Missing The Signals | FedEx Flight 1478 | Air Crash Investigation 

I hope you enjoy the video! Sorry for how dark it is! It looks way darker after uploading it to RU-vid. Hopefully it doesn’t take away too much from the story.

I worked as an air traffic controller from 1996 to 2001 at TLH. Fedex never used runway 9 to land the entire time I was there. It had the longest taxi time to their ramp and had no instrument landing system. The other three runways had ILS or VOR approachs. The tower was not open yet when the crash happened.

I actually recieved a piece of mail that was partly burned in that crash. It came with a note stating that they got it that way from the delivery vendor. Ironically the piece of mail was my Jeppesen aviation charts revision.

Regarding one’s sleep deprivation …. 45 yrs ago while in training in over the road driving a tractor trailer I “woke” up after going through 3 small towns at about 0100 hours - knowing that I had to reduce to 45, 35, & even 25 mph when approaching the center of the towns & then back up or you’d certainly face a ticket.. And I apparently had done so three times & had ZERO recollection of the previous 1/2 hrs progress…. Extremely unnerving at the least, and totally frightening when I realized what I had done…. That’s the time I began relying on some caffeine drinks if I simply had to finish a run. It’s crazy what we professionals in some of the transportation industries have to do!! Fortunately 2.5 million miles later I’m retired after a successful and rewarding career ….😎

Fatigue can really be a silent killer - not just in aviation. There's a lot of car accidents caused by folks driving when tired, too. Personally I don't operate any heavy machinery but the more aware of adverse effects of sleep deprivation I am, the more diligent I become to get a good night's sleep!

I found the waffling about which runway to land on was particularly disturbing. It seems fatigue played a part in deciding on a less safe runway and to land where there was less taxi time. It's surprising the captain wasn't monitoring the glide slope via the PAPI lights and taken action to get higher.

Thank God they all survived!

I was a student pilot and residing in Tallahassee FL when this happened. I remember going out to the airport and my instructor telling me the airport was closed. I remember seeing the tail section resting on the ground. The rest was burnt up.

I love the rise of channels such as you bringing us interesting stories about aviation incidents.

This video/review was SO well done. It’s incredible the FO went virtually his whole Navy career color-blind..AND STILL flying. Amazing it was just ‘subtle’ enough is how I understand it..again, GREAT job.

Amazing that they all survived. I’d love to know whether any of them ever flew again professionally or if that was the end of their flying days.

Excellent video. I really appreciate how clear, concise, and comprehensive your narration of the sequence of events is. The way you structure your chronology makes it extremely easy to follow. Looking forward to your next video. Oh, and not too dark at all. As others have said, the lighting is absolutely appropriate to the setting of the events. Cheers from Canada!

These just keep getting better and better.

As a person that is red-green colorblind, I had to give up hopes of being a commercial pilot (or even ATC) as a teenager. That scene from Little Miss Sunshine hits me in the feels every time (if you know, then you know).

Great presentation! The unions, airlines and the FAA are getting better at recognizing the limits of human performance when fatigued. Unfortunately, judgement is usually the first skill to fail.

ALWAYS fly the published approach procedure when flying at night, night flying is done by references only, if this crew had used the ILS this would have not happened! Retired ATP.

The FO must have known he couldn't see PAPI's😳

A great presentation and thank you for the ILS explanation! As a non-aviator, I appreciate you taking the time to explain some of the terminology.

I cannot believe the end… (I won’t say because I don’t want to ruin it) It’s such a perfect…in a bad way… chain on events that lead to this thing. Fantastic video as always!!

Love these videos. I’m a nervous flyer, and learning just how much it takes to cause a disaster actually puts my heart at ease - *so* much has to go wrong.

Love your channel. What separate your videos vs others is your clear explanation of the aviation situation via clearly defined animation/pictures. Thus giving me a clear understanding of the chain of events leading up to the disasters.

