Catastrophic Loss of Control (Trans International Airlines Flight 863) - DISASTER BREAKDOWN 

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I agree with the ruling. The pilots should have walked around the entire runway with a broom and made sure there was no debris. They should have also jumped outside and looked at the elevator to check for a jam as soon as the rock got stuck in it, and pulled it out while the plane was in the air. 100% pilots' faults for failure to resurface those taxiways properly and leaving debris everywhere.

I don't agree with that ruling, it's seems exceptionally harsh on the pilots. The flight was extremely underweight so it seems likely that in the few seconds of uncommanded rotation the copilot could have thought they had accidently trimmed incorrectly and that he needed to get it airborne before he ran out of runway since it wasn't nosing back down when commanded. The fact that the stabilizer was jammed and that it was buckled and bent proves that the pilot was attempting very hard to bring it back down but was physically unable to and the asymmetry would have made it extremely difficult to control. Given that the flight only lasted a few seconds I don't know how the pilots were expected to have diagnosed and responded in that short a time. Given that they don't know when on the takeoff roll the rocks were kicked up, blaming the pilots seems wrong. This was entirely the fault of the airport for not removing debris from the runway in my opinion.

I’m an asphalt construction worker here in Kansas, the US. We’ve done runway/taxiway projects before. I couldn’t even count how many times the airport authority and my bosses stressed that there can’t be ANY debris left behind. Everything’s gotta be either picked up or swept far into the grass. Always knew it could cause malfunctions/failures on planes, but seeing a video about it was great. Long time viewer here.

The official report seems fantastically harsh on the pilots. The airport should of kept the runway clear of debris. And the aircraft manufacturer should of made the control surfaces less vulnerable to fouling .

The two pilots and flight engineer had a combined total of almost 50,000 flight hours between them. That is an astronomically high amount of experience, so if those guys couldn't have possibly figured out what was wrong, let alone have had enough time to save the aircraft, then that just confirms that this situation was completely and utterly uncontrollable once they left the runway. The final report is unnecessarily harsh and scathing on the pilots who could not have possibly had enough time to figure out what the problem was, let alone have enough time to save the flight. Rest in peace to those 11 souls on board.

Whoever writes final reports like this? The crew was doomed from that unexpected jam, despire their best efforts. Debris might have been negligently left on the runway, maybe someone didn't want to pay for this blunder. RIP the victims.

In remembrance to the victims: Captain Joseph John May, 49 First Officer John Donald Loeffler, 47 Flight Engineer Donald Kenneth Neeley, 42 Navigator Warren McNaughton Flight Attendant Irmagard Russo Flight Attendant Dianne Beasley Flight Attendant Barbara Ann Lewis, 23 Flight Attendant Juliet Lorea Flight Attendant Margareta Lewenhaupt, 23 Flight Attendant Marica Hanifin Flight Attendant Linda Brennan

My guess as to why the official report blamed the pilots, is that the PA (or their insurance) did not want to pay money to the victims' families. If the stone(s) which caused the elevator to lock into place also caused the initial uncommanded pitch-up, then the flight was doomed from that initial pitch-up -- at that point, it was already too late to successfully abort the takeoff.

I've never even heard of this accident. From this narration, the accident report seems incredibly unprofessional to me. I always thought that these reports were supposed to improve future safety instead of assigning blame. Was that different 50 years ago? Making the deceased pilots responsible for the crash that was caused by an unforseeable, fringe mechanical problem is just bad optics. How were they supposed to know what's going on? From their perspective, the erratic behavior of the plane could have been the result of it being unusually lightly loaded. To me, it seems like the aim of the report was to protect the airport and the Port Authority that were allowing the operations to continue with contaminated infrastructure by putting the blame on the people who couldn't defend themselves against the allegations.

One thing not mentioned is the fact that the DC-8 uses servo tabs for elevator control. As opposed to Boeing designs there is no direct hydraulic control between the elevators and the yoke. This means that when the plane is sitting on the ground or at low speed on the takeoff roll you can’t test for a jammed elevator by moving the controls. The only thing you are actually moving is the small control tab which depends on aerodynamic effects to in-turn control the elevator. This has resulted in similar more recent crashes in MD-80 series aircraft and there really is no solution to it. The only possible way to check for a jam on the ground would be to go up in a lift and physically manipulate the elevator by hand.

