Flight 242's Tragic Error | Southern Storm | Mayday: Air Disaster

southern flight 242 crashed after the dc-9 jet lost power in both engines the plane had just flown through a violent hail storm on a flight from huntsville alabama to atlanta i saw the plane as it came varying down hit the treetops we thought it was a tornado first vehicles people was in this grocery store yard and vehicles it actually hit them a family of seven is killed instantly when the plane hit their car they were just leaving the store about the time that the flight tried to land on the highway and then of course the i think they hit the gas pumps and they exploded and everything around was on fire and actually they were in the car and perished during the during the explosion and fire investigators from the national transportation safety board arrive within hours of the accident this is the second major blow to southern airways safety record in 1970 flight 932 carrying the marshall university football team crashed in west virginia everyone on board was killed there are always many questions that investigators have to find answers to the two primary questions that needed to be answered by the board were what were the weather conditions and what caused both engines on a two engine airplane to flame out that resulted in the pilots having to make an emergency landing on a highway in a small town the storm that flight 242 flew into was a monster why had a crew so familiar with weather in the south flown headfirst into it that's a whole isn't it it's not showing at all is it investigators listen to the cockpit voice recorder for any clues about the decisions made by the crew as they were entering the thunderstorm that's a hole isn't it it's not showing a hole is it they learned that the pilots relied heavily on their weather radar as they approached the storm but it appears to have deceived them all clear left approximately right now i think we can cut across there one of the limitations of the radar that the crew of flight 242 was using is signal attenuation that is that the beam that is projected from the radar unit out to look at the weather and return is diffused so that the picture that is depicted in the cockpit that the crew is looking at may not be accurate weather radar sends out radio waves those waves bounce off storm clouds ahead and return to the aircraft but if precipitation is extremely intense the radio waves can be deflected away the radar unit might then interpret the lack of returning waves as a clear path ahead those inaccuracies are hard to decipher and if the crew is depending solely or very intently on the radar to guide them through the precipitation they may be making decisions that aren't based on accurate information the storm that entangles southern airways 242 is one of the worst to hit the united states in three years the crew didn't encounter a tornado but it was battered by torrential rain and heavy i don't know how to hail through here bill what keel and mackenzie read as a clear area ahead was in fact the heaviest part of the storm they flew straight for it the other engine's going to got the other engine going too southern 242 say again stand by we lost both engines [Music] once inside the storm the dc-9s engines failed but a turbofan engine is designed to ingest huge amounts of rain and even hail precipitation alone should not have shut them down investigators study what's left of the dc-9s engines for clues they need to know if some mechanical failure caused both engines to fail inside the storm well initially i was puzzled as to how the engines could be involved in the cause of this accident but i was very anxious to get there to see the engines myself to find out if there was any sort of visible failure in the engines pratt and whitney the manufacturer of the engines assigns al weaver to advise the ntsb investigation the engines are moved to atlanta airport for a closer inspection and when they lifted the engines up in the vertical direction in the hangar i could hear the tinkling in pieces fell out through the front of the engine onto the floor i reached over and picked up those pieces and i recognized them immediately as part of the high compressor blading deep with inside the engine al weaver discovers that the pieces that fell from the engine were broken blades from the compressor jet engines need pressurized air for combustion two separate compressors inside the engine are made up of dozens of steel blades the rapidly spinning blades force air to the back of the engine the pressurized air is ignited in the combustion chamber creating thrust weaver notices that the compressor blades from flight 242 are badly bent or fatigued the way they're bent tells him they were damaged in the air not when the plane hit the ground and we know that that fatigue and the type of fatigue that we could observe with our eye is caused by the repetitive surging of the engine over and over a surge occurs when the airflow through an engine gets interrupted pressure builds up between the compressors instead of behind them without the back pressure air from the combustion chamber moves to the front of the engine the engine briefly loses power next investigators need to find out if the repetitive surging was caused by the engines inhaling massive amounts of rain when an engine ingests rain it has to convert it into a gas before it can pump it out as exhaust that process uses energy and slows down the engines investigators conclude that with so much rain to convert the engines couldn't maintain enough power to run the generators that's what caused the first power outage but it doesn't explain why the engines failed completely al weaver wants to know if the sheer volume of rain the engines were forced to ingest could have caused their failure the same engine model that powered southern airways 242 is run with up to fourteen percent water to air okay engines are