I knew someone who was in this crash and was burned badly. It took time for him to fly again, but when he did they gave him a free upgrade whenever possible. There seemed to be a list with his name on it....
my dad's cousin, his wife, and their baby died in this crash. they were visiting his father, my dad's uncle, for a holiday. my dad's uncle unfortunately witnessed the crash from the observation deck as he was waiting for them to arrive
@@Gruxxanhat's so sad. I'm sorry for your family's loss. I expect it's still painful for you to remember, even after all these years. And how terrible for his father to witness the whole thing.
@@Gruxxan What a nightmare it must have been for your dad's uncle. He must have been deeply traumatized. Hope that he eventually somehow found some peace...
I was near Faro that morning, it was a very intense storm, so much so I had to pull over and stop driving.There is no way the plane should have attempted landing at that time. Within the hour the storm had completely gone.
@@bobwilson758 But that decision would have needed to have been made earlier, last minute changes in plans rarely turn out well. The biggest mistake was using full throttle. The descent could have been shallower, if reverse thrust had already been set up for immediate deployment if the plane touched down slightly further along the runway. Low airspeed was noticed earlier. THEN was the time to apply some thrust, to allow a smooth controlled landing. It would also have allowed them to safely abort the landing later. During difficult (if not all) landings, the pilot monitoring should stay focused on the airspeed, chatting to ATC can wait.
Let's be honest, here... The Dutch can say what they want to. The reality is that this landing was going sideways (or pear-shaped) before the Captain said "Too slow... a bit too slow." and by the time he was muttering about being slow and low, he SHOULD HAVE ALREADY pulled the plug and called the go-around... probably aiming to divert to their alternate. While the plane may have been able to handle a 40 knot crosswind under the circumstances, the fact is that this "without adequate warning" dumped a pile of workload on the pilots, and they lost what stability they might've had in the approach. There''s NOTHING wrong with taking the plane to the ground manually. In fact, for competent pilots, it should be ENCOURAGED at least half the time. Automation is fine and all, but when sh*t hits the fan, you want a SKILLED AND PRACTICED hand on the yoke... not a slouch-ass who leaves everything to the robots because he can't personally fly his ass out of a wet paper sack. 100% on the pilots. It's not a terribly hard pitfall to get into, but it's a pitfall, and there's nonsense in rain "sticking to wings" without just calling it ICING like it is... if that's what also contributed. Folks, you CAN save some landings, but there HAS to be a limit, and bouncing from 300 feet per minute to OVER 1000 is one of those boundaries. Don't bother wrestling with the winds in a storm-front... GO AROUND and then get outa there! It's not JUST your life you'll be splattering all over creation when you hit "Splatville"... and nobody has any fun in Splatville... ;o)
Bingo, you nailed it. We see a lot of examples where pilots are over confident in bad conditions and attempt a landing because they don't want to divert to an alternate. What's worse...a plane full of pissed off passengers or a fatal crash??
@@gusmc01 This reminds me of a situation where I was first dating a young female police officer in Cook County, Illinois (not far out of Chicago)... Lane filtering on a motorcycle is controversial even where it IS legal, and it's not in Illinois, but as we stopped at a light, I noticed a truck coming behind a bit too fast, and decided to get to cover... rather than see one or both of us hospitalized or killed.... It wasn't just a pickup. SO I'm suddenly filtering forward and pass an ON-DUTY cop, while she's screaming about whatever the f*** I think I'm doing... AND of course, Mr. On-Duty also has to demand to know what I think I'm doing... I only got out "Trying not to get killed" and the truck hit... Got off lucky... A few bits of shrapnel peppered us, but I'd JUST barely made it to space between two other vehicles a lane over, while the angry On-Duty officer got smashed into the minivan in front of him... AND my new girlfriend went instantly from berating me "f***in' maniac" to screaming and crying... just SURE she'd seen a fellow officer get killed right there... It WAS a hard hit. He turned out roughed up pretty good, but he even finished the shift... His car didn't, though... SO I'm going to put this the same way I said it that day. "That's a bitching session and a fine I'm tickled to DEATH to live long enough to face!" Hope this makes sense... AND yeah, sometimes, "Damn the law"... You gotta do what you gotta do. ;o)
Saying that the rain stuck to the wings momentarily and caused a decrease in lift is a very surprising comment, perhaps read from the report. I have never heard anyone say before in 30yrs as a professional pilot. Except for the joke `wet air has no lift`as an excuse not to got to work when its raining.
I'm familiar with paramotor wings, & I have never seen one that did not come with a 'wet warning.' The action of water droplets running off your wing has a significant and unpredictable effect on lift - the wing's weight increases and the action of the running water constantly changes the shape of the wing's surface. However, I am surprised he chose to describe it as "raindrops momentarily sticking to the wing." It would be interesting to know the exact wording of the report.
Its funny you say that.i attended last years bray airshow here in ireland and of the 28 display that were suppised to take part 14 cancelled as the excuse they gave was the runways at the Irish Air Corps base at Baldonnel are too dangerous to use and not long enough when wet...1 of the displays that was cancelked was the Royal Air Force Red Arrows ...i call bs on the excuse.i will NEVER attend that show again
@@PaddyMcMeAs the average commercial passenger, not a lot. It depends upon how often you fly. If you’re military, fly small, private aircraft, in hazardous conditions, a much higher chance. I do know someone who has been in two fortunately not serious accidents. Once, his plane overran the runway. The plane was damaged and a handful of people were injured, no fatalities. The second time, they suddenly hit serious turbulence. About two dozen people were injured, five of them seriously. The pilot made an emergency landing, off-loaded the injured, and then everyone was offloaded because they needed to check the plane and get another to complete the flight. A number of passengers were too rattled to want to continue. My friend wasn’t so much shaken up, but he decided, instead, to rent a car. He was a two hour drive from his destination and he figured he’d reach it sooner than waiting for another plane, going through security, etc. In addition, he’d save his buddy the drive to pick him up at the airport. He used to fly very frequently, so being in two accidents was not all that remarkable. Neither accident was a crash, and no one died in either incident. He wasn’t hurt in either.
I would love to see both reports analysed in the video, leaving the private company report for desert. Just to see what all the versions of the events were.
