The Airline That Didn’t Care About Safety | UTA Flight 141
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- Опубликовано: 11 авг 2021
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This is the story of UTA flight 141, by the way UTA stands for Union des Transports Africains, not to be confused with the french carrier UTA. UTA was an airline that flew in africa and the middle east and flight 141 was one of the few flights that they operated. Flight 141 was flown by a Boeing 727 and the route was long. Flight 141 would start in Conakry international airport in Guniea from there it would fly to Cotonou in benin from there it would head to beirut before ending up in dubai. On christmas day 2003, the 727 was making this weekly trip and was at cotonou international airport in benin. But before the plane even left the ground things were off to a bad start. Passenger boarding wasnt going well and there seemed to be a great deal of confusion, it was chaotic.Making it harder for the cabin crew everyone seemed to have a lot of cabin baggage and there seemed to be nowhere to put all that baggage. It was the same thing in the cargo holds, by the time the cargo handlers were done the cargo holds were full.
Once the chaos had been dealt with the pilots started working on the calculations for their flight to kufra. Kufra was an airport in Libya; it was a stopover on the way to beirut. The first officer talked to the UTA executives in the cockpit about their weight limits on the plane while the captain handled the ATC communications. As they carried out their checks the plane’s fuel tanks were topped off with 11.4 tons or 25000 pounds of fuel. The captain now having finished his work, set the flaps to 25 and turned off the AC units in preparation for the take off.
The first officer taxied the plane to the runway, and at 1:52 pm on Christmas 2003 flight 141. The pilots knew that this takeoff would need every ounce of performance that the plane had. They got to the end of the runway and applied their brakes and ramped the engines up to full power. After takeoff theyd climb at a steady three degrees to gain speed. With that they started rolling down the runway. At the start of the takeoff roll there were some people who were still standing in the cabin but they sat down once the plane was underway. As the plane picked up speed down the runway the controller in the tower noticed that flight 141 was taking quite a bit of time to get airborne. In the cockpit the captain saw that the plane had reached 137 knots, their rotate speed. The first officer pulled back on the yoke to take the 727 into the sky, but nothing happened; they were still on the ground. The captain called rotate, rotate an the first officer pulled back even harder. Slowly the nose of the 727 began to rise into the air. But flight 141 had run off of space. It had just taken off but it couldn't clear a concrete building on the extended centerline of the runway that housed the localizer antenna. The right landing gear impacted the building and was ripped off. The Plane banked slightly to the right and came crashing down on a beach just beyond the runway, most of the wreckage continued on till it ended up in the ocean. Of the 163 passengers onboard, only 22 survived. Unfortunately two people on the ground were also killed.
Right after a crash an investigative go teams agency is put into action. The go team has multiple sub teams, some teams survey the crash site, some teams talk with eyewitnesses and others gather records and files pertaining to the accident plane should the investigation need them. So in this fashion the investigators asked UTA airlines for the weight and balance sheet of flight 141. There are usually two copies of this document, one is given to the pilots and the other is kept by the airline. But strangely UTA had no copies of the weight and balance sheets for the accident airplane. Okay weird so they asked for the weight and balance sheet from the first flight on the 25th of december, they didnt have that either. Shockingly this airline had no documents 
Наука
The pilot's error was accepting employment by this alleged airline.
The pilot's options were probably limited to careers like bush meat specialist.
A very tough environment in Africa, which boils down to low level of wealth due to low level of production. They are still pre-industrial.
It is tough to produce wealth out of nothing, like the biden administration is presently doing to the U.S. with trillion-dollar spending of money created out of nothing, since so much of U.S. production of goods and services have been transferred to foreign countries and the profits from production are being made by the CCP and other entities instead of U.S. companies and individuals.
@@geoh7777 did you really need to try and get political on a video about an international flight?
@@geoh7777 - Oh, fer chrissake, give it a break won'tcha? This isn't a political discussion. You're not impressing anybody.
@@go-away-5555 Do you really need to reply to something simply because you don't endorse their sentiment? Have a fun life. You will be plenty busy typing.
@@geoh7777 U.S. wealth created "out of nothing"? The U.S. is the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and net wealth and the second-largest by purchasing power parity. The nation's economy is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. Around 50% of the U.S. spending power is generated from income taxes. Before you draw conclusions about the Biden administration (or anything maybe), perhaps you should wait and see what actually happens, especially since your depiction of reality seems to base itself on exaggeration and nonsensical concepts.
Perhaps you should consider the benefits of facts and/or your silence.
This is like blaming a teacher for all her students failing the class when she was given the wrong textbook to teach. This airline was hot garbage
The airline that was a flying dumpster fire.
Crap airline, how many more are out there, I for one don't want to find out!!!🙏🛫😬
The crew was complicit. Working for an air carrier like this is like taking a job with organized crime. The obligation of a pilot to the safety of passengers is absolute once he sits in that seat. This crew willingly disregarded basic safety protocols--so they were guilty. The people they worked for were also guilty.
This was an international airline. How were they flying in numerous countries without ever having been found out?
@@rnash999 welcome to the wonderful world of complacency
kinda looks like the airline was in a competition for breaking the maximum number of rules possible.
