Hi guys! Are you curious about the whole story from A to Z? Then the book about this incident is definitely worth checking out! Amazon link - amzn.to/4aTNL02 Did you like this video? Then please leave a like. You can subscribe via this link - www.youtube.com/@aviationaccidents?sub_confirmation=1
I'm curious why this channel uses the Air Crash Investigation name. But it's not the Air Crash Investigation that's also called Mayday: Air Disaster in some places. Are you just using the name?
Captain went head to head with the flight computer and took everything manually to save his passengers, man I don't care if anyone calls him "shit magnet" I'll call him a legendary pilot. Salute to him.
This is why airline pilots need extensive manual stick and rudder practice. If the captain wasn't so proficient the outcome could have been disastrous. Kudos to the captain and the first officer also for staying cool and handling this like the experts they obviously are!
i was one of the passengers on board this and we were all really lucky to be alive that day I owe my life to captain Kevin Sullivan and the crew of Flight 72 aswell as the lives of my family and the lives of every other passenger on board after that experience I had PTSD which has been mostly cured but still get very minor episodes every now and again, I also developed a fear of flying for a few years but eventually overcame it, I still get moments of terror during turbulence however it will likely forever go down as the most terrifying moment in my life
Kevin Sullivan saved over 300 people. Meanwhile, I watched an Air France first officer pulling the stick up during an aerodynamic stall at cruising altitude while the 2nd officer pushed down. By the time the Captain came back into the cockpit, he asked what happened and the first officer said "I don't know, we are losing altitude and I'm pulling up the entire time".
The pilot made the right decisions. Disengaging all flught aids and going to standby manual controls. Making a pan call, aviating, navigating, and communicating until a precaution landing/emergency landing. Well done!
@@DrummerJacob Training is one thing. Reality is another. MCAS resulted in lost planes where the pilot again and again and again turned on the autopilot instead of disengaging the automatic trim. So this world has lots of pilots living firmly in their comfort zone.
If a pilot got the name "shit magnet" and still had no serious incident under his belt, it only says he's that good that shit doesn't even touch him. Kinda of an amazing nickname.
14:19 That "A 250 million dollars aircraft reduced to the simplicity of a Cessna." line followed by a piano gave me a goosebump. Also love the "Shit Magnet" are said with full confidence, something i miss from a RU-vid video.
Captain Sullivan you did not deserve the awful nickname of "sh*t magnet" you and your crew saved many lives. I cannot even begin to imagine the stress that flight took out of all the crew and passengers. Fair play sir, you deserve to retire and pat yorself on the back for being a hero.
That's a term of endearment nickname in Australia, the worse nickname possible usually means the highest of respect - "That guys a c***" would mean he's the nicest guy you'll meet 😁
As an Australian; I assure you the nickname is not an insult, we just have an unconventional sense of humour. Generally, the more distinguished a person is the more mocking the nickname becomes.
Crazy how autopilot controls were off, but the aircraft still was able to override the captain's inputs, and even initiated a very unsafe maneuver to begin with.
That is the entire problem with the airbus automation being designed to prevent pilots from accidentally or deliberately crashing an aircraft. It is a catch 22 situation. Up to now, the automation has never directly led to a crash, but we have no idea whether it has actually prevented an accident.
I may be fully wrong on this and anyone is open to correcting me on this, but to my knowledge this happened because the FCPC's commands to pitch down were of the same priority as the captain's in the computer's eyes. So computer just saw two conflicting commands of the same authority at the same time and did nothing in response, but since the FCPC already gave it's command first, the captain only sent his in once they were already falling. It likely worked after several attempts because after the computer didn't respond, both sources had to send their commands in again, giving the pilot's inputs a fairer chance. This is sadly the reality for fly by wire systems, all physical inputs get turned into code for a computer to interpret.
@@wilsjane The combination of dual input + stall warning has led to several total losses. One pilot becomes confused, the plane protects itself from a pilot-induced stall, then the other pilot can't easily take over due to the 40 second delay needed for pressing the override button - if they even know dual input is happening. Sometimes they don't due to the chaos and lack of proper notice (dunno if this was ever rectified). The "protection" results in the plane losing airspeed until it's effectively at zero. Therefore, the plane can no longer fly even if a competent pilot takes over. They'd have to go straight down to gather airspeed and take ridiculous g-forces to pull out. Afaik noone has managed.
Ross Hales is actually my cousin, my family were all talking about this when it happened. Despite only being junior he was very competent with his brother being in the airforce and my uncle (his father) owning a scenic flight company in Busselton near Perth. He was flying planes before he was driving a car. Very daunting having the Indian Ocean coming at you and no control.
@@danielkaufmann15flight channel is great but it also doesn’t have narration. You have the read. This is a different style of channel and both can exist / explode. The story telling is really good here and the recreation of the cockpits is great. Also the 3D representations of issues and how parts function. They really do a good all around job.
@@jayrodathome yes, you're right. But nobody explained us about the reason the Quantsas plane had this malfunction. That is the most important thing. 😔
They can call that captain by whatever name they like - but that is a damn good pilot. Good job on the video. Really well written and enunciated narrative.