It's crazy that there were 3 microbursts on final approach. And unbelievable that so many people survived, the plane hot the ground so hard it sheared the landing gear clean off and it flipped over and exploded.
As a Dutchman myself, I've wondered about our tendency to dismiss responsibility, both here and at Tenerife. Always a second opinion report with a more favourable outcome for the Dutch. Why's that?
Tenerife was a time before CRM, a time before "Captain is the law above all" altitude proven misguided and unsafe. Thus Van Zanten was too high up in the ranks for his own good.
At 1:05 you mentioned that it was surprising that they used a widebody for such a short flight. MartinAir is primarily a widebody equipped carrier, 767's and DC-10'S (back in those days) , and with that amount of passengers, operation costs are justified. Again, we saw another example of a combination of factors that led to the loss of so many lives -- which should not have happened.
@@jwenting, the longest flight in the world is 19 hours but it only takes 2 hours and 35 minutes to fly from Chicago to St Petersburg. Ten hours would certainly have to be international.
We should celebrate this week. Mentor pilot, Green Dot Aviation, Mini Air Crash Investigation, AirSpace, Three Green Aviation, Disaster Breakdown, Curious Pilot all did a video this week.
This has brought back some horrific memories. I was on duty at Faro Airport when this tragedy happened. Myself and some colleagues were taking a quick break on the roof viewing platform waiting for our flights to arrive. Instead we witnessed this horrific tragedy and it has stayed with me forever as though it happened yesterday. I was a Holiday Rep for Owners Abroad Holidays and it was arrivals day. I actually don't remember the weather being that bad possibly because we weren't really taking much notice, yes it was raining but we were sat under the roof overhang (in those days smoking). The absolute chaos that ensued and the behaviour of departing passengers was unbelievably bad, many nationalities were so disrespectful and could not give a damn about what had happened, they were more concerned about the delays that would occur. Most of the inbound aircraft were diverted to Lisbon and a convoy of coaches were very quickly despatched to get departing passengers to the Capital. Several of us were taken off Airport duty because of what we had witnessed, I actually left the job. Many Years later I became crew for BA long haul flights which through the intensive training helped me overcome the fear I had developed after being present when this happened. No longer flying I can honestly say that the incredibly. intensive training and yearly SEP was in many ways cathartic in my remembering the days events.
Thunderstorm over the LZ? Check Strong winds and possibly wind shear? Check Flooded runway? Check Poor visibility ? Check Automatic aircraft control assist switched off ? Check Checklist complete! OoRah! Down we go!
@@barbaramonaco105 Maybe but if that experience was all mundane, uneventful flying then it doesn't account for much. And he clearly didn't have the skill.
I would have diverted, but I have the benefit of hindsight! "Target fixation" is a problem that applies to many situations outside of aviation as well. (Beware the rabbit hole!).
Love how you explained why a goverment report could be more trustworthy, especially when said government's reputation is affected by whether they admit to their faults or sweep them under the rug. But they wouldn't do that, right?
I remember seeing a Martinair DC-10 at Barbados airport in 1997, I think it had flown from Aruba and was on its way to Amsterdam with a layover in Barbados....beautiful plane and very solidly built but not immune from incidents.
In August, I flew into Schipol in a Boeing 787. During approach, the pilot announced he was landing on autopilot. Granted, the weather was nice, but it was the softest, most comfortable landing I had ever experienced.
That's up to a point. I agree the captain of the KLM plane bears most of the blame but there were a number contributing factors to take into account as well. A very good explanation was given by Mentour Pilot on TH-cam.
Pilots intentionally makes a hard landing when the runway is wet, to mitigate the problems of aquaplaning. Was this the reason the pilot pulled back the power?
Hard landing risk bounce which is not recommended- not that bounce is really ever recommended just handled better in some conditions. Firm landing yes. Hard is never really good.
Given that this happened in 1992 I can see how the pilots switched to manual control because they probably didn't trust the automation. Automation was rather new at that time.
You should do a follow-up with the 2011 report, even if it's not an official investigation. After Tenerife and another KLM incident that I can't remember the details of, I get the feeling the Dutch are like the Egyptians in that they try to shift as much blame as possible away from pilot or equipment failures. I can't help but take this one with a ton of salt so to speak.
Tenerife shows clearly that the Dutch crew were not (solely) to blame. PanAm failed to report not having vacated the runway, deliberately ignored ATC commands for which exit to use. ATC were inattentive and more interested in the football match on the radio than on their duties. And of course the weather.
@@jwenting you must be Dutch. The main cause was the KLM Captain's decision to take off without clearance -- which is gross negligence. There was confusion between the controllers and the PanAm crew about which exit to use, which wouldn't be an issue if you don't try to take off without clearance. The PanAm crew DID try to warn that they were still on the runway, but this was not heard due to destructive interference from simultaneous transmissions. Plus, there's nothing specific in international regulations saying you have to warn a pilot taking off without clearance that you're still on the runway (though they did attempt to do so)... But there is an international regulation AGAINST taking off without clearance. Even the other crew members in the KLM knew they their captain was wrong. And the part about the controllers being distracted by a football game is unproven and speculative. It's a boldfaced and shameless attempt to deflect blame. The accident was 90% caused by the KLM pilot, with the remaining 10% being potential contributing factors.
@@DominickWalenczak you must be American, squarely laying blame solely on anyone who is not American... There was no "confusion" about which exit PanAm had to use. They acknowledged the one appointed, then passed it without notifying ATC. KLM took off because the instructions they had from the tower would, if given at Amsterdam, have been takeoff clearance. And had acknowledged it as such to the tower who did not correct them.
This accident happened primarily because the Captain left the Autopilot on for far too long. The auto pilot was fully disconnected at 80’R/A RadioAltimeter. The max crosswind for an auto land is 15 knots. The max demonstrated crosswind is 31 knots. Some companies use this as a hard limit. I was my belief that the autopilot should be off no later than 1000’ in gusty high wind conditions. It is dangerous to attempt to transition from auto to manual at a low height with strong crosswinds or gusty conditions. The reason the MD11 has such high speeds has to do with weight. The max landing weight of the DC10-30 varied between 424-436,000 pounds and the MD11 varied between 481,500 and 491,500 pounds. The aft CG in the MD11 was for cruise. It had a 14,000 pound fuel tank in the horizontal stabilizer where the automatic fuel system could pump fuel to improve fuel burn. I also flew the Super VC10 in the early 1970s which had a fuel tank(3600kg) in the vertical fin which the Flight Engineer pumped fuel for the same reason. I also flew the A300-600 which also had a tank in the tail. The only time this tank had fuel in it was when you took off with full tanks or for CG management in cruise on all the airplanes that had it.