From all aircrash investigations on RU-vid i like yours the most.Plain ,simple and most modest

Just started but already sounds like everyone needs a nap.😴

Another excellent presentation. Thank you, CP.

This was fantastically narrated. Thank you!

I'll take more of these videos. Very good work, thanks and subbed.

I guess I find it puzzling why any pilot, pro or GA, would pass on an IFR approach in the dark of night. Saving a few minutes on the taxi is a damn lame excuse. Put it down to fatigue.

A sad occurrence but at least they all survived

Superb presentation! Thank you.

As someone that lives around a mile from KTLH, seeing this information oddly sparks my curiosity. Being a plane enthusiast, I never new that my city airport has had such an incident. I’m definitely going to look more into this accident. Oh, and btw, Tallahassee Regional Airport has since became an International Airport since 6/26/15 (June 26, 2015) and all the FedEx planes that come here are 2 or more Boeing 757s and a few Cessna 208 Grand Caravans, as well as a handful of Cessna 408 Skycouriors. Recently, I saw that a FedEx ATR 42/72 had landed at KTLH via Flightradar24, so that happened too. Plus, KTLH is actually planning to expand the airport by 2024, and that we’d have more airlines coming such as World Atlantic Airways, Global X, JetBlue, Southwest, and hopefully more. I would talk about more of the airport’s development, but I digress. As I was saying earlier, love the video, and keep up the good work Curious Pilot! I love how you explain it in keen detail, and I feel like you could really go somewhere with this channel 😄! +1 Subscriber!

Another excellent video thanks, interesting information.

This is an excellent video.

I’m surprised more wasn’t made of the fact that the ground proximity alerts had gone off.

Very clear. Thank you

Great narration. Thanks so much for sharing. 😉👌🏻

Great video liked and subbed and looking forward to more

There was no mention of captain on not calling out altitude. Once under minimum and not lined up the capt should have ordered go around

Circling to land at Midway Island years ago, 1 pilot flying the pattern looking out the window and 1 pilot focused on the instruments making corrections so basically 2 people flying at the same time. 4:00 a.m. after a 15 hour flight. Teamwork works, practice it!

You do a really good job. Your narration is clear and interesting. Thanx

It's always easy to hindsight these things, but as an instrument rated, multi-engine commercial pilot and former flight instructor, I cannot imagine a turbine powered ATP flight crew declining glide slope at night. Maybe it being flat Florida gave them more confidence than their fatigue should have noticed. Tough call cuz it was a nice 30-45 degree left turn to a straight in final by choosing rwy 9.

Crazy ... risking his own life for his dog ...

Outstanding. Thank you for helping me become a better pilot.

As a total ignoramus on the subject of flying an airplane, I appreciate your channel. You upswing my learning curve.

I like your videos, thank you I’ve seen examples of the challenges that can arise when pilots are unfamiliar with a landing airport and would hope they’re given adequate info and practices from their companies and request it. It seems especially hazardous if there is a language barrier and if it’s true that men don’t ask for directions.

Nice job with the video. I remember when we got word from our senior manager that 1478 went down.

Excellend video, you are clear and concise in your narration... as for my thoughts on this particular event, pilot tiredness is an industry standard, due to the lowest common denomitor... you guessed it...MONEY. As for the 2nd officer, who had a known issue with his vision, that's undoubted negligence on the part of the Airline.

I Really really Enjoy your Mayday Vid-e-Ohhs Keeping up thé Greát Works 👍👍💯👏✔✔

There were two other crew members with color vision that said nothing and let that left seater CFIT them! They ignored the glideslope, DME, and GPWS warnings until it was too late and look what it got them!

One thing is for sure, it IS as dark as the inside of a cow on approach at night there to any of the runways. I grew up there and flew into TLH many times in various aircraft

Hey man would be cool if u did a video on the Ryanair crash in Rome. Maybe talk about why the decision to go around was so heavily critizesed. Its also just a crazy story. Love your stuff.

