Best of: Miracle Landings

[Music] foreign [Music] [Music] on January 15 2009 U.S Airways flight 1549 under the command of Captain Chesley sullenberger was forced to ditch in the Hudson River after engine failure making international headlines and turning Captain Sully into an international hero but US Air 1549 was not by any means the first passenger aircraft that was forced to ditch in the ocean and in fact in the era before jet engines it was more common and there was a particular instance in 1956 where a passenger plane had to ditch in much more terrifying circumstances and it is definitely a story worth remembering and that is why today the history guy remembers the story of Pan-American flight 6. the Boeing 377 strato Cruiser began flying commercial routes in 1949. it was a state-of-the-art aircraft for its time it had for example a pressurized cabin which was rare for passenger aircraft at the time it was powered by four massive 28-cylinder Pratt and Whitney radio engines a be configured for as many as 85 passengers but was more often configured to have sleeping berths only 55 strato Cruisers were manufactured the first airline to purchase the strato cruiser was Pan-American Airways and the first route that they flew was between Honolulu and San Francisco although the strato cruiser was used to fly long-haul routes all over the world it was a plane known for luxurious travel but it was also expensive to operate on October 16 1956 the Pan-American Boeing 377 strato Cruiser named Clipper Sovereign of the Skies took off from Honolulu Bound for San Francisco at 8 26 PM with an expected flight time of 8 hours and 54 minutes the plane had 24 passengers and seven crew and was commanded by Captain Richard in OGG an experienced pilot with over 13 000 hours of flight time gained over 20 years of service the plane reached a cruising altitude of 13 000 feet and traveled for four and a half hours without incident just crossing the midpoint or point of no return on the route it was then that the crew made a schedule increase in altitude to 21 000 feet and that's when the trouble began when the plane reached the right altitude the co-pilot throttled back the engines for cruising speed but the engine on the far left refused to throttle back instead it faced something called prop Governor failure and started over spinning literally the engine was running so fast that it ran the risk that it would tear itself apart the crew cut off the supply of oil to the engine allowing the engine to seize but the propeller kept spinning in the wind which was causing drag that meant that the other three engines had to work harder for the plane to maintain altitude and that caused the engine on the far right to start to sputter and it also had to be cut off halfway between San Francisco and Honolulu the aircraft lost two of its four engines in less than 10 minutes the plane dipped waking the sleeping passengers in their births the plane could fly with two engines but at much reduced speed and the crew realized the crisis they no longer had enough fuel at that speed to reach San Francisco or to get back to Hawaii in the passenger compartment the PA buzzed it was Captain OGG he told them there might be the possibility of a ditching please put on your life jackets strap on your safety belts and remove sharp objects from your pockets the cabin crew started talking to the passengers about what to do in a ditching the passengers were terrified but nobody panicked the air crew knew that the risks of ditching in the ocean were magnified at night when the pilot could not observe the ocean and it swells so they quickly worked out the best plan that they could the United States Coast Guard kept a cutter on station at a place called Point November which was midway between Hawaii and California the purpose of the cutter was to do weather observation and provide navigational assistance to airplanes and ships and The Sovereign of the Skies had just passed over the cutter when it started having its engine problems the cutter that was on station that day was the U.S Coast Guard Cutter Pontchartrain under the command of Commander w k kale OGG radioed the Pontchartrain and said that the Sovereign of the Skies would fly back to the pontchartrans location where they could ditch close to rescue once they were circling the Pontchartrain the crew calculated that they had enough fuel left to Circle until daylight which would greatly improve their chances in a water landing imagine what it was like for the passengers they knew the plane was going to crash but now they had to sit and circle in the dark for five hours before that was going to happen the crew went over instructions on what to do and got volunteers to help with the life rafts while on the Pontchartrain they put together the plan to rescue the passengers in those days the Coast Guard regularly practiced ditching drills the Purser on the Fly who is the head of the cabin crew was Patricia Reynolds and she had over 10 years experience with the airline she remembered that there had been an accident a year previously with another aircraft and in the landing the tail had been torn off and so she moved the passengers to the center of the plane there were twin 18 month old girls on board with their parents and that was a problem as the plane did not have safety belts their size and so they did the best they could they put the girls in the parents laps and spread pillows around them at daylight the Pontchartrain laid down a layer of foam on the ocean that would show the safest place to land and would prevent a fire from the fuel Captain OGG took the plane down but almost immediately the worst happened the left wing hit an ocean swell that spun the plane around violently tore off the tail damaged the nose one of the crew members of the Pontchartrain remembered looking at the wreckage and thinking no one could survive that but passengers started climbing out of the wrecked fuselage and inflating the plane's rafts the Coast Guard raced to their rescue the entire rescue took less than five minutes and the last two people off the plane were Captain Ogg and Purser Reynolds miraculously all the passengers and crew were safe and accounted for with only minor injuries less than 20 minutes after ditching The Sovereign of the Skies sunk beneath the waves had they crash landed anywhere but right next to a ship that was ready to rescue them it could have been much worse the passengers completed the trip to San Francisco on board