A widebody for a 'short flight'? I have flown on 767 from AMS to LHR. Matter of demand. In the summer holidays it was quite common for Martinair to fly DC 10-30's as charters to all over the Mediterranean, including Spain.
I think it is pretty amazing that only 50+ passengers! I would really like more information on these flights. Did either of the pilots live? If so, what did THEY say about the flight. I also would have liked to have heard any differences between the 3 investigations. Even though the 2011 one wasn't done by a governmental agency, it would be very interesting to hear what it said and what the Portuguese one said. By comparing the 3 maybe we can get an even clearer picture. I appreciate your videos a lot but often find the ending leaves us too many questions. A wrap up of findings, pilot interviews etc would be a really good addition.
It would be great to say at least few words about what unofficial investigation concluded. Dutch officials tried to cover KLM pilots after Tenerife, so they might be biased.
In windy condition low flaps settings and higher throttle settings usually help to handle the A/C better. These guys just botched the job by putting engines to idle. Cant do that because you also want reversers after landing and at idle even reversers wouldn't be effective.
The successor of the DC-10, the MD-11 has a reputation to flip over as a result of a hard landing. Is the flip of the DC-10 a singular event, or does it suffer from the same tendency?
To save on money, McDonnell Douglas made the MD-11s horizontal stabilizers smaller, which makes it difficult to control on landing. I remember a guy who flew them for the Lufhansa Cargo for a number of years saying basically that, while other planes have some margin of tolerance when it comes to stabilized approach, MD-11 has zilch. You have to have it perfectly stable or you're in for a mess.
The Martinair flip was a singular event. The DC-10 is aerodynamically stable. The MD-11 has a smaller tailplane which can make landings problematic. The centre of gravity on the MD-11 is further aft than would be expected on an airliner which exacerbates the flawed handling. Douglas tried to solve the problem by using computer software to make landings easier similar to what Boeing did with its 737 but this was proven to be the wrong solution. Douglas was taken over by Boeing but in their effort to save money they adopted some of their bad decisions. 300 people died as a result. Using computer software to neutralise bad design is no longer an option.
@@charleskennedy1712 which lowers fuel consumption and reduces costs, so McDonnell Douglas could boast how economical thei aircraft is (it still failed to meet the expected fuel consumption)
The MD-11 design meant that it had to land approx 20-30kts faster than other similar aircraft. To help with fuel consumption its centre of gravity was also designed to be pretty aft. This meant it was quite a handful to land, and extra care had to be taken during takeoff and landings.
Sounds like the pilot was saturated with workload. He called out they were to low, and to slow on approach, but it doesn't sound like he reacted to his own comments until it was to late. The auto land system in the DC-10s I worked on was old school, and tended to put the airplane down in the middle of the runway. The Captain may have gone manual to put it down on the numbers due to the wet runways anticipating a longer roll out.
Thank you for the last few sentences.I'm an interested amateur but I've been saying to myself "If not earlier, NOW they should've done a go-around!". Sorry, hate to dunk on pilots but that was just terrible airmanship.
If in doubt go around. The pilots seemed to have weather data from a number of sources telling them that there were thunderstorms around the airport and that the weather was marginal. Better to go around, divert to Lisbon and everyone lives to see another day. I wonder if commercial factors at the airline made the pilots attempt the landing?
Kelsey on 74 Gear has said that a technique on a wet runway is to land hard to dissipate more energy into the ground and help to stop the plane. So, poor execution, wind change, or faulty landing gear can be on the list.
This reminds me of the fact that there were multiple reports in the Tenerife disaster, a Spanish side of the story and the Dutch side of the story. I'm really interested to learn more about the other side of the story for this crash, especially since I have a hard time trying to understand which side of the story I agree with most.
Any responsible captain would have gone around once he realized at 500 feet that the aircraft was not fully controllable. Gross negligence and should have been prosecuted for that.
@@PaddyMcMe What I mean is that if the captain survived, he should have been prosecuted, just like flight controllers have been, for negligence for insisting on landing when it was clearly obvious, how unsafe the weather conditions were to do so.
@@maz3563But why, yes he made a mistake but why does this mistake need to be criminalised. If by your logic he should be prosecuted because of a mistake, then every every pilot who has committed a mistake and survived in a crash should be prosecuted. And anyways, the captain's mistake was not what directly caused the accident. And I'm willing to bet that if Martinair 495 had not crashed, another plane would have suffered the same fate.
@@danielnovitadubin8272 Apparently being in US , you haven’t studied dozens of cases where controllers have gone to jail for negligence but apparently, pilots get a pass if they survive. Anyway, don’t know if this one did but he CERTAINLY should have gone to an alternate airport…
Well, that was very confusing. TIL there is a Faroe in Portugal. I thought you meant the Islands north of Scotland which would have made the choice of Lissbon as a diversion airport... interesting. 😂😂
Son, do you and me both a favor and invest in a good microphone or learn to properly EQ the one you have. It’s not the volume as much as it is the muddiness - such that at time CC has difficulty interpreting. You obviously put a lot of work into this channel and you do a good job. It’s a shame to waste this on a bad or improperly EQed mike.
@@normanmcleod7169 Interesting. Hadn’t occurred to me that this might clean it up a bit. Thoughtful of you to suggest it because it’s not intuitive that this would help. Thanks.
Once again we see the recurring theme: Flight automation gets turned off and plane goes boom. I am sure that pilots fly manual landings all the time, but all these crashes seem to mention that the auto-pilot was disengaged.
Autopilots are great and very precise. Better than humans but not in strong winds. Autopilots come with maximum wind parameters for use in landings. Most companies recommend hand flying windy approaches and l have seen accident reports blaming the pilots for keeping the autopilot on to long during a windy approach and thus they never getting a feel for the conditions.
"its quite surprising they went with a wide body for such a short flight" Its all about logistics. Someone either needed something moved, needed the aircraft for something, or were staging it for something.
