The first fan blade that broke broke because of metal fatigue according to the video. As this plane was brand new, one can safely make the conclusion that something in the manufacturing process of that fan blade went wrong, leading to the blade fracturing long before it should have.
it's always sad when it comes down to pilot error, and i'm sure the pilots feel absolutely horrible-- i know it would haunt me for the rest of my life. plus, lbr, the vibrations was a HUGE factor and the pilots were under extreme stress and have a very slim time period before they have to act. absolute tragedy in all regards.
These pilots did the best they could under stress of factors beyond their understanding. The panel layouts were confusing at best. Their placement of the vibration gauges is the fault. They should not have been sacked. They did their absolute best to ensure a safe outcome.
The pilots should have sent a flight attendant to get a visual on the 2 engines to confirm or ask passengers if they saw anything unusual. A basic double check could have avoided this tragic landing.
I'm fascinated by the painstaking analysis of what went wrong. I always look for the ones where the accident is mysterious and they have to find the black boxes.
The pilots should have undergone what I call "transition training." The plane they were on was a new model. It wasn't the same one that they're used to. It would make sense that how some things were configured in the 737-300 wouldn't necessarily be the same as in the 400's. So, yes, it was pilot error. But some of the blame can be placed on the airliner for not providing the necessary training or not posting the necessary changes or alerts. Other crashes had occurred because the airliner didn't make these announcements at all, or didn't make them fast enough.
I am so sorry for the flight crew. My kindest regards and condolences to the families of all. We all who fly for work necessities, or for pleasure - I always say 'Safe travels'. And sincerely God sent meant.
It's not fair that they dismissed both pilot's. The investigators found that any pilot would have a hard time reading those gauges with all that shaking going on. How is that their fault?
I’m sure they got paid also. Why no mention about the shoddy maintenance allowing the metal to fatigue to the point of failure in the first place? 100% on the airline.
I always get a laugh when I see someone demonstrate a "crash position" with an adult putting their head on their legs. Seats would have to be 12" farther apart for an adult to actually pull that off.
Some episodes feature some pilots making baffling mistakes. This is an example of understand ones, albeit tragic. I'm sure they were crestfallen by the final report and have spent countless hours replaying the crash over and over in their heads.
There's always more of a feeling of security when you're controlling the mode of transport. Of course flying will get you there much faster than driving yourself. I would think by now there would be cameras pointed at the engines.
As soon as the vibration started I thought " level off, pull power on one engine, then power it back up and try the other". Shutting down the wrong (ie the good one) engine on a twin is often enough of an occurrence to be a cliche.
Difficulty is that pulling power from the right engine *did* stop the shaking (albeit because of turning off the auto-thruster). That made it seem like they had made the correct decision in which engine was causing the trouble. And "powering back up" on the engine that was the problem was what caused the final crisis by dislodging the piece of metal.
They should teach the pilots about the differences within the different models of planes. The captain relied on outdated information, the newer model drew air from both engines instead of just the right engine. He shut down the right engine because he believed that was the only engine providing air.
I'm sorry I know this is no place for humor but I actually chuckled when Nigel said "the plain was like a chicken carcass after a Sunday roast". His analogy was spot on because the first thing I pictured in my head was that. So sorry for the loss of life in this. I am terrified of flying and it's not just because of these videos, I have always been afraid of flying. I'm a gear head and one that knows machines do break with no warning. On the ground or on water you have a chance, but in a tube 35,000 feet, very little chance.
They dismissed the pilots? That's outrageous!!! What else could they have done??? I guess that's there way of not taking accountability for a crappy airplane that should NOT have been in the air!!!! Disgusting
I don't think there was enough detail in the engine failure investigation. Exactly what part of the engine failed, and exactly why. That is what precipitated these events. Passenger safety and injury was simply consequential.
I must have missed the answer, but why did the vibration suddenly stop when the captain shut down the good engine (by mistake)? That is what convinced him that he had made the right choice.
When they shut down one of the engines it also disables the auto-throttle, which automatically reduced the power to the engine that was still running, which in this case was the damaged engine, but the power was reduced enough that the violent vibrations settled down making the pilots think they fixed the problem, when in fact they actually shut the wrong engine down.
Well, when you can literally see almost every value of what's going on, cameras aren't going to do anything for you. If you can visually see something, you will already have had SEVERAL EVM and ECAS warnings that something is wrong.
Or just ask the cabin crew which engine is on fire! The cabin crew are still being treated as simple stewardesses at this time. They could be so much more in emergencies.
