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At first I was startled that the pilot had so few hours in the 747. Then I realized he was probably one of the most experienced 747 pilots at the time.
Ray Cokeley was fired by Boeing after this incident and went on to Lockheed to become test pilot on the L1011.. thanks for this excellent movie! As always perfect!
Looks like the spelling of his name is actually Cokely. Here's an interesting story about an early L10-11 test flight commanded by Cokely/Cokeley: flytristar.tripod.com/article/art05.html
@Crazy Sven Not true what you are saying here. Jack Wadell said after the first flight of the 747 " It.s a pilots dream, ridiciously easy to fly." Ask 747 pilots.they all love the handling qualities of 747. Joe Sutter made it an excellent flying machine..There is a wonderful interview with Joe Sutter and Brian Wygle( co pilot on the first flight) here on RU-vid.
@@Kevin_747 Wow thanx for the reply! I.m not a pilot at all but ii have a big passion for the 747.Never had yhe chance to fly on one. So i can.t imagine how it is to fly it as a pilot.I.m jalous.How was the dash 100 in comparison to the dash 400? Was it underpowered and was the basic handling the same? Love the sound of the early JT9D.s.
Great video, and a reminder that these types of incidents truly save lives because you examine the hell out of them. That proud 747 looks gorgeous stripped of paint in bare metal. 26 years of service she gave.
Great to see the stories of machines having long years of service. It’s always sad when the storyteller says,”Oh, yeah. Then mercilessly ripped it apart.”
Sad when a proud machine reaches its end and is retired; all the memories, of places it has been, jobs it has done, and people who were transported by it; and the tens of thousands of man-hours used to create it. Long live 747 and Pan Am.
My wife's grandfather was a Captain on 747s (or as he called them "18 wheelers") for Pan-Am back in the day. He was on 707s then transitioned to 747s when they were brand new! He lived quite a life and had some awesome stories. Later raced Ferraris and had a gorgeous 1964 Rolls Royce Silver Spur and 1936 Bentley something or another, as well as a 1964 Ferrari that I never saw or got the exact model. My wife grew up playing climbing around and playing picnic in the back seat of a damn Rolls Royce...with their legendary Picnic tables deployed of course, hah! RIP Ed Schaffer.
Morgan Brown that’s no so hard for them they just keep the spot they want to land on at their aim point and keep it there and go super light. And there was a VASI I saw it on the video
The most recently retired chief test pilot of the 747 series is a friend of mine. He was actually fortunate to be assigned that role longer than any other 747 chief test pilot. Believe me, these guys still earn every cent of their pay today! They actually make quite a bit less than a senior 747 captain in the airlines but the job is a little bit more interesting which makes up for the pay differential.
Just goes to show, you can do everything right, but shit STILL happens. Also, props to Allec for stepping up and making a very improved aviation analysis video. We must always compare our accomplishments to what WE have done, not others, in order to know that we are improving. AJI is always improving... keep it up bro!
Excellent video. It's worth noting that the 747 was a totally new concept in airliners at the time. The manufacturer, airlines, pilots and airports all had a steep learning curve.
@@wilburfinnigan2142 I'll write slowly so you'll understand. My point was that not only was the 747 a new type, it was the first widebody, a whole new concept. Pro-tip: multiple exclamation points don't add gravity to your statement, it just makes you look juvenile.
@Pan Am 001 The airline is gone but will never be forgotten, an iconic part of history and thanks to all those employees who contributed to that history.
@Trainspush Through It might not be the the most creative but it is the most memorable. EVERYONE, even people born after they went out of business recognize it.
By doing everything he could correctly it eliminated factors therefore uncovering the VASI issues without the tomb stones normally required to discover problems.
@MsEzziera I don't buy the PC crap at all today. There's nothing wrong with that tradition in fact I think it was supposed to be a term of endearment, nothing nasty about that. So sad that women today have been trained by The Tribe to be so offended about everything.