As this already was a manual flight (confirmed by not having an ILS and using the verry inaccurate PAPI's), The pilot only disconnected the ATS (Auto Trottle System) as this given the circumstances is known to cause pilot induced pitch oscilation by continiously overcorrecting powerchanges. Beside eventualy not being able to autoland the trottle should have been retarded manualy anyhow. To my knowledge two previous landing attempts where done before the accident landing. With the WX involved None of those should have been attemted (getheritis ?) My experience with MartinAir is that hey had verry well trained and responsable flight crews. Still things can happen. I have done injudicious things too. At the time, I'm was verry close to the information source regarding the accident.
Automation has its limits. Unusual circumstances could cause sensors to malfunction, or perhaps overwhelm the computing power. Humans in unusual circumstances, especially when well-trained and experienced, have a greater capacity to come up with creative solutions. Also, "gut instinct" can sometimes help-- or hinder. The last few weeks, I've been driving a newer model of my car that has much more "driver assist" functions. My old car only has straightforward cruise control (which should not be used in the rain, on wet or snowy roads, etc.). I've been trying the assisted cruise control and lane control on the 13 years newer car, and it's interesting to see the car's "opinions" on what proper following and lane keeping are. I disagree with its version of lane keeping. Maybe it's right, and I've been driving in the wrong parts of the lane all these years. Or maybe it just needs more time to calculate and make the little corrections. It does seem to be on top of the game when it comes to lane departure, and warning when a car is in the lane next to me. And it yells at me when I release control of the steering wheel. The "following" feature is both helpful, and irritating. As a driver trained just after the 1970s energy crisis, I feel that the automation is doing those "jackrabbit starts" we were warned would hurt our fuel efficiency. The stopping tends to be rather abrupt, even scary. And I don't think it has a feature to stop for red lights. Of course I have not really tested if it can respond to red lights; that's too dangerous! It does do a good job of following when traffic is moving. These tools can be helpful in the right circumstances, when they're used properly. So I'm not going to give a definite opinion on whether I think the pilots should have kept the automation turned on. I think it's more important to consider the alternate landing sites when conditions are so far off from what you were expecting. I wonder if they would have diverted if they had been accurately informed, from official sources, about how bad the weather really was.
The gate for go-around from an unstable approach is not a consistent regulatory value worldwide. In the US it's company policy and I've seen that set at 1000', 500', and as low as 300'.
I just think that aviation safety today (ie lack of regular air transport accidents) was born out from the lessons learnt from all these major accidents of the eighties and nineties, including this one.
It can never be told for sure if dropping the automation contributed to the crash. It's not unusual to switch to manual when you see the runway. There are freak winds that can overpower a plane when landing, especially if the speed is low. The Tower should provide information about those crosswinds. To the ones who lost their lives I say, thank you for your service to humanity via aviation disaster. Your sacrifice has made flying safer for us.😢😶🌫️ I pray the good Lord welcomes you into heavenly habitations where you will enter into the joy of the Lord forever.❤️🩹💝
Leaving the automation on for some time longer could have helped them stabilize a bit more in these windy conditions, but in the end if they still didn't proceed a GA i think they would crash anyway; maybe with less loss but still.
Dutch airline & the investigation from Dutch sources. They'd do their best to clear the crew of responsibilities here. Shades of the 1979 Erebus enquiry- not wanting the crews of an airline of their nation to seem 'inept'.
I knew someone who was in this crash and was burned badly. It took time for him to fly again, but when he did they gave him a free upgrade whenever possible. There seemed to be a list with his name on it....
Omg...so sorry he was burned! But very glad he lived!
my dad's cousin, his wife, and their baby died in this crash. they were visiting his father, my dad's uncle, for a holiday. my dad's uncle unfortunately witnessed the crash from the observation deck as he was waiting for them to arrive
@@Gruxxanhat's so sad. I'm sorry for your family's loss. I expect it's still painful for you to remember, even after all these years. And how terrible for his father to witness the whole thing.
@@Gruxxan What a nightmare it must have been for your dad's uncle. He must have been deeply traumatized. Hope that he eventually somehow found some peace...
@@Gruxxanthat's a hell of a thing for him to go through. Next time you type it out you can save some time saying your 2nd cousin and great uncle.
I was near Faro that morning, it was a very intense storm, so much so I had to pull over and stop driving.There is no way the plane should have attempted landing at that time.
Within the hour the storm had completely gone.
Holy wow ! If they had circled the airport … even just one time !
@@bobwilson758 But that decision would have needed to have been made earlier, last minute changes in plans rarely turn out well.
The biggest mistake was using full throttle. The descent could have been shallower, if reverse thrust had already been set up for immediate deployment if the plane touched down slightly further along the runway.
Low airspeed was noticed earlier. THEN was the time to apply some thrust, to allow a smooth controlled landing. It would also have allowed them to safely abort the landing later.
During difficult (if not all) landings, the pilot monitoring should stay focused on the airspeed, chatting to ATC can wait.
Let's be honest, here... The Dutch can say what they want to. The reality is that this landing was going sideways (or pear-shaped) before the Captain said "Too slow... a bit too slow." and by the time he was muttering about being slow and low, he SHOULD HAVE ALREADY pulled the plug and called the go-around... probably aiming to divert to their alternate.
While the plane may have been able to handle a 40 knot crosswind under the circumstances, the fact is that this "without adequate warning" dumped a pile of workload on the pilots, and they lost what stability they might've had in the approach. There''s NOTHING wrong with taking the plane to the ground manually. In fact, for competent pilots, it should be ENCOURAGED at least half the time. Automation is fine and all, but when sh*t hits the fan, you want a SKILLED AND PRACTICED hand on the yoke... not a slouch-ass who leaves everything to the robots because he can't personally fly his ass out of a wet paper sack.
100% on the pilots. It's not a terribly hard pitfall to get into, but it's a pitfall, and there's nonsense in rain "sticking to wings" without just calling it ICING like it is... if that's what also contributed.
Folks, you CAN save some landings, but there HAS to be a limit, and bouncing from 300 feet per minute to OVER 1000 is one of those boundaries. Don't bother wrestling with the winds in a storm-front... GO AROUND and then get outa there! It's not JUST your life you'll be splattering all over creation when you hit "Splatville"... and nobody has any fun in Splatville... ;o)
Bingo, you nailed it. We see a lot of examples where pilots are over confident in bad conditions and attempt a landing because they don't want to divert to an alternate. What's worse...a plane full of pissed off passengers or a fatal crash??