@@DrummerJacob hell, if there's anyone you want in the cockpit if something is going wrong, its the guy who's had to deal with weird things breaking so much his nickname refers to it....
This channel shares the same name of my favorite show. I was disappointed at first when Johnathan Aris wasn’t narrating, but this guy still manages to produce quality content. As good as the real show!
That's because they never actually found out why it mislabeled altitude with angle of attack. "Although a definitive conclusion could not be reached, sufficient information from multiple sources enabled the conclusion that most of the potential triggers were very unlikely to have been involved. A much more likely scenario was that a marginal hardware weakness of some form made the units susceptible to the effects of some type of environmental factor, which triggered the failure mode" or in short "we don't know, but it was probably a hardware problem." Digital data is all about voltage. If one piece of device was working 99.9% of the time but it failed in relaying a single byte of data, it could cause this. My personal theory is a soldering problem like in Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501, except in Quantas case the hypothetical soldering fault affected the ADIRU (which tells the computer how to fly the plane) and in AirAsia the confirmed soldering problem affected the RTLU (which keeps the pilots from destroying their plane's rudder the way American Airlines Flight 587 ended up). Frustratingly, my theory is possible but not confirmed. If it was a soldering problem, the solution to prevent future malfunctions is just to replace the defective part, but there is no conclusion here. The only way a pilot can prevent a repeat is to set the Airbus mode to "alternate law" (normal law the plane will not allow inputs that would stall a plane, alternate law the plane does what you tell it to do).
The one thing that always bugged me was why everything went wrong if only 1 of the 3 air data units failed since that's kind of the point of having 3. So if 1 fails, you are still good. Turns out after reading the actual accident report, there was an actual computer bug that eventually caused an Air Worthiness Directive to be issued 1 year later. How it worked was the computer normally compared the values of the 3 units, if they were all relatively accurate, they were averaged and used. If one was off, it would use the previous good value for 1.2 seconds, monitor the faulty unit for 1 second and determine whether or not to turn it off permanently if it stayed broken. After 1.2 seconds, if it was not broken, the values would be averaged again and used. The key bug is there is no check if the units were accurate for this averaging unlike the rest of the time. So if one of the units failed, then fixed itself within 1 second, then failed against exactly 1.2 seconds after it first failed, the airplane's computer blindly trusted the incorrect value, and would only trust that incorrect value for the next 1.2 seconds. Enough to make the airplane think it needs to make a 1.2 second long emergency descent. Of course if the failed air data unit then did the same thing and failed 1.2 seconds later again, you'll keep getting wrong data again and again with no checks, completely ignoring the other 2 data units that are screaming that the first one is wrong.
Your videos are incredibly high quality and well narrated! One suggestion I would have is at the start you mention there will be over 100 injuries including spinal injuries, and then immediately follow with "will they succeed in avoiding a crash into the Indian Ocean". I really enjoy the idea of not knowing what happens from the start and going through the crisis with the pilots, but when you announce at the start the types of injuries, it already tells the story before you tell it to some degree. Part of the joy is being along for the ride. But just some feedback, and again, your channel and videos are awesome to watch!
I thought the exact same thing. I thought to myself “oh so they survived that’s good” but it lessened the watching experience a bit. Don’t get me wrong I still enjoyed the video very much.
Amazing story, these are true pilots that stayed calm in a wild situation. Imagine if this crew had been the "PULL DOWN" crew or the France "I'm going to pull on my stick because I'm terrified" crew.
As a "shit magnet" myself, all I can say is we are the ones who find, fight and work around other people's shitty design/work. And this man, this man is a true hero in the original meaning of the word. He ability and instincts saved lives. Period. Deserves a medal for airmanship.
@@felipecorrea7876 I did not mean it that way, my friend. I wanted to show that the details presented and simplified were good from a scientific point of view Maybe words failed me because it is not my first language, sorry for that :)
I would like to show the creators and crew of this channel how much I appreciate this amazing and free content like this. Top tier 👍 Especially the amount of detail of mechanical and elektrical faults is the cherry on the cake. Please continue 👏.
@@saffy4352well, it doesn't surprise me, since so many crashes were because of pilot unable to..... Fly. Like air France crash in the sea, or air airasia
This channel is great. Really a perfect level of factual information and drama. Also I appreciate that this channel's videos don't repeat everything needlessly just to lengthen the videos lol
Imo this is just as overdramatized as any other channels video about this incident. This is how it actually looked with data straight from the black box watch?v=3dpG7_2izXs Note: I'm not saying this to somehow play down all the injuries this incident caused, this obviously was a very quick and unexpected pitch down which left many people injured for the rest of their lives.
I’ve just completed watching all of your videos. As a former fan of the Smithsonian Channel’s Air Disasters, I’ve got to say that, hands down, your content is better presented. Mesmerizing and captivating without relying on drama is a hell of a feat. I’m really looking forward to seeing this channel grow!
