The Unsettling History of the DC-10 (National Airlines Flight 27) - DISASTER BREAKDOWN

on November 3rd 1973 catastrophe would strike a  passenger plane whilst it was cruising at high   altitude over New Mexico the case of National  Airlines flight 27 exposed just how delicate   an airplane can be one airplane that was brand  new in state of the art at the time this would   be the first time this plane entered the  news headlines for all the wrong reasons   first off let's talk a little bit about this  plane you don't see it all too often today   this is the McDonald Douglas DC-10 for long time  viewers of the channel or for those with knowledge   of aviation history you'll know that the DC-10  has a certain negative reputation attached to   it and whether or not that is warranted is down  to you and we'll touch upon that in just a moment   but before we get ahead of ourselves what was  this plane really the DC-10 was one of the   first wide body airliners during the 1960s plane  manufacturers wanted to build larger planes there   was demand for it considering the popularity of  air travel only ever continued to grow following   the end of World War II picking up on the lessons  learned from previously manufactured aircraft the   big players in the aviation Market each developed  one of these larger planes sometimes to the   requirement of certain airlines the first wide  body plane was the Boeing 747 launching in 1968.   for some carriers like American Airlines for  example they admired the range capabilities   of the 747 but thought the plane was too big as  it turned out etops restrictions were loosened   in the 1960s effectively creating a new market for  large tri-jet planes McDonald Douglas and Lockheed   went with the three engine design resulting in  the slightly smaller DC-10 and l-1011 launching   in 1971 and the 1972 respectively so the DC-10 was  actually very popular for its time the iconic tail   mounted third engine or I guess engine number two  became synonymous with that late 20th Century air   travel era Pilots of the plane loved the machine  you'll often hear former Pilots of the DC-10   today talk favorably about the aircraft however  the public and media perception of the DC-10 as   you may already know remained rather sour this is  attributed to a number of high-profile accidents   involving the plane most notably in its early  days there was a known issue with the plane's   cargo door design which led to multiple incidents  one of which killed over 300 people becoming the   deadliest air disaster to have ever occurred  at that time and even today Still Remains one   of the worst air disasters to have ever occurred  most accidents involving the DC-10 though didn't   really stem from the plane itself external factors  everything from poor maintenance to Pilot error   terrorist attacks hijacking or not informing the  pilot of a waypoint change to name a few have all   been leading causes in many of the disasters  surrounding this plane's history as time went   on it would turn out that the DC-10 was actually  a very reliable plane however when you look into   the history of the DC-10 you'll soon find that  the term uncontained engine failure rears itself   at multiple points throughout the plane's history  an uncontained engine failure basically refers to   the failure of an engine where fragments of the  internals are for some reason ejected from that   engine from looking into the history of this plane  it would appear that fatal uncontained engine   failure events occurred with the DC-10 on two  occasions today we'll be focusing on the first of   these accidents and it would actually be the first  fatal incident involving the DC-10 and this brings   us to Florida in 1973. one airline that flew the  DC-10 right from the beginning was a florida-based   operator known as National Airlines National was a  cross-country carrier they flew big planes across   the United States often Coast to Coast making  stopovers along the way flight 27 was one of   those Miami to San Francisco with stopovers in New  Orleans Houston and Las Vegas on November 3rd 1973   the New Orleans and Houston Lakes are flight  27 were performed without issue at 2 40 in the   afternoon that day the DC-10 continued its Journey  Westward carrying 128 passengers and crew on board   a flight to Las Vegas was just under three  hours the DC-10 requires three Pilots to fly   the captain of flight 27 was a man by the name of  William Brooke aged 54. he was a veteran pilot at   the airline having joined the company all the  way back in 1946. though he had a long career   at the airline at that point he like many Pilots  at the time was still somewhat new to the DC-10   his first officer 33 year old Edward Saunders was  the youngest member of the flight crew sat in the   flight engineer's position was the eldest  of the three men 55 year old golden Hanks   he was the most experienced on the new DC-10  with over 1200 hours logged on the type by   