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I flew with the copilot a few weeks before the accident (I’m still a cabin crew @ Swiss), he was such a nice person and was delighted to have achieved his dream of flying. Throughout the following years, every time I upgraded myself (cabin crew instructor, purser, long haul purser ) I always raised my glass of champaign to the sky in his memory, as I was able to make a career and he not… So long Stefan!
@@slavikk6712 Upon closer inspection, you will almost always find that the person is 1. American and 2. An ardent Trump supporer. This one is no exception.
I was a regular passenger on Crossair in the 90s, so it may be possible that capt. Lutz flew me somewhere across Europe. Crossair was actually a very good airline from a passenger perspective, perhaps less so from the more hidden ones. This shows how important regulations are whenever safety is the main concern.
@@hb1338 Airlines only care about safety is because if they don't they lose planes, get a bad rep and may have their AOC revoked. Under capitalism, profit is always the primary concern.
I laughed out loud at the part where Captain Lutz retracted the landing gear on the ground. Frankly, I'm wholeheartedly impressed that the plane didn't have some sort of "uh, no." alarm!
When you retract landing gear while parked you know you got problems. It's a little terrifying how this flying liability was allowed to keep being a captain and even train people for a time.
@@EvanBear it probably depends on the age of the plane. If it happened in the 90s, it could've been a plane from the 60s or 70s. (I mean, Chalk's water planes operated from the early 1940s until 2005 when one disintegrated mid flight so it could've even been older.) When airplanes were just getting major consumer use, I assume the standards were similar to the army - where people have very clear checks and balances to fly and to stop (like fighter jets on a carrier). I bet now it is impossible. But if it depended entirely on pilots before, then I could see someone making such a stupid mistake once. Though by "someone" I mean just one or two people ever, since that would be as foreign as deciding to just throw on the parking brake while driving. Edited because for some reason I thought this took place in 1991, not 2001.
@@Harley-and-Her-Ruff-Riders It just sounds silly to me that someone could accidentally retract the landing gear while on land. It's like you said, as weird as using the parking brake during driving. But if he was employed with CrossAir at the time it would've been a regional jet of some sorts and I'd think surely there would be some step that would prevent one from just, retracting the landing gear and totalling a plane like that. It's just so surreal to me.
@@EvanBear Yes. The only people allowed in aircraft cockpits are pilots and maintenance engineers. It is an entirely reasonable assumption that they all know how to behave themselves.
On another video about this crash, the pilot's incursion into another country on a flight was discussed in further detail. He flew into Italy and didn't know it until some passengers sent word to the cockpit that the road signs on the streets below them were in Italian.
among the victims of the crash were pop singers Melanie Thornton, as well as the pop trio Passion Fruit, of which only one survived with severe injuries
I suppose there always has to be someone who passed their courses with the lowest score in the class. Unfortunately, it seems this one’s dangerous lack of skills was continuously overlooked.
I see your point but I've shot hundreds of non-precision approaches at night in lousy weather. Never a problem, never nervous, just shoot the approach and either land or go around. But I agree, safety absolutely must take precedence over noise regulations, every time, especially given that planes don't make much noise during approach and landing.
Why ? Pilots have been landing aircraft safely at night without ILS for more than 80 years. I know many GA pilots who have night ratings but no instrument rating and not one of them has ever had a 'moment'.
@@rrknl5187 It's easy to dismiss noise regulations but they exist with good reason as noise can give rise to severe and chronic health issues (hearing damage, long-term sleep deprivation and subsequent health issues etc.).
There are noise abatement procedures all across the world. The airport next to me lands south at night for that. As landing north flies over neighborhoods in between the middle and inner markers.
@@user-kb8rc5vq2i I have no problem with noise abatement the vast majority of the time but when these procedures introduce hazard they need to be temporarily modified or not be required. Safety always overrules convenience. I would not allow a takeoff over a noise sensitive area but a landing aircraft makes far less noise and should be allowed under abnormal circumstances.
I’m so glad one of your videos was recommended to me. I know very little of aviation accidents or aviation in general, but I’m extremely interested in videos like this anyway. All of your videos are extremely detailed and well written.
3:50 I have a completely different way to express the situation. Crossair refused to pay pilots a reasonable and competitive wage. That means that good pilots had no reason to fly with them. Typical profits over safety. I'm sure that whatever happened to the company and the employees, the board all made money in buckets. With passenger's lives at risk. But millionaire sociopaths don't lose sleep over killing people.