@@gusmc01 This reminds me of a situation where I was first dating a young female police officer in Cook County, Illinois (not far out of Chicago)...
Lane filtering on a motorcycle is controversial even where it IS legal, and it's not in Illinois, but as we stopped at a light, I noticed a truck coming behind a bit too fast, and decided to get to cover... rather than see one or both of us hospitalized or killed.... It wasn't just a pickup.
SO I'm suddenly filtering forward and pass an ON-DUTY cop, while she's screaming about whatever the f*** I think I'm doing...
AND of course, Mr. On-Duty also has to demand to know what I think I'm doing... I only got out "Trying not to get killed" and the truck hit...
Got off lucky... A few bits of shrapnel peppered us, but I'd JUST barely made it to space between two other vehicles a lane over, while the angry On-Duty officer got smashed into the minivan in front of him... AND my new girlfriend went instantly from berating me "f***in' maniac" to screaming and crying... just SURE she'd seen a fellow officer get killed right there... It WAS a hard hit.
He turned out roughed up pretty good, but he even finished the shift... His car didn't, though...
SO I'm going to put this the same way I said it that day. "That's a bitching session and a fine I'm tickled to DEATH to live long enough to face!"
Hope this makes sense... AND yeah, sometimes, "Damn the law"... You gotta do what you gotta do. ;o)
Saying that the rain stuck to the wings momentarily and caused a decrease in lift is a very surprising comment, perhaps read from the report. I have never heard anyone say before in 30yrs as a professional pilot. Except for the joke `wet air has no lift`as an excuse not to got to work when its raining.
It's very common in gliders. Some just fall out of the sky when wet. The PIK 20 was the worst for it
I'm familiar with paramotor wings, & I have never seen one that did not come with a 'wet warning.' The action of water droplets running off your wing has a significant and unpredictable effect on lift - the wing's weight increases and the action of the running water constantly changes the shape of the wing's surface.
However, I am surprised he chose to describe it as "raindrops momentarily sticking to the wing." It would be interesting to know the exact wording of the report.
I think this decrease on its own should not be an issue. But if you are already at the limit, it might theoretically push you over the edge.
Its funny you say that.i attended last years bray airshow here in ireland and of the 28 display that were suppised to take part 14 cancelled as the excuse they gave was the runways at the Irish Air Corps base at Baldonnel are too dangerous to use and not long enough when wet...1 of the displays that was cancelked was the Royal Air Force Red Arrows ...i call bs on the excuse.i will NEVER attend that show again
If 14 cancelled does it not suggest there might have been a valid safety issue? Just wondering.
I have a Dutch friend who survived this accident. He never flew again in his life.
Like, statistically, I wonder what the odds of being in more than 1 plane accident are?
@@PaddyMcMeAs the average commercial passenger, not a lot. It depends upon how often you fly. If you’re military, fly small, private aircraft, in hazardous conditions, a much higher chance. I do know someone who has been in two fortunately not serious accidents. Once, his plane overran the runway. The plane was damaged and a handful of people were injured, no fatalities. The second time, they suddenly hit serious turbulence. About two dozen people were injured, five of them seriously. The pilot made an emergency landing, off-loaded the injured, and then everyone was offloaded because they needed to check the plane and get another to complete the flight. A number of passengers were too rattled to want to continue. My friend wasn’t so much shaken up, but he decided, instead, to rent a car. He was a two hour drive from his destination and he figured he’d reach it sooner than waiting for another plane, going through security, etc. In addition, he’d save his buddy the drive to pick him up at the airport. He used to fly very frequently, so being in two accidents was not all that remarkable. Neither accident was a crash, and no one died in either incident. He wasn’t hurt in either.
I would love to see both reports analysed in the video, leaving the private company report for desert. Just to see what all the versions of the events were.
It's crazy that there were 3 microbursts on final approach. And unbelievable that so many people survived, the plane hot the ground so hard it sheared the landing gear clean off and it flipped over and exploded.
As a Dutchman myself, I've wondered about our tendency to dismiss responsibility, both here and at Tenerife. Always a second opinion report with a more favourable outcome for the Dutch. Why's that?
Banking tradition you adopted from foreign interlopers.
Tenerife was a time before CRM, a time before "Captain is the law above all" altitude proven misguided and unsafe. Thus Van Zanten was too high up in the ranks for his own good.
@@rickfeng4466 And Colombian cocaine was plentiful.😵💫
Not like you actually control your own country tho. This is a trait of your occupiers not really Duh-tch peasantry.🧐
@@rickfeng4466 Mostly it was a case of misunderstood and lost communication. The simultaneous transmission problem is still not solved.
At 1:05 you mentioned that it was surprising that they used a widebody for such a short flight.
MartinAir is primarily a widebody equipped carrier, 767's and DC-10'S (back in those days) , and with that amount of passengers, operation costs are justified.
Again, we saw another example of a combination of factors that led to the loss of so many lives -- which should not have happened.
I didn't think a two hour flight is that short.😶🌫️
@@patriciamariemitchel for an airline that specialises in 10 hour flights, it is.
@@jwenting, the longest flight in the world is 19 hours but it only takes 2 hours and 35 minutes to fly from Chicago to St Petersburg. Ten hours would certainly have to be international.
@@patriciamariemitchel and that's exactly what Martinair did. Amsterdam to the Caribbean was their milk runs.
That's 10-12 hours one way.
I flew Martinair LAX AMS several times on MD-11s.
We should celebrate this week. Mentor pilot, Green Dot Aviation, Mini Air Crash Investigation, AirSpace, Three Green Aviation, Disaster Breakdown, Curious Pilot all did a video this week.
❤
I haven't checked in with this channel in awhile and man your audio quality and delivery is 10x improved!! Good stuff
I don't know if you do your own graphics,or,someone else does, but they are extremely good! 👍🙂
It's not Martin Air, it's Martinair. You can tell, because it's right there in THE FIRST FRAME
Definitely should have been a go around with all the other things going on around the aircraft. Amazing so many actually survived.
