*IMPORTANT UPDATED INFORMATION. PLEASE READ* The aircraft departed from Alverca Air Base (LPAR) where it arrived on 02/OCT/2018 for a Class C inspection/maintenance in the OGMA facilities. The aircraft landed safely at Beja Airport (LPBJ) escorted by two F-16s of the Portuguese Air Force that were scrambled from Monte Real Air Base (LPMR). Stay tuned for PART #2 which has some communications with these fighters. *Weather was extremely bad in the area. METARs below.* LPAR 111300Z 04005KT 3000 RA FEW005 SCT010 BKN015 14/13 Q1010 LPBJ 111400Z 19017KT 9999 SCT030 BKN048 19/14 Q1011
@@muthanamidhat7861 it was if you have to land an uncontrollable aircraft and you need CAVOK to perfectly plan where you're landing, how high you are and how many miles you have to run. I'm sure the only thing they could see out the window was a big layer of white clouds.
@@rc2634 When in a situation like this, in IMC, once you've formed your own opinion of what is wrong, it's hard to shake it. They thought they had bad flight controls, but it was actually the instruments failing to respond to what the airplane was actually doing. Eventually they figured out how to keep approximately straight and level, but they still had no working reference as to heading, hence the continual turning. Only towards the end of this clip does ATC point out that they're going in circles - until then, all they know is they're not getting any closer to the sea despite trying to fly that way. One of the best ways to give directions to a disoriented pilot is by intercepting them in another aircraft with working instruments. Hence the F-16s.
@Jim Jones I'm no pilot, but I don't think it's fair calling them slow given the circumstances they went through. It would be easy to get disoriented when you're in bad weather and your plane is out of control and pulling 5Gs. It's would be like coming out of a sharp dive and then a loop, not knowing where you are exactly and attempting to ascertain/confirm the heading to the sea.
It’s insane how they went from feeling like they needed to ditch, dejected and willing to accept their fate but save other lives to realizing they might actually be able to control that thing. They basically tamed a bull mid ride. Insane.
They switched the flight controls from natural law to alternate law. I don't know details of how this plane works, but it made it so just the one aileron would come slightly up if they moved the yoke only slightly. Before when they moved the yoke the aileron would come up on one wing and the spoilers on the opposite wing. Set to alternate law the aileron controls were still reversed, so if they turned right it banked left, but at least reversed plus opposite stopped happening so the wings weren't always trying to bank right and left at the same time.
@@BrettonFerguson The controls-to-surface analog subsystem provides what is termed direct mode control. Direct mode entails cockpit control input where the LVDTs are used to transmit cockpit controls position into the analog electronic control circuitry. The analog control circuitry is referred to as ACE (Actuator Control Electronics). The ACE is an electronic unit that houses two ACE channels each known as P-ACE (Primary Actuator Control Electronics) since they are used in the primary flight controls system. Each P-ACE channel is used to control the PCU on the elevator surfaces and the rudder surface. The FCS also uses analog electronics for multifunction spoiler surface control, and are augmented by digital electronics using software to provide augmentation and additional functions. The analog circuitry used to control the multifunction spoilers is termed S-ACE (Spoiler Actuator-Control Electronics). Also, direct mode control is used to control the multifunction spoilers where LVDTs are used to transmit the control yoke position into the S-ACE analog electronic control circuitry. So they used Direct mode
Pilots had a great job. Remember, english is not their native and its very hard to talk english while you are rushed in emergency, thats why they had so poor communication. Cmon guys, they were going to crash in sea to prevent killing anyone on ground. They were sitting in the metal bow, flying up and down(just look at fpm left corner). They are brave guys, hope they are nice
I'm not here to bash on these specific pilots or ATCs, please bear that in mind, but regarding the whole field of jobs of in aviation: It should be a mandatory thing for this occupation to REQUIRE perfect english communication skills no matter if stressed or not. Also you can tell (especially when the stress dies down) that the no one in this is great at it no matter the circumstance. It's obvious they, especially the pilots can only handle the bare minimum of vocabulary that's asked of them in a routine setting but that's as far as it goes. Again, I'm not bashing these individuals, I'm bashing the requirements and training for this job. This whole situation might have been easier on everyone if the pilots could have communicated what their exact problems are. Then again mad respect for the pilots. They reached the best possible outcome, even with the training they had.