Well, kinda. Crossair was a subsidiary of Swissair, and we're talking about 90's Swissair, when their board embarked on a quest to burn as much money as possible, as quickly as possible in as many unprofitable ventures as possible - and while Crossair itself was profitable (and took over Swissair's operations after the collape of their parent company), most profts Crossair made were probably immediatley swallowed up by Swissair's ever increasing debt obligations towards Sabena and SAirGroup's other partners.
@@dorothykilgallenwasmurdere1653 If it's Boeing, I ain't going. Then again, not setting foot on a Scarebus. DC: Death Coffins I suspect we could play games with aircraft names all day. Can be fun though.
How the HELL do you retract a plane's landing gear while it is still on the ground!?!? Moreover, why don't planes have some mechanism to prevent retraction if it is accidentally initiated when the plane is on the ground?
You don't want to prevent retraction or deployment. If the NWS circuit is stuck closed, that means you won't be able to retract the gear despite there being no ground pressing in. Gear not coming up will cause severe drag on the aircraft, and over a certain airspeed they will simply get ripped off the aircraft, causing even more problems.
In fact he wanted to prove that it is not possible and turned out it was. However according to most landing gear mechanics, the rear gear can not be retracted but the front can. The front only folds back which allows the plane to tip nose down to the ground.
@@JungleYT Normally yes, both a weight switch and a speed measurement taken to engage/disengage the NWS (depending upon aircraft type). You don't want to engage NWS over a certain speed, for example, so it's automatically cut off. To use an example, on the F16, it's either 60 or 80 kts that it's cut off (memory is fuzzy at this point). But if the weight switch is faulty, you don't want to just assume failed open as that can cause serious airframe issues. At about 300kts on the same F16, the front steering assembly will get damaged if not outright ripped off if it's still extended.
To Note: On Board this Crossair Flight was singer Melanie Thornton and the Pop group Passion Fruit. Both Thornton and Passion Fruit perished in the accident.
@@BobbyGeneric145 If airlines Instituted in depth and widespread mental health screening for pilots, we would see a revival of steamships for international travel. Most pilots would be disqualified😵😵😵
@@hb1338 You obviously didn't have the experience of getting to fly with some of the characters I ran into during a 25+yr run at one of the "big three".
FANTASTIC singer! ))) Listen to her very sensual song "Heaven's Got To Be Better" in the Le Click "Tonight Is The Night" album ))) She was gorgeous! RIP
Was the BAE too small/ too early to have Go-around auto thrust? This one always eats at me bc of how many times control gave clearance for the other runway despite the legal zoning codes in deteriorating conditions.
@@davedoesthingsdreaded They're not talking about at which altitude the plane was flying, they're talking about the fact that the plane couldn't gain altitude fast enough to avoid terrain.
@@togafly. go around altitude is decided in advance clearly this pilot made some errors including not establishing that along with no cockpit management. Assuming they even had that though, if the plane wasn’t equipped with similar tech we see on the air bus for Instance which has auto throttle for go around preprogrammed so decisions are made in an instant which match appropriate inputs, it still might not have saved the plane if they made a decision at the go around altitude
this sounds odd but as someone who has been afraid of flying (and most methods of transportation that aren't walking tbf) for basically her whole life these videos actually do a lot to hopefully one day confront that fear! thanks chloe for all you do to produce these so quickly and of such high quality!
They definitely demystify the accidents. You learn really fast that almost no planes crash from turbulence, unless the company was known to have issues. (I.e. Chalk's water planes from 1940s breaking apart mid flight in 2005 from bad repairs) You also realize quickly you're hitting the same accidents on multiple channels, because airplane regulations change with nearly every big crash. Decades ago a plane landed with a fire on board and before even the doors opened, half the people were doomed as they couldn't see. Every plane now must have floor lights to guide people in smoke. New designs also need to show they can disembark all passengers in 90 seconds with just half the working exits. Or like... simple things. Smoking was banned in the 80s, but all bathrooms still are required to have an ash tray. If someone doesn't know they can't smoke during a long flight, they would likely use the ashtray in the door. If they flushed it or threw it out, a fire could happen. Planes today are the safest they've ever been, because it just takes one crash to change an entire country's regulations for allowing planes in. (Like some planes we simply don't allow to land, some being the Chinese copies of other planes for instance.) Meanwhile it takes a thousand crashes for one single country to change a car and not be required to do it anywhere else.
