Flight 980: The Mystery of the Missing Blackbox
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ต.ค. 2024
- What definitely wasn't missing was a ton of caiman skins!
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Plane cabins are pressurised to 8000 feet equivalent. Landing at higher altitudes the cabin pressure would be higher than the outside air pressure, so the the cabin pressure has to be lowered so the doors can be opened. This is why the pilots should don oxygen masks prior to landing. Then the crash site itself was very high on a steep mountain which is subject to frequent severe weather. Even fully equipped climbing teams struggle to survive in these conditions, let alone conduct search and rescue operations. A high speed impact into the mountain would certainly have caused the aircraft to disintegrate and the various bits scattered across an ice field that would undoubtably later form part of a glacier. Decades later, bits of the aircraft have descended down the mountain and are now defrosting out the base of the glacier. Sooner of later the flight recorders will emerge.
The problem is, black boxes are set up for short term data accuracy, rather than long term reliability, it is unlikely the black box will provide much good data sadly
@@quigglebert I thought those things were as close to indestructible as we can make?
@@Ms.Pronounced_Name Fair enough, thanks.
@@levilandes1719 what elan said, sorry fornthe delay, I was at work
@@Ms.Pronounced_Name until recently, the data was recorded on reel to reel magnetic tape. Basically cassette tapes. They will degrade in time, depending on conditions.
The childish/innocent tone of the music when Simon goes on rants makes me smile.
I like that a lot as well.
….allegedly
I had never considered that my fellow passengers could be a target of assassination. Thanks Simon, my brain will surely conjure up that fact next time I’m flying.
Check their watches.. if they are tastless gold and diamond affairs and if the owner has a moustache and aviator shades... get another plane...
Thanks to 9/11, it's likely that it would be more convenient to assassinate any fellow passengers away from the airport
😮😮😮. Free
To be fair, if someone on your flight is a target, but the hitman can only take them out along with so many innocents, you can die knowing the hitman is the absolute worst hitman ever. Lol
@@DeadOnInfil idk seems like a good way to cover up an assassination. Depending on what wreckage is found, if any, it could be seen as a terrorist attack or an accident
Simon, on air craft investigations the people who are sent in are country of crash and country of the plane. On the Tenerife crash for instance the investigators were from Spain(Canary Islands), the Netherlands(KLM) and the U.S.(Pan Am). Sometimes the manufacturer of the plane will also send in a representative.
Well, depending on the country of the deceased.... The ntsb for instance can, if the country were the accident occured allow them, to help out
Yeah for this flight it was an American Flag carrying flight, whose final destination was to be in the US, and it was a Boeing (American) aircraft, so there was no way it was going to be lead by Bolivia's DGAC.
Thank you.
Was it Korean or something had a flight recorder for 15+ years in his safe, and yeah crash site country often gets there first and give permission to others to take over like where came from or going to, country often first so can give an idea of what location is like to get best teams
On this note, it leads me to believe that it's likely to cover up by either the manufacturer or the airline company if I had to take a guess in regards to improperly supplied or equipped safety equipment. Perhaps no oxygen masks for the pilots question markthat's why the flight recorder is missing, Leading to a cover up on the whole issue , so they could save face impossibly millions and millions of dollars in fines. Even though it's really the weather that took them down. If let's say there were no oxygen masks for the pilots for example? That would Definitely put either the airline and or the manufacture of the plane at liability For the incident
I've done quite a lot of hiking, in some quite difficult conditions with absolutely 0 issues, but the first time I hit 3000m I went from carrying a full conversation whilst climbing to saying 3 words then running out of breath. According to my hiking buddy, every time I stopped to catch my breath I looked like I was about to keel over. I refused to go back down (incredibly stupid given how sick I was) and had to camp out overnight, apparently he spent most of the night checking I was still alive. Apparently I also called my mum and freaked her out, though I have no recollection of that.
Altitude sickness is wild.
3000m is ~10,000 feet.
First time I flew a plane that high, I found it remarkable how thin the air was. Just sitting perfectly still at the controls of the plane, I found myself working harder to breathe. It was a little disconcerting.
Yeah you can die from exertion at high altitude. There was a high profile case recently of a lady who died on a day hike simply because she didn't take the time to acclimate and catch her breath iirc.
A lot of hikers assume you need to be everest height for that to happen and don't take proper precaution.
I know what you mean. I live around 9,000 ft and our local hiking trails are higher than that. I always have to warn family who comes to visit from the coast.
I am way late on this one but I felt your comment. 😛
I was climbing mount Fuji and at around 3100m I felt a strong dizziness and shortness of breath. I struggled a little bit to reach the hut. However after a few hours getting used to the altitude I felt 100% and continued to the top.
I ve hiked a lot of mountains but it was the first time I was at an altitude over 3000m.
The one time I remember having altitude sickness was when I was backpacking up Mount Whitney in California. I was falling behind the main group, kept company by my "hiking buddy" and we ended up camping just off the trail, and returning down to the parking area after breakfast. Neither of us made it to the top of the mountain, and I still regret it, as I haven't had the chance to try again.
