Fuel Trouble Leads To Catastrophic Plane Crashes | Mayday Air Disaster The Accident Files

[Music] we just lost one and two all four engines shut down on a jet headed straight for a U.S suburb takes a few things to make an engine run one of them is fuel everyone we're about to evacuate the plane remain calm in Japan a plane catches fire with all 165 passengers and Crews still on board the only time you have too much fuel on board the aircraft is when you're on fire hang on and the crew of a 737 are forced to make a crash landing in the Amazon jungle something you're very very very wrong here three mysterious accidents send investigators hunting for Clues possible these tragedies all share the same cause [Music] [Music] [Music] United Airlines flight 173 is 22 miles away from Portland International Airport the 189 passengers on board are returning home after the holidays 173 would like clearance Captain Malvern McBroom a second world war veteran is one of United's most experienced Pilots first officer Rod Bibi has more than 5 000 hours flying experience [Music] flight engineer Forest Mendenhall is the third crew member okay he's tasked with monitoring the dc-8's engines the flight began in New York City with a stopover in Denver 's only three heavy okay roll out heading zero one zero to Runway to eight left air traffic controller Ed King Ray clears flight 173 to land sounds in the cockpit we're losing an engine oil is number three in a minute too two of the plane's four engines have just shut down the engineer struggles to keep the last two engines running how far are you sure I call it uh I told him it's 18 flying miles which would include the base leg to the final and then the turn to final to the end of the runway we just lost one and two [Music] eight one seven three has now lost all four engines [Music] with the aircraft dropping by more than three thousand feet a minute Captain McBroom makes a horrifying calculation I can't make it [Music] Portland Tower United 173 heavy Mayday the engines are flaming out McBroom needs to find a safe place to put the aircraft down and try to save the lives of all on board I could see him coming in from the south his navigational lights flashing you could tell he was quite low I saw the bright flash out there and and knew he'd gone down [Music] the dc-8 has crash-landed in a wooded suburb in Portland Oregon eight passengers and two members of the crew are dead [Music] 79 people survive [Music] a United Airlines plane crashed five miles Southeast Portland Airport in a residential area two homes were hit one disintegrated the next morning investigators from the national Transportation safety board are on the scene one of the team members is human factors specialist Alan deal foreign [Music] complexes I realized this could have been one of the worst accidents in history investigators hope survivors can provide some insight into what brought this jet down what did you first notice something out of the ordinary they learn from the passengers that an hour before the crash the captain made an announcement ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking the crew were having trouble with the landing gear we're not sure whether or not it's working correctly we'll be running a few routine checks but something isn't making sense to deal ing your problem right now playing at the crash site the plane's flight recorders are recovered they're sent for analysis at the national Transportation safety board headquarters in Washington [Music] while they wait for the flight data investigators continue to speak to Witnesses including Ed kingray the controller who handled flight 173's approach I cleared him for an approach to Runway 2-8 I was about to hand them off to the tower controller uh negative will stay with you we've got a gear problem we'll let you know he basically said he'd stay with me though that he was having some kind of uh unsafe gear indication Captain mcgroom wanted time to troubleshoot the gear problem so King Ray cleared flight 173 to fly a holding pattern south of the airport over the Portland suburbs a holding pattern would basically give him his own air space there to do whatever he had to do but flight 173 circled Portland for an unusually long time they continued circling for about an hour the pilots then made a shocking call to the Portland Tower I recall hearing the captain tell the tower than losing engines there was no indication to me the gravity of the situation what happened during that hour of circling that turned a landing gear malfunction we've got a cure problem we'll let you know into a catastrophic engine failure the engines are flaming out we're going down we're not going to be able to make it to the airport I was clearly very interested in you know how I'm highly experienced captain could uh fly around for over an hour inside of the airport in good weather and not put this airplane on the ground safely watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscriptional fire download Daily Now NTSB investigator Dennis grossy joins the effort to find out what went wrong I was assigned to be the aircraft performance engineer for this accident [Music] if there was a malfunction he hopes the cockpit voice recorder picked up the pilots discussing it captain speaking the recording begins 