8:27 Hearing that only one Controller was in the controll Tower reminds me of the Uberlingen Crash because there was also only one Controller in the Controll Tower of Zurich, and because the controller got killed by revenge the rule is now that there must be a minimum of 2 Controllers at the same time (I know the rule is not set only because the controller got killed)
Unfortunately among the dead were Melanie Thornton, the lead singer of the Eurodance band La Bouche, as well as two members of of the Eurodance band Passion Fruit, Nathaly(ie) van het Ende and Maria Serrano Serrano. May they rest in peace.
That pilot should not have been flying. Passion Fruit had a bright career ahead of them & Melanie was just on the verge of launching a successful solo career too. I have the singles that were supposed to be off Passion Fruits second album & they slap hard (Bongo Man & I'm Dreaming of a Winter Wonderland). The third member of Passion Fruit who survived wound up with life altering injuries unfortunately.
"I know but this guy has no airline experience at all. He's a menace to himself and everything else in the air... yes, birds too." - Airplane! the movie
baggage handler , he could still say he was a pilot . i pile-it here and i pile-it there . had a friend who actually did that , he bought his own pilots uniform to wear to the bar and impress girls .
Yesss! Just about to get on a 9 hour flight so this’ll be great to watch! Love ur vids, and sorry I haven’t been commenting lately I’ve been quite busy (Btw this took place on my birthday :/ )
The accident took the lives of several celebrities, including singer Melanie Thornton and the vice-mayor of Jerusalem at the time. Thornton was travelling to Switzerland for a tv-performance of "Wonderful Dream" (the tv-show she would've performed on was cancelled), which is probably her most well-known song despite only gaining popularity after her tragic death.
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but this accident was how I was introduced to the British pop group, the Spice Girls. This was because on the flight was a German pop band, Passion Fruit. The "Mayday"/"Air Crash Investigation" episode about this incident described them as Germany's answer to the Spice Girls. Speaking of musical celebrities, the crash occurred ten years to the day that Freddie Mercury passed away.
Idea for a video: The Twilight Zone movie disaster. It may not involve a plane but is still an aviation disaster. I imagine enough of the story details can be found for a 10+ minute upload. Plus, it would help determine if helicopter disasters is a good fit for the channel!
Just under 500 total hours for Mr. Copilot. Incredible. I flew ragged aircraft like the Beech 18 in all weather. I figure I didn't know what the hell I was doing until at least 2,000 hours.
You know, I started watching due to the interesting content, but have found myself staying late because of the humorous sponsor names... "MomLeftMeAtBestBuy".... "PanicChicken"....☺
For a country that has so many other things functioning at a very high level, Switzerland has had way too many problems with its commercial aviation in the past.
I never understood how in any high stress job why supervisors leave an inexperienced person to.manage alone rediculous are as people that buy property near an airport then start complaining
What evidence is there that the controller did anything wrong ? A night time non-precision approach is an entirely normal thing and presents no threat whatsoever to a competent pilot.
@@hb1338 controller did nothing wrong themselves and refused to open the other runway due to not being trained in that approach and I believe that was the correct thing to do but the supervisor left them in that predicament. If the supervisor had of been there they could of opened up the other runway safely and taught the inexperienced controller how to safely do this. And that would of saved the plane.
Uszally the property was first, then came the airport. Anyway, Europe is densely populated and the airports near cities usually don't operate during night hours, for obvious reasons.
Could you maybe make a video about flight MH17 that was shot down above Ukrain? it's a bit different from your usual videos seeing as there is neither pilor error nor mechanical error in this crash, but everything around it is very interesting.
Slight correction. On a non-precision approach, the decision to land or go around is not determined by the altitude. That would be for for a precision approach. For a non precision approach the aircraft must not descend below the minimum descent altitude but can continue to fly until the missed approach point, at which time the pilot must execute a missed approach if he is unable to continue the approach visually.
Thanks for making me never want to fly again (not that I ever did, I've only been on a few flights) I don't care how much more dangerous driving is, at least when I'm driving: 1) I am in control of my own vehicle, and 2) if something goes mechanically wrong, even catastrophically, there is a good chance it's just going to result in a breakdown instead of the terrifying and violent death of everyone on board.
I’ve been a subscriber for some times, I am a PPL pilot but understand aeroplane because very well, as I have aerobatic qualifications and enjoy your concise narrative - so hi and get well soon.