Surely the pilot monitoring should have been monitoring his altitude and approx distance from the runway so they don't need to look at the PAPI. I really don't get the atitude to not preplan the possible approaches to the airport.

Great video! I had a couple of ideas about what they could do to help pilots who do have color blindness. There are two kind of cones in the eyes that make it so that people can see color. One type senses red or green and the other type senses yellow or blue (then there are the rods in the eyes for sensing black and white and how bright something is but those aren't important for anything but people curious about how one sees those things). When someone is color blind, it's usually only one type of cone that malfunctions so that they can either only see yellows and blues or only see reds and greens. This is important because something that might be a relatively easy fix for the PAPI lights would be to make them so they shine either red or yellow (it could be blue too but yellow might be a little brighter and therefore easier to see at night or in bad weather conditions). If you changed the colors this way, then people with red/green color blindness wouldn't see the red as such but since they'd be able to see the yellow and count to four, they'd be able to deduce that, if there are two yellow lights lit that they can see, there must be two red lights lit, even if they can't actually see them as being red. Another thing they could do is to have the lights flash along with displaying their usually four lights if the pilots are above or especially below the glide slope. Of course, there's also the fact that they could always look at how high the plane says they are above the ground but, when you're looking outside for the runway, especially if you think you see it, you don't want to look down at your instruments only to look up and have no idea where the runway is again. In any case, I think it would be a rather easy solution to just make the white lights yellow so that there's one color for each kind of color receptor in the eye to see so that it wouldn't be hard for people who are color blind to see. Then there's something that these pilots could have done on this flight other than just having the pilot monitoring actually monitoring the instruments and that would be for pilots who are color blind to give the other pilots they fly with a heads up about this fact before they go flying together. It shouldn't be something to be ashamed of any more than any other way people are born so it should just be another part of the pre-flight and landing briefing. If the other pilot is aware that they're flying with someone who can't see the PAPI colors as well as they can, they'll double check the lights. In fact, they could just make this part of every landing procedure and then no one would even have to admit to being color blind but I don't think anyone should be embarrassed of it anyway. There might be ways that some color blind pilots have found to work around the issue and if a pilot who is color blind happens to mention it to another color blind pilot who has found a good work around, then maybe we'll find more ways to help color blind people fly. I wouldn't know specifically what it's like to be color blind though because I can see all the colors just fine but I do know quite a bit about being near-sighted.

Over confident, tiredness, human error .

I used to work on British Railways and we used to work one week AM one week PM shifts and that change from working a PM Saturday normally finishing around 2am and then a Sunday "Day off" with a early Monday start normally around 4.30am was a killer getting the closest thing I can relate it to is jet-lag..... As a side note I won't travel on Railways in the UK until Monday afternoon even now!

Wow 🤩 they survived!!

A CFIT warning from the FE and 3 reds on the PAPI on final...these guys weren't tired...they were asleep at the yoke! They are damn lucky they survived impact and got out. Hitting the trees probably slowed them enough that the ground impact was reduced enough they didn't receive fatal blunt trauma injuries.

I liked the effect of moon floating by. 😊

PAPI structures can change their angle if they are tampered with or are disturbed by lawn mowing tractors. Was fencing installed at the time of the incident to prevent accidental collisions?

Oh my God these guys are lucky as can be that is amazing

I'm red green color blind and am surprised that he was able to have such a long career as a pilot. In addition to difficulties distinguishing colors this also messes up your depth perception. In certain cases this can be very problematic. It would be interesting to know exactly what type of flying with the navy his career was comprised of.

It seems strange that they can't make up their mind which runway to use at that late stage of the landing.

Ugh. The lantern test. Got some bad memories of that one. It's interesting, though, that red and white looked similar to him, as I have a similar issue with red and white. My understanding is his version is considerably rarer, which is likely why the lantern fails to catch it. I'm curious as to how a pilot could have that much time and not notice the issue, however. I'm unfamiliar with the Navy's optical landing systems, and modern aircraft can have internal glide slope indicators, and really all I know about VASI is the mnemonic, but it seems something that would've come up earlier. Not trying to blame anyone, I just find it interesting, especially as any colorblind person can tell you, it's very easy to forget that your vision isn't typical.