Pilots are and have always been 'god like' heroes to me (since being a little boy) thus, I have tremendous respect for the men and women around the world who do this job and I just thank god these two made it home that day.
Legend says they are still trying to find the way to the sea for ditching. Joking aside. This is incredibly hard to listen to. You can hear how desperate they are, not expecting to survive this anymore. Extremely glad to hear that it turned out well! Well done everybody involved!
10:21 23,936fpm descent at 6,475ft. Cannot imagine what was going through their heads. Great work by the crew for the safe landing. Turns out - it's not a simple aileron reversal (try flying an R/C with ailerons reversed - difficult, not impossible). This flight, spoilerons still went in the correct direction, so once they got past a certain aileron deflection, the spoilerons would come up on the correct side, creating all sorts of weird and confusing aerodynamics.
Would be awesome to get a version of this video with the graphs of altitude and g-forces from the accident investigation superimposed. Watching this video you get the impression the pilots are just circling but actually they were fighting to control an aircraft with g-forces exceeding 5G at some points.
@@wyskass861 Agreed.. I'm sure the umm.. excitement would have died down after two hours (edited here) of flips & rolls. I'm sure cleaning crew had their work cut out for them afterward :-P a vomit comet like I've never heard of before (even though aircraft was a write-off..)
Once again highlighting the need for aeronautical english as absolute standard. Especially in broken-but-readable radio conditions standard phraseology and a grasp on basic english are a must for everyone involved in a high-risk international operation. And in this case both parties were on the very edge of what is acceptable language capabilities - the pilot of the accident airplane stumbled through "away from trees, land on water" and one more unreadable thing before he finally settles with the official term "ditching", but then ATC comes in and asks if they want "vectors to land or to ditch fuel", clearly misinterpreting the word "ditch". But in turn the flight crew doesn't acknowledge this and just repeats: "Ditching! Come on! Ditching!" Gladly it worked out in the end, but if I'd be the employer of any of the three on tape, I'd congratulate them on their job well done and send them on an all-expenses-payed aiviation english course as a bonus...
Also ridiculous that the pilots asked about 6 times what heading "to the sea." The answer was always 210 or 220. Seriously that vector is not going to change, the ocean is NOT moving.
@@joevenuti1201 Well, to me it was apparent that they didn't realise they were flying circles. And when you are being told the ocean is 210 and X minutes out, but you don't see the water after X minutes, you ask for vectors again...
@@QemeH I completely agree. The crew had declared their mayday. Made it clear they were experiencing major system malfunctions and repeatedly asking how to get to the sea. While the people with the radar screen just watched them fly in circles. Finally towards the end of the vid ATC threw the pilot a bone.
---------- My first comment was made with the very litle information i've had at the times and based on what we all i've listened via the ATC live of all the efforts the pilots and tower control did. The airplane passed over my house several times, but due to the clouds i can only listen to it. Then months, after the investigation we all learned that that was wrong were some cables and that there was nothing wrong with the instruments.
Darren Munsell google “turning errors magnetic compass” and then you will understand why the magnetic compass would not have helped them very much in this situation
@Darren Munsell you do realise that compasses do not always work. Instrument failure can include faulty compasses or an electric current that messes with the magnetic field offsetting the data.
It's easy to criticise when you're watching the events play out after the fact from a comfy seat in a warm and safe room on the ground in front of your computer. When you're strapped into the cockpit of a wayward aircraft with horns and alarms going off all around you, and instruments you can't trust or have completely failed, and rain pounding your windscreen and you can't see anything outside and you don't know if you're going to live and die it's a bit of a different matter. Pilots are still people, and people still get scared in high stress situations. Whatever their other mistakes may or may not have been, they did the most important thing right. They landed the bird.
What I got from it, quite early on, was that they had an emergency, lost control of the plane and when getting a heading of 220, they turned North'ish. Would I hear a pilot requesting 'vectoring', I'd start to give small course changes, 15 degrees LEFT, 20 degrees RIGHT, instead of assuming that the onboard systems were in working condition, guide them to where they want to go, minute by minute. Apparently systems on the plane did not work and the people on the ground should have concluded that much much earlier.