I am going through such a rough time in life and comments such as yours is what gets me through. Lol that was funny. To OP's credit, maybe they weren't paying attention at the time when the date was revealed of this accident. @@wildbill23c
@@Russman520 to be fair, the recent case of a delta plane taking off the tail of a different delta plane in part because it you can’t see the wingtips from the cockpit shows why this would be helpful. Also, the case of the El Al 747 cargo that crashed in Amsterdam. Had they been able to see that the engines were missing, maybe the outcome could have been different.
I understand there are less plane crashes than there are car accidents, but I still have a fear of flying (doesn’t help I have a fear of heights too). My husband asked me the other day what it would take for me to get on a plane. At first I told him no way would I. Then I said I’d need knocked out. Lastly I said probably the highest dose of Xanax or Valium. When I’ve traveled out of state it’s been by car, bus and the Amtrak.
Fear of flying is not uncommon. I went through a period of several years as a young adult when I wouldn’t go on a plane or ride an elevator. I decided I wanted to travel overseas and had to somehow deal with it. It took awhile but prescription of Valium and regularly taking flights did the trick. Tell your doctor and they will help you with this. Good luck🙏
@@kamakaziozzie3038 Thank you! I’ll definitely talk to my doctor. I’m just glad I’m not alone in this and other people went or are having those same fears. ❤️
Just one passenger -- that's all it would have taken. One person sitting on the left side of the plane with the guts speak up and say, "Tell them the left engine is on fire! Not the right!" People are so scared of looking foolish or making a scene that they're even willing to risk death; that's just insane. There was the other accident in Hawaii where a passenger noticed a problem with the fuselage but didn't say anything; that one resulted in the death of a flight attendant and a terrifying ride for the remaining people on board. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a classroom, or a meeting or whatever, and I've said, "I don't understand what you just said; can you go over that again?" and the whole class kind of sighs in relief and gives a little laugh. You can tell that they were all thinking the exact same thing but were too afraid to speak up. If you see something, say something!
I can't understand why cameras looking at the engines are not present. Seems like in many instances this would help the pilots. Why don't planes have such cameras??
These👨🏻✈️👨🏼✈️caught so many bad breaks. Even the captain being so experienced he knew which engine’d be responsible for drawing smoke in (before the 400) played against them. Could’ve happened to any pilot.
It is infuriating to me that the pilots were fired over this incident. They did make a mistake in shutting down the wrong engine, but that would not have happened if the captain had been aware of the design changes that had the ventilation pulling from both engines. The failure of the engine and the majority of the deaths were due to the poor design of the aircraft, and were not the fault of either pilot. Boeing shares much more blame than the pilots.
Seems like it would be a simple thing to add some sort of video cameras that would be able to see the engines on both sides of the wings, that pilots could easily call up to get a visual to confirm things like this. Or even perhaps other vital components such as the tail, etc.
So why would a nearly brand new Boeing 737 engine experience catastrophic metal fatigue of the fan blades? Why would Boeing build a plane with such a weak floor and overhead bin attachment points? The intense focus on the misdiagnosis of the problem by the pilots glosse over the origin of the original problem… engine failure!
These pilots blew it! They could have easily asked a flight attendant to look at each engine, to see where the smoke/fire was coming from! By them panicking, people lost their lives! So sad!😢
The investigators didn't mention anything about the right engine failing to restart when the left engine became violent again. If nothing was wrong with the right engine, it should have restarted right away since it was still hot.
Pilots got way to much blame. Nobody on the ground can understand what kind of decisions they had to make under the hardest circumstances. They made logical decisions that unfortunately wrong. Not enough focus on the engine failure that caused the wreck. And if airliners had cameras pointing back at each wing like a rear view mirror, then captains could make more informed decisions.