30 minutes before the crash as the pilot Circle over Portland because I only got this thing to shine down there they hear the flight engineer leave the cockpit to troubleshoot the landing gear problem foreign the landing gear is lowered a small rod pops up in the wing providing visual confirmation that the gear is in place the flight engineer would be asked by the captain to go back and check the mechanical indicators for the position of the landing gear excuse me can I look out the window here and he could look over in their tabs that actually come up and go down and he could see if the gear was extended and locked despite his Engineers report Captain McBroom still sounds concerned there's one check we missed checking the gear warning horn right right right normally when we see these problems of a gear light not coming on it's a light bulb or some minor piece of circuitry it appears that a minor electrical problem became a major distraction for captain my broom but it still doesn't explain why all four engines were out then investigators make a shocking discovery losing an engine it's flamed out why fuel the cockpit voice recorder from United flight 173 reveals that the captain is unaware that his plane is running out of fuel he was asked what was causing that and he got a very adamant answer saying fuel fuel as if to say we've been trying to tell you about this all along number two is empty you're going to lose number three in a minute too one by one fuel starvation shuts down all the engines leaving the dc-8 without any power [Music] how could an experienced crew lose track of how much fuel they had on board and in fact run out of fuel when they were in view of the airport [Music] Captain mcbrew may be the only one who can provide answers Hospital recovering from injury but well enough to speak to investigators I recall seeing number one number two warning lights come on but I I knew we had fuel he was still convinced that somehow the fuel had either leaked out of the tanks or the fuel burn was too high or the gauges were wrong [Music] investigators wonder if the fuel gauges were malfunctioning and confusing the pilots to find out investigators study the transcript of the cockpit voice recorder focusing on the Pilot's discussion of fuel levels the crew discussed how much field he had we had five thousand pounds you take the data and apply at the time factor to it and you can figure out how much fuel they should have had remaining five thousand that's exactly right the team discovers there's nothing wrong with the gauges flight 173's fuel system was working exactly as it should with mechanical failure ruled out the team now explores the human factors specifically Captain mcbroom's Behavior [Music] I'm not sure you got now four four investigators play back the cockpit voice recorder to study his performance who you got now they hear something alarming in the conversation I must feel we got now four four a thousand in CH pounds both the first offer and the Second Officer were acutely aware of the fuel status his crewmates tried more than once to alert him to the fuel situation but McBroom is focused on the broken landing gear there's one check we missed checking the gear warning horn right right right so how do we do that flying with a very senior Captain it would be very difficult to to challenge that captain in those days about something like fuel [Music] the captain was so focused on the gear collapsing that he lost the big picture they lost sight of the real emergency which was the lack of fuel Captain mcbroom's obsession with the landing gear along with his crewmate's failure to speak up caused the plane to run out of fuel and crash in the Portland suburb after this accident the national Transportation safety board said flight crew members need to be better trained to communicate when they have safety of flight issues in a move that has a lasting impact on Airline safety the Federal Aviation Authority adopts a training system developed by NASA known as cockpit resource management or CRM that teaches captains to listen better and it teaches the other members of the flight deck to be respectfully asserted if the crew of flight 173 had received CRM training they might have insisted that Captain McBroom land immediately going to run a slowing through here instead they expected their Captain to make the right decision for this investigation I'm pretty sure that career Resource Management would have taken place but at some point in the future and very likely other aircraft would have crashed in the interim in 2007 a terrifying explosion reminds investigators that catastrophic fuel failures don't just happen in the air [Applause] [Music] China Airlines flight 120 is on Final Approach for landing in Okinawa Japan ladies and gentlemen we're about to begin our descent until Okinawa naha Airport please give the flight attendance your full cooperation as you prepare the cabin for a landing the captain is 47 year old Yu chianku what's the weather for approach cloud ceiling say a thousand feet Wednesday 8 knots the first officer is 26 year old sengdar way the pilots have more than 8 500 hours of flight experience between them this morning there are 157 passengers and eight crew on board [Music] the pilots reconfigure their plane as they slow down and