So the Port Authority is resurfacing the runways? Thus leaving debris which jams and effects the control surfaces of the aircraft? Forcing it to pitch up, veer off and crash into the ground killing everyone on board? Then the pilots are blamed for all of this?

I was a flight attendant for TIA back in the mid 70's. It was a charter airline on a tight budget, and it showed. I remember landing on a runway in Norway (I think, anyway snowy and icy) and we skidded for what seemed like forever. When we finally were able to disembark passengers, the look on the Captains's face said it all. We were at the very end of the runway. I quit not long afterwards and went back to college.

It is easy for the living “experts” to blame the dead pilots who suffered a jammed flight control. Imagine you are in your car on the highway and your steering wheel jams in a curve while doing 70 mph. While cars have brakes, in the air, planes can’t stop. The result of the crash led to the installation of the EPI gauge on the Instrument panel. Elevator Position Indicator (EPI) is what it was called and it was checked while doing the flight controls check on taxi out. There is at least one story of another DC-8 that also ended up with a jammed elevator due to runway debris. This cargo DC-8 was flown by the captain and after takeoff they reached an extremely high deck angle; a stall was imminent. However, this captain was also an aerobatic pilot. While he lost pitch control of the DC-8 due to a jammed elevator, he instinctively kicked in full rudder and split the lift vector causing the nose to drop and the plane to turn. This led to oscillations and power adjustments. But by skill mixed with luck, each time the nose went high, the captain used rudder to split the lift vector. He did this all the way around the airport and was able to even land using this technique. Not many other pilots would have thought of this. There was another DC-8, Fine Air, that crashed in Miami due to a cargo shift that moved the cg to 44% causing a nose-high attitude. The crew pushed forward on the yoke to no avail. Deck angle exceeded 30 degrees nose-up and the airspeed bled off to 80 knots resulting in a stall/crash accident just hundreds of feet past the end of runway 27R. Four on board and one one the ground lost their lives. Cause of the cg shift was due to cargo pallets not being properly locked down. They slid aft at rotation. This crew in this film did exactly what 99% of any airline pilots would have done. Loss of flight controls is never easy. The Alaska Air MD-80 that lost pitch control due to a stuck screw-jack that decoupled is another example of an impossible situation for pilots. They paid the price for a shabby maintenance procedure. This crew and flight attendants died because of sloppy construction practices at a major airport.

When you started discussing the resurfacing around the airport my eyes went wide - in the industry it's called FOD, or foreign object debris. I walked gate/apron areas countless times before aircraft arrivals to make sure the ground was clear when I worked in station ops, because broken zipper pulls are a fantastic way to ground your aircraft.

Now here’s another one I didn’t know about. I’m really digging the lesser known content. Yes I’m very happy to see the same incident from multiple perspectives, because each and every time, I have learned at least one thing that wasn’t present in another video. Folks tend to pick up on what other folks missed. Edit: not so much missed. Just not discussed. Everyone reads the same final report, and you’ve gotta structure the video a certain way to keep the flow, so sometimes one may clip what another may keep. But when it’s a left-field one like this, I pay extra attention. Keep it up! Also keep doing ones others have already covered, for the reasons above!

Funny coincidence that Allec Joshua Ibay released a video on the very same accident just a day ago.😅😅

This is very interesting. Its a very unknown air disaster on youtube. Thank you for making this video and keep up your contact bc i love it!

I remember TIA. I used to see their DC-8s parked at Oakland Airport all the time when I was a kid. Both TIA and World Airways were charter carriers that used a maintenance hangar there. United sometimes used the hangar as well. There would be 747s, DC-10s and other long distance planes there parked outside the hangar. The only time I ever saw a 747 SP was there. That is still my favorite variant. I wish I had a chance to fly on one, but it was cool to go out there and watch the large jets coming and going.

"the pilots should have had ample time. They only had seconds and no warning indicator. Maybe you guys should add that" These are the worst investigators in history God dam.

Imo the ruling was unfair on the pilots. They had very little time to notice something was wrong, let alone take corrective actions. I doubt the investigators accounted for startle effect. Makes me think of Cactus 1549

This is the BEST explanation of this crash I've seen.

Something so small causing such a serious accident, rip to the crew

This definitely is a lesser-known crash. I only know tidbits of the crash until you uploaded. Nice work on the presentation!

