This ALMOST Was Britain's Worst Air Crash | British Airways Flight 006

this is the story of speedward flight 6. if you know anything about Aviation is that London Heathrow is an absolutely massive Airport it's the busiest airport in Europe and it's bursting at the seams in terms of traffic this means that there's a ton of planes landing and taking off from Heathrow every single day at the time of writing Heathrow had 4654 departures in just one week that's absolutely massive for some context in the same time frame Dubai had 4006 departures this isn't anything New London has always been a busy airport on the 20th of April 2000 all of this was still true Heathrow was bustling with activity on that day Runway 09 right was being used for takeoffs and Runway zero nine left was being used for Landings supervising the departures was a training controller who was under the supervision of a head controller at about 1 55 PM air departures got a call from London area terminal control center they wanted to know if speedbird 6 a Boeing 747 could have a special clearance to land on Runway zero nine right the supervising controller turned to the training controller and asked her to estimate the distance to touchdown they discussed that for a bit and came to the conclusion that the 747 was about 50 nautical miles from touching down that meant that the 747 would be at the airport in about 5 minutes the training controller ran through what she had to do in her head she had given a few conditional lineups on runway09 to a couple of planes the soonest that they could be airborne would be in six minutes so she would have to break a few Pilots hard and cancel a few takeoff clearances so that the 747 could land as all of this was happening Heathrow director was in contact with speedbird 6 and said the following there's no ATC speed control you're number one for nine right then the plane was transferred over to air departures so that they could guide him in all the way the pilots checked in saying speedboard 6 on frequency range 6 miles to nine right to which the controller replied with speedbird 6 continue approach when zero seven zero eight knots things were now starting to heat up in the control tower speedbird 6 was still a little bit out the controller could squeeze in a few departures before flight 06 got to Runway zero nine right so she got on the radio and cleared Shamrock 715 for takeoff as Shamrock 715 was rocketing out the supervising controller asked the training controller to clear the next two waiting planes for an immediate takeoff if you don't know what that means at busy airports if you're cleared for an immediate takeoff you just turn onto the runway and then you do none of that lineup and weight stuff you just hit the throttles and go in this case Lufthansa flight 457 was lining up after Shamrock 715 was away as Lufthansa 457 was getting on the runway the controller inquire with the next plane behind Lufthansa 457 she said Midland won November Zulu when so cleared can you take an immediate departure there's Landing traffic four miles Midland One November Zulu was good with an immediate departure as they wrapped up this conversation Lufthansa 457 was rolling meaning that he had started his takeoff run now it was Midland One November Zulu's turn as the a321 was about to get on the runway the crew decided to double check Midland won November Zulu just confirmed we are cleared to line up the training controller confirmed that the a321 was ready to go the controller was now talking to the next gen in the lineup for takeoff telling them that they could take off right after the 747 had landed at this point the mentor took control and said speedbird 6 Keep It Coming there's one to roll the win zero seven zero eight knots the crew the 747 acknowledged they were good to land he then turned to the a321 and said Midland won November Zulu start powering up on the brakes and your clear immediate takeoff zero nine right the win zero six zero eight dots the first officer who was the pilot in charge of the a321 pushed the engines to max power but kept the brakes on as the engine's Ram to to full power and he then let go of the brakes and the Jet lurched forward as he accelerated away but immediately the supervising controller knew that something was wrong the 747 was too close there was no way that the a321 would be able to outrun The Landing 747. he got on the radio and frantically said Midland won November Zulu canceled takeoff I say cancel again takeoff hold position the crew of the a321 replied with holding position and slammed on the brakes but that was only half of the battle he immediately got on the radio with the descending 747 that was only a mere 100 feet off runway that had an Airbus a321 with hundreds of people on board and said speedboard 6 go around say again go around acknowledge the pilots of the 747 sprung into action pushing the four engine to the 747 to max power in an attempt to avoid landing on the runway and the Airbus a321 the 747 started climbing away just narrowly missing the a321 but the 747 on the go around posed a new problem for the controller remember Lufthansa flight 457 they had just taken off seconds before well it was still climbing out and picking up speed and now the 747 was in direct conflict with flight 457 now the supervising controller was trying his best to keep the two planes sufficiently separated he immediately asked speedboard 6 to maintain two thousand feet while he asked Lufthansa flight 457 to climb away this thankfully kept the two planes far enough apart that no further danger was present disaster had been averted but by the smallest of margins this could have been very very bad the 747 had 450 people on board and the a321 had 96 people on board even though the 747 went around immediately without losing much altitude this was way too close the 747 at its lowest point was 118 feet over the runway that on its own it's scary but the tale of the a321 had a height of 39 feet meaning that at their closest point they were only separated by 80 feet of altitude to put that into perspective that's about 14 Tom cruises and two planes should never be 14 Tom Cruise's away from each other I mean he isn't even that tall and it's still 14. that's how you know that this was a close call The Guardian called this the closest Hermes at Heathrow in over 30 years so how did this happen before we can talk about what went wrong we need to talk about how things should have