19 SECONDS from Collision | Easyjet 6074

foreign it's September 2006 and something has gone seriously wrong and the skies above France this is the untold story of EasyJet flight 6074 [Music] on the morning of September 15 2006 138 passengers and six crew boarded an EasyJet Airbus a319 at Alicante in Spain they were Bound for Bristol in the United Kingdom a two and a half hour Journey many of the passengers were British holidaymakers heading home after taking in the Spanish Sunshine for a few days the summer travel season was coming to an end in Europe and the skies were beginning to calm down somewhat but for EasyJet things were just getting started they had acquired some brand new aircraft from Airbus including this a319 these state-of-the-art planes would gradually replace the less fuel efficient Boeing 737s which had previously made up the entirety of the aircraft's fleet it was an exciting moment for the low-cost Airline and for the pilots who flew for it but amid all of this technological sophistication a hidden danger was lurking the aircraft being used for this flight was brand new and up front to the cockpit the pilots were new to it as well the captain was 42 years old and despite having amassed almost 9 000 hours of flying time he had just shy of 400 hours on Airbus aircraft most of his experience had been built up on the Boeing 737 the first officer was newer to Flying than the captain with just over 3000 hours of Total experience however like the captain just a small portion of this was on Airbus aircraft in his case about 500 hours in a few moments these Pilots would come face to face with a terrifying emergency miles above the French Countryside their high-tech jet would fail them in a way which they had never been trained to deal with just before boarding the aircraft at Alicante the pilots had swapped over with the crew who had flown the plane in the captain of that flight had told them about a problem with one of the aircraft's electrical generators this generator was powered by the left engine and it provided electricity to a whole host of systems on board the plane for the fight to Bristol it would have to be turned off this problem was not deemed serious enough to hold the plane up at Alicante however the plane had another electrical generator fed by the right hand engine and besides it could also draw power from the auxiliary power unit or Apu which is a small engine in the tail of the plane as a precaution the pilots of this flight would need to keep the Apu running for the entire Journey just to provide an added layer of protection at around 10 minutes past 11 local time everything was set up for the flight to Bristol the passengers had boarded the baggage had been loaded and the plane was filled with 8 000 kilograms of fuel for the trip the flight attendants closed the doors and flight 6074 pushed back from the gate the passengers had no idea that their plane was housing a critical weakness the pilots even though they knew there was an issue were oblivious to its true extent at 25 minutes past 11 that morning the captain lined the aircraft up with Runway 28 and set the engines to take off thrust during takeoff the aircraft performed perfectly the captain turned the plane North and continued climbing up to 32 000 feet by all appearances this was going to be a relatively normal flight as the plane cruised the flight attendants went through the cabin with the meals and drink service and the pilots monitored the aircraft systems but an hour and a half after takeoff as the plane soared high above the French Countryside all of this suddenly changed without warning the pilots heard a loud clunk suddenly all of the captain's instruments went blank the master warning alarm sounded as the autopilot disconnected immediately the captain handed control over to the first officer whose instruments were still working he was now flying the aircraft manually with none of the computerized protections that normally keep the plane safe he had his right hand on the side stick and his left hand on the thrust levers the first officer's full attention was now absorbed in flying the aircraft 10 kilometers above the Earth had almost the speed of sound meanwhile the captain scrambled to find out what had gone wrong he assumed that the Apu which had been running since the start of the flight had either shot down or that his generator had failed whatever had happened the consequences were serious and the pilots were only just beginning to understand the extent of their problems as the first officer flew the aircraft the captain looked around the cockpit trying to assess the damage he had lost his main displays and the autopilot had disconnected what other systems could be compromised he saw that the radio panel had gone completely blank none of its lights were on and there were no frequencies displayed in the windows this was highly concerning without radios how would the pilots be able to tell our traffic control about their predicament flight 6074 was now cut off from the outside world [Music] the captain began following the checklist which appeared on the Ecom one of the few displays still working in the cockpit Ecom stands for electronic centralized aircraft monitor it's an extremely useful resource for the pilots which allows them to monitor all aspects of the plane's operation appearing on this list was one step which would completely restore power to the aircraft if it worked all of the crew's problems would go away and the flight could continue as normal this step required the captain to switch the acess feed to the alternate position this would allow the plane to draw electricity from a different source however there was a problem just before that item on the list there was an item which said that the fault light in the associated push button should be illuminated if