. Just horrible that it happened with the worst possible timing :(
Related to the artificial horizon .... indeed, for planes built in the west, the reference position to the horizon is inside the plane and moves with it, while for the Russians it is fixed, placed outside the plane. I'm not a pilot but I have a friend who was a military pilot on MIG 21. I don't know why there are such differences and my friend didn't manage to give me an explanation either. From my point of view, the western approach is more logical because it looks at the horizon through the eyes of the pilot, but in the end it is a matter of habit and routine. And you are certainly right when you say that it is possible that this difference in design and his long experience on Eastern aircraft is one of the causes. I make an analogy with a driver who has driven on the right all his life and ends up driving in a country where he drives on the left. He can drive very well but in a critical situation he is very likely to react instinctively completely the opposite of how he should be in the new condition in which he drives.
The soviet approach makes no sense. You're inside the plane. That should always be your reference.
Dacă nu ești pilot, de ce îți dai cu părerea atât de critic la adresa piloților? Doar pe motivul ca ai auzit tu la un prieten? Prietene, ești pe dinafară și faci praf niște piloți foarte buni, școliți în academia militară și cu foarte multa experienta. Iti garantez ca dacă avionul ala nu ar fi fost defect l ar fi pilotat cu ochii închiși. Chiar îl crezi pe ăsta ca nu au putut citi orizontul? Pe bune? Scuza ma dar ești dus.
@@HadrianTAZ Cu ce i-am facut praf? Ce am criticat? Ce este fals in ceea ce am spus si in ce consta critica? Am impresia ca tu esti praf amice.
@@HadrianTAZ Hai sa le luam pe rand sa vedem cat de idioata este interventia ta. Am spus ca nu sunt pilot si ca stiu de la un prieten de aceasta diferenta de abordare intre vest si est. Ce este critic si ce este neadevarat aici? Am mai spus ca nu stiu si nici prietenul meu nu stie explicatia dar este o diferenta in modul in care este perceputa relatia dintre pilot si aparat intre conceptia vestica si cea estica. Nu am incercat sa ma dau mare sa arunc ipoteze, am spus clar ca nu stiu de ce, dar fie ca iti place sau nu, aceasta diferenta exista. Cand am spus ca eu prefer abordarea vestica nu am afirmat ca ar fi mai buna sau mai proasta decat cea estica, am spus doar o preferinta personala. Unde este aici critica si cu ce am facut prin asta praf pilotii scoliti in academia militara? Am mai spus ca un om obisnuit cu un anumit mod de reactie, cand trece pe alt sistem oricat de bun este in situatii critice poate sa reactioneze in modul in care a fost obisnuit ani de zile si am dat ca exemplu un sofer care ani de zile a condus pe stanga, pus sa conduca pe dreapta. Este un fapt normal, se poate intampla oricui oricat de bine este pregatit. Unde este aici critica si cu ce am facut praf generatii de piloti? Asa ca inca odata afirm, amice, tu esti praf si comentator doar de dragul comentariului fara sa argumentezi cu nimic decat cu ura ca cineva indrazneste sa aiba o opinie.
Thank you for clearing that up-I could see how that would make a big difference in what is seen on screen.
Mentour producing better documentaries than documentary makers yet again! Thanks for the awesome content dude
@Godzilla Hårddisksson He pretty much is doing that now!
Goes into detail but makes it very understandable
This is my first viewing. For a non pilot ( and let's face it, most of us are here but we really want to understand as best we can everything going on ) I really appreciate all the angles that Mentour is giving us, technical and human . Won over sir !
I'm sure you've heard this a hundred times, but you are very skilled at explaining things.
He is a trainer, he must be :) Good Cpt! :)
@@AlessandroGenTLe true 👍
could you share that skill with us😉
@@FyourCult “Skillshare”
And you can be too, with Skillshare!
My parents flew this plane the day before, so me waking up and hearing at TV that this plane had a crash almost gave me a heart attack. There was no internet at that time so news was slower, so I had no idea the crash didn't happen a day before. Terrible tragedy.
My father was good friends with Captain Liviu Batanoiu. We lived pretty close to him in Bucharest. My dad and I were jus discussing this accident last weekend and he mentioned that they had met for a chat a couple days before the accident. My grandpa worked at Bucharest Otopeni International Airport (now Henri Coanda) and back in 1998 he took me to the hangar where the remains of flight 371 were still being stored. I remember getting very emotional just like back in 1995 when the accident happened.
Man if this is not THE MOST stupid airplane crash ever ! What can i say: Long live garbage aviation ... Romania :(
@@neytiritetskahamoatite7688 all airplane crash are stupid, i would not put this on the copilot as much as i would put it on beoing for knowing that they had a problem and did not fix it. There are a lot of things going wrong in this accident.
@@alexandrul.9910 why would Boeing fix it?
Thank you for sharing this :)
@@alexandrul.9910 - so you wouldn't blame the airline who bought the plane knowing that it had this problem yet still didn't replace the component? You must be Romanian!!
Your air crash investigations are narrated and explained better than the NatGeo show.
Amazing Amazing work. I love them.
Thank you!
Nat Geo is mostly crap because they spend 40% of the show covering stuff completely irrelevant to the crash. "Was it a failed engine that caused the crash?!?!" *30 minutes later* no. Pilot error.
@@MentourPilot I love your videos !! Could you do one of the 2 planes that collided mid air in India ?
@@PigeonPlucker I like Air Crash Investigations because they interview the people involved, may it be the investigators or the survivors.
@@PigeonPlucker Let me be your cheerleader for saying this. I want to watch a program about the event, maybe a little bit of personal info about key figures and possibly ironic/tragic vignettes related to it, and then the nuts and bolts of the investigation. Don't take me around in pirouettes for an hour just to add enough mattress stuffing to consider your work "a tv program" or "a documentary." Also, if the cause of the crash relates to other similar crashes, then you may add that, too (example: American Airlines Flight 96 (in 1972...all survived), arising from faulty design/incomplete closure of a cargo door on a DC-10, then the issuance of a Service bulletin, then again, Turkish Airlines Flight 981 (in 1974...346 dead)... all because of failure to repair the cargo door problem on their DC-10).
One of several acceptable examples of an EXCEPTION to this is South African Airways Flight 295 (which became known as "The Helderberg Disaster"). The program that I saw was SO well done, because it DID focus on more than just the disaster, the investigation and the times, but the political situation at the time, with how apartheid had an effect on what potentially contraband cargo may have been transported on the 747 Combi (Passengers in the front, cargo in the back)... Cheers.