gone down as mentioned before Heathrow is a busy airport and so often you put planes down on departure runways if it speed things up there are procedures for doing that and it is done all the time speedward 6 landing on the departure Runway is nothing out of the ordinary at Heathrow in addition to that giving multiple planes permission to line up on the runways also routine in that case as each plane takes off the other one automatically lines up and waits for its final takeoff clearance this speeds up departures by so much at busy airports like Heathrow this isn't a luxury it's a necessity but the main rule is that you cannot have two planes on the runway at the same time so if you have a plane waiting to take off and if you have a plane waiting to land The Landing plane can only touch down after the takeoff plane has taken off that's where all of this fell apart the 747 was so close that the a321 had no chance of getting Airborne in time the investigators then looked at what was happening in the control tower not a lot of controllers like to be the training controller because you are fully responsible for what a trainee did and today's controller was one such individual he did not like being the training controller and his training was quite inexperienced she had only completed about a third of her course but it was mentioned that she was progressing well however this woman was thrown into a complex situation she had to integrate an arrival into a departure Runway when she was supposed to be doing quote light traffic talk about her trial by fire when she got the request for the 747 to land on Runway zero right she kind of just looked at the instructor for her decision I mean this woman had been on the job for 150 hours she's not gonna know what to do in response the overseen controller quote blanked her out meaning that he did not give her a decision I think this was so that she could hone her own decision-making skills and he did not do that out of malice or anything if you're always told what to do you're not going to learn how to do it so she made the call for the 747 to land to this the instructor said that he would not have accepted the landing aircraft as there just wasn't enough separation with the departing aircraft there wasn't a safety code that he could point to he said that it would have been a gut decision but nonetheless they went ahead with the approach they were sure that they could get all the waiting planes away in time this training session was also a bit different from the other ones usually there's a briefing session before a training session like this so that each party knows what they're doing and in other training sessions the training controller was working with decisions that were made for her and since this training session was put together with such short notice she was put in a situation that she was not familiar with this is where a crucial mistake was made in the mind of the supervising controller this whole situation would be tight but it was doable because he thought that there needed to be a one minute spacing between the two departing planes but in reality with the way that she had set up the takeoffs there needed to be a two-minute window between take Ops the whole scenario that the supervising controller had in his head would not work if there was a two-minute spacing between the two departing planes he thought that only a minute window is required because he wasn't paying enough attention to what his training controller was doing so with that she lined up the rejets the Shamrock the Lufthansa and the Midland flight for takeoff he never stopped her meaning that in his mind the plan would work then when the eighth reach 21 queried the controllers about their status for their takeoff clearance the supervising controller was starting to have doubts he wanted to play it safe and cancel their takeoff clearance and let the 747 land with good margins but before he could do anything the training controller cleared the a321 onto the runway saying affirm all the pieces were in place for this almost catastrophe it was at this point that the training controller took over and cleared the a321 for an immediate takeoff he knew the margins would be tight on this one and he was just hoping that the a321 could get away in time there were a lot of signs that said that the sequence that they had come up with wouldn't work for one when the 747 was on the base leg they'd need about five minutes to get to the runway but the controllers would need more than five minutes to get the waiting planes off the ground this is where the accounts of the training controller and the supervising controller somewhat diverge the training controller says that she asked about the takeoff clearance of the a3201 to the supervising controller twice but the supervising controller cannot recall that the last sign that something was amiss was the pilots of the a321 asking the controllers if they were cleared to take off because they knew that there was a 747 on its way in this should have alerted them that something was wrong but unfortunately it did not had things actually gone South that day then this might have been Britain's worst air crash to date but thanks to the quick thinking of the supervising controller and the pilots of the 747 and 8321 disaster was averted what do you think of all of this did you know that something like this had happened if you were alive during the 2000s and remember reading the news did you see the stuff in the news let me know your thoughts in the comments below thank you for watching this 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: 35,237

Keywords: air crash investigation, why planes crash, aviation safety, british airways, aer lingus, british airways flight 006, british airways crash, lufthansa crash, avaition crash, mentour pilot, plane crash, hell over heathrow, air crash investigation season 23, air crash confidential, flight simulator 2024, aviation, planes, boeing 747, boeing 747 crash, aircraft, planes crash, plane, 747, 747 crash, mini aci, aviation history

Id: kcAGBganfME

Length: 12min 13sec (733 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 07 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/blueb0g]

Feels like you're making an enormous mountain out of a minor operational incident - this was in no way "almost" the UK's worst accident. Separation got a bit tight and the 747 was told to go around. Happens all the time