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Just watch the gimbli glide video, and it reminded me of the swiss air flight 111 tragedy, maitre of cabin was close friend of my dad and would want have a video with your style of video about it.
I'm not a pilot, nor have any type of knowledge to be one. Just found this interesting. But my thought is what if the pilot never actually pushed forward but was a result of the first touchdown and the jolt causing the landing gear to push against the wires causing the acceleration and the second touchdown just enhances the damage caused, causing complete damage and lost of control. Kind of like the landing gears temporary tension on the line causes the other end to read wrong and makes the plane think to accelerate until the second touchdown jolt tearing everything apart.
I have no interest in aviation and learning to fly is not on my bucket list. But I find these videos absolutely fascinating. There's no sensationalism, no dry, boring recitation of facts. Just really clear explanation of "what went wrong" and "What we learned from it". As a techie, I find the technical explanations equally engrossing as well. I can't use Patreon, but if you ever get around to using the TH-cam membership thing I'll gladly use it.
@@sharoncassell9358 Oh of course. I fly in MS Flightsim, mostly helicopters (Shoutout to Hype Performance Group for the H145) At this point I'd be reasonably confident in a modern helo but I'd probably never pass whatever mdeical requirements.
@@BazzFreeman Remember, helicopters are _so_ much more difficult to fly than a fix-wing. Planes are built to fly naturally and can glide considerable distances without power thanks to arodynamics, but helicopters fly via several forces working _against_ each other, which are very delicate and same for operating them. Then you got the Chinook CH-47, which has double-rotors on the top that spin at precisely the correct timing to avoid smashing themselves apart. Just so ya know.
What I really love about your videos is that you light up the psychological effects on the flight crew. That is something, that is often completly dismissed or ignored. But it is so very important! After all: Pilots and their crew are just humans, too. They aren't perfect, and even if they did something "wrong", like in this case do not abandon the landing as soon as the runway light disappeared, there is a reason for that. Love goes out to every pilot who was faced with an unexpected, untrained situation. Your incapability to do something doesn't make you a bad person or even a pilot. It makes you human.
@@jsmariani4180 they simply remind me how safe air travel actually is, these situations are all so specific and unlikely that its still way safer to take a commercial airline than drive a car lol
That dude should've been arrested for unauthorized entry to a secure aviation facility. Further, he should not have been able to enter the apron side of the terminal without a badge. Do those Spaniards/Castillians/Basquards have no sense of security?!?? 2-3 months after leaving this post, I am now adding a *"Warning!* This Facetious Comment" disclaimer. These comment threads do not provide enough bleed-through for irony, so it must be flagged as such.
I‘m _very_ surprised one of the main recommendations wasn‘t that at least part of the runway lights must be able to run on battery power in case of a power outage. And even if it’s just every fifth light or so. For an airport that can be approached in the darkness, I would‘ve thought runway lights were of so much importance that _no_ downtime whatsoever were acceptable/permissible.
Yes I agree, emergency lights in a building are instantly ON. This reminds me the Tenerife "Aeroporto Norte" that had a electrical problem with the lights on their runway and OFF in the fog. Why they don't have solar powered secondary lights for the runway ?
DeR Runoratsu: I listened carefully and immediately came to the conclusion that the goddamn runway lights should be on batteries, back up, uninterruptible power, it is ridiculous to have an 11 second delay. The pilots are already saps enough, they don’t need this.
I fully agree as an electronics designer in defence related equipment - appalling criminally negligent design. If anyone in my family had died as a result of this negligence then i would have sued.
Battery backup on runway lights would have, by itself, prevented this accident, all other factors unchanged. Requires no training revisions and would be relatively cheap to implement. For 11 or 15 seconds, it wouldn't even require particularly strong battery capacity.
I’m very shocked that a safety recommendation to the airport wasn’t to eliminate downtime of airfield lights. Could this not have been avoided without the most important visual cue you have in a night time landing?
It was 1999. All the runway lights were incandescent and lithium-ion batteries were a nascent invention. It wouldn't be practical to build a UPS to run those lights. Maybe they could have barely put something together for the 15-30 seconds it takes the backup generators to start but you're talking about a mountain of lead-acid batteries that need to go somewhere.
@@tissuepaper9962 Even today most UPS are still using lead acid batteries (much cheaper, safer and weight/density doesnt really matter) but with the power requirement you made a point.
This is a bit close to my heart as this particular 757, G-BYAG, was one I flew on. When I was 11, I was allowed to sit in the jump seat during landing (back in the days when such things were possible) and took photos during the approach with the aircrafts registration badge on the flight deck clearly visible.
@GRDNANGL172 First of all: the spoiler wasn't the cause of the incident at all. The plane is able to fly with them on. Second: the cabin crew is not capacitated to asses if what the pilots are doing is OK, and moreover from hints seen from the cabin itself. What you said makes no sense.
It's a shame that one passenger died. I hope they are resting in peace. I was so hopeful that you would mention everyone survived after the evacuation ❤️ Great coverage as always 👊🏿
It's arguable too that the one death was avoidable as well but their internal injuries were missed at the hospital for too long resulting in their unfortunate death. :(
Wow…This story is almost too crazy to believe. So many issues intersecting at the worst possible time. Glad they recommended changing the design so a really hard landing on the front gear doesn’t actually cause the plane to accelerate and become uncontrollable. Sounds like the fatality could have been prevented by proper medical care… that is just really sad.
the last and deciding factor in this crash was the power failure at the worst possible moment. if that hadn't happened, that bird would probably have touched down in one piece. this is why every airport needs batteries to supply the critical systems like runway lights and ILS while the emergency generators are starting up.
Thank you Mentour Pilot for your accurate and insightful reporting. As a member of the aviation community, I often find other sources of accident reporting by the mainstream media to often be both lacking and inaccurate. The results often mislead the flying community through a lack of understanding and mistrust of aviation professionals and all the training and hard work that goes into aviation safety. For those of us who view these reports to learn and prevent similar accidents hats off to you.
I think It's amazing that the final report didn't mention the insufficient backup power systems for the runway lights... Why are 15 seconds of downtime allowed for safety critical systems like runway lights while data centers - and even the tower in this case - have zero downtime backup batteries?
Nearly 22 years of progress. And no one could have foreseen the power cut just as the aircraft crossed the threshold. Even if the crew had elected to go around again at that moment, they'd have probably still slammed the runway🤔
It was 1999, so the bulbs were likely incandescent - meaning they used a fuckton of power, and battery technology wasn't at advanced. I think it probably could've been done in 1999, but only 10 years earlier, I'm pretty sure having a battery backup might've been a stretch, and you need time to deploy systems all over the world. In 2021, I'm sure that it *must* be the norm, as everything is LEDs and batteries are cheap.
FWIW many data centers would probably accept 11 seconds if the computers could keep going after that, instead of restarting. imagine you go to some website and it hangs there for 11 seconds then keeps working - how much money would you spend to avoid that possibility? Probably not very much. But in reality even 1 second turns into 10 minutes while everything reboots.
Incredible that only one passenger died. My condolences to all of their loved ones. I love your videos. Excellent explanation of the aviation accidents.
I'm a lapsed private pilot, but I'm still amazed how *interesting* this type of flying/accident story is. While training, I devoured several years of the accident reports magazines and such.
I didn’t expect that second power failure. Eeep. The whole turbulence/go-arounds must have been stressful enough for the passengers (naturally putting myself in their shoes, as I’m not a pilot of any kind), but being in the dark as well? This must have been utterly terrifying. And then waiting, too. The outcome surprised me - I braced myself for something much, much worse. No recommendations related to emergency lights for runways in the report? Is that so rare a possibility that they didn’t think it worth a mention? Thank you!
I think as a passenger I'd rather stayed inside the aircraft and avoid the rain. Fuel was burnt up anyways so better wait for the bus to get you to the airport from an outside position. Better in an aircraft seat than in the airpot mud.
As an electrical engineer, there's no way to make a cost effective, reliable and large enough battery to power all the runway lighting before the generator can spool up with 90's technology, even nowadays one would be extremely expensive and hard to make reliable for such a rare event
@@jaalcaid solar charged batteries? Should keep the running costs down, and these days solar panels are pretty cheap (relatively speaking) and battery technology has come a long way. Would only need to last as long as dusk to the time of the last landing or takeoff due. Depending on noise laws, could be as little as 3-4 hours during summer.
@@y_fam_goeglyd It would also need to be modern LED lights for that to work... (It seems like halogen approach lights are 200W each...) For a minute or so it might be practical though...