Nah, that honor would probably go to Aeroflot. They were so bad that some of their planes had no seatbelts. Another pilot even let his kid play with the controls. Yep, the plane also crashed.
@@largol33t1 Of course it had to be a Russian airline, not to sound judgey. :) Lol ... I will never set foot in an Aeroflot operated aircraft
Wow, yeah...
@@largol33t1 something like 8000 people died in Aeroflot crashes over the years.. Yeah, they're the clear winners. My favorite is probably the captain that blindfolded himself before landing to win a bet, another video on this channel
I've flown on enough dodgy aircraft in Africa in the 80's and 90's. Excess baggage and inaccurate passenger manifests are common. I've even walked off a few flights I didn't like the look of, before take off. I'm amazed aircraft don't include load cell technology in the undercarriage to determine actual take off weight in real time. Cheap and effective. We used these on dump trucks and wheeled loaders to tally loads, and they are accurate to 0.5%.
As to load balance, I recall a 727 engineer/loadmaster measuring nose strut depression to make sure the aircraft was in balance. He claimed he could even tell just by kicking the nose wheel, but then he did have 17,000 hours on type.
I used to be able to aproximate the fuel load in a Super Hornet just by nose strut depression, but that was over a decade ago, so I'm a bit out of practice now.
EXCELLENT suggestion. Have each plane weighed as it passes over scales on its way to the takeoff runway just like trucks can be weighed on a highway or my truck is weighed before leaving the quarry so as to calculate the amount of rock to pay for. An empty weight would not be necessary as this would be on record for each plane. Only a loaded weight is necessary since it must be able to successfully leave the ground and fly.
It’s the sheer amount of hand baggage the passengers take onboard that shocks me, unbelievable. Boxes of fruit! Why?
I'd wonder why not a built in gauge(s) that would sense this factor, and indicate to the pilots before attempting to roll whether their plane is configured right to get off the ground when and where it must to avert disaster.
@@rogerhargreaves2272 Hey if they can get it where they are but not where they are going to... still, that's not going to add up to that many tons.
The only way in which this was "pilot error" is that the pilots made the error of working for an airline completely lacking in a culture of safety.
This one is like, 95% on the airline. Sure the pilots made the error at the end but they wouldn't have done so if the airline was run with literally any degree of competency.
These guys probably wouldn't have pulled off running a lemonade stand let alone an airline.
Africa.
No. Typical 'someone else is to blame' attitude of people today.
A competent pilot is still aware of what information is required to plan & conduct a flight safety. The captain in this case is as, if not more, to blame for this accident. If he was not provided with sufficient information, or queried the accuracy of such information, then it is his duty to not sign off the aircraft as fit to fly. That is why CAPTAINS exist. He is totally to blame for the crash of the aircraft.
Now the airline, well they are worthy of being sued out of existence. But a company is made up of many people, each responsible to ensure that procedures are followed. The senior pilots (and dispatchers if they had them) are responsible as employees to point out shortcomings and hold the company to higher standards.
I cannot wait until the overused and almost always misused fad word "literally" goes the way of "Not!"
@@CaptVirtual Your mental model of what was going on is... wrong. This is the lower reaches of the Third World. There were no senior pilots. The company's sole 747 (recovered from a Mojave Desert junkyard, and supplied by its owner as a replacement for one in even worse shape) had 3 aircrews in six months, iirc, and it had previously operated only a 48-seater and a much smaller plane than that. Air Afrique had gone belly up and the people trying to set up a route to Beirut from that part of Africa were operating on a shoestring and didn't really have a clue.
So I love your documentaries, and on this one, it really hit home. In 1999, I took a domestic flight from Lagos to Calabar Nigeria, with stopover in Harcourt. The plane was a very old 707 jet that looked like it still had TWA paint on it but was simply hard to tell. The big jet was almost empty and noticable to me were tiny cracks in the outside window bevils and the ricketing sound it made as we taxied down the runway was unmistakable. Outside the window were children, running alongside the plane, happily waving at us before being corralled and taken off the runway.
The jet shot down the runway and lifted off like a rocket. It was the loudest I had heard a plane sound. All four engines whistled as it quickly approached flight level 270. The co-pilot was quickly out the door, meeting and greeting people while the plane shimmied and swirled in the skies. We slid from side-to-side at the yaw of the plane never seemed secure.
We landed at Harcourt and I could scarcely believe I survived that trip but was still aboard for the next leg.We dropped our load off and took a few more passengers on, the doors closed and within 20 minutes we were racing down the runway again. This time the plane took off over the water and in almost no time we were in a thunderstorm. The plane shook loose of items from the overheard rack and even the seats themselves. Bolts and screws were rolling down the aisle. Once again, the co-pilot came down the aisle to meet and greet everyone. We managed to get out of the storm and landed in Calabar, but as we did, entire families awaited the plane's arrival along the runway! A goat lay dead as we passed by, clearly flattened by a plane before us. What chaos! We landed, and everyone seemed just happy to be alive, even the locals!