This was 44 years ago, so not likely to happen now, especially with my current heart problems. Still, I wish..,
I've been either lucky or unlucky to see a plane crash with my own eyes. I got up early in the morning in California when I was in the Navy to go fishing, I was by myself and it was a 2 hour drive to the lake. After a few hours I heard these very loud planes, there was some kind of air show a few miles away. I could see the planes doing some trick flying, it was fun to watch.. UNTIL...I saw this plane start a full loop, where they go straight up, then around. This plane was WAY TOO LOW.. I mean it was obvious to me, he/she was not going to make that loop, and sure enough, it went straight into the ground. It was like he just couldn't see where the ground was. I tossed all my fishing gear into my car and drove to where I saw it go down, I didn't really know what I could do, I was a lifeguard in my youth and I was medically trained as well as CPR, if someone needed help I could do the basics. You really can't prepare yourself for seeing a plane crash up close and personal. This was a small plane, just doing a trick, but when I got there, the only thing I saw was a small part of an engine and a large dark spot on the ground, that's it..no other parts, no wings, tails or anything else you would expect. Just a small part of an engine still on fire. The rest of the plane just disappeared. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect it to just be gone. I was the first person at the site, a few minutes later emergency crews arrived, but really, there was nothing to do...there was just a small burnt spot on the ground. This was a small plane, not moving very fast. So when I imagine a large plane hitting a mountain (which tend NOT to move) I am surprised they found anything.
I mean, compared to the ground, I feel like a mountain may provide a bit of cushion. At least if you’re up high enough there’s some snow to partially cushion the impact. Granted there’s exponentially more mass adding to the impact but still…
Ahhh so crazy every time I see this case discussed bc my dad is from Bolivia and I’ve been there a TON, it’s almost like hearing about my hometown. Maybe I’m just built different but the altitude never bothered me that much, but I certainly would not be able to climb up the mountain while carrying hiking gear, physical activity is where you really feel it.
For what it’s worth my dad and basically all the Bolivians I know just think this was an accident. Bolivias government even in 2022 is notoriously slow and full of bureaucratic bullshit, you should see what hoops you have to jump through to get anything done there. Think of your basic tasks like paying bills but make every single one a different company or office you have to physically go to and stand in line with the correct papers and suddenly it all makes sense why the Bolivian government was so slow in their responses. Bolivia has also always had a rocky relationship with the US so I could 100% see them not cooperating at first just because they don’t want to.
However given bolivias current political climate and my further research into Cheri Seymour’s work about Iran-contra and other dealings, I can see why this case is considered suspicious.
I was born in Toronto about 600 feet elevation and spent most of my life there. When I spent some time in Provo Utah at about 5000 feet, it took me about 3 weeks to aclamate. I would think that climing to 20,000 feet would be quite impossible for me unless I spent about 2 months aclamating first. When I did make a clime to 10,000 feet, I had to take things slow for the last 2,000 feet of the ascent. That's the perspective of one guy that has not lived at high altitude.
Indigenous people living in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia have ancestors that have lived above 13k for almost 3 thousand years. These people tend to have skin that stays red most of the time. They have more capillaries and increased blood flow near the skin surface. They also have more red blood cells to help get oxygen around their bodies. Plus they have a faster rate of breathing.
There's a village in Tibet where the people have lived at 15k feet for thousands of years. They found at least 10 oxygen making genes that people living at lower altitude don't have.
Something else I read once said that living at higher altitude have lower chance of heart related issues but have higher chances of developing dementia.
So many times I've flown over the atlantic, and just thought how vast it is, and how small our plane was. The fact that we can ever find most crashes is amazing.
It's also worth noting that even if the tape ended up right next to the recorder, the rubble had shifted quite some distance from its initial location. It could've started at the other end of the plane even and just happened to end up next to the recorder.
I took a friend of mine up Wheeler Peak in New Mexico for an overnight camping trip. It was only about 13,000 feet at the campsite but he got so sick while we were up there I thought I was going to have to find a way to carry him down the mountain (he was about 100 pounds heavier than me). Luckily, he got better overnight and was able to hike back out the next morning.
As an ex-commercial/instructor pilot, these stories are too upsetting. How planes crash are one thing (and that's bad enough ); training in Canada,US,UK,Australia are among the world's best, and every airline crash is almost always an increadable mix of bad luck after a minor, usually always correctable error. But with no information about , WTF happened, it's a nightmare. And, no it's Connery, Sean Connery. Period. Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
Simon, airplane cabins are pressured to 10,000 feet (3,048 meters). El Alto airport is at an elevation of 13,325 feet (4,061 meters) so on approach, as the cabin pressure was equalized to the outside air, the cabin altitude would significantly increase and the air pressure would drop, resulting in less oxygen to the pilot's blood. (Partial pressure of oxygen in air is 212 millibars at sea level, 145 mb at 3048 meters, and 128mb at 4061 meters.) Hence, pilots wearing oxygen masks while landing.
Thank you
I used to be part of the Civil Air Patrol when i was in high school and one of the things we would do is help in crash site investigations, usually early on, just finding and flagging debris and wreckage in a search. 80% of the time it was just walking around areas of brush and scrub finding nothing and leaving empty handed- the other was 19% "this might be interesting we'd better flag it" and 1% "Holy SH!T call someone NOW!" On more than one occasion that last 1% was finding body parts or in one case, a survivor. The survivor was from a small 4 passenger plane taking off from a small runway that hit another small craft that was landing. Both planes weren't going much faster than 80-90mph and the crash was at only 2-300 ft elevation, but the crash still had debris over more than a square mile. The survivor was a lady who had been ejected from the plane on impact and was more or less intact but severely injured. She survived (after a friend of mine performed CPR on her until the EMT's arrived). Those of us in the CAP didn't find a single piece of the other bodies, but we were told they had been found. Keep in mind this was a search undertaken within hours of the crash happening, with good weather, on a late summer/early fall day and we never saw any bits of the other people even though we combed that site for hours and hours.