I don't know if it has any relevance, yet first officer Stoi was a friend of a friend of my grandfather's. As you mentioned in the video, it was a pretty well-regarded airman, and even entrusted (at least once) with flying Ceaușescu's backup plane in one of his visits abroad. Seeing such a skilful person not being able to gain control of the situation is a grim reminder that even the best of us can succumb to stress and maybe, as you said, certain mental patterns and habits.
SLOJ.
It seems that some of the most terrible accidents happen with the most experienced and respected pilots at the controls. Ex.: KLM at Tenerife.
@Tiberiu Danciu
*Wow, that's quite a rarity that anyone would have piloted Ceausescu's plane! Did your Grandfather get to meet him??!?!*
If so what did he think of the man?
@@watershed44
Maybe I didn't make it clear enough, but the story goes that he flew a backup/logistics plane in the presidential convoy, not Ceaușescu's plane itself.
Sadly, he didn't get to meet him, so this is more of a "he said that he said" story. This led myself to believe that it could just be hearsay, so I tried to fact-check the little stuff I knew.
Before the Boeing 707 presidential plane was bought, Ceaușescu flew on an Ilyushin Il-18 (YR-IMM, with YR-IMZ also being part of the presidential fleet). Stoi had 6,593 flight hours on the Il-18. He also worked for the TAROM state airline, which for all intents and purposes, operated presidential flights.
So I think it's pretty plausible that the story is indeed true. Maybe the aircraft in question was the YR-IMZ. The location was in South America, so this would probably put the date in September 1973 (Also, my grandfather said something about a coup d'etat happening at the time - this checks out with the September 11th, 1973 coup in Chile). At the time, Stoi would have just celebrated his fifth year of being a pilot, so maybe the relative lack of experience is why he didn't get to fly Ceaușescu himself.
In 1974, the aforementioned Boeing 707 was bought, and given the fact that Stoi didn't have a type rating for the 707, he probably didn't get another chance at flying a presidential plane.
Funnily enough, in researching this, I discovered that captain Bătănoiu did have 5,151 flight hours on the 707 at the time of the incident. Given that TAROM wasn't flying too many western aircraft at the time, it would be worth looking if maybe he got to fly the newer presidential plane.
@@tiberiud Thanks for the reply! Very interesting and intriguing information!
My best friend's dad was flying the A310s back then for Tarom. My dad was on the B707. They both knew the pilot and co-pilot. It shook them quite a bit.
This brings chills down my spine, because I was supposed to be on the flight but didn’t make it... one of those nine lives surely gone that day...
Great analysis, as usual. Never thought about the potential confusion coming from the soviet attitude indicator. Kudos to Dmitri for spotting that out, it can explained the lack of stick correction.
Wow
So what was the reason back then for you not to embark on that flight?
(Edited 21 hours later - after asking the question) Personally, i know somebody who was suppose to be on that flight as well, couldn't get a straight answer for him losing the flight. There were a few other persons who stated they were suppose to be on that flight, on different comment sources (youtube, personal vlogs, articles etc) who never answered my question "what was the reason for not embarking?"
Always one isn't there
What a terrible chain of events how could anyone deal with a situation like this. Very sad.
Yes, it was a tragedy for my country. Very sad.
" how could anyone deal with a situation like this" -- uh, I think that's the pilot and co-pilot's responsibility, but I could be wrong...
@@raylopez99 It maybe their responsibility, but so much was happening at the same time. Far too simplistic to say it's their responsibility. Even with good training, this appeared to be a rare occurrence, imagine your colleague incapacitated without warning and dealing with a plane losing control. As i said your comment was simplistic.
@@greymark420 Not really. Crazy or incapacitated pilots are rather not uncommon, for example that FedEx flight, the golfer Payne Stewart private jet, that decompression incident with Aegion? from Cyprus (the flight attendant almost became a hero but not quite) and so on.
@@raylopez99 Always easy to make comparisons from an armchair. I work for the emergency services, very well aware how a high stress environment effects an individual. Even with good training, we are not infallible. That's what makes us human.
This is so damn sad, the Captain became incapacitated at the worst possible time. But i guess that's why flight instructors always beat it into students heads to always fly the plane no matter what is happening around you.
Indeed. The mathematical possibility that the incapacitation of the Captain happened at this moment and together with the other circumstances was nearly zero - but not fully zero - and here Murphy´s Law unfortunately stepped in: Everything what can happen will happen. And yes, I still think that the shocking of the FO was at least one reason why he was then unable to fly the plane.
@@NicolaW72 well perhaps not because presumably take off and stress increase chances of a heart attack - so more likely at times of stress - which is when you most need two pilots
@@jamesbirkin351 Still nearly zero, like he said. The increased risk of heart attack would still be well under 1%, but I'll be generous and let you have any medical condition, but you would still be very wrong. A study of16,000 commercial pilots found that the odds of a pilot becoming physically incapacitated on a flight at any time during that year was only 0.25% (exactly 40 pilots had a single episode in a year's time), and that's the chance for a year of flying. Commercial pilots can only fly a maximum of 1,400 hours in a year(edited, I incorrectly wrote 1,000 hrs in my initial post), and they are also checked annually for their health, and pilots are disqualified from flying with serious heart conditions or even diabetes requiring a hyperglycemic drug. So the odds in a years time this would happen to a pilot is nearly zero. Your already incorrect observation becomes a hundred times weaker when you adjust the odds of incapacitation from yearly probability to the probability over the course of a single flight. Therefore, assuming a very generous estimate of only 100 flights/year, the odds are now at 0.0025% of this happening during and given flight, which is very much nearly zero. The point about the pilot being in a stressful situation is not valid because they were climbing and having no major problems when he began to feel ill and it was his sudden incapacitation that set events into motion.
@@jamesbirkin351 +
@@sheeplehunter9651 - Nearly zero is not zero.
This, to me, is one of the saddest crash scenarios that I've seen. Though most (or all?) crashes have multiple causes or conditions occurring in combination, this one just seems as if events really conspired against the poor first officer. : (
Karma.
Sometimes a group is meant to leave.
In the same way,
sometimes someone just misses the flight
because his time is not yet.
@@zen4men You're right, it's all according to one's divine life plan, isn't it. I usually manage to remember that but sometimes get caught up in drama of events.