I bet if that had happened, I would have never wanted to fly again (3 strikes and you're out). As my first trip on Air Tran in '14-coming and going from Atlanta-Orlanda-went quite well, I'll fly again. No fear. If a flight attendant tells everyone to wear a mask, i will. I want everything to go right w/o any trouble.
OMG I would have kissed the ground, and given thanks just to have survived. Then I’d vow never to fly again.
@@virginiaconnor8350
It’s never good to argue with cabin crew, about anything. The captain has the final say about whether you arrive at your destination, or not, depending on your attitude.
What a great story! I really enjoyed reading it. Did you chat with the co-pilot too?
All l can say is you were bloody brave! You surely must have polished off a bottle of whisky for a bit of Dutch courage before getting aboard that shitheap by the sounds of it!
UTA stood for "Union des Transports Africains", as it went out of business in 2004...if I were the Guinea Department of Revenue, I would definitely have audited EVERYONE in the management of UTA and the company as well, since if their flight manuals were that bad, would their accountancy records have been any better?
it's Africa ! Officials would be as corrupt and incompetetn as the company's owners !
@@JAZZCLASSIQUE The elites in authoritarian countries live high. The common people, not so much.
I had confused it with UTA of France, which was eventually acquired by Air France. They had a DC-10 (on the US registry) felled by a bomb on board in 1989.
It's OK, the Guinea Department of Revenue belongs to the same family!
Their accountancy records would be spotless. Not bearing resemblance to the actual money flows, mind you, but spotless. No experience in aviation does not translate to no experience in handling (read: diverting) funds.
Copying and pasting an airplane manual? How crazy is that? I once translated technical documents from English into German, and each and every function had to be tested on the real machine (and let it be a scanner or dot matrix printer) to make sure there can't be a mistake. I found a few, and we informed the manufacturer to correct that in the original documentation. Whether they did, I don't know.
I'm not surprised. I worked for a handling company that serviced several airlines here in Germany and in several other countries in Europe, and the family or personal relations were more important for them than actual competence and experience. Proper training or manuals? You wish, had to do it all by myself. The motto of our supervisors up to the top was "Fake it till you make it". So, no wonder about such fuckups in countries with less strict regulations.
@@xapver
So many politicians are literal fakes. Pathetic political hacks, with little or no actual leadership. Otherwise, they would push minimal so-called "laws" and respect the freedoms and duties of individuals. Most politicians need to be fired, perhaps even arrested.
It's partly the responsibility of government, owners and executives are focused on profit. Only government can change the equilibrium.
@@yosefmacgruber1920 You got that right!
@@jeebus6263
Why do you expect for government to fix it? Corrupt politicians are focused on their lust for power and how to stay in power. People need to learn their jobs better and to do quality work and decisions.
And why are we doing weight calculations and center-of-gravity? Sounds so last-century outdated. Surely some airplanes have sensors that can measure that?
Apologies for the disturbance in the audio near the end! It was raining 🙃
That landing in the end was quite hard
Not an excuse 😅
But that's cool.
@@htcmlcrip "not an excuse"? Wow. Please forgive us all oh almighty master!😂
@@soin74 okay you all forgiven. Now we all can go to heaven or reincarnate at a moments notice with no worries I guess 👍
@Lord Sidious agree. I wouldn't have noticed it if he didnt commented
airline at fault for sure, its like throwing someone in a road train who has only ever driven a pick up truck then blaming them when it goes wrong. also the landing in the end was very southafrican and fitting to the story lol. thanks for the video my mind is blown by the state of some of these airlines it baffles me they dont have more accidents
i’m sure there weren’t more accidents solely because they had good pilots
Can't have more accidents when you're all out of plane.
@@StefanVeenstra underrated comment lmao
Even the biggest American Airlines.. as someone whose a relative of a flight attendant, and someone who has watched too many of these videos. Things go wrong ALL the time and most passengers are none the wiser. I have real respect for flight attendants. They don’t even have air martial (cops on flight) anymore
Agreed
I flew a lot of regional flights in Africa when I was in the mining business. Passengers try to bring all their luggage on board. I’ve seen cages with live chickens, other live animals, charcoal cookers, bag after bag of cooked and raw food, 4-5 suitcases, etc. add that passengers prefer the front of the aircraft it’s no wonder the CG was pushed forward on this flight. I can believe the poor record keeping as these flights always seemed to be handled “fast and loose” by the carriers, pilots, cabin crew and ground staff. Thank God I never had a close call but I feel very sad for those passengers that lost their lives due to airline negligence that caused pilots to fly with poor information.
how old are you sir?
@@ashokiimc It doesn't really matter, IMHO. While I've never been to Africa, I noticed that on Chinese domestic flights the overhead bins were more than double the size compared to European carriers. That was just a few years ago. I suspect Africa is even worse.
Intercity bus routes are like what Farmer Bob describes. Everything people can carry gets loaded.
@@ashokiimc I was born in the 1950’s.
@FarmerBob: That is a very interesting comment. So your comment seems to indicate that it is a CULTURAL thing. Different regions of the world simply do things in different ways.