When landing any plane on a short runway, it's almost impossible to resist the temptation to plant it at the very end. The actual reality in this case is that touchdown anywhere prior to the mid-point would have resulted in a successful stop on the remaining runway. But you still really really want to give yourself all the room you possibly can..........
@@rrknl5187 thanks for the reply....i know about the smaller planes, not the larger, but im just agreeing with your comment on the temptation at the edge of the runway......have a great day
Born in Renton, Wa.Did my first solo flight at Renton Airfield. 737 plant is next to airfield. Currently littered with 737max awaiting FAA recert’s. As someone has already commented, nobody in their right mind would land a 747 at this short field general aviation airfield. Also for reference, to fly from Boeing field to Renton airfield is all of about 5 minutes or less.
Jeez, maybe they should of had those boss guys take a cab then see if this ace could get there and land before them. He got fired over 20' short and few popped tires basically, on that short runway, going that fast, sitting up that high in a experimental plane?! WTH?
Thankful it didn’t deteriorate to disaster. We owe all test pilots a debt of gratitude. More than a few have died doing what they loved, so we passengers can expect safe flights. Pilots here, know that I will never take you for granted!
Do we really need such somber music where nobody was injured? Seeing the reference to Oscoda made my day. On two occasions, my wife and I spent several days in Oscoda (It's also a beach area). Seeing what seemed like hundreds of 747 aircraft sitting idle looked apocalyptic. Many of them were in Kalita Air livery. At the time, I had never heard of Kalita. Just recently, I saw many Kalita 747 aircraft in news coverage, transporting coronavirus victims.
The reason these pilots had so few hours in a 747 is that Boeing had just barely started delivering 747s to its customer airlines. It had nothing to do with poor choices or inexperienced pilots. These two were both test pilots or instructors. If you want to learn a TON about how this greatest airliner in history got made, read "747," by Joe Sutter, the chief engineer for the 747. It's an amazing read, and Joe is one heck of a personality. I miss engineers like him. Guys (and gals) who carried the airplane through design, engineering, testing, construction and delivery, through what sometimes feels like the sheer force of their very sizable wills. These guys had what today we call "big personalities," but what we used to call a "pain in the ass control freak!" :D
The flight deck heights above the landing gear sometimes frustrated both Lockheed C-5 and Boeing 747 flight crews in the early years of both aircraft. The height usually provided excellent views of airport taxiway and runway paths during taxi to the runway, takeoff, and taxi from runways after landing. Landings were a different story. Based only on visual observations of the runway, runway lights, and runway markings the pilots would be falsely confident that the aircraft was at the flare altitude above the runway when in reality it was either too high or too low. Those pilots were quite successful in the Lockheed C-141 or Boeing 707, but the transition to the C-5 or B747 proved somewhat problematic during visual landings due to the height of the flight deck above the runaway. Pan American Airlines would have been both happy and sad with the situation. Happy that the contributing factors were identified, but sad it was one of their aircraft that suffered from the CFIT type incident. " Why couldn't it have been one of arrogant TWA's 747s instead of one of our 747s? They can afford a delivery delay, we cannot. "
@@watershed44 ThisDayinAviation.com shows Cokeley working as a Lockheed test pilot in California in November 1970, describing him as a former Boeing 747 test pilot.
I thought that for the damage suffered, the repair went incredibly fast to deliver the following July. Probably didn't hurt to have the Boeing 747 assembly plant a few miles away. I visited that building in Sept. 1970, fifty acres under one roof -- wow!
@Pretty's Mommy Indeed these are some of the most interesting because back then the pilots really did have to "just fly the plane". Skill really was critical back then.
That same month, a 737 pilot for Avianca Airlines in Colombia did the exact same thing landing at Santa Marta. In that incident, the plane hit a ditch that was running across the end of the runway, ripping off the left main landing gear. The plane skidded down the runway on its engine until that fell off as well. No one on board realized anything was wrong until the engine fell off. Remarkably, when the wing hit the ground, it pinched the fuel line closed, preventing a possible catastrophe. In talking with one of the repairmen sent down from Boeing to fix it, he mentioned how a test pilot for the 747 had done the same thing not too long previously. When I saw this video come up in my feed, I wondered if it was that same incident.