@@oneworldawakening
I have "met" otherworlds/other beings,
and know I have lived before / will again / never die,
which does change one's perspective!
We are in a World War.
A spiritual struggle
on a global scale.
Orchestrated fear, globally.
@PsychoKaedeMode
You see
what you think you see
I see
what I know I see
I have experienced things
that most people only read books on.
If you see that as "schizo",
that says far more about you
than it does about me.
/
@@oneworldawakening Do you believe those people deserved to die then? There were children on board, 60 victims that did nothing and had no control over the situation and died as a result of that. You realize they had hopes, dreams, ambitions, same as you and me.
So crazy. It's insane how fast things go from perfectly normal to unrecoverable catastrophe.
Ikr
@@davidt8087 you're full of shit and don't know anything at all
What's really insane is that they have all this technology out there that can rectify much of these situations yet there's no SOL threshold where the plane will say "F#@k it, I need to fix it!" and lockout pilot inputs temporarily to rectify to situation. I mean, it should be a no-brainer that a plane should not be going past a certain bank angle or damn near upside down. At that point what's the worst that could happen if the plane takes over?
@randallsmerna384 they do on F-16s, 35s and 22s. Maybe one day it will make it to civilian platforms. It isn't universal in the military yet tho.
Seconds.
Having flown both Russian as well as Western Fast Jets, I can testify to this problem arising due to different depiction of Artificial Horizon. That is why we are taught to always correlate the Artificial Horizon indications with secondary instrument, ie, the compass and the turn and slip indicator. That form the basis of recovery from unusual attitudes in actual IFR conditions when the visual horizon is not available. Another basic learning is that whenever you're facing an unusual situation, the first action is to level the aircraft and then do your trouble shooting. The Aviate part of Aviate, Navigate and Communicate. Such a sad waste of life. All the more important to never ever forget the basics of flying. Congratulations to you as well as your Patreon crew on this amazing deduction.
The Russian method seems more intuitive to me, which do you prefer of the two?
@@skiorclimb It is a matter of getting used to, but personally, I agree with you. The Russian depiction of Artificial Horizon (AGD, Agda, as they call it) is more intuitive.
@@skiorclimbthe Russian method makes more sense. It is the plane that is moving, not the sky.
@@catherinearangie2311 The plane is moving, but the pilot is moving with it. Relative to the plane-pilot reference frame the horizon will change the angle. The eastern system shows the view from someone outside (behind) the plane who is sitting upright aligned with the horizon. The western system shows the view from inside the cockpit and what the pilot would see if looking out the window.
@@benhetland576 I could agree that anyone would prefer the method that they started out with but in all objectivity there is nothing intuitive about the soviet model. The western model is much more intuitive and makes much more sense because in essence it shows the same image/view as what a pilot would normally see from the cockpit window just in a simplified digital form.
So interesting the way you explain what happened but so very sad to understand what they must have been through in the few minutes of this flight. R.I.P. to the crew and passengers that lost their lives so tragically.
Indeed 😥
@@MentourPilot I don't exactly understand something. It is a theory that he interpreted the horizon the opposite way, and it seems like it is an unsolved mystery. But why there isn't an answer to this in the recorded flight data that he turned into the wrong side?
I have actually watched a feature (Discovery, I guess) documentary about this flight and they inserted audio records, including the sounds made by the captain and the last few seconds of the flight (the terrified scream of the FO upon coming out of fog a few hundred meters above the impact site).
Also, in that documentary they touched on the difference between western and soviet dials, so Dimitri might've watched it too.
I knew of someone that died in this crash, and I was always curious to know more about what happened. Thank you so much for this thorough and enlightening episode. Great work.
That cavalry alarm gave me some serious anxiety/panic, I couldn't imagine having to make split second life or death decisions with that thing blaring.
Well, his plane was essentially screaming for him to fly it because it couldn't fly itself. Neither could pilot. Had to be horrific, I agree.
Important reminder to always Cancel/Identify any alarm. This is to allow other system alarms to function and tell you more info.
@@jeffstillwell6802 you cant always do that though.
@@tankthearc9875 you can! Just reach up and smash the red or yellow button, read the EICAS, do the work.
hey at least it alarms you
I absolutely love the way you tell the story and explain everything in a technical way but still manage to make it very clear.
It's a talent in itself.
Wow - what a catastrophic set of coincidences. The fact they were initiating a left turn as the thrust changed in a way that was consistent with the effects if making a turn, and the Captain apparently experiencing a health event as the same time. Kind of ridiculous that the autothrottle malfunction was well known and left for pilots to deal with. Excellent analysis of the potential for artificial horizon instrumentation being the most critical factor.
Wouldn't flying a left turn in that case feel different from usual? I don't get why they didn't watch the thrust lever, knowing about this issue..
@@JudeLawKingKlaus the Pilot, in the left hand seat, was the one watching the throttles and handling all the other inputs required, as the Copilot was the one who was actually hands on, flying the aircraft. The pilot had to take his attention off the throttle levers in order to enter the changes required to make an early turn, so he did not see the left hand lever continue to move lower, nor see the right hand lever stuck. And by the time the call for flaps happened, it seems the pilot had had what I can only assume is a heart attack, thus completely distracting the copilot from anything else going on to the aircraft. Unfortunately, the cabin crew and the passengers, having nothing to distract them, would have noticed rather quickly that something was very wrong, but with neither the time or ability to do anything about it.
As for the throttle difference, yea, eventually they would have noticed the results, but from what I can tell, the right engine was at climb setting, call it 90%, and the left engine was probably around 70% or so? That is based on what I assume are the thrust dials shown a few times, and where the indicators were pointing. Also, a change is much harder to notice when it is happening slowly, than when it is happening rapidly.
@@JudeLawKingKlaus No no no, you don't "feel". Pilots have said they are instructed to ignore the body feel because it's misleading them and they die if they do that, they have to follow their cabin instruments, they rely on them. Due to the weather they could not see outside the windows, they had no feeling in the human body if they were going up/down, you could be falling and think you are going up - in the airplane, if you don't see anything. Expecially when the entire flight took 1min30 and previously they thought everything was ok, then everything didn't make sense. This after being given a defective airplane to fly + told to take a left turn earlier than they were indending to. Even with the captain pilot still alive this would have been from bad do still a catastrophe.
15:21 This is why I don't fall asleep watching this channel anymore. Woke up the entire house. Almost had a heart attack...