the Pontchartrain the Navy tried to Horn in and send an aircraft carrier for them but the Coast Guard was having none of it Pan Am thanked the crew of the Pontchartrain by giving each and every member of the crew a bottle of fine whiskey the strata Cruisers actually had a good safety record for their time but they were eventually replaced by jet engines and jet aircraft are not just faster but more reliable and of course as U.S Air flight 1549 proves accidents still can happen with jet engines and while the two accidents are really very different Captain sullenberger had moments to make a decision but was very near civilization Captain OGG had hours to make decisions but was truly in the middle of nowhere what really happened in both cases is that the flight Crews who must have been terrified themselves but never showed it kept their heads in a crisis and because that their passengers survived and that makes them by any definition Heroes Heroes worth remembering in aviation the term ditching refers to an emergency landing on water as there is no practical way to practice the maneuver it's considered to be extremely dangerous and it is only used as a last resort It's relatively more often used with private aircraft which usually only have one engine and have fewer redundant systems but it has happened a handful of times with commercial aircraft for example United Airways flight 1541 in 2009 the so-called Miracle on the Hudson there have been less than two dozen ditchings of commercial aircraft in the era of commercial aircraft and each one is an interesting and compelling story but none perhaps is more unique than the 1963 ditching of an aeroflot tuplev tu-124 into the river Neva in Leningrad it is a story that deserves to be remembered Andrea tupolev was born in Russia in 1888 and studied Aeronautics at the Imperial Russian technical school where he helped to establish an aerodynamic Laboratory the leading designer at the moscow-based central Aero and hydronomics Institute where he worked from 1929 until his death in 1972. there he was instrumental in the design of some of the most important aircraft of the 1930s such as the tp-1 considered one of the most advanced aircraft of its day and the massive eight engine Maxim Gorky the largest aircraft of the 1930s with a wingspan similar to a modern 747 Duplo have made a significant contribution to commercial air travel with the introduction in 1955 of the tu-104 only the second commercial jet airliner in regular service following the de Havilland comet the tu-104 cut the flight time from Moscow to acoust nearly in half versus the piston engine aircraft it replaced for two years from 1956 to 1958 the tu-104 was the only jet-powered commercial airliner in regular Service as the comet was grounded due to safety issues the tu-104 continued in regular service with the Soviet Airline aeroflot clearly until 1979. in 1962 the tu-104 was the basis of the design for the tu-124 shown here bearing the NATO designations for the military versions of the two aircraft the tu-124 was smaller than a tu-104 but used more fuel-efficient d20p turbofan engines that allowed a cruising speed of 7 to 900 kilometers per hour at 10 000 feet it was a regional aircraft with an initial design carrying 44 passengers as airports were generally not designed for jet aircraft both at tu-104 and the tu-124 carried a drogue parachute that could be deployed for short or slick runways and wheels designed for Earthen runways overall the tu-124 had a good safety record at least comparable to other aircraft of the time and it was actually somewhat more reliable than its predecessor the tu-104 over its 30-year service history 14 tu-124s were written off due to crashes the first of those crashes occurred August 21st of 1963. the tu-124 began its first scheduled passenger service in October of 1962. flying between Moscow and Tallinn the capital of the Baltic state of Estonia at the time of the accident the model had been in service less than a year the flight took off from taline airport at 8 45 am destined for Moscow it was a full flight with 44 adult passengers one child and seven crew the plane was under the command of 27 year old Captain Victor mastovoy the flight encountered troubles immediately after takeoff as a crew and to retract the Ford landing gear a loud bang was heard a bolt part of the carriage mechanism sheared off as a result the front landing gear was jammed and not able to fully retract presented a significant risk for flight but fog was forming at the taline airport so the Tower of Tallinn instructed the crew to proceed to Leningrad less than 200 miles away where Emergency Services had been alerted they kept the plane at a low altitude both to reduce the risk of decompression should the damaged gear puncture the aircraft and help burn fuel as they would want the plane to be as low on fuel as possible to reduce the risk of fire in a crash landing the passengers weren't even total of the problem they seemed to think that they had redirected to Leningrad because of bad weather in Moscow the plane arrived over Leningrad around 10 a.m and immediately began circling in order to burn off fuel the captain had the heavier bags moved to the back of the plane to put less weight on the front landing gear and the crew went down below the aircraft to see if they could manually get the landing gear to lock down at one point they were even using a raw that they had taken from the airplane's closet for leverage now I'm no expert on airplane mechanics but if the flight crew is using a clothing Rod to try to fix the airplane in flight that cannot be a good sign the plane was circling at just 2 000 feet over a heavily populated city crossing over its ancient churches and historical buildings disaster struck on the eighth and final circuit around the city the port engine suddenly stopped the engine had apparently run out of fuel a co-pilot later speculated that the crew may have been distracted trying to fix the landing gear but there was also report that the fuel gauge was incorrect and still showed that there was fuel Captain mustavoy tried to turn the plane for an immediate approach to the airport when the starboard engine also failed the situation was desperate the plane was gliding unpowered it was at an extremely low altitude unable to make it the 13 miles to the airport and was over a major population Center mostavoy made the only choice that he could turning to try to land on the Neva River less than a thousand