three-quarters throttle let's begin [Music] investigators ultimately throw monsoon level reins against the engine they run it from idle up to full throttle okay that's it shut it down the rain was not enough to cause the kind of surge that tore the engines on flight 242 to pieces thanks very much gentlemen and the engine operated normally no abnormalities so our judgment was we could not conceive of a rainstorm that would put more water in so we knew we were going in the wrong direction with more water the water ingestion test points investigators to another suspect that's a hole isn't it it's not showing a hole is it hail people who survived the crash described seeing hail the size of baseballs it was powerful enough to break the plane's three and a half centimeter thick windshield al weaver discovers significant hail damage on both of the plane's engine cowlings starting at the front of the engine we noted that the inlet cowl and the center body that streamlines the airflow going into the engine which are parts of the aircraft structure and made out of aluminum were all dented from both engines and that led us to suspect that the existence of the hail might have been a significant contributor weaver knows that it would take a powerful force to damage the hard metal compressor blades we knew from the examination mechanically of the engines that the hail itself did not cause any damage to the engine it only dented the outside of the covering over the engine heavy precipitation and a damaged cowling could have interrupted the engine's airflow and caused a surge but one surge shouldn't tear an engine apart [Music] weaver suspects that massive pieces of hail may have clogged a vital outlet in the plane's engines the bleed valves when pressure builds between the two compressors bleed valves should open automatically to release that pressure and clear the surge if the bleed valves were blocked the engines would have continued to surge over and over again once the engine began to surge the action that the pilot should have taken was to pull the throttles back to clear the surge al weaver turns to the cockpit voice recorder and discovers that the circumstances may have caused the crew to do the exact opposite [Music] maintain 1 5 000 southern 242. we're trying to get it up there weaver learns that the crew was asked to climb while in the heart of the storm maintain one five thousand if you understand me maintain one five thousand southern two four two in order to climb the captain had to increase thrust to his engines which would have made matters worse but if the surge was not cleared and allowed to continue then the engine would simply break itself internally we're trying to get it up there advancing the throttles would only worsen the situation with its bleed cavities blocked by hail pressure built up inside the engines bending the compressor blades until they shattered left engine just cut out and once the blades broke in the compressor then the engine has no hope of ever working again investigators now understand how the pilots misread the storm and how their engines failed as a result of it but they don't know why the pilots weren't warned that there was such a severe storm in their path [Music] who's got the landing and not me the ignition sir as the pilots prepared to depart huntsville they did have a weather report from southern airways but the information was already hours old southern airways dispatch did not have updated information they didn't subscribe to the national weather services update system they did have a subscription to a service that required them to dial up and receive the information when the dispatcher called the phone number to get the updated information it was busy and never pursued it and was not able to provide any kind of update information to the crew of 242. southern airways 242 i'm painting a line of weather which appears to be moderate to possibly heavy precipitation starting about five miles ahead could huntsville have provided better weather information absolutely but in the course of doing their job they provided localized weather information about an intense thunderstorm or rain shower that was moving over the airport they were only responsible really for about 40 nautical miles what the crew of flight 242 was looking at was well beyond 40 miles with little information on the storm and having misread their weather radar bill mckenzie and lyman keel flew blindly into massive thunderheads the heavy rain and hail crippled their engines the crew decided that their only option was an emergency landing how about getting it to the nearest place southern 242 roger turn right heading one zero zero will be vectors for a straight in approach to diamonds uh runway one one [Music] when investigators analyze the flight path of southern airways 242 they discover one more deadly oversight [Music] from the time the crew realized that they had no engine power till the time a touchdown was about nine minutes so in looking at the critical decision making they had about seven minutes of solid critical decision making before they were committed to that emergency landing on the highway get us a vector to a clear area after the engines failed the pilots made a 180 degree turn towards the west looking for an escape from the storm that takes them directly away from dorbyn's air force base the turn takes the pilots out of the hailstorm but leaves them further away from a runway they also lose minutes of valuable flying time only once the pilots escape the hailstorm do they turn again towards dorbans uh is there an airport between our position and dobbins southern 242 uh no sir closest airport is dobbins had they maintained that course to dobbins rather than make the turns or try to find another airport they probably would have had a better success rate and definitely a better survival rate southern 242 roger turn right heading one zero