Disaster Strikes At Chang Kai-shek Airport | Mayday | On The Move

i remember that it was very windy as a typhoon bears down on taiwan a 747 hurtles down the runway at chiang kai-shek airport v1 v1 your chances of being in an airplane crash are vanishingly small at a certain time the plane kind of lost it on october the 31st 2000 159 passengers could not beat the odds the midsection people they were killed by the fire and small many are left wondering i was in the rear section of the aircraft could the key to surviving a plane crash be a matter of choosing the right seat run as far away as you can [Music] singapore airlines flight 6 taxis to the runway through heavy wind and rain at taipei's chiang kai-shek airport taiwan sits inside asia's infamous typhoon alley and tonight the island nation is bracing for the worst every year we have three to four typhoon it was a terrible night for the stormy weather strong wind heavy rain typhoon zhang sen with winds of 160 kilometers an hour is closing in fast flight 6 needs to get airborne before the brunt of the storm hits even a 747 can't take off in an actual typhoon the closer the storm gets the more likely is that these guys are going to get stuck in taipei there are 179 people on board the overnight flight to los angeles including business traveler francois parrott being a frequent flyer i was not too concerned about the weather because that didn't bother me in the past parol has requested an aisle seat the only one available on this flight is in row 65 the second last row of the plane he has no idea how important his seating assignment will become as far as i could tell everything was normal and we were gonna take off as usual singapore six for your information surface wind zero two zero at two thank you sir singapore six let me know when it hits 30. if the crosswind hits 30 knots the crew will have to abandon their takeoff as we were taxing down the runway it was i i remember that it was very windy and that the plane was moving left to right singapore six you are clear for take off runway zero five left okay captain fung chi kong decides to proceed with the takeoff okay my control the 747 accelerates towards takeoff speed 290 kilometers an hour v1 v1 as the plane was gaining speed to take off at a certain time the plane kind of lost it what's happening i took the safety position then i felt the airplane uh spinning around it was like inside of a merry-go-round i thought i was gonna die the plane's tanks are loaded with 125 000 kilograms of fuel it ignites immediately then i opened my eyes and i saw a fireball coming at me i was lucky enough to bend down and hide from the fire coming by me i got burns on my hands and my arm direct emergency vehicles runway zero five left singapore six do you read singapore six let's go go go i was smoking the airplane it was we couldn't breathe everybody move forward quickly once you're on the plane run as far away as you can there was another person before me and yeah difficulties moving and so i was able to lift him up so that he could move his way yeah run away from the plane [Music] there was a stewardess there she showed me the direction where to run and then we were asked to run away as fast as possible rescuers must battle both the flames and the violent storm it takes about 15 minutes to control the fire and 45 minutes to extinguish all of them so it's a difficult task for the firefighters the massive 747 has broken into pieces of the 179 passengers and crew 83 are dead most victims were seated in the middle of the plane where the fuel fed fire was most severe unfortunately the mid midsection passengers they were killed by the fire and small the 96 survivors include all three pilots some passengers in first class and everyone in the rear section where francois paron was seated the telesection were broken apart from the midsection and there was less fire in the tail section and most people survived one of asia's busiest airports is immediately closed it's now up to the aviation safety council of taiwan to determine the cause of the disaster when i went to the crest site i can see all the wreckage spread on the wrong way and most of the wreckage were already burned by the post-impact fire jeff wise is an expert in aviation accidents and their causes when you're an investigator looking at a crash scene you have to keep an open mind you have to assume it could be any conceivable factor from the machinery to the human factors to the weather to who knows what much of the wreckage is on a runway adjacent to five left investigators first thought is did fierce winds blow the plane off course the weather in taiwan the whole taiwan is very bad in cks airport the gusts up to 50 to 60 knots as the typhoon moves in the winds grow even stronger making the investigators work next to impossible during the stormy weather it's difficult to do anything outside at the excellent site they can even stand on the wrong way because the wings is very strong let's get inside doesn't have to wait close examination of the crash site is put off until the storm passes but investigators want to talk to the flight crew right away wang is the asc's lead human factors investigator as an investigator we believe that we should interview pilot or operator as soon as possible because we believe that human memory will fake over time just as a machine has certain