I can understand firing the crew if the mistake they made was so incompetent that absolutely no one but the dumbest people could have made the mistake and avoiding painfully obviously signs that they had made a mistake, but given the stress of the situation, the layout of the gauges, and the high vibration I would probably make the same mistake. The only negative thing I can think of is the mindset of the lead pilot. The lead pilot believed that the right engine was the faulty engine because of the copilot's assumption and the reduced vibration in the cab after powering down the engine. This was supported by his belief that the aircon in the cab was supplied only by the right engine when in fact aircon was supplied by both engines. This showed he was not familiar enough with his aircraft to know about the aircon. The moment he smelled smoke in the cab his mindset would have led him to believe that the right engine was the problem, even if there were more obvious signs that the fault was in the left engine. Possibly splitting hairs, but if he had known about the aircon arrangements for this particular plane he might have noticed sooner that the smoke was still coming into the cab despite the right engine being shut down. His mind might have been open enough to notice that power to the left engine had been reduced due to the autothrottle having been turned off and that the timing of the vibration stopping coincided with the reduction of power to the left engine. Would it have been enough to save the flight? I couldn't tell you. It's all speculative, and given the timing of it all and the other circumstances (vibration causing the gauges to be blurred and unreadable, etc.) there was probably little else that the pilots could have done once the right engine was shut down. At least one passenger and probably more could see that the problem was in the left engine, but the mindset at the time of the passengers was "Trust the professionals, they know what they're doing." If any of them spoke up and informed the stewardess of what they saw with the left engine or if the stewardess herself had seen what happened to the left engine and communicated the fact to the pilots perhaps something could have been done to save the flight. Again, all speculative. Mindset can be a dangerous thing sometimes. I imagine the decision to fire the pilots simply boiled down to the fact that the pilots made the wrong call, and that mistake doomed the flight. Was the mistake reasonable in the fact that any other crew would have possibly done the same thing in those circumstances? I think it was, but I'm no pilot.
I'm sorry, but if I i was the passenger by the left wing and could visually see that it was on fire... the Captain would know. He heard the Captain say 'right wing' engine. Also, why didn't the stewards on the flight notify the cockpit of the fire?
Yet here we are in 2024 and they STILL haven’t added a locking function on the overhead bins so that they don’t open when there’s turbulence or during a crash or during an evacuation (when passengers are told to LEAVE THEIR BELONGINGS AND GET OUT BUT EVERYONE IS HELD UP BY HALF THE PLANE GRABBING THEIR BELONGINGS!)
Seems like a pretty amateur mistake. There’re a few ways to check which engine was in trouble. The power gauges could show power but the engine could still be in trouble, and given the consequences on shutting down the wrong engine, they should have triple checked which engine was the problem. I guess some people just can’t take certain dose of stress.
By the way, there are two Boeing astronauts stuck in space station for two months now, because the new Boeing Starlink space craft that took them there is malfunctioning. The poor astronauts are so scared, they do not want to return to earth on the new Starlink. lol
I still don't understand why they got rid of the space shuttle, that made far more sense than the method they use now, which is 50+ years backwards in technology.
Very good job dudes and nicely well done!! Congratulations 992.72% yo throughout the 3rd sizzling patriotic week of said amazing August y'all. You would think with today's technology they would have some kind of cameras on both sides of the wings with visuals to each engine. Seriously?!🏅🥇🖼🖼🖼🖼🖼🖼🖼🎊🎉🇺🇸
Of course it failed. Of course a vital part was poorly manufactured. It was a Boing aircraft. The pilots should not have been sacked. They did what they were trained to do. It’s the Boing people who failed to train the pilots on the air and pressurization system changes and gage locations that should have got the boot.
Just what every cockpit crew needs least of all, nervous nellies passengers. When calling upon all of ones experience and training, to not have passengers support and confidence would be a ridiculous over burden for crew. Imho - persons w/psych problems (neurosis etc) just shouldn’t fly: to not realize air travel’s safest mode on planet isn’t good. Have passengers been living in caves for past 75+ years? They’ re likely & pathetically auto drivers? (Most dangerous travel mode), likely same selfish types attempting to take hand luggage during evacuations…argh! We could benefit from passenger black lists 😂😂
@@purpleblendsthe camera wouldn’t have to be sticking out in the breeze. It could very easily be mounted in the fuselage, looking at the engines. I have always wondered that myself since it is almost impossible to see the exhaust of the engine from the cockpit. It would not be a good idea to rely upon a passenger or cabin attendant to “see a problem” and report it.
@@sldrucker yea, but it still would cause so much money to mount it to every single plane. its much easier and cost effective to have flight attendents look out the window, than having to mount cameras on every plane.
Thank you! I really do appreciate you taking the time to reply. And, you made a really good point, as airlines are reluctant to spend money on even safety devices. But, how much did it cost them on this accident? And, I have now seen at least two other Mayday episodes that started with an engine fire, where the pilots were unable to see what was going on with the engines. And, to my surprise, the cabin crew didn’t intervene and report what they saw to the pilots.
First thing have flight attendants check to see which engine is in flames. Better yet install plane mirrors like on cars so they can look and physically see the engines