@@y_fam_goeglyd The problem is not where the energy comes from, is the fact that you need a stupid amount of power for runway lights, and you need it to come online fast. and that means big, really big batteries and really complex control circuits and power delivery, doable with current technology but expensive and probably not proven enough for an airport (what if the battery fails or catches fire?) you need to be able to isolate it and make it redundant so it doesn't bring down the backup generator or burns down the wiring for the lights. The backup batteries used by the tower don't need to deliver that much power and are really proven and commercially available because they are the type as the ones used for data centers or hospitals.
This is one of the few air accidents I have never heard about before. A truly fascinating episode, especially for you with Girona as your familiar base I imagine; a very unusual combination of events - the shock of the runway lights going out during short final must have been truly mind boggling for the crew. The production values are so impressive on your videos Petter, they rival the Air Crash Investigations series! Keep up the amazing work, sharing you detailed, rational insights and analysis! Thank you indeed.
I cannot imagine the terror the flight crew had when the runway suddenly disappeared. The stress of the turbulence and low fuel would have meant that the captain was already particularly keen on safely landing his aircraft. We humans process/analyse so much visual information that guides our situational awareness, it is 'input catastrophic' to suddenly lose this important sense. In a moment we have to make a decision....and on that penny we all rotate. How many people go to their work with this responsibility.....I fly a desk??!! I admire the aviation industry for being so honest and delving deeply into the causes of this accident. We only truly learn from our mistakes. I love the wee guy who walked to the airport....what was going through his head? Elation, shock, sadness, panic, confusion, anger, happiness? This was a great video and I enjoyed it very much, please keep them coming.
Mentour I absolutely love your videos especially the one where you look at aviation incidents and accidents like this one! Thanks for the amazing work!
Ah, Britannia Airways is a name I haven't heard in a while. One of Mum's friends used to work for them. Then it became ThomsonFly, then ThomsonAirways and now TUI. Logically, they will probably change their name again soon!
I vividly remember this day when I was driving muy car from Perpignan to Girona at the same time that this accident was happening and I can tell that the weather was such an horrendous one and very very scary.
The 757 is possibly my favorite aircraft too. I would fly to Iceland regularly between 2007 and 2010. Iceland express used the Ex Iron Maiden 757 G-STRX which used to make me feel lucky indeed. I would listen too Hallowed Be Thy Name As we crossed the North Atlantic Ocean, before arriving in "the land of the gods". 🤘 🎸 🍻 🇮🇸 I also worked as a baggage handler at Keflavik airport and have seen many times the Antonov 225 that landed weekly from Russia before continuing to America, it was epic watching it take off, a cathedral of the sky! I flew on another 757 with Icelandair that was ex British Airways and still had the British Airways blue leather seats throughout, and so much legroom.
I really appreciate the hard work that you put into the graphics and animation of these accident investigation videos. But more than that your insights and the way you explain systems, procedures and aviation concepts is fantastic. Keep up the good work.
For some reason this is the most terrifying situation of all the videos I have seen so far... imagine the lights just suddenly going out on both the runway AND in the cockpit... while you are just about to land :(
I absolutely f'ing love these accident videos. Mayday and air crash investigation are the only TV shows I have watched every episode of and this is some great additional content.
Love your videos. Although I’m not a pilot I’m an aviation enthusiast and your videos clearly explain everything so that even non pilots can understand the events. Thank you!
"Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing..." It is a miracle that only one person died. Amazing. Great job on the explanation and this video!
And even that one seems as much on the medical error as on the crash itself. (Though of course, there would have been no medical error to make if there had been no crash.)
That quote is bs and annoying every time someone repeats it. Just because you don't die doesn't mean it's a good Landing. People who like to recite that expression have very low expectations...
As with many others, I'm surprised some sort of battery-backed runway lights wasn't recommended. I'd also have suggested some sort of alert in tower to let them know airport went dark - as well as them getting notice if more than 2-3 outages in surrounding areas have been reported - so that tower can notify incoming flights to be on alert for it. That aside. Love the videos.
Shouldn’t there be some kind of emergency light on runways? I can’t imagine driving downhill in the mountain at night and heavy rain and all the sudden the car loose head lights.
But it can happen. That's why I get frustrated at people who continue to drive their cars for days after one headlight goes out. I always think, "What will happen to them if the remaining headlight goes out on a dark curvy road at night? The result wouldn't be good.
@@skyhawk_4526 Cars, unlike airplanes, usually have the option to just be stopped wherever. Also, while I not only keep both headlights working, but also have a spare lightbulb in my car, I very rarely drive in conditions where it would be impossible to see without headlights.
@@Pentium100MHz We had a car that broke a lightbulb regularly every 6 months. During a 800km Trip back home from vacation the car killed both lightbulbs in the 1st 100km.
There is emergency lighting, the backup generator. What there should be is a battery backup that powers everything till the generator kicks in but that would cost a lot more.
I was working in Florida welcoming passengers arriving from the UK on Britannia, Virgin and BA flights when this incident happened. Watching this took me back. Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing and they should have instigated a go-around but what shocking bad luck for the pilots. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. I’m sure both pilots have taken this with them for the rest of their lives so well done for a superb, insightful and fair analysis of this incident. Shout out to the cabin crew as well for an unbelievable job in the most horrendous of situations. Great job as always Petter 👏👏
Agreed. It could easily be done and wouldn't be terribly expensive. They would just need enough battery power to keep them on for the 10-15 seconds it takes for the diesel generators to start and provide electrical power. That's how a lot of critical buildings like hospitals are set up.
Or, at least battery backup for some of them, rather than complete and utter darkness. At this time, high-power LED lighting would likely not have been economically viable, so the battery capacity would need to be really rather large to deal with a couple miles of bright incandescent lights. Now, in 2021, I would expect the requirements to be between 1/5 to 1/8 of what they would have been in the late 90s. Again, even if this applied to a subset of the lights or a reduced brightness, it certainly seems like it would have changed the outcome of this landing.
@@skyhawk_4526perhaps it wouldn't even need to be every light, maybe every second or third one, since it's only going to matter for aircraft who are already very close?
The UPS is not as easy as it sounds. Airport systems are running off of 3-phase AC at least the ones I worked with were, so your UPS actually has to supply 3-phase AC from a DC power source. You basically need a huge inverter system at each site, RADAR, ILS, VOR, etc., to turn 3-phase AC into DC for the batteries and then pull power from the batteries and turn that back into 3-phase AC. It's a very expensive proposition which is why most places don't do it. What we did was if there was lightning within 10 miles we went out and manually switched everything over to backup generators so this exact scenario wouldn't happen. Yeah, the system would automatically switch over in the event of a power loss but the manual change over was much easier on the equipment so we did it that way. It was also better because we were literally on site and would verify the systems were still 100% operational and that nothing broke during the change over. Even though it was a pain in the ass, it was much better for flight safety to do it this way.
I've been told that it is common practice to run the lights from a generator during normal operation, and use mains as the backup. In the event of the generator failing the switch over can be nearly instant.
Wow you are so good at explaining things, I haven’t realized how complicated concepts I just learnt until I actually understood what the final report says at the end despite being written in such a difficult way!! Well done!!
one way to imagine this as non-aviator fans is driving through a thunderstorm approaching a turn and out of nowhere you can see only darkness outside! no road, nothing! then few seconds later you SLAM into the steering wheel and your car becomes unresponsive as well!! if you don't brake appropriately (not locking the wheels due to rain) in a handful of crucial moments you are going OFF that cliff for sure. so glad most people survived, it must've been a horrific experience.
The question I have: If the speed brakes are only for short time use, and the pilot should leave his hand on the lever to not forget them, why aren't they designed to retract automatically when the pilot lets the lever go?
Automatic retraction could be a bit problematic. But perhaps some kind of alert in case of using both speed brakes and a meaningful amount of thrust at the same time for more than several seconds, that sounds like something that could be done. Unless this warning overrides some other important warning, that would suck.
@@vlastimil-furst some planes incorporate auto speed brake retraction for a variety of configurations including thrust setting. It's weird to me that basically none that I know of give a direct visual cue on the primary display that speed brakes are deployed. You'd think it would be easy. It's commonly forgotten and has caused fatal accidents. They have indications for a bunch of things...but not the spoilers. Who knows.
@@justcommenting4981 Even the cheapest car I know of, has a light come on in the main display when the handbrake is applied. It boggles my mind to learn that a plane, worth millions of dollars (?) didn't. Lol, I have, on rare occasions found myself driving with the handbrake still applied. but hey, I don't have hundreds of people sitting in the back seats.
Did anyone else pick up on the details of that death? The video says the person died due to internal injuries that the hospital didn't realize. It sounds like that hospital needs to re-evaluate its procedures!