Great video. I had not heard of that one. Small FYI, it is the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Mid 90s Cincinnati Airport Delta Expansion. Working for one of the subcontractors. Every subcontractor had to follow and escort to our destination. Many times we would drive past planes idling at the gates. You learn quick to keep your windows up. If not the heat is intense. Also we would get peppered by loose dirt sand or whatever is on the ground. I remember seeing several street cleaning trucks driving the paths the escorts would take us. These street cleaners would drive non stop.

22,000+ flight hours for a 49 year old is impressive

Looking forward to your future videos, thanks for all the work you put into making these!!

I flew on a long stretched DC-8 once and it seemed really big, heavy and solid. It was an impressive airplane.

And what a long-lived, workhorse of an airplane it was, too.

Blame the pilots. It's easy, and, in addition, if they're dead they can't reply, can they?

Another fatal accident this time Involving the DC-8-71 not the DC-8-63 flying as Emery 17 crashed while trying to make an emergency landing back at Sacramento Mater Airport after on takeoff the Aircraft was pitching higher than usual. This was due to also the right side elevator being jammed but due to a bolt that was removed by Maintainance. Emery Worldwide was later grounded that same year due to another DC-8-71 having a landing gear issue and the FAA revoking Emery Maintainance certification and was later bought up by UPS but they never revealed it. The flight crew was Captain Kevin Staples First Officer George Land and Flight Engineer Russell Hicks

Leave it to Allec Joshua Ibay and Disaster Breakdown to upload videos on the same accident on the same weekend

Excellent video as always Chloe, thank you for your meticulous work :)

Many thanks, I love this channel, often watch when have already seen the accident on other channels, but, the graphics, the narrative, the consiceness (concision?) ie... quick and clean storie of wtf happened, I really enjoy, though i fast forward through bios of the crews. Again, my thanks!

I thoroughly enjoyed this video as I've never heard of this accident until now. You always tell these stories so very well.

DC: Death Coffins "Please be aware pebbles may jam your elevators." "Can you correct this, what should we do if that happens?" "No. Well uh, figure it out, and don't crash."

Here are all of my recommendations: 1. Flydubai flight 981 2. Air India flight 855 3. Any military plane crash 4. Korean air flight 801 or 858 5. Indonesia Airasia flight 8501 6. Air Algérie flight 5017 7. Trigana Air flight 267 8. Air Inter flight 148 9. Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 (sequel to Iran Air flight 655) 10. 2006 Mumbai train bombings 11. El Faro (2015) 12. And finnally the Doña paz (1987) I would recommend at least doing a few of these incidents.

Thanks for explaining this. An earlier video on another channel did a really crappy job on this same incident, and I unsubscribed from that other channel just on the basis of its incoherence. Now, from your video and explanation, I feel I know what happened. I hope airports have improved, but the well-covered Concord disaster was triggered by the same general cause: debris on the runway.

The date was so close from being 52 years to the day

I remember jumpseating on DHL's -73's around the year 2000. They were prehistoric even then! And I flew on a -52 from Fort Lauderdale to Detroit in January 1975; I remember looking out the window as a 9 year old at the ENORMOUS flaps that seemed to hang down nearly vertically! Boeing equipment usually has slatted flaps, Douglas is a cheap-ass airframer and their flaps were like a Cessna 172, one single piece that droops. Shit, I'm surprised that Donald Douglas, cheap-skate of all time, didn't mandate the use of manually driven flaps like the Johnson bar arrangement in a Piper Warrior.....

That plane picked up the debris during takeoff. How could the pilots know what was going to happen? Once you've left the ground in an unusual attitude, there's little time to correct the situation let alone figure out what to do. The blame for this crash should be placed on airport maintenance for not maintaining clean taxiways and runways. In the military we were particularly anal about cleaning up any FOD (foreign object debris) from anywhere that a plane could pick it up. This included even cigarette butts.