feet wide but the river was crossed here by two spans the atinski bridge and the Alexander nevsky bridge then under construction because of the hard turn the plane crossed diagonally over the utinski bridge clearing the span by less than 100 feet it then crossed a little over the Alexander nansky bridge that construction workers had to die for cover monster voice set the plane down in the Neva River just 14 seconds after the starboard engine failed less than 100 yards past the Alexander nevsky Bridge the planes held near a tugboat an old steamer that had been built in the 19th century the crew of the boat was so shocked by the site that they reportedly surmised that the plane was some experimental design made for water Landings but the passengers and crew were not out of danger the plane was equipped with neither life vests nor life rafts and there was a very real chance of drowning in previous ditchings more passengers had died from water than from the accident the sheer luck was the proximity of the tugboat quickly realizing that the plane was in danger the tugboat towed the plane to shore using a line attached to the control column in the end the passengers and crew were able to exit the play via an access hatch in the roof and step right onto dry land passersby stood and applauded the crew the luggage was removed and neatly stacked on the asphalt within a few minutes a bus arrived and took them to the airport subsequent analysis credited the captain who put the plane down not just with pinpoint accuracy but with little damage to the structure if the fuselage had been damaged the plane might have sunk in seconds if the plane had crashed on takeoff with the fuel tanks full it also would not have floated nearly as long and finally had it not landed so close to the tugboat it's quite possible that the passengers and crew could have drowned before rescue could get to them it is a strange irony that one of the newest aircraft in the world was towed to Shore by a nearly 70 year old steam tugboat and finally if there had been bad weather bad visibility which is quite possible in northern Europe then the Pinpoint Landing might not have been possible because of mechanical issues with its predecessor the tu-104 the t-124 had a relatively short production record it finished production in 1965 and only 164 the aircraft were produced but it continued in service with airflot cleared through 1979 and with the Soviet Air Force cleared until 1992. the plane crashed because of a mix of mechanical and human error and then it survived unpowered gliding and a water ditching both which are extremely dangerous because of a combination of great skill and blind luck the accident is absolutely unique in aviation history there is no other record of an airplane in such circumstances being towed to shore with the passengers and crew still inside it is history that deserves to be remembered [Music] the prototype for the first commercial jet airliner the de Havilland Comet first flew in July of 1949 and it actually turned out to be a troubled design we still had a lot to learn it was briefly withdrawn from service after three highly publicized accidents occurred just in the year 1956 but some 40 years after the Comet first started flying you think we would have learned our lessons and would have understood things like basic jet engine design or how weather interacts with engines but the terrifying tale of taka international flight 110 May 24th of 1988 reminds us that mother nature still had some things to teach us about the weather and how it impacts a jet engine and it is a story that deserves to be remembered taka International Airlines flight 110 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight between San Salvador El Salvador to New Orleans Louisiana with an enroute stop in Belize City Belize the airplane was a Boeing 737-300 the 300 model was a second generation derivative of the venerable Boeing 737 a tested and reliable aircraft that had been in service for nearly two decades in fact this particular Boeing 737 was nearly new having first flown in January of the same year and only having had been in service with taka Airlines for two weeks as a testament to how tested the design was this 737 was the 155th to be manufactured the plane was piloted by a veteran crew 29 year old Captain Carlos gardano had amassed over 13 000 flight hours more than four thousand of those on the Boeing 737 veteran first officer dionisio Lopez had more than 12 000 hours of flight time and in addition a third pilot pilot instructor Captain Arturo soli was in the cockpit to monitor the performance of the Nearly New airplane in short this was a routine flight with a veteran air crew flying a nearly new airplane but of a venerable and tested design that's as safe as it gets problems with this fight simply should not have happened the airplane with 38 passengers and a crew of seven on board departed is scheduled from Belize City and the flight was uneventful until descent into New Orleans from 35 000 feet during the descent from 35 000 feet the aircraft encountered severe weather very severe weather the plane had in fact encountered an area of intense rainfall followed by 30 Seconds of heavy hail the storm intensity stated in terms of liquid water content was estimated to be 25 to 30 grams per cubic meter which equates to rainfall at a rate of approximately 30 inches per hour that should not have happened the aircraft like most all modern jet transports was equipped with weather radar that displays information regarding the intensity of weather in the vicinity of the airplane weather radar is intended to provide the pilots with a depiction of weather in front of the plane and may influence flight path decisions if the weather in front of the airplane is sufficiently intense this radar looks very much like the radar that you see in the evening news with grain area showing lighter precipitation with yellow and red areas showing more moderate or severe precipitation the veteran crew seeing light to moderate weather in their path adjusted their flight approach to go between the more severe weather choosing an air approach that brought them on a due east approach to New Orleans the pilots had done everything right and had used their radar to avoid exactly the weather they encountered so why had they hit such severe weather it might be that the thunderstorm developed quickly a phenomenon called a rapidly growing thunderstorm but it also might have been something