@@kurttappe The hospital probably got flooded by a bunch of hurt passenger and they messed up the triage process. Internal injuries are hard to access without the patient telling outright or external signs, and sadly, sometimes errors happen
ALIENS!! This episode should've been sponsored by History Channel because that sudden lights out on the airport AND in the aircraft was totally an alien thing, btw the whole crazy storm in the region was definitely caused by the aliens. They were probably testing some kind of ray or something and that made the aircraft speed up after touch down. That's quite obvious...
ive seen so many of these from this channel -- this one thus far has given me the most anxiety -- my hear rate was up and my heart was pumping out of my chest.. wow!
I flew back from Palma to London Stansted on a Britannia 757 just 3 days after this accident. The flight was delayed from PMI by 3 hours due to the severe weather front passing through. Crazy high winds. On approach to STN we were warned the crosswinds were bad. The girl next to me was terrified and made a reference to this crash. I told her it was very rare and we'd be fine. It was the most worrying landing Ive ever had out of over 400 commercial flights. We were crabbing on approach and i was looking out of the overwing widow straight down the runway . Because I work at STN I could see we landed late in relation to airport buildings , with a lot of reverse. Pilot really seemed to struggle to get us down. It was a REALLY rough landing and runway contact . The girl moaned at me for saying it was going to be ok. I will never forget my answer. " Well, we're in one piece arent we!".
I think a battery backup on the runwaylights could have prevented this accident and the lightning can also have caused a longer startuptime for the generator than they had in good weather in the test after the accident.
I just wanted to compliment you on the excellent job you do in making these videos. You’ve come to have a huge following. I’m glad you do. You’ve earned it. The videos you make are like professional documentaries. As both a railfan and a planefan I enjoy good videos on both subjects. You are to aviation what Distant Signal (Danny Harmon) is to railroading. Thank you for all the work you put into your videos. All the best to you until we meet somewhere up in the clear blue sky.
Having been involved in a similar loss of visual reference at low level a long time ago, there would seem to be one factor not mentioned. The view from the cockpit would have been basically black above, with the airfield lighting illuminating the lower half of the Captain's field of vision. When the lights went out he would have only seen black which was probably interpreted (perhaps sub consciously) as a pitch up and would account for the increase in descent as he momentarily applied forward pressure on the controls. This would have been a short term reaction before he regained some spatial awareness, or got back onto instruments, but the ground intervened. The same problem in reverse can occur if the aircraft enters a small area of fog as it crosses the threshold. In this case the the view has changed from light above and darker below to all light and again the visual sensation of a pitch up leading to a reaction of forward pressure on the controls for a short time. This is well documented.
The B757 is not a heavy by weight definition however for the purposes of wake turbulence it is treated similar to one. This is because of the wing of the aircraft. (It’s really efficient) In fact, the seven five has its own wake turbulence category in between the heavy and the upper large category it would normally be it.
It is six abreast (3 seats, aisle, 3 seats) just like the 737 and A320. I guess it's technically "wide" when comparted to a DC9 or MD80 which is five abreast (2 seats, aisle, 3 seats). 😉
Has the same cross section as the 737, doesn't it? The nose is unique amongst airliners because the 767 cockpit had to fit, since pilots could fly the 757 and 767 with minimal cross training.
They need to improve the runway lights to a battery back up system imho. This was a scary as heck episode to listen to for me and would have made an excellent "halloween" episode imo.
@Jordan Rodrigues So that may have been the case in 1999. But I'm pretty sure tech has advanced. One thing they could have done in the severe weather.back then is manually switch to the back up generator no matter what. Additionally.they might have had two different circuits so at the very least some lights were on and they all would not go out. While he may have had a poor glide slope, he still didn't deserve to land in the pitch black of the storm.
what is your love for nature,mine was trees. before I joined the military,I planned for a very large plots of land for trees planting, tryna get some nature specialist, that can give me the name of old trees from the ancient, wanna make some research about them, for personal benefits. meeting you here was I great thing,but I don't come here if not for important things and don't got much Time for stranger,but you're still a blissful human too,and hope you stay safe from covid 19. I might not give you response back for now,dew to my job schedules and high monitoring devices all around me,it would be nice texting directly to Gmail or Mobile number. text me back to my Gmail address which is (megsaudibert@gmail.com) or send me your Gmail address and your mobile number,so when I come online here, would get you a response,hope you stay safe.
I dont know why or how i found your videos, its a long time ago. One thing i know however is that i absolutely love them, love watching them as i play video games.
Right?! Sometimes the causes make an accident waiting to happen, but the timing aligning on this one was incredibly bad luck. I'm glad so many survived the accident.
A request for videos: 1. What passengers should do in an emergency - Oxygen masks and crash procedures a. with video of the benefits of one position over another, and an b. explanation about cabin pressure and hypoxia 2. The emergency slides. Could you please explain how and where they deploy? What it looks like when people slide down. The difference between a land slide and a water slide. How the slide detaches and how they can be used as rafts. Do they have supplies on them? How many people do they take? How durable are they and how long can they stay afloat? What are some examples in history of water rescues where slides were deployed? You explain it so well in your vids, but I don't think the average person sees all of it. Maybe dedicated video addressing these things with examples will help. It's also something that applies to EVERYONE that has or will ever fly - so wide audience. TY for great content. I'm binge-watching.
Great video series. I am only a simulation flyer but I love your intense investigation videos. My job is in the chemical industrie and I wish we would make some deep investigation then accidents happen. So good to learn from our mistakes. Thank you for your inspiration you bring to me.
While watching dozens of Mentour Pilot videos (recovering from a severe bout of covid) I’ve decided to add the following safety gear to my carry-on/person: high lumen pen light, Petzl compact head lamp, neon/reflective parking vest, gloves & safety glasses. As an aware passenger, I already pay attention to pre-flight instructions, sit in an emergency exit aisle (whenever possible) and leave my seatbelt on while seated, sleeping etc. I also leave my shoes on during takeoff and 15-20 minutes before landing. Is this fearful flying? No. Paranoia? No. I first flew a plane as an adolescent. And learned air accident statistics 20 years ago. 95% of crashes are survivable & smoke is the number one cause of in-cabin fatalities. If anyone walks away from an accident or can help save lives- it’ll be me.
What an incredible situation to be thrust into. As my daughter works through her professional training, I hope the training co tinier to develop with all of the historical actions taking on new situations.
I had an incident occur many years ago that was very similar to this cockpit crew near landing. I was in a light plane at night on final to Bracket Airport, Pomona, CA cleared to land. I was at about 50 ft agl just short of the numbers when everything went black. Bracket is located in a sort of bowl with a small hill to the west. When you are under 100 feet you can't see lights beyond the hill. When the lights went out I was suddenly on instruments. I went to full power, got on the gauges and did a missed approach. I climbed for a few seconds and had full visual references so off the gauges. I called the tower and asked why the dark? They said that they didn't know, it just happened. Turns out a drunk driver picked the single power pole out of hundreds to hit that knocked out the whole airport. I diverted to El Monte airport and flew the plane home the next day. Thank God the weather was good.
I've actually forgot to retract the speed brakes on an approach. A short vector with a too late descent clearance and I let myself get "behind the aircraft"! (Don't let ATC fly the aircraft!!! 👎 ) The fact that there were high winds and 20+ kt gusts helped by requiring a 20 kt (maximum) approach speed additive. Unfortunately, the very high turbulence tended to mask the usual roughness of the speed brakes. Aa with many aircraft, only a subset of the installed speed brakes will deploy when airborne; basically there are AIRBORNE speed brakes and ground/LANDING speed brakes. I doubt any of the crew ever made that mistake again, I know I didn't!! 😲 😳 🙄
for everyone stating the lights need to be batrery backed, bear in mind that the entire runway lighting system is normally DIMMABLE. The level of brightness required in bad weather would cause night blindness on a clear moonless night Whilst I fully agree that the lighting control systems should be on uniterupptble power supplies the harsh reality is that a direct lightning hit on or near the airfield causes massive ground currents and there's always a possibilty that electronic control systems may fry, resulting in the need to stll have electromechanical systems with changeover times There's another way of handling this kind of issue - procedural - and its been in use at the Airport I learned to fly at since they installe remote controlled-lighting in the 1970s (pilots can control the lighting when the tower is unoccupised midnight-5am) It's a really simple procesure too: "If the lights go off, GO AROUND" By the time you come back to finals the problem will most likely have been sorted The pilots here can/should be faulted for continuing the landing attempt when visual conditions were lost - "pressing on regardless" has proven to be a bad idea time and time again in aviation
The Boeing 757 is my absolute favourite civilian aircraft. This was a bizarre and strange incident that had the makings of a potentially much more serious accident. It seems strange to me that the complete blackout of airfield occurred, 11 seconds in aviation is a long time. I would have thought that the backup system would operate almost immediately, within a couple of seconds? Excellent video.