All of the crew members didn’t pay attention to the terrain warnings

That's baffling. In the military we are deemed ineligible for avionics technicians for color vision as some systems incorporate color coded wires. Perfect military logic. You can fly the plane. You just can't work on it.

Not checking the altimeter meter enough the rate it was descending at should of sent alarm bells ringing I would of thought

Even if he couldn't see the PAPI lights, shouldn't he have known his approach was too low? I mean the GPWS sounded 100 feet when he was what...half a mile out? That seems too shallow for any approach. They were lucky to survive that crash.

My physics professor was actually brought in to investigate this crash on behalf of the lawyers representing the three pilots. He gave us a lecture during the final weeks of the course (light refraction) explaining his role in the investigation. What my professor discovered was that the PAPI lights used by the airport had a layer of thick glass in front of the lights to shield from the elements. However, in the mornings there can be a build up of dew on the front glass. That dew can make the lights APPEAR PINK INSTEAD OF A CLEAR RED OR WHITE. This, he believed, was the main cause of the crash. When he presented his findings to the pilots' lawyers, they opted not to use them in the case, because the pilots' testimony slightly contradicted his findings. I don't personally know what to make of that, but I do know that I trust my professors findings through his experimentation. The NTSB had similar concerns about condensation which they mentioned in the report; however, their solution was to call the manufacturer and ask whether dew can affect the color of the lights. The manufacturer said no, and that was the end of that. They did; however, find that if the lights were powered on, water would evaporate "within minutes." This turns out to be around 10 minutes, and ATC reported that they turned on the lights about 3-4 minutes before the crash. This means that dew was likely in front of the glass that morning (the weather conditions were also ideal for dew formation). Oh yeah, the manufacturer of the PAPI lights also changed the design after the crash so that there is no on/off switch for the lights, but will remain on as soon as it is hooked up to power. Good video, but makes me sad due to incompetence of the NTSB in this scenario. Here are the slides used for his lecture: slideplayer.com/slide/12988220/ I encourage anyone interested in this crash to take a look for yourself. They are meant for a lecture but will hopefully give you the gist of his findings.

They ignored ground altimeter readings of both 200 *AND* 100 ft??? Egads - what were they smoking?

Don’t know whatFedEx’s procedures are but all quality airlines require that the Approach briefing should be completed prior to Top of Descent.

The onus was on the 1st officer to ask the PIC to double check the Papi lights. But the 1st officer was hiding his disability. He should have been discharged after this near tragedy.

So many times in these accidents, it's not what the crew did, it's what they DIDN'T do, as evidenced here.

Yes there were a lot of extenuating circumstances but the altimeter is a primary flight instrument. The fact that exactly none of three qualified crew members monitored it made me cringe. No excuse for this, and I flew a very similar job, often fatigued, for 15 years.

But why did they ignore the height warnings from the planes instruments??

The issues were dual in the first officers case. As he was nursemaiding a beloved pet at home, therfore napping on the couch. Then as a result the color blindness was a definite overriding issue if for his not giving a junior officer proper decision making council. This was the fundamental failure in this flight I feel. And, the blackhole effect was the crecendo. Fortunately no deaths here...👍

The Captain irrationally pushing to change runways was also problematic and it seems like there would not have been an accident had the First Officer used the runway he was initially intending to use.

These pilots are low time pilots for their ages. I’m retired now but when I was 55 I had 27,000 hours on multiple Boeing’s which is fairly normal.

As someone who has had problem with red green color blindness I have dealt with PAPIs... technology permits different crap now. LEDs flashing low?

I realise this isn’t completely relevant, but wouldn’t the plane have guided itself down to the runway on autopilot where a full ILS system was operational? Seeing the diagrams that show if a plane is to the left or right or high or low made it sound like the pilot has to constantly correct a course down on the ILS, but I didn’t think this was the case. If so, I can’t for the life of me see why the FO wanted to change to a runway without ILS, because with his condition it would have been so much safer.

