Now my ears are working again. I can hear the speech in this video perfectly. By the way, the premiere has the possibility to evaluate both visually and by listening to the volume of the audio track and adjust it as needed, if the recording setup cannot be standard ;)
4:45 Note that older NTSB reports were archived to microfilm and the original paper copies were then destroyed. The poor quality of the photographs in the digital scans of these reports is a direct result of the microfilm process, and is not due to multiple photocopying of the original paper reports.
@@MiniAirCrashInvestigation You're welcome. As one who's read many older NTSB reports over the years (mostly highway and rail), I share your frustration with the poor photographs in these older scans.
Fumes from the aircon packs are relatively common events, usually caused by a leaky seal in the bleed air of an engine. Check list items will include switching off the aircon packs alternatetly to see which pack is the culprit. It produces acrid fumes and haze but is not a major concern. Smoke on the other hand indicates a fire and is a "land immediately" emergency. This is why the pilots were concerned about the specifics. In this case they were already on approach so it is difficult to see how they could have further expidited the landing, the question was only whether to evacuate the aircraft immediately after landing or continue to the gate.
I think it was an Air Alaska flight that had a fire, it grew so severe that the NTSB found that the plastic in the cockpit was melting and dripping onto the flight crew at the end. That one passed nightmare on the left and accelerated hard! Add in flights where passengers and crew died just from smoke inhalation due to delayed evacuation on landing. Smoke is bad.
@@himssendol6512 No, you do not just assume the worst case, because many emergency procedures are themselves dangerous so you need to be sure they are necessary. Performing an emergency evacuation on the ground often causes injuries and has even resulted in death. Fire on an aircraft with no airport close by may merit and emergency landing on a road, field or ditching in the sea.
I have to admit, I wouldn't know the difference between smoke and fumes in an emergency situation, it's a weird line to draw. Surely in that situation the best move is to turn all the Aircon packs off, and assume the worst fire anyway, and land immediately. Instead of debating smoke semantics, haha.
It seems that the captain discounted the reports from the cabin crew as if they weren't important enough to listen to. The way they said "A pilot told me," shows that they knew he habitually didn't take them seriously.
This stuck out to me, also. Yours is the first comment on it that I’ve seen, which really surprised me since it seemed so glaring. It makes me feel like this seems normal to people. Listen to the cabin crew, FFS!
This reminds me of what happened to the ValuJet plane that crashed some years back in Florida. In that case the fire in the hold was more aggressive, the plane filled with smoke, and the pilot lost control due to damage to the plane. The passengers were as lucky in this case as those on the ValuJet plane were unlucky.
@@5roundsrapid263 I remember hearing something about that back then and that the oxygen canisters were just thrown into boxes and not properly packaged for shipping. The O2 canisters were expired and laying around when all of a sudden there was a big push from management to get them shipped out. So sad, all the lost souls.
A drum of liquid has some air in it. It prevents it from rupturing due to hydraulic pressure, if it heats up considerably. If the drum is stored horizontally, liquid might leak out if the seal is not good. At cruising altitude, an aircraft is never fully pressurized to the same pressure at ground level. It's significantly less but still enough for breathing comfortably. The air trapped in the drum remains at ground level pressure. So at cruising altitude, the surrounding pressure will be less. This pressure difference creates a force that pushes the content out of the drum. If the drum is on its side and the seal is not in 100% top shape, the liquid will leak out by force.