Plane crashed do NOT look like you see in the movies. The wreckage and debris can be spread over a huge area and in pieces so small you need a metal detector and tweezers to find them- I am 100% not joking. The energies and forces in play boggle the mind. A modern airliner hitting the side of a mountain- even assuming less than 20% fuel supply remaining- hits with the same force as fuel air explosive or MOBA bomb. Just look into any of the other plane crash or air disaster channels here on YT.- Full on high speed crashes almost never happen, but when they do the results are not what you would think. For an idea of what a plane crashing head on into a mountain would look like, just go watch the Mythbusters video where they hit a compact car with a sled going 700mph- its very similar.
Hey fellow former cadet! I came down here to say just this!
They kept mentioning that the lack of bodies at the crash site was weird, and every time I was like crash *site*? Going at that speed you'd be looking at an area at least one square mile, more likely much much larger. On top of that, bodies are going to be so far spread apart that it would take days to find anything on a mountain in those conditions. Honestly I would be surprised if they did find anything substantial left.
I'm no expert, but I was thinking this must be the case. We learned that the engines were all at the back of the plane. You've got a solid mountain in front of you, with 3 commercial jet engines crashing into you from the rear. Being sandwiched between a mountain and a commercial jet engine which is traveling hundreds of miles an hour isn't likely to leave much intact.
@@ComedorDelrico Bit like fire a gun at a concrete wall. Not much left of the bullet. not surprizing nothing much was found, but the question remains. Why did the caiman skins survive?🤔 Maybe we should make armour suits from them, eh .
I recall a story from a guy who served in the fire department and was at an airport where a commercial jet crash landed. Well, tried to crash land, but more like crashed into the runway.
As they were driving across the runways and taxiways to get to the wreck, he noticed people in the grass. One was a lady who was sitting in the grass. He said he remembered thinking "What are these people doing here? Didn't anyone tell them there was going to be a plane crash?"
He said he hadn't realized that they might be survivors of the crash because, having seen the crash, he had assumed that nobody could have survived it.
I remember in the 60's during one of the high speed boat runs over 300mph and it flipped and exploded and they said they never found his body because it would've disintegrated at that speed hitting the water. I can only imagine a mountain and 700mph
Eastern was a US airline, I remember flying on it. They used to give kids a badge that was Eastern wings, I had a couple sets, but most were given to me by gate agents when I would see Grandma off. Back then you didn't have to have a boarding pass to go through the metal detector and could walk someone all the way to their gate, then watch their plane leave.
Pierce Brosnan is my favorite Bond too Simon. A friend of mine was working at a Costco in Hawaii on one of the islands that Mr. Brosnan owns a home on. She spotted him while she was working, but he was apparently trying not to be noticed. He saw the recognition in her eyes, and in a very Bond style, he held his finger to his lips in the universal "shhh" motion. He then walked over, read her name tag, and simply said her name, then she said to him "Mr. Bond." This was well after Daniel Craig had taken over. He was so pleased she saw him that way, that he gave her a big smile, a wink, said "thank you," then turned around and walked away........very much (as she tells it) like James Bond (with a scruffy beard)..........
I think everybody's favorite Bond is probably their first Bond.
While I grew up solidly in the Roger Moore era, the first Bond film I saw was Never Say Never Again, and I have always preferred the Connery Bond to the Moore Bond.
Pierce Brosnan certainly looks like Bond should. I just ... never liked the actual movies as much. I loved him as Bond, and wished he played Bond in better movies.
I feel much the same about Daniel Craig - fine performance, wish the movies were better. I think they did a fine job of ... Bond movies have usually reflected the popular movies of their era. When folks taste in action films went gritty and realistic, of course they wanted a more gritty and realistic Bond. Just like how when sci-fi was big, Bond went to space.
@@spyone4828 agree 100%......although my first bond was Sean Connery, and my favorite for a long time, but just found Brosnan's movies more entertaining. But Doctor Who is the same way. People's favorite seem to be their first. Thanx for the reply my friend.
@@coolnegative My favourite Doctor was Sylvester McCoy because when I say that I piss off a lot of Doctor Who fans. (I'm not such a fan, understand.) In reality it's the only actor whose name I remembered long enough to answer that question.
@@michaelrichter9427 I totally get that. I honestly think that why I like tom baker so much is just because he was the one I started with. Thanx for the comment. Hope you have a blessed holiday season my friend.
Sometimes they have to move a plane from one airport to another. I was on a small flight from Reno to Seattle way back in the day and they called it the champagne brunch flight for first class but since there was 4 of us on the flight we all got a bit snockered. The best James Bond btw is Sean Connery
Totally agree on Sean Connery.
@@pfadiva me too, Pierce is fine but got nothing on Sean
Just wanted to say, Outside is a very well respected publication to do with outside recreational sports/activities like mountain climbing and such, I think? So Outside Online is just their webjournal. If you've ever heard of Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air, Into the Wild, I think he wrote the book that new Andrew Garfield movie was based on about religion and a murder, too), he was a contributor many times (btw, recommend looking into his stuff for good story fodder, as well as just good reading. Joe Simpson, too, of Touching The Void fame, mountaineer, survivor, strong rec for that docudrama, omg).
If there were no bodies, and no cockpit recorder, how does anyone know the Flight Engineer was sitting in First Class and not in the cockpit?
He probably was deadheading, so he probably just put that on the manifest so he could relax there when he wasn't needed. Honestly not sure how much they needed flight engineers on a normal flight back then.
He would be on the passenger and crew list. There would be communication with the towers. The black box records the voices in the cockpit but it's not the catch all for all records.
@@VeracityLH
The manifest wouldn't necessarily say which seat he was in, only that he was onboard. And if there are records, or voice recordings from the tower, then the video should cite that as a source for making the claim.