Just received some information from the "inside" of ongoing investigation - looks like maintenance guys switched the controls of the aircraft after Class C inspection. Right after take off, pilots tried to roll the aircraft to one side and it rolled completely to the opposite. Tried to turn on the autopilot a couple of times and when they switched it off the aircraft would roll to the left every single time. Also there was a brief 90º nose down dive with GPWS screaming. After stabilizing the aircraft they were left to fly only with rudder, elevators and engines almost for the entire time they were up there (basically they had to learn to fly the aircraft in 2 hours). Captain was so damn tired that co-pilot had to land the aircraft on third try breaking 3 runway lights. On board there were 6 souls, 3 pilots and 3 engineers, one of them had to be assisted in an ambulance because of heart problems.
@@PetrolHeadBrasil it has been confirmed in the preliminary report and on national television - maintenance technicians switched the cables that control ailerons. Basically when pilots were trying to roll the aircraft e.g. right, right aileron would go down and its spoilers on right wing would go up.
Curious to see what the DFDR will show for aileron position vs yoke position. The only flight control that is NOT FBW are the ailerons. This should have been caught during the flight control check with the flight control page displayed. It clearly shows the ailerons which should move upwards with the onside spoilers as the yoke is moved towards each wing.
I will always be amazed at just how much of the pilots training takes over in situations like this. In the middle of an uncontrollable flight, experiencing majors G's, these pilots were aware enough to ask for possible ditching locations to avoid ground casualties. If they did not manage a landing and did ditch, they would have died as heroes.
I'm no expert but i believe there is no audible "sinking" warning in any GPWS', however there is a "bank angle" warning in mode 6 GPWS'. It's an audible warning when the bank angle of the aircraft exceeds 35°
There's another video explaining what happend leading up to this. Was caused by maintenance messing up cables so the ailerons were reversed. They pulled 5g several times and severely damaged the air frame. Had to use engines to turn and swap pilots half way through this. This video makes it no where near as scary without the other
@@ninerlives The problem was much bigger than just reversed controls. Spoilers were normal, while ailerons were inverted. So if they give left input, the ailerons would try to tilt the plane to the right, while the spoilers would tilt the plane to the left. So the different aerodynamic surfaces opposed each other and because of that, it was impossible to control the plane.
I once had a taxi driver that took me on a route like this. In all seriousness, kudos to the pilots for getting down successfully and all the professionals involved keeping cool heads
The sad thing is that i think they had accepted their fate, you don't declare ditching unless you have no other options, they knew that they probably weren't surviving this when they asked for vectors to ditch, it's extremely fortunate that they seemed to regain control and land safely.
@@MrJaiimez Yeah they wanted ditching but they couldn't even do that and kept turning for 30 mins you can literally hear how pilots were panting for air because they were constantly fighting with the plane! Thank God they regained control a little bit and with F-16's assistance also good weather they could land their plane safely otherwise this was a crash ATC for sure :((
@@ggoddkkiller1342 yeah but the point I was making was that I think they had accepted they were probably going to die and their main priority was getting the aircraft away from populated areas to where it'll do the least damage. It's understandable they were scared I don't care how well trained you are I think every pilot in this situation would be scared but they did what had to be done, worked through it and never gave up.
@@ggoddkkiller1342 I'm very interested to hear what the official reports start to say because alot of the information I've heard seem to imply it was not so much a control problem as it was an issue with the AP's ability to control the aircraft, then others suggest an actual physical control surface issue, I certainly await the reports to see what the issue was because all the current information is sketchy and misleading
Once again a really interesting video from you! 👏 I really felt for those guys. It must have been such a scary situation to be in. And then to have to make the terrifying choice of where to ditch, not knowing if they would survive..... unbelievable strength of character! Looking forward to Part 2.