@@dannydaw59 The loading crew are well trained on all aspects of loading various items and would not make stupid assumptions. We tend to dismiss "baggage handlers" as being unskilled grunts, but in fact they have extensive training on all sorts of aspects of loading as well as specific issues of importance related to each different type of aircraft that they handle. If the drum was on its side it is almost certain that this would be an approved orientation. One of my good friends was a "baggage handler" at a major airport, and you would be amazed at all the details that they have to know about various types of cargo and loading considerations. Did you know, as one example, that human corpses must aways be loaded with the head facing the front of the aircraft? This is to prevent body fluids draining out of the nose and mouth during the initial climb-out. When loading chemicals, they must check what mixtures are permitted in the same cargo hold, and there are also prohibited mixtures of live animals that are permitted to travel together, because the scent from one type of animal would panic another type. The same crew is also responsible for doing one of the walk-around checks, attaching ground power and/or air-start equipment, ensuring that the W&B is correct according to the load sheet (if a scheduled consignment of cargo was delayed and not loaded, the W&B must be re-calculated), and also checking that the parking area is clear, the aircraft is correctly chocked, and are part of the tug and wing-walking team. The team leader of the baggage handling crew is legally and personally responsible for any accidents that occur due to incorrect W&B, shifting cargo, incorrectly loaded cargo or incorrectly latched hatches etc. and could be charged with culpable homicide should a loading error result in a fatal accident - they take their job extremely seriously. They operate many types of loading belts and scissor lifts that need a high skill level to operate safely and not damage the aircraft. The aircraft moves up and down on its wheel suspension (oleos) during loading and unloading which must be continuously adjusted for on the loading equipment, and if the aircraft is loaded or unloaded in the wrong order, it could become unbalanced and tip onto its tail. Loading and unloading an aircraft is a skilled operation.
@@dannydaw59 Of course loading crews can make mistakes - the attitude that came across in the OP however was that they were ignorant and did not know any better rather than they knew but did it wrong anyway. A doctor might carelessly inject the wrong drug - but don't accuse the doctor of thinking that all drugs are the same!
I don’t understand how being told there were fumes and the early signs of structural failure in the plane didn’t prompt the crew to perform an immediate evacuation upon landing.
Fumes are routine from a bad engine seal in the bypass system leaking into the AC packs. But, fumes or smoke with a buckling floor is a sure sign that there's a campfire going on below and all flights are non-campfire flights. Had the fuel or hydraulic lines ruptured and mixed with the H2O2, that airplane would've turned into a fireball. O2 and kerosene was what powered the Saturn 5 moon rocket first stage. They ran the stage rich to ensure the extra kerosene cooled the combustion chamber, lest it melt through.
@@vk2ig are you thinking the passengers should have been immediately evacuated right there on the dangerous runway? No medical attention was required so they didn’t need an ambulance and immediate medical evacuation. The flight deck crew were only advised about fumes and a hot floor, so didn’t that lead the flight deck crew to conclude fumes were coming from the cargo area, not a life-threatening fire in the cabin? Fire emergency services were there on hand, so didn’t the flight crew have time to shut down the plane, and get more information from the fire fighters if there were any flames and where, so they could better assess the situation and if they were going to evacuate, which side of the plane to use? Wouldn’t the crew need to order a mobile staircase since inflatable slides don’t work on the ground and could catch fire? Wouldn’t passengers milling around on the ground get in the fire fighters way or head off in all directions?
While I do think the pilot got too focused on the nature of the fumes/smoke, here's why I think he cared; Thick black smoke would be indicative of a lot of organic something burning. So maybe hydraulic fluid or fuel. "Fumes", which I'm going to assume meant electrical fire smells would probably mean a fire on your electrical systems. This would change your approach and urgency as a pilot. He was trying to pin down exactly what the problem was very quickly, so he was trying to gather as much information as fast as possible to make a decision. I think it also partly goes towards describing the lack of urgency when the flight attendant was talking to them. The pilots would have been looking at their instruments for a sign of the problem, and seen nothing. Because it was a cargo fire in an older plane. We now have fire and temp detectors in cargo holds. They wanted to know if they were going to lose their engines, flight controls, landing gear, etc, or was this something small enough they should just continue their final? I do think they should have been thinking "call for trucks, immediate evacuation" once they knew there was any chance of a fire on their plane. And probably declared a pan-pan which would have been the norm in their day.
Hydraulic fluid only burns in exceptional conditions. Skydrol was believed not to burn (but it's still nasty stuff - don't get it on you) until a post-crash investigation of a fire at altitude discovered that when Skydrol is atomised (e.g. by streaming under pressure through a pin-hole puncture in a hydraulic line) in air at low barometric pressure (e.g .at altitude) then it will burn.