People, you need to remember this: flying is one of the safest ways to travel, we hear more about plane crashes than car crashes due to rarity and severity. Hell, I'm certain its safer than walking in many cities
I'd love it if you started going through crazy aviation incidents from WW2 and use IL2 Sturmovik instead of Flight Sim. IL2 is an incredibly detailed flight sim.
The "Flashing Lights" epilepsy warning is functionally useless when it's displayed at the same time as lightning. The warning should not be displayed at the same time as the flashing lights 🤦♂️
Love your videos but since I know someone who is photosensitive, I would make the quick suggestion to place the flashing light warning BEFORE the flashes are on-screen. The lightening was already present from the opening scenes and for anyone particularly sensitive, the simultaneous warning would come too late.
The thunder in the beginning had me turning my head to figure out where that noise was from. Crazy that someone out there is making aviation content on TH-cam with spatial audio
When I'm in MSFS, and I use my speed brake, I sometimes forget I did. If not for the weird wind noises, I wouldn't know because I don't have a physical spreed brake to hold. My guess is the turbulence made flying one-handed difficult. Swiss cheese took over and one fail point led to another. Glad it wasn't as catastrophic as it could have been. Sad that one person didn't make it.
I find half the landings I've been in to be rather hard landings (I'm just motion sensitive). I can't imagine how hard these people hit the ground! Everyone crash-test-dummy-ing forward in their seats. I wonder how many people got their hands over their head, and head between the knees for the second and further impacts. I'm sure flight attendants or some passenger screamed that out. Amazing everyone walked away, and RIP to the one who passed afterwards.
I appreciate the professionalism and intelligence of the crew so with all due respect to them I must say we have probably reached the limits of human abilities. It is imperative, I believe, to augement human abilities with increased use of adaptive AI.
Planes today are capable of nearly entirely flying themselves but when something goes wrong(and it still does, probability and numbers are not friends of major airlines) in the air you need experienced humans on board
The crew's faulty decision making and lack of proper resource management is the direct cause of the accident. So I have to disagree and state categorically that it's all the crew's fault and they are to blame for what happened.
I’m a Submariner with a background as a Diesel Mechanic for Commercial Semi these Aviation Disasters that both you and Mayday have put out has strengthened my desire to work on Quality Assurance to ensure it doesn’t happen to my boat
Agreed. A great airplane. Somewhat of a hot rod actually. That's why American used it extensively into central and south american airports at high elevations. But, having flown on several, there is only 1 aisle. It's definitely NOT a wide body.
Props to the tower controller! No pun intended. How many times do you hear of an emergency, not necessarily a plane crash, just any emergency where someone hesitates to call for help and it ends up in far more injuries or deaths!
nah, it still could have been avoided. I've had three flights canceled because the destination airport weather was going to be garbage. SEA in 2016, LUV in 2006 and I can't recall the last one. But I do recall is the passangers giving the gate agent hell because the weather leaving from IAD (Washington D.C. area) was perfectly fine. Every time, I'd rather be on a canceled flight then a harrowing landing or cruise. This accident could have been avoided. They also should have followed their plan to divert after the first attempt failed like they said they would. Not blaming the pilots, but I am calling out risk management.
Thank you. A very, very interesting revue of events. When I was flying in private and low level commercial aviation, I always read what accident reports were available to me -- in the belief it was better to learn from mistakes of others, than to repeat them unknowing, myself.
This would scare the heck out of me if I was a pilot. Imagine flying for that many years and looking up and the runway's suddenly gone. And then when you're trying to brake, it speeds up! (I've had nightmares about this happening in my car.) Very happy the casualties were as low as they were.
My dear sir I doubt you will ever read my comment but on the off chance that you do , I’ve never flown or seen an airplane close up only in the sky and on screen but if I do at some point which I doubt as I’m 62 years old will you be the captain of my flight , obviously that’s highly unlikely and it’s meant as a compliment you are young and very wise in aviation also such a gentleman you come across understanding , thoughtful , fair, non bias , it’s also a pleasure to watch your channel on TH-cam , once again sir thank you ps please do stay safe in the present climate of corona virus and you’re family. John Uttley.
For reference, I'm making this comment when I've only watched the first 11 seconds of the video, but I already see a critical safety issue with the very part of the video intended to convey a safety warning. Don't you think the very start of the video where the photosensitive epilepsy warning is, should also be a part of the video LACKING bright lightning flashes that rapidly change the brightness of the entire screen fast enough that I'm pretty sure it would be able to trigger at least some people's photosensitive epilepsy? Might want to re-upload this one with a different background for at least that part, if only out of an abundance of caution.
Thanks to CuriosityStream for sponsoring today’s video. Go to curiositystream.thld.co/mentourpilotjune and use code MENTOURPILOT to save 25% off today, that’s only $14.99 a year.
Just watch the gimbli glide video, and it reminded me of the swiss air flight 111 tragedy, maitre of cabin was close friend of my dad and would want have a video with your style of video about it.
Mentor how do you combat strobe blindness in storms?
I'm not a pilot, nor have any type of knowledge to be one. Just found this interesting. But my thought is what if the pilot never actually pushed forward but was a result of the first touchdown and the jolt causing the landing gear to push against the wires causing the acceleration and the second touchdown just enhances the damage caused, causing complete damage and lost of control. Kind of like the landing gears temporary tension on the line causes the other end to read wrong and makes the plane think to accelerate until the second touchdown jolt tearing everything apart.
@mentour pilot, is someone trying to scam me ? I got a message to invest in crypto money from mentour pilot, this not you right ?
Having had to work with backup generators before it's amazing how people assume they come on instantaneously! They take time to get up to speed.
I have no interest in aviation and learning to fly is not on my bucket list. But I find these videos absolutely fascinating. There's no sensationalism, no dry, boring recitation of facts. Just really clear explanation of "what went wrong" and "What we learned from it". As a techie, I find the technical explanations equally engrossing as well. I can't use Patreon, but if you ever get around to using the TH-cam membership thing I'll gladly use it.
You can try a simulator. Flying is great. The fear is temporary. Try a short flight.
.
@@sharoncassell9358 Oh of course. I fly in MS Flightsim, mostly helicopters (Shoutout to Hype Performance Group for the H145)
At this point I'd be reasonably confident in a modern helo but I'd probably never pass whatever mdeical requirements.
@@BazzFreeman Remember, helicopters are _so_ much more difficult to fly than a fix-wing. Planes are built to fly naturally and can glide considerable distances without power thanks to arodynamics, but helicopters fly via several forces working _against_ each other, which are very delicate and same for operating them. Then you got the Chinook CH-47, which has double-rotors on the top that spin at precisely the correct timing to avoid smashing themselves apart. Just so ya know.
@@HANKSANDY69420 Tell me about it! Kacey Ezell (Helo pilot) once said "Fixed wing aircraft ride the boyant air, Helicopters beat it into submission"
@@BazzFreeman *The Air Force are jets and the Marines are the choppers*
What I really love about your videos is that you light up the psychological effects on the flight crew. That is something, that is often completly dismissed or ignored. But it is so very important! After all: Pilots and their crew are just humans, too. They aren't perfect, and even if they did something "wrong", like in this case do not abandon the landing as soon as the runway light disappeared, there is a reason for that.
Love goes out to every pilot who was faced with an unexpected, untrained situation. Your incapability to do something doesn't make you a bad person or even a pilot. It makes you human.
I'm a health care worker and after discovering this channel I'm now thinking about what I do in the terms used in these videos 🙂
I'm not a pilot or in the aviation industry at all but I think your videos are absolutely incredible! Please keep them coming!
I will!
I love them, and each and every one reminds me to stay on the ground.
@@jsmariani4180 🤣
@@jsmariani4180 🤣
@@jsmariani4180 they simply remind me how safe air travel actually is, these situations are all so specific and unlikely that its still way safer to take a commercial airline than drive a car lol
Shout out to the passenger who made it across to the terminal to tell them where the plane was!
It was Charles Bronson.
In torrential rain no less!
Yes can u image the passengers waiting in thr terminal for the rtn flight bk to the uk, your planes in bits in the field next to the runway!!
I thought Mentor Pilot was going to say the passenger "made his way to the airport bar & ordered himself a very large whisky".
That dude should've been arrested for unauthorized entry to a secure aviation facility. Further, he should not have been able to enter the apron side of the terminal without a badge.
Do those Spaniards/Castillians/Basquards have no sense of security?!??