@@kellyalvarado6533 the manifest from Flight 980 lists 2 other Eastern Airlines pilots who were deadheading - only one of the deadheading pilots was listed as a Captain though, the other pilot's position is not stated. The manifest even goes as far as to state both deadheads were seated in the forward cabin of the aircraft, which could've been misconstrued as being seated in first class (which is likely considering they were both Eastern employees).
Also interesting to note that 5 flight attendants were working the flight - from what I've gathered they were all scheduled to work the flight which is unusual, considering the relatively light load of passengers.
Sorry but this is totally nonsense. The Boeing 727 could not be operated without a flight engineer. The pilots were solely responsible for flying the aircraft, navigate and communicate. Everything else, fuel, hydraulic, electric, pneumatic, air condition, emergency procedures was the responsibility of the engineer.
The country that manufactured the plane also investigates along with the country where the crash happened. This is usually the US or France nowadays.
At the time of the crash, FDR used a copper foil loop several inches wide that only recorded 8 flight parameters and that was overwritten every 30 minutes. The CVR had a magnetic tape that was looped and that was also overwritten every 30 minutes. The modern CVR and FDR units use memory chips, like a computer, and can store many hours of flight parameters and voice.
There is a video by Ramon Valdes, but that video is currently private. I wonder what is happening.
Found an archived version at th-cam.com/video/jJoGLWnh664/w-d-xo.html
It is an old video (think film) by him, and he filmed his journey up and the wreckage, with the intent to raise money for the families.
Valdes is/was an eastern airlines flight engineer who originally was going to be on that plane, and reached the site as part of a private excursion.
Thank you for this link.
My main take-away is that caymans are incredibly tough. Their skin can survive a devastating plane crash that disintegrates ordinary humans.
i can`t understand why simon talked about the crux of the story shouldn`t it have been crocs of the story?! lmao
I'm getting some clothes made out of cayman skins so that I can fly safely in the future.
In fact, let's just start making big wraps for planes made out of cayman skins.
@@decodingtheunknown2373 Simon............genius mate.🙃😉
@@decodingtheunknown2373 Brilliant, I can already picture it: 'Fly Cayman Airlines: safety guaranteed, smuggling permitted'
@@decodingtheunknown2373 come on dbrand, get on it!
Professional Climbers usually are aware of the morbid side of things in that they might have to assist or deal with dead bodies and getting them down off a mountain. My dad was an amateur mountaineer during summers and once had to help recover a body that was in more than one place. It's a bit like maritime rules, in that you investigate distress flares whether they're on your course or not.
🤢
I've been the only passenger on a plane once... that was rather weird.
Flight mh17 was shot down over the eastern part of Ukraine, by Russian backed rebels (or Russians supporting them) with a Russian provided BUK system.
And the photo was taken a flight before, to Netherlands, not on the return way.
@@Eldexo one of my friends, and 2 aquaintances were on that flight. I'll never forget the moment I heard that news, still know exactly where I was etc.
@@c128stuff sorry to hear that. But the odds of a plane crashing are so minuscule. The odds of two Malaysian Airlines flights crashing within a few months of each other? Near astronomical.
FYI: a friend of mine once worked an EMS response to a small plane crash in Oklahoma. As I recall there were four people on the plane. When the plane hit the ground it was at about a 45-degree angle and just blew all over the place. No fire, just wreckage. He told me the largest human remains they recovered were about the size of a cantaloupe - a small melon, maybe 6 inches wide. We tend to forget just how very fragile the human body is. The missing bodies are not the story here, the real issue seems to be a combination of smuggling of illegal skins - which almost certainly included higher-up members of the Bolivian military or political leaders, etc., as the country is well known for corruption - and a tendency of these same kinds of people to want to hide incompetence by the air traffic controllers. Unfortunately, a large number of Latin and South American countries have issues with corruption, and who knows, perhaps there were drugs aboard as well.
Oof, when your friend told you that, were you two at summer camp making s'mores?
Impo, I wouldn't speak to that friend until the nightmares stop.
Yeah, thinking about the relative weights of the passengers vs the plane, the people would be only 3% of the wreckage by mass. Add to that all the cayman skins and your description of the unrecognizableness of the pieces, and I can see why they said there weren't any bodies.
In the Civil Air Patrol, this is why we do not let cadets work plane crashes.
I mean, extremely inexperienced pilot, poor weather, no ground or radar assistance, flight engineer not where they should be... it sounds to me like they just got off course and flew into a mountain. If anything was being covered up (which seems unlikely imo), I'd say it would be to do with the airline trying to avoid being sued by the victims' families for having the plane flown by a man who never should have been piloting it in the first place. Plane crashes are brutal, and it wouldn't be unlikely for bodies to be destroyed beyond recognition. The investigation was shoddy as hell (like come on, they didn't account for altitude sickness *that* many times????), but that just seems like the result of miscommunication and incompetence and the usual mess that occurs when two governments are forced to cooperate.
given the airline had been done for pretty severe safety violations, i think thats the most likely answer, as for the bodies even if they didn`t get buried in the snow (if there was much left) it took so long to get there condors or other predators could have scavenged the bodies and it would also explain why the caymen skins were strewn about.
Sean Connery, Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan would be my Bond top 3, in order.
Interesting case!
Very mysterious, especially considering the black box or people were found.
Rather disturbing knowing commerical flights can fly into the side of a mountain and in this case the reason why that happened was never figured out.
Very thought-provoking case, thank you for the video.
If you're in a plane mood, you could cover the co-pilot who crashed his full passenger plane to commit suicide about a decade ago on 'Into the Shadows'. It's pretty fucked up.