Nice job crew! Cross-rigged ailerons (reverse from normal) is every pilot’s nightmare!! Hard to fathom! :-| For non-pilots here, imagine riding a bicycle with your right hand on the left steering column and your left hand on the right one. With no instrument indications that you’re actually doing that. In other words, you think your arms are placed correctly. Now do it at 160-300 knots. (184mph/297kmh - 345mph/556kmh). ..and finally add the vertical dimension to the equation, so not just left and right but also up and down. Don’t know about the maintenance aspect of the screw-up BUT yeah, the crew did a great job bringing it back down safely!
Derek Charette - apparently you missed the ‘comprehension’ lessons in your cave-man school. For one, no, if the synoptic diagram shows the correct deflection (which it did on the ground during their normal flight control check we always do before a takeoff) there’s no way to tell until you’re airborne. Two, no it’s not called ‘gravity’ but rather a reverse-controls situation. Before you call them names mr. rocket scientist yourself, learn to fly and then you’ll be able to comprehend the absolute ridiculousness of your comment.
This is the first video of these ATC recordings that made me uncomfortable. The sheer fear going bleeding in their voices, the strain of keeping their cool while the plane loses control...oof. Kudos to the pilots and engineers that made the impossible possible and landed the plane safely
Yup 👍 think they were never inverted a few times it’s amazing the pilots kept their cool. They should get the highest medal of honour possible from the CAA.
Outstanding job from the flight crew. Just watching the flight path is disturbing, but this crew kept their nerves and brought this plane down safely. Not what I expected! Thank you Mentour Pilot for the link.
"...preliminary report and on national television - maintenance technicians switched the cables that control ailerons. Basically when pilots were trying to roll the aircraft e.g. right, right aileron would go down and its spoilers on right wing would go up."
The aircraft was totally out of control in very poor weather. The pilots workload was immense .. the problem was that maintenance had reconfigured flight control surfaces in error so that any pilot or autopilot inputs were effectively reversed. The flight track verifies the pilots attempts to navigate under intense pressure. A request for ditching confirms that the pilots were unable to maintain any reasonable vectors.
OMG you made it!!! I sent you an email about it, this was all over Portuguese news today! We always have good weather and today it was horrible no visibility at all and they had no instruments completely blind! If they landed on the sea today with this weather they would not have made it. So glad they were able to go to Beja with our airforce! They had two turn arounds before the final landing A few minutes after their landing the weather got worse in Beja. Glad they made it safe! Thank you so much for posting this!
Norbert Blackrain the weather got worse just seconds after their landing dark clouds and rain! We were all so happy. There is footage of the Air Force and they were very happy to!
@@rosesavoy9035 yes after i finished my posting i released that i had forgotten the weather to add to their list of troubles. So its no wonder that they acted the way they did and brought in the end the plane safely down. Basically in such a situation to keep the thing in the air and "relearn" how to "fly" it is quiet an achievement from my point of view.
chilling audio. seeing that the plane kept on descending and climbing monitoring this live on fr was real scary. glad all was resolved and the plane landed safely after.
This was painful. Great heroism on the crew's part to decide to take her to sea to prevent any other deaths. ATC needed to help them out more with staying on heading (if possible due to their problem)
In these situations I always have sympathy for the pilots in a super stressful situation and trying to speak a foreign language. I realise they have to do it but it must make things even more stressful!
I wonder how they performed flight control check before flight. It looks like a true miracle that they managed to keep the integrity of the plane and land.
Always entertaining to read comments from the flight simulator folks. For the ‘certificated’ pilots if you have not yet done an usual attitudes session, urge you go do it. It will prove that your senses can kill you. Oh and for the use your phone/ipad etc GPS crowd. I guess one might not be aware GPS may not always work in IMC conditions. @vasaviation, keep up the good work. Some good stuff being published.
Is it just me, or the first controller was not up to the task? She did very little to try and understand what the aircraft could / could not do, what the real intentions were. And did not provide feedback on the route - e.g. “ ehi guys, I don’t know exactly what your problem is, but you seem to be circling and circling forever” Was she replaced by a supervisor at some point?
I agree. They didn't sound as ready to help, as proactive as we see in other ATCs specially in the US. They were quite passive, almost like if they were only sitting and listening.
Terrible ATC performance, and I mean it in a bad way. She was replaced by supervisor or more experienced ATC, but I've made an explanation about it in another comment on this video.