2-3 months after leaving this post, I am now adding a
*"Warning!* This Facetious Comment"
disclaimer. These comment threads do not provide enough bleed-through for irony, so it must be flagged as such.
I‘m _very_ surprised one of the main recommendations wasn‘t that at least part of the runway lights must be able to run on battery power in case of a power outage. And even if it’s just every fifth light or so. For an airport that can be approached in the darkness, I would‘ve thought runway lights were of so much importance that _no_ downtime whatsoever were acceptable/permissible.
Yeah, 15 seconds is a whole eternity, and the lights are vital to a successful landing.
Yes I agree, emergency lights in a building are instantly ON. This reminds me the Tenerife "Aeroporto Norte" that had a electrical problem with the lights on their runway and OFF in the fog. Why they don't have solar powered secondary lights for the runway ?
DeR Runoratsu: I listened carefully and immediately came to the conclusion that the goddamn runway lights should be on batteries, back up, uninterruptible power, it is ridiculous to have an 11 second delay. The pilots are already saps enough, they don’t need this.
I fully agree as an electronics designer in defence related equipment - appalling criminally negligent design. If anyone in my family had died as a result of this negligence then i would have sued.
Battery backup on runway lights would have, by itself, prevented this accident, all other factors unchanged. Requires no training revisions and would be relatively cheap to implement. For 11 or 15 seconds, it wouldn't even require particularly strong battery capacity.
I’m very shocked that a safety recommendation to the airport wasn’t to eliminate downtime of airfield lights. Could this not have been avoided without the most important visual cue you have in a night time landing?
It was 1999. All the runway lights were incandescent and lithium-ion batteries were a nascent invention. It wouldn't be practical to build a UPS to run those lights. Maybe they could have barely put something together for the 15-30 seconds it takes the backup generators to start but you're talking about a mountain of lead-acid batteries that need to go somewhere.
@@tissuepaper9962 mountains of lead acid batteries in the name of safety seems worth it in my opinion.
@@tissuepaper9962 Even today most UPS are still using lead acid batteries (much cheaper, safer and weight/density doesnt really matter) but with the power requirement you made a point.
they could just have a policy of keeping the backup generator running when there are electrical storms in the area. that would have solved everything.
@@thomasneal9291 Good point, but as Mentour Pilot explained, most of the year there are electrical storms in the area!
This is a bit close to my heart as this particular 757, G-BYAG, was one I flew on. When I was 11, I was allowed to sit in the jump seat during landing (back in the days when such things were possible) and took photos during the approach with the aircrafts registration badge on the flight deck clearly visible.
Same here, flew on most of their 757 fleet back in the day, was lucky enough to fly on one of their 737 200's before they were retired once, too.
The cabin crew is always on top of it. Shout out to them
More impressive given that they also have just crashed in the fricking plane.
@GRDNANGL172 First of all: the spoiler wasn't the cause of the incident at all. The plane is able to fly with them on. Second: the cabin crew is not capacitated to asses if what the pilots are doing is OK, and moreover from hints seen from the cabin itself. What you said makes no sense.
It's a shame that one passenger died. I hope they are resting in peace. I was so hopeful that you would mention everyone survived after the evacuation ❤️
Great coverage as always 👊🏿
Wow! It's amazing how many people survived this accident!
It's arguable too that the one death was avoidable as well but their internal injuries were missed at the hospital for too long resulting in their unfortunate death. :(
Wow…This story is almost too crazy to believe. So many issues intersecting at the worst possible time. Glad they recommended changing the design so a really hard landing on the front gear doesn’t actually cause the plane to accelerate and become uncontrollable. Sounds like the fatality could have been prevented by proper medical care… that is just really sad.
This like "a perfect storm" of events! Feel sorry for the crew, and passengers 😑
😞😞
Talk about a bad day, that's a bad day
and literal storm
I don't know the crew was a big part of this catastrophe
the last and deciding factor in this crash was the power failure at the worst possible moment. if that hadn't happened, that bird would probably have touched down in one piece.
this is why every airport needs batteries to supply the critical systems like runway lights and ILS while the emergency generators are starting up.
Captain: *Look away for 1 sec*
Runway's lights: Adios
Why did the runway lights disappear?
@@jayrermars8493 the thunder made it turn off
@@kalol1119 and the lightning too.
11 seconds blind is an eternity even driving a car. When I sneeze my eyes close for a second and even that's scary when driving
@@briank10101 Great response. YYMD :-D
Thank you Mentour Pilot for your accurate and insightful reporting. As a member of the aviation community, I often find other sources of accident reporting by the mainstream media to often be both lacking and inaccurate. The results often mislead the flying community through a lack of understanding and mistrust of aviation professionals and all the training and hard work that goes into aviation safety. For those of us who view these reports to learn and prevent similar accidents hats off to you.
I think It's amazing that the final report didn't mention the insufficient backup power systems for the runway lights...
Why are 15 seconds of downtime allowed for safety critical systems like runway lights while data centers - and even the tower in this case - have zero downtime backup batteries?
Maybe that has changed since? It was a long time ago. I don't know for sure.
Nearly 22 years of progress. And no one could have foreseen the power cut just as the aircraft crossed the threshold. Even if the crew had elected to go around again at that moment, they'd have probably still slammed the runway🤔
It was 1999, so the bulbs were likely incandescent - meaning they used a fuckton of power, and battery technology wasn't at advanced. I think it probably could've been done in 1999, but only 10 years earlier, I'm pretty sure having a battery backup might've been a stretch, and you need time to deploy systems all over the world.
In 2021, I'm sure that it *must* be the norm, as everything is LEDs and batteries are cheap.
@@MeMe-gm9di my thoughts as well, people don't realize how big of a difference leds have made.
FWIW many data centers would probably accept 11 seconds if the computers could keep going after that, instead of restarting. imagine you go to some website and it hangs there for 11 seconds then keeps working - how much money would you spend to avoid that possibility? Probably not very much. But in reality even 1 second turns into 10 minutes while everything reboots.
Incredible that only one passenger died. My condolences to all of their loved ones.
I love your videos. Excellent explanation of the aviation accidents.
I'm a lapsed private pilot, but I'm still amazed how *interesting* this type of flying/accident story is. While training, I devoured several years of the accident reports magazines and such.
I didn’t expect that second power failure. Eeep. The whole turbulence/go-arounds must have been stressful enough for the passengers (naturally putting myself in their shoes, as I’m not a pilot of any kind), but being in the dark as well? This must have been utterly terrifying. And then waiting, too. The outcome surprised me - I braced myself for something much, much worse.
No recommendations related to emergency lights for runways in the report? Is that so rare a possibility that they didn’t think it worth a mention?
Thank you!
I think as a passenger I'd rather stayed inside the aircraft and avoid the rain. Fuel was burnt up anyways so better wait for the bus to get you to the airport from an outside position. Better in an aircraft seat than in the airpot mud.
As an electrical engineer, there's no way to make a cost effective, reliable and large enough battery to power all the runway lighting before the generator can spool up with 90's technology, even nowadays one would be extremely expensive and hard to make reliable for such a rare event
@@jaalcaid solar charged batteries? Should keep the running costs down, and these days solar panels are pretty cheap (relatively speaking) and battery technology has come a long way. Would only need to last as long as dusk to the time of the last landing or takeoff due. Depending on noise laws, could be as little as 3-4 hours during summer.
@@y_fam_goeglyd It would also need to be modern LED lights for that to work... (It seems like halogen approach lights are 200W each...)
For a minute or so it might be practical though...
@@y_fam_goeglyd The problem is not where the energy comes from, is the fact that you need a stupid amount of power for runway lights, and you need it to come online fast. and that means big, really big batteries and really complex control circuits and power delivery, doable with current technology but expensive and probably not proven enough for an airport (what if the battery fails or catches fire?) you need to be able to isolate it and make it redundant so it doesn't bring down the backup generator or burns down the wiring for the lights. The backup batteries used by the tower don't need to deliver that much power and are really proven and commercially available because they are the type as the ones used for data centers or hospitals.
This is one of the few air accidents I have never heard about before. A truly fascinating episode, especially for you with Girona as your familiar base I imagine; a very unusual combination of events - the shock of the runway lights going out during short final must have been truly mind boggling for the crew. The production values are so impressive on your videos Petter, they rival the Air Crash Investigations series! Keep up the amazing work, sharing you detailed, rational insights and analysis! Thank you indeed.
Agree. I'm surprised ACI hasn't covered this incident.