called radar shadow on the weather radar screen areas where no precipitation is seen by the radar are displayed as black or the same color as the display background however when displaying extreme precipitation levels the radar May display the highest intensities that is worse than red as clear on the radar screen that is commonly known as radar Shadow and as a result of attenuation of the radar signal in other words it is possible for the worst weather to appear on the radar screen as the best weather as they encountered the severe rain and hail at about 16 500 feet the pilot radioed New Orleans aircraft control declaring an emergency both engines had flamed out that means that the approximately 140 thousand pound jet aircraft had suddenly become an unpowered glider and the pilots were flying by dead sticking the term is dated and it's not referring to the flight controls but to the period of propeller driven aircraft where a loss of power would turn the propeller into nothing more than a dead stick trying to Dead stick Landing with a passenger airliner can be described as not ideal moreover it should not have happened the engine stalled due to something called a flame out and that has to do with the basic idea of a jet engine every internal combustion engine has a combustion chamber the place where the fuel air mix is burned a jet engine basically includes a rotating air compressor powered by a turbine with the leftover power providing thrust via a propelling nozzle the process is known as the Brayton thermodynamic cycle in short the burning gases in the combustion chamber rushed held the open back of the engine at high speed providing thrust lose ignition and you lose thrust the engine on taka international flight 110 had ingested so much water that the flame in the combustion chamber had been doused but that still should not have happened the risk of water causing a flame out was understood at the time and so the U.S Federal Aviation Authority had established a water ingestion certification procedure for all jet engine designs manufacturers reportedly tested their engines by shooting them with a fire hose the rain the attack flight 110 encountered was supposedly well within the certification standards moreover knowing the threat of weather the pilots had taken appropriate precautions switching the engine to continuous ignition and activating the engine anti-icing system and yet both engines still had flame outs why it all has to do with hail according to the National Transportation safety board prior to Taka flight 110 the risk of hail was seen to be from the hail causing damage to engine components essentially acting like a foreign object hitting the engine hail was not considered for its effect on engine operation jet engine fan designs were built with the idea of preventing water ingestion because the turbine fan blades centrifuges water away from the engine core it was assumed that hail would work pretty much the same as water but testing after the accident determined that it doesn't in fact hail Falls a much more ballistic path that at the right AirSpeed in turbine speeds allows a Hail To Shoot Straight Into the engine core in fact the FAA realized at some fan speeds and aircraft AirSpeed combinations ingestion in the core is greatly increased as Hale misses the fan blades and goes directly into the core something commonly called the venetian blind effect standards designed to prevent water from entering the engine failed because of the combination of air speed turbine speed and hail but even a double engine flame Mount should not be catastrophic because an engine that is flamed out can be restarted just by the wind blowing through the engine turning the turbine something called a windmill restart and even if you don't have enough air speed to do a windmill restart you can fire up the engine's starter Motors and restart the engine that way just the previous year an air Europe 737 descending through rain and hail over Greece had also suffered a double flame out but the crew managed to restart the engines and land without trouble likewise the crew of taka flight 110 attempted to restart the engines when the windmill restart failed they were able to get the turbine spinning using the starter motor but the engines could not get to idle speed and were not producing thrust there was still too much water in the engines as the FAA explains once the engine fails it cannot be restarted until the water to air ratio decreases to a point where the fuel to air ratio can once again maintain combustion now the situation was desperate the plane was without power and low altitude and turbulence from the storm gave them a limited glide ratio Air Traffic Control quickly came up with options including Lakefront Airport whose Runway was minimally sufficient and U.S Interstate 10 which has one straight mile for every five miles of Highway unable to make it to either of these the pilots opted for a vector to Lake Pontchartrain attempting a dangerous Dead stick water ditching New Orleans Air Traffic Control lost the transponder signal as the aircraft reached 1600 feet they assumed the aircraft had crashed and quickly dispatched a Coast Guard helicopter from naval air station joint reserve base New Orleans assuming that the water rescue would be critical what those helicopters found frankly should not have happened taka flight 110 was parked on a narrow muddy New Orleans Levee right next to NASA's Michaud assembly facility at just 700 feet first officer Lopez had seen the levy and identified it as being wide enough for a landing the crew had managed to maneuver called a side slip something generally reserved for a small craft not an unpowered 737 and had landed perfectly with no injuries to passengers or crew and minimal damage to the aircraft as one New Orleans air traffic controller said after more than two decades of air traffic control I still say this is the most Splendid piece of air traffic teamwork and the most incredible piece of flying I've ever been witness to or heard of the flight crew had mere seconds to assess the situation as to whether it's the lake or the field and they nailed it after the accident the national Transportation safety board mandated a change to the water ingestion standards and certain changes to the cfm-56 engine that's used on the Boeing 737 those included changing the engine spinner from conical to a combination elliptical and conical or con Optical shape that testing shows helps to guide the