Fully agree. And that stewardess that moved everyone to the forward cabins because she remember what had happened in another crash is the reason no one died.
My Dad landed his fighter jet with no landing gear while temporality blinded from loss of blood due to the injury he suffered when he and his plane were struck near Luke AFB in Arizona back in the mid 1950's. His story was written up in Collier's Magazine and was Titled "Belly It In". Soon after, the same story was condensed into a "Drama In Real Life" segment that ran in Reader's Digest! I can honestly say that IF Dad had not survived, I would not be typing this comment. He was a Captain in The USAF at the time of his serious accident and went on to do a one year tour of Vietnam and retire a Lt. Col after a 28 year career. Dad was absolutely A Lifer Of The Skies! Cheers Everyone
@@MustangsTrainsMowers He was a Squadron Leader teaching Pilots from other Countries and one of them accidently shot at a land target before he was authorized to do so and hit my Dad's plane that was below him.
Incredible stories! A cousin relayed a couple of his miracle landings to me. Both in a US fighter jet. First was a failure of JATO rocket assisted launch (one failed to ignite), resulting in a flip over. Landed in a cemetery, inverted, walked away. Second being a high altitude goose strike. Successfully landed aircraft. Career ending injuries.
In the first story, while all the crew were exemplary, the stewardess (yes, that's what they were called then) that moved passengers to the forward cabin, thus taking them out of the death-trap tail area that broke away on impact, is why no one died. Thanks to her memory of the death toll in another crash, when the tail also broke away, and immediate initiative everyone got to go home for dinner. I hope she was suitably honored.
I don't consider myself an AV geek. Having said that, I'm always fascinated by anything aviation. Watching/hearing aviation history is always a great refreshment, giving a perspective to aviation that I normally don't yet know. Lots'a love, cheers, & Mabuhay, from tropical Philippines!
I once long ago I found an interview here on youtube with Captain Dardano from Taca 110. He was very entertaining to listen to and had some crazy stories.
I enjoyed seeing a positive, and highly interesting and entertaining, video about plane incidents. My favorite channel these days at it is full of.... History worth remembering!
Stories of brave pilots and crew never get old. I could enjoy hour upon hour of stories. If the spirit moves you, please consider more. Miracle Landings 2? Miracle Landings 3? Thanks!
Re Flight 1549 (Hudson ditching), The Captain always gets a mention, (of course), however it was teamwork on by both the flight deck crew and and the cabin crew that made for a great outcome.
My dad was shot down in WWII over France and had to bail out of his P-38 fighter/bomber. He was captured and wrote his experience in a wonderful story that I read over and over! Totally different subject, but still an exciting story. 😊
We love Air Disasters and that story is one that I love. Totally amazing and the fact that the pilot has depth perception problems that he's learned to compensate for after being shot in the face just adds to the amazing feat he performed that day.
Great stories and they do deserve to be remembered. Given the current DEI requirements that companies like United Airlines comply with, the skies are not given the same talent as these professionals.
For flights over water / remote lands, there is something called ETOPS " Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards " This is a standard that the plane must be able to operate on one engine and still make it to an alternate safe landing location. ETOPS is also known at Engines Turn Otherwise Passengers Swim.
That was a very impressive performance. And they didn't just sit there for 5 hours, they worked on making a plan and working with the passengers so they knew what would happen and everone could move and not get confused when it was go time.
I really enjoy the stories that you tell about historical events involving airplanes and the unusual and spectacular things that have happened with them and I would really? Enjoy If you know anything that happened on early commercial flights. But whether or not you are able to fill this request. I will continue to enjoy your program immensely and my father who is now in his 80s who doesn't get around much anymore but was a pilot with over 10,000 hours of flight. Really enjoys listening to your retelling of all these airplane stories!