I cannot imagine the terror the flight crew had when the runway suddenly disappeared. The stress of the turbulence and low fuel would have meant that the captain was already particularly keen on safely landing his aircraft. We humans process/analyse so much visual information that guides our situational awareness, it is 'input catastrophic' to suddenly lose this important sense. In a moment we have to make a decision....and on that penny we all rotate. How many people go to their work with this responsibility.....I fly a desk??!! I admire the aviation industry for being so honest and delving deeply into the causes of this accident. We only truly learn from our mistakes. I love the wee guy who walked to the airport....what was going through his head? Elation, shock, sadness, panic, confusion, anger, happiness? This was a great video and I enjoyed it very much, please keep them coming.
Mentour I absolutely love your videos especially the one where you look at aviation incidents and accidents like this one! Thanks for the amazing work!
Ah, Britannia Airways is a name I haven't heard in a while. One of Mum's friends used to work for them. Then it became ThomsonFly, then ThomsonAirways and now TUI. Logically, they will probably change their name again soon!
Aye. Right enough lol!
With the current state of the industry, thanks to corona, it might well be "rest in peace airlines".
@@andreasu.3546 you mean thanks to crazy governments
@@Nebbia_affaraccimiei No, I don't. Troll.
@@andreasu.3546 Not TUI - and almost not TUI UK. Especially not since Thomas Cook disappeared.
I vividly remember this day when I was driving muy car from Perpignan to Girona at the same time that this accident was happening and I can tell that the weather was such an horrendous one and very very scary.
The 757 is possibly my favorite aircraft too. I would fly to Iceland regularly between 2007 and 2010. Iceland express used the Ex Iron Maiden 757 G-STRX which used to make me feel lucky indeed. I would listen too Hallowed Be Thy Name As we crossed the North Atlantic Ocean, before arriving in "the land of the gods". 🤘 🎸 🍻 🇮🇸
I also worked as a baggage handler at Keflavik airport and have seen many times the Antonov 225 that landed weekly from Russia before continuing to America, it was epic watching it take off, a cathedral of the sky!
I flew on another 757 with Icelandair that was ex British Airways and still had the British Airways blue leather seats throughout, and so much legroom.
I really appreciate the hard work that you put into the graphics and animation of these accident investigation videos. But more than that your insights and the way you explain systems, procedures and aviation concepts is fantastic. Keep up the good work.
For some reason this is the most terrifying situation of all the videos I have seen so far... imagine the lights just suddenly going out on both the runway AND in the cockpit... while you are just about to land :(
I absolutely f'ing love these accident videos. Mayday and air crash investigation are the only TV shows I have watched every episode of and this is some great additional content.
Love your videos. Although I’m not a pilot I’m an aviation enthusiast and your videos clearly explain everything so that even non pilots can understand the events. Thank you!
"Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing..." It is a miracle that only one person died. Amazing. Great job on the explanation and this video!
And even that one seems as much on the medical error as on the crash itself.
(Though of course, there would have been no medical error to make if there had been no crash.)
That quote is bs and annoying every time someone repeats it. Just because you don't die doesn't mean it's a good Landing. People who like to recite that expression have very low expectations...
@@jerseyshoredroneservices225 I would say the one you can walk away from is a lot, a LOT better than the ones you don't walk away from.
@@maxxdahl6062
Better than dead is a very low standard 😞
Always a technically balanced and engrossing presentation of the highest order.
That airline had the best livery ever imho. Really miss it.
As with many others, I'm surprised some sort of battery-backed runway lights wasn't recommended. I'd also have suggested some sort of alert in tower to let them know airport went dark - as well as them getting notice if more than 2-3 outages in surrounding areas have been reported - so that tower can notify incoming flights to be on alert for it.
That aside. Love the videos.
Shouldn’t there be some kind of emergency light on runways? I can’t imagine driving downhill in the mountain at night and heavy rain and all the sudden the car loose head lights.
But it can happen. That's why I get frustrated at people who continue to drive their cars for days after one headlight goes out. I always think, "What will happen to them if the remaining headlight goes out on a dark curvy road at night? The result wouldn't be good.
@@skyhawk_4526 Cars, unlike airplanes, usually have the option to just be stopped wherever. Also, while I not only keep both headlights working, but also have a spare lightbulb in my car, I very rarely drive in conditions where it would be impossible to see without headlights.
@@Pentium100MHz We had a car that broke a lightbulb regularly every 6 months. During a 800km Trip back home from vacation the car killed both lightbulbs in the 1st 100km.
Advice is often given that if one headlamp fails, replace both because it's typically failure due to lifetime and the second will fail "shortly".
There is emergency lighting, the backup generator.
What there should be is a battery backup that powers everything till the generator kicks in but that would cost a lot more.
That's gotta be the ultimate "Jesus take the Wheel " moment. A total miracle took over there....
And Thor commanded the weather.
Meanwhile, he lets thousands of people die of starvation and disease every day of the week
@@oxcart4172 Yeah we're in a sad state, but it's of our own making. The love of money thing keeps food and medicine from being freely available.
@@apolloreinard7737
And yet God could feed everyone and forgive!
@@oxcart4172 What are you doing about it ?
I was working in Florida welcoming passengers arriving from the UK on Britannia, Virgin and BA flights when this incident happened. Watching this took me back. Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing and they should have instigated a go-around but what shocking bad luck for the pilots. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. I’m sure both pilots have taken this with them for the rest of their lives so well done for a superb, insightful and fair analysis of this incident. Shout out to the cabin crew as well for an unbelievable job in the most horrendous of situations. Great job as always Petter 👏👏
I think that the runway lights should have an uninterruptible power supply as well as the control tower.
Agreed. It could easily be done and wouldn't be terribly expensive. They would just need enough battery power to keep them on for the 10-15 seconds it takes for the diesel generators to start and provide electrical power. That's how a lot of critical buildings like hospitals are set up.
Or, at least battery backup for some of them, rather than complete and utter darkness. At this time, high-power LED lighting would likely not have been economically viable, so the battery capacity would need to be really rather large to deal with a couple miles of bright incandescent lights. Now, in 2021, I would expect the requirements to be between 1/5 to 1/8 of what they would have been in the late 90s. Again, even if this applied to a subset of the lights or a reduced brightness, it certainly seems like it would have changed the outcome of this landing.
@@skyhawk_4526perhaps it wouldn't even need to be every light, maybe every second or third one, since it's only going to matter for aircraft who are already very close?
The UPS is not as easy as it sounds. Airport systems are running off of 3-phase AC at least the ones I worked with were, so your UPS actually has to supply 3-phase AC from a DC power source. You basically need a huge inverter system at each site, RADAR, ILS, VOR, etc., to turn 3-phase AC into DC for the batteries and then pull power from the batteries and turn that back into 3-phase AC. It's a very expensive proposition which is why most places don't do it. What we did was if there was lightning within 10 miles we went out and manually switched everything over to backup generators so this exact scenario wouldn't happen. Yeah, the system would automatically switch over in the event of a power loss but the manual change over was much easier on the equipment so we did it that way. It was also better because we were literally on site and would verify the systems were still 100% operational and that nothing broke during the change over. Even though it was a pain in the ass, it was much better for flight safety to do it this way.
I've been told that it is common practice to run the lights from a generator during normal operation, and use mains as the backup. In the event of the generator failing the switch over can be nearly instant.
Wow you are so good at explaining things, I haven’t realized how complicated concepts I just learnt until I actually understood what the final report says at the end despite being written in such a difficult way!! Well done!!
I really love your unmistakably Swedish accent! very suave!
one way to imagine this as non-aviator fans is driving through a thunderstorm approaching a turn and out of nowhere you can see only darkness outside! no road, nothing! then few seconds later you SLAM into the steering wheel and your car becomes unresponsive as well!! if you don't brake appropriately (not locking the wheels due to rain) in a handful of crucial moments you are going OFF that cliff for sure. so glad most people survived, it must've been a horrific experience.
The question I have: If the speed brakes are only for short time use, and the pilot should leave his hand on the lever to not forget them, why aren't they designed to retract automatically when the pilot lets the lever go?
Automatic retraction could be a bit problematic. But perhaps some kind of alert in case of using both speed brakes and a meaningful amount of thrust at the same time for more than several seconds, that sounds like something that could be done. Unless this warning overrides some other important warning, that would suck.
@@vlastimil-furst some planes incorporate auto speed brake retraction for a variety of configurations including thrust setting. It's weird to me that basically none that I know of give a direct visual cue on the primary display that speed brakes are deployed. You'd think it would be easy. It's commonly forgotten and has caused fatal accidents. They have indications for a bunch of things...but not the spoilers. Who knows.
@@justcommenting4981 Even the cheapest car I know of, has a light come on in the main display when the handbrake is applied.
It boggles my mind to learn that a plane, worth millions of dollars (?) didn't.
Lol, I have, on rare occasions found myself driving with the handbrake still applied. but hey, I don't have hundreds of people sitting in the back seats.
it's honestly amazing only one person died. Especially with such a violent event.