hail radially outward a change in the spacing of the fan blades to better deflect hail away from the engine core a sensor to force the combustor to continuously ignite under heavy rain and extra bleed doors to help drain water from the engine the plane was minimally damaged repairs to the engine were made on site and the plane was towed to NASA's mashad facility nearby where after further repairs it used the facility's main road Saturn Boulevard to take off and fly to a full repair facility Saturn Road had at one time been a factory Airfield as airplanes were manufactured on the site during the second World War after repairs at 737 was put back into service with taka Airlines eventually it was sold to Southwest Airlines in a continued service until it was retired in December of 2016. but despite 28 years of service it was really that one extraordinary Landing a landing that frankly should not have happened that most deserves to be remembered Sometimes the best part of history is just a ripping yarn one of those stories where truth is Stranger Than Fiction like that day in 1966 when a royal Air Force ground crewman accidentally took off in one of the world's fastest aircraft if for no other reason then it's just a darned exciting story it is history that deserves to be remembered on July 22nd 1966 Royal Air Force Wing Commander Walter Taffy Holden was in the cockpit of a lightning F1 fighter Interceptor on Runway 36 at Raf lineup introduced in 1959 the English electric lightning was a very fast aircraft that used a unique staggered configuration of two Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet engines within the fuselage the F1 was the first production model of the lightning and the lightning remains to this day the fastest UK designed and built fighter aircraft in history with later models capable of reaching Mach 2. at the time the United Kingdom's nuclear-armed strategic bomber force was called v-force referring to the three RAF bomber types of the era the Vickers Valiant the Avro Vulcan and the Hanley page Victor the RAF assumed that in the event of an attack by Soviet strategic bombers the v-force airfields would be a prime target and the English electric lightning was designed to defend those airfields long enough for v-force to take off and get clear it was anticipated that the Soviet Union would soon deploy a supersonic bomber which they did the Tuple ftu-22 NATO reporting named Blinder introduced in 1962. given the blender's top speed of Mach 1.4 and The Limited role envisioned for the lightning defending airfields emphasis for the plane's design was put on rate of climb acceleration and speed at the expense of range the plane achieved this through a number of design features the most unique being the vertically stacked and longitudinally staggered engines the design allowed the thrust of two engines while producing only the drag of one and a half engines or 25 reduction in drag over a traditional side-by-side engine design in addition the design allowed a low frontal area and efficient single engine type handling as having both engines within the fuselage means that there was no asymmetrical thrust the combination of the engine design and the radical 60 degree notched delta wing allowed not just great speed but an exceptional climb rate the lightning was famous for its ability to rapidly rotate from takeoff to climb almost vertically from the runway and if you needed extra thrust it had a reheat sometimes called an afterburner a reheat injects additional fuel into the jet pipe Downstream of the turbine the resulting heat significantly increases thrust at the cost of very high fuel consumption and decreased fuel efficiency reheat could be used for short sharp takeoffs a process that is described as being like a bullet fired from a gun given its design emphasis the lightning could be tricky to handle and was described by its pilot says like being settled to a Skyrocket the particular aircraft being used that day number axiom-135 was in for repairs having Electronics issue with the RAF 33rd maintenance unit the 33mu based at Raf lidum since 1940 was a civilian manned aircraft storage unit commanded by Wing Commander Holden which stored and maintained three types of aircraft the English electric Canberra medium bomber the Gloucester meteor jet fighter Interceptor and the lightning the planes would be dispatched to RAF units as they were ready and needed having dispatched all of their canberras and meteors the unit was due to be disbanded as soon as all the remaining Lightnings were dispatched however exim 135 which had been the very first full production Mark 1 off the assembly line and had served at the central flight school at cul-de-shaw was having a particular Electronics problem this being the last aircraft before the unit was closed Wing Commander Holden was under some pressure to get the plane fixed and dispatched to make matters more complex the unit had a qualified test pilot assigned to it but that pilot was not qualified on the lightning thus the test exim 135 the unit had to wait until a qualified lightning test pilot was available the plane had a recurring electrical problem during the first few moments of takeoff the inverter that supplied power to the instruments would cut out forcing a backup to kick in that is not ideal under any circumstances but particularly Troublesome on the lightning where being shot like a bullet from a gun didn't give the pilot a lot of reaction time the electricians had been unable to Tamp down the problem the test pilot who was available tried the plane a couple of times but the problem persisted without a solution they couldn't keep the pilot on temporary Duty the electricians decided to devise some tests which might isolate the fault and indicate roughly where and which component was at fault they needed to test the plane on the runway having the pilot make short runs while throwing various switches to see if they could replicate the problem and identify what was causing it however they didn't have a test pilot still under pressure to keep the clearance timetable Holden found out that there would not be a qualified test pilot to do the tests for another week but they did have an option because Wing Commander Holden was a qualified pilot Holden had enlisted in the Raf in 1943 and had elected to pursue a career in aircraft engineering but the RAF had allowed him to train and earn his wings under the theory that an engineer who was a pilot would be better able