it had been illuminated it would have looked like this but for some reason it was off the captain was confused there were a few different reasons this light could be off it could be that the computer simply wasn't detecting that there was a fault and therefore wasn't Illuminating the fault light alternatively it could mean that there in fact was no fault however this was clearly contradicted by the massive failure of the aircraft systems I just experienced or the captain I realized it could be that the fault light like most other lights on the overhead panel simply had no power supply the captain had to make a decision should he press this switch not knowing whether there was in fact default in the end he decided that he didn't have much of a choice whatever he did he could hardly make the situation worse he pressed the switch and waited but nothing happened the light on the push button remained on lit and no power was restored to the aircraft the Pilot's confusion here was compounded by a design Quirk of this type of push button which is commonly seen on many modern aircraft from both Boeing and Airbus when the button is pressed in it doesn't stay in rather it simply clicks and then returns to its original position the only indication that the button has been pressed is that the caption light inside the button illuminates this works just fine during normal operation but in a situation like this where there is no power to these lights this design made it impossible to determine the position of any of these switches in this sense the pilots were now Flying Blind with no sign of power returning to the aircraft the captain needed to alert Air Traffic Control the Lights On His Radio panel were all off but he figured that it could just be that the lights were off but that the radios themselves were working he keyed the microphone and tried to transmit a message to breast Air Traffic Control using vhf1 his main radio set there was no response then he tried using the second radio set vhf2 and again he heard nothing in return this was not encouraging the first officer continued flying the aircraft by hand as the captain switched over to the international emergency frequency 121.5 megahertz and declared a mayday he tried this frequency on both of his radio sets and still he heard nothing back then the first officer tried using his radios but he didn't hear anything either the pilots were now on their own miles above the French Countryside completely disconnected from the outside world behind them the passengers and flight attendants were completely oblivious to the emergency unfolding on the flight deck the engines were still running and the first officer was flying the plane smoothly enough that there wasn't any turbulence but there was one small Oddity which some passengers may have noticed on the left hand side of the aircraft the no smoking signs had turned off the reading lights on this side had also turned off in the middle of the day it's unlikely that any passengers would have been using them anyway so they probably wouldn't have noticed this but it was a sign that throughout the aircraft and specifically on the left hand side there was a serious problem with the electrical supply how deep this problem ran was something the pilots were still trying to figure out but that didn't mean that the pilots were the only ones who knew that something was wrong as all of this was happening 10 kilometers beneath the plane a breast area control center the air traffic controller who'd been tracking flight 6074 was seriously concerned the flight had suddenly disappeared from his radar screen immediately the controller called the pilots on the radio but there was no response this was extremely concerning no radar trace and no contact over the radio the controller feared the worst he tried calling the fight again and again but still he was met with nothing but silence in desperation he even asked another EasyJet plane in his airspace if they could get through to their colleagues using the company frequency but the crew of this fight were also unable to make contact here was a passenger aircraft which had gone suddenly dark had something catastrophic happened like a bomb or Worse had it been hijacked but then there was another scenario and it was just as terrifying when the controller had last seen the flight on radar it had been heading Northwest at an altitude of 32 000 feet but to its North an American Airlines jet was heading east to west it too was at 32 000 feet and was about to cross paths with the missing EasyJet fight if the EasyJet plane was still in the air then the two aircraft were now less than a minute away from colliding the controller frantically got hold of the American Airlines flight and asked if they could see the EasyJet plane under a t-cast display tcas stands for traffic collusion and avoidance system it's an onboard system which Pilots use as a last line of defense against mid-air collisions if the system detects that a collision is imminent it says traffic traffic and issues and instruction to either climb or descend but there is a catch for t-cast to work both planes involved need to have it turned on and because of the electrical failure on the EasyJet fight this system was without power the crew of American Airlines flight 63 scanned their displays looking for the Rogue aircraft but it was nowhere to be seen with every second the two planes were drawing closer together at nearly the speed of sound for the controller the tension was unbearable if these two planes collided the death toll would be monumental the controller faced The Dilemma should he instruct the American Airlines jet to change its altitude or would it be better to keep it where it was it all depended on what the EasyJet fight was doing but without being able to see the plane on radar the controller