The biggest thing I'm taking away from this series of yours is just how many things have to go wrong for an accident to happen. If just a single part of these things did not happen, everything would've been fine.
Very true. Did you see the 1964 move; Fate is the Hunter? It's all about a series of events.
@@williamfaulkner1959 "Fate Is The Hunter" is a great book if you haven't read it.
@@xistrik3rix Thanks
That's very true but it's less often that the timing makes such a big impact. They turned early, causing a masking of the symptom and at the same time the pilot becomes incapacitated. That's incredibly bad luck.
So true. Pretty much all of the major air crashes that I can think of have consisted of a chain of cascading events which end in disaster. Thankfully, the chances of so many things going wrong at the same time are exceedingly rare.
I must tell you how much I enjoy your intelligent discussion.
Thank you! I hope you watched it to the end
@@MentourPilot just about. Darn work responsibilities.
And so free from any political talk. Very refreshing.
26:05 The Western artificial horizon is showing a RIGHT bank while the Soviet is showing a LEFT bank. I can see why he might have thought that the plane was level, but the angle between the background and the aircraft symbol should be the same in both versions.
yes, its an interesting video but the presenter has got the left Western one the wrong way round
I'm a bit confused why he made such a glaring mistake in the video. Having no experience in flying I found that section super confusing because the western meter visually made no sense to me. But I'm glad my instincts are right. I hope he fixes this
It took me a couple of minutes being dazzled at the instruments as I contemplated what the co-pilot may have been experiencing - then I resolved that confusion by realizing that the left AH indicator was a right bank as you stated .
I noticed this as well, as a non-pilot. Strange mistake to make by a pro while explaining the possible misinterpretation of the instrument. Or are we all mistaken? I'm confused.
@@viggotannhauser7251 We are right. A quick Google search proves that. The strange thing is that not many people noticed this in the comments. And certainly Mentor himself hasn't responded to the error.
I remember this like it was yesterday. Living in Romania, I was in my first year of highschool, and I remember reading daily newspapers that had full double and quadruple pages dedicated to this accident.
18:22
THE MEMORIAL OF THE VICTIMS OF BALOTESTI
At 31 march 1995 , at 08:08, the flight Tarom RO371 going to Brussels, with a plane Airbus A310-324, registered YR-LCC "Muntenia" crashed in the vicinity of this place. 60 people with different nationalities lost their lives in what was then the biggest aeronautic catastrophe in Romania.
The monument situated at the end of the alley was build in the memory of those who died then, and was renovated by volunteers in 2017.
Please keep the place clean.
The wife of a good friend of mine was supposed to be onboard but she canceled her flight the day before. The memory of this still lingers around. Thank you for explaining it so well.
Wow that was a close call
Did she ever said why she canceled the flight?
@@awdtowildness it perhaps really does not matter; a lucky individual. She was able to continue on; that a blessing in inself.
My dad was working in airport security at that time in Bucharest airport. He told me that he talked with the pilots and the flight crew before they embarked in the plane, they told some jokes, etc. They all seemed fine. He was shocked when he found out about the crash... :| he couldn't believe it.
I can imagine this. The crash happened in round about a minute - until then it was a routine workday and a routine take-off.
I am so sorry for his loss ! :( My father was about to fly back to Otopeni that very day, we had heard about a plane crash but didn't know details, so we went in with lots of fear. Only when we saw him coming up smiling did we finally feel relief.
I remember. My aunt woke me up. I knew them, as the chief pilot for the Airbus program at Tarom was a close family friend. I flew with most of them, and flew on Muntenia...I have photos of that plane before the crash. Noroc.
Îmi pare rău să aud asta.
i dont believe you
Learning about things like this have made me a lot more tolerant of mistakes made by people elsewhere in life.
The same cognitive biases exist outside of the cockpit and have caused people to make some truly tragic mistakes.
I remember many years ago when I first got interested in aviation accidents the crash investigator said something that has always stuck with me and it was that the pilots job first and foremost was to fly the aircraft and unfortunately so many accidents happen because the pilot forgets that and gets distracted, if the first officer had followed that principle then this could have been averted but he got distracted with what happened to the captain , thoroughly enjoyed your post and looking forward to the next one
Yes, thank you
Flying while trying to figure out whether the ill pilot caused a configuration change is not practiced in training. This extreme coincidence occupied a massive percentage of brain capacity trying to see if his hands or feet were affecting any controls….
@@jeffstillwell6802 No button or switch to hit which would completely take all control over by the copilot no matter what (on his side) the pilot was touching?
This is SUCH a good series. Thanks.
Glad you find it interesting!
Isn’t it just. For me the best Aviation channel you TH-cam👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I agree. The fact that it’s coming from a pilot and his knowledge is very different from all the other aircraft accident investigation channels.
@@Maxfli82 He also doesn't treat us like we're idiots. I like that he uses technical information and more complicated language than the "accessible" TV shows. To me, the only thing I miss about those shows is the interviews with the people involved.
Like seconds from disaster or air crash investigation, but straight to the point, the survivor interviews are interesting sometimes, but all the re-enactments with bad actors are terrible.
You have one of the best channels on TH-cam. Keep up the great work!
not even a month before I was aboard this very plane from Heathrow to Bucharest. when I heard the news it crashed I just froze!
I was on Air France 447 exactly 1 week before it went missing, same night flight from Rio to Paris
Damn, that's scary.
At 26:05 the Western artificial horizon is not drawn correctly for a left turn; it shows a right turn. Indeed it's easy to get confused...
It took me a couple of minutes being dazzled at the instruments as I contemplated what the co-pilot may have been experiencing - then I resolved that confusion by realizing that the left AH indicator was a right bank as you stated .
Beat me to it.
I also tried to report that. I’m surprised that the video is not corrected. How come mentour didn’t catch that ??
I was in highschool when this happened. I remember firefighters and policemen so devastated by what they saw at the crash site that were unable to speak coherently in front of the news cameras, some barely holding their tears. Years later in my residency I had the chance to talk to one of the first responders who came in as a patient, he still had nightmares about the event and I was shocked by his description (I won't go into the gruesome details, as there may be kids reading these comments).
I'm glad you covered this accident with your usual professionalism and attention to detail, the official investigation was kinda hushed up and the following public statements were rather brief and unsatisfactory. Many people felt a political cover-up, possibly regarding financial issues with the state hold airline, as less than an year prior to the accident there were some controversies about the acquisition and maintenance of those Airbus planes.