I remember that incident. Absolutely heartbreaking.
Which one? The Egyptian, the German, the Malaysian, the Singaporean, or the Chinese? Pilot suicide-mass murder is disturbingly common.
@@TheOriginalCFA1979 exactly what I was thinking
I grew up in Miami and graduated from high school in 1985. You truly have know idea what Miami was like then, a millionaire that worked at the airport didn't have nearly as much money as the guys at the Port Authority.
Hmmm, I wonder why? 🤔
Everyone knows Roger Moore is not only the best Bond but also an expert parachutist and skier so this is entirely plausible lol. Fantastic content on all your channels btw 👏
On a 727, the flight engineer is a crew position, has a control panel, and has duties during all phases of flight. He should have been in the cockpit.
Unless he was dead heading. He'd be on the passenger list then.
Chances are the flight engineer was sitting at his panel, given the fact the approach and landing phase is the most important stage of the flight (dare I say the most 'risky' phase of the flight). The 727 cockpit is considered primitive by todays standards, but even in the 1980s it still would've been considered extremely complex and convoluted. Most commercial airliners of the time period required 3 flight crew to operate (most Soviet airliners required 5 or even 6 flight crew) so the claim of the flight engineer being sat in the first class cabin can only really be explained as another flight engineer who was deadheading.
The manifest from the flight shows there were 2 off duty Eastern Airlines pilots who were indeed deadheading on the flight and even goes as far to say they were both seated in the front of the passenger cabin, however only one of these off duty members was identified as a Captain, the position of the second pilot isn't stated. Also interesting to note there were 5 flight attendants working the flight given such a light load of passengers.
Also worth keeping in mind is how Eastern Airlines were notorious for their "inaccuracies" with their passenger/crew manifests as it has been revealed on several occasions that the airline was well engaged with smuggling operations in Latin America throughout the 70s and 80s - former Eastern pilots have testified on record stating how they have flown passengers and cargo in and out of the USA which weren't included on the respective manifests.
@@bendybus5165Each aircraft has an FAA minimum crew requirement. Unless there's no passengers on board (which is called a ferry flight) you must have that number of flight attendants onboard. They might have had a light load going there but a fuller flight coming back. I worked the the 727 and we ran all the trays for the meal service by hand. There weren't any meal carts. So the 5 flight attendants makes sense as far as minimum crew and staffing for service.
Simons personality really comes out in this series. Good stuff guys, the Mount Kilimanjaro story had me dying
I guess you haven’t seen Brain (business) blaze
The Shocking Details is such a great podcast, love seeing it get a shout out on here.
OFF TOPIC: The music's too loud in this episode. This happens a lot on this channel and I love this channel. Is there a way to turn down the music so it's background music and not drowning out Simon? Also...no music would be okay too. Simon is quite entertaining. There's really no need for music aside from the intro and outro.
Totally agree. Also the popping sound effect was extremely obnoxious.
I am reminded of another air crash mystery, where an Argentinian Airlines plane crashed en route to Chile(?), and,, as the impact of the crashing plane into the mountain caused an avalanche to bury the debris, the wreckage wasn't found for nearly 50 years when parts were brought down by the glaciers that flowed off the mountain. So there is precedent for snow, ice and rockfalls to cover a crash and obscure many parts of the debris-field.
The 5 essentials in the strength of an FDR (Flight Data Recorder). They are built to withstand...
* Crash impact of 3,500 g-force
* Pressure of 5,000 pounds on each side
* Piercing pressure 500 pounds
* High temperature of over 1,000o Celsius for an hour (1832o Fahrenheit)
* 20,000 feet water depth
Your funny story regarding Kilimanjaro was hilarious 😂
Sean Connery is the absolute best James Bond ever. I won't brook any dissention.
We don't care about your homosexual fantasies
Except for David Niven, of course.
25:55 had to backtrack and pause…
Never, would I ever have expected to see Foil and Arms in a Simon tangent video. This made me smile an awful lot. FA&H are awesome!
Simon you are right about the aircraft going faster across the ground at high altitude to take off because of air density.
Maybe you could do a deep dive on one of your shows explaining density altitude and aircraft pitot static systems.
It may make a great show but it will more likely result in the cure for insomnia.😂
Fascinating story and fun as always although when that recording sound effect came on toward the end I nearly had a heart attack as I was watching this quietly with headphones on and the sound seemed to come from behind me... How exciting haha
If a plane is built by an American aerospace company like Boeing, the blackboxes are generally sent to the US for decoding/data extraction even if no American companies are involved outside of that.
EDIT: Just want to point out that Blackboxes are _not_ indestructible. Just incredibly tough. They get damaged in just about every crash. What's important is that the data saved on them survives in a recoverable state.
As to the crash, bad weather and no instrument guidance from air traffic control + the fact that they crashed just shy of the peak tells me they weren't slightly too low for that approach and hit the mountain. About the only thing I would wonder about is if their ground proximity warnings went off.
Yeah thanks we watched the video too.
They’re also not black.
I think it's in the contract when an American aerospace company sells a plane the NTSB reserves the right to investigate any incidents
I worked for Honeywell, we used to make them
As Simon stated in the beginning, the initial attempt to reach the crash site was delayed "due to bad weather and avalanches". Is it possible evidence was lost because of this?
20:50 Planes are pressureized by "bleed air" from the operating engines. It's possible, I'm no expert, that once the plane lands the engines are spinning to slowly to maintain cabin pressure at the ~8,000ft equivalent. Pilots must wear oxygen so they don't pass out while on taxi. It's safest to put it on before the approach than after you've landed and spooled the engines down.