failure modes ways in which it will most likely break a human being has specific ways in which they're more likely to fail psychologically and this is what a human factors investigator is looking for captain fung chi kong is interviewed within hours of the crash what happened we collided with something on the runway v1 just as we hit v1 there's something there there was something on that runway could you tell what it was no we could not see all the way down the runway what happened after you collided we tried to pull up but it was too late we called for an evacuation but the intercom was dead evacuate let's go go go we attempted to get everyone out of the plane as quickly as possible but the fire was so intense there was something on that runway that should not have been there the focus of the investigation now shifts from the weather to a potential obstacle on the runway but the search for answers will have to wait until karma skies return to taipei [Music] the morning after a fiery crash that claims 83 lives kai-shek airport remains closed thousands of passengers are stranded for singapore airlines the accident mars an excellent safety record it's the company's first fatal crash in 28 years [Music] media speculation focuses on the pilot's decision to take off in the face of an oncoming typhoon with the weather now improving investigators scour the wreckage for clues if flight 6 collided with something on the runway they need to figure out what it was it's difficult for us to collect all of the information all of the wreckage because it's proven to everywhere accidents during takeoff can involve more than one aircraft in 1991 a sky west metroliner preparing to take off from los angeles was crushed by a uss 737 attempting to land on the same runway 34 people were killed italy's worst air disaster unfolded on a foggy morning in milan when an sas md 87 collided on takeoff with a cessna that was crossing the runway no one on either plane survived the impact 118 people died any signs of another plane and no other flights unaccounted for but at chiang kai-shek airport this is quickly ruled out all of the debris appears to be from just one plane flight six he didn't hit a plane investigators need to identify the thousands of pieces of mangled wreckage part of the flap assembly right wing the precise location of the pieces should tell them how the 747 came apart on closer inspection they make an unexpected find it looks like pieces of construction equipment are mixed in with the aircraft debris strewn across the pavement it wouldn't be hard to imagine some large object being blown into an engine or knocking out the windshield there's lots of things that could have happened chiang kai-shek airport has three runways runway six is at the airport's south end runway five left is the one flight six was using parallel to that is runway 5 right a runway closed for construction investigators consider the possibility that loose material from the construction site could be the culprit maybe the heavy strong wind brought out something and hit the aircraft and the aircraft then then crashed just after takeoff if construction material was not properly secured it might have blown onto runway five left directly into the plane's path there's something there but investigators soon find evidence that tells a different story tire tracks on runway five right heading straight towards the construction equipment this runway has been closed for weeks there should be no fresh tracks on it we can actually see the time mark of this aircraft starting from the tickle point all the way to the first impact point we can still see that great tire mark on the runway the tire marks on runway five right lead investigators to a startling conclusion this is our point of impact it now seems more than likely that some unimaginable error occurred putting flight 6 on the wrong runway we have to compare the time mark with the data we collect from the file data recorder and put it together the only way to confirm the flight's route is to find the black boxes the black box is the flight recorder and the copy voice recorder if we have them then we can probably find out what actually happened both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder are stored in the rear of the plane the least damaged section investigators are able to study the information within a day of the crash when we get information out of the recorder we read it then we can know the exact position of the aircraft they compare positioning information from the flight data recorder to a satellite image of the airport it confirms their theory well he's he's lining up with the wrong runway somehow the plane ended up on runway five right instead of five left twelve hundred and forty three meters down the runway he collides with the construction equipment he was supposed to be here how did they end up here instead it doesn't seem like a very obvious mistake to take off on a wrong runway it seems like the kind of thing that shouldn't happen ever under any circumstances for investigators it's hard to believe that such a fundamental error occurred wang decides to interview captain fong again usually we'll do an initial interview right after the accident and maybe wait for another day or two then we will re-interview again maybe at that time they can tell us more about what happened did you receive