had no idea what it was doing he had to make a decision fast so he instructed the American Airlines plane to descend to 31 000 feet but just then there was a shift change at Air Traffic Control for some reason at this critical moment the controller who'd been handling the flight stepped away from his workstation and handed control over to his colleague the American Airlines jet hadn't yet begun descending the pilots were still looking for the East jet aircraft on tcas and out the window because of the urgency of this situation the outgoing controller didn't have time to give a complete Handover of information to his colleague the new controller was anxious to get the American Airlines plane to start descending and he told it to descend immediately the pilots of American Airlines flight 63 then began descending the controller held his breath watching the American Airlines plane slowly blip across his screen its altitude now ticking down then came a voice over the radio the pilots of the American Airlines flight had spotted an EasyJet plane out their windscreen passing just overhead it was the missing flight the controller breathed the massive sigh of relief his worst nightmare had not come to pass as it turned out the two planes had come within 19 seconds of collision but still the ordeal was far from over the EasyJet plane was still in the air apparently but why wasn't it talking the scenario of the controller was now most concerned about was a hijacking back in the cockpit the pilots knew none of this they were busy trying to troubleshoot their communication problems however they were worried about exactly the same scenario as the controller not that they would be hijacked but rather that the controllers would think they had been hijacked if fighter jets came to intercept them how would the pilots communicate with them without radio and what if for some reason they had to turn off course or divert would doing that get them shot down this was an incredibly stressful situation for the crew of flight 6074 there was confusion on all sides here everyone was in the dark after both the captains and first officers attempts to contact Air Traffic Control had failed the captain continued with the actions listed on the Ecom one of the last items on the list involves switching from the number one transponder system here to the number two transponder system the transponder is what tells air traffic control the plane's position the captain did this and all of a sudden the display came back to life but this was no guarantee that the plane was actually transmitting a signal the digits had reappeared but no other lights on the panel were lit was it the case the lights were off but that somebody was home the pilots had no idea put bucket breast the controller was massively relieved the target for easy 6074 had reappeared on his screen the plane was where it should be flying smoothly along its flight pan route at 32 000 feet he called the fight again over the radio but still there was no word from the pilots back in the cockpit the crew began discussing what they should set their squawk code to the code is the identifying code that air traffic control assigns to the fight at its outset so that it can be distinguished from other aircraft under radar screens the code had been set to 5376 back at Alicante but now given their emergency the pilots needed to update it there are three emergency codes used in aviation Each of which is used to Signal a different kind of emergency 7500 is the code for hijacking 7600 is the code for a radio failure and 7700 is the general emergency code the pilots decided that given the severely degraded state of their aircraft the code for radio failure didn't quite cover their situation what had happened their plane was much more serious than that they were genuinely in an emergency so the captain put 7700 into the transponder panel and pressed ident the controller saw this come up on his screen he knew that whatever problem the plane was facing it was more than just a radio failure but he was still in the dark as to exactly what kind of Emergency the pilots were facing and what's more he didn't know what they were intending to do next and truth be told the pilots didn't either they were still getting to grips with their situation the next Ecom action told the captain to try the oldest trick in the book that was to turn the number one generator off and then on again he did this but there was no response the aircraft systems remained unpowered and what's more without the caption lights working the captain couldn't be sure what position the switch was actually in the captain was determined to find the source of the problem it would be extremely challenging for him and the first officer to bring the plane safely down to an airport in the condition it was in they needed to restore Powers somehow naturally at this point the captain started asking himself what had been unusual about this flight before the problem had started the immediately obvious thing was that the Apu the small turbine in the tail of the aircraft had been turned on for the entire flight could it be that the Apu or the Apu generator had stopped working there was only one way to find out the captain shut down the Apu and then started it up again as it spun up the pilots waited anxiously for the cockpit instruments to flash back to life but that moment never came it wasn't the APU it seemed as if nothing the pilots tried was working there were miles above the sea out of touch with the outside world flying their jet manually and there was every possibility that their situation would soon get worse what if the first officer's instruments failed how would they make it to an airport then or what if they were intercepted by fighter jets the pilots were baffled with every passing minute they were running out