An event I hadn't heard of before 👍

This seems incredibly incomplete. There is no way for flight crew to realise they have a jammed elevator or trim tab from FOD in that scenario! The free movement of all control surfaces is conducted after pushback or during the initial taxi. This event suggests loose matriarch was ingested or somehow deposited during the rotation phase. No pilot is going move the yoke back and forth during rotation to check again for free travel of the control surfaces. Upon identifying the unresponsive elevator it would be appropriate to attempt a push/pull manoeuvre of the yoke to regain control. This horrific event wold be akin to rotating and holding the yoke well back, the pitch up attitude of the aircraft would climb into a stall. Because the aircraft was so light it would have achieved a nose High attitude quite quickly, giving little time to attempt recovery of the aircraft before it entered the stall state. There is no explanation of what the FOD material was, where the contaminant originated, was the onus on the airport? Forensic identification of any FOD would be performed and the runway closed until the source of such, and how it contaminated the runway due to its obvious threat to the safety of other aircraft departing. Even the risk of such contaminants being ingested into any aircraft's engines would not be tolerated. Unless there were actions taken by the flight crew for events not mentioned in this production, I do not see how they could be criticised for an unrecoverable event. Many features of the investigation appear to be absent from this brief spurious explanation.

RIP to the 11 people on borard 🙏❤

Great content as always!!

You and Allec were working on the same crash at the same time

How on earth a bunch of pen-pushers could come up with that decision is beyond belief! To call this one pilot error is outrageous and this decision should have seen the lot of them fired.

That must have been horrific to live through. Too close to the ground for them to do anything after they got airborn. HUGELY unfair at the pilots.

As a result of this accident, they added a small gauge in the cockpit of all DC-8's. It is called an Elevator Position Indicator, "EPI" and was connected to a position sensor on the elevators. The EPI has a needle that moves up and down on the cockpit gauge to show the movement and position of the elevators. After this accident, it was standard procedure on takeoff for the pilot monitoring to call 80 Knots at which point the flying pilot would push the control wheel forward and watch for downward elevator deflection on the gauge. The flying pilot would then call "checked" and continue the takeoff. If that gauge didn't move it was reason to reject the takeoff. I spent 14 years flying the DC-8 during my airline career. Pilots either loved or hated the DC-8. Most of us loved the -8. I did. I went on to fly Boeing aircraft after the DC-8 and enjoyed them just as much. You can argue the systems design and engineering between Douglas, Boeing, and Airbus ad infinitum. They are all different engineering mindsets and each has it's good and bad points. I just stumbled on this channel today and am really enjoying it. Wonderful, thoughtful and well done analysis of various accidents. I would love to see you do a video on UPS Flight 6 out of Dubai in September 2010. There were a lot of changes made to how inflight fires are handled because of that flight.

Apparently, aviation forgot about danger considering that foreign object debris ended up contributing to the crash of that Concorde.

I have ALOT of years on flightlines and FOD is inescapable, however I never saw FOD reach heights like that……I suppose it’s possible but this seems like a reach. RIP to the Airmen and crew

"Aggravated by pilot error". Yes, because the pilots are clearly responsible for allowing stones accumulate on the control surfaces during takeoff in such a way that they jammed the elevator in place. /s It's absolutely degusting that the report has the nerve to blame the pilots. You're telling me that a crew with a combined total of 47,000 hours are responsible for something that was completely out of their control? What baloney! But hey, the crew is dead, so it's not like they can protest these findings or anything...

Thanks for sharing. 😉👌🏻

Just remember, the first rule of an aircrash investigation is "Blame the Pilot". No matter what happens, blame the pilot. If it is the pilot's fault, then the maximum damages that have to be paid are about $50,000 per passenger. If the crash is caused by debris from the airport jamming a control surface, then the airport can be liable for millions of dollars per passenger. The pilot is not their to defend his actions, therefore he is guilty.

Hey, you have to know that Allec Joshua Ibay has posted a video like this literally yesterday

I noticed in some of your videos, and here too, that you sometimes refer to an elevator setting as 12°nose up (or however many degrees) I find this confusing, the elevator being 12°up - ok, makes sense. But the elevator being in a 12° nose up position? I would think that how much elevator you need to get your nose up by 12° would depend on airspeed, trim setting, weight and balance, airdensity and so on, no?

I don't know how accurate the simulation footage is, but that was a massive tail strike.

Among other things, my airport has a dleet of street sweepers to help prevent things like this

Moving the control wheel does not move the elevator. The controls wheel moves the Control Tab on the elevator which moves the elevator. There is no hydraulics in the elevator. It is totally manual.