all accounts this was a highly experienced  crew as the plane crossed the state border   into New Mexico the flight appeared to be running  smoothly for now let's head outside of the plane   the DC-10 as you already know has three engines  engine number three is found on the right wing   the engine fitted onto this particular DC-10 had  some known issues in 1972 a compressor discharge   pressure leak was noticed on the engine which was  reported to have been fixed it was again inspected   some time later and returned to the manufacturer  due to quote deterioration of performance now   may be a good time to mention that 15 different  reports came in from Pilots regarding this engine   it would appear that the bolts securing the  forward housing of the engine were beginning to   fail so the engine was removed from the wing  for repairs but even despite this problems   persisted and Pilots complained a further 26  times investigators would later discover the   issue on other dc-10s and a fix for this would  later become mandatory for DC-10 operators   just before 4 40 in the afternoon the conversation  on the flight deck had changed and belittled that   the pilots know that the next 20 minutes of their  lives would take a very unexpected turn you see   the DC-10 was equipped with a newer generation of  the auto throttle which had already been around in   varying forms for some time it does exactly what  you think it does the auto throttle automatically   governs the engine power to maintain a desired  airspeed the conversation between the three Pilots   was about how the auto throttle sourced the engine  information to carry out its function the pilots   were curious about this piece of technology  and wanted to see if the plane sourced its   engine readings for the auto throttle from the N1  indication so what is N1 well for that we're going   to need to go inside the engine itself prepare  for one of those disaster breakdown tangents   the early dc-10s were fitted with General Electric  CF6 engines this was a model of engine found on   other planes of the day including the Airbus a300  for example this is a high bypass turbofan engine   the fan sucks in that air a large portion  of that air is the term High bypass suggests   actually just goes through the engine we're  not really interested in that today what we're   interested in is the compressor to keep it simple  a compressor consists of a turning shaft made up   of a number of these bonds and Blades the engine  compressors have to deal with a massive amount   of air coming into the engine the compressor's  job is to well compress that mass of air into   a much smaller volume the supply of air must be  constant for the engines to work if air intake   is cut the compressors stall and that is how  an engine failure could occur for example on   a large passenger plane you can easily find over  a dozen of these compressor stages all stacked   up in a line but of course this depends on the  design from the engine manufacturer the purpose   of the compression process is to extract the most  energy from the air during the combustion stage   so now to get even deeper into understanding  your plane engines let's go a bit further   there are two phases of compression a forward  low pressure compressor and a rear high pressure   compressor both sets of compressors are connected  to turbines at the back of the engine the speed   at which these spools are moving at is pretty  pertinent information for a pilot what we need to   know for the sake of this video is that the value  related to the speed of the low pressure spools   is often referred to in aviation as simply N1 and  two and even and three are in relation to the high   pressure spools N1 is usually calibrated so that  it acts as a percentage parameter for total engine   power so the N1 reading is a very useful piece  of information for a pilot all of this will make   a bit more sense in the context of national flight  27 in just a moment so let's go back to the flight   as previously mentioned the conversation between  the three Pilots was about how the auto throttle   worked on the DC-10 there are two ways the auto  throttle worked on the plane one setting works   with the plane's AirSpeed the other with the  engines and one that we've already discussed   the pilots were curious to run a little experiment  to not only see whether the plane grabs the engine   information for the auto throttle from the N1  gauge or the N1 tachometer that's the device   that actually measures the engine speed but they  were also testing to see if the auto throttle will   continue to work in its AirSpeed mode if the  N1 signal was cut to do this the pilots went   outside of standard procedures the circuit  breakers relating to the N1 tachometers were   pulled So in theory that information could not be  accessed by the plane when those relevant circuit   breakers were pulled there was no reported change  in airspeed the pilots went further