Aircrash Investigation – TV Tonight

A really scary, but once again a very interesting show.

I can’t begin to imagine what the pilots were feeling, just think if it was in the daytime, they would have had a rough idea of how high they are.

The thing that really got me, is the fact that the people on board won’t have just died instantly when they hit the water, they drowned once in the water.

If I went on an aircraft I would want it to be instant, that must have been so horrific for the PAX.

Seems so sad that those people lost their lives because of one piece of tape…

Just noticed this thread! 🙂 I’ve watched them both, last nights was crazy, I can’t begin to imagine the pressure that the pilots must have been under especially with all those warning lights! How must it feel to get a stall warning and a overspeed warning at the same time! 😮
I couldn’t believe the cause though, somebody really should have noticed the tape!

Yes, Initially everyone wanted to blame the pilots. But thats a bit unfair.

They got the sticker shaker and overspeed warnings all at once. Their altimeters were useless and the airspeed indicators not to be trusted. They got all sorts of warnings at the same time that according to normal flight rules, just doesn’t happen.

Poor pilots. They were very stressed and flying at night over water with no light source to guide themselves by.

It was espacialy harrowing to find out that a 707 had been scrambled to guide them back to safety by flying level with them. A few more minutes and that situation could have ended with a hairy, but safe landing. Such a shame.

Lessons have been learned. Thans to this and the Birgenair crash, there should never be any covering of static ports or Pitots with duct tape ever again.

Just noticed this thread! 🙂 I’ve watched them both, last nights was crazy, I can’t begin to imagine the pressure that the pilots must have been under especially with all those warning lights! How must it feel to get a stall warning and a overspeed warning at the same time! 😮
I couldn’t believe the cause though, somebody really should have noticed the tape!

I’ve read into this crash before. And the Documentary was pretty good. Not biased and very factual.

The root of the problem is down to a maintenance worker using ordinary duct tape (known as gaffer tape here) to cover up the Pilots static ports during cleaning of the aircraft.
The tape was relatively “invisable” to the captain during is night time walkaround.

The Tape is meant to be Red so it stand out.

Yes it was very scary last night, all because of a bit of tape. The tower even got the wrong info because the aircraft wasn’t sending the right stuff back to the tower.

Well episode two was on last night and again it frightened the hell out of me.

The story was about AeroPeru 603 that was on a flight from Peru to Chilie in 1996. The 757 took off as normal and whilst on climb-out lost its readings of altitude and air speed. As a result of this loss of readings, the computers started to give out warnings about going too slow, going to fast etc.. when for the majority of the time the 757 was flying normally. The crew requested help from Air Traffic asking them to inform them of their height, but Air Traffic returned the incorrect readings back to the cockpit (the aircraft was sending its incorrect FL to ATC). As a result the crew began to believe the readings were correct.

It was a night flight and the 757 was over the sea. They believed they were at 10,000 feet when in fact they had gradually been descending for some time and were only a few hundred feet about the ocean. With the gound proximity warning sounded, the pilot and his co-pilot believed it to be another in a string of erroneous messages and didn’t take the necessary action. The 757 crashed into the sea killing everyone on board.

And the reason for the crash, a piece of sticky tape had been placed over a sensor during routine cleaning (normal practice) but the person had forgotten to remove it. Furthermore, his boss had failed to spot it and the pilot too didn’t see it during his pre-flight walkaround.

*****

The programme gave a good account of the events and once again portrayed the facts with a chilling reality. I think what scared me more than anything else in this incident was that ‘forgetting to remove a piece of tape’ could bring down a modern 4 year old aeroplane. Truly scary that with all this technology in place, there was no technology to warn that the sensor maybe covered up.

Did anyone else see the programme? What were your views?

Great programme! I was sat on the edge of my seat seeing if they landed ok!!!!

It was a fascinating programme, those pilots were extremely skilled.

An incident that so easily could have been avoided, if it wasn’t for such shoddy maintenance.

Have to agree Pembo, my heart was also thumping, must be so scary.

I am looking forward to the next ones already!

Well, not a bad programme really – did anyone see it?

The facts of the incident have been covered pretty well in this thread but what struck me about this flight was how close it came to being a major disaster. My heart was thumping as I watched the dramatisation; the poor passengers, strapped in Oxygen Masks, gliding (no engine noise so in eerie silence) for over 20 minutes to what they thought was their deaths. The torture they must have suffered isn’t worth thinking about.

A reminder that:

Wed 14 July – 10pm – C5 – Aircrash Investigation – Aero Peru 603

Wed 21 July – 10pm – C5 – Explosive Evidence – United Airlines 747 to Honolulu

All of the aircrash investigation programs were on National Geographic last Friday, all day. There was 7 in total I think. Quite good really. I think there was TSC 330, Air Peru 757, AA MD80, UAL 747 and a few more.

Not really Crash investigation. They landed safely, although all the main gear tires were blown out

True enough, not a crash, but had it not been for the fact they were within range of the Azores, then everyone on board would have died. Whatever the crew did or did not do correctly initially, it was still an amazing feat of flying to fly an Airbus glider onto the ground succesfully.
I seem to recall pictures of the ‘incident’ showing, not just blown tyres, but the wheel hubs ground into the runway!
Looking forward to the programme, ta for the reminder.

oh good, so I’m not going senile… 😀 LOL

The basics of the incident are:

A. Fuel Leak due to incorrect part fitted to engine vibrating against fuel line.
B. Pilot saw a misbalance of the fuel (they didn’t know it was a fuel leak)
C. Airbus Ops manual states to transfer fuel from other tank
D. Crew follow manual to the letter.
E. Crew notice total fuel volume is decreasing and stop fuel transfer immediately suspecting a leak
F. Engines flame out. Capt. Dead sticks the plant for 70-80 nm to a hairy landing. Blowing all main tires out it screeches to a halt on the runway. All deplane safely.

in a nutshell

All correct. The Gimli incident was another tale completely,that was the one about the fuel miscalculation. I wonder if the BA flameout in volcanic ash will feature on one of these programmes ?

It is about the Air Transat Airbus.

Bmused55,you are correct in the tv guide it says its about a Airbus in 2001

Funny I thought this was about the Air Transat A330 in the Azores.

a fuel leak escalated into both engines flaming out.

We discussed that very issue on a thread here recently. It was a Boeing 767-200 and because of a faulty fuel computer and a botched fuel calculation caused by imperial to metric conversion mix up’s, the plane was flying on vapours (more or less).

Both engines flamed out and the crew had to glide in to land at a disused RCAF airfield in Gimli, Canada. The airfield just happened to be hosting a car club rally on it’s runway as the silent 767 approached. Very interesting tale.

the aircraft in question did not spring a leak,it was down to miscalulation in Lbs and kilos (fuel load)

I was looking at that just now.

Not realy Crash investigation. They landed safely, although all the main gear tires were blown out.
I’ve read into this incident and came to the conclusion it was a flaw in the operating manual that led to a small problem growing into a deadly game of airspeed versus altitiude.