descend for landing let's go to flaps 25. slash 25 they deploy flaps from the wings back Edge along with slats from the front edge these devices keep the plane Airborne at lower speeds [Music] 30 20 10. it's a textbook Landing it's left for the China airline pilots is to park the plane [Music] cut off seat belts seat belts off [Music] then one passenger notices that something's not right [Music] what's happening just when they thought they were safely parked cockpit ground number two engine fire a radio call alerts them to a fire in the right engine we are calling a fire truck remain stand by [Music] that's true prepare for evacuation prepare for evacuation [Music] [Applause] within minutes the fire engulfs both wings [Music] flight attendants work to evacuate the passengers as quickly as possible the plane could explode at any moment [Music] [Music] but it may be too late for the pilots Thick Smoke is consuming the cabin so they will have to escape through a small cockpit window [Music] incredibly both Pilots evacuate just in time all 165 people on board Escape unharmed heard of any evacuation where somebody wasn't hurt to get this many people off in such a dire circumstance in a very short period of time with no injuries is miraculous it's highly unusual for an aircraft to catch fire at that phase of the flight so that sparked a great deal of Interest a team of international air crash investigators are immediately called in they need to find the cause before there's another deadly explosion across the globe there are more than 5 000 Boeing 737s in service there's a 737 taking off and Landing every three or four seconds in the world knowing countless passengers could be at risk investigators race to figure out how an airliner that landed safely suddenly burst into flames [Music] okay let's get to work the challenge for investigator is most of the evidence will be destroyed by the fire while recovery workers collect The Scorch wreckage the team begins interviewing eyewitnesses what did you think you see a groundworker who saw the explosion provides a critical detail the grant worker on the right side of the aircraft said very distinctly that he saw a liquid running down the Leading Edge of the right wing before the fire broke out next fluid leaking from this part of the wing of the aircraft can only be one thing jet fuel the Boeing 737 holds 4 390 gallons of fuel much of it in tanks located inside the plane's two massive wings when we figured out that Apex will fuel leak had occurred it was a breakthrough the true breakthrough in the investigation we know the fuel was leaking but from where investigators examine what remains of the 737's fuel tanks the tanks are made from aluminum alloy and should never crack or leak [Music] or camera called up orescope to see inside the right fuel tank foreign s changes the course of the entire investigation whoa would you look at that while examining the right fuel tank of China Airlines flight 120 investigators Find a bolt lodged in the side of the tank all of a sudden it clears a bell and we saw this bolt sticking out of the fuel tank itself the bolt has ruptured the tank right where the groundworker spotted leaking fuel it's hard to describe how significant this was I mean this was the core of the investigation but where did the bolt come from okay got it [Music] investigators compare the piece to schematics of the 737 Wing structure to figure out exactly what it is they soon get their answer a down stop assembly the down stop assembly is part of the slat mechanism on the Wing's Leading Edge Let's go to flaps 25. so that's 25 Pilots extend flaps and slats during every takeoff and Landing the down stop is fixed to the end of a track that slides back and forth the device prevents the slats from moving too far forward we had the assembly we knew it punctured the tank our next step was trying to figure out how this could possibly recruit When comparing the down stop assembly from flight 120 to Boeing schematics uncovers a vital clue we decided to count parts and lo and behold a washer was missing there's supposed to be a washer right behind the nut where is it could a single missing washer have played a role in the accident alright now let's test it without a washer the team experiment with the suspicious Bolt from flight 120 to see how it performs without the washer make a stunning discovery the small washer is the only thing preventing the unit from falling out of its mount with other washer it fails [Music] investigators need to find out how the part could have disappeared we went to China Airline to ask them to demonstrate how they do the minutes work sometimes maintenance records don't tell you the true story they learn a repair was ordered on the downstop a few weeks before the accident a mechanic demonstrates how he performed the repair after applying glue you put the bolt into place but reaching the down stops location proves challenging you can imagine that you are under the wing and you cannot see it [Music] foreign [Music] it's easy to pick up again it's an eye-opening demonstration it's not very easy for them to confirm they finish their job and everything is in order there investigators believe the washer must have fallen off during the maintenance procedure in Taiwan [Music] the sequence of events