The Man Who Slammed His Passenger Jet Into New York | Alitalia Flight 618 

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This captain didn't get the "when in doubt, go around" memo. Amazing that everybody lived

Are you unaware of that in 1953 the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a rule establishing that two-engine planes should never be more than 60 minutes of flying time away from an adequate airport? ETOPS in 1985 became IOAC regulations and eventually reached to days standard that dual engine aircraft could fly 180 min from a diversion airport. This is the reason in 1960 aircraft with four engines were required it is also the reason 3 engine aircraft were made to bypass the older requirements. Thank you for your video it was interesting.

Remember that the cost of a plane ticket represented a huge expenditure in those days, well out of reach for the middle class and below. Flying in the ‘60s and early ‘70s before the 747 was still limited to the well-to-do.

The DC-8 was actually certified to reverse the inboard engines inflight. That was because during testing, it was found that the spoilers caused instability. it's one of the few jets allowed to use reverse inflight. As we see here, like spoilers, its important to remember to clean back up when done needing the drag.

I flew Delta from Frankfurt to Atlanta in an almost-empty jet. It was great! It was some wide-body, and I was in the middle set of (I think) 4 seats, but I had them all to myself, so lots of room. Such flights are occasionally necessary to reposition planes for more profitable legs. It might be that the return flight from Atlanta to Frankfurt (if that was the plane's next destination) was full, and so very profitable.

I watched a pilot do something similar to this in the late 1980's. They were flying a Continental Boeing 727. Gold tail, meatball livery. He was WAY too high for the landing on RWY27 at San Diego. He pushed it anyway. Slammed it on the runway SO hard, one of the tires on the right main landing gear truck exploded. He managed to finish the landing and taxi to the gate minus one tire on the right side. I think he should've executed a missed approach.

What caused this crash was the captain forgetting to get out of reverse thrust, not using the reverse thrust in the first place. As you pointed out correctly, the DC-8 is rated to use reverse thrust in flight (albeit not under these conditions). The landing would most likely have been fine if the captain hadn't forgotten to push the levers back to idle.

Reason behind using a 4 engine jet during the 70s was because of a rule (ETOPS or Extended-range Twin-engine Operating Performance Standards) that prevented 2 engine aircraft from being further than 60 minutes flying time from an airport at any time. Unfortunately there wasn't a way of doing that while crossing the Atlantic, so all trans Atlantic commercial flights at the time HAD to be serviced by either a tri or quad jet. As jet engines became more reliable throughout the later 70s and into the 80s, that time was adjusted to 90 minutes, and it has been revised further since. It now stands at 300 minutes.

I was on a Pacific East Air DC-8-63 approaching HNL runway 8R (reef runway). We were so high that I assumed we must be going around. Much to my surprise the inboard engines went into reverse thrust. We descended very steeply, but the flare to landing felt normal.

A modern 737 is much bigger, and has a far greater range than what was available back then. In those days, the only way to cover that distance was either a DC8 or a 707. 747 wasn't out yet, although it was about to be. Those old aircraft were really small compared to today.

"Engines 3 and 4 were ripped off, the landing did not go well" 😂 a bit of an understatement!

When flying the SAAB Viggen you can enable the thrust reverser whilst in the air before landing however it only engages once you land which is a really convenient way to setup for a quick landing seeing as the Viggen is known for its STOL ability.

No other channel which primarily deals with these types of incidents, touches Mini Air Crash Investigation! I'm still catching up on the back catalogue and haven't watched regular TV or Netflix for ages!

Guys, this is basically the 1960s, when the jet age was still relatively new, and a number of jets were designed with the possibility of using thrust reversers in flight, cue the HS Trident, and the IL-62, so not a totally uncommon thing in those times... do cut the captain some slack!

Here in Italy we fail at Math a bit too much. Both when it comes to profits, and when it comes to making sounding decisions...

I worked for BOAC at the time and remember that the seating capacity of our Boeing 707 and Super VC10 aircraft was typically 16F 123Y. The Standard VC10 was 12F 99Y ... truly a different era before the arrival of the 747.

I think that the captain used the thrust reversers improperly for one big reason. In the video, you said that the airline was not profitable except for 1998. Perhaps the crew was under pressure to save money. The captain then felt he had to get the aircraft on the ground. Also, the pilots seemed to be good aviators as evidenced by everyone surviving the crash.