The captain seemed quite lax, and instructing the copilot to change to a runway with no IFR at night was clearly wrong.

At least their B - 727 had the hush kit installed on it ! Super lucky retirement pilots - super lucky !

Red/Green colorblind is a weird combo- they are two DIFFERENT Chromas a person sees. Red-Green-Blue. The "white" lights are more likely a shade of yellow- which is a combination of red & green in lightwaves, so they shift away from yellow/white to green for red deficient colorblind people (like me).

The aircraft had altimeters. Who was watching those?

Damn lucky to walk away from that one chaps. If you are doing anything that requires focus for safety don't sacrifice sleep. It may just bring your demise sooner than you would want!

14:00 Here’s a soda pop🥤, good luck 👍

Awesome vid and narration

I am a cargo pilot, and every time I have seen this kind of shoddy flying, the offending pilot always says, "I am sorry, man, I feel tired, and last night I couldn't fall as sleep until very late." We the freight pilots are always on the back side of the clock, and if you are truly a cargo pilot, you get to adjust your life around that situation. Now, if you are not and you are really trying to build flying hours on a jet, especially the types that go a long distance, then you will suffer. Not every pilot can truly be a cargo pilot, end of the story. Lastly, even without the PAPIs, you have aural warnings and something else, we pilots always use the quick mental calculation of altitude and distance by multiplying your distance to the runway times three, the resulting number is how high above the ground you should be. For instance, in this recreation, the aircraft was at roughly 9 miles out. So, 9 times 3 equals 27 or 2,700 feet above the ground. These guys were twice advised by the radar altimeter about their actual altitude above the ground. The radar altimeter works starting at 2,500 feet above the ground and counts down towards 10 feet above the ground. So when these guys clearly heard the altitudes such as "1,000" "500" "200," someone in that cockpit should have checked the distance and the altimeters. There is no excuse for this kind of fiasco. It's a good thing they didn't die, but boy, these guys were blowing bubbles instead of being professional crewmembers. I know some ace computer pilot is going to tell me that I am wrong and perhaps even accuse me of something I did not intend to do. You don't have to believe me, but that is the sad reality of it all.

I couldn't see the red beacons. I just saw four white lights.

This is what I don't understand. Say okay, there's an illusion because of the steepness of the runway. How did they manage crashing off to the left instead of short of the runway?

Odds that all 3 pilots survive this are about zero. Wow.

I am 63, 17500 hours. If you can not sleep, rest normally, please, find a different occupation. I did not have a normal night in my 30's and 40's. But you need to function perfectly if you want to be a pilot. If you do decide to fly anyway, I guarantee that you will be able to sleep for millenniae.

Four red, you are dead...is the saying. Flew into Nuie from American Samoa one night with the worst new FO ever... Fortunately it is an over water approach and the captain was the best.. From four white down to four red and then bozo says "Hey, who turned off the PAPI?". Captain says "My airplane" and around we go. ol' Junior didn't appreciate being told "Now we know what the bottom side of an airport looks like".

When I was doing my PPL training, my instructor told me a rhyme to help remember what the PAPI lights meant... WHITE OVER WHITE: Too high, fly all night. RED OVER RED: Too low, you're dead RED OVER WHITE: You're alright. 😂

With planes costing upwards of 100 million dollar you would think they would have some type of night vision display or something that helps with pitch black flying but I guess now

God bless Don Resandtez.

This never would have happened on my watch.

Flying at night is is the closest thing to flying in IMC. I would never pass on a chance to use a glideslope is one is available. Very bad decision by this crew.

So the pilot monitoring, was not monitoring

I never will understand why they put trees anywhere near a runway...

Throughout the whole video I was concerned the plane would collide with the moon.

Seems to me that the pilot flying the plane should have asked for visual confirmation.