that led to the devastating fuel fire in Okinawa is finally clear [Applause] six weeks after the failed repair of a downstop please give the flight attendance your full cooperation does it prepare the cabin for landing a descent into Okinawa requires the pilots to deploy the flaps and slats as usual inside one of the track assemblies on the right wing the loosened bolt without a washer is just barely holding on touchdown is enough of a jolt to finally knock it out of its track unsuspecting crew soon retract the flaps and slats the plane's powerful Hydraulics move the slat track back into place but now the down stop bolt is in the way the track pushes it to the back puncturing the right wing fuel tank and causing thousands of liters of fuel to leak car can shut down the engines [Music] the leaking fuel starts dripping directly onto the scorching hot tailpipe igniting on contact in the wake of the China Airlines explosion Aviation authorities around the world order the inspection of the entire fleet of 737s in the U.S alone 21 planes are found to have the same defect all of them at risk of a catastrophic fuel leak and Fire Boeing takes immediate action it redesigns the downstop mechanism and ensures that the improved part is installed on each and every plane in today's Aviation the failure of any kind of component part especially as it relates to a fuel system is a rare event you stand a better chance of survival if you have a catastrophic event on the ground but as the airplane goes up so does the risk level in Brazil investigators uncover another fatal problem when a disastrous fuel failure brings down a plane in the Amazon jungle Brazil in the late 1980s is a country in transition developing cities are scattered throughout the dense Amazon rainforest in maraba the crew of varic flight 254 is preparing for takeoff complex there are 48 passengers on board flight 254 is an hour-long flight from the mining town of maraba to berlem near the mouth of the Amazon River foreign dials in a compass heading to guide them to their destination Captain Cesar Garces is flying the airplane tonight while first Officer Nelson zelay monitors the instruments B1 rotate the Boeing 737 steadily climbs to cruising altitude [Music] after 23 minutes the flight computer tells the captain that they're getting close to bellam looks like we're nearly there Vari 254 requesting descent balance Tower Larry 254 [Music] strangely they get no response from the tower let me try balance our buddy 254 [Music] that's funny what we're not picking up the beacon either airports are equipped with very high frequency omnidirectional range beacons or VOR beacons their signal guides incoming aircraft to the runway I'll call the tower on HF the captain switches His Radio to high frequency and tries making contact again thankfully his strategy works very 254 Bellum Tower go ahead we're on approach but we aren't seeing the VOR is the beacon down negative 254 looks like a song you're in understood the crew will have to approach bellam without the help of the VOR signal the captain checks his system and calculates when they'll arrive and then we're 25 minutes out request is sent for Final Approach roll you're wearing 254 clear to flight level two zero zero as the plane drops below the clouds the captain looks for the lights of bellem where are the lights at the airport but there's only Darkness [Music] no visible light captain in belem the controller is concerned fly 254 should have landed by now but he doesn't have a radar so he has no way of tracking the plane we need to land soon alright so we're gonna run out of fuel I think we're close the captain searches for a local radio signal hoping it will guide them towards the city now we can follow the signal towards millennium turning right heading 165. [Music] after two and a half hours in Flight the captain is confident he's now on course there we go we're over the Amazon belem is near the mouth of the Amazon following the river should lead the pilots to the city [Music] but seconds later flight 254 is running out of fuel the pilot suddenly realized they can't make it to Belen plus two we need to do a controlled distance they'll have to make a forced Landing in the dense Amazon rainforest we just lost an engine hang on I'm going to push her down there goes the other one [Music] the inevitable impact is just seconds away just need to bring us down nice and slow thank you [Music] foreign [Music] of the 54 passengers and crew six die on impact many are badly hurt including first officer zelay [Music] the captain tends to the wounded while they wait to be rescued but no one in the outside world knows where the plane has gone down investigators conduct an aerial search around Bell M for varic flight 254. but there's no sign of the missing aircraft you get anxious to find the plane quickly because people have a better chance of survival during the first 48 hours after that survivors are more likely to die after two nights in the jungle a small group sets off to find help [Music] hours later they stumble on a farmhouse [Music] it's sort of a relief to realize the scenario is not as tragic and there's an urgent desire to get to the location and start to work what do you say they are the crash site is nowhere near bellem it came down right the wreckage