I was not aware of the Neva River incident. Funny. Most accidents are a string of smaller events that coalesce around the accident. Inevitably, bad luck almost always plays a role. But the same is true of safe landings after an aircraft has a series of unfortunate circumstances. There is also an element of chance. This necessarily includes some good luck. If a plane lands on the water, the relative calm of the water always plays a part. In the Pan Am, the Neva and the Miracle on the Hudson, the water was calm. Proximity to rescue vessels helped. Most people survive water landings if they can escape the plane before it sinks. Good weather, good airmanship and good luck increase survival. All of these passengers and crew had good fortune. They also had heroic pilots and boats nearby. All are great stories that deserve to be told.
Wonderful compilation of historical stories of civilian bravery. Russia is not our enemy, but has been embroiled in political fervor. Their accomplishments in aviation history needs to be remembered! Thank You! Our aviation history has not been as untarnished, as we have been led to believe!
Whether enemies or rivals or whatever you want to call them, I don't think that anyone wants their commercial airliners to crash, nor should we fail to appreciate when their commercial pilots save lives.
The "Lightning Pilot" story got me thinking. Instead of emergency landings, what about planes that are grounded due to baffling faults? I don't know how long it took them to figure out what was causing this short but there was another story I heard that was grounded because the radio was forever DOA if memory serves. They wired and rewired that plane over and over again and still got the same results. One day somebody poured over the schematics nanometer by nanometer until finally he thought he found something. Acting on his hunch, in no time at all he was on that plane's radio broadcasting that he had solved the problem. What had happened was that during previous upgrades something had been removed and the wiring for that something was hidden behind a wall. I think it might have been a microphone? But anyway, once he identified the problem he was able to fix it. And that plane was FINALLY able to be put back into service. There must be other such stories out there that are worth retelling.
I flew with my mother on a Panam 377 from Miami to Belem Brazil on April 23, 1952. The plane continued on to Rio and Buenos Aires. On April 29, on its way back, it crashed in the Amazon Forest with the loss of 50 souls. It was called Clipper Good Hope!
I love amazing stories about hero pilots. If you haven't done so in the past, I would love to hear you tell the story of 'The Gimli Glider' - Air Canada Flight 143 - July 23, 1983,
In the days of Propeller Aircraft (both Piston & Turbo-Prop) First Class was in the back of the cabin (away from the noise of engines & "Propeller Slap" (were the air coming off of the propeller tips strikes the side of the plane) noise)....
I don’t understand the time line. The flight was a little over 8 hours and they lost 2 engines a little over 4 hours a little more than half way. You said that they circled the ship for right at 5 hours until daylight. Why didn’t they continue the flight to California, they had the fuel to make it if they circled for 5 hours.
Love how that guy accidentally took off in a jet. lol It is true that it's those brushes with death when you're going about your normal day that really mess you up psychologically. Even if you are in a situation that is known to be dangerous, if you've been in it regularly and had a normal day, that danger is still traumatizing when it comes. I crashed a motorcycle and had some pretty severe PTSD because of it for seven years. Just seeing brake lights used to potentially send me into a panic even if I was riding a bicycle and not even driving. I had been in counseling for basically the entire time after the accident and I had tried many medicines that did nothing other than torment me with their terrible side effects (plus I had an allergic reaction to a couple of them too). Finally, I got ahold of a good amount of acid, took it all, meditated for nine hours, and now I basically never get anxiety over that accident since that time. The thing that got me about that accident had been that I found myself in a situation where I had no options that didn't involve crashing and no way to avoid the drunk driver who took me down. It's when it's unexpected and you find yourself in a dangerous situation that you can't escape and there's nothing you can do other than try to make it less worse.
Ive just realised the front of the Stratocruiser was used for the rocket shipin the 1980 flash gordon movie. I also agree with you about RAF Duxford, but then the RAF Cosford too in the Midlands which i lived very near but never went, but travelled to Cambridgeshire to see RAF Duxford. Weird i worked nr Bletchley Park, Silverstone and never went there either but did go to East midlands Airport sorry Doonington Parkway .