It's good for us to be reminded that first responders can be so traumatized by the terrible things they encounter. We owe them all the help we can give to deal with those traumas.
My father was there when it happened, he was being a soldier at that time, At Otopeni (Bucharest, a few kilos away). What he saw that day he will never forget. R.i.P. to all the victims.
This is mind blowing. Those things will never cause a crash on their own, but a combination of them and you're in big trouble. I'm a drone pilot, shooting for my advanced Canadian license. We are expected to know a lot about aviation and that's where your videos really help. Thanks for doing them.
The captain had a heart attack. The timing of all events seems “perfect” for this disaster to occur. Of cause, no postmortem can be done, but based on all of the events, this seems to be the most likely scenario. Poor people… :(
The sudden incapacitation suggests a cerebral vascular problem - a serious stroke. It could go either way, though. Blockage of the circumflex artery stops the heart very rapidly.
@@flagmichael May he just realized the throttle position and failing organ was a result.
Heart attack was what I was guessing too, based on the groans, like he was in serious pain.
@@FreedomIsNotGoingToBeFree he looked down to adjust the flaps, saw the left thrust lever was like 10 degrees off from the right, and several organs just went “ah. No” simultaneously.
Such bad timing 😮
Mentor, there is another person that does an excellent job on animation of aircraft accidents but he lacks a real airline pilot with a wealth of knowledge as yourself. How you explain these accidents is just fantastic!! Thank you very much!
I think the captain might have been partially incapacitated earlier on, changing the FMC to go direct to a fix already in the flight plan is very simple, It's about 3 button presses and should go very quickly if I'm correct. If the captain was starting to get incapacitated at this time he might have problems with it and it would take longer. (stroke or similar) This would also explain the lower perceptive and cognitive functions required to remember and notice the differential thrust. Just some thoughts
That’s a great observation. The major issues in the past with the thrust levers where ignored. When that should have been the captains main concern.
Could certainly be. I tend to think it was a heart attack… usually there’s a minute or two of mounting pain or disorientation that you can ignore at first, but slowly degrades you until the real, sudden shock hits. What happens then is highly variable, but it’s completely possible to grunt once and fall over, unconscious.
@@BradBo1140Yeah but he was working on the navigation input, so he wouldn't notice until he got it done.
@@obitouchiha4739 isn’t the module like right next to the thrust? My question is how can you not see it even if you are working on that different system, I feel like peripheral would catch it easy. Just a thought, I have zero experience so just if anyone has an answer please let me know.
@@Aquasliph That was exactly the point of OP's comment: that if the captain was already starting to become incapacitated because of, say, a beginning stroke (but before it _really_ hits) when he was working on the navigation system, that might help to explain why he didn't notice the position of the thrust levers.
There are just two aviation channels that I LOVE. Your channel and Kelsey’ s. As a life long aviation enthusiast and a “grounded” private pilot, I can express my thanks to both of you. I love learning about safety, systems and aircraft in general. Be well
Me too. They are the best pilot channels on TH-cam
As a person who has never flown an airplane, the Soviet artificial horizon makes slightly more sense to me, since it is, in fact, the airplane that tilts. But as you pointed out, it’s a matter of what you get used to. Thanks for this excellent video.
I think the opposite. The western system mimics where the horizon actually is. Superimpose the attitude indicator with the horizon and they are the same. It's like x-ray vision through the clouds or night and seeing where the horizon actually is. Same as heads up displays for fighter pilots.
The western one is more of a first person indicator, rather than a third person. Being inside the plane, and not behind it, the western one seems to make more sense.
@@kingsleykronkk3925 I agree with you. But conversely, I've always thought that the Soviets got it right with 'cosmonaut' and we got stuck with the not-exactly-accurate and inherently limiting 'astronaut', lol.
Same , it looks more intuitive way to see it than the west version 🙄
It's all relative... which is a statement which works in two ways in relation to this issue. :)
At 26:05, western attitude indicator actually shows 53 degree RIGHT bank angle, as opposed to the description in the video. The differences between Western and Soviet built PFDs You describe are correct, however, the graphics is wrong. It's still possible that your theory about copilot's confusion is correct, though. Despite that, very great video! Keep up the good work.
Thank you. I agree 100% with you
I agree too.
Clearly.
Yup... doesn't matter whether the horizon moves or the little plane moves, they would look the same relative to each other on either bank... could be that the pilot was confused, but this explanation is not quite correct.
Very sad to see that Captain was incapacitated and F/O didn't know what to do and calling his Captain. It's also very frightening that all passengers are screaming before crashed. It is the most deadly plane crash :(
RIP to all on board who died :(
Well, deadliest in Romania, not in the world.
Susie Q I know it's not the world's deadliest accident in the world.
But thanks for the Country name. Because I don't know which country it crashed. Thanks for that :)
Actually, the FO knew what to do, but unlike today's airlines where a pilot could fly 4 sectors with 4 different colleagues, at that time TAROM had 3 A310 aircrafts and not many pilots typerated for them, so, most likely, more than half of the FO's experience was acquired while flying alongside that captain. That man watched his best friend dying, and even if it was wrong, it was at least understandable for him to be a bit more concerned than in other cases.
Bogdan N Thank you sir for this. I understood the message.
@@CaptainJadenAR no problem man!
Family of mine sailed around the world and returned safely after 8 years. Their motto was it only takes 3 factors to lead to a potential shipwreck. This made them very conservative when it came to fixing any single problem. It's worth remembering that in any undertaking. I particularly appreciate MP's respect for those who died - silence, cut to the grave in silence. It gives one a moment to pay respect. Thank you!
I really appreciate the depth of detail Peter puts into his explanation. It brings home a whole different respect for pilots and what they and all professionals have to go through.
May all of them rest in peace! My father was a Tarom pilot, he made it through retirement but was killed by cancer ten years later, as were many, many more of his colleagues. Aviation is a beautiful and noble profession but exacts a high toll, either before or after you exit the cockpit.
What caused the cancer?
@@geddon436 most likely accumulated high altitude radiation.
@@maxavail I didn't know there was a correlation between flying and cancer. May your father rest in peace and I hope someday science and technology will find a way to guard or better protect our pilots against this.
@@AlinJ. thank you, bro!
Thats not true. My uncle was also a pilot and died from a heart attack. Way to generalize.