@@mmneander1316 I don’t think it’s cultural rather it’s more regulatory based on the airlines’ rules. If they allow unlimited carry on that’s what passengers will do regardless of the location. The items may differ somewhat based on the location but the concept is the same.
The airline was hacking at the branch they were sitting on. Unbelievable how they tried to get away with their mismanagement.
I would have shut that airline down and arrested everyone in sight.
As a former pilot (forced to retire from flying for medical reasons), as soon as you mentioned that the ground staff and cabin crew had been struggling with carry-on and checked baggage, my instant thought was "This aircraft is going to be overweight and way outside of its CG envelope on the runway."
It’s almost like we didn’t tell how the story was gonna go
11:02 this isn't "pilot error", this is human resources department error. The pilots did the best they could under stress beyond human limits. You wouldn't call a CPU "defective" for glitching out when overclocked, so don't blame the pilots for being overworked. HR is just as safety-critical as engineering.
Yes, pilot error was a part of the accident however, hastily putting into service a jet that no one really knew anything about was a disaster before it left the apron.
The biggest pilot error was getting behind the controls of a plane he was not familiar with and endangering not only his life but the passengers as well.
@@TheGospelQuartetParadise A plane is a plane... But you're supposed to know the plane in detail before you can fly it. Those people probably didn't receive any training about proper procedures
"Pilot Error" seems to be the default position for most investigating bodies.
I accept some pilots neglect their duty of care because it worked last time so it'll work this time
But in most cases the blame is apportioned to people who cannot defend themselves
And in cases where either the training was inadequate or the airline withheld or forgot to issue salient information to then blame the flight crew is, in my opinion, abhorrent.
If I give you directions and say turn left instead of right then it's your fault you got lost
The aviation industry may bask in the white smiles and shiny aircraft but behind the scenes many seem to have procedures that are shameful
There again if the investigators are happy with "Pilot Error" and the airline escapes without further penalties why change a thing
After all you probably won't know any of people you killed personally
Captain von Thrust III: Perhaps pilot error is the fault in most aircraft accidents and your dissatisfaction is more emotionally based than factual? What does a pilot's ability at self defense have to with legitimate interpretation of facts.
I agree that there must be a certain level of error in investigative final reports, at least in terms of statistical possibilities, but the great majority are well researched, factual conclusions and your criticism isn't justifiable.
@@lazurm It's not an emotional response at all and I fully understand the investigation process.
It's what I do for a living, although not in aviation.
And experience has taught us that where an operator causes an accident the decision has to made was this wilful negligence on the part of a fully trained employee?
Was this an poorly trained person let down by his/her employer? In which case if the company is not held to account nothing will change
Or is this a combination of corner cutting that the company don't approve of but turn a blind eye to. Usually because the unauthorised process saves time/money.
And in the last case it is too convenient to say "operator error" and leave it at that. The company needs to justify why it has allowed a situation to develop where corner cutting is tolerated. And because corner cutting is seldom the best option there is no justification. Nor is the corporate defence of "we didn't know"
The accident on The Smiler roller coaster was entirely foreseeable but Merlin Entertainment hadn't had any accidents so never reviewed the policies in place.
But because they couldn't simply blame the person who pressed "start" the improvements they made will ultimately prevent a reoccurrence. And provide valuable insight to the entire industry.
Pilots make mistakes and I accept that.
But to blame someone who was not in possession of all the relevant information hardly seems beneficial to anyone. And serves as no deterrent to the people who failed to provide that information to improve their behaviour.
That is why I used the example of if I give you the wrong directions is it your fault you got lost?
But thank you for reading my comment and taking the time to reply
Watching this channel, most of the accidents involving bigger airplanes and bigger companies seem to be the result of multiple causes. (Common across multiple industries/fields.) It takes multiple things going wrong in combination for the accident to happen. That is good design of safety systems. But it also means that it is foolish to assign a single cause.
@@glennberry4829 It's foolish to assign a single cause if the investigation didn't thoroughly investigate all reasonably possible causes. Otherwise, it isn't foolish.
Nevertheless, if I don't possess the information needed, or training needed to command a vehicle, then it's up to me to stand up and say I won't do it. Pilot error rests on the pilot because at the end of the day the buck stops with him. If there's no one to fly the damn plane, then it doesn't matter how crappy the cargo was loaded or how shitty the airline is run. Refusal to try to fly a plane that they had no knowledge of, with no complete information for calculations, was their choice and they chose UN-wisely
The Civil Aviation Authority of the country where this airline was registered is also at fault. This airline should not have been given an air operator’s certificate. Period
Honestly I don't see how it can really be the pilots fault when the airliner was so grossly negligent in both procedure preparation and general information supplied.
Love the videos, keep up the great work! 😀👍
that boils down that he needs to make sure it is ready to fly. so that is where he would get charged at fault.
@@yogib37 yes, I hadn't quite thought of it that way. I guess it should be the pilots duty to stop a flight that goes against regulations
Technically pilot error but not in reality. Airline operator was the real culprit
@@dburto08 sure, but be ready to become a hobo in Guinea !
