This Plane Got Stuck On FULL Power, What The Pilot Did Next Was Unbelievable!

on the 13th of April 2010 cath Pacific flight 780 set off from juanda International Airport in suraya Indonesia on route to the Hong Kong International Airport the takeoff conditions were standard and they were expected to make a routine Landing in just under 5 hours however a few hours into the flight it became apparent to the crew members that this was going to be no routine flight one of the engines was discovered to have totally stopped while the other was stuck on high power unwilling to slow down all passengers on board were now faced with a life-threatening situation above the South China Sea what was supposed to be a standard flight now became a question of if the pilots could navigate this grave situation and successfully land the aircraft in Hong Kong it was an unprecedented scenario so it would have taken nothing short of a miracle to salvage the situation this is the chilling story of cath Pacific flight 780 just after 8:00 a.m. local time on that fateful day cath Pacific flight 780 departed from the eighth stand at the Wanda International Airport ready for takeoff boarded on the Airbus A330 were 309 passengers and 13 crew members and of the 13 crew members were two pilots 35-year-old Captain Malcolm Waters who had 12 years of flying experience with cath Pacific as well as over 2500 hours flying the A330 accompanying him was 37-year-old first officer David heho who was 3 years into his stint at cath Pacific after over a decade serving with the Royal Australian Air Force heho had about 1,000 hours of flight experience on the A330 the A330 aircraft used for the flight was about 11 years old and was popular in the medium to long haul Aviation Market cath Pacific had over 30 a330s in its Fleet which made them one of its largest carriers at the time time both Pilots had flown this particular A330 into suraya the previous night so the captain requested that an extra 24,000 kilos of jet fuel be added on top of the 9,000 kilos available as the journey to Hong Kong was around 3500 km long the conditions on the day of the flight were good and the weather was more or less perfect with a forecast for Clear Skies so everyone was expecting a smooth Journey but this would almost immediately change the aircraft lifted off the Runway at suraya at 1:24 a.m. UTC with the first officer flying and the captain handling radio communications however during the climb there was a first sign of what was to come as the pilots noticed that both engines had begun to experience some engine pressure ratio fluctuations especially for the second engine located at the right side of the aircraft this showed that the engine was having issues maintaining the required thrust output while maintaining thrust TR from a single engine was a tangible issue it was one you would have expected the pilots to be able to navigate through but it didn't end there because just around 30 minutes later a warning suddenly came up on the ecam or electronic centralized aircraft monitoring system which displayed fault messages it read Engine 2 control system fault and Engine 2 slow response meaning that the engine would be slow to respond to movements of the thrust lever and with the aircraft cruising at about 39,000 ft above sea level it became clear that this was no small concern the captain contacted the air traffic control center for clarification on the fault readings the situation with the right engine was the same but since the readings from the other engine were deemed to be normal the flight was passed safe to continue the aircraft continued on its Journey but just over an hour later at around 3:16 the control system fault message reappeared along with with a warning for the pilots to avoid rapid thrust changes once again maintenance control was reached out to and they determined that the epr instability may be due to a problem with engine number two shockingly though the flight was allowed to continue to Hong Kong despite the concerns with the crew advised to keep monitoring engine parameters the plan was to get the aircraft to Hong Kong first then run a check on and fix the engine issues afterwards two more hours had elapsed without any more major incidents the flight was now just over an hour away from its destination but as soon as it was time for desent they would discover that this wasn't going to be as easy as they first thought at 520 UTC or 1:20 p.m. Hong Kong time the aircraft was now 110 nautical miles from the Hong Kong International Airport on its initial descent and it looked like the situation had taken a turn for the worse first the pilot reported hearing a pop sound which was followed by a burning smell in the cockpit then the ecam displayed a message which read engine one control system fault and shortly after it displayed another message Engine 2 stall this second message showed that an engine had a compressor stall which was a potentially dangerous problem the flight crew did what they had to do according to ecam procedure and moved the number two engines lever to the idle position they then set the number one engine to maximum continuous thrust to make up for the second engine's inactivity but unfortunately for the crew the engine never reached maximum continuous thrust and could only achieve about 37% of the required thrust they were now faced with a dreadful situation as one of the engines had lost all power while the other wasn't running at the required power and they were now less than 100 Mil from the airport without sufficient power it was a huge task for the aircraft to maintain its altitude and they were now on a crash course with the South China Sea knowing the gravity of their situation the crew declared a pan pan with air traffic control in order to request a priority Landing via the shortest possible route to the airport Captain Malcolm took over the flight controls from first officer David as the aircraft was now running on a single underpowered engine the flight crew received permission from Air Traffic Control to maintain a high speed to be able to