I am not other than a casual FS2020 pilot and I always have had interpretation difficulties with the virtual horizon instrument and as you brought this item that it is different in Russian airplanes I immediately understood what the airplane was by looking to the VH(Russian way). So this should be in all training a very important point when a pilot with Russian system experience to turn over the brain to the other situation! BTW excellent explanations about these accidents. Even better than the very detailed documentaries of Geographic Channel! There might be this other thing in the cockpit where the copilot(now being 1st officer) does not dare to correct the captain's responsibilities and did not look after the throttle, because this was clearly put into the hands of the captain.
This is nightmare fuel. I was almost 12 when this happened and it was the first aircrash I've ever heard about. Or maybe it just stuck to me because I am Romanian and this felt close. It probably played a major role in my ongoing fear of flying. Condoleances to the families affected, I cannot imagine what the passengers went through :(
This disaster seems caused by exactly the same kind of issue the 737 Max had. Ofcourse, technically, it's completely different. But corruption and greed (of the airplane manufacturers - AIRBUS, BOEING, of the airlines too) can cause such major tragedies. Airbus knew there was a potentially fatal flaw and did nothing about? Delta and Tarom knew about and still flew like nothing was going on? Every executive involved in trading that airplane or in deciding that it should have been allowed to fly should be IN JAIL with a LIFE SENTENCE. Technicians who haven't sounded the alarm too. Companies involved should be bankrupt.
I'm Romanian, too, and this accident was the reason I was terrified of flying for 20 years. What I saw on TV the days after the crash, and how my family talked about it, will stay with me for life. RIP to everyone who passed. Dumnezeu sa-i odihneasca.
Awesome content, love the intellectual discussion about these incidents. For an incident with a "happy" ending, you should cover the TACA 110 story!
Added to the list!
Great suggestion! Impressed to see this turned around in one week!
Thank YOU!
In training, does your copilot ever randomly pretend to have a heart attack to freak you out? Or is it always prewarned?
It’s never pre-warned. We can tell any pilot, through their headset, to act dead at any time.
@@MentourPilot Nice. Didn't know this kind of training was a thing. Do you train cases when a pilot lands on the yoke and pushes it forward or backwards? Ho would you handle that?
@@MentourPilot Ok, followup: how good is their acting? Is there a risk that you will get out of your chair and start calling for an ambulance?
Not sure how to feel about that. What if in the simulator one of the pilots becomes incapacitated for real? Then the help for the incapacitated pilot is delayed without necessity.
I imagine that the possibility of it happening for real at the exact same moment that the crew commands it through the headset is miniscule. If someone acts dead without being asked to the people behind the scenes will probably act upon it soon enough as they know they didn't command it.
I'm Romanian and thanks to your detailed breakdown, now I know what happened there. Love your content and I hope you'll get better soon!
It is clear to me that there is too much Avionics that end affecting the ability to fly. Pilots should get back to a PA 11 and renew their skills. The A Horizon was in your video showing the attitude of the plane all the time and at the begining it was easy to correct the problem. It us quite worrying to think that these crews can only fly strait and leveled. The training should put them back to the flying basics even it should include some basic acrobatic manuvers. Excellent your videos Cogratulations from Argentina
It is amazing how you go above and beyond what the official reports cover - thank you for your efforts!
Your production on these videos are top quality. I love watching these
I've not accomplished anything for a month now and it Mentours fault,lol.
I'm hooked on binge watching all his videos they are wonderful.
As an airline pilot with 35 years of experience, I find these air crash videos really informative. All the other 'air crash investigation' videos tend to dramatise events far too much and minimise technical detail. I was working for British Midland on the DC-9 during the Kegworth crash and this is the clearest and, most importantly, impartial review of that unfortunate series of events that I have ever seen. I'm currently getting ready to return to flying after nearly 2 years on the ground due to covid after my fleet was scrapped. I have a conversion course looming and can fully understand Mentor Pilot's apprehension and tension prior to his return to flying duties 3 months ago. I'm sure it will all come back and these videos are reminding me of lots of important aspects for safe flight. Many thanks MP!
Thank you for your comment, Paul Curran. As an airline pilot maybe you can explain to the rest of us why it seems like in so many of these crashes no one is looking at simple instruments like the artificial horizon. I fully understand what caused the airplane to roll like this but I have to believe that had any pilot at the wheel noticed the artificial horizon once it reached beyond 45° would have made immediate corrections to roll the plane back to the right. It seems to me that they are so focused on other switches and buttons and other things today don't notice these very rudimentary yet important flight instruments
If you are genuinely interested, then I respectfully suggest you watch the video again. This time with the sound turned up. This was a ‘cascade’ event, eruditely precised by Sophie Paterson
below…
@@paulcurran5117 Interesting reply. "If I'm genuinely interested" followed by a suggestion to watch the video again and an assumption that I did not have the sound up. I even made it a point to thank you for your comment so your reply is... curious to say the least but your condescending tone was well received.
While I am not a commercial pilot I do fly therefore I do have a clue and I've seen enough these videos to realize that a great many of these pilots are sorely lacking in basic flight skills and instrument awareness. Maybe you are one of these and why you take offense.
I was saying there was a lot more going on here than a straightforward bank exceedance. A lot more and I think you have either missed them or underestimated the compounding effect they would have had on that poor FO.
@@paulcurran5117 well said. A350 or B787 for your conversion, or are the b”’gers sending you back to the 320? Whichever way, best of luck.
Very tragic event 😥 many thanks from România for your great work!
@25:00 Regarding Artificial Horizon (western vs soviet), i think the graphic is wrong. From my understanding - if the plane banks left, the horizon on a western plane will turn the opposite way from what is shown. It is logical, because if you bank left - the ground will be on your LEFT and sky on your RIGHT. I searched other videos on how AH works, and they confirm that. The confusion that a pilot could have is not as shown here, but because a pilot might treat the AH Western line as a if its the airplane wings line.
I was living in Bucharest at that time and some of the first responders on site were from an army unit situated nearby (where I did my military service a few years later); the officers who arrived at the accident were telling us their eyewitness story, it was a terrible sight ... BTW, I was waiting for you to make an episode treating this accident, thanks! :)
Hope it made it justice.
@@MentourPilot Hope I did it justice....surely?
Under stress we revert to the oldest and most primitive learning and instincts that we have. I compare this to braking on ice and how we can see how it is not working and yet we instantly push harder locking the BRAKES. That only makes it worse. I love this episode! Thank you MP!