Your description of approach procedures is incorrect. On a non-precision approach, there is no decision altitude, there is the minimum descent altitude (MDA) and the missed approach point (MAP), the *location* at which the land/abort decision is made. After the final approach fix, the pilot descends to the MDA and flies to the MAP. At the MAP the runway environment (runway, threshold lights, PAPI lights etc) MUST be visible for the pilot to land, otherwise s/he must discontinue the approach. The cause of the crash was simple - Captain Lutz was unaware of his location and descended below the MDA when he was more than 4 km from the airport; the MAP on runway 28 at Zurich is about 550 metres from the runway. The fact that he could see the ground was irrelevant because ground visibility is NOT a sufficient condition to land.
A quick note: there are many interviews with one Survivor from the crash... That survivor is famous SP Politician Jaqueline Badran, she tells the story in her POV and makes it even more fascinating! She always told everyone that she's not gonna live any longer than 40, jokingly ofc! just days after her 40th birthday was that accident. It highlights perfectly how the universe always has a plan... and a quick correction: Crossair ceased operations to transform into Swiss intl. Airlines, since swissair was filing bankruptcy in 2002 or more like since the grounding in 2001! Swissair transfered all its Planes, Crew and other Inventory over to crossair... Its kinda a difficult toppic to quickly break down, so shortened: Swissair wasnt part of a merger between Crossair to generate the new SWISS ;) But it was an awesome video with verry much detail!
The flying into another country is quite scary, considering how quickly scenarios involving unexpected aircraft crossing national boundaries escalate into violent Interactions.
While the captain's lack of ADM and questionable skill was a major issue, don't discount the issue of how NIMBYism acted to cause them to switch to a non-precision approach in low ceilings. Also, ILS is actually a slightly older technology than DME, but more accurate
I always really liked the BAE 146. I flew them up and down California many times in the 1980s with PSA. Of all the smaller regional jets it remains my favorite. Now that I'm done gushing about the 146, I guess I should actually watch the video. 🙂
That one could’ve been prevented had the first officer been allowed to do a go around. Unfortunately, the captain didn’t trust him and vetoed it. Now, the training says that if the first officer chooses to go around, they go around.
What does it take to dismiss a person because of a history of incompetence. I find it extraordinary that someone makes so many mistakes in their career and yet still be responsible for the lives of passengers. So we let this Captain continue because of a shortage of pilots, unbelievable. I consider myself lucky not have flown with such an incompetent airline, engine installed upside down whatever next.
“Mom left me at Best Buy” lmao. I’m kinda on my arse financially at the moment, but when I am back up on my feet, I might try to come up with some imaginative name for patreon.
I remember the crash because a then popular singer died in it. Her Christmas song which she sang the year of the crash is still played today in the radio each year in Germany. Her song: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YiBoWNo6xDs.html
That plane is more for high airports with really short runways. It cost a lot extra in fuel because it needs the four engines which guzzle fuel because of air density and needing the extra power for that.
I flew few times the so called Jumbolino from and to Zurich. What a tragedy, and how many times have we heard the same 2 stories about poor airmanship? The airline was growing fast, hence training and flying standards were degraded, same story as with Indonesian Adam Air and others. Poor CRM, ha the black beast of pilot errors! Continues to pop up in spite of decades of “preventive actions “, maybe the training used and airlines policies do not check how effective their training is on this issues.
Yes it was. Among the passengers killed in the crash were Melanie Thornton, the former American lead singer of the German-based Eurodance group La Bouche, and singers Nathaly(ie) van het Ende and Maria Serrano, of the pop group Passion Fruit; the group's third singer, Debby St. Maarten, and their manager survived with injuries. St. Maarten's injuries were classified as "severe".
I don't know about you, but I would rather have fewer flights among which to choose than fly with a clearly subpar, if not incompetent, pilot like Lutz. The man was an accident waiting to happen.
I'm sorry you weren't feeling well and hope you are feeling better. :) If you need to take a few days off instead of recording when you don't feel well though I hope you do. We will still be here and I'm sure people will understand if you aren't feeling well. Don't want you feeling pressured to get videos out if you are feeling miserable 🤧
I'm really enjoying your accident breakdowns. Just a suggestion, if you can include actual photos of the accident, the location, would be helpful and would add a lot to your ass already great production.
A questionable pilot on a flight with worse weather coditions, unexperienced tower crew (just one person in the tower, was that even allowed back in the days?) and a law that forces incoming planes to take the more difficult approach. I wonder what the direct consequences of this crash were, besides crossair getting swallowed by swissair.
The Swiss finally got their heads out of their asses and put a more useable approach onto that runway. Still not ideal, but better than the VOR which was always an accident waiting to happen.