This Wendover Productions video was made possible
by Hover. Get your unique domain and email from Hover
by going to Hover.com/Wendover and using the code wendover at checkout. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I
let twins fly long-haul over-water routes.” Those were the words of Lynn Helms—administrator
of the Federal Aviation Administration during the Reagan administration. At the time, no commercial american airplane
with two engines was allowed to fly anywhere farther than 60 minutes from a diversion airport. The belief was that, if one engine failed,
the other could only safely fly the plane for about an hour, but this rule severely
limited what smaller planes could do. On North Atlantic routes like New York to
London, twin-engine planes could only fly in these areas but a direct route looked like
this. The options were to either fly a twin-engine
plane on an inefficient routing or fly a inefficient three or four engine plane. There was no place for long-and-skinny routes
between smaller cities using smaller planes since airline couldn’t legally fly those
smaller planes. This one simple rule changed the very way
airplanes were built. Now, in the 60’s, this 60 minute regulation
only applied to planes with two engines. Of course aircraft manufacturers could build
quad-engine jets but those had to be huge for airlines to make their money’s worth
with their high fuel consumption. The 747’s of the time could carry more than
400 passengers. They could therefore only fly on super high-demand
routes like New York to London to have any hope of being full. In order to start flying more convenient non-stop
routes from smaller markets, planes had to get smaller while still being legally allowed
to hop the pond. That’s where trijets came into play. With three engines, these planes weren’t
subject to the same 60-minute regulation as twinjets. They could easily fly any transatlantic route. That’s why in the 70s or 80s, the long-haul
jets you’d see at airpots were, for the most part, either 747’s or trijets like
the DC-10. This 60-minute regulation was inconvenient
for Atlantic Crossings, but in the Pacific it actually changed how Hawaii developed. There are zero diversion airports between
California and Hawaii so the route isn’t even close to covered under the 60-minute
rule. As a result, airlines could only fly huge
planes between the mainland and Hawaii which meant that planes could pretty much only fly
to Honolulu. There was virtually no service between the
other islands and the mainland which meant the other islands were severely isolated. That’s part of the reason why the tourism
industry only picked up on the other islands in recent decades. Luckily, change was coming. The 60 minute rule originated from the days
of piston driven propeller aircraft. With these, it was far more common for engines
to just stop working mid-flight. That’s why there were contingency engines. The regulations just didn’t adapt to the
increased reliability of jet engines. Statistically, for every failure of a jet
engine, there are 117 piston engine failures. Once the jet age rolled in, engine failure
just wasn’t as much of a concern, so, in 1985, the FAA begrudgingly granted permission
to Trans World Airlines to fly their twin-engined 767 direct between Boston and Paris—a route
taking it up to 120 minutes away from diversion airports. This was the first example of a brand new
FAA certification called ETOPS—“Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards,”
or more colloquially, “engines turn or passengers swim.” Before an airline can fly a long over-water
route they have to buy a plane with what’s known as an ETOPS type rating. Basically that means that the plane was built
with adequate redundancies, communications systems, and fire suppression systems to fly
safely if one engine fails. For example, the 767—the first plane to
get an ETOPS certification—has a type rating of 180 minutes meaning it can fly anywhere
as long as its 180 minutes from a diversion airport. But just because a plane has a type rating
doesn’t mean an airline can fly it ETOPS. They have to have a special maintenance plan,
a special flight crew, special cabin crew, special dispatchers, special fuel quantities,
and special passenger recovery plans since, just because there’s a runway doesn’t
mean that a plane can safely divert since the emergency doesn’t end once the plane
lands. Cold Bay, Alaska, for example, is a perfect
diversion airport for routes between Asia and North America. It only has six commercial flights per week
nowadays but as a former Air Force Base it has an enormous runway. The only issue is that the town of Cold Bay
has a population of 108—its tiny—so any diversions automatically double or triple
the amount of people in the small town. There certainly aren’t enough hotel rooms
or restaurants to house and feed stranded passengers so, if airlines plan to use Cold
Bay as a diversion airport, they need to make a plan for how to house, feed, and recover
passengers within 48 hours of landing. Last year an American Airlines 787 was flying
from Shanghai to Chicago when its right engine had an issue halfway across the Pacific Ocean. The plane quickly took a left turn diverting