I think one motivation for not go around could be, that going around felt like confessing that he made an error, so he wanted to correct the landing even if it was too late.

Those of you who only know flying in the de-regulated era, might be surprised to learn that flights were rarely canceled in the old days simply for lack of passengers. The big “National” carriers felt it was their responsibility to fly that plane regardless of the passenger count. I recall one time on the Washington DC to Detroit leg of BA 215 (?) when there were 17 of us on a 747, including the cabin crew.

man, we DO like a story where everyone walks away over here, and that's why I like _over here_ so much, lol. honestly I'm just a slut for accident investigation procedures and big jets! people dying is _sad!_ I love that you find so many accidents where people hobble away 🥰

I'm surprised you are surprised at the equipment type in use. There was no ETOPS back then. The 707 or DC-8 were in common use on transatlantic routes well into the 70's. I flew a DC-8 from JFK to FCO in 1975 thought it had been stretched a fair amount by then.

You talk of the economics of flying vs passenger numbers. I recently flew Aer Lingus Orlando to Manchester, the A330 was less than half full. The return flight was nowhere near full also.

On July 5th 1970 in Toronto, Air Canada flight 621, a DC- 8-63 encountered a very similar situation on landing. The outcome though was very different. All on board perished.

He might have pulled it off if he turned the thrust reversers off before the plane hit the runway. If they had gotten away with it before, this time the envelope was pushed too far. He still had enough presence of mind to cut off the fuel supply and keep the plane from erupting into flames during the crash. No one was injured seriously and we are all glad for that. 🙂

Another element that saved lives was that the Douglas DC-8 was a solid and well built aircraft.

OMG, the moment I heard he used the thrust reverser I knew they were in trouble

I try to look this up & the results largely reference a 26 February 1960 flight of the same name, a Douglas DC-7C aircraft crashing near a cemetery in Shannon, Ireland. 34 killed & 18 seriously injured survivors. This flight you cover seems forgotten in comparison. Nice work digging it up!

In those days it was ALL quad jets doing long distance flying. Twins are relatively recent.

I raised my eyebrows at your comment in the beginning. Like, "is this guy serious???" Hey, it was 1970, a DC-8 or a 707 was what they had at the time to fly between continents, and Alitalia (not two words, just one) wasn't the only airline using them --- ALL airlines flying across the Atlantic used quad-jets that were relatively small by today's standards, because that's what they COULD fly with and the ONLY long-range jets available at the time. The 737 versions that already existed back then, like the 737-200, could carry only some 110 passengers as far as a couple thousand miles at most, and the first widebody jet was still about to debut --- and it was the fuel-guzzling, also quad-engine 747. Using twinjets on long-range routes over water was FORBIDDEN because it was considered unsafe before ETOPS (which would only appear over a decade later), and Airbus was still a pipe dream. In fact, long-range twinjets were a practical impossibility because only two of the low-bypass engines available at the time wouldn't have enough power to carry the fuel load required for a transoceanic flight, so a quad-jet was a NECESSITY. Only a few years later the DC-10 and L-1011 started doing it, but they were still trijets. Additionally, you also obviously aren't aware that oil (and hence fuel) was dirt-cheap before the 1973 Yom Kippur war (cheap as in $1 a barrel of crude oil!), and fuel consumption wasn't a very significant cost to airlines back then. Your comment sounded as if you were talking about the 17th century and being unable to understand why they used carriages pulled by horses to travel instead of SUVs on motorways, which everybody knows are sooooooo much faster and better...

Twin engine trans Atlantic flights is a relatively new phenomenon.

Dang. I'd never heard that about Alitalia's lack of profitability before. The thing that finally killed them, or so I heard, was that Italy set up a state of the art high speed rail system, with the result that Alitalia's domestic market collapsed.