this notice [Music] of course i did everyone did we discussed it during our breathing wang learns that the flight crew received written notice that runway five right was closed tell them it will take five left according to the flight data recorder you are not on five left the accident took place on five right you collided with the construction equipment on five right the point of impact you were taking off from the wrong runway impossible we were on five left i'm sure of it the three pilots believe they were on the correct wrong way zero five left even after the accident happened what makes you so sure you're on five left the controller would have said if you weren't singapore six runway zero five left win zero two zero at two eight gust five zero cleared for takeoff with no planes ahead of them the singapore pilots received advance clearance to take off as soon as they reached the runway clear for takeoff runway zero five left singapore six what puzzles investigators is why air traffic controllers didn't notice that the 747 had turned onto the wrong runway i i couldn't see them in that weather when interviewed the controllers describe how the storm limited visibility that night to about 600 meters and they confirmed runway 5 left that's the last i heard from them 1600 meters between the runway and the tower there's no way he saw them [Music] the crew assumed that the tower was monitoring their progress but the controller had lost sight of the plane investigators now try to determine if the pilots themselves were lost in the storm how was the visibility could you see where you were going the whole time we couldn't see very far but we could see far enough siri no study the map while i followed the taxi lights it led us directly to the runway okay green lights are here it appears that the crew had no trouble seeing their route as they taxied yet flight 6 still ended up on the wrong runway was this the map you were using yes you didn't have any trouble reading it i wasn't reading it my first officer and the relief pilot were following the map i only glanced at it when the route changed they changed the route yes wang learns that the ground controller issued a last minute change for their route to the runway singapore 6 request taxi singapore 6 taxi to runway 0-6 by a taxiway correction runway zero five left via taxiway sierra sierra west cross and november papa i missed that what was it sierra sierra west cross and november papa pilots have to deal with last minute changes all the time the situation becomes complicated it becomes hairy now you've got a typhoon bearing down on you you've got time pressure you're also having to deal with a difficult environment for taxing you've got cross winds you've got gusts so you're under pressure investigators need to understand how the crew responded to that pressure they turned to the cockpit voice recorder if there was any confusion in the cockpit on the way to the runway the recording could reveal it cvr can provide investigators a sense of what the environment that the pilot are actually working in tell them we'll take five left what's the lens weather this is the latest zero two zero three six gust 52 still within limits that's better more on the head inside the crew runs through all the mandatory procedures check seeing slowly okay turning left it's getting right a lot of rather work here crosslands that don't seem confused what they heard was a crew that was calm that was focused that was doing what they needed to do they're doing a procedure checklist they check the weather they discuss the safety issues so if pilots doing everything they're supposed to do why didn't the accident happen there's something there taiwanese investigators still can't answer why the crew of singapore airlines flight 6 made the fatal error of turning onto the wrong runway they hope the crew's last moments of conversation can provide a clue i'm going to go very slow here otherwise we're scared okay nine knots normally a 747 taxis about 25 knots on this night they're going nine knots they're doing exactly what they should have done taking it nice and slow when you've got really strongly gusting winds you want to taxi slowly you've not only got to deal with the massive surface area of the tail fin behind you but you've got a very slick slippery runway okay wind's okay from our view the pilot is pretty much follow the procedure and follow what they have to do next one next one's n1 okay second right second right that's right the plane must now taxi 260 meters further before turning onto runway 5 left but it doesn't so why did they turn here investigators study the pilot's work records looking for anything that could help explain their mistake we will collect the pilot's training record at least for three years before the accident captain fung chi kong started with singapore airlines as a cadet over 20 years ago he'd flown out of this airport more than 10 times first officer latif serrano was a former officer in the singapore army he's flown with captain kong several times before almost all his hours were on the 747. the relief pilot captain unken lang had eight years experience and was used to long flights so for a commercial pilot they are very experienced team every one of them was a better than average pilot they all had excellent records and yet somehow they made an unbelievable mistake why