This has brought back some horrific memories. I was on duty at Faro Airport when this tragedy happened. Myself and some colleagues were taking a quick break on the roof viewing platform waiting for our flights to arrive. Instead we witnessed this horrific tragedy and it has stayed with me forever as though it happened yesterday. I was a Holiday Rep for Owners Abroad Holidays and it was arrivals day. I actually don't remember the weather being that bad possibly because we weren't really taking much notice, yes it was raining but we were sat under the roof overhang (in those days smoking). The absolute chaos that ensued and the behaviour of departing passengers was unbelievably bad, many nationalities were so disrespectful and could not give a damn about what had happened, they were more concerned about the delays that would occur. Most of the inbound aircraft were diverted to Lisbon and a convoy of coaches were very quickly despatched to get departing passengers to the Capital. Several of us were taken off Airport duty because of what we had witnessed, I actually left the job. Many Years later I became crew for BA long haul flights which through the intensive training helped me overcome the fear I had developed after being present when this happened. No longer flying I can honestly say that the incredibly. intensive training and yearly SEP was in many ways cathartic in my remembering the days events.
(ps: it's Martinair, not Martin Air)
Thunderstorm over the LZ?
Check
Strong winds and possibly wind shear?
Check
Flooded runway?
Check
Poor visibility ?
Check
Automatic aircraft control assist switched off ?
Check
Checklist complete!
OoRah! Down we go!
I think these pilots were overwhelmed by this landing. They just didn't have the skill and/or experience.
Right... with the Cap muttering "we're too slow" apparently several times, it was clear he knew something was up fairly early on....
Captain had over 14K hours of flying time. It wasn't lack of experience on his part.
@@barbaramonaco105 Maybe but if that experience was all mundane, uneventful flying then it doesn't account for much. And he clearly didn't have the skill.
@@ScottDLR That's a lot of hours. You're right that he was unable to apply his experience in this case. A terrible failure.
Shouldn't they have gone to their alternate instead? What is the term for pilots who are going to land, no matter what? Thank you.
gung ho? unthinkingly enthusiastic
"Get-there-itis" would be the term you're looking for... ;o)
"Completion bias"
Corpse.
I would have diverted, but I have the benefit of hindsight! "Target fixation" is a problem that applies to many situations outside of aviation as well. (Beware the rabbit hole!).
Schiepol AirPort💀
Love how you explained why a goverment report could be more trustworthy, especially when said government's reputation is affected by whether they admit to their faults or sweep them under the rug. But they wouldn't do that, right?
I remember seeing a Martinair DC-10 at Barbados airport in 1997, I think it had flown from Aruba and was on its way to Amsterdam with a layover in Barbados....beautiful plane and very solidly built but not immune from incidents.
In 1997 Martinair did not operate any DC10s. I guess you saw a cargo MD11 making a fuel stop.
In August, I flew into Schipol in a Boeing 787. During approach, the pilot announced he was landing on autopilot. Granted, the weather was nice, but it was the softest, most comfortable landing I had ever experienced.
Even if the plane is rated for it, 40 knots is a huge crosswind
The Dutch never blame the Dutch. Teneriffe taught us that!
That's up to a point. I agree the captain of the KLM plane bears most of the blame but there were a number contributing factors to take into account as well. A very good explanation was given by Mentour Pilot on TH-cam.
Pilots intentionally makes a hard landing when the runway is wet, to mitigate the problems of aquaplaning. Was this the reason the pilot pulled back the power?
Hard landing risk bounce which is not recommended- not that bounce is really ever recommended just handled better in some conditions. Firm landing yes. Hard is never really good.
Given that this happened in 1992 I can see how the pilots switched to manual control because they probably didn't trust the automation. Automation was rather new at that time.
You should do a follow-up with the 2011 report, even if it's not an official investigation. After Tenerife and another KLM incident that I can't remember the details of, I get the feeling the Dutch are like the Egyptians in that they try to shift as much blame as possible away from pilot or equipment failures. I can't help but take this one with a ton of salt so to speak.
Was thinking the same thing. My in-laws from my first marriage are Dutch and they would tell you that as well!!
Tenerife shows clearly that the Dutch crew were not (solely) to blame. PanAm failed to report not having vacated the runway, deliberately ignored ATC commands for which exit to use. ATC were inattentive and more interested in the football match on the radio than on their duties. And of course the weather.
@@jwenting you must be Dutch.
The main cause was the KLM Captain's decision to take off without clearance -- which is gross negligence. There was confusion between the controllers and the PanAm crew about which exit to use, which wouldn't be an issue if you don't try to take off without clearance. The PanAm crew DID try to warn that they were still on the runway, but this was not heard due to destructive interference from simultaneous transmissions. Plus, there's nothing specific in international regulations saying you have to warn a pilot taking off without clearance that you're still on the runway (though they did attempt to do so)... But there is an international regulation AGAINST taking off without clearance. Even the other crew members in the KLM knew they their captain was wrong.
And the part about the controllers being distracted by a football game is unproven and speculative. It's a boldfaced and shameless attempt to deflect blame.
The accident was 90% caused by the KLM pilot, with the remaining 10% being potential contributing factors.
@@DominickWalenczak you must be American, squarely laying blame solely on anyone who is not American...
There was no "confusion" about which exit PanAm had to use. They acknowledged the one appointed, then passed it without notifying ATC. KLM took off because the instructions they had from the tower would, if given at Amsterdam, have been takeoff clearance. And had acknowledged it as such to the tower who did not correct them.
@@jwentingif given at Amsterdam? They weren't at Amsterdam
.
This accident happened primarily because the Captain left the Autopilot on for far too long. The auto pilot was fully disconnected at 80’R/A RadioAltimeter. The max crosswind for an auto land is 15 knots. The max demonstrated crosswind is 31 knots. Some companies use this as a hard limit. I was my belief that the autopilot should be off no later than 1000’ in gusty high wind conditions. It is dangerous to attempt to transition from auto to manual at a low height with strong crosswinds or gusty conditions.
The reason the MD11 has such high speeds has to do with weight. The max landing weight of the DC10-30 varied between 424-436,000 pounds and the MD11 varied between 481,500 and 491,500 pounds. The aft CG in the MD11 was for cruise. It had a 14,000 pound fuel tank in the horizontal stabilizer where the automatic fuel system could pump fuel to improve fuel burn. I also flew the Super VC10 in the early 1970s which had a fuel tank(3600kg) in the vertical fin which the Flight Engineer pumped fuel for the same reason. I also flew the A300-600 which also had a tank in the tail. The only time this tank had fuel in it was when you took off with full tanks or for CG management in cruise on all the airplanes that had it.
him: Idk why they would use a widebody for this short flight
CAN A NARROWBODY CARRY 340 PEOPLE?