to understand the Pilot's point of view when dealing with maintenance issues he'd learned to fly on the de Havilland tiger moth the de Havilland tiger moth was a single engine biplane first introduced in 1931. it had a maximum speed of 109 miles per hour somewhat slower than the maximum 1300 miles per hour of the English electric lightning Holden had also formed the de Havilland Canada dhc1 chipmunk which while still a single engine propeller driven plane was at least a monoplane as opposed to a biplane Holden had never piloted a jet aircraft but he did not need to fly the lightning he just needed to taxi it on a disused Runway while flipping switches rather than wait for the test pilot they decided to have Taffy Holden operate the plane which was only supposed to taxi in 30 to 40 yard bursts they used Runway 36 which was closed the plane did not need to fly so the canopy was removed a Land Rover nearby would keep in contact with the tower and keep them appraised of each test all teffy had to do was taxi the plane a few dozen yards while flipping switches and then make notes the electricians would then decipher the notes to identify the location of the fault having never been in the cockpit of a lightning and never flown a jet fighter Holden did not even know how to start the engine so one of his Engineers gave him a short briefing on the operation of the engine and the throttles strapped in Holden made his notes on the switches before the test signaled to the Land Rover the Clarence for their 30 to 40 yard jaunt throttled the plane up and let off the brake he described the initial punch as remarkable as you might expect but managed to throttle back and apply the brake in the 30 yards that was expected as he later said of the first test so far so good now hold and move some switches and took notes and planned for the second attempt the Land Rover contacted the tower for clearance and he throttled up again but this time it did not go so well as he throttled up the plane shook against the brakes but this time he throttled a little bit too far and the shaking caused the throttle to push past the gate locks for reheat when taking off with the reheat the throttle had something called a gate lock which was designed to hold the engine in reheat so in essence all of a sudden Taffy Holden was the bullet being fired from the gun to throttle back from reheat the pilot has to push back keys that are located behind the throttle but Holden had never used these keys and only even knew of them because the engineer had briefly mentioned them in the five-minute briefing and Holden did not have time to search as there were more immediate problems just in front of him having been told that he was only going to use another 40 yards of Runway the tower had cleared a fuel Bowser and trailered across the runway to fuel awaiting C-130 now zipping down the runway Holden's first problem was not colliding with the Bowser he just missed it but after that Runway 36 ran across the main duty Runway and a de Havilland Comet of the RAF transport command was taking off down that Runway the comet narrowly passed ahead of him marking a second near-death experience in mere seconds and he was still on the runway but another problem was coming up quickly the runway was running out still without time to find the keys that would allow him to Throttle Down and with not enough room anyway Holden did the only thing he could he pulled back on the stick as a stroke of good luck the previous pilot had trimmed the aircraft for takeoff and Taffy Holden who had never been in a lightning cockpit until a few minutes before was now airborne and as they say saddled to a Skyrocket he'd almost died on the ground three times yet was somehow still alive and now he just had to get back on the ground his immediate concern was to try to keep the base in View and look out for the comet that had just recently taken off but once Airborne he was able to search for and find the keys that allowed him to throttle back however he was still in a pickle Holden had no radio no helmet and no canopy he thought about ejecting but he couldn't the safety pins that were used to make the plane safer servicing were still in his only choice was to land the plane he described his first attempt to land as ridiculous and he had to pull up and try again the second attempt also failed and he had to pull out again he tried Landing going the other direction and got the plane down on the third attempt now the problem was stopping he looked around for and found the handle for the breaking parachute but it did not slow him as much as he wanted what he did not realize is that unlike the tiger moth and the Chipmunk the lightning had a nose wheel the planes on which he had trained all had tail Wheels he had landed like he had been trained and in doing so had crushed the block containing the breaking Chute cables the breaking Chute had dropped off as soon as it was deployed he kept applying the handbrake and watching the end of the runway get closer and closer but managed to stop with about 100 yards to spare the ground crewman who had only before ever piloted single engine trainers had landed the lightning with minimum damage at first Holden was afraid that the incident might cost him his career or at very least his Pilot wings but while everyone agreed that he should have waited for a qualified lightning test pilot they also agreed that he hadn't actually broken any rules Taffy Holden continued with the Royal Air Force until retirement eventually Engineers did figure out the fault that was going on with the plane it seems that one of the circuits originally had had a ground test button installed and while later on in the design the button was removed the wires were still there and those were causing the short and that shows the complexity of the plane that Taffy Holden and his crew had to keep flying teffy Holden eventually ended up spending a couple of years in the hospital dealing with emotional issues he said that while he always understood the technical aspects of his flight he had never really sat and dealt with the emotional stresses that come from such a terrifying 12 minutes he said the entire experience gave him a much better understanding of people who might need the same kind of help after similar unfortunate occurrences and that might be the best lesson from the entire Tale Taffy Holden passed away in 2016. and the airplane lightning F1 axiom-135 is today on display at the Imperial War Museum at