The INCREDIBLE Captain Who Broke The Rules And Saved 418 Lives | Olympic Airways 411

this is the incredible story  of olympic airways flight 4-1-1   on the 9th of august 1978 an olympic  airways boeing 747 was preparing to   depart helenikon airport in greece bound  for jfk international airport in new york   the plane had 398 passengers on board and about  20 crew members adding up to about 418 people   on this plane the 747 was absolutely huge and  olympic airlines was keen to tap the travel demand   between the us and greece with their 747s and  so this plane was mostly filled with americans   returning to the u.s from greece the jumbo jet  was piloted by captain syphis megadis and first   officer costas fucardos the 747 was fueled up with  about 150 tons of fuel for the flight to new york   just before 2 pm the 747 started its role down  the runway the plane picked up speed and soon   they were at the v1 speed the speed at which  they could no longer safely reject the takeoff   as the captain started to lift the nose of the  plane into the air a loud bang rocked the 747   captain megadis had no idea what had happened did  a tire blow did an engine explode whatever the   cause he did not have a choice they were going too  fast to stop in the runway that was remaining but   in the cabin cabin crew member lucia siachu got  an intercom message from a colleague at the back   engine number three or the inboard engine on the  right hand side had blown up the colleague said we   are screwed she replied with i know controllers  in the tower watched on in horror as they   watched the plane struggle to gain altitude the  shattered engine peppered the runway with parts   in the cockpit the captain was trying to coax  every ounce of performance from the stricken plane   but they had problems engine number two had  undergone some maintenance and so was only   producing 94 percent of power as opposed to the  110 percent that it was supposed to generate   making matters worse for the crew the  captain asked the flight engineer to   turn on the alcohol enrichment valve in the 1970s  planes had an alcohol fuel enrichment system to   improve performance but unfortunately the flight  engineer turned it off instead of turning it on   but the plane took off that was a miracle in  its own right captain megadis an ex-combat   pilot immediately commanded a retraction of the  landing gear this was against boeing's policy for   this situation you see right now the plane is in  a precarious situation it's low and slow and it   needs all the speed that it can get retracting  the gear now would mean that the landing gear   doors would open and then close meaning that  there would be a temporary increase in drag   and at that point any increase in drag would  be enough to send the plane crashing back down   his first officer complied his reasoning was  that he needed the speed in the long term he   had a hill in his flight path and there was  no way that he'd be able to clear the hill   with the landing gear slowing the plane down  he was relying on his decades of experience   and so he made the call the controllers  watched as the plane barely gained any altitude   once the gear was up the plane gained a bit of  altitude but would it be enough the 200 foot   tall panos hill was now barely a mile away  the captain didn't have a choice he pulled   the nose up as the airspeed that he had built up  so far bled away the jumbo jet cleared the hill   by nine feet talk about cutting it close but this  was far from over climbing to avoid the hill had   cost him the precious airspeed that he needed to  keep his plane in the air he now had to drop the   nose to speed up otherwise the jumbo jet would  just drop out of the sky the captain decided to   trade about 50 feet of altitude for about 6 knots  of airspeed it wasn't much but it would keep them   from stalling at this point the jet was so low  that it barely cleared the television antennas   in the district of calif in fact they were so low  that lucia siachu remembered seeing the shocked   expression of people in nearby buildings as the  jumbo jet flew by in the cockpit captain megadis   knew that they were done for he did not expect  anyone to survive what was about to come next   his main objective was to put the plane down in  a place that would minimize ground casualties   he knew he had to make it to mount aigalio across  the city as that would be the best place for the   747 to crash here's a translated quote from the  captain we were considered dead it was over in   the cabin the passengers were unaware of what was  unfolding and some thought that this was a planned   sightseeing tour and started taking pictures  so far the captain's skill the early retraction   of the gear and the ground effect had kept them  airborne but they were now headed for the mountain   and with the way things were at the time they  knew that they couldn't overfly it but their luck   changed flight engineer trebos had successfully  managed to optimize the three remaining engines   giving them some more power to work with in  addition to that a southwest sea breeze began   to blow bringing up the speed of the plane lastly  since the plane had departed the city the ground   was relatively cooler and by extension the air was  as well the colder air gave the plane more lift   so their airspeed began