No matter how many aircraft may come after it, the Boeing 747 will ALWAYS be the most graceful and beautiful aircraft ever built. Airbus has nothing to compare to it.
In those days when a 747 took off from Boeing Field, traffic would pull to the side of the road on Interstate 5 just to watch. I was there. I remember.
@@watershed44 Oh, yeah, and the State Patrol was NOT happy. It wasn't exactly a smart thing to do, but Boeing Field is right off the freeway and that plane was so very huge. Today, no big deal, but back then it was awesome.
@@watershed44 Oh, yeah, and the State Patrol was NOT happy. It wasn't exactly a smart thing to do, but Boeing Field is right off the freeway and that plane was so very huge. Today, no big deal, but back then it was awesome.
I have flown into and out of Boeing field many times; I saw the Concorde land there, walked on top of the fuselage of a C5-A. One day driving down I-5, I had my aviation radio on and a lear jet was cleared for takeoff to the south and requested an unlimited climb out. Did not see his actual takeoff, but when I could see him he climbed from eye-level to the cloud deck at 10,000 feet at about a 40 degree angle: spectacular!
My first solo in a Cessna 172 was from UAO (Aurora Oregon) to RNT..........I used nearly every foot of that runway as I was ballooning all over the place. Hard to imagine a 747 landing there.
I love FS2004, I found a copy at goodwill for 5$, and it includes all of the CDs and is fully functional, I also found a fully boxed Logitech joystick for 5$ as well.
I knew Cliff Cummings during the 70 s....I worked refueling at Grant Co. airport, & got to know most of the Boeing flight people doing flight test & crew training
Is the Dreamlifter actually in service? I do not recall hearing anything about it! The only aircraft I know of with a name close to it, is the 787 Dreamliner!
A little fact about this particular 747, RA003 CA 19638. At the end of the video it's mentioned that it was transferred to Evergreen International after being converted into a freighter, but during it's stint as N475EV, on a flight from Newark to Tokyo, it experienced an in-flight upset and a rapid descent that propelled the plane to more than Mach 1 (according to Boeing) making it the first and only 747 to ever go supersonic and survive.
This kind of reminded of that old film “Airport 76” (I think). As they’re landing, they’re running out of runway so they turn around at the end and come back the other way. Having a pilot’s license at the time, this always cracked me up.
Amazing...I actually worked on this plane as a Loadmaster with Evergreen based at JFK. We used on runs out of JFK - CDG - ORD - YUL. Fuel stops in SNN - YQX. Many other locations as well
Gary Janssen I’m not being a contrarian, but what did you expect to happen to it? It’s a worn out machine and takes ups ridiculous amount of space. Of course it’s eventually scrapped, after a very long life at that.
Ah, 1969! That year Seattle's Jimi Hendrix was one of the top headliners at the Woodstock Music Festival which was held in NY four months prior to the above events. About a decade or so ago another attempt was made to relocate an asset from Seattle to Renton. If homes can be compared to commercial jets like the 747, then Jimi lived in a Cessna, although others say it was more like a gyrocopter. Anyway they tried to move this forsaken shell of a home from Seattle to a Renton mobile park near his grave in Renton. It failed short of the runway too. But then again, I understand it was already dead on arrival. I heard there was talk that some of the wood from Jimi's old home would now be sold to make a commemorative guitar. Anyway, just another high flyin move from Seattle to Renton!
@@timonsolus I agree with you Tim, but Dick is noting his response; so Dick definitely is correct for what he personally would not do. I would definitely NOT attempt anything Evil Kenevil did including wielding a baseballbat. Lol.
People are dumb. This was December 1969. It's easy to look up the first ever flight of a 747, which was February 1969. This was a very new thing. Nobody had experience on it.
Can you imagine going to a party and being asked, " what do you do for a living?" Oh, I'm a senior experimental test pilot for Boeing. How do you follow that??????
