The Out Of Practice Pilot Who Almost Flew A Jumbo Jet Into A Mountain | United Airlines Flight 863

this is the story of united airlines flight 863 on the 28th of june 1998 the united airlines boeing 747-400 was flying from san francisco international airport to sydney international airport with 307 people on board due to the long flight ahead of it the 747 was very heavy on that day it would be the first officer who would be piloting the plane a bit past 10 30 pm local time the 747 lined up with runway 2 8 right the night was a bit foggy but visibility was good until the pilot saw no reason to cancel the takeoff the pilots advanced the throttles and the 747 was going down the runway just picking up speed soon the first officer pulled back on the yoke taking the jumbo jet into the sky as flight 863 entered a fog bank at the end of the runway the pilots felt the plane rumble as a loud pump rocked the airplane at first they thought that a tire had exploded but as they retracted the gear the exhaust temperatures on engine number three started rising they were having a compressor stall on engine number three now that sucks but it isn't a massive emergency the captain got on the radio and said united 863 heavy we've lost an engine we'll be proceeding out the 295 and returning to the airport as the seconds take by the vibrations increased and the pilots worked on shutting engine number 3 down as they did that the vibrations went down and the exhaust temperatures on engine number three were down the cockpit had four pilots and so the non-flying pilots handled the checklist and shut the engine down the captain turned his attention back to the first officer who was flying the plane and as he did that the stick shakers came on the stick shakers were an indication that the 747 was very close to a stall in simple terms if they did not do something the 747 would just fall out of the sky but they shouldn't be in this position in the first place the 747 could very easily climb out with just three engines this made no sense whatsoever all the other pilots in the cockpit were asking the first officer to watch his speed as the 747 was dangerously slow but now they had a new problem the terrain warning came on the jet was headed right for the san bruno mountain which rose to an elevation of 1300 feet somehow the 747 had drifted to the right of the prescribed path and was now headed right for a mountain the jet was so low that it set off car alarms and sent people running for cover seeing that the ground was coming up fast the first officer pulled back on the yoke in an attempt to climb but this just put the plane in an even more precarious position the captain immediately took over from the first officer he had a tough job ahead of him he needed to avert a stall the best way to do that would be to drop the nose so that the plane could pick up some speed but doing that would send the jet right into the mountain in the tower the plane was so low the controllers could no longer see the plane on radar but within 15 seconds the plane was back on their scope the controller said is united 863 still oh there he is he scared me we lost radar i didn't want to give you another airplane if we had a problem end quote the captain carefully put the plane into a climb trying not to stall the plane out the plane cleared the mountain by the smallest of margins some reports say that the jumbo jet missed the peak by about 100 feet once the jumbo jet was clear the mountain the captain took it up to 5000 feet and the controllers gave the crew vectors to dump their fuel the jumbo jet was fueled up for a 14 hour flight and so it was too heavy to land right away over the next 30 minutes the pilots dumped about 187 000 pounds or 84 tons of fuel after the plane had shed quite a bit of weight the controllers cleared flight 863 for an ils approach onto runway 2-8 right after a while the 747 made an overweight but safe landing on runway 28 right i suspect that none of the 288 passengers even knew how close they came to disaster the root cause for this near-miss is really simple engine number three the inboard engine on the right hand side failed this caused a thrust asymmetry that caused the 747 to turn to the left as it took off from san francisco this is because you have more thrust on the left hand side rather than the right hand side but that simple explanation still leaves a lot of questions pilots are perfectly able to counter the yawing motion caused by thrust asymmetry by using the rudder why wasn't this crew able to do that well as it turned out that too had a very simple explanation the first officer who is flying did not use the rudder he used the ailerons the rudder is the bit at the end of the vertical stabilizer it deflects from side to side and that helps pilots counter things like asymmetric thrust and a significant crosswind component the ailerons on the other hand help the plane roll so when the first officer used the ailerons to command a turn to the left to cancel out the effect of the failed engine he was just rolling the plane to the left it wasn't enough to stop the yaw to the right and that meant that the 747 slowly started to drift away from the correct path towards the san bruno mountain using the ailerons also had another side effect that made it hard for the pilots to avoid the mountain you see when you use the ailerons to turn to the left the spoilers on the left wing deploy just a bit this increases drag on the left wing and that helps the plane turn to the left but in this case less lift was the last thing that these pilots needed as they were already on the edge of stalling the spoilers on the left wing took away some of the precious little lift that they had now it would be super easy to blame this on the pilot and don't get me wrong the pilot does share some blame for this but understanding why the pilot did not use the rudder is key to preventing something like this from happening in the future in the case of the first officer he was just out of practice this pilot had only made one takeoff and one landing in a real airplane in the past one year this meant that when the pilot did pilot the plane out of san francisco that day he was doing it for the first time in about a year that's not a knock on the pilot himself but rather a consequence of the type of routes that he flew for example look at the san francisco sydney leg that they were flying that night that's an almost 15 hour flight but for all those flight hours you only get one takeoff and one landing moreover since long-haul flights like these have a second relief crew the few takeoffs and landings that you do get are split between a larger pool of pilots meaning that each pilot gets fewer opportunities to practice their takeoff and landing skills now keep in mind these pilots had to perform a certain number of landings and takeoffs in a simulator to keep their skills sharp but sometimes the simulator just isn't enough in response to this united reconstructed this flight in a simulator and showed it to its 9 500 pilots they also increased the frequency of its refresher training for 747-400 crews from once a year to twice a year but most importantly in an effort to make sure that its pilots were not caught off guard united mandated that pilots make at least three takeoffs and three landings in a 90-day period with one of them being in an actual aircraft while researching this video i came across several articles that said that accidents like these are because younger pilots don't learn to fly light aircraft such as tail draggers at any point in their careers certain people say that flying such light aircraft can help pilots with their stick and rudder skills they also say that flying such light aircraft is a more teachable experience as it is a more active form of piloting and can help pilots be less rudder shy do you think that is the case though do you think that learning to fly a light aircraft can help you fly a jumbo jet better let me know your thoughts in the comments below also another thing that i left out before is the fact that san bruno actually had radio towers on its peak so the clearance between the tower and the plane might have been even less than 100 feet as reported what is really surprising about this incident is that there isn't an official ntsb accident report about this the main source of this article was a self-declaration by the first officer of flight 863 does anyone know why there wasn't a full-scale investigation of this near-miss i'd love to know if you know thank you for watching this episode of meteor crash investigation if you want to watch another video how about africa airlines flight 771 link on your screen and in the description if you do 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: 159,912

Keywords: air crash investigation, why planes crash, nat geo, air crash confidential, 100 feet from a mountain in san francisco, boeing, boeing 747, boeing 747 near crash, sanfrancisco international airport, united airlines, united airlines crash, aviation safety, documentary, aviation documentary, US aviation, near miss, mentour pilot, the flight channel, mayday, plane documentary, plane safety, avgeek, plane crash, plane misses other plane, united near crash, united airlines near miss

Id: 0tWsm9amA1Q

Length: 10min 11sec (611 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 08 2022