the three pilots cannot tell the difference when they take off from zero five right something must have led the crew to take a wrong turn but exactly what remains a mystery determined to find out what went wrong on flight six investigators decide to put themselves in the pilot seat the cockpit of a 747 at chiang kai-shek airport all right let's get going in similar weather conditions they follow the route taken by flight six we want to know what the pilot's working environment and what outside environment may affect their decision situation awareness or their decision making during that night they taxi slowly towards runway five left matching captain fong's speed okay take the turn on n1 nice and slow the plane turns onto the final taxiway from this point the flight 6 crew should have taxied past runway 5 right towards the turn for runway 5 left now we continue on to 5 right how could they have missed that sign it's huge signs marking five right are clearly visible from the cockpit but investigators see nothing that would tell a pilot the runway is out of service there is no indication that this runway is closed green lights as far as i can see they were seeing ambiguous information there were some signs that it was a runway there were some signs it wasn't a runway but because they were expecting to see a runway that's what they saw but inside the cockpit there is an indication that the plane is on the wrong runway the instrument landing system isn't locking onto a beacon that should be dead ahead this should tell you something's not right if the plane had been on the correct runway the display would have been centered before departing pilots programmed the plane's computer to lock onto a beacon at the end of their designated runway flight 6's navigation system would have been scanning for that signal just before takeoff the beacon was clearly off to their left not ahead of them investigators need to know how the pilots could have missed this obvious sign they once again studied the information from the fdr and compare it to the cockpit voice recorder okay it's coming in fast the longer we delay the worse it's going to get agreed the voice recording reveals that the crew wanted to get off the ground before conditions got any worse it's a challenging environment and the longer they wait the more challenging it's going to get typhoon zhang sen is bearing down on taipei threatening to ground all flights at chiang kai-shek airport the crew of flight 6 knows their 14-hour journey to los angeles is on the verge of being cancelled 2-4 gust 4-3 relief pilot aung needs to carefully calculate the crosswinds checking to see if they've exceeded 30 knots the point at which they will have to abort the flight wind direction during takeoff is critical pilots want to fly into a headwind to attain maximum lift a strong crosswind can literally blow a plane off the runway singapore six runway zero five left win zero two zero at two eight gust five zero clear it for takeoff right now the pilots are passing signs that clearly identify the runways what happens in the next few seconds is the key to why they missed them zero two zero from the left zero to zero the winds consume the crew's attention they were scrupulously looking at the tables to figure out if they had exceeded the crosswind component they were checking it so meticulously they weren't paying attention to something else 28.5 it's getting close to 30 sir okay the captain was taxing the aircraft in very slow speed and the first officer is doing the before takeoff checklist and the relief pilot is working on the crosswind component so all pilots they are occupied by something they do not have enough attention to actually check which runway they are texting onto i'm going to go very slow here otherwise we'll skid ok nine knots the crew was so concerned with taxiing safely to the runway that they stopped paying attention to where they were headed they believe they are making a right turn onto the correct wrong way unfortunately that's not the correct runway that's zero five right what you've got to hear is a classic case of tunnel vision you've got pilots who are working under enormous stress time pressure the safety of their passengers are of concern and so their ability to deal with multiple streams of information is becoming narrower and narrower [Music] investigators also consider the possibility that captain fong's extreme caution might in fact have worked against him okay nine knots the captain intentionally takes it slowly the captain says to the crew keep it slow be careful let's really focus on what we're doing and they do but they focus on the wrong things captain fong was taxiing at a speed of nine knots about 16 kilometers an hour because the turn took so long captain fong might have thought he'd gone further than he really did so much time had passed that he may have thought he had already reached runway 5 left one of the real heartbreaking moments of this tragedy is that instant when they come so close to noticing that something's wrong just before takeoff the crew had one last chance to avoid disaster the first officer points out they're nowhere near the center line of the runway now the pvd hasn't lined up it should have been a warning to the crew that something was wrong never mind we can see the runway just fine captain fong ignores the warning the big irony