Some of these comments don't pass the "smell test". While I was with Flying Tigers, we leased an Alitalia DC-8-62 (N3931A) with JT3D-7 P&W 19,000# thrust engines, which is what's being depicted here. The 62 had the long range -63 wing, but was between the series 50 and series 61/63 in length (think Boeing 747 SP). It had a max ramp weight of 353,000, and a break release weight of 350,000 (very close to the -63). It seated 189 passengers at a range of 5200 miles, with a max landing weight of 275,000. So comparison with the 737 is probably not the way to go. "The long-range DC-8-62 followed in April 1967, stretched by 7 ft (2.1 m), could seat up to 189 passengers over 5,200 nmi (9,600 km) with a larger wing for a MTOW up to 350,000 lb (159 t)." source Wiki. Even the 737 Max can't match the range passenger load capabilities of the DC8-62. Where they differ, is that at .80 mach cruise, the -62 had a fuel burn around 12,000 #/hour, while the far more efficient Max series burns around 4000# / hour with +/- the -62 pax load. When we said "Filler up", you'd be looking at 169,000# of fuel. or around 26,000 gallons. By comparison, our 747s could carry 350,000# of fuel (and about the same payload), or around 53,000 gallons of jet A. Can I borrow you credit card??? As to inflight reverse, we had unlimited 4 engine reverse until we went into landing configuration, then only limited reverse would be available. The -62 & -63 series had the most effective inflight reverse, and it really shook the plane. I crewed a bunch of empty flights to the Douglas facility in Tulsa, OK., where a pylon mod had to be done due to cracking in the engine pylons, due to this stress. Sorry folks, but watching the video, and reading some of the comments was like fingernails on the chalkboard.

As with the aforementioned range and ETOPS for the justification, fuel back then was also wasn’t much of an issue. It’s not until the 70’s oil crisis effects hitting the airline industry full swing that airplane manufacturers started toying with wide-bodies and planes with less than four engines. Also, fun fact: Boeing and Douglas wasn’t the only ones in the pool with four-engined, narrow-bodied jetliners. Vickers, Convair, and even Ilusyhin also dipped their toes as well.

My mother was born 40 days after this incident. Time flies !

From the my observations years ago there was far more of an anything goes approach to flying (and the roads) as there is now. I am sure that the pilot was attempting to bring it in as steep as possible and plainly misjudged it by a few seconds in attention. I remember being in planes doing all sorts of things years ago that just wouldn't happen these days. For example I was once on a 737 where the pilot decided to do a secnic pass through valleys and around mountans because it was the first day of the school holidays. It was very spectacular and lots of fun...

I don't get the questioning about using a DC-8. It was 1970 and as far as I know almost all transatlantic flights at that time were flown with the DC-8 or the 707 (excepting Icelandic Air which used props and made a stop in Reykjavík). I've flown across the Atlantic a few times when the plane wasn't nearly full--one time on a Delta flight where just about every passenger was able to stretch out across three seats. The 737 didn't begin flying until 1968 and it wasn't capable of transatlantic flight at that time. Alitalia has never been a great airline but that's probably more attributable to the rapid-fire flip-flops in the Italian government so that nobody ever knew which end was up. 😄

Was it true at one point that a go around was something that pilots were criticized for in the past? If that was the case then, perhaps that is why they chose not to go around.

Have you ever heard of the concept of flag carriers? They're state run operations, run from a perspective of national pride rather than profit. For a smaller country, it can be economic sense to run unprofitable routs because the societal benefits are more important in a larger perspective.

4:40 "WE LIKE A STORY WHERE EVERYONE WALKS AWAY, OVER HERE" so do i. (and i like turning the caps off too. damn it ! 🤣)

thjs was pre-ETOPS. Even if they had 10 passengers, regulations required them to use a quad engine jet for Atlantic crossing

I did not know about this accident. No fatalities. That provides buoyancy.

I love this channel check for a video almost daily! Thank you for the video!

The Hawker Siddeley Trident, a 120- to 180-seat airliner, was capable of descending at up to 10,000 ft/min (3,050 m/min) by use of the thrust reversers in flight.

Curiously 10 years before there was a fatal crash of the DC-7 and it had the same flight number: Alitalia Flight 618.

If you didn't have a triple jet (the DC-10 was introduced only in 1970) you needed a four engine jet to fly over the ocean due to regulations. Combined with low fuel costs and probably expensive tickets it would've been sort of okay.

Different economics, back then. Airline tickets were expensive. My father bought a ticket to Europe in 1970, to attend my grandfather's (his father's) funeral. It cost $1000, back then. You could buy a new compact car for $2000 or a house for $20,000, at that same time.

Any landing you can walk away from, is a good landing.