Commander McKoy these poor pilots needed two basic things from ATC- 1. Overall feedback: guys, whatever you are doing doesn’t seem to be working: you are flying in circles 2. Risk assessment: between cloud base and terrain you have x thousand feet clear air. So if you just descend softly to FL-XYZ, you’ll be able to fly visual
Obviously, I know they were in a difficult situation, but sometimes it makes matters worse if you stick to minimal communication and seem to be repeating the same question over and over again...
Yea they should have stated what part of their controls stop working, whatever broke on the plane made them turn so each time they ask for heading they try to go for it but end in the same spot thx to the malfunction
@@skyshooter7259 They couldn't know that until they had a reference. When you're above a thick cloud layer and your instruments give you false information, you have no sense of direction. You can't state what's wrong when you don't know. Instrument flight is hard, it's near impossible when you lose instruments... only worse case is false information from your instruments.
Having just read what really happened in that cockpit ( Portugal is a small country, we all know each other so this kind of info spreads fast) I can only tell that who calls or insinuates those pilots were incompetent is a troll...
@@rc2634 go to pprune www.pprune.org/rumours-news/615312-air-astana-flight-serious-problems-over-lisbon.html LPBJ-Beja for those unfamiliar its the official base of portuguese acmi outfit HiFly, where its based all their 330, 340, 345 and even the recent 380, so of course it has RFFS in this case given by Portuguese Air Force, a base shared with civilian company ANA-Vinci airports of Portugal. For your info there was also some real tonneaux made by our Embraer as well, hence the injuries!!! Also quoted from a member on other aviation board, seems HiFly Crew: "It Was going back home after a C-check in Alverca. Swapped aileron controls (so when a right input, the a/c would turn left and vice-versa). Only elevators, rudder and thrust available to control the aircraft. As far as I've heard from someone who talked to the crew when things were settled down on ground, no issues when the autopilot was connected, but as soon as they would disconnect it, the controls were lost everytime. One of the four tonneaux ended at around 4000ft on a 90º nose down attitude. Adding to these awkward conditions, the wheather here in Lisbon area have been awfull the whole day with pouring rain, heavy clouds and low ceiling, so they had no visual geographic references, plus they were unfamiliar with the terrain and there's where the F-16s came in, to guide the E190 to a safer place. After "learning" to control the plane, all calmed down a little bit, but they needed an airport with better weather/visual conditions and Beja was the best(first option was sunny Algarve's Faro), which is also in a sparsely populated (thus the lowest FR24 coverage, adding to the fact that the a/c doesn't have ADS-B and only shows up in MLAT) area so in case of a crash, the possibility of having victims on the ground was much lower. On the first landing attempt, the aircraft wasn't well aligned to the runway so a go around was performed. On the second attempt they were a bit too high and went around again, before finally successfully landing on the third attempt. Of the 6 pob, two were taken to a local hospital with minor injuries and a third person, someone from the administration of Air Astana was reporting some heart issued ans was also taken to the hospital, which all three left by the beginning of the evening."
That seems like a crazy ride that aircraft took the pilots & passengers on. I am cringing though at the multiple requested vectors and not following or being able to follow a present heading to their intended ditching. I understand the aircraft was out of control although i am just very curious to look further into this & am looking forward to the next video to get more info.
Troubleshoot I believe it was instrumentation failure and not a control failure. They where inside of a storm so they had no idea most of the time they are turning. It’s hard to blame anyone but ATC should have been confirming with them that their direction had been changing and correcting them when they change directions. It’s weird that they change directions after asking for vectors 10 times and should have been caught onto much sooner.
Not sure how many passengers were on board.....at one point the pilot mentioned there were 6 souls on board. With 2 pilots 3 FA’s that leaves one person. Wouldn’t surprise me if they were repositioning the flight for maintenance. But what do i know?
Design flaw. It should be physically impossible to cross-connect flight control channels. For a similar accident please see WH2303 1994-06-06. For this flight: "The investigation determined as most probable cause for the accident the improper aileron cable installation on both ailerons during maintenance activities and subsequent inadequate independent inspection to the aircraft flight control systems, which resulted in a reversal operation of the aircraft aileron system and led to loss of control in-flight."