A widebody for a 'short flight'? I have flown on 767 from AMS to LHR. Matter of demand. In the summer holidays it was quite common for Martinair to fly DC 10-30's as charters to all over the Mediterranean, including Spain.
I think it is pretty amazing that only 50+ passengers! I would really like more information on these flights. Did either of the pilots live? If so, what did THEY say about the flight. I also would have liked to have heard any differences between the 3 investigations. Even though the 2011 one wasn't done by a governmental agency, it would be very interesting to hear what it said and what the Portuguese one said. By comparing the 3 maybe we can get an even clearer picture. I appreciate your videos a lot but often find the ending leaves us too many questions. A wrap up of findings, pilot interviews etc would be a really good addition.
It would be great to say at least few words about what unofficial investigation concluded. Dutch officials tried to cover KLM pilots after Tenerife, so they might be biased.
Great video! Say would you like to be my guest for one of my upcoming wreck documents?
Maybe cover 2007 midair collision of 2 news helecopters in Phoenix?
I think they should have left te automation on for longer but ultimately should have diverted.
In windy condition low flaps settings and higher throttle settings usually help to handle the A/C better. These guys just botched the job by putting engines to idle. Cant do that because you also want reversers after landing and at idle even reversers wouldn't be effective.
The successor of the DC-10, the MD-11 has a reputation to flip over as a result of a hard landing. Is the flip of the DC-10 a singular event, or does it suffer from the same tendency?
To save on money, McDonnell Douglas made the MD-11s horizontal stabilizers smaller, which makes it difficult to control on landing. I remember a guy who flew them for the Lufhansa Cargo for a number of years saying basically that, while other planes have some margin of tolerance when it comes to stabilized approach, MD-11 has zilch. You have to have it perfectly stable or you're in for a mess.
The Martinair flip was a singular event. The DC-10 is aerodynamically stable. The MD-11 has a smaller tailplane which can make landings problematic. The centre of gravity on the MD-11 is further aft than would be expected on an airliner which exacerbates the flawed handling. Douglas tried to solve the problem by using computer software to make landings easier similar to what Boeing did with its 737 but this was proven to be the wrong solution.
Douglas was taken over by Boeing but in their effort to save money they adopted some of their bad decisions. 300 people died as a result.
Using computer software to neutralise bad design is no longer an option.
@@piotrstrzyzowski3336 not to save money, to reduce aerodynamic drag
@@charleskennedy1712 which lowers fuel consumption and reduces costs, so McDonnell Douglas could boast how economical thei aircraft is (it still failed to meet the expected fuel consumption)
The MD-11 design meant that it had to land approx 20-30kts faster than other similar aircraft. To help with fuel consumption its centre of gravity was also designed to be pretty aft. This meant it was quite a handful to land, and extra care had to be taken during takeoff and landings.
They should have diverted before they even started their descent. All on the pilots.
No, windshear is the wind changing direction for a short period of time, but the direction it changes to is DOWN!
Sounds like the pilot was saturated with workload. He called out they were to low, and to slow on approach, but it doesn't sound like he reacted to his own comments until it was to late.
The auto land system in the DC-10s I worked on was old school, and tended to put the airplane down in the middle of the runway.
The Captain may have gone manual to put it down on the numbers due to the wet runways anticipating a longer roll out.
6:35 idk, some of them Navy planes look pretty sturdy.
Why didn't the flight crew just divert to Lisbon?
Thank you for the last few sentences.I'm an interested amateur but I've been saying to myself "If not earlier, NOW they should've done a go-around!". Sorry, hate to dunk on pilots but that was just terrible airmanship.
RIP pilots and the other guys who died
If in doubt go around. The pilots seemed to have weather data from a number of sources telling them that there were thunderstorms around the airport and that the weather was marginal. Better to go around, divert to Lisbon and everyone lives to see another day.
I wonder if commercial factors at the airline made the pilots attempt the landing?
Putting an engine on the tail is a recipe for disaster.
You do great videos.
Kelsey on 74 Gear has said that a technique on a wet runway is to land hard to dissipate more energy into the ground and help to stop the plane. So, poor execution, wind change, or faulty landing gear can be on the list.
The term we use is 'firm'. It's to prevent aquaplaning after touchdown. After a 'hard' landing the aircraft has to be inspected for damage. 😉
MartinAir not Martin Air
What a terrible air crash that went unnoticed
Depends on where in the world u live. Didnt go unnoticed here in Europe.
DC-10... well THERE's your PROBLEM.
It's pronounced "SkipPAWL".
DC -10💀
Do you have any plans to cover El Al 1862?
Something I don't get, you said "This was a short flight, just 2.5 hours long" then you said "a few hours after being in the air"
In Dallas Ft worth a similar crash involving wind shear with a delta Airlines L1011 that dc10 should have diverted
Great video!
auto-pilot or manual an unstable landing should have been a go-around
correction:284 deaths and 56 survivors
This reminds me of the fact that there were multiple reports in the Tenerife disaster, a Spanish side of the story and the Dutch side of the story. I'm really interested to learn more about the other side of the story for this crash, especially since I have a hard time trying to understand which side of the story I agree with most.
The only should have Go Around and that's all💥💥🔥🔥👺👹
Any responsible captain would have gone around once he realized at 500 feet that the aircraft was not fully controllable. Gross negligence and should have been prosecuted for that.
Having seen the smashed windscreen of the cockpit I assume there was no one to prosecute.
@@PaddyMcMe
What I mean is that if the captain survived, he should have been prosecuted, just like flight controllers have been, for negligence for insisting on landing when it was clearly obvious, how unsafe the weather conditions were to do so.
@@maz3563But why, yes he made a mistake but why does this mistake need to be criminalised. If by your logic he should be prosecuted because of a mistake, then every every pilot who has committed a mistake and survived in a crash should be prosecuted. And anyways, the captain's mistake was not what directly caused the accident. And I'm willing to bet that if Martinair 495 had not crashed, another plane would have suffered the same fate.