First of all, another great video. The fact that everyone survived, looking at the pictures from the crash, is impressive all by itself. But I think that in those days it was perceived as a "bad thing" for a pilot to do a go around, so that's probably why they didn't do one. Also, I think there was a regulation that prevented twin-engine jets from doing a trans-Atlantic flight, so tri and quad engine jets were necessary. But looking at it from a modern standpoint, it does seem ridiculous to use a quad engine jet to do those kind of flights like the one mentioned.

Well think about it it might have made sense then because there are only a few jets that could cross the Atlantic at the time. and those were the quadjets. The Dc10 wasn't released for service until 1971 and the L1011 in 1972.

I Have Not Even Seen The Video And I Alredy Know That The Video Is The Best

It's 1970! The DC-8 and 707 were the main long distance airliners during that time. The 747 was just getting in and many airports infrastructures were not ready for the 747 yet. In 1970 Newark International Airport Term A, B and C were still in construction. So yes many DC-8's flew international flights....

A podcast I listen to called Cautionary Tales talked about reasons why pilots don't divert even when every indication says they should. There was an interesting little part where I believe it was an NTSB report discussed how when a storm is coming into an airport pilots will keep landing and pushing the envelope as conditions worsen but as soon as 1 pilot chooses to divert every plane after them diverts as well. They called the phenomenon Get-There-itis

As others have said, back in the day twinjets weren't as solid on range as quadjets and tri-jets; they also weren't wide-body (jet engines did not yet exist that could economically lift a widebody hull with only two). Additionally, for some time any jet flying intercontinental was *required* to have at least _three_ engines - better odds of not losing all engines while over the ocean that way. EDIT: Yeah, after checking, twinjets were very range-restricted at the time. Tri-jets weren't really a thing yet, so a quadjet would have been the only sort legally permitted to make that flight. Not knowing this feels like a pretty significant gap in your research, which is usually good; it's enough to make me bail about a minute in. I think you should re-do this one. You're right that 146 passengers was a bit of a light load, a little half of the DC-8-62's capacity of 259. But air travel and especially _jet_ travel catered largely to the well-to-do prior to the 747, so...

"Inboard eng's, max reverse" was the 3rd, or 4th, memory item down on the EMERGENCY decent checklist on the -8s. A long time ago, now.

I'm a little late as usual As always excellent work!!! Keep them coming...

An approach that is not stabilized is a go around. This aircraft was not only "not stabilized" it was out of control.

I flew on a 747 from the international airport in mainland Japan to Hawaii... with only 34 passengers. We were all setting up the center seats, lifting the armrests up to make beds. But, the turbulence was so fricking bad... we all ended up sitting with our seatbelts on the entire flight. Can you imagine how much money they lost??? With only 34 passengers on a 747???