@@benniepierce6283 Possibly some poor guy attempting to make an honest crust. I blame Governments for permitting (with some exceptions). India and Africa and Bahrain I have witnessed live critters, Chickens, goats etc.,in the PAX areas,
Oh gheez. The luggage chaos reminds me so much of all the times I have flown in Africa.
Once they removed all of the luggage from the plane because they were overweight and didn't have enough fuel to make the destination which resulted in everyone but me on the plane loosing their baggage (I traveled handluggage only) and most of them never got it back.
Loads of people I traveled with lost important documents and certificates, personal keepsakes etc.
The same plane, at the destination, had to do a go around because someone was walking across the runway. Travel in Africa is exciting.
The anatomy of an accident again beautifully detailed.
Everyone including the passengers had a hand in this accident.
Incompetent people operating a desperate and failing airline. Pilots operating way and above their competency levels. Overeager passengers pushing the limits and willing to get into an obviously unsafe situation.
Airport officials allowing such levels of extreme incompetence.
Governments allowing such operations.
As they say truth is stranger than fiction.
Thank you for your work.
I like it when you add some bonus facts at the end and also follow up with how the investigation ended and the long term results and changes the airlines made. Adds some closure
Technically, I don’t think that the pilots should have left the gate with inadequate information for weight... (That’s been a good way to eventually crash planes)
...but what was the training like for the airline? That can do much to set expectations for the pilots. It’s clear that the airline had none of the culture that is needed to properly fly larger aircraft.
Probably no airline specific training, in this case. "You have experience on this aircraft type? Great, you're hired! First flight on Monday, dont be late, you've got several legs that day."
@@djninjamusic You are setting a high bar.
It sounded closer to "You have a license for a Cessna? Great. Have you ever flown a two-engine plane? No? Doesn't matter, we'll teach you on the flight. You're hired."
I guess that I exaggerate, but not by much.
I suspect that the pilots, or at any rate the Captain, were hired to fly the B727 and had the B727 on whatever licence they held (meaning that they/he had experience on type), but were given no extra training by the airline. Pretty much how Africa works.
How can the pilots know that they got the wrong information?
I once flew on Nigeria Airways. From check in to flight the whole thing was like wandering through an extremely noisy and bustling African market. For all I know the whole thing may well have been perfectly safe, but I flew home on British Caledoian anyway. My only other off colour experience with an African airline was finding myself at a Heathrow hotel bar at 3am drinking with the very drunk Captain and crew of a Zambian airways flight that would be departing at 6pm later that day for Lusaka, but tbh back in the late 80's that probably could have been a similar experience with a crew from almost anywhere.
There were at least a couple incidents in the US where pilots were intoxicated. They were reported by and/or stopped by flight attendants or passengers. Since 9/11 I've not heard of any incidents. Locally all the airlines used the same hotel and you could usually find pilots in the bar especially at night.
My wife was once on a flight in the Third World and a person on the flight had a heart attack. None of the flight attendants knew anything about first aid so my wife (being an RN) jumped in and started CPR and yelled at the attendants to tell the pilots to land the plane. She said they needed to get the lady to a hospital. The pilots refused and continued on their flight. She said the lady probably died.
Yeah, whenever an organization says that they don't have documentation it basically always means they have it but it's incriminating and easily gotten rid of.
Usually yes, but in this case the airline sounds so absolutely chaotic that I can believe they might not have documentation at all.
No, some places prefer no documentation because it would be incriminating, so they just do everything on the fly.
They did not create the documentation, and the airports aparently don’t check if they have the correct information. That is one of the reason why those airlines never land in Europe.
If you have NO documentation then you don't have to worry about producing it. See how simple and efficient that method is.!!
I remember as a child flying with Zambia Airways, around 1975. On one flight we clearly saw water or some other fluid leaking through the ceiling of the passenger cabin. Even as a kid I felt concerned. No idea what it was caused by. In those days there were no videos being shared documenting how air disasters happen!
That happened to me on Korean Air. But at the time (unbeknown to me) Korean had a very bad safety record. They cleaned up their act from about 2000 onwards and are a lot more professional now.
Lol I'm from Zambia and I was told relatives of employees used to fly for free.
Even when I earned my Private Pilot's license, it was all about weight and balance and operating your aircraft within the limits. Otherwise, you are out of the sky.
That's a fact..Jack.!! I still remember my weight back in 1984 during training because I had to do a weight & balance sheet. Had to be done even for flying 30 minutes in the pattern doing touch-n-goes/circuits.
Man, what a mess of an airline. I stay far away from the African continent, mostly on the advice of my African friends who basically escaped with their lives intact. Sad to say that their does not seem to be any oversight of operations of airlines in many African nations to keep people safe. Great episode as always. thanks mini
Egypt seems to be an exception, at least Cairo, Alexandria, and Port Said. They seemed very competent and no-nonsense.
But that was several years ago, not sure how it is today.
This is Africa.. TIA
This is an extremely bad assumption considering there are 54 countries in Africa and not all have political instability or war.Infact I'd argue that I live a better life as a Kenyan than a significant number of westerners and am only middle class
All 54 countries in Africa? STFU. Ever heard of Ethiopian Airlines? EgyptAir? Royal Air Maroc? Kenya Airways? Also you mean to tell me your friends come from all 54 African countries?