of options the captain called the lead fighter tenant up to the cockpit he told her that there was an emergency and that she would need to prepare the cabin for an emergency landing this was the first time that anybody in the back of the aircraft knew what was going on she returned to the passenger cabin and briefed the other crew members who began preparing the passengers for the emergency landing the pilots now had an important decision to make should they continue to bristle which was their original destination or should they divert somewhere closer given the gravity of their situation and the possibility that it could get worse at any moment would it be foolish to continue all the way to Bristol when there were closer alternatives but the pilots knew that if they were to turn off course away from their planned routing it could be interpreted by fighter jets as a hostile action without a working radio it would be very difficult for the pilots to explain what they were doing if they diverted off course their aircraft could be shut down if they continued along their planned route to Bristol they might still be intercepted by fighter jets but as long as they move predictably along their original flight path it was much less likely that they would be shot down the pilots reasons that another advantage of continuing to Bristol was that they already had the weather information for the airport without any way of communicating with the outside world they wouldn't be able to get weather information about any other airports after weighing up the options the captain decided that continuing to Bristol would be the best course of action while this meant the plane would be in the air for longer it at least meant that the plane's movement would be somewhat predictable to the outside world but making this decision didn't solve the crew's problems far from it in fact given the state the aircraft was in the pilots couldn't be sure whether they would be able to bring it to a stop on the runway Bristol airport has one of the shortest runways of any International Airport in the UK if other aircraft systems like the spoilers flaps or thrust reversers had stopped working as well would the plane go off the end of the runway on Landing the captain thumbed through the aircraft's quick reference handbook in search of the charts which outlined the stopping distance in different failure scenarios the page he landed on give figures for the Emergency electrical configuration this wasn't an exact replica of his situation but it was close enough he figured by the looks of it runway09 at Bristol would give them enough distance to stop the captain could also tell from the weather report that the runway at Bristol would likely be dry when they arrived which made stopping on it a more realistic Prospect so it was decided the crew would be attempting to land their crippled aircraft at Bristol the captain went about programming the arrival route into the first officer's flight management computer he used one of the standard arrival routes into Bristol's runway09 this way the plane's Behavior would be predictable to air traffic controllers and therefore the fight would appear to pose less of a threat then when everything was set up the first officer began his descent it would have been a very strange feeling for him hand flying The Descent from 32 000 feet normally pilots fly manually at the very beginning of the flight and in the minutes just before landing but flying by hand at cruising altitude is basically never done in normal operations nonetheless it was a straightforward task for the first officer he and the captain were working extremely well together as a team the captain was delegating the workload in such a way that neither pilot was overwhelmed but as the pilots descended they knew that the real concerns were still ahead of them with 142 people in the back of the aircraft the sense of responsibility was tremendous as the minutes ticked on the first officer began to feel cold and light-headed this was a concerning development both of these were symptoms of hypoxia could the plane be depressurizing the pilots considered using their oxygen masks but decided against it these would make it harder for them to communicate with each other and besides in a few minutes they would be down at a breathable attitude as the plane descended in silence controllers in London were tracking it it appeared to them that the fight was continuing down towards Bristol its original destination they called Bristol air traffic control and told them that there was a plane over the south coast of England in a descent which was not in radio contact if it was following its fight plan then it should be landing in Bristol in a matter of minutes controllers at Bristol acted immediately they declared a full emergency at the airport ambulances and fire brigades rushed to the runway preparing for the worst all flights in and out of the airport were suspended as the silent jet made its way closer and closer back in the cockpit a Moment of Truth awaited the pilots they were about to see whether their flaps which would be vital for slowing the plane down for landing or working they decided that if they were going to be landing without flaps they would prefer to know that now while there was still time to prepare so at about 20 past 12 local time the captain moved the flap lever to the first position both Pilots held their breath but sure enough within a few seconds their instruments show them that the flaps had been deployed successfully their chances had just gotten a lot better by extending the flaps further they would be able to touch down at normal landing speed giving them enough time to stop on the runway however the flaps weren't the only thing the crew needed to extend before landing what about the landing gear itself the captain