It's worth mentioning that chasing profits with jet engines has LONG been a dubious gamble. In the earliest days, the "buzz-jet" was designed with (essentially) venetian blinds at the intake, a fuel injector and ignitor cluster in the middle, and a narrowing (Venturi) tube at the output/thruster... It literally drew air by pure ram-induction, shot fuel into a mist that then exploded on the ignitor sparks, "blowing" the blinds closed and forcing most (probably 70-80%) of the useful explosive thrust out the rear to achieve forward momentum and repeat the process... Turbines led to the Turbo-Jet engines... with RAM-jets becoming denoted to "After-burners" (popular on aerobatic and fighter craft) which were a remarkable upgrade in power and efficiency, and we had to progress through this technology for a sufficient study and understanding before moving on. These monstrosities, still sucked in air from the front, only they could be started with electric motors spinning the main-shaft(s) and progressively aggressive turbines in the front forced air into the combustion chamber at the core, inducing a direct constant flow. Into this flow, fuel was injected and an ignitor cluster again applied spark, but with so many internal components, heat could be retained to a point of "thermal run-away" where the fire was self sustaining... AND the ignitors could be allowed to shut down. This still used a LOT of fuel, since 80-ish% or more of the air was being burned in the production of direct thrust, and this was still forced through the narrowing (Venturi again) tube to focus thrust out the back, much like getting higher speed water out of your garden hose by putting a thumb partially over the end... Faster thrust created more reaction by Newton's laws (action-reaction)... AND the engineers could design the system to reach a balancing point of operating temperature before they melted out or burned up the internal moving components (like the core compressor turbines)... Thrust would be driven through a series of somewhat less aggressive turbines which acted sort of like "pinwheels" in children's toys. Only the rear turbines were firmly attached to the shaft(s) in the core the same as the front turbines... This takes just a little of the thrust output to turn into torque, useful for pushing the forward turbines around to force more air through the system... SO at the throttle controls, the pilots are simply adding fuel or starving the engine to achieve more or less thrust, and once at operating temp', the self sustaining burn would keep running reliably until fuel was cut-off, which is how you shutdown a jet engine, by switching off the fuel pumps altogether... For the "After-burners" The Ram jets were just a second stage burn, catching a little of the unburnt fuel from the first stage and adding some of the "bleed-air" that circulated around the combustion chamber(s) at the core, usually for cooling on other (unequipped) engines, and with a little addition of fuel and ignition, they'd add a significant boost to the overall thrust output, while allowing open flames to exit the engine at the thrust nozzle in the very rear... As you can imagine, the boost is phenomenal if done well, but remains an expensive commodity and only really has a place in craft that MUST be capable of near ludicrous acceleration. BUT then we (talking about humans in general) discovered that all those moving parts in the turbines, compressor stages, and the receiving turbines in the rear, all that mass whirling about produced a LOT of unused torque... SO the engineers did some really clever math and through experiments and occasionally spectacular failures, they figured out that you could attach propellers to the front of the thing and make a "Turbo-prop" driven craft... AND later a "Turbo-Fan Jet Engine"... Where only a relatively small amount of the air from the intake is actually forced into the Core of the engine and the combustion chamber. The majority of the air can be vented around through the cowling to be heated by the burning fuel-air mixture and a VERY MUCH more efficient engine can produce a MUCH more powerful and consistent thrust for a LOT longer. Furthermore, since less fuel and air were being actively burned, the engine's moving parts could last a lot longer. The only downside was that "spooling up" was noticeably more sluggish than the older fashioned Turbo-jets... In the 60's and 70's a majority of civilian craft relied on the "tried and true" technology of the Turbo-jets. They're characteristically long and slender shape was graceful and the rapid response to throttling up was comfortable, even at the added cost. However, as remarkable as the shear quantities of fuel they required were, range was another dubious mathematical issue. More fuel meant more range, BUT also required more power... You can look up all the mathematical hooey NASA went through just figuring out how much it would take to put a man on the moon, if you want to be truly impressed... In any case, there were a few mathematical phenomena that came to prove two small Turbo-jet engines could be both more powerful and more efficient than one GREAT BIG one... SO that's how you get a four-engine passenger liner that's only carrying about 100 people over the entire Atlantic Ocean... Sorry for the length... (and if you made it this far, you're a trooper, so THANKS FOR READING!!!)... However, I felt it necessary to include the jet engine progressions, and this IS the "over-simplified version" so don't expect this to win you awards in Engineering School. It won't. It's just enough to get a picture of how and why things developed as they did. It's also why so many pictures of B-52's retro-fitted with jet engines have twin engines on their pylons instead of bigger singles that probably could've been developed at that time... In any case, I hope this helps make sense out of what seems like nonsense... ;o)

I think a big part of the captains decision to proceed with the land might be a feeling of sunk cost. Ie that he already had made a bigger than normal effort in time and concentration to get that close to the run way. If he went around he would have to make the same effort again to possibly be in a similar position.