I'm here since 1.4k subs, u really came a long way :D
Thank you for your support!
I haven't even seen the video but I can confirm its amazingly portrayed
"They were all members of the same family."
Classic Africa.
yeppir. now, how soon are all the bleaters gonna chime in it's racist to say this?
Classic in any country, well maybe not an entire family but 'The Old Boys Network;' is very much a thing in Western countries too! - Ps. Trump's Whitehouse come to mind!
@@STScott-qo4pw Well, Africa has 54 countries, some of which have very well run airlines and industries, so let's just call that blanket assertion 'generalised stereotyping based on bias and ignorance'.
@@jeffhubbard4688 not really. What percent of Trump hires were his family? Less than a percent? It’s one thing to keep a few family members in close positions they can actually do ‘cause you need people you can trust, it’s quite another to use nepotism as a mechanism of wholesale embezzlement in positions they can’t even perform in. In the west the shareholders would have the executives corrupt a-es yanked so fast their heads would spin.
@@STScott-qo4pw and still no one has said it’s racist. Keep waiting 🙄
I don't recall the localiser hut when I lived there in the 1960s, nor a fence at the end of the runway. Not obvious on the animation but there is significant drop from the level of the runway down to the beach. It was not uncommon to lose sight of overloaded Air Afrique DC3s as they dropped down out of sight over the sea before getting enough speed to climb away. I read that in later years Air France used to take their own X-ray equipment down there (and armed guards) because they did not trust the airport security. I believe it is better now, and I was in the early stages of planning a return visit before COVID put paid to that idea.
Peter Lewis: I understand the meaning from the context but, since I've never seen the words used in that way, what does "put paid to that idea" mean? Why didn't you write, instead, "...before COVID ended that idea."?
@@lazurm Common British slang phraseology.
@@davidwhite8633 Oh, thanks, cheerio. ;)
Well if you lived there in the 60s then of course you won't recognise the localiser hut. This crash happened in the early 2000s. It was probably built some time in the 40 years between when you lived there and this crash.
An ILS in Africa in the 60s? 😂🤣😂
No wonder you don't remember it from the time you were there!
In most of Africa, at that time, it wasn't uncommon to tune the NDB to the radio station in the city you were aiming for and then fly a visual approach.
After making a low pass to clear locals and their livestock from the immediate location of the runway.
I love your videos. Always so informative, never getting boring. You really know how to tell a story!
My sister was an ops agent for a major airline and she was in charge of weight and balance. She used to say it was the most nerve wracking job.
How can pilots set the weight of the plane correctly when they're under trained and given bad information?
Excellent report, as usual. 👍 It is sad to see how incompetent some "fly by night" airlines are in countries with little regulation, lack of knowledge about safety procedures and where notorious nepotism is common. They need to understand the reasons for "all of the hassle" regarding putting safety first before all else in the operation an airline. Wish they had realized their inability to run an airline, swallowed their pride and hired a competent airline management company to manage their company. I know that is wishful thinking but it would have prevented this tragic and unnecessary loss of life.
I really enjoy your vids and the quality of them have been consistently getting better in quality and production.
Thank you.
I was on an Air Zambia flight that was coming in to land. The crew had left the cockpit door open; you could see what was going on in the cockpit. At one point the co-pilot reached out to adjust a control and the pilot smacked his hand away as if he was a two year old.
It gave me the chills.
That reminds me of a story a pilot told. He was taking a check ride for a rating. The examiner reached and started to cut power on one engine of a twin engine plane. Pilot being checked slapped examiners hand away and said: "don't be messing with my throttles on short final!" He passed the check ride.
Your videos are a joy! Im always craving for more details, and you always deliver!
I lost my brother on this flight. May you rest in peace. Love you. God rest your soul. I miss you.
My beloved Lebanese Uncle Atef NEHME DOED on thos Flight also from Cotonou to Beirut on Christmas Day 2003
I AM SO SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS...🙏😭🙏
Awesome video man as usual.....You channel is one of the most underrated channel ❤️❤️... Keep rocking
Underrated by who!!
I have flown into west Africa as a passenger on a reputable airline. Passengers take heaps of luggage, full size suitcases etc. They ignore instructions, stand during taxiing, argue with the attendants etc.
I've also seen how business works, so it's no surprise that they give jobs to their family, no need for qualifications or experience.
Another great episode, thanks!
Whoa... That audio quality vastly improved since I've last seen a video from you. Honestly it was the only issue I had with your content. I'm definitely ringing the notification bell now:-)
One of your best productions yet. I've always known a lot about flight physics (though not a pilot) but I never knew the tail section had such influence on the lift of the nose.
As always, a great video and thank you for bringing all these otherwise almost unheard of accidents and incidents to light.
As for this accident/incident, I have no words. This is the equivalent of little children becoming bored with opening up a lemonade stand and deciding to start an airline. You couldn’t pay me to set foot in the same airport as one these types of airlines.