I am a retired BA pilot, John Chapman. My history is: Copilot on Vickers Vanguard; Copilot, Flight Engineer and Captain on Lockheed Tristars; Captain on Avro 748; and last 10 years as Captain on Boeing 747-400.
I have not flown an Airbus.
My comment on this accident is that the Captain should not have been fiddling with the FMC at such a low altitude and immediately after takeoff.
The correct action, in my opinion, upon receiving the ATC instruction for the early left turn, was for the Captain to press Heading mode and turn the Heading pointer towards the target fix, an action of 2 or 3 seconds, and to continue to monitor the flight and to keep a lookout, especially upwards and to the left, in the direction of the turn.
Plenty of time once the turn is complete to fiddle with the FMC!
I am perhaps 'old school', but the fundamental function of the pilot(s) must always be to FLY THE AIRCRAFT!
Yes. But some airline systems autopilot won't let you as I understand it. Disastrous if this is so.
I am not a pilot. But I'm with you. Re entering code to a computer is not something I would do whilst driving a car let alone flying an aircraft Also. Isn't that computer right next to the thrust lever. So he was actually looking right there? The more of these I watch the more I'm thinking the Auto Pilot is actually inside the pilots head and when something out of the ordinary happens it's down to the pilots ability to re engage his internal manual pilot. Also came to mind that a 3rd officer or flight engineer would have been monitoring engines. This being back in the days when 2 person cockpits where still quite new.
Good to hear that there are still old school pilots in those big airplanes. From some accidents I get the feeling that some pilots are little too reluctant to switch off the autopilot when there is something strange going on and their situation awareness is questionable, while others fly the plane perfectly. I remember the record of stick position in Tu-154 Smolensk tragic accident showing that after the plane stalled few feet over the ground and flips upside down, PIC pushes like he is going to fly the plane inverted. Best possible action, but I believe it must be completely instinctive (I know many aerobatic beginners tend to do the opposite) and this instinct was probably gained from his aerobatic training. Not sure how this is common among non-army pilots.
I too thought it would have been easier and faster to adjust the heading rather than mess with the FMC. If it was even possible on this particular aircraft
This is a fantastic series!
Though I am not a pilot, I am an Ergonomics Engineer and Human Factors Engineer. I did take ground school while in high school as a for-credit class a long while ago. I watch this series to hone my root cause analysis skills. Root cause analysis is a large part of creating design parameters for individual projects in ergonomics and human factors engineering. I am also preparing for chiropractic college. Root cause analysis is a major part of what chiropractic physicians do as primary care physicians. I am melding the two fields. Thus, I am very busy, but use my organizational time, filing paperwork, etc. to watch/listen to these videos. Thank you!
I will always remember this - My father was flying back to Otopeni that very day and we went to pick him up. We had heard about a plane crash but didn't know details (departing or arriving), so we went in with lots of fear. Only when we saw him coming up on the corridor did we finally feel relief.
That point Dimitri made was a VERY good one. Looking at it, you can see how a quick decision in the wrong direction would have been fatal
Very interesting. I’ve flown in and out if Bucharest. We absolutely love Romania ❤️
Awww ☺️
Well Sir, you can keep it ! 🤣 when i leave i shall make sure to light a cigar with my passport.
@@MrAlpinab7 what's your problem dude?
As a non-pilot, I enjoy your presentations because they are so clear and easy to follow. After watching quite a number of yours and other presentations on flight mishaps, it is clear to me that the number one attribute of all members of a flight crew is situational awareness at all times. Now....I'm very curious to know and see some of the new training procedures being used as well as ways that potential flight crew candidates are accurately evaluated for their abilities to think under pressure.
@Mentour Pilot I love watching Air Crash Investigations, and yours are by far the best. You really put in the ground/home work into this series. As much as I love them, I also hate them. I hate them when someone is injured. When everyone survives it's a happy story to me, because something was learned and nobody was killed. I watching them because I learn so much, and as an aspiring ATP myself, I love to learn about aviation. Anytime I learn something about aviation (or anything really) is a good day. Thank you Peter, keep up the amazing work. Safe flying, always!
My Brother should have been on this flight to Brussel, but a last minute call, made him to cancel his ticket. After the plane was anounced as crashed in Balotesti my Brother and us, realised what a lucky coincidence it was to get that call that made him cancel that flight to Brussel. Anyway,it was a verry sad incident that shouldn't happen. R.I.P. to the one's that died on the crash. Thank you @MENTOUR PILOT for the great content's of youre video's.
reason it takes a year or two to write up these MoT reports is that the experts would like to firmly know how this can teach the flying public how to be safer persons in the aviation community, such as technical and service improvements.
I always wonderee about these things. There is a very real possibility thins crash would never have happened had he got on that flight.
Events would have occured differently at the airport due to luggage and weight calculation, delays etc. The pilot may have been crook before or after or not at all.
A butterfly in America could technically cause a tsunami in Japan if it were to make one single change.
@@michaelthompson9548 Exactly. Accidents take so many unlikely factors to occur, it's possible that a seemingly trivial change might have made the difference that would prevent it from happening at all. (For example, if the plane had been held up for a minute or two by a passenger slow to board, the captain might have suffered his heart attack before the takeoff roll.) We will never know.
I feel for you. My wife and I had reservations on Pan Am 103. We missed it because I had a last minute work commitment. and had to re-schedule.
@@michaelthompson9548 Certainly not, poetic speculative malarkey.
Your videos have become even more professional and the graphics and editing are fantastic Petter.
I'm from Romania and was 11 when the accident happened. I kept hearing contradictory reports about the accident: that it was an autopilot issue, that it was piloting error. It's the first time I hear the full story and it's different from what other people told me. Poor FO, that was a lot to happen to him. Even if he had a chance to save the plane I don't blame him at all. Faulty airplane + medical emergency + bad weather + low altitude...all the odds were stacked against him. My belated condolences to crew and family members. This was a freak accident
It is a perfect Swiss cheese model. Anything minor that could be happened, happened in this flight and a major accident occured. Sad. Great video!
Exactly.
Yes - and everyone of the minor failings was very seldom to happen, not to talk about alltogether.