I guess I am just too sentimental. I was sorry to see that this great plane, with it's history, was torn apart and scrapped. I know there's money in doing so, but it's still sad. Some great US Navy ships of WW II were also scrapped. I had thought that Boeing would have some sort of huge building to put its great planes in for the sake of history.
Everyone should watch the story of Joe Sutter and the building of the 747 it is an amazingly feat under the time constraints he was given by Juan Tripp the president and CEO of Pan Am airlines
Juan Trippe was a notorious cheapskate of an airline CEO. He knew darn well that the 10 across seating in steerage class on a B747 resulted in uncomfortably narrow seating. How is that? Because it was almost exactly the same lousy seating in second class in his B707s. If the economy/coach/steerage class passengers of today want to blame somebody for today's ridiculously narrow seats it should be Juan Triple of Pan American Airlines. He set the standard for mistreatment of passengers as far as seat width was concerned.
David Hoffman My Post was about the amazing work of Joe Sutter and his amazing team and what they had to work with in those days, they have nothing to do with the seating configurations of Pan Am or any other airline.
@@LyndaWhite-ju1gj , Oh yes, Mr. Sutter and Boeing did an amazing job getting the B747 operational, but Juan Trippe's demands on Boeing, Douglas, and Lockheed aircraft companies are infamous.
Allec, please do a video on the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 that crashed in the Andes Mountains in 1972. The story was made into the movie "Alive" back in the early 90's. It's another "pilot error" incident, but the plane was a Fairchild FH-227D. It was notoriously under-powered and had a poor safety record. Would love to see your rendition of flight, crash and your analysis. Thanks for the great videos!
When you use the wider shorter aspect ratio that you have here, the banner ads appear to take up much more space on screen than they do with ordinary 4:3 videos.
Were the crew reprimanded for the incident? Seems more like something that would've happened eventually, but could have been much worse and to an aircraft filled with 480 passengers instead of 8.
Pickles There is no reason on gawds green earth for a 747 to fly into that airport !!! There is no terminal, it is a former seaplane base with ramp down to the lake. it is the site of Boeings Renton final assembly plant for now the 737 !!!! That is the ONLY 747 to have ever attempted a landing there !!!!
Seriously doubt any airline would send a fully loaded jumbo jet to a small airport like Renton Also wouldnt have a crew that inexperienced in the aircraft type.
Pickles Hey dumb ass !!! This was a flight into the Renton factory to remove test equipment and to install the interior !!!! There are NO commercial flights in or out of Renton !!!!! DUUUUUHHHH!!!!!! It serves the runway for the 737 plant and some general aviation !!!!!! DUUUUHHH!!!!! NO reason to fly a loaded passenger plane in there !!!! DUUUUUHH!!!!
I do not mean a LITERAL FLIGHT to Renton. I am just referring to the general rule of aviation incidents "every accident makes future flights safer" and that such an incident could've involved more lives. The fact that they introduced a manufacturing change and the fact that this was very, very early in the 747's production were evidence that pilots could've made the same mistake when flying commercially.
@@pickles3128 Hey dumb ass !!! The 747 had no real reason to land at renton except to retro fit the interior of a test aircraft to a full on passenger interior. WHY Renton was chosen is a good question because it could/should have been done either at Everett Paine field, home of the Boeing widebody , 747 plant, or the Boeing field factory location !!!!
VASI: visual approach slope indicator Runway threshold lights, a predecessor to PAPI. They are in 2 sets, appearing white/red if a/c is on glidepath; white/white if too high; red/red if too low.
My favorite airplane and airline , the best looking plane and livery ! It's a really short flight , Boeing field to Renton on a good day is a 16 minute drive !
I'm sure every plane has its peculiarities, and this situation demonstrates the amount of careful practice and observation that is required before a new aircraft is put into general service. Here we had a plane full of experts and preparation far above the standards, and it still didn't land exactly as planned!
Is it just me, or after making sure that all people on board are okay, I like to see the service record from Pan Am onwards. "Clipper Ocean Telegraph" served well.