Are you sure about the count of five remaining DC-8? I find the following six registrations still active: 9S-AJG 9S-AJO N817NA (the NASA aircraft you show in the video) N782SP OB-2059-P OB-2158-P

Great work Chloe

😩 (sigh) " MAN!.... Although this particular tragedy didn't claim a large number of fatalities, I recall the 1970s & 80s decades were littered with scores of deadly commercial airline crashes. Almost daily, ' The Big Three ' networks opened their Evening News broadcasts with one or more big aviation disasters. It wasn't uncommon for the public to speculate which flight would become the next plane crash and how many lives It would claim. " " Leaving On A Jet Plane " - Peter, Paul, & Mary

💯 the port authority and airports fault if debris was left!! Not pilot error

It would be cool if you made a detailed breakdown of the 2 recent 737-8200 disasters

Excellent !!!

Wouldn't using the elevator trim to try and control the pitch have been an option?

Cool Video

Easy for me to say, and I’m no pilot, but wouldn’t it be a quick mental step to using trim to override the pitch up? Imprecise for sure, but that would solve the immediate pitch problem (not the whole problem I know). And yes, I kind of expect quick thinking from a commercial pilot of a big plane. Maybe we don’t know everything that they tried, too.

I agree with others in the comment section that the pilots should not have been criticized so harshly, as it was likely not something they would have encountered in training. However I do think they should have recognized something was not right and aborted the takeoff, given how long the tail was striking along the ground (for 1250 feet). Here is the probable cause section of the NTSB's report: "The Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was a loss of pitch control caused by the entrapment of a pointed, asphalt-covered object between the leading edge of the right elevator and the right horizontal spar web access door in the aft part of the stabilizer. The restriction to elevator movement, caused by a highly unusual and unknown condition, was not detected by the crew in time to reject the take off successfully. However, an apparent lack of crew responsiveness to a highly unusual emergency situation, coupled with the captain's failure to monitor adequately the take off, contributed to the failure to reject the take off."

Everyone here's talking about how harsh and unfair that final report is, and yeah I concur. I'm not really sure how they expected the pilots to have solved this one, what with the jammed stabiliser caused by debris on the runway - and having just seconds to diagnose that issue. This absolutely seems like a report made to cover up the negligence of whatever department was tasked with keeping the runway clear.

I have flown many times on the DC-8 and all the other first generation jetliners.

The jet engines and heavy planes can easily tear up fresh resurfacing if it hasn’t had time to completely cure. And at such an insanely busy airport, I wouldn’t be surprised it was rushed a bit.

This is one reason I hate stones.

How TF was this the pilot's fault???

Thank you for your videos. Please don’t do a 9/11 video. It is an especially painful topic that has already been covered more than enough. And I’d still like to see more Disaster Averted videos.

Could you do Thai 311 and PiA 268 both flights crashed on approached to Kathmandu but for different reasons?

That was so unlucky to happen

I am absolutely *not* an airline pilot, and I am not trying to armchair fly, but, 124kt (edit, 80kt?!) for a jetliner? That’s pretty low! Impressively low, even.

You know the bad part has arrived when the times mentioned start getting more specific.

Which song does he use for his background

Some fine cheap chicken wire type covering over all the gaps will prevent this issue? Obviously flexible and strong enough to match the durability of the rest of aircraft construction? It is easy to conceal your own guilt by blaming those that cannot defend themselves. I doubt any other crew would have fared any better.

This is literally a final destination scenario

That the DC 8 is extinct is news to me. There was a time when it ruled the sky. Stretched too

What the music at 7:19? & 58

Wow, critisising the crew? But the had already passed take off speed, they were committed to rotate... Unless they could of, in 4 seconds, somehow predicted they'd have enough runway to slow down but again, they're at V1?! Wtf?

Similiar to the Concorde accident.

Two “flight channels” covering the same disaster with a 24-hour period.

What addon is this?

Where is your accent from?

I think the pilots were treated very badly. What happened was so u usual that tbey could not have known what to do. It appears to me that they were used as scapegoats to protect the airport authorities.

Calling this "pilot error" sounds a bit dodgy. Good to see that investigations itself evolved whit the airplane industry.

I can't believe the International Trans killed that many people on that flight

This one was simple. New York City Union workers and FOD. A deadly cocktail.

Good video and thank you,. Why did they blame the pilots like that problem came out of nowhere to them, ground staff I would point finger at, sad anyway, In the ninteys I worked whit dc8 great aircraft.

Thats one helluva dirty plane you have there in your simulations. A DLC skin pack?

This is really terrible. I don't think you can blame the pilots for this.

The ol' Death Capsule -8

Greta video disaster breakdown

Little tip...watch at 1.25x speed