That's definitely the right color for the voice and data recorders. They probably just got smashed to bits and crashes such as those straight into mountains are the kinds that can definitely do that.
When it comes to not finding any bodies, one should be dismayed if they go to a crash into a mountain and do find some because that could mean that people were alive immediately after the crash but died before anyone came to rescue them. Usually, when there is a plane crash, even one at lower speeds, there are no bodies but only parts of bodies. Maybe you look for a body in a traffic accident but not so much in a plane crash unless it's only of the slower prop planes or it's one where something malfunctions right upon landing or something.
my sister and i are the same concerning high altitude sickness:) she's a semi professional climber and is training a lot, but when she tried to go up some andes 5000 peak she couldn't and i am SO EXTREMELY not training (au contraire, i'm very much not into climbing) but went up to 4800 in the andes without ANY problem (and i'm also smoking and fat, she's neither)... it was so comically unfair that she was pissed with me for a while, but now we laugh about it:D
Lol.. I'm not sure why, but smoking & hiking don't seem to be a great combination of hobbies.
Love all your videos Simon your are a master x love from the UK
As a young teen & junior firefighter & search/rescue member with my local volunteer fire dept in an extremely rural area I went with my dad(assistant chief at the time)to what had been reported as just a brush fire a few miles from our house & close to a large field popular with hunters for camping around. Upon getting remotely close to where we could start to see the actual flames the smell of burnt rubber & the fact that even against the night sky you could tell the tops of trees had been recently snapped off…led my dad to tell me to “stay put” while he moved closer. I obeyed…until after 10min(I timed it)I called for him repeatedly & he didn’t answer. What I briefly saw when I reached the crash site of a small plane capable of carrying 10 people max(only 4 on board thankfully)stayed with me for years & I can still vividly recall it with all my senses now. My dad quickly grabbed me & marched me back to his truck where he use his car phone(mid 90s)to call someone. But literally minutes later 3 black SUVs pulled up with a couple guys in suits & others in military uniforms. Turned out it was a senator’s plane with him on board & there had been threats made against him. Which considering the pilot reported filling up with fuel less than 100 miles from where he crashed yet I saw the fuel tank ripped open with my own eyes & there was barely any fire around it…nor could you really smell anything but a hint of fuel. The flames & smell of 100s of gallons of fuel which should’ve been there would’ve been much stronger. And since large pieces of pine tree trunk were still lodged in the tear in the otherwise intact fuel tank it was clear what had damaged it & when. All of which my dad who had worked for Boeing so was families with planes confirmed. We were both questioned, searched & told to not talk to anyone…esp media…about anything we saw until released to do so. They proved the plane had run out of fuel despite the pilot only making a brief confused mayday as they went down…implying his gauges showed he had plenty of fuel which the black boxes confirmed. Also the airport they filled up at had a bill of sale for 3/4th of a tank of fuel supposedly pumped into that plane. But they could never get enough proof to definitively prove sabotage much less charge anyone.
But it was one of the craziest things I’ve experienced. Even though I went on to become a paramedic & ER trauma nurse…I never want to see the scene of another fatal plane crash. The forces involved cause injuries you don’t otherwise see. Maybe it was bc of my age at the time but it left a strong imprint in my brain.
@Rogue Wolf So, your dad's truck phone was approximately the size of a concrete block? It being the 90s.
That sounds awful.
@@St.Linguini_of_Pesto 90s car phones for the outside were small. You could only see a bit blocky handset on wire, but thats how wired handsets looked like back then
Umm, nice story...
Simon!!! This is an awesome channel!!!
I know I don't, or just CAN'T, watch every video on every channel 🤣 but I feel like I remember more of his videos than he does!
"My mouth is still warming up." - Simon Whistler 2022
Decode time baby let's gooo!
Altitude sickness is a wonky thing… I grew up in Colorado, US, left for the army and came back years later with kids as a smoker. I was on my but while chasing two kids for two weeks. The 14 HOUR DRIVE back to sea level was a nightmare their father and I had recovered however the kids threw up every few hours back and took a few days to recover from returning to the altitude they where not only born at but also grew up at. Pro tip drink a gallon or more of water a day to stay hydrated take a few days easy and pop your ears like you do on a plane as the cabin pressurizes. And if you travel with kids pack about 3-4 times the clean clothes for the journey home. (And try keeping track for where truck stops are if driving they will be more likely to be able to help if you need to clean car seats. Or ya know after they puke the first time find a place to stop for the night as the universe is sending you a strong sign to stop being stubborn and pick up your journey the next day.)
I kinda want to deprecate the use of the phrase "black box" to mean an aircraft's flight data recorder and/or cockpit voice recorders.
The term "black box" is used in electronics to mean a component whose function is mysterious somehow. Proprietary hardware or software, or even documented components whose inner workings are beyond the scope of your current operation, are "black boxes."
FDRs/CVRs are fairly simple things whose internal workings are well known (some are just simple tape recorders).
Further, they're always painted orange.
As far as I can find, the term originally referred to things like radar and other navigational equipment during the second world war - as these things were top secret new war inventions at the time, they tended to be packaged in a literal black box that nobody was supposed to touch let alone open, and was meant to prevent anyone from informing the opponents on how it worked. Hence the more metaphorical meaning today.
Then, supposedly, some British government official used that same slang term for a new device of which he also didn't know how it worked and which was also packaged in box shape: the first flight recorder.
So it seems the term was transferred from top secret war inventions to this fairly simple and easy-to-understand thing by a person who, themselves, did not understand either, because in his mind they were similar things ("electronics packaged in a box which I don't understand").