It feels like information fixation to me. It's when you expect to get a certain piece of info, and focus on that to the exclusion of the overall situation.
I wonder if the company shipping that drum was ever charged with illegally shipping hazardous materials. That drum should have been marked with a hazmat label and listed on the flight manifest.
Made me think of the in-flight fires on Air Canada 797 and Valujet 592...neither of which ended well. Lucky they were on approach to Nashville, dread to think of what might have happened if this had been a long way from an airport or over an ocean (Swissair 111)
Great video as always. One item to add. The accident aircraft is familiar to most folks as an MD-83. The FAA type certificate will show the plane as a DC-9-83.
: ) The accident aircraft is familiar... ... to most folks as that airplane with the middle seats missing on one side. ... to many folks as an MD-80. ... to some folks around Long Beach as a Super 80. ... to a few folks as an MD-83. ... to a very few folks as the aircraft MDC wanted to call an MD-80, but when the FAA said "Sure, as long as you certify to all the current standards" they decided to simply *market* it as an MD-80.
I guessed $4 million to repair the jet. $228,000 is cheap for anything commercial aircraft related! It seemed like the Captain wasn't that worried about the emergency. I'll bet if the off duty pilot didn't pressure the pilots to land, they wouldn't have made it. They didn't seem too worried about what was going on. Thank God it all worked out! Great video!!
I'm not a pilot, nor a firefighter, but when younger I did some emergency training with one of the local fire departments. From that I recall that we'd want to know the difference between smoke or other types of fumes (as one commenter mentioned, they're basically the same), to determine a) if there was a fire at all, b) what type of equipment to use to fight it. I'm guessing the captain was trying to find out if it was mixed chemicals releasing a gas cloud (at which point perhaps they could have switched to oxygen masks for the cabin), or if it was an actual fire (at which point they'd call for trucks to roll). However, in both cases, wouldn't it have been best to call in an emergency and prep for an evacuation on the runway? Not necessarily go through with an evacuation, if an immediate evac isn't warranted when on the ground (they could have brought over a few ladders for deplaning, less risk than the slides given how many people get injured when those work properly).
"Dude, floor is melting hot back here, fumes everywhere, land NOW" "'Uuhhh yeah could you describe the fumes a bit? Are they reddish orange or would you say they are more like a tint of brown?"
Well, it is described here like they were trying figure out what kind of fire it was, as if some causes of fires in planes are okay, but my guess is more that they were trying to locate whatever was making the smoldering/smoke smell, in case they can find and stop a small fire or electrical problem before it became a big fire. Even if they went to land immediately, it would make sense for the cabin staff to look for where the fire is, in case some moron tossed a cigarette into the bathroom trash and they could put it out before it became too big to stop, which could happen in minutes.
@@anneangstadt1882 Exactly, are pilots somehow more qualified to detect if the floor is melting than a flight attendant? If a flight attendant tells you there's a fire, land asap that should be more than enough info.
@@crazymonkeyVII Certain kinds of people, most of them male, do have a tendency to disregard something they hear from a woman until they hear it corroborated by a dude. Sounds like a plausible explanation of why this happened. Then again, maybe a different sort of hierarchy was in play here. Maybe they'd have disregarded warnings from a male flight attendant too, and not paid attention till an actual pilot told them. Not that this would be a better reason; there's no excuse for how nonchalant those pilots were. There's no such thing as a minor fire on an airplane.
Remember you could smoke on planes back then. Having a little smoke in the air onboard was nothing unusual. Melting floors - a little more worrying! Also. Before getting too enmeshed in semantics, consider the gap between "smoke" and "fume" is pretty narrow and subjective - in fact "fume" is essentially just the French word for "smoke" (fumee)
No, there _is_ a solid difference. Smoke is particulates and gases released by the chemical reaction that is fire. Fumes are evaporated material - no chemical reaction, still the same substance. Fumes = something's leaking and becoming a gas - like, say, the refrigerant in a ruptured aircon pack (a nuisance, but not a crisis or a "Get everyone the fuck off the plane ASAP" thing). Smoke = something's actually on fire.