of flight 254 is lying in the Amazon jungle nearly 700 miles away how on Earth did they get way over there I wonder we couldn't spot the beacon it's nowhere near the destination within hours Brazilian military reached the remote crash site of varic 254 they find 43 survivors five people have died waiting for Rescue and another dies soon after [Music] shortly after the rescue efforts there's a major breakthrough the discovery of the plane's two flight recorders investigators hope they will reveal why flight 254 was so badly off course we were relying on the two flight data recorders both Pilots were alive so we thought we were certain to come to a conclusion [Music] but when investigators review the flight data it paints a confusing picture instead of flying North to belam the plane took off West and flew in the wrong direction the entire flight this became a central focus of the investigation to know why the aircraft was so far off course investigators wonder if the crew were given the wrong navigation details thankfully flight 254's flight plan from the airline is among the documents recovered from the cockpit oh thanks let's see what this will tell us I think I know what they did wrong their computer Flight Plan system has four digits this is very very unusual as I almost always I have only three the numbers zero two seven zero was intended to mean 27.0 degrees when we noticed that it gave us the idea that instead of entering zero two seven which was the heading to bellam he had entered two seven zero the captain read it as two seven zero degrees or Due West so instead of flying Northeast they went West instead coin two seven zero he entered the wrong heading flying for more than three hours in the wrong direction investigators suspects the aircraft ran out of fuel forcing the crew to make a crash landing in the Amazon [Music] to confirm their suspicions they call in Captain Garces to tell his side of the story I'll try to help you under intense questioning he admits he misread the flight plan causing the aircraft to fly hundreds of miles off course look it was an honest mistake company records show the airline began printing their flight plans in a new way while the captain was on vacation it's easy to see how you get confused from that moment on the cause or the basic framework of the accident was determined but the first officer was also required to enter the heading from the flight plan why didn't he catch the captain's mistake Aviation psychologist Kathy Mosher provides Insight the co-pilot probably after many experiences with captains who had always done it right and never had to double check just entered where the captain had put in and assumed that it was the right thing so in this case your Safeguard is gone because a co-pilot is not cross-checking [Music] the original navigation mistake was that of the captain what is disheartening here is that both Pilots went along with it flight 254 was flying in the wrong direction from the moment it took off instead of asking for help the captain tried to get back on course using a local radio signal he thought he found a station in belem but instead picked up a signal in the opposite direction taking them further away from their destination his pride prevented him from saying to his colleague help me I'm in trouble that would have been a better approach while scanning their radar the crew thought they spotted the Amazon river which would take them back to belem but the river they saw was the shingu more than 600 miles Southwest of belem how can they be so confused for so long I think we're close [Music] investigators conclude the crew was in the grip of what's known as confirmation bias the tendency to favor information that confirms something we already believe when I saw the river I was sure I was sure we were close to Berlin just goes to show you anybody who can fall into decision traps and even experts have to always be on guard the accident report faults both Pilots for the actions that caused the plane with 54 people on board to run out of fuel and crash in the jungle after the crash of varic 254 the airline changes their flight plans so the decimal place is clearly marked they also improve pilot training Brazil's national radar system is modernized and expanded to cover the entire country making it less likely that a plane would go missing fuel management and flight is the responsibility of the pilots in the cockpit but you can have those same human errors on the ground the big Common Thread between these three accidents is the human Factory it is the responsibility to have not only a knowledge of what you're doing but a fundamental understanding so that you can execute properly [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Wonder

Views: 25,229

Keywords: I shouldn't be alive, Wonder, air crash investigation, air traffic control, aircraft maintenance issues, aviation incidents, aviation tragedies, crash documentaries, documentary series online, flight disasters, flight planning errors, flight simulations, fuel monitoring systems, fuel trouble, human factors in accidents, mayday parade, pilot errors, safety improvements, safety regulations, survival stories, tragic events

Id: gEDr3Kuqn6E

Length: 43min 11sec (2591 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 20 2023