China Airlines Flight 006, February 19, 1985

today's episode of the history guide brought to you by blinkist [Music] by any standard flying on a commercial airliner is a relatively safe form of travel dr arnold barnett of the massachusetts institute of technology determined that the fatality risk of a commercial airline flight between 1978 and 1987 was just won in some 750 000 boardings but that doesn't mean that things couldn't go wrong i mean your flight might run into bad weather there might be a mechanical issue with your plane there might even be pilot error or for the 274 passengers and crew of china air flight 006 on february 19 1985 all of the above that terrifying time when a 747 fell 30 000 feet in just under two and a half minutes is history that deserves to be remembered and speaking of time let me talk to you about this thing your smartphone a 2019 edition of the guardian newspaper quoted statistics from an app called rescuetime which monitors use of ios and android and found that the average person spends about three hours and 15 minutes a day on a smartphone with the top 20 percent of users spending more than four and a half hours a day now you can ask if you should be spending that much time on your phone but you can also ask are you making good use of that time of course a great use of that time would be to watch the history guy but another great use is to get the best insights from more than 3 000 non-fiction books on blinkist you've heard me talk about blinkist before and i want to thank the people at blankus for supporting the history guy and sponsoring this episode but i'm here to talk to you about blinkist because i truly value blinkist and i use it almost every day blinkist takes non-fiction books more than 3 000 titles and it condenses them down to digestible chunks the best insights things they call blinks that you can absorb either by reading or listening like a podcast in just around 15 minutes and whether you just want to get the gist of a bunch of books so that you're better 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you'll get 25 off that's www.blinkist.com the history guy the first boeing 747 rolled off the assembly plant on september 30th 1968 the result of a request by pan american airlines to create a larger jet that would reduce per seat cost and democratize air travel the 747 was the first design to be called a jumbo jet 230 foot 10 inches long the 747 is a quad jet that is powered by four jet engines flying could accommodate as many as 550 passengers although it is typically configured to carry 366 in what was at the time an unprecedented 10 abreast seating the aircraft's iconic hump allowed a raised cockpit this was with an eye towards the future of air travel at the time it was assumed that passenger jets would be superseded by supersonic transports and the raised cockpit would allow an easy conversion of the 747 design to become a freighter airplane by installing a front cargo door it wasn't necessary the 747 would outlive the era of the sst the design proved to be rugged and popular the first 747 entered service with pan american airlines in 1970 and production continues today boeing currently plans to halt construction in 2022 more than a half century after the 747 first took to the skies with more than 1500 built the 747 has garnered an exceptional safety record with few accidents related to aircraft construction or design over millions of flight hours the plane is so reliable that two modified versions are used by the united states air force to transport the president although the designation air force one actually is used to designate any aircraft carrying the president rather than a specific plane modified versions of the 747 were also used by the national aeronautics and space administration to transport space shuttle orbiters the heavily modified 747-100s were called space carrier aircrafts or scas by the early 1970s the 747 was facing competition from tri-jet wide-bodied aircraft the mcdonnell douglas dc-10 and lockheed l-1011 tristar in response to requests from pan american airlines and iran air boeing developed a shorter version of the 747 that would offer greater range and higher cruising speed for the ultra long range routes such as iran airs non-stop from new york to tehran by modifying the 747 bowen would have a competitor for the dc-10 and l-1011 originally the plane was going to be called the 747 sb meaning short-bodied but the name was changed to 747 sp meaning special performance recognizing the plane's greater range and cruising speed the most noticeable change was the length the 747sp is 47 feet shorter than other 747 models although the tail is also higher to compensate for the decrease in yaw moment arm resulting from the shortened fuselage the esp could accommodate 230 passengers in a three-class cabin 331 and a two-class cabin and a maximum of 400 passengers in one class the first 747 sp was delivered to pan american airlines on march 5th 1976. while the design was promising new competing aircraft and rising fuel costs meant that it did not achieve the popularity that boeing hoped and only 45 were built 747 sp-9 in 4522v first flew in june of 1982. on february 19 1985 the plane which was owned by the wilmington trust company of wilmington delaware unleashed by china air was flying a regularly scheduled route between taipei taiwan and los angeles california a flight of about 11 hours china air flight 6 was using the call sign dynasty 006 the plane was carrying 251 passengers and 23 crew the aircrew were experienced the captain 55 year old minwan ho had more than 15 500 flight hours with more than 3 700 of those on the boeing 747 first officer ju yue chang age 53 had more than 7 700 flight hours with more than 4 500 of those on the 747. rounding out the crew was flight engineer kupin wei h55 because of the length of the flight additional crew relief captain chinuan lao and relief flight engineer xi lang soo were also aboard the relief crew would pilot the plane during cruise flight allowing the primary flight crew to rest most of the flight proceeded without incidents and at about 10 a.m local time off the coast of california some 320 nautical miles northwest of san francisco the main crew was back at the controls the problem started with simple turbulence the plane was on autopilot and as wind speeds caused the speed to fluctuate the autopilot compensated by moving the throttles as the airspeed slowed the autopilot increased the throttle to maintain airspeed as it increased it decreased throttle the next time it went to increase throttle the numbers 1 2 and 3 engines responded but the flight engineer noticed in a gauge that the fourth engine was not increasing power the engineer then tried manually throttling the pratt and whitney jt9d-78 turbofan engine while the captain could feel nothing peculiar the gauges continued to show that engine 4 was not responding flight engineer way told the captain that the engine 4 had flamed out meaning that the flame had been extinguished in the combustion chamber would have to be restarted the plane was at 41 000 feet and according to the book the maximum altitude to attempt a restart was thirty thousand feet captain ho ordered first officer chang to request a lower flight level from ground control but also instructed engineer way to attempt to restart the engine anyway the restart failed the crew had already made a critical mistake the national transportation safety board later determined that engine 4 had not flamed out the engine had been written up before for having an occasional problem with not