They were so lucky they were already on final or else this would have been another ValueJet 592, especially with how the Captain was hyperfocusing on the smoke/fume and maybe in disbelief that something was happening. Though I could imagine he was focused on landing and being in a high work load phase of the flight was probably not helping.
I think he was fixated, likely in hope it was fumes from a bad bypass seal in the engine making the AC stinky. Instead, it was damned near a worse nightmare scenario. Had the hydraulic or fuel line ruptured and mixed with the H2O2, that and heat would've turned that aircraft into an instant fireball.
This was 8 years before ValuJet. The NTSB made recommendations that could've prevented ValuJet, but the FAA didn't follow them. The FAA got roasted after ValuJet
This incident shows the importance of clear communication between the cabin crew and the pilots. Pilots: If the cabin crew reports a burned smell or smoke (even the tiniest amount), you should consider it to be worst case and get the aircraft on the ground ASAP.
As a former dangerous cargo qualified shipper, this type of scenario was always foremost in my mind when shipping anything that fell under the category of "dangerous cargo". I once held up a shipment for 5 weeks because the originator of the shipment did not provide enough info for me to safely allow it anywhere near an aircraft. I understood that even though I never worked near the planes and ships my cargo was transported on, any mistake on my part could result in the loss of life.
The frightening thought on any incident like this is that for the one time an accident happened how many other times these rules may have been violated. Also, if these rules were violated what other similar rules are not complied with?
With fumes you could most definitely could troubleshoot the situation at hand and try to figure out the source of the fumes. With smoke in the cabin, there is no time to waste and an emergency must be declared and an emergency landing should be made. Once the aircraft has landed an emergency evacuation should be started and the fire department should get involved while the passengers are evacuating.
Throwing HAZMAT on a passenger plane. That is absolutely nuts. I have a CDL class A with HAZMAT and we are supposed to rely on the shipper. It looks like the shipper had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
This reminds me of the fire on a Swiss air flight. Amazing the pilots of this jet were so slow to understand. Maybe one of them in the cockpit could have gone back and checked
Smoke=fire Fumes may or may not be fire. If it’s fumes, ventilation can help if it’s fire ventilation is the worst idea. If it’s fumes and not affecting the cockpit, landing ASAP(!) may not be necessary if it’s fire get on the ground as fast as possible.
I assume smoke vs. fumes was a matter of trying to figure out whether it was an actual fire vs. just something leaking. Either way you’d want to get down quickly, but fire would seem more urgent. That being said, once someone tells you the floor is hot and apparently melting, you pretty much have your answer that it’s a fire.
Pilot: “are there fumes, or smoke?” The Cabin Crew: “there’s a fire! There is a fire on the plane! Why do you care about smoke or fumes!?” Pilot: “so smoke? Or fumes!”
I'm trying to understand what is meant by "dried hydrogen peroxide" at 7:45.*"Dried hydrogen peroxide" is oxygen and water vapor. There is nothing solid left (except any impurities). I'm guessing it just means the dry container material after it had been damaged by hydrogen peroxide. 50% hydrogen peroxide is crazy dangerous. The people who shipped should know this. Not labelling the container properly is likely a crime.
In case anyone else if wondering about the "dried hydrogen peroxide", I think it was the packaging material which had been previously damaged by the hydrogen peroxide. The details are on page 21 of the report. I think the video is slightly incorrect in the way it was worded but I don't blame the author, the report kind of makes it sound like it was "dried hydrogen peroxide." Thanks for another interesting video.
@@ddegn Agreed, it refers to packaging material previously damaged by hydrogen peroxide exposure. This is much more clearly stated on page 13 of the report, in the paragraph immediately above figure 4. The materials were moved on two different flights, and the incident occurred on the second flight. I suspect that hydrogen peroxide leaked during the first flight then dried, sodium orthosilicate leaked between flights as the container was handled, and hydrogen peroxide leaked again during the second flight, initiating the incident. Also, never mind putting a hazardous materials label on - the report specifically notes that 50% hydrogen peroxide was illegal to transport by aircraft (which is still the case today). And even if it had been 35%, it still would have been illegal to have 5 gallons in one container!