But true enough, if they're bright orange, then the term "black box" is a complete misnomer regardless of any other context, which can be a problem when someone actually finds one, doesn't put two and two together on what a "flight recorder" is (as far as I've found, those words tend to be printed on the object), and does something other than bring it to the police.
Funny ass episode. Simon's sidebars are hella funny
Barely Sociable did a masterpiece of a video on this, will be interesting to see Simons take on it.
I came to see if anyone was going to mention Barely Sociable. Looking forward to seeing if there's a difference between their takes on the subject.
I was thinking the same thing. I regularly revisit that video, if for no other reason than it’s an incredibly interesting and in-depth take on the tragedy.
Well that's not going to happen so...
@@friskyjesus I'm a former travel agent so I am drawn to plane related stories. But I regularly rewatch all of Barely Sociable's videos because 1) they're done so well, 2) the stories are very intriguing and 3) I could listen to his voice read nursey rhymes and I would be drawn in!
Simon -- some of thise was covered by Ruth Meow's comment (and the subsequent commentator), but the simple fact is that (at the risk of sounding overly jingoistic) the American NTSB and FAA are unparalleled at their accident investigation skills. Yes, sometimes they are are deployed in foreign countries because it was an American carrier or maybe concerns about an American manufacturer (like how they deployed a team to Ethiopia a few years back to investigate the Ethiopian Airlines crashes of Boeing 737-MAX aircraft). But some of the time it's because the host country does not have sufficient resources to conduct a reliable investigation.
Best example -- Cuba in May/June 2018. Cuban Airlines 0972 crashed after leaving Cuba for a domestic flight. Regardless of camraderie between Cuban and American indvidiuals, the governments of Cuba and the US are not exactly on the best terms. Yet NTSB investigators were allowed onsite to assist with the investigation ("provide guidance," et cetera) and the Vice President of Cuba's Civil Aeronautics Institute personally took the recovered black box to Washington, DC so that the NTSB's labs could examine yet,.
Yes, this happened with a Boeing 737 so you could argue it was because it was an American carrer. But this is Cuba -- they could have refused to allow the NTSB in and history has proven that Cuba is more than happy to tell the USA to F-off at any opportunity. And yet they invited American investigators in and took advantage of the invitation to use American forensics labs.
Yeah, so yeah it was an American-manufactured plane that crashed in a foreign country, but that allows for the possibility of NTSB having limited jurisdiction rather than assuring them that it does. Cuba could have said "no," but most countries (not all, but most) will welcome NTSB investigsators because very few other groups have the skills, experience, and investigative tools of the NTSB and the FAA.
(I throw the FAA in there because there is an amusing rivalry between the two groups when it comes to investigating airline crashes).
I love plane episodes!!!!
Since you are training for a PPL, I think it is important that you know this right - at higher altitudes, even with flaps fully extended, higher forward speed is required to generate enough lift to keep the plane airborne. That is why the airport in question needs a longer runway, not because resistance is lower. The brakes and reversers handle slowing down the plane, and air resistance has almost nothing to do with it.
Sean Connery is the best 007.. followed closely by Pierce Brosnan. Something about that accent and the suit together. Simply dashing!!
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
What's with you and Simon being attracted to him as a dad?
@@wingerding lol, not as a dad!!!
@@unowen9668 ;)
You never stop finding reasons to watch Simon, he makes so much amazing content. Thank you Simon.
We ran into Pierce Bronson and his wife at a restaurant 2 weekends ago. He made eating Mexican food sound so Bond. James Bond.
They were a very nice couple. Humble and gracious with me and my wife being a little star stuck.
He made eating "sound bond"? How do you mean?
@@eadweard. I was joking a little. His normal speaking voice still has that slight accent. And he looks great for being 69 years old. So it's a little bit like having a relaxed James Bond eating next to you at the restaurant sans a Martini. Though in reality, he and his were having a normal lunch.
@@eadweard. 🤷♀️ 🥴
The Killamonjaro part is hilarious!
I’m pretty sold on the ‘not conspiracy’ outcome here besides one question: that one dude who got up there two days later… why did he get interrogated and his story coerced by the paramilitary police? That’s suggests some sort of cover up in a fairly strong way and I wish that had been considered a little more fully. Interesting video for sure.
I know the content of this video is dark and sad but your since of humor cracks me up.
If you watch Air Disasters from the Smithsonian channel different countries will call the US and have the NTSB come in investage because they have the most experience investigating Airplane crashes. The country that it happened in is still part of the crash investigating. A lot of the time they let the NTSB take the lead.
Iran-Contras is a thing and it did happen. Raegan wanted money from the congress to support the rebel group, but didn't get it, and therefor the idea was born to sell weapon to Iran and give the money from the sales to Contras. I think you recognize the name Oliver North, he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the US army that helped out. And if I remember correctly, CIA was also in on it on some part. I was a young boy at the time so I remember it somewhat from news in the late 80's.
"Sometimes the conspiracy theory is real;" No Simon, sometimes the "conspiracy theory," is more sane than the official story. But most of the times, they are just hilarious
9:00 Altitude sickness is quite a different beast. I'd experienced it in my 30's while hiking up a volcano in Costa Rica; as someone who ran stairs for fun, I was hiking along to reach the top when my legs just stopped working. "But I can breathe fine!" I shouted to the first person who suggested I didn't have enough oxygen. My brain told me I could breathe, but that didn't mean I had enough oxygen to keep all systems working. Then I went to Peru in my 50's (and 4 months after major surgery). Holy Jesus, I felt drunk the entire time I was in Cusco. Felt better at Macchu Pichu, but that was actually lower elevation than Cusco. Anyway, until a person has experienced it, high elevations can totally kick your ass, and you may not be able to figure it out at the time.