of this crash is that they were taking off in very dangerous circumstances near the limit of what their plane was capable of handling but it wasn't the weather that did them in but rather the pressure of dealing with the storm distracted them from what turned out to be the real question were they in the right place ready sir left adron into wind the human brain is always trying to convince itself that has a complete picture of what's going on and so that when contradictory information comes in there's a tendency called confirmation bias to ignore it and to concentrate on what you think is happening okay my control v1 v1 what happened next was inevitable there's something there there's the point of impact the clues were there they ignored them the entire tragedy would have been avoided if the crew had picked up even one of these clues it's finally clear why singapore airlines flight 6 ended up on the wrong runway [Music] but with hundreds of planes taking off during the annual typhoon season the challenge now is to make sure it never happens again taiwan's aviation safety council recommends swift changes to pilots procedures and training they recommend more frequent communication between controllers and pilots who are taxiing in poor weather pilots must now report each of their movements to the controller as they make them currently new checklists are also designed which include a visual confirmation step forcing pilots to confirm that they're on the correct runway before they take off chiang kai-shek airport comes under criticism for keeping an out-of-service runway lit and for failing to either barricade or clearly mark it closed chiang kai-shek was not compliant with current international airport regulations they didn't have the ground radar that would have told the tower where this plane actually was in aviation fatal crashes are the most powerful catalysts for change following the disaster authorities install ground radar at the airport in taipei it allows the tower to track a plane's position even in bad weather singapore airlines comes down hard on the pilots of flight six the captain and first officer both lose their jobs one of the lessons of this accident is that you can have an exemplary crew performing their duties with utmost care and they still make a mistake with fatal consequences [Music] the crash of flight 6 also highlights another lesson the decisions passengers make before takeoff including where to sit can sometimes make the difference between life and death following his brush with death at taipei's chiang kai-shek airport [Music] francois parham has reason to take credit for his own survival it was just basic survival instinct and we had no time to think about what's happening when i realized that my life was at risk i had a thought for my family and that gave me the energy to do something to save my run life far away as you can go they say that fear is contagious and that's particularly true in a closed environment where people are fairly densely clustered together move forward quickly fear is contagious but so is courage come come the accident in taiwan raises the question what can passengers do to improve their odds of surviving when disaster strikes although experts do not all agree statistics suggest some seats are safer than others studies have found that there is a slightly higher percentage of survival in the back of an aircraft during a crash the tail section can break away from the main fuselage and the wings where fuel is stored though opinions vary some statistics show that passengers seated at the rear of the plane have the highest average survival rate 69 percent in the over wing section that number drops to 56 percent in the forward section your odds of surviving a crash are less than even 49 many experts believe that sitting within five rows of an exit gives you the best chance of survival also aisle seats are slightly safer than window seats i was sitting on a nile seat in the rear of the aircraft most accidents take place on takeoff and in landing so if you're concerned about surviving on an airplane that's the time to pay attention this plane is equipped with ten exits four at the front four at the back and one over each wing if the passengers listen to the safety briefing they know what they have to do in the first seconds they know how to get out of the aircraft in the seat pocket in front of you there's a safety card on it there's a diagram that shows you how to get to the exits look at it just put in your mind what you have to do to get there because when things go crazy and the smoke and the darkness you won't be able to figure it out but one statistic stands out above all others your chances of being in an airplane crash are vanishingly small they say it's probably true that you're more likely to get into an accident driving to the airport than you are in the airplane i think they're better things to worry about than where you're sitting when your airplane crashes [Music] you

Channel: On The Move

Views: 311,520

Rating: 4.8429222 out of 5

Keywords: on the move, cars, planes, trains, documentary, documentaries, full length documentaries, plane documentary, mayday series, mayday, plane disasters, airport, runway, plane pilot, pilot, hd documentary, 2021 documentary

Id: nddEf1ZeHeM

Length: 45min 3sec (2703 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021