lowered the landing gear lever and the pilots waited but the familiar clunk of the gear extending never came and the lights which they expected to see here which turned green when the gear is extended didn't illuminate either this was the last thing the pilots needed if they had to put their plane down on its engines there was a very real chance that the flight would end in a fireball at the airport the tower controller and Emergency Services knew none of this they were watching the aircraft through binoculars as it approached still clueless as to the nature of the fight's emergency the last time it had been in touch with the outside world was somewhere above France but as on any passenger jet there was always more than one way to lower the landing gear the a319 is equipped with a manual gravity gear extension system which allows the gear to extend under its own weight the captain grabbed the handle for this system and cranks the lever until the door is unlocked and the gear slowly fell into place finally the plane was set up for landing now it was up to the first officer to put it on the runway and bring it to a stop the pilots weren't about to take any chances they agreed that as soon as the wheels hit the runway the first officer would slam on the brakes and use maximum reverse thrust on the engines in the cabin the passengers didn't know what to expect as the first officer descended towards the runway the captain made a last-ditch effort to contact the ground he took out his mobile phone and tried calling the number for Bristol Air Traffic Control but even at this low altitude he couldn't get any signal frustrated he tried again this time using the first officer's phone but still there was no signal that was it there was nothing more the crew could do to get in contact with the ground they would be landing in Bristol and for the first time in their lives they would be landing without a clearance as the plane near the runway the automated voice in the cockpit called out its height above the ground 100 50 40 30 20 five the plane touched down and the first officer slammed on the brakes the engines roared as they went into full reverse thrust then moments the plane had slowed to a crawl on the runway after a frightening and bizarre ordeal all 144 passengers and crew were now safely on the ground but the pilots were still perplexed what had caused their brand new state-of-the-art jet to suffer such a catastrophic loss of electrical power and why haven't their checklist worked at restoring the power as it turned out a faulty electrical contact deep inside one of the Transformers in the aircraft had sensed the flow of current when there in fact was none this caused the main electrical bus to trip offline and in doing so it had knocked out every other system which depended on it this was a severe electrical failure and one that could happen again if airbrush weren't able to make their systems more redundant for that reason the final report recommended that Airbus make improvements to its software which would prevent misinterpretation of stray electrical currents by the aircraft's computers as for why the checklist didn't work to restore power to the aircraft the investigation was stumped they tested the aircraft when it was back on the ground and weren't able to replicate the issue they just couldn't see any reason why the power didn't transfer to the working system when the captain pressed the relevant push button nonetheless Airbus made significant changes following this incident which have made this kind of scenario much less likely in the years since for one thing the loss of a single boss bar that is the electrified metal rod which the aircraft draws power from is no longer Enough by itself to prevent the aircraft's radios from working this added layer of redundancy means that the complete radio failure experienced by the pilots of flight 6074 would not occur if a similar power loss occurred today another thing which Airbus has changed is that rather than relying on the pilots to transfer the power from the faulty system to the working system this transfer is now done automatically this greatly reduces the time between when a fault occurs and when it is fixed it also removes the possibility of human error from the loop finally the report into this incident also made a strong case against the design of the push buttons in the cockpit of this aircraft it's said that these push buttons lack one of the basic functions of the selector which is that it should always provide a reliable immediate and unmistakable indication of its selection the report recommended that manufacturers make it easier for Pilots to tell what position their switches are in so that there is no confusion as to whether they are in the selected or deselected position these important lessons have made Modern aircraft systems much more redundant and safer than they were even in 2006 however the skill and teamwork of the pilots involved in the incident was still a vital piece of the safety picture pilot mismanagement of much smaller failures than this have downed aircraft in the past in fact if you want to see how one of those incidents unfolded you should check out my video here about an Airbus A320 that crashed just a few years ago if you found this video interesting you can also join the patreon to support the channel and get early access to new videos I'm really grateful for the support that the patrons provide because they make it possible for my team and I to continue putting in the work to research and produce these videos so check out these links on screen and I'll see you soon for the next episode

Channel: Green Dot Aviation

Views: 1,468,115

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Id: gaRnDgvitR4

Length: 32min 52sec (1972 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2023