Man...a jab at Sean Connery...clearly the best Bond. Yes, I am old.
I am the same age as Simon. Sean Connery is the only Bond. Craig and Brosnan are acceptable substitutions.
Jim Carry and Steve Carrell almost made me spit my coffee out. Way to go editor.
Sean connery is the best bond
Daniel Craig
@@victorialove9104 good generic spy movie character, terrible bond.
Sean Connery ❤
@@TheAnzaminWhat is the baseline here? Is it just Connery, or are you thinking of the novels?
@@bjornodin the films through the 80s & 90s
I love your other channels just as much.. especially slapped ham. 😊😊
I think everyone is missing the obvious answer: The people on the plane were lizards, killed by some other Illuminati faction. Those cayman skins are not cayman skins.
It would be FANTASTIC if you updated the podcast playlists as often as the TH-cam videos with 6 million ads.
-Sincerely a fan
Good video 👍
Great episode. The background music was a bit loud. It could just be me recovering from covid, but I couldn't seem to focus on Simon as easily.
"this piece of spine? Totally normal!" Yes Simon, im sure body parts aren't uncommon to find in plane crashes unlike reptile flesh 😂
Thank you Simon and Katy.
If a plane flies into a mountainside, the whole wreckage is more or less compacted against the mountainside. So not necesarily suspecious.
flight recorders are usually in the tail section, as that's the part of the plane that is likely to survive a crash, unless the engines are in the tail section, then the flight recorders are near the seats where the air stewards sit.
US plane, US crew, US is responsible for determining the circumstances leading to a crash, though I’m sure that the local agencies would also have a place in the investigation. Same thing if a foreign airplane crashed on US soil - both governments would be actively involved in determining what happened.
Yes, I think there can be up to 3 countries in each investigation. Country where the airline is based, country where the plane is made, and country where the crash happened. And maybe sometimes a fourth looking on/invited in if most passengers aren’t from the first three.
@@bookcat123 Especially if a large contigent is from that 4th country. That is the country truly needing answers.
Are any of your other channels cold read format? I like this format
Its Mr. Baldbeard again!
I flew, three, or four, times right after 9-11 from California to Maryland (and back), and there was hardly anyone on board. I had a whole row to myself. I even got bored and moved seats a few times, and still had a whole row. There was probably 10-15 other people on board.
29:20 -- There was nothing "supposed" about it. There were definitely illegal weapons shipments to Iran to finance illegally finance rebel groups in Nicaragua. Both these things were illegal: Weapon shipments to Iran had been banned since the Iran hostage crisis, and Congress had passed a law making any support of Nicaraguan "Contra" groups illegal as well. What is still "alleged" here is Reagan's personal involvement. Pretty much anyone with any sense knows he was, but he got someone else to take the fall for him.
Eastern Airlines advertise line was "Eastern Airlines, the wings of man".
They specialize in flying North to South especially from New York to Miami, Florida
I flew from Sydney Australia to china on a Malaysia airlines flight the day after the 2nd flight was shot down at Ukraine.
There were 3 crew and 2 passengers. Just me and one others dude.
I felt so sorry for them. But it was the BEST FLIGHT EVER
Just had a conversation about Brosnan playing Bond with my dad and how much I never considered him Bond. So that gave me a good laugh.
When I was enlisted, I smoked and whenever we would go for a run I'd always be at the front of the pack. We always joked about it being because of the cigarettes but it's entirely possible that they actually did help with regards to running like 5 miles or so and almost all the smokers were regularly in the front during platoon PT.
We got them big lungs ha
During covid I had to fly across the country and there were like twenty-five people on the whole 737. You could stretch out across three seats and watch the same movie twice without worrying the guy next to you would judge you. It was awesome.
I love Fact-Boy's content.
But compared to Barely Sociable's video on this crash this one comes off as a disjointed mess.
Simon,
I LOVE your show! You r hilarious and you’re a realist and I like. Yes.
I was trying to see if you had a video on the “Rake-man/ Creepy-pasta” legend. Maybe in all your spare time if you could make one, I think your viewers and I would definitely enjoy it. But I understand if u don’t because there isn’t really much of a story just a few pictures and eye whiteness accounts.
Thank u
LOVE your show!!
On the no bodies theory, I got a theory: since there was that one airplane in the 1970's with a Uruguayan rugby team that crashed in the Andes mountains and had several survivors (partly thanks to cannibalism but that's a story for another day), I kinda wonder if this flight had survivors that tried to travel through the mountains, but got lost and died? With how massive the Andes are, it feels like it'd be very easy for a group to get lost and then never be found.
They did find bones.
I suspect it’s more… no RECOGNIZABLE bodies. Just, you know… pieces. He did say there was blood.
@@eadweard. yeah but not enough bones to account for 19 people
@@bookcat123 like I said, some blood and bones but not enough to account for everyone
@@randomtology over 30 years later, with storms, avalanches, possibly animals, etc, they’re lucky there’s anything left. 🤷🏼♀️
Your style of narration stands alone among the crowd, nice work indeed, hello from Australia
So this is the plain from lost
How is it even in a tiny way similiar?
It's absolutely wild knowing that Simon went to a motivational speaker in school that was the same one who went to/ came to my school in the US
No Simon no one likes the latest bond and thinks he is the real bond. Everyone of proper taste knows only Sean Connery is the real bond.
Yes, Simon, thinner air makes the plane have to fly faster to stay aloft. Some days in Arizona where I’m at, it gets too hot and too dry for planes to take off, and they ground til weather improves.