@@CoastalSphinx "was illegal to transport by aircraft" That's not surprising. The stuff is really dangerous. When I worked at a chemistry stockroom, we keep the stuff in special closets with fancy fire suppression systems and special ceilings which would blow out before destroying the rest of the building. Thanks for finding the additional reference.
How much heat it takes to melt aluminum is not really that important. It's the strength of the metal at various temperatures. Generally, if you get to about half of a metals melting temperature - you lose 50-75% of its strength. So the temperatures were probably muck lower.
This flight is eerily similar to ValuJet 592 which crashed in the Everglades. Although that fire was started from oxygen canisters which were either supposed to be empty or deactivated. That was a DC-9, which is basically an older version of the American Airlines plane. It’s scary how fast a fire can start and get out of control and destroy everything in its path crippling the plane and dooming all on board. Luckily the AA flight was in a better position to land right away and save everyone. Unfortunately the ValuJet didn’t have the same outcome. RIP to the pax and crew of 592
Absolutely fantastic video, and these pilots definitely didn’t seem like the did the best job they could’ve but everyone survived so that’s what matters. Also, I literally was thinking, dang this seems like the Pan Am flight as you talked, and then you said it.
It's clear that the Captain became fixated on fumes vs. smoke, but why? The simple answer might be that he was trying to determine for himself as to whether it was an actual fire. And because of his fixation, he completely ignored all other evidence proving there was a fire. The Captain was 100% wrong in this situation. Instead of trying to figure out whether there was a fire, he should have immediately assumed the worst and declare a Mayday emergency and land at the nearest appropriate airport (inclufing any military airfield). Luck, and the crew's continued and grave concerns & insistence, were definitely the salvation for this flight, not the "skills" of an arrogant Captain. Very happy that no one was hurt, despite the Captain's foolishness.
Did you even watch this video? The captain wasn't arrogant and the cabin crew had nothing to do with the landing or diverting to an airport. They were already on approach and the only difference the cabin crew made was to have the pilots evacuate everyone, after taxiing off of the runway. Nothing until then changed really. Not sure how the captain was foolish. He continued with his approach to land and listened to the off duty crewmember and flight attendant(s) on board. Weird comment...
This accident was fictionalised a few years later as 'The Crash of Flight 1501', a film of note only for including an NTSB investigator, Greg Feith, as an actor. He plays the co-pilot of the doomed aircraft.
On top of all that the heat of the reaction would cause the leftover hydrogen peroxide to decompose releasing large amounts of oxygen into the surrounding making the whole situation worse
They needed to demonstrate their process to potential new clients huh? Well, they sure showed them how much consideration was given to safety now didn’t they? I’m just going to assume that they didn’t get the new contract they were after. A very lucky outcome.
Nice video, but allow me a small point : The text at 5:25 : aluminium melts at 1200 degrees F or 648 degrees C. For some context : melting point is 1220.58 °F or 660.32 °C.
I wonder if somehow the process of taking off and landing is what made the drum leak. The pressurizing and depressurizing of the airplane. That'd explain how it leaked once, dried, and then leaked again as they came in to land. I'm just glad it started to leak when they were close to landing. And also the fact the captain/FO did not take it seriously until an off duty captain/FO told him what was up, and then still didnt seem to take it seriously kinda gets to me. I mean the floor is melting and he asks "Who told you that??" Like.. does it matter who? There is smoke and the floor is hot and soft. You obviously have a fire in your cargo hold. Land the plane NOW.
Know your source. If a deadheading pilot gives you information, he knows what he's talking about and you know what the specific terms he is using mean.. A panicking civilian might not communicate that same information in an understandable manner.
@@derpinguin7003 How much faster could they have landed? This all happened when they were already on final approach. It's not like they could divert to a closer airport. Fly the plane... If you stop doing that everyone dies. No ifs, ands or buts! So the Captain keeps asking for clarifications. His mind and focus are on flying the plane 1st so he's evaluating what the plane is doing based on what he is being told. The First Officer could have maybe stayed on the line with the Deadhead a moment longer to hear the last bit, but how many times have you called someone, completed a conversation, went to hang up and at the last second remembered and tried to communi...Click... Maybe the guy in the cabin should have called the FO back and repeated the 'have the trucks on the runway' message and gotten an acknowledgement?