providing enough thrust the problem had to do with a fuel control valve which had worn down slightly slowing fuel input into the engine and causing sluggish acceleration the problem was small should not have created a major problem but the engine throttling to maintain airspeed created a large issue with something called bleed air bleed air is pressure that is diverted from the engines and used to pressurize the cabin and power the air conditioning while those functions are necessary bleed air reduces air flow through the engine thus reducing its ability to produce thrust as the fourth engine accelerated more slowly than the other three its bleed air valve was held open larger than the other three and the engine already having difficulty took on a higher percentage of the bleed air load the engine had not flamed out but was rather hung the problem likely would have been fixed immediately if we had followed the checklist for restart which included closing the bleed air valves but way missed a step in the checklist in the engine remained hung this still should not have been catastrophic the 747 could operate on three engines but a larger problem was developing as engine number four was not producing power the plane was dealing with asymmetric thrust the left wing was producing more thrust than the right this would naturally cause the plane to bank right as the left wing would produce more lift however the problem was not obvious as the autopilot was compensating for the difference but the autopilot of the period only had control over the ailerons not the rudder and the yaw was slowly pushing the plane farther over than the autopilot could correct the plane was slowly banking rolling over right but the problem was essentially being masked by the autopilot captain ho was apparently focused on the flight engineer and what was going on with the number four engine and that problem with the banking went unnoticed until it showed in airspeed as the plane banked increasing drag and the power reduced from engine 4 the plane began to decelerate not realizing the underlying problem captain hoe changed the autopilot input and was selecting a nose down attitude in order to increase airspeed which seemed to be the biggest problem as the plane goes down the bank increased to 45 degrees but captain ho still most focused on air speed decided to switch off the autopilot and take control the plane switching off the autopilot was a move that blogger admiral cloudberg who described himself as an analyzer of plane crashes noted would have immediate and catastrophic consequences the ntsb report indicated that after hoe disengaged the autopilot the plane yawed and rolled further right cloudbird speculates that when the autopilot disengaged it stopped applying the aileron inputs that were attempting to counteract the bank causing the plane to roll immediately right at this point the website this day in aviation explains the airplane departed controlled flight rolled over and dived coburg noted the 747 began to lose altitude at an alarming rate as it rolled clear over on its roof catching the pilots completely by surprise but then the plane had moved into clouds and without reference points both the captain the first officer became disoriented the attitude gauges were spinning but the captain could not accurately perceive what was going on and assume that they must have failed as what they showed would have been so irregular flight recordings indicated the plane was inverted but the crew did not realize it or noted while in the cabin objects flew around one passenger described the people not buckled in popping up like popcorn relief captain lau had been thrown from his bunk was trying to make it his way to the cockpit the san francisco examiner reported that he was thrown to the floor as the jumbo jet dived mighty g-forces immobilizing him the paper went on with 440 000 pounds of metal and flesh hurtling out of the sky the altimeters went wild and made small change out of the precious capital of height and safety cloudberg explained in just 33 seconds flight 006 plunged 10 000 feet as the pilots fought to regain control as the plane approached 30 thousand feet it rapidly rolled over level and began to pull up subjecting the occupants to a soul-crushing face-melting 4.8 vertical gs and then after executing a full 360-degree aileron roll the 747 slowed down to less than 100 knots possibly stalling the airplane before it rolled hard to the right and entered a second even steeper plunge flight engineer way his head pinned to the central control panel by the g-forces and unable to move his arms yelled that the other three engines had failed actually captain hoe had throttled them back trying to slow the descent but wade could not lift his head to see the gauges the plane was beginning to break up its main landing gear being ripped from its mountings and tearing off the gear doors the ntsb reported the two inboard main gear struts were left dangling large parts of the horizontal stabilizer were torn off the airplane lost 30 000 feet in altitude in less than two and a half minutes the plane broke through the bottom of the clouds at approximately eleven thousand feet captain ho finally with a point of reference was able to orient himself the examiner explained the 747 broke out of the clouds at 11 000 feet in the captain it did it last by visual references began to see which way was up he slowly regained control and stabilized the machine but then the number four engine had actually flamed out but the crew was able to restart it normally the crew took the plane back to a safer altitude and almost miraculously intended to continue to los angeles as planned however they realized that the inboard landing gear was down causing drag and one of the hydraulic systems had been drained apparently when the entire left outboard elevator had been torn off along with its actuator ho declared an emergency and requested permission to land immediately in san francisco shockingly there were only two serious injuries aboard the plane a crew member had badly strained their back and one of the passengers had broken their foot when the pilots regained control of the plane the passengers cheered one of them told the press i really thought that was it the ntsb report noted several errors by the crew noting that captain ho was distracted first by the evaluation of the engine malfunction and second by his attempts to arrest the decreasing airspeed and that because of these distractions he was unable to assess properly and promptly the approaching loss of airplane control he may have over relied on the autopilot in many ways the accident aboard dynasty zero zero six represents the combination of human fallibility and automation which reduces pilots to mere gauge watchers flying magazine noted in october 1986 that china air flight 6 graphically shows what a misalliance the marriage of man and computer can sometimes be yet somehow both pilot and machine managed to survive something that the examiner credits to the structural soundness and aerodynamic capabilities of the 747 the newspaper quotes jeffrey wilkinson the former head of the british air accident investigation branch the way that 747 was handled it had no god-given right not to break up and on paper the people aboard had no right to survive i hope you enjoyed this episode of 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 195,972

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, airline disasters, boeing 747

Id: 1gotTJlXMQc

Length: 16min 11sec (971 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 22 2021