zero will be vectors for a straight-in approach to diamonds uh runway 1-1 by the time mackenzie received the instructions southern airways 242 had been flying away from dorban's for too long the plane was simply too far and flying too low to make it there but there was one last missed opportunity to save flight 242 investigators learned that just as mackenzie and keel were directed towards dorbyn's air force base they were right above another runway cornelius moore airport i thought we would land at cornelius moore airport because i was familiar with that airport i had flown many times in our airplane back and forth between decatur and atlanta investigators learned that cornelius moore was just out of range of radar at atlanta approach control they didn't know it existed they could not direct southern airways 242 there because they couldn't see it on their screens when i learned that the controllers in atlanta didn't know about the cornelius moore airport in cartersville i was upset because we went within i think three or four miles of that airport had a 4 000 foot runway and even though some of the controllers thought it was too short it sure would have been better than that highway we landed on i was very very angry there's such a feudal reaction you know it was such a waste of life that i was sad the ntsb investigation concludes that the catastrophic failure of the turbofan engines and the failure to convey sufficient information on the storm to the pilots are the causes of the crash of southern airways 242. the ntsb acts immediately it issues a recommendation that weather radar systems aboard planes and in air traffic control centers be upgraded to better portray weather systems in today's commercial aircraft pilots have available to them color weather radar it's radar that will depict in various color bands the intensity of the precipitation the crash of southern airways 242 also leads to a better understanding of how engines should be managed in heavy precipitation we once again reaffirmed to the pilots the importance not to allow the engine to continue operation in continual surging if there is a surge condition for any reason you should clear the surge because if you didn't clear the surge and allowed it to operate it would break eventually in every air crash investigators tried to determine whether or not the accident was survivable when you look at the survivability in an aircraft accident you can definitively say that the design of the seat contributed to the survival factors aspects but the statistics that bear out whether sitting in the front of the airplane is safer the middle of the airplane is safer or the back of the airplane is safer don't exist in this particular instance a surviving passenger don foster was quick thinking he put a leather jacket over his head and used a pillow as a buffer between the seat in front of him and his face that probably saved his life from the standpoint that it minimized any injuries he would have suffered in fact the ntsb believes that if flight attendants had distributed blankets and pillows to the passengers there would have been fewer injuries as a result of the crash we learned from every airplane crash we learned from this one we learned that the communication broke down within the faa within southern airways even within the cockpit of that dc-9 what we didn't ultimately learn though is the most important lesson and that is awesome respect for mother nature and what mother nature can do 30 years have passed since southern airways 242 crashed through the small community of new hope georgia every 10 years since the crash survivors of the tragedy gather at a church in new hope they remember those that were lost and help one another cope with the tragedy it's one of the longest running survivors group of its kind i want to welcome you to this service today in remembering april the 4th 1977 when the southern airways flight 242 crashed here in the new hope community earl d johnson [Music] lyman keel jr william wade mckenzie [Music] earl c griffin jr after the crash i had a hard time understanding how i managed to survive and after a couple of months i quit worrying about it i felt like i had a second shot at it i felt like that family was more important having fun was more important [Music] [Applause] [Music] it took a pretty deep toll on our family my mother my father especially they lost two of their children and all their grandchildren all at one time [Music] and i can still to this day i can smell the odors and i can hear the sounds and i can see those people so many things will bring back those smallest memories and every time it's triggered the emotions come back you don't want them to you don't ask for them but you can't stop them i believe it's important for the survivors to get together so that they can share their experiences know that there are other people that went through the same feelings that they did [Music] i mean i've had a great life because of this in a way that makes no sense but it's changed me for the better i think i've done better had a better life because of how i grew from that may this service do honor to these dear loved ones and may it bring comfort and peace to we who remain you

Channel: Mayday: Air Disaster

Views: 15,553

Rating: 4.9523811 out of 5

Keywords: MAYDAY AIR DISASTER, MAYDAY, PLANE CRASH, PLANE DISASTER, PLANES, AVIATION, FLYING, FEAR OF FLYING, WORST PLANE CRASH, TRAVELLING, AIRLINES, PLANE ACCIDENT, AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT, PLANE PILOT, CAPTAIN SULLY, EMERGENCY LANDING, BRITISH AIRWAYS, UNITED AIRLINES, U.S AIRFORCE, AIR HOSTESS, CABIN CREW, AEROPLANE LANDING, AEROPLANE HIJACKING, AIRFORCE, AMERICAN AIRLINE, TURKISH AIRLINE, Southern Airways, Flight 242, Mayday Southern Storm, mayday season 5 episode 6, new hope Georgia

Id: LjIbgaRBGKk

Length: 22min 31sec (1351 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021