Raf Duxford in my opinion a great museum well worth a visit September 7th 2010 at about 4 14 a.m Moscow time Al Rosa Muna air Enterprises flight 514 took off from polyarta Airport headed for moscow's domodova airport on board the Tuple of tu-154m aircraft were 72 passengers including three children and nine crew the flight would not go as planned and the two experienced Pilots would face one of the most difficult situations that any pilot can face Flying Blind the extraordinary Crash Landing of Al Rosa Mirna air Enterprises flight 514 deserves to be remembered elrosa Airlines founded in 2000 flies domestic flights within the Russian Federation with 11 different destinations including polyarni airport a small regional airport near udachni a town of twelve thousand in the Republic of Saka the flight distance from flight 514 was 3921 kilometers or 2 436 miles roughly the flight distance between New York City and Los Angeles the flight time was approximately five hours the tupelof tu-154 is a three engine medium-range narrow body airliner introduced in February 1972 the tu-154 was considered the Workhorse of Russian Airlines for decades the airplane had an astounding 45-year production run between 1968 and 2013. although full production ended in 1997 with only limited production thereafter in all more than a thousand were built aesthetically similar to a Boeing 727 the tu-154 is slightly larger but has the same three engine configuration originally outfitted with cutenoff nk-8 turbofan engines the tu-154m instead used soloviev D30 turbofan engines which were more fuel efficient and along with some aerodynamic refinements that made the M model which began production in 1984 more fuel efficient extending range and reducing operating costs the 48 meter or 157 foot six inch long plane had a wingspan of 37.55 meters or 123 feet 2 inches depending upon configuration the point could carry between 114 and 180 passengers at one time the airplane served in 17 different foreign Airlines and was used by several foreign militaries at its peak in 1990 tu-154s carried 137 million passengers 243.8 billion passenger kilometers for Soviet Airline aeroflot and its subsidiaries as many airports in Russia still use dirt or gravel runways when the plane was designed the plane was built with oversized landing gear and a six-wheel main bogey as such the plane could operate where many other commercial airframes could not it also had to be able to operate from airfields as short as 2 600 meters or 8530 feet at its maximum takeoff weight and could operate in polar conditions while the tu-154 suffered 110 serious incidents and 69 hole losses only a small handful had been attributed to Mechanical failures many of the losses had to do with the harsh Runway conditions in which the plane often operated the plane typically operated in regions with not very good air traffic control and navigation equipment and in very difficult weather conditions the airframe is considered to have a better than expected safety record considering its length of service and its use in those demanding conditions where other airliners are unable to operate still in 2010 the airframe was aging Chinese Airlines had stopped using the tu-154 in 2001. in January 2010 aeroflot announced the retirement of its tu-154 Fleet after 40 years with the last scheduled flight on December 31st 2009. and while a high profile accident in Poland in April 2010 that killed 96 people including Polish president Lex kachinski was attributed to Pilot error the Russian Federal Bureau of Aviation had made a recommendation to withdraw the remaining t-154s from Passenger service in March 2011. this tu-154m registration number ra-85684 entered service in 1990 and was still well within its 80 000 hour service lifespan had no reported significant service issues although newspapers note that purchase of Cheaper low quality replacement parts was common practice at the time elrosa reported that the plane had recently been serviced and all forms were made according to regulations there were no comments on this aircraft the plane flew what was called the polar route between udachini and Moscow takeoff had been normal and there was no unusual circumstances until four hours into the flight at approximately 6 59 a.m local time the plane was near usinsk in the coming Republic and still more than 1500 kilometers from Moscow when the commander Andre laminoff reported electric problems the plane was flying at 10 600 meters or a flight level 348. the local weather station reported overcast clouds with a pace of 400 meters or just 1300 feet visibility was 22 kilometers with light winds and four knots from West Northwest the cloud cover should not have been a problem the tu-154m had autopilot navigational systems that would allow to reach one of several nearby airports if necessary the pilots decided to descend as they worked out the problem preparing for an emergency landing when the airplane descended through 300 meters or 9 800 feet radio contact was lost the plane's Power Systems had failed completely Alexander nerdaco head of the federal Air transport agency explained later the power supply system is like a person's heart it refuses everything else refuses in addition to losing radio communications flight 514 lost its navigational systems its autopilot and even though the flaps were powered hydraulically the handles and switches were electric and so those were unavailable as well and if that all doesn't seem bad enough almost immediately after losing power the emergency fuel balance alarm went off the tu-154 has four fuel tanks two in the wings and two in the fuselage with a total capacity of 38 750 kilograms of fuel the fuel is transferred via pumps to a holding tank which supplies the engines when the power failed both the pumps and their backups failed making it impossible to get fuel from the main tanks the crew had just some 3 300 kilograms of usable fuel in the holding tank or enough for just 30 minutes of flight time that was not enough fuel to get to airports at pachora ukta bokuta or using all of which had runways suitable for the tu-154 with no airport in range Pilots Andre Romanov and you have guinea novazolev we're going to have to set the crippled plane down wherever they could in the middle of Siberia without navigational Gear Ground Control Assistance or flaps after losing radio contract Ground Control at ukta airport immediately started contacting every airport near the flight's last location and around 