I'm not an aviation expert but surely smoke is a by-product of combustion, whereas fumes are gases given off by volatile chemicals. I would be a worried passenger if I smelt either on a plane.
Meh, not always combustion.l creates smoke. Electrical fires create smoke from melting plastic insulation due to really hot wires, no combustion or flame needed to create a lot of smoke. ( 2000-2003 Mazda Proteges, as well as some models of Jeeps, have too small gauge of wires for the blower fan speed switch. This results in smoke pouring out from behind the radio, as the harness that plugs into the fan speed switch switch below the radio, as well as the wires going into the harness in addition to the end of the switch to seperate from the rest of the switch in a taffy looking like charred goo.)
This is alarmingly reminiscent of ValueJet flight 592: Improperly labelled hazardous materials triggering a self-sustaining chemical fire due to including an oxidiser that threatened the integrity of the cabin. This event should have been a huge wakeup call regarding treating hazardous materials with the respect they deserve, not to mention keeping them the hell off any aircraft that's also carrying passengers. Honestly I'm surprised they repaired the aircraft given the description of the damage. I thought that if structural beams were damaged and melting then the aircraft would have been a writeoff.
So many comments about how the pilots should have gotten the plane on the ground faster. A bit hard to do if you're already on final approach. It would require flying at too high a speed for approach, or too steep a descent also. Not a good idea in a transport size airplane. A little plane like I've flown, those could be done in visual flight conditions, but a heavier plane responds slower. More mass to speed up or slow down. Whether to evacuate on the runway or taxiway, depends on how much time it costs.
I wonder, if there hadn't been an off-duty pilot among the passengers, would the pilots have gotten the plane down and evacuated in time or would everyone have died? When a plane is on fire, it should ALWAYS be considered a top-priority emergency, not a situation where you should waste time trying to figure out exactly how bad it is! I mean, if you wait to find out, that just vastly increases how bad the answer will be, and that's not good at all on a plane. (Or a ship or submarine.)
Smoke and fumes lead to the same checklists (on Boeing anyway) but knowing what you are dealing with can help in isolating the source. Fumes are often from air conditioning packs that can be isolated, or possibly electrical sources that can also be isolated. Ultimately with the details that were passed to the flight deck (assuming these were all correct in the video) they really should have stopped immediately on the runway and evacuated. They were extremely lucky to escape with their lives. They were lucky to have an insistent FO deadheading in the cabin who saved the day. I used to fly passenger but now cargo, and one of my big fears is the dangerous cargo that is hidden like in this incident. Fire in the air is THE biggest danger and the number of silly passengers who still insist on smoking on board is crazy. ( Great DEEP landing at the end ;) )
This is quite similar to Valujet but with more lucky output. But there's another similar incident with ridiculous stuff involved. UNI Air China had ther MD plane burned out due to someone bring GASOLINE and motorcycle battery in cabin...
I am driving, so I cannot look this up, but there are rules regarding the transportation of hazardous materials, which include a separation chart for certain chemicals, reportable quantities for certain materials, and warnings about what those requirements are, and how they very for air, water, ground, domestic, and international shipping. Somebody dropped the ball big time
If there's smoke, you don't want to add fresh air. If there are fumes, you do. If there were fumes in the cabin, I'd raise cabin pressure, try to ingest as much fresh air as possible, push the fumes out through any leaks with the higher cabin pressure. If there's smoke, I'd drop cabin pressure to reduce the oxygen available to the fire.
This accident should've prevented ValuJet 592. The NTSB recommended fire alarms and fire suppression in the cargo hold, but the FAA never mandated them. 8 years later, ValuJet 592 happened, and the FAA really got roasted by the NTSB and the public, and top people in the FAA got fired.
"Smoke" would emanate from combustion, i.e., flame hot burning. "Fumes" would emanate from spillage of a volatile substance but would not be heated by combustion.