and changed   the airspeed setting on the autopilot panel  reducing the airspeed by five knots the pilots   watched as the throttles [ __ ] themselves the  auto throttle was still in control even whilst   the signal to the N1 tachometers was pulled this  small experiment was brief over the span of just   a couple of minutes the captain was satisfied with  the result of the experiment and the N1 to cometor   circuit breakers were reconnected the captain  disconnected the auto throttle to take over manual   thrust control for a brief moment the pilots  probably thought that they were going to continue   their flight to Las Vegas as normal the previously  mentioned number three engine had different plans   we need to make something rather clear here it  cannot be proven conclusively that there is a link   between the Pilot's experiment and what happened  to this number three engine the investigation   stopped short of making that kind of connection it  may be possible that this was merely coincidental   instead this accident was attributed  to a design flaw with the engine itself   following the disconnecting of the Yoto throttle  and reconnecting of the N1 tachometers the   blades of this engine accelerated and for a  brief moment resonating frequencies between   the blades and the engine housing caused enough  vibration for the blades to come in significant   contact with the housing releasing and to  quote the FAA on this catastrophic energy   What followed was a complete disintegration of  the number three engine internals the engine then   exploded fragments of the engine Inlet band casing  and the fan blades themselves penetrated the cabin   and damaged numerous areas of the plane damage  was done to the right wing the engine housing of   the other two engines yes the one all the way at  the back of the plane in the tail too the lower   fuselage was damaged and the passenger window of  seat 17h on the right side of the plane had become   dislodged despite the Damage Done to the plane the  pilots luckily could still control it however the   electrical wiring connecting the number three  engine generator to the rest of the plane had   become severed resulting in a temporary electrical  outage on board the opening of the fuselage at   multiple points led to Rapid decompression of the  aircraft in a single moment in the afternoon at 39   000 feet fly 27 just experienced an uncontained  engine failure leading to decompression   the explosion of the engine Was Heard and felt  in the cockpit the plane swayed from side to side   immediately the pilots identified a decompression  and began a rapid emergency descent to a lower   altitude 8 000 feet to be specific at the  same time the pilots knew they needed to   get on the ground as soon as possible the  time was 4 45 when the pilots of flight 27   got in contact with controllers in Albuquerque  New Mexico and requested an emergency landing   specifically requesting runaway 2-6 at Albuquerque  the straighten approach from the East the airport   at Albuquerque began making their own preparations  and rolled out the emergency vehicles the pilots   for some time would have been unaware of what  was taking place in the cabin as it turned out   there was a passenger occupying seat 17h where  a fragment of engine had dislodged the nearby   window when the decompression occurred the energy  of the air inside the plane being forced outward   had actually taken this passenger with it seated  in this unfortunate airplane seat was a Texas Man   by the name of George Gardner from Beaumont he  was traveling to Singapore on a business trip   Gardner despite wearing his seatbelt was picked  up from his seat and partially ejected from the   plane through the opening in the fuselage nearby  quick thinking passengers stepped in and held onto   the man unfortunately the force is being exhorted  on this individual were too great and Mr Gardner   was fully ejected from the plane his remains  reportedly wouldn't be discovered for over   two years the pilots as previously mentioned  could control their plane and thankfully at   just before 5 PM they were able to land safely  in Albuquerque saving the lives of 127 people   though sadly one person did perish a further  24 passengers were treated for smoke inhalation   National Airlines flight 27 had actually become  the first fatal incident to involve the DC-10   the beginning of maybe you'd say a Macabre Trend  in the 1970s even though investigators could not   conclusively determine how the engine fan blades  failed in this accident enough was land to make   corrective measures to prevent future instance  though there were reported problems with the   number three engine on the National Airlines plane  the aircraft was reported to have been maintained   in accordance with regulations in the aftermath  it was made mandatory that DC-10 operators review   the plane's engines on all their DC-10 planes  further recommendations were made to evaluate   the effectiveness of then current passenger  oxygen supplies for the first nearly 20 years   of operation of dc-10s light 27 in 1973 was the  only major incident to involve an uncontained   engine failure and after two decades of operation  it would look as if there was no reason to suspect   that another pre-tel engine incident like this  would occur except as you might know already   16 years later disaster struck again on a  DC-10 and this time the pilots weren't so lucky   perhaps one of the most shocking accidents to  occur on American soil took place on July 19 1989.   