this reminds me of a landing that was performed in the German Democratic Republic where they were putting down an old Ilyushin-62 in 1989 on a field that was just 860 meters long, and not paved. It was meant to be put there as a museum piece. They pulled the inboard engines to idle, and used the outboard engines for thrust reversal while in the air. It came to a stop at around 850 meters down the runway. Here's the excerpt from the German Wikipedia article for those interested, you can just put it into Google Translate I guess: Erfolgreiche Landung Am 23. Oktober 1989 startete das Flugzeug zu seiner letzten, etwa 100 km kurzen Reise auf dem Flughafen Schönefeld. Nach zwei Probeüberflügen wurde das Flugzeug um 13:03 Uhr erfolgreich auf dem Flugplatz Stölln/Rhinow gelandet. Die Besatzung steuerte die Maschine mit minimaler Geschwindigkeit, knapp vor dem Strömungsabriss, auf die Piste zu. Die beiden inneren Triebwerke wurden deshalb bereits in der Luft abgeschaltet, um deren Restschub zu eliminieren, und die Schubumkehr, die von Einschalten bis zum Aufbau des vollen Gegenschubs etwa sechs bis acht Sekunden benötigte, deshalb bereits in 50 Metern Höhe aktiviert. In der Zivilluftfahrt wäre so ein Manöver strikt verboten.[8][6] Nach dem ersten Aufsetzen auf dem störenden Hügel am Beginn der Piste hob die IL-62 noch zweimal kurz ab. Durch einen hohen Anstellwinkel bei der Landung sorgte der entstehende Luftwiderstand für zusätzliche Bremskraft. Nach dem Aufsetzen fuhr der Pilot sofort die Bremsklappen aus und behielt den Anstellwinkel solange bei, bis sich der Bug durch das Unwirksamwerden des Höhenruders bei etwa 140 km/h nach unten senkte.[2] So konnte das Flugzeug nach rund 850 Metern erfolgreich zum Stillstand gebracht werden, wobei eine große, nicht einkalkulierte Staubwolke durch den Gebrauch der Schubumkehr entstand und der Besatzung gegen Ende des Ausrollvorgangs vorübergehend die Sicht nahm. Nachdem sie die Umgebung wieder sehen konnte, ließ sie die beiden für die Landung ausgeschalteten, inneren Triebwerke an und überführte die Maschine damit zum jetzigen Standort.[4] Am Boden warteten bereits Menschenmassen, die Bürgermeisterin der Gemeinde Sybille Heling gratulierte der Besatzung als eine der Ersten. Die Landung wurde in das Buch der Guinness World Records aufgenommen.[3] Schließlich wurde das Flugzeug auf den Namen Lady Agnes getauft, in Gedenken an Agnes Fischer, die Ehefrau von Otto Lilienthal.

The flight using a quad jet was part of the ruling of Atlantic crossing, that same rule also led to the creation of tri jets. Kiku Futaba mentions in comments, and reminded me of the ETOPS regulation after I originally posted). You mentioned yourself that this aircraft was only carrying 146 passengers, so a go-around would have added to cost, something that Alitalia was obviously not very good with. It's amazing how often pilots seem to be put under pressure by company rules, rather than safety rules. This happens in far more industries than just air travel. Companies add 'unwritten' rules to suit themselves, knowing the responsibility lies with the employee, and that in the event that it goes wrong, they can suddenly blame the employee for not following the actual rules, as laid down. Of course, in air travel this often leads to loss of life.

It was probably fatigue or get-there-itis. In addition, a go around would resequence him pretty far away most likely in such dense airspace.

Not only "one year of profit since 1946", one year of profit _ever._ Alitalia went bust in 2021, and the wreckage was partially re-constructed into a new Italian flag carrier.

Reverse thrust in mid air ! That's me in a flight simulator !

Bruh what are these FS2002 graphics 😂 Love the content nonetheless

I can't believe reverse thrust would ever be considered in the air!

Fantastic video!

Alitalia employees went sometimes/often in retirement/pension with 40 years or less (age not working years) They were "posto fisso" employees which means they could not be fired. Even if they showed gross missconduct like faking having worked. To this day there are many such jobs in Italy which contribute to the enormous debt and inefficiency of Italy. Millions of jobs are purely created to maintain a semblance of economy in the south

Comment about 4 engine 150 seaters crossing the Atlantic back 50 years ago was naive, to say the least. Only DC 8 & 707 had that ability back then. Also, the DC 8 would be, structurely the strongest airliner built back at that time, which would have helped save a lot of lives in this case

Fascinating as always !

Alitalia is an undying meme here in Italy.

The engines look like the Convair 880.

Well to keep things in perspective while it seems like it doesn't make sense to carry so few pax transatlantic, just keep in mind the time.The 747 just came out and other widebodies were a few years away, ie DC-10, L1011, Airbus and the 757/767 fam were over a decade away. So apparently the 8 and 707's were the best options at the time.

It's not Al Italia it's AlItalia, as in Ali (Wings) + Italia (Italy)

Quad keys were required by the FDA. Then came TTI-jets. It wasn’t until the twin jets 767 and 757 that twin jets were allowed to fly across the oceans.