I agree. Very fortunate
Did anyone else pick up on the details of that death? The video says the person died due to internal injuries that the hospital didn't realize. It sounds like that hospital needs to re-evaluate its procedures!
@@kurttappe The hospital probably got flooded by a bunch of hurt passenger and they messed up the triage process. Internal injuries are hard to access without the patient telling outright or external signs, and sadly, sometimes errors happen
I was craving one of your episodes!
Only just discovered this channel. The research and knowledge that goes into this videos is just fantastic.
A Mentour Pilot video uploaded 4 minutes ago? CLICK! It's become an automated reflex at this point :)
ALIENS!!
This episode should've been sponsored by History Channel because that sudden lights out on the airport AND in the aircraft was totally an alien thing, btw the whole crazy storm in the region was definitely caused by the aliens. They were probably testing some kind of ray or something and that made the aircraft speed up after touch down. That's quite obvious...
What a terrible sequence of things thrown at the pilots! Outstanding video again, Mentour. 💛🙏🏼
ive seen so many of these from this channel -- this one thus far has given me the most anxiety -- my hear rate was up and my heart was pumping out of my chest.. wow!
Very complete report, I really appreciate this kind of content.
This info you are giving can literally save lifes
Thank you!
I flew back from Palma to London Stansted on a Britannia 757 just 3 days after this accident. The flight was delayed from PMI by 3 hours due to the severe weather front passing through. Crazy high winds.
On approach to STN we were warned the crosswinds were bad. The girl next to me was terrified and made a reference to this crash. I told her it was very rare and we'd be fine.
It was the most worrying landing Ive ever had out of over 400 commercial flights. We were crabbing on approach and i was looking out of the overwing widow straight down the runway . Because I work at STN I could see we landed late in relation to airport buildings , with a lot of reverse. Pilot really seemed to struggle to get us down. It was a REALLY rough landing and runway contact . The girl moaned at me for saying it was going to be ok. I will never forget my answer. " Well, we're in one piece arent we!".
I think a battery backup on the runwaylights could have prevented this accident and the lightning can also have caused a longer startuptime for the generator than they had in good weather in the test after the accident.
I just wanted to compliment you on the excellent job you do in making these videos. You’ve come to have a huge following. I’m glad you do. You’ve earned it. The videos you make are like professional documentaries. As both a railfan and a planefan I enjoy good videos on both subjects. You are to aviation what Distant Signal (Danny Harmon) is to railroading. Thank you for all the work you put into your videos. All the best to you until we meet somewhere up in the clear blue sky.
Having been involved in a similar loss of visual reference at low level a long time ago, there would seem to be one factor not mentioned. The view from the cockpit would have been basically black above, with the airfield lighting illuminating the lower half of the Captain's field of vision. When the lights went out he would have only seen black which was probably interpreted (perhaps sub consciously) as a pitch up and would account for the increase in descent as he momentarily applied forward pressure on the controls. This would have been a short term reaction before he regained some spatial awareness, or got back onto instruments, but the ground intervened.
The same problem in reverse can occur if the aircraft enters a small area of fog as it crosses the threshold. In this case the the view has changed from light above and darker below to all light and again the visual sensation of a pitch up leading to a reaction of forward pressure on the controls for a short time. This is well documented.
3.3g, to put that into perspective, the force of my student's average landing.
Also my high school GPA, lol
Im pretty sure that the 757 is a narrow body... while its still a (almost) heavy
(edit)
The B757 is not a heavy by weight definition however for the purposes of wake turbulence it is treated similar to one. This is because of the wing of the aircraft. (It’s really efficient) In fact, the seven five has its own wake turbulence category in between the heavy and the upper large category it would normally be it.
@@Bill_N_ATX Thats correct, i thought it was a bit heavier, the 300 model is just a few tons under, granted the 200 model is quite a few tons under.
Ground handled the freighter 757s. Great airframe but definitely narrow body. Otherwise , great video. Thank you.
It is six abreast (3 seats, aisle, 3 seats) just like the 737 and A320. I guess it's technically "wide" when comparted to a DC9 or MD80 which is five abreast (2 seats, aisle, 3 seats). 😉
Has the same cross section as the 737, doesn't it? The nose is unique amongst airliners because the 767 cockpit had to fit, since pilots could fly the 757 and 767 with minimal cross training.
Truly enthralling mouse cursor in the beginning segment where the runway “disappears”.
They need to improve the runway lights to a battery back up system imho. This was a scary as heck episode to listen to for me and would have made an excellent "halloween" episode imo.
@Jordan Rodrigues So that may have been the case in 1999. But I'm pretty sure tech has advanced. One thing they could have done in the severe weather.back then is manually switch to the back up generator no matter what. Additionally.they might have had two different circuits so at the very least some lights were on and they all would not go out.
While he may have had a poor glide slope, he still didn't deserve to land in the pitch black of the storm.
Awesome work. The attention to detail is outstanding.
what is your love for nature,mine was trees. before I joined the military,I planned for a very large plots of land for trees planting, tryna get some nature specialist, that can give me the name of old trees from the ancient, wanna make some research about them, for personal benefits. meeting you here was I great thing,but I don't come here if not for important things and don't got much Time for stranger,but you're still a blissful human too,and hope you stay safe from covid 19.
I might not give you response back for now,dew to my job schedules and high monitoring devices all around me,it would be nice texting directly to Gmail or Mobile number. text me back to my Gmail address which is (megsaudibert@gmail.com) or send me your Gmail address and your mobile number,so when I come online here, would get you a response,hope you stay safe.
I dont know why or how i found your videos, its a long time ago. One thing i know however is that i absolutely love them, love watching them as i play video games.
Listening to the causes of this accident, I really feel for the crew and passengers. Its the ultimate in Swiss cheese case studies.
Right?! Sometimes the causes make an accident waiting to happen, but the timing aligning on this one was incredibly bad luck. I'm glad so many survived the accident.
A request for videos:
1. What passengers should do in an emergency - Oxygen masks and crash procedures
a. with video of the benefits of one position over another, and an
b. explanation about cabin pressure and hypoxia
2. The emergency slides.
Could you please explain how and where they deploy? What it looks like when people slide down. The difference between a land slide and a water slide. How the slide detaches and how they can be used as rafts. Do they have supplies on them? How many people do they take? How durable are they and how long can they stay afloat? What are some examples in history of water rescues where slides were deployed?
You explain it so well in your vids, but I don't think the average person sees all of it. Maybe dedicated video addressing these things with examples will help. It's also something that applies to EVERYONE that has or will ever fly - so wide audience.
TY for great content. I'm binge-watching.
Great video series. I am only a simulation flyer but I love your intense investigation videos. My job is in the chemical industrie and I wish we would make some deep investigation then accidents happen. So good to learn from our mistakes. Thank you for your inspiration you bring to me.
While watching dozens of Mentour Pilot videos (recovering from a severe bout of covid) I’ve decided to add the following safety gear to my carry-on/person: high lumen pen light, Petzl compact head lamp, neon/reflective parking vest, gloves & safety glasses. As an aware passenger, I already pay attention to pre-flight instructions, sit in an emergency exit aisle (whenever possible) and leave my seatbelt on while seated, sleeping etc. I also leave my shoes on during takeoff and 15-20 minutes before landing. Is this fearful flying? No. Paranoia? No. I first flew a plane as an adolescent. And learned air accident statistics 20 years ago. 95% of crashes are survivable & smoke is the number one cause of in-cabin fatalities. If anyone walks away from an accident or can help save lives- it’ll be me.
Great videos always!
Ive seen lots of your videos, great presentation. Unreal how so many pilots fail to just do the basics.
17:15: Who else thought at that exact point, automatically: "GO AROUND! GO AROUND! GO AROUND!"?
You should do more videos like this!
I have around 30 of them 😂
@Mentour pilot keep making them! Can you do a video about Atlantic southeast airlines flight 529
What an incredible situation to be thrust into. As my daughter works through her professional training, I hope the training co tinier to develop with all of the historical actions taking on new situations.
I had an incident occur many years ago that was very similar to this cockpit crew near landing. I was in a light plane at night on final to Bracket Airport, Pomona, CA cleared to land. I was at about 50 ft agl just short of the numbers when everything went black. Bracket is located in a sort of bowl with a small hill to the west. When you are under 100 feet you can't see lights beyond the hill. When the lights went out I was suddenly on instruments. I went to full power, got on the gauges and did a missed approach. I climbed for a few seconds and had full visual references so off the gauges. I called the tower and asked why the dark? They said that they didn't know, it just happened. Turns out a drunk driver picked the single power pole out of hundreds to hit that knocked out the whole airport. I diverted to El Monte airport and flew the plane home the next day. Thank God the weather was good.