Should have mentioned Air Canada's Gimli glider in July of 1983 and Air Transats Azores glider in August of 2001. Both planes were flown like gliders for many miles and all landed safely 🇨🇦
Good morning from Ft Worth TX to everyone watching... My father was a private pilot for 60 years. In 1972, he experienced an engine failure just after takeoff in his newly purchased 1959 Cessna 172 Skyhawk. Luckily he had enough altitude for a safe dead-stick landing back at the airport he just departed from.
The pilots of Flight 514 may have been "flying blind." But not our boy Sergei. He went above and beyond the call of duty with both eyes wide open. And he deserves to be remembered for his extraordinary focus and work ethic.
You should look up Garuda flight 421 in 2002, it too was a river ditching. But what this crew faced was almost comical in its level of difficulty. In a severe thunderstorm the 737 suffered dual engine failure due to hail damage, then it suffered a completely separate failure of the APU not starting due to a failure in the battery. This meant the pilots had zero flight instruments, not even the emergency back ups or even lights in the cockpit. When the broke out of the clouds they seen a river they could ditch in but were too high, so the pilot had to do a 360 turn to lose altitude. When they lined for the river they noticed that they'd need to clear a bridge they hadn't seen, after doing so, in a nearly comical twist, they realized there was a s second bridge not far after the first and now they'd need to land in between the two. Again all of this with no flight instruments, no speed, no altitude, no nothing. The pilot pulled it off, ditching successfully in the river. Though one person did die when the tail broke off and the flight attendant in the very back of the plane was killed, the pilots saved the other 59 people on board.
The story of the TACA dead stick landing is even more amazing. The pilot, Captain DeArdano lost one eye when he was shot in the head during the civil war in El Salvador. Truly an amazing feat of airmanship by the Captain. I understand the plane was flown off the levy to a maintenance facility, not towed.
There is RU-vid docco of a pilot who was overcome by fumes in his small plane and passed out and woke up later in his plane on the ground (at night). The plane landed itself and the pilot had minor injuries, crawled out and found a light over a hill and got help. It was a good landing!
I have no piloting qualifications but I have heard this, "Any landing you walk away from is a good landing". Other than Sullivan I don't think I had heard of any of these events, and there are so many others. Aloha Airlines 737 convertible, the Gimli glider and a n AirTransat that glided farther than the engineering note said it could, landing in the Azores I look forward to Best of: Miracle Landings part 2.
I would like to see you do something on Richard Henry Dana. He wrote a book called “Two Years Before the Mast”. It’s a true adventure . He and his tale are history worth remembering.
Pronunciation of Michaud = "Me-show" It's Louisiana. We're different. This aircraft had also just had a new battery installed prior to this flight. The battery provides backup power to the electronics; with a new power source they had a full thirty minutes of back up - and the ability to drop the landing gear. According to Captain Dardano, without the gear, it would have been a water landing. He was actually targeting a section of the Intracoastal Waterway that parallels the levee. To add to the "wow" factor, Captain Dardano has only one eye. He lost an eye when a charter plane he was piloting was accidently caught up in the Salvadoran Civil War six years prior to the TACA 110 incident. Shot and bleeding from the head, he still flew the plane with his three civilian passengers about 40 minutes to safety. He received special medical clearance to continue flying. He is still flying commercially today, often with his son as his First Officer.
Hello History Guy. Have you ever done a story about Flight of the Phoenix? I recently watched the original movie. It says it's based on a true story, but Im having difficulty finding a decent documentary about this event. I watch your channel a bunch and decided to subscribe. If you've done a video on The Phoenix can you please send me a link? If not, would you consider making a Flight of the Phoenix video? There is a bunch of interest in the aviation community. Thank you for all your video's! Keep up the great work! Randy Anderson
The reason that the Tu-104, then Tu-124 were such unsafe aircraft was because they were less than optimally based upon the Tu-16 "Badger" strategic bomber.