reach the airport with a single engine approach things looked to be stabilizing and they were preparing for a rough Landing however a few minutes later now only 45 nautical miles from the airport and approaching an altitude of 8,000 ft a new ecam message popped up that shocked the flight crew engine one stall it read this time the situation now was so precarious that the flight crew had to declare a Mayday the crew were then cleared to descend to 3,000 ft and just like they had done earlier with engine number two they moved the thrust lever for engine number one to an idle position this move essentially turned the aircraft into a glider but it still needed a working engine if it was to safely land at the airport at this point Captain Malcolm had switched off the autopilot and began to fly the plane manually in order to achieve the Green Dot speed of 202 knots which ensures the furthest Glide distance in the case of multiple failed engines just like this one the captain began to alternate the thrust levers to see if he could be able to regain control of either engine which would have secured The Landing at Hong Kong fortunately for Captain Malcolm he was able to achieve some functionality in engine number one and used it to keep the aircraft in the air but as the plane got close to the airport the speed was still way too fast for the approach so the captain began to pull the engine one thrust lever back once again but it wasn't resp responsive the engine thrust remained as high as 74% and being so close to the ground they now had to prepare for a landing way faster than what was deemed to be safe in response to this Captain Malcolm made a public announcement to the passengers to fasten their seat belts as there was a small problem with the engines significantly understating the real graveness of the situation in reality they were in grave danger of overrunning the runway and ending up in the sea to improve their chances the captain began to zigzag the aircraft to create some distance between the airport and extended the speed brakes to reduce the speed of the aircraft but despite this the aircraft was still way over the speed requirement and even began to sound the overs speed warning just 3 m from and 1,000 ft above the runway the aircraft was still moving at a speed of 230 knots which was about twice what it was required to be the speed brakes were recalibrated to avoid a heavy crck crash but were adjusted just in order to slow the aircraft down some more however the aircraft was still traveling too fast and the overspeed warning sounded once more as they were fast approaching the runway the captain had done enough to properly time the runway but now had to control the impact as the aircraft was still going really fast this was almost impossible to do at around 1:45 p.m. the aircraft finally made contact with the runway at about 231 knots almost double the required speed to land this speed caused the aircraft to bounce multiple times as it skidded across the runway so the pilot deployed the thrust reverses unfortunately though only the number one engine thrust reverses were deployed so Captain Malcolm stepped on the now overheated brakes to stop the aircraft before it ran out of Runway space after a 2 and a half km battle to stop the aircraft from skidding past the runway the pilots were finally able to to bring it to a screeching halt just over 300 M from the end of the runway with five of the aircraft's eight main wheel tires deflated Captain Malcolm and first officer David had successfully landed a plane going double the required speed to land however the rescue efforts weren't over as the breake temperatures were now up to 90° C now there was a risk of a fire but with fire Crews on ground reporting sights of smoke the pilots were able to order a safe evacuation of the 309 passengers on board 56 of them escaped with minor injuries one had more serious but non-fatal injuries and the rest of the passengers as well as the crew members all escaped un hurt the crew of cath Pacific flight flying an a 33300 had performed a miracle Landing cath Pacific flight 780 was no easy feat as both Pilots had not been trained for such a situation before the fact that the crew members remained calm in such a situation is Testament to their courage and skill for their bravery and Ingenuity both Pilots were awarded the Polaris award by the International Federation of airline pilots Association in 2014 investigations into the flight revealed that the cause of the accident was fuel contamination caused by superabsorbent polymer particles or sap apparently the saps had caused the fuel system components to seize res ing in a loss of thrust control for both engines during the flight it was also revealed that the saps only contaminated the fuel system because the fuel supply pipeline system had not been properly maintained which allowed saltwater to enter and weaken the filter monitors the compromised filters in turn led to the release of sap particles into the fuel with some of those particles trapped in the clearance of the moving Paths of the fuel metering unit causing stion in its control and resulting in the epr fluctu ations as well as triggering the various ecam readings the final report sought to mitigate these issues by improving the fueling procedures and the oversight of fuel quality monitoring Airbus did their bit by inserting a new section in the A330 handbook for suspected engine fuel system contamination so in the end there was nothing the pilots could have done differently in the situation as it was clearly a maintenance issue which could not easily have been detected but they did what had to be done to ensure that no life was lost so what are your thoughts on their heroics please let us know in the comments below

Channel: WingedWorld

Views: 536,610

Keywords: WingedWorld, Aviation, Planes, Plane, Airplane, Airplanes, Boeing, Airbus, aviation, planes, flying, avgeek, aviationnews, flight, flight review, cathay pacific, cathay pacific flight 780, flight 780

Id: bWDnM9Y5LLs

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 17 2023