A Plane Lost Both Engines So Pilots Had No Other Choice

[Music] with the lead steward please come to the flight deck immediately sounds like one of those in-flight announcements from a dramatic plane crash movie no one would ever want to hear this in reality unfortunately it's exactly with the passengers on Air Transat flight 236 heard as their plane ran out of fuel somewhere above the Atlantic it was supposed to be a regular flight for Air Transat from Toronto Canada to Lisbon Portugal the weather was fine that August evening and flight 236 took off without delays at 8:52 p.m. it had 306 people on board 293 passengers and 13 crew members most of the passengers were Canadians excited about their summer vacation in Europe and Portuguese expatriates going to visit their family across the ocean the flight captain was Robert P Shea a 48 year old pro with 16,800 hours of flight experience his co-pilot was dirt - Jagger a 28 year old who had 4,800 flight hours the Airbus a330 243 they operated was fairly new with only 2 years of active service and with 362 seats not all of them were full for this flight it had two powerful rolls-royce Trent engines and one interesting detail four and a half tons more fuel than it required when it took off there were no red flags no warnings of an emergency yet eight hours later when the plane should have touched down in Lisbon it was nowhere to be seen at 438 UTC the right engine of the aircraft started losing fuel the pilots didn't know about it yet at 503 UTC after over 4 hours of a totally normal flight the first alarming message came through the on-board computer informed the pilots that the oil temperature had dropped and the oil pressure was higher than normal on engine 2 that same right engine the experienced pilots believed the message to be a false alarm they informed the maintenance control center about it but stayed calm assuming there was no reason to worry at 5:36 UTC another warning came through this time about a fuel imbalance the pilots again thought it was a false alarm and followed protocol for the situation they tried to transfer fuel from the left wing tank to the right wing tank to recover the imbalance but that didn't help because the fuel line was already damaged and the aircraft was losing fuel at an alarming rate of one gallon per second as a result the oil temperature continued to drop and the oil pressure continued to rise it was at this time that the pilots realized something must have actually gone wrong and called the lead Stewart to the cabin they asked her to look through one of the passenger windows to see if the fuel was leaking from under the right wing but the night sky was pitch black and she couldn't tell you can imagine what was going on in the pilots minds at that moment an emergency landing with a fuel tank is always a huge risk but ignoring the warnings and continuing with the flight would be an even greater risk at 5:45 UTC the pilots made the decision to divert the plane to the Azores and landed at logis airbase three minutes later they informed santa maria oceanic air traffic control they had a fuel emergency this message informs ground services that an aircraft has less fuel than needed to finish the fly at 613 UTC when the plane was at 39,000 feet and still 170 miles away from lodges engine two failed completely from lack of fuel as scary as it sounds an Airbus can actually fly on one engine and the pilots were well aware of that of course but now that they realized that the threat was more than real they decided to try and save the fuel in engine one and shut off the transfer pump the plane can't keep to the same altitude with one engine as with two of them so they started gradually descending worried that the second engine wouldn't last either the pilot sent a distress call to santa maria oceanic traffic control they call it mayday in aviation 13 minutes later and 75 miles away from the base engine number one ran out of fuel as well when interviewed about that situation later captain p'chai told the reporters when you don't have that other engine sooner or later you're going to go down you know all that mattered to him was to save the lives of the passengers and crew they only had one option now to collide for the rest of the distance to the base mr. de jagger who was the co-pilot on flight 236 remembers they were flying as if in a simulator dealing with new problems that arose every minute it was clearly not a common situation so they had to think fast and make quick decisions to control it all somehow the plane lost its main source of electrical power but it still had the emergency ram air turbine it only produced enough energy to power 30 percent of the plane systems and so the flaps alternate breaks and spoilers all turned off the intercom system also shut down so copilot de jagger had to shout safety instructions to the cabin crew and as much as the crew wanted to reach the airbase they couldn't rule out the possibility of a water landing and told the passengers to put on life vests the real panic in the cabin started when the oxygen mask dropped out at 6:31 UTC all emergency services were activated on the ground waiting for the plane to land safely the pilots realized they only had 15 to 20 minutes and one attempt to touch down safely and save the passengers the fact that they could now see the airbase in the distance gave them some hope the passengers meanwhile we're praying to come out of this alive one of them who was flying to Lisbon with her husband later remembered they grabbed each other's hands real tight hoping not to fall in the ocean the aircraft was barely controllable gliding down on small propellers which gave it only minimum hydraulics the pilots realized it was going way too high and way too fast for a safe landing the captain made one 360-degree turn and a few s turns to get at least somewhat lower you can only imagine the panic in the cabin at that time the worst nightmare of any era phob was coming true at 6:45 UTC the plane finally touched ground at the air base but it wasn't exactly a smooth landing they were coming in too fast and even though the pilots used emergency braking the plane only stopped 7600 feet from the threshold of a runway that was 10,000 feet long the anti-skid and brake modulation systems were all off eight out of ten wheels locked up and tires were exploding one by one at this point as one passenger recalls some people were applauding the pilots and others were sobbing they all had two things in common shock and terror some people were so paralyzed by fear they needed help getting off the plane believe it or not the plane with two dead engines and no fuel glided for seventy-five miles and landed safely the crew of Air Transat 236 was the first in history to ever pull off a landing like this 14 passengers and two crew members needed some medical help and two people got seriously injured during the evacuation but the most important thing was that no one died on that flight the pilots were heroes who saved hundreds of lives but it was extremely important that they find out how they got into this situation to begin with the aviation accidents prevention and investigation Department of Portugal together with the Canadian and French authorities started the investigation it turned out that just five days before the incident on August 19th 2001 maintenance staff installed a new right engine it didn't come with a hydraulic pump so they decided to take one from a similar engine and attach it to the new one that was of course contrary to manufacturer's instructions and even though the difference was insignificant to the human eye you now know what had all led to there was a leak in the fuel hose and it could have killed 306 people when Air Transat admitted their fall the in government find them around $250,000 which was the largest fine in the history of Canada as of 2009 a few months after the incident when the aircraft had been repaired it resumed flight with air transit and was nicknamed Azores glider and as of December 2018 it's still active with a different airline the miracle that happened over the Atlantic thanks to the professionalism of the crew inspired an episode of a Canadian TV show Mayday the episode aired in 2003 and was called flying on empty in 2010 a biographical drama about the pilot Robert P Shea came out named cachet the landing of a man now are you afraid of flying or do you enjoy it let me know down in the comments if you learn something new today thinking this video a like and share it with a friend but hey don't go anywhere just yet we have over 2000 cool videos for you to check out all you have to do is pick the left or right video click on it and enjoy stay on the bright side of life

Channel: BRIGHT SIDE

Views: 1,314,047

Rating: 4.7771754 out of 5

Keywords: critical situations, dangerous situations, airplanes, airports, onboard, traveling by plane, flight rules, air travel, emergency landings, aircraft accidents, plane crashes, surviving the crash, amazing airplane landings, civil aviation, flight crew errors, pilot mistakes, gliding flight

Id: 0sNcwZcBWVI

Length: 10min 47sec (647 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 01 2019