to Cold Bay. Even before landing the plan was implemented
as flight attendants served a second meal service early. Just a few hours after safely landing in Cold
Bay, American’s mechanics took off from Seattle bound for Cold Bay to start fixing
the plane while Alaska Airlines, American’s partner, sent a 737 from Anchorage to pick
up the stranded passengers. Meanwhile, flight attendants served the third
set of meals they had stocked while waiting on the ground and the coast guard opened their
heated hanger to passengers. Just 10 hours after the emergency landing,
passengers were on their way to Anchorage where they spent the night before taking an
American 757 to Chicago. That was a perfect example of how the passenger
recovery plan worked. The quick response and defined plan helped
the airline get passengers out safely and quickly. Now, because of the solid engine reliability,
numerous redundancies, and well-designed passenger recovery plans, airlines and airplanes can
now receive insane ETOPS certifications. The 787 Dreamliner, the plane that diverted
to Cold Bay, has a type rating of 330 minutes. That means it can fly up to 5.5 hours away
from a diversion airport. Certain routes over long-ocean stretches in
the southern hemisphere were theoretically possible in the past with four engine planes
but were economically impossible since airlines could never fill the large planes on the low-demand
city pairs like Melbourne to Santiago. With the ETOPS 330 certification, LATAM Airlines
can fly their small 787 economically on this relatively low-demand route across the South
Pacific. The Airbus a350 is even rated for ETOPS 370—it
can fly 6 hours and 10 minutes away from diversion airports. This plane can therefore fly everywhere on
earth except directly over the South Pole. Because of this simple rule change, three
and four engine planes are largely a relic of the past. Boeing and Airbus’ largest jets are both
their only four engine planes in production—the 747 and a380. Nearly all North Atlantic traffic today is
on twin-engined planes as smaller and smaller planes get ETOPS certifications. Air Canada, for example, flies their tiny
120 passenger a319 with ETOPS certification daily between St Johns Airport and London
Heathrow. British Airways even sends the even smaller
a318 between New York and London City Airport. These routes would have been unimaginable
30 years ago but the reliability of the airplanes of today mean we need not fear flying small
planes over big oceans. This video was made possible by Hover. I talked last time about how Hover is a fantastic
way to get a unique domain just like my new Wendover.Productions domain but I want to
stress this time how professional a custom email address is. For $5 for the entire year, I set up an email
ending in @wendover.productions to forward to my existing business email. Not only is this email much more memorable,
it also oozes professionalism. Surely that’s worth the $5 that you’d
otherwise spend on 1/160th of an ETOPS flight to London, right? Anyways, you can get a custom domain and email
from Hover for 10% off, while simultaneously supporting Wendover Productions by going to
hover.com/Wendover and using the code “Wendover”
Sorta related to the passenger recovery thing. On 9/11, the American airspace closed and 38 planes had to land in a tiny town in Newfoundland, Canada called Gander. The towns population doubled overnight and all ~9000 passengers had to stay there for 5 days. Because of this, Gander now has a piece of the World Trade Center,
the only place outside of the USA that has one. There's also a musical about the whole thing called Come From Away that's really good.Edit: I was wrong about Gander being the only place outside of the USA with a piece of the World Trade Center, it's not.
Engines
Turn
Or
Passengers
Swim
At 6:55 "this plane can fly anywhere on earth except directly over the south pole"
I KNEW IT!! IT'S FLAT ISN'T IT!!
Man, I sure do love me some aviation related videos.
Is the regulation the same for non-US based airlines? The FAA does not regulate the world, no?
I might have missed this detail in the video, but how exactly do planes get the ETOPS license? What has changed that results in fewer potential engine failures? The general answer is obviously technology, but it would be nice to understand how the airplanes of today are so much more reliable in terms of engine reliability than older planes. The video does touch on how jet engines are significantly less likely to fail than piston engines, but why is that? And did ETOPS came to be because a shift in the perception of the safety of jet engines vs. piston engines, or because jet engines were theoretically constructed to be more durable and reliable than piston engines?
About 2 years ago, this went wrong with American: http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/09/11/oops-american-accidentally-flies-wrong-plane-to-hawaii/
They flew a non-ETOPs plane to Hawaii and had to fly it back empty.
Always love me a Wendover Production
Pretty sure that the 4x engined Airbus A340 was created to fill the ETOPS void back in the 90s, but soon thereafter the 777 and A330 were given high ETOPS ratings and the niche for the A340 was closed.