a United Airlines DC-10 flight 232 suffered an  uncontained engine failure this time involving the   number two tail mounted engine when the failure  occurred and the engine exploded fragments of this   engine damaged critical flight controls and the  pilots of flight 232 were left with a plane they   could barely control the plane crashed at a small  airport in Iowa resulting in the deaths of 112   people United Airlines flight 232 will be subject  to its own disaster breakdown video in the future   we had actually planned to have made it already  but upon closer inspection it will be a much   bigger video than expected I should make it clear  that these two instants are not as related as you   may first think if you would like to learn more  about the United Airlines disaster I can recommend   a recent episode of the wild Odyssey problem  podcast which goes into detail about this tragedy   problems with the dc-10s engine didn't stop  with United Airlines in 1989. on July 25th   2000 a Continental Airlines DC-10 was involved in  a terrifying disaster in Paris a fragment of the   plane's engine broke away during takeoff that  piece of the airplane sat there on the runway   unbeknownst to anyone minutes later an Air France  Concorde ran over that fragment of a DC-10 engine   and you know what happened next another 113 people  were killed these days uncontained engine failures   have still occurred with other planes when these  instants do occur they are usually non-fatal   Pilots often train for scenarios like this and  it's thanks to all that we've learned that these   instants today usually end with a safe landing  to get back to the topic of our video today and   to finish up the flight 27 DC-10 was actually  repaired and IT re-entered service National   Airlines was eventually acquired by PanAm in 1980.  they then sold the dc-10s to American Airlines who   eventually retired to the Axton plane in 1999. it  was sold to FedEx who scrapped the plane for paths   the DC-10 as a whole is largely a plane  that is now confined to the history books   as of February 2023 just one DC-10 remains in  commercial operation today in South America   FedEx the largest operator of the plane in  recent years has now retired to the type hello everyone thank you so much for watching this  video this one actually took a bit longer than I   thought to make and it turned out to be a much  longer video than I thought as well but anyway   we all like longer videos and here we are if you  enjoyed it be sure to be subscribed as there is   always a new video every Saturday and let's just  say that I'm very much looking forward to sharing   next week's video with you it's a bit different  and I think you're going to really like it so   stay tuned for that anyway it is time for patreon  big thanks to my patrons for their amazing support   and contributions to the channel their names are  scrolling on the screen right now so if you do   see your name here a massive thanks to you so we  have four shout outs to do this week shout out   to Anthony for pledging early on last week thank  you so much for the support really appreciate it   and special thanks to killianw 68 flying unicorn  and quiz Master Jake Brown all those guys pledged   at the highest here this week I can't thank you  all enough I really appreciate it Legends if you   yourself would like to support the channel  further you can join the disaster breakdown   patreon from just one pound per month and the  link to that will be in the pinned comment below   all patrons get early access to all new content  two days before it goes out publicly on YouTube   anyway I think that's where we'll wrap things  up for this week thank you so much for watching   have a great weekend and I will see you next time  goodbye why why did I wave why did I wave there

Channel: Disaster Breakdown

Views: 315,626

Keywords: mcdonnell douglas dc-10, dc-10, national, airlines, national airlines, national airlines flight 27, mcdonnell douglas dc-10 takeoff, mcdonnell douglas dc-10 crash, mcdonnell douglas dc-10 documentary, disaster breakdown, plane crash documentary, plane crash scene, air crash investigation, dc-10 crash, seconds from disaster, american airlines flight 191, air disaster, airplane crash, american airlines, air crash, crash animation

Id: P24_2SPeTbE

Length: 20min 49sec (1249 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 04 2023