Your channel has the BEST aircrash reports
And thank you for amazing content!!🥰🥰😊
I once heard an investigator in a documentary about an industrial disaster say that "human error" as an accident cause doesn't exist. Employers need to design the systems in the workplace in a way that doesn't catastrophically fail if a human commits an error, because a human WILL commit an error. So while the pilots in this case made a mistake, the conditions that turned this mistake from minor to deadly were created by the airline.
I worked as a ramp agent for an airlines and with the way we loaded the planes, I am surprised they didn’t crash. There were times when the pit was so full we were ramming luggage in there just to get it all to fit.
Had a long weekend. They were shutting down a flight simulation center. Through a friend we got to basically live in the place for 3 days. They had a TON of different Sim cabins. 727,737,747 also airbus along with some cook oddities. All the planes as of 2013 were still flying.
To the point. Being a flight simulator nerd I leapt at the chance. The 727 felt very underpowered. It just felt like there wasn't much headroom in power only enough to get the job done. Spent 3hrs doing takeoff and landings with different weight loads even on a light load or ferry load it just felt so slow and underwhelming compared to everything else.
What you posted as a description in your own post? Wonderful. So few people go to that trouble. Thanks!
So I saw the title in my notifications, and my first response was "Well, that doesn't sound good."
From my take on information supplied in this video, the pilots had several very big warning signs that the plane was not going to take off properly. Plus they were breaking some very basic flight safety rules. 1) the plane was slow to accelerate. Red flag. #1. 2) The plane failed reach speed as expected and was failing to rotate. Red flag #2 and pilots should have recognized something was very wrong, and aborted takeoff. Then taken the time to figure out why performance was outside needed parameters. Unfortunately, the flight crew was ill prepared to recognize and properly respond to what the plane was telling them. They paid the price.
This crash exposes a systemic flaw in airline operations. The abort speed for a takeoff is always lower than the speed required for a successful takeoff. If the problem appears after the aircraft reaches the abort speed, the pilot is left with no good options.
@@roberthudson1959 your correct to a point. Another part of the take off procedure has a predetermined safe runway length point where if an adequate takeoff speed is not reached, you abort and cancel the takeoff while you have enough runway length to stop in. Disregarding that is not in the best interest of safety. We are aware of pilots not uncommonly proceeding to take off beyond that point, but they do know that they no longer have the needed room to stop if there is a failure. They have made the decision to put themselves into a lose lose situation. If the cannot take off, they also cannot stop.
Always good videos - thanks
As kids we're taught 'Greed leads to disaster' and were and are always told by our parents about success in life and making good money to live.
To me, money is starting to seem like a murder weapon.
Only to the millionaire sociopaths who horde it all.
Let me see , an Airline run by people not qualified or capable of the task . How fucking stupid is that ! There's more than enough blame to go around for every employee .
Titan needs to learn how to put a coherent thought together.
And titan isn’t capable of being philosophical.
I wonder how feasible it would be to have a weigh station installed at large airports for aircraft to roll over on their way to the runway. With a different load cell under each gear set it could give the pilots a near instant readout of total weight and even the location of the center of gravity. That should remove the guesswork.
It would be cheap and easy to add strain gauges to the landing gear attach points to allow the true weight & balance of every airliner to be measured before taxiing out. At XCOR we planned to install them on the Lynx suborbital rocket plane because its large propellant load could cause large cg movements.
GREAT SHOW AS ALWAYS.
The best MAC Investigations videos are the technical goofs / near misses. Like that training flight where they wrestled the plane, or the flight where the avionics commanded TO/GA power to prevent a stall.
My man did a RyanAir landing at the end
It's the airlines job to create a safe working environment. And it's the pilots job to not take off, if that environment isn't given. So both are equally at fault.
But, here, the pilots where probably not even aware that their working environment was that bad. They just didn't have the formation required to know how unsafe the situation was.
@@Kualinar The situation behind the scenes truly was dire, I agree. But still, if you were a pilot, would you take the responsibilty for a big airliner full of passengers without knowing takeoff weight and center of gravity? I'd rather be fired.
@@Kualinar If the pilots had been properly trained to fly a 727 then they absolutely _should_ have known that the situation wasn't safe.
The alternative is that they were _not_ trained to fly a 727. .... _Either way_ it seems to me that the pilots had more than enough information to avoid the inevitable disaster, by not flying, and for that reason I would allocate the blame pilots:airline 60:40.
@American Despair A professional pilot has an ethical responsibility to his passengers, and therefore the most authority, irrespective of terrible management. If he isn't provided with a safe plane and the data needed to operate it _safely,_ then he should not fly, and to do otherwise is reckless.
@@pulaski1 Professional. Competent. What makes anyone think these pilots were anything like that? Clearly, the pilots who knew what they were doing had escaped, and these semi-trained and overly-optimistic souls were left. This airline had the culture of a jitney bus service. I would guess the pilots thought they might get mangled now and then but were willing to risk it for the money, such as it was, and possibly prestige--nice uniform, too. They might have loved flying and this was their chance. It doesn't sound as if they had clue one about how to fly that thing. (I will say in regard to the culture of stuffing everything into a plane, we had that in the US, too, before the security crackdowns. I flew to New Zealand in 1977 with a load of Kiwis going home after a trip to the old country. I had a moment when I expected to see chickens and a goat. :) They had shopping bags overflowing with gifts for family and friends and had to push through the aisles with all their gear, in addition to what went into the hold. All I could think of was if the plane went down, we didn't have a prayer. Nobody could get out in time. I wasn't too choked up to learn Pan Am had folded. That was pushing everyone's luck.)