@@danielnovitadubin8272
Apparently being in US , you haven’t studied dozens of cases where controllers have gone to jail for negligence but apparently, pilots get a pass if they survive.
Anyway, don’t know if this one did but he CERTAINLY should have gone to an alternate airport…
@@maz3563 Could you please enlighten me on the cases involving these controllers getting charged?
Yea I believe that the pilots shouldn’t have reduced automation
My teacher was on this plane. She survived.
Did anyone live in this crash? So very tragic.
The landing should have been discontinued much earlier.
Well, that was very confusing. TIL there is a Faroe in Portugal. I thought you meant the Islands north of Scotland which would have made the choice of Lissbon as a diversion airport... interesting. 😂😂
It's Faro, not Faroe
5:30 simulation: The pictured Polderbaan 36L was built only after the accident.
Son, do you and me both a favor and invest in a good microphone or learn to properly EQ the one you have.
It’s not the volume as much as it is the muddiness - such that at time CC has difficulty interpreting.
You obviously put a lot of work into this channel and you do a good job. It’s a shame to waste this on a bad or improperly EQed mike.
Try playing him at 1.5 playback speed. It is much crisper
@@normanmcleod7169 Interesting. Hadn’t occurred to me that this might clean it up a bit. Thoughtful of you to suggest it because it’s not intuitive that this would help.
Thanks.
Once again we see the recurring theme: Flight automation gets turned off and plane goes boom. I am sure that pilots fly manual landings all the time, but all these crashes seem to mention that the auto-pilot was disengaged.
Autopilots are great and very precise. Better than humans but not in strong winds. Autopilots come with maximum wind parameters for use in landings.
Most companies recommend hand flying windy approaches and l have seen accident reports blaming the pilots for keeping the autopilot on to long during a windy approach and thus they never getting a feel for the conditions.
Actually windshear is circulating air
How many DC 10 crashes are there: yes
"its quite surprising they went with a wide body for such a short flight"
Its all about logistics. Someone either needed something moved, needed the aircraft for something, or were staging it for something.
the second that windsheild iced they should have gone around
A hard landing prevents waterplaning.
Martinair used Boeing 747, DC-10 and MD-11 on Faro route.
They should have diverted. End of
the last report made by a private company was not made for no reason.
As this already was a manual flight (confirmed by not having an ILS and using the verry inaccurate PAPI's),
The pilot only disconnected the ATS (Auto Trottle System) as this given the circumstances is known to cause pilot induced pitch oscilation by continiously overcorrecting powerchanges.
Beside eventualy not being able to autoland the trottle should have been retarded manualy anyhow.
To my knowledge two previous landing attempts where done before the accident landing.
With the WX involved None of those should have been attemted (getheritis ?)
My experience with MartinAir is that hey had verry well trained and responsable flight crews.
Still things can happen. I have done injudicious things too.
At the time, I'm was verry close to the information source regarding the accident.
Automation has its limits. Unusual circumstances could cause sensors to malfunction, or perhaps overwhelm the computing power. Humans in unusual circumstances, especially when well-trained and experienced, have a greater capacity to come up with creative solutions. Also, "gut instinct" can sometimes help-- or hinder.
The last few weeks, I've been driving a newer model of my car that has much more "driver assist" functions. My old car only has straightforward cruise control (which should not be used in the rain, on wet or snowy roads, etc.). I've been trying the assisted cruise control and lane control on the 13 years newer car, and it's interesting to see the car's "opinions" on what proper following and lane keeping are.
I disagree with its version of lane keeping. Maybe it's right, and I've been driving in the wrong parts of the lane all these years. Or maybe it just needs more time to calculate and make the little corrections. It does seem to be on top of the game when it comes to lane departure, and warning when a car is in the lane next to me. And it yells at me when I release control of the steering wheel.
The "following" feature is both helpful, and irritating. As a driver trained just after the 1970s energy crisis, I feel that the automation is doing those "jackrabbit starts" we were warned would hurt our fuel efficiency. The stopping tends to be rather abrupt, even scary. And I don't think it has a feature to stop for red lights. Of course I have not really tested if it can respond to red lights; that's too dangerous! It does do a good job of following when traffic is moving.
These tools can be helpful in the right circumstances, when they're used properly. So I'm not going to give a definite opinion on whether I think the pilots should have kept the automation turned on. I think it's more important to consider the alternate landing sites when conditions are so far off from what you were expecting. I wonder if they would have diverted if they had been accurately informed, from official sources, about how bad the weather really was.
Should have diverted to alternate.
The gate for go-around from an unstable approach is not a consistent regulatory value worldwide. In the US it's company policy and I've seen that set at 1000', 500', and as low as 300'.
Is INWYT a Russian native?
Didn't they have to take over manually? It wasn't a cat II or III runway, was it?
They were not prepared for the approach.
I just think that aviation safety today (ie lack of regular air transport accidents) was born out from the lessons learnt from all these major accidents of the eighties and nineties, including this one.
please make a video about Caspian flight 7908
It can never be told for sure if dropping the automation contributed to the crash. It's not unusual to switch to manual when you see the runway. There are freak winds that can overpower a plane when landing, especially if the speed is low. The Tower should provide information about those crosswinds.
To the ones who lost their lives I say, thank you for your service to humanity via aviation disaster. Your sacrifice has made flying safer for us.😢😶🌫️ I pray the good Lord welcomes you into heavenly habitations where you will enter into the joy of the Lord forever.❤️🩹💝
The captions called it "skee-ball" airport, and then "ski pole." 😂
99% of pilots always hand land the aircraft
your first mistake is sticking to the governments version of what happened
Not a DC 10 again..!
Wild? Why wild?
That is Martinair, not Martin Air.
Leaving the automation on for some time longer could have helped them stabilize a bit more in these windy conditions, but in the end if they still didn't proceed a GA i think they would crash anyway; maybe with less loss but still.
Actually leaving the autothrottle on until touchdown is mentioned as one of the reasons of this crash.
Another great video. ❤
good work
Dutch airline & the investigation from Dutch sources. They'd do their best to clear the crew of responsibilities here. Shades of the 1979 Erebus enquiry- not wanting the crews of an airline of their nation to seem 'inept'.
MINI!!!!
Mega!!
JACKPOT!!