Qantas-1920 I believe they were founded-- have had not a single hull loss (loss of an airplane) in their more than 100 year history. Theyve been blessed with great pilots over all those years. The A380 (QF32) landing in Singapore the following year was another act of absolute heroism from a Qantas crew. My hat comes off to this crew
Omg, just found this channel and I’m hooked. I love all the technical content! Absolutely fascinating (and sometimes tragic of course…. but you show respect for lost lives) . Keep up the excellent content ❤
They were extremely fortunate IMO that this happened during day time with full visibility. Unlike the aeroperu flight in 1996. Imagine if he got the warnings during night. One wing decision and it could spell the end.
The 3 Golden Rules: 1. Pick a great airline. 2. Fly over land as much as possible. 3. Break up your trip. Singapore to Australia is the safest route you can take, and yet, they could have been doomed. When it's your time it's just your time. But you WILL NOT get a safer route than that one. Also from Singapore to London. Almost 100% over land. Aside a few small sections of water.
These videos are a good way to save money. Here is how: I watch videos -> I get scared -> I don't fly -> I save money that would have paid the flight and I also save money that would have paid hotel
Sooo ? What was the cause ? Which plug fell out ? Which line of code was corrupted ? This fascinating video is only part 1. As a retired accident investigator this is where the real story starts. How does Joe Public reassure itself that these aircraft are now safer ?
if i remember correctly, the worrying thing is they legitimately couldn't work out what made the computer start crapping its pants- the thing that caused the malfunction, i mean- they tracked down a bug in the code for how the flight control system cross-checked the 3 unit's for sanity that lead to the system completely ignoring 2 of the computers screaming that the other had gone off into la-la land, but afaik they never were able to zero in on what in the hardware actually failed, and im guessing they put it under a bloody microscope- could have even been something like memory registers getting flipped by cosmic rays- there's actual precident for that making computers freak out before- there was a local election in... i think norway, sweden? that had to re-tally the votes after the computer doing it suddenly dropped an extra zero or two into the numbers...
Just discovered this channel and can’t stop. Incredible detail, narration, and insights. Just so we’ll done. And now I have a new fear of malfunctioning airplane computer systems preventing pilots from taking manual control of the aircraft 🙃
The Graphics are just stunningly great, what a definition! What is a bit funny is the apppearance of a German Air Rescue helicopter run by the ADAC ( Ident D - HTPE) at the end of the video.
I've heard about this incident before, I also heard that one of the flight crew quipped a line from the movie Airplane as the events were unfolding. I did not know about the captain's nickname though. I guess that if that's your nickname BEFORE an incident like this, then it's only natural to feel that to continue flying would be pushing your luck. The thing that disturbs me most about this event though is that to the best of my knowledge they never determined a root cause. They knew one of the computers failed during the flight in a way that caused it to swap altitude and angle of attack data, but they never figured out why. If they don't know why it happened then they can't stop it happening again. Nonetheless, the crew did an outstanding job.
Really nice video, but I miss an explanation of what happened. I know it because I've studied this case from several angles, and it's quite amazing that one of the explanations is that a cosmic ray changed a bit in the computer and sent wrong information, but it would be nice for the next one to deepen in the actual investigation. In any case, thank you!
@@H0ttabych Actually, they don't know what caused the problem, but the effect was that the ADIRU CPU relabelled certain data, and instead of being the altitude, the module thought it was the angle of attack. And for that to happen, only one bit had to change, hence the theory of the cosmic ray. So maybe the bit change wasn't on the memory, maybe it was in one of the registers of the CPU, or maybe the cause wasn't a cosmic ray, as I said, because it's only one of the theories, as I commented on my message. But in any case, as a computer engineer, I'm still baffled how they thought it was a good idea to have two different labels (altitude and angle of attack) separated by a distance of 1! That's a no-no when designing robust systems, but I guess those were other times. You can find more information on this incident and the cosmic rays theory in the video titled "The Universe is Hostile to Computers" by veritasium on RU-vid, or the episode of Air Crash Investigation dedicated to this incident.
After having watched the documentary about this flight as well as having read Captain Sullivan's excellent book "No Man's Land", this video is an excellent informative piece which really highlights the nightmare scenario in which the hero captain Sullivan and his crew managed to stay level headed amid the cacophony of "stall", ":overspeed" and other computer warnings, and the pitch downs and were still able to land the plane . I love the details which illustrate how unpredictable and erratic it must have felt like to fly this plane and how by Sullivan's great skills and team work with his crew all the lives on board were saved. Kudos and highest respect! I sure hope the computer errors that occurred have been solved by now? The only thing I don't agree with here is the term "shit magnet". Obviously Captain Sullivan had nothing to do with attracting these incidents, he just flew many many hours and shit happens.
I I have never had any interest or anything in airplanes more than flying somewhere and I am hooked on this channel lol I bet I could fly a plane now lol
s it not WONDERFL, when computs run your life and YOU have no longer any control ???? so lucky that these mere HUMANS had the knowlege, cool and sense to land this disaster safely !!!! hats off to them !!!!
Thanks mate! I think it was due to the lighting or the detail of the cockpit, which is different in every aircraft. This aircraft is much more detailed in the simulator.