I've actually forgot to retract the speed brakes on an approach. A short vector with a too late descent clearance and I let myself get "behind the aircraft"! (Don't let ATC fly the aircraft!!! 👎 ) The fact that there were high winds and 20+ kt gusts helped by requiring a 20 kt (maximum) approach speed additive. Unfortunately, the very high turbulence tended to mask the usual roughness of the speed brakes. Aa with many aircraft, only a subset of the installed speed brakes will deploy when airborne; basically there are AIRBORNE speed brakes and ground/LANDING speed brakes. I doubt any of the crew ever made that mistake again, I know I didn't!! 😲 😳 🙄
for everyone stating the lights need to be batrery backed, bear in mind that the entire runway lighting system is normally DIMMABLE. The level of brightness required in bad weather would cause night blindness on a clear moonless night
Whilst I fully agree that the lighting control systems should be on uniterupptble power supplies the harsh reality is that a direct lightning hit on or near the airfield causes massive ground currents and there's always a possibilty that electronic control systems may fry, resulting in the need to stll have electromechanical systems with changeover times
There's another way of handling this kind of issue - procedural - and its been in use at the Airport I learned to fly at since they installe remote controlled-lighting in the 1970s (pilots can control the lighting when the tower is unoccupised midnight-5am)
It's a really simple procesure too: "If the lights go off, GO AROUND"
By the time you come back to finals the problem will most likely have been sorted
The pilots here can/should be faulted for continuing the landing attempt when visual conditions were lost - "pressing on regardless" has proven to be a bad idea time and time again in aviation
The Boeing 757 is my absolute favourite civilian aircraft. This was a bizarre and strange incident that had the makings of a potentially much more serious accident. It seems strange to me that the complete blackout of airfield occurred, 11 seconds in aviation is a long time. I would have thought that the backup system would operate almost immediately, within a couple of seconds? Excellent video.
People, you need to remember this: flying is one of the safest ways to travel, we hear more about plane crashes than car crashes due to rarity and severity. Hell, I'm certain its safer than walking in many cities
I'd love it if you started going through crazy aviation incidents from WW2 and use IL2 Sturmovik instead of Flight Sim. IL2 is an incredibly detailed flight sim.
THIS CHANNEL IS SOOOOO ADDICTING
Super informative breakdown.
The "Flashing Lights" epilepsy warning is functionally useless when it's displayed at the same time as lightning.
The warning should not be displayed at the same time as the flashing lights 🤦♂️
Agreed. Also it needs to be in bigger text to be more obvious
Disagreed . epileptic ppl don't watch TH-cam. Lol
@@IShowVelocity. ..... Yes they do? Get lost.
Would you rather land with a tailwind or crosswind?
Depends on how strong they are and how much runway I have. Normally I prefer crosswind
@@MentourPilot What about a strong crosswind in a small light taildragger? AKA "Fun mode"
Never get high on approach, get high after you land safely.
They call that "The Kobayashi Maru" in the Simulator!! CRIPES!! \m/
Like... Jesus... How are you supposed to deal with a demonic incursion? There's not really another good explanation for this sequence of events...
@@Argosh Use the Force, Luke. :-)
Love your videos but since I know someone who is photosensitive, I would make the quick suggestion to place the flashing light warning BEFORE the flashes are on-screen. The lightening was already present from the opening scenes and for anyone particularly sensitive, the simultaneous warning would come too late.
The thunder in the beginning had me turning my head to figure out where that noise was from. Crazy that someone out there is making aviation content on TH-cam with spatial audio
When I'm in MSFS, and I use my speed brake, I sometimes forget I did. If not for the weird wind noises, I wouldn't know because I don't have a physical spreed brake to hold. My guess is the turbulence made flying one-handed difficult. Swiss cheese took over and one fail point led to another. Glad it wasn't as catastrophic as it could have been. Sad that one person didn't make it.
I find half the landings I've been in to be rather hard landings (I'm just motion sensitive). I can't imagine how hard these people hit the ground! Everyone crash-test-dummy-ing forward in their seats. I wonder how many people got their hands over their head, and head between the knees for the second and further impacts. I'm sure flight attendants or some passenger screamed that out.
Amazing everyone walked away, and RIP to the one who passed afterwards.
I appreciate the professionalism and intelligence of the crew so with all due respect to them I must say we have probably reached the limits of human abilities. It is imperative, I believe, to augement human abilities with increased use of adaptive AI.
Planes today are capable of nearly entirely flying themselves but when something goes wrong(and it still does, probability and numbers are not friends of major airlines) in the air you need experienced humans on board
The crew's faulty decision making and lack of proper resource management is the direct cause of the accident.
So I have to disagree and state categorically that it's all the crew's fault and they are to blame for what happened.
I’m a Submariner with a background as a Diesel Mechanic for Commercial Semi these Aviation Disasters that both you and Mayday have put out has strengthened my desire to work on Quality Assurance to ensure it doesn’t happen to my boat
These are so much better than those hokey "Air Disasters" docudramas.
Since when is the 757 a widebody? Aren't widebody's supposed to be twin-isle?
right? its called the sky pencil for a reason. also 757 is best sky pencil.
Agreed. A great airplane. Somewhat of a hot rod actually. That's why American used it extensively into central and south american airports at high elevations. But, having flown on several, there is only 1 aisle. It's definitely NOT a wide body.
@@CaptRye The A340-600 is sort of a sky pencil as well..
probarly in one go thinking about 767 (which i would prefer) they share a common cockpit layout.
@@pascalcoole2725 they do, and that's by design. Pilots rated on the 57 are also rated on 67 at the same time.
Props to the tower controller! No pun intended. How many times do you hear of an emergency, not necessarily a plane crash, just any emergency where someone hesitates to call for help and it ends up in far more injuries or deaths!
I hope Curiosity knows their sponsorship is worth it!
Everything was against this crew. The accident was bound to happen.
I agree. The only way to stop this from happening would be to just cancel the flight
@@jwv6985 They could have diverted to Barcelona after the first Go-around as they had briefed it.
@@jwv6985 Well, that or divert to Barcelona when the fuel went BINGO.
Well that, or go around when they lost visual and diverted then. Or simply refuse any approaches when there’s a storm over the field.
nah, it still could have been avoided. I've had three flights canceled because the destination airport weather was going to be garbage. SEA in 2016, LUV in 2006 and I can't recall the last one. But I do recall is the passangers giving the gate agent hell because the weather leaving from IAD (Washington D.C. area) was perfectly fine. Every time, I'd rather be on a canceled flight then a harrowing landing or cruise. This accident could have been avoided. They also should have followed their plan to divert after the first attempt failed like they said they would. Not blaming the pilots, but I am calling out risk management.
Thank you. A very, very interesting revue of events. When I was flying in private and low level commercial aviation, I always read what accident reports were available to me -- in the belief it was better to learn from mistakes of others, than to repeat them unknowing, myself.
These videos are so addictive, I move on but keep coming back!
I noticed something strange. The point is called GRN but the morse below says MRN. Golf is dash-dash-dot, Mike is dash-dash
This would scare the heck out of me if I was a pilot. Imagine flying for that many years and looking up and the runway's suddenly gone. And then when you're trying to brake, it speeds up! (I've had nightmares about this happening in my car.)
Very happy the casualties were as low as they were.
very thorough, comprehensive and engaging retelling of this crash landing
My dear sir
I doubt you will ever read my comment but on the off chance that you do , I’ve never flown or seen an airplane close up only in the sky and on screen but if I do at some point which I doubt as I’m 62 years old will you be the captain of my flight , obviously that’s highly unlikely and it’s meant as a compliment you are young and very wise in aviation also such a gentleman you come across understanding , thoughtful , fair, non bias , it’s also a pleasure to watch your channel on TH-cam , once again sir thank you ps please do stay safe in the present climate of corona virus and you’re family.
John Uttley.
For reference, I'm making this comment when I've only watched the first 11 seconds of the video, but I already see a critical safety issue with the very part of the video intended to convey a safety warning.
Don't you think the very start of the video where the photosensitive epilepsy warning is, should also be a part of the video LACKING bright lightning flashes that rapidly change the brightness of the entire screen fast enough that I'm pretty sure it would be able to trigger at least some people's photosensitive epilepsy?
Might want to re-upload this one with a different background for at least that part, if only out of an abundance of caution.
This presentation was incredible. So engrossing from beginning to end. Very well done on explaining everything.
Yet another great video. Was glued to the screen the whole time. Almost as thrilling as an episode of Hercule Poirot. :D