I wouldn't call the incapacitation of the Captain a minor thing
@@KingoftheJuice18 Actually what i think is, for a 8.000+hour F/O it should be, if the incapacitation was the only problem
@@alpvv Uh, a man is having a heart attack two feet away from you--and he also was supposed to be helping you fly the plane? Sure, no biggie. SMH
The holes of the Swiss cheese model perfectly aligned.
@Gary Hochstetler don’t agree. Am afraid the chain of event (the aligned swiss cheese) could have happened with any pilot/company
@Gary Hochstetler Having an entry in the tech logbook isn’t unusual and doesn’t qualify the aircraft to be defective. But am just a private pilot thus mindful it might be different on commercial planes
@Gary Hochstetler In the video it is said that every time they reported it, the airvraft was brought in for repaors and they followed the recommendations from Airbus, that is lubricating the parts and changing the bearings. However, it looks like the problem would occur nevertheless. What else could they do ? They changed the entire part. They knew they weren't more knowledgeable than Airbus, so they followed what they said
Cheeeeessee Gromit lad
@Gary Hochstetler - The report seemed to leave out a critical cause of the crash which was, once again, a failure in an aircraft's automation initiated this whole sequence of events. Tasks pilots used to do are now automated and what used to be muscle memory is now lost. This crash would never have happened with a pilot moving those levers. A human brain would have immediately recognized a lever was sticking and compensated for it. A computer can only do what it's programmed to do, it doesn't have the capacity to think. So the engineers foolishly told the computer to keep pulling back on both levers until they both were at climb out power never even considering the possibility that they could go asymmetric. This was a disaster waiting to happen.
How do I know the engineers didn't consider the problem, I don't, but if you think about it why would you not monitor position sensors on the thrust levers and monitor other engine sensors to determine if you were going into asymmetric thrust and stop pulling on the dang thrust levers _and_ alert the pilots of the condition? There's two possibilities, 1) management overruled you do to TTM excuses, Boeing, or 2) you didn't think of it, Airbus.
I salute you Petter, from Romania. Was sad to see you in hospital. Great content and take care of yourself.
COVID?
@@Nicolas_Rangel no, cycling accident
When I was in pilot training I had to practice accelerated stalls which always scared me, probably why my instructor made me do them so often. Once they start you need to act quickly. This video reminded me of those times. Thanks
26:04 - Western shows right bank, no? Great vid, and excellent presentation as always.
even I was thinking the same.
I couldn't see how this graphic was correct.
Oh goodness this one took me a while to understand, thought I was the only one but I think I get it now. I think the point being illustrated is that a western bank right could be interpreted as a russian bank left by a disoriented pilot trained on the russian style. The confusion would stem from interpreting the horizon line on the western style as the wings on the russian style.
So right at 26:05 (both green arrows pointing upper-left), the pilot sees the left image (western bank right) and thinks it is the right one (russian bank left) by confusing the horizon line for the wings. To correct for the bank left he thinks he is seeing, he would instinctively bank right, which would cause the plane to bank even further to the right.
(So for the incident in the video, the first officer would see the western style bank left, but interpret it as a russian style bank right and instinctively input bank left to correct, which worsens the situation.)
I guess the horizon/wings confusion would be that for someone trained on the russian style, the mental model is "important moving line = my wings". Since we humans are really good at detecting lines and seeing movement, the horizon line probably registered before the colors of the attitude indicator. Then couple that with being in the heat of the moment, the older training/mental model kicked in leading to the unfortunate accident.
Pretty sure I saw a similar incident covered on air crash investigations long, long ago but never really understood the explanation. Really thankful for Mentour Pilot covering these stories as he does, it primed my brain to actually think about the "why" behind the "how" that leads to these types of incidents.
@@Spectre5549 the russian indicator makes more sense
the difference in displays was very similar to one of the causes of the Buddy Holly Crash.
Extremely fascinating series, please keep 'em coming. Thank you for your high quality content.
Thank YOU for watching!
@slyburner123
I agree I love these, having an actual professional pilot give insight is better than just a recreation of a crash on video.
Great coverage of this accident. I finally understand what really happened there
I have been on a binge lately, watching your videos nonstop. I’m a mechanic in a regional in the US and find myself enjoying your attention to detail in your videos.
Thank you for all the time you have vested into these.
I was a teenager at the time an remember what a tragedy it was. In my memory was something to do with a cable and the captain's heart stroke. Thank you for the video and properly explaining the final report!
@Andrei Neacsu
How was the Romanian media coverage of this event?
@@watershed44 I was only 6 years old but I remember it was on the news non-stop for a couple of days
@@Can-Am1989 Thanks for the reply. I find this incident very intriguing.
@@watershed44 the only good part was that it did not fall in a highly populated area, Bucharest is only a few km away ...
@@watershed44 As it was 1995 in a country where even in 2021 they'd show live on TV all kind of dramatic images, which in the west would be blurred (e.g. car crash victims), imagine that this accident was also covered in detail (not technical details, but "catchy" and upsetting details).
I remember seeing the coverage live on TV that morning. Although I was a teenager, I still remember clearly the feeling. Very sad...
Awesome content!!!
Thank you! Glad you liked it!
Changing t-shirts during video is best product placement ))))
@@MentourPilot can you do Olympic airways flight 411 ???
@@type2523 what happened
@@MentourPilot indeed I did like it
I remember this very well. This flight went down the day before I went to India for the first time. The day after the incident on 1st April, I flew to New DelhiI on a Tarom flight, via Bucharest. It was supposed to be a standard 3 or 4 hour transit at Bucharest. When we got to Bucharest, we learnt that all flights were grounded and we were to stay in a hotel overnight in the city. It was upsetting knowing that we flying with aircrew who has lost friends and colleagues the day before.
I was a student pilot years ago. Life happens, so I never finished my training. With that said, your content is great. I can't get enough of your videos. Thank you again.
I find your videos extremely interesting and it makes me regret choosing my current career and not going into flying as an airline pilot. Also, I love the fact that all your sponsors are educational websites encouraging youth to learn and explore science. Last but not least, as I found Kelsey first, I am extremely glad you guys are such great human beings and chose to become friends inspite the competing channels. Great job sir.
Really appreciate these videos, feel like they may help keep the industry accountable. Makes me feel more at ease when flying that there are people like you who take safety very seriously.
It was enlightening to know that the GPWS only looked "down". If the GPWS was an EGPWS, which looks " down and forward" then F/O Stoi would likely have received a warning and might have had a chance of pulling out of the 90 degree pitch.
The couple of seconds of warning would not have mattered.