This guy should know that in 1970 the DC8 was the flagship of most of the airlines and it was perfectly normal transporting 140 or something passengers across the ocean on a four engine jet. (The cost of the tickets was much higher) Beside 1970’s ETOPS restrictions that he doesn’t know about, he forgot that within a few years the North Atlantic tracks were filled with 747’s which obviously are running on four engines…

I flew on a 707 to Germany in 1963 the plane was half empty but the the flight cost $650 or so per person do a little calculation to figure out what that would cost now also most airlines were subsidized (or were government owned) to encourage tourism and for prestige

I doubt too many pilots want to do a go around at JFK even though it's clear he should have...like any accident it will be a combo of factors.

You gotta remember that the seat pitch was much larger than today. Additionally the ticket prices were probably much higher relatively speaking.

In the 90s there was a joke, that the pope using allitalia was kissing soil after landing was not a religous thing but he was glad he survived

I think in those days they were not allowed to use twin engine planes for such a flight because of limited diversion options in the event of an engine failure.

Career-limiting move there.

quad jets were what they had back then. and air travel was far more expensive and exclusive. twin engines weren't good enough or allowed to cross the ocean

I saw that plane after the crash at JFK in 1970!!! I was a new flight attendant for United Airlines. All I remember is seeing parts of the plane off the side off of a taxi way or somewhere.It was a long time ago. We were either taxiing out. Not sure, but I do remember seeing the crashed plane out the left side of our aircraft. I could read what Airline it was. I wondered why they didn't get it out of sight , it was so depressing and didn't cheer up the passengers, or me. I was 20 years old. when I flew to Italy for vacation, I took TWA. I can't believe I saw this video. Awful sight. Shocked all survived.

It isn't about choosing to put a 4 engine aircraft with that capacity on the route - that is all there was at the time. The first reliable and consistently scheduled twin-jet transoceanic operations were not really until the 1980s with the Boeing 767. This is due to better, more efficient and reliable (and safer) engines - aircraft have to be able to make it to an alternate airport after losing some of its engines within a time frame - and that can be up to 2-3 hours away... a DC-8 or 707 down to 1-2 engines is going nowhere but down and slowly if lucky. Price of fuel was also much lower and air fares were hugely higher, adjusted for inflation. So, I fail to understand the critique of Alitalia for this... Alitalia is not and has never been (And never will be) a shining model of how to run an airline on a financial aspect. The Italian government has meddled in it and it has had to do many things purely out of political reasons. The government continues to bail them out every couple of years.

That was what some major airlines did only putting just over 160 passengers on a quad engine jet. Think about Twa/united did it often enough in the 70s through to the late 90s so yes it don't make sense but they get their revenue from other areas to make up for it!

Regardless of fuselage size or ETOPS regulations, twin or even three engined commercial aircraft simply did not have the range for transatlantic flights in 1970. 146 pax was actually considered a ‘reasonable’ load. Outside peak periods it was by no means uncommon for any airline’s 707s or DC-8s to carry loads of less than 100 pax across the Pond. Not profitable but not rare either. Fares were high back then.

Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

The Captain didn't go around because he is a Macho. Going around means admitting a failure, Machos don't fail, they are always perfect.

Just for you to know, Alitalia is written all together and it is the combination of Ali = Wings and Italia=italy. The “i” is in common so Alitalia. As you probably know, the company bankrupted and now there is AirItaly

I thought during that time, to travel over water for extended periods, they had to have more than 2 engines, hence the tri-jet era to save fuel.

At the time, the fuel was cheaper than water, which would’ve helped somewhat, I imagine.

Besides aircraft being much different back then, so was airline fare regulation. You got all kinds of weird things happening in those days so I'm not surprised that they made the flight with so few passengers.

Asking about "economics" and Alitalia is a bit of irony as this carrier basically never made any profit, had to be bailed out by government numerous times and went finally bust way too late.

I think the Alitalia pilot went ahead with the landing instead of going around due to the long flight. He was tired, and didn't feel like staying in the air any longer. Fatigue is often a factor in poor decisions.

A plane breaking in 2 or 3 intact pieces usually saves lives by absorbing all the collision force

The only choices that they had back in those days was DC8, 707, 720, 747 Convair 880 or 990 and the Convairs were fuel thirsty jets..

Did the report not come to a conclusion on why he continued the landing?

But 146 passengers sounds like a full flight