The Insane Moment That A Flight BOUNCED Off Water | Air Maroc 439

the rules and regulations of aviation are there to make flying as safe as possible and for the vast majority of the time it is air travel is by far the safest mode of transport but what if the pilots were to simply ignore the rules safety record would mean nothing and in the case of air marrow express 439 this is clear where the disregard for even the most basic safe practices is astounding royal air marrock is the national carrier of morocco it operates a fleet of 50 aircraft to over 100 destinations along with one of its subsidiaries airmarrock express which flies atr-72s on regional routes most of which are short hops between morocco's smaller airports and air marrock's main hubs on the 9th of july 2018 an unnamed crew signs on to operate four flights starting at their base in casablanca flying out to alhakima and tangier before returning home on the reverse legs the captain is a 61 year old veteran he has 13 000 flight hours and has just recently switched on to the atr after operating the boeing 737 the first officer is less experienced with 1 000 flight hours while occupying the jump seat is a company new hire they are observing the crew to lend the standard operating procedures of air marrock what they will see later though will be anything but standard [Music] the weather at casablanca was fairly clear but there is fog hanging around our hakima normally this would mean the pilots would plan to conduct an instrument approach to the runway and if they didn't get visual by the minimum descent altitude would consider diverting however we will soon see on this flight that the captain has no plans to divert the first of some peculiar events begins as a terrain fault caution light illuminates in the cruise the illumination of a terrain fault is almost a non-issue at this stage of the flight it has probably occurred due to a degradation of the gps signal to the enhanced ground proximity warning system with the flight cruising at 16 000 feet there is no danger of it hitting terrain anyway and the fault rectifies itself before the plane commences descent this occurrence though will play a critical role in the curious decision making of the pilots later in the day it's only a few minutes later that the pilots commence their approach into aohakima it is called a non-precision r nav approach where the aircraft tracks along gps waypoints to the runway they are only allowed to descend to 1030 feet if they don't see the runway but the captain has other ideas as the atr approaches the minimum descent altitude instead of leveling off the captain continues the descent to be clear one of the fundamentals of instrument flying in cloud is to absolutely never dissemble a your mda but the captain does so without a care in the world at a rate of one thousand feet per minute five hundred four 400. it isn't until just 60 feet above sea level when the egpws warns the captain that he is literally about to crash that he pitches up and adds power descending as low as 45 feet before hanging at around 100 feet until he visually acquires the runway and lands as though it is all in a day's work it is difficult to explain just how unsafe and how irrational this approach was from the captain but the worst is still yet to come instead of filing safety reports on what was several rules he had just broken the captain and his crew continue about their day flying the next short leg to tangier without a vent it is now time though to return to the fogged inn alhakima and with the low overcast cloud still hanging around the crew may have to perform another special feat this time it will be the first officer flying the captain briefs him on the ground okay if the runway is not in sight at the mda we will descend until a height of 400 feet which will then be maintained until the runway is in view the runway is still not in sight at 2 miles from the vor we will stop the approach and make a go around for this flight the pilots are planning for the vor approach this is similar to the yarnab which they flew previously but it works off a ground-based aid instead of gps the minimum descent altitude is lower at 760 feet however the captain is again going to disregard this he plans to descend to 400 feet at the very least this time he is planning to go around if the runway is not inside at 2 miles what he will come up with during the actual approach though is anyone's guess as the crew prepare for departure the first officer pipes up with a suggestion the gpws was untimely during the first flight it was perhaps we could disable it yes then we can avoid those alarms during descent let's get out the ddm the captain controls the dispatch deviation manual more commonly known as the minimum equipment list the first officer has raised the idea that they should turn off the egpws again it is difficult to explain just how inappropriate this decision is the minimum equipment list is meant to be used when a system is faulty it allows an aircraft to fly with minor defects in a way which won't compromise safety but the crew is simply choosing to turn off the ground proximity warning system it is not faulty they just don't want it to annoy them when they fly dangerously close to terrain maybe their minds are thinking back to the terrain fault message earlier in the day but there are simply no grounds to emil the entire system due to the occurrence of a single fault so air marroq express 439 takes off from tangier for alhakima with 54 passengers and four crew it climbs to 13 000 feet for what will just be six minutes in the cruise there is no doubt there is a steep authority gradient between the captain and fo and this can be seen in the few excerpts from the cockpit voice recorder which are provided in the accident report descend to flight level zero six zero request the vor approach for runway one seven royal air mark four three nine okay so you are flying this approach yes sir we will fly directly onto the final approach track yes you fly i will take care of monitoring the speed and the water right soon after flight 439 is descending towards alhajima as they pass 5000 feet the captain begins to put his bold plan into action okay approach checklist is complete i'm going to deactivate the gpws okay you'll need more flap to increase descent start reducing speed royal air marook 439 wind calm visibility 4 000 in mist overcast at 600 temperature 23 dew point 23 qnh 1016 400 feet set the crew said they're heading for the runway and before they know it are speeding down the approach their speed at the final approach fix is 80 knots higher than normal nevertheless they continue as planned and the first officer requests for the landing gear down royal air morocco 439 fully established roger clear to land runway 17. landing gear down okay go go to the limit there at a thousand feet we see the ground the captain urges the first officer to increase descent rate and he gradually increases it to 1800 feet per minute excessively high for the final portion of an approach as the autopilot captures the selected altitude of 400 feet the runway is still not inside 500 feet we see the ground we continue to 300 400. the captain sets the autopilot back to vertical speed mode and selects 1000 feet per minute with the aircraft at just 400 feet he seems blind to how extraordinarily unsafe what he's doing is we keep going now keep going go go we keep going 100 this is not normal no ticket manual oh yeah this is fine the first officer has disconnected the autopilot and is pulling back on the stick but the captain pushes the nose down overpowering his colleague moments later they strike the water oh they hit twice in quick succession the first with an impact force of 3.2 g's and the second at 3.9 the captain releases his pitch down pressure and the first officer is able to climb away both probably in absolute disbelief that they and their 54 passengers are still alive royal airmark 439 in the go around request diversion to nader royal air marook 439 roger state reason for go around ah we had a bird strike 439 the captain somehow thinks he can use the excuse of a bird strike to explain the damage to the aircraft but when it arrives in nador it is obvious that such severe damage could not be caused by birds there is serious damage to the lower fuselage and main landing gear while the nose gear is also badly damaged thankfully though all 58 occupants of the atr-72 are uninjured after the incident while airmarrock did make several changes to address the deliberate disabling of the gpws as well as introduce new stable approach training there really is not much else to take away from this incident the pilots deliberately violated the rules of aviation which are there to keep themselves and their passengers safe while airlines do have monitoring programs to address the issue of pilots with unsafe attitudes the program at air marrock must have been inadequate because clearly these two pilots slipped through the cracks [Music] you

Channel: 3 Greens

Views: 313,169

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Id: eSWwcXipcjQ

Length: 12min 18sec (738 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 02 2021