to creep up and so did  their altitude but the ground beneath them was   also rising captain megadis knew that even with  everything working in his favor he still wouldn't   have enough airspeed to clear the mountain but  they had just enough airspeed to bank away without   stalling he turned the plane out to sea and waited  as the airspeed picked up they climbed slowly when   they hit 300 feet the captain decided to retract  the flaps a bit as he now felt more confident in   his plane he then climbed to 1500 feet and started  dumping fuel to bring down their weight with the   plane much lighter the 747 was able to climb  safely and could make its way back to helinacon   international airport and against all odds  flight 411 landed back without a single injury   when everyone looked at the data from the  recorders they were quite shocked as captain   megadis had managed to keep this plane in the air  despite slowing down to 158 knots at some points   if you just looked at the data this plane should  have crashed and had the 747 gone down it would   have been the third worst air crash of all  time considering that they had 418 people   on board with the plane down safely they got to  work to determine what had almost brought this   jumbo jet down now since this video was based  on the wikipedia page and not the final report   there's not much technical information to go  around but the wikipedia page says that the   number three engine blew up because it overheated  you see on the ground when they were preparing to   take off they were prepping the plane while on the  ground the water injection for engine number three   was on but the flight engineer turned it off  thinking that he was turning it on according   to the wikipedia article this caused the  number three engine to overheat and explode   but in my opinion that's not quite the  full story but do correct me if i'm wrong   based on a bit of reading the 747 did have  water injection for engines at the time   but their primary purpose was performance and not  cooling you see the more stuff that you can throw   out of the back of an engine the more thrust  you can generate and adding water adds more   mass to the exhaust of the jet thus giving it more  thrust also with water injection you can add more   fuel to the mixture which allows the engine to  generate more power without overheating that's   kind of counter-intuitive water which normally  suppresses combustion now gives you more power   who would have thought so yeah leaving the water  injection off can have disastrous consequences   but in this case those consequences were  averted thanks to one man captain megadis   he could have stuck to boeing's checklist  and kept the gear extended but he did not   he had the foresight to think ahead and break  the rules in a way that saved everyone's lives   his feat of flying was so unbelievable  that he kept a copy of the flight data   recorder on his person because people did not  believe him when he told them what he had done   what's more impressive is that he only had  a few split seconds to make his decisions   take for example the case of  spantax airlines flight 583   it was an almost identical accident the captain  there made a similar gamble but it didn't pay   off this just goes to show you the pressure that  pilots are under when things go very very wrong   also netflix why isn't this a movie the story is  absolutely incredible and i would definitely watch   a movie on this you're paying to keep riverdale on  your platform i'm sure you can afford this netflix   come on make it happen also if you want to watch  an interview with the captain i'll link that in   the description it's a first-hand account of  what happened and i'm sure you'll love it what   do you think would have happened if the captain  had retracted the gear as per the procedures   do you think they would have made it let  me know your thoughts in the comments below   thank you for watching this incredible  episode of mini air crash investigation   if you like the videos that i make  do consider liking and subscribing   it will really help the channel grow i  will catch you guys next time stay safe

Channel: Mini Air Crash Investigation

Views: 4,012,180

Keywords: air crash investigation, air crash confidential, why planes crash, boeing, boeing 747, aviation safety, plane crash, olympic airways, 747 almost crash, olympic airways 747, this almost was the worlds third worst aircrash, athens airport crash, boeing crash, theflightchannel, mentour pilot, aviation documentary, aviation video, olympic airways crash, amazing story, near miss, 747 near miss, 747 crash, aviation crash, aviation, emergency landing, 747 emergency landing

Id: qaYp3jUiPzc

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 05 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Stratosphere91]

And the pilot flew another plane to new York the same evening. Badass

[u/iChaseGaming]

This would make for an amazing ACI episode

[u/iiiinthecomputer]

When you're keeping a 747 barely airborne using ground effect you know you're badass. Holy shit.

[u/You-get-the-ankles]

Why didn't the dump fuel earlier? Why did they wait so long?

[u/GrandpaRick100]

Reminds me of China Airlines 006 - saved the plane from a situation that the pilot caused

[u/canilogsi]

But did you hear about Tower Air flight 41?