Not so much a flaw as much an issue after heavy maintenance. Wires were crossed. As it was, the plane never made it back to Air Astana and would be scrapped in Portugal.
Would be nice if there was some video footage. Uncontrollable could mean a lot of things, but looking at the flight path and Alt/Speed graph it could be a bit like that Tupolev video. Anyway, nice and crazy fast upload again!
Bram Laurens I’m Portuguese and I know people who saw the plane in the sky very erratic and with an abnormal low altitude near Santarem. I also know they were blind that’s why they had to be escorted by the Air Force to a militar base to land in Beja.
Wow less than 24h of the event and we have this video uploaded? You are beating our Portuguese news teams VASAviation! I followed the news yesterday and all they could say was "instrument failure", "the F-16's were activated" and then "landed safely in LPBJ after 2 failed attempts". When I saw Flightradar's flight path I thought "no way this was just an instrument failure, they lost control of the aircraft there, maybe because IMC with no instruments". No we all know what happened. I am subscribing to this channel right now. With notifications! Great job!
Dont mean tone critical, i feel the female controller was not specific enough in her information. The requested vectors ofnthe sea, and she actually gave them vectors for a river, but did not specify that it was a river, or what the distance was to the river.
I wondered why they kept asking their heading as I know very little about flying and what I have learnt was from this channel. It just took a little time for me to work out they had no instruments displaying which has been confirmed by others here . So the pilots did a fantastic job and remained calm under intense pressure.
Did they lose instrumentation in IFR conditions (worse, IMC)? It's almost as if their instruments gave them wrong information rather than them not working initially. In that case... holy cow, those are some great pilots keeping the plane in the air, getting back control and finally landing it. Edit: Also stellar by the ATC to organize fighters to assist. Gotta love the keyboard jockeys here, though.
What is strange is that every plane has a magnetic compass. They should have noticed the continuous turning by that. Then use the compass to head SW towards the sea. I suppose they were too busy with other things to notice the compass.
@@SuperAhmed1337 : You can see attitude with a cup of coffee in a cup holder. If you see mag compass turning you know you have to correct attitude. Think outside the box. Logical thinking. Panic kills.
A Max You can see attitude with a cup of coffee in a cup holder? OH! So that's why on commercial airliners, every time the plane banks, everyone's drink totally spills out of their cup, right?
So why it take so long for controller to tell them they are flying in circles? I mean if they said something earlier maybe the pilots would know sooner that there instruments is the problem and not flight controls...
Or at least ask why they are turning off course from the sea, where they want to go. I guess it's possible that ATC, knowing they had control issues, thought the pilots were just trying to deal with the control issues and never considered that instrument issues could be involved as well.
I'd be curious to see what the ATC was seeing. The circling is really obvious in VASAviation's RU-vid video, where we've got just one screen to watch, with the plane that declared an emergency displayed as a red airplane icon graphically showing its heading, a line indicating its recent path, and geographic features like the ocean shown in blue. Maybe their display didn't show the recent path the airplane was flying in, and the controller was looking up weather or terrain information on other screens, so they'd see only an instantaneous view of its heading when they happened to look at the aircraft screen, and maybe the heading was indicated with a number instead of a rotated airplane icon so they weren't watching it much. I'm ignorant about ATC equipment, so pardon me if this comment is really stupid.
Well I guess according to part 2... flight controls was the problem someone mentioned it in comments that they had reverse ailerons issue which is even scarier
@@amax1229 I have a feeling it was instruments only. Probably Autopilot and the nice displays went out. They stated at one point they gained control, "Manually" this leads me to believe that the autopilot was not doing what it was supposed to. Maybe due to primary instrument failure. With backup instruments and working flight controls they should have been able to fly a heading though.
Jesus. Look at those circles. And the altitude, jumping up and down thousands of feet at a time. It reminds me of Japan airlines 123's and United 232's flight paths. Must've been some scary shit. I would've filled my pants. I'm glad they were able to land safely. Did the various airlines ever incorporate that autopilot program that flies the plane using nothing but differential thrust?
![[REAL ATC] Air Astana has SERIOUS FLIGHT CONTROL ISSUES!](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