747 local time the City Emergency Services of isma were advised that the airplane might approach their disused Airfield by then flight 514 was nearly out of fuel Tani isma airport was operated as a public service airport from 1978 to 1997 and had been closed to fixed-wing aircraft since 2003. the airport was used as a military base but only for helicopters the airport had no traffic control facilities was not marked on maps although the runway had been kept generally clear of foliage its disused Runway was only 1340 meters long the tu-154 usually requires 2050 meters of runway for a landing but that is under normal circumstances flight 514 had lost the use of its flaps meaning that it would have to land at a significantly higher speed than usual the runway at isma simply wasn't big enough out of time and with less than 10 minutes of fuel left lamonov and novoslov may had no choice they had to drop below the cloud cover where they would have precious little time to find a place to land with their systems down they could only guess altitude by sight they didn't even have an Artificial Horizon they instead use a glass of water to show them their flight angle as they didn't have flaps they had to have the flight attendants move all the passengers forward to shift the weight towards the front of the plane to make braking easier playing came out with low clouds in the isma region all the crew could see was Marsh and forests what would be impossible to land after they turned laminoff first on island on the river opposite isma and only after that he noticed what appeared to be an old Lane it was the isma runway the crew members are called later at first we thought we were hallucinating a runway in the forest are you kidding they said it was nearly a miracle that they were even able to make the turn towards the runway as they neared it it was clear that the runway was too short they attempted Landing twice but it boarded both times on the third attempt they set the plane down without flaps they were Landing hot some 350 to 380 kilometers per hour or 189 to 205 knots they only had the reverse engines and the wheel brakes on the extra large landing gear to slow down the plane was going so fast the rubber on the wheels caught fire some passengers reported that they only knew the plane was in trouble when the wings started chopping off trees but it wasn't enough flight 514 overran the runway and plowed into the Siberian swamp tearing through trees ripping holes in the plane a passenger described the scene as a plane overran the runway into the swampy tiger forest and now the land not the airport only the forest the playing Ground was stopped after some 200 meters miraculously there were no injuries all 81 passengers and crew were fine I'd like to thank the crew we did not even have time to get scared one of the passengers later said the flight attendants kept the passengers from panicking and evacuated everyone using the emergency slides test pilot magomatoboya praised the Pilot's professionalism behavior in a difficult situation but added then of course there is the will of Heaven there was not available times reported that some of the passengers engaged in mushroom hunting while they waited the passengers were transported by helicopter to utta about 160 kilometers or 100 miles south of isma except one couple who had understandably had enough flying for the day and instead took a train to Moscow from isma the crew of The Airliner made the last helicopter trip the Russian Ministry of Transport determined during the investigation that the batteries had overheated the result of a thermal runaway where an increase in temperature can cause a further increase in temperature the affected batteries eventually affected all electrical systems the cause is usually related to a defect in manufacturing while one report said that the ministry had taken the batteries away for further testing no further information was released on the recommendation of the passengers Pilot's Andrew laminov and yevgeny novusilov were awarded the title hero of the Russian Federation by Russian president Dimitri medev in 2010 for their courage and heroism in an emergency situation the other seven crew members were awarded the order of Courage both Pilots were experienced first-class pilots who were trained in an era when Pilots were trained to operate a plane manually when systems failed some experts expressed concern whether newer Pilots received the same training or if they would be able to handle an aircraft with the loss of electronics in an already heroic episode Another unlikely hero emerged at one point the iske airport employed more than 130 people but by 2010 it only had one employee Sergey sunnikov sonakov was only employed part-time during the few months a year that the airport operated as a helipad for the Russian military but he had without pay kept the runway Clean and Free of debris he said he did so because he hoped that local Aviation would recover and that the airport would eventually open but over time he did it just for himself without sonakov's efforts flight 514 wouldn't have had no place to land in 2012 partly due to an effort by Russian bloggers sotnikov's dedication was rewarded as he was awarded the medal of the order for services to the Fatherland second degree by Russian President Vladimir Putin although it would have appeared that the airplane had suffered catastrophic damage in fact the airline was able to repair the aircraft including replacing a couple of the engines and about six and a half months after the crash landing the airplane stripped down for weight was able to lift off from the tiny airport at isma after a thorough overhaul the airplane the tupelov t-154m with the call side Ra 85684 was returned to service with the airline where it served for another seven years being one of the last two plus tu-154s to operate with a Russian airline at the end of its service cycle in September of 2018 the airplane which was officially called isma was officially retired to be put on display at the aviation museum at tomachevo airport in novusk fittingly Andre laminov piloted isma on its final flight to Nova sabersk I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short Snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that Thumbs Up Button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 34,555

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: Ah4CMqZdPks

Length: 52min 52sec (3172 seconds)

Published: Mon May 15 2023