Great reporting!
Fault lies mostly with this tragic sham of an airline. The quality of your videos has upgraded. Appreciate watching them very much.
There was a lot of hands on that yoke! I give the pilots 50.01% blame, as they were the ones that could have stopped the crash by refusing, but they had a whole lot of hands pushing that thrust lever to bat off!
They didn't even know how to fly the plane ! lol
The airline is to blame not the pilots. Everything about this accident falls on the airlines shoulders
@Stephen Beck-von-Peccoz it's very likely they had no choice
@@neoleo593 Right! money to buy a bowl of rice/corn/stale bread. is hard to come by in Africa, the so called company who operated (?) the airline should be locked away somewhere,obviously the very act of operating such a business without appropriate knowledge smacks of nepotism,knowing the right people in what passes as government etc. common in India and Africa, in fact worsened since the 1960's where at that period in time, there were a hundred 'Airlines' flying naughty things' no-one discussed' either to and from Beirut Greece and definately almost ALL of Africa. EXCEPT S.A. I knew one pilot who flew a DC4 (even then it was an old a/c), on his own, he had a 'sidekick' who 'assisted him (but was not qualified aircrew) The gentleman in question WAS an Ex Service pilot however, but I often wondered how can such guys take such risks. Money can and does make people , flexible. In all those years I led an interesting lifetime involved with aircraft.
I worked for Delta at LAX in the late 80's. Delta had a contract with Mexicana airlines to load their airplanes. You wouldn't believe what some of the passengers checked in as baggage, small appliances, engine blocks etc... We would totally fill both cargo compartments of their 727's. The cabin overheads were maxed out as well. Mexicana constantly had weight and balance issues.
This weight issue reminds me of the flight I took from SeaTac to Vancouver on my return home at the finish of my studies in Seattle, 1990. I had three huge suitcases filled to the brim. When they loaded these cases on to the tiny aircraft, 10 pax maybe, front gear lifted off the grount and the plane pitched up. Obviously we were in no shape to fly, so the captain took one of the suitcases up front and we were in balance. But I do remember using the full length of the runway before we were airborne. I was almost the cause of an accident and the pilots were no more innocent than I was.
You know your odds for adventure got higher when the pilot lines up the passengers and seats them by size.
Why don't the plane manufacturers just install displacement sensors on the landing gear? Then you'd always know weight and center of gravity.
seems like an obvious fix
@@kahlzun I know right? It would save lives with cheap and reliable hardware.
They do, apparently. One of the ways they can calculate load balance is by looking at the displacement of the gear.
The faults lay at the feet of everyone that operated the airline from the pilots who excepted employment to the owners. The entire thing was a hot mess but, in these poorer countries it scares me to think what it must be like to fly in those countries. I dont think a free ticket would ever get me on-board 🤔.
i think iv watched all of your work an it just gets better and better. Good quality research shows, please keep on going. liked and subscribed. I hope you don't mind me asking but is this your full time work and i I cant quiet place your accent sir?(sorry, just being nosy) kind regards Toby UK.
Explanation that you have provided in the video is really very nice.
A Small request could you make a video on the incident of an Air India plane that hit a wall at the end of the runway while taking off in 2018, when the captain's seat inside the plane unexpectedly collapsed due to mechanical problem and which made the captain to pull back on control column. However the plane managed to take off with lot of damage to the fuselage but luckily landed safely afterwords
I'm in Utah. Our transit systems initials are UTA. lol
I’m from Australia and I heard that Utah is a completely dry state meaning you can’t by alcohol anywhere in it, is that actually true?
@@36minutesago7 Naw. They just made it so you can buy 5% beer in stores though. Before it was 3.2. We have state owned liquor stores.
@@36minutesago7 If you should ever visit Kentucky, be sure to check out en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_Kentucky for all the ways that state makes it complicated to determine whether or not a location is wet/dry/moist. When I last visited the state (it was during my cross-country bicycle tour) we stopped at the Makers' Mark distillery to take the tour (I had done it 4 years earlier on an earlier bike ride and did the tour). Surprise, surprise, you can't buy the stuff there (well, not when I was there; maybe they've changed the rules, I don't know).
@@shelliecarlson7015 State owned liquor stores, that does not sound good at all..
Thanks for the response.
@@bikeny Hi, I just read the link that you posted, it was very informative. This topic is starting to fascinate me.
As an aviation and air-crash stuff fan, I get hella nervous when I see a tri-jet
...and a T-tail
Yeah! I got the same when I see a burger without meat.
Taking off Aerosucre style.
When you started discussing the airline not keeping copies of the weight and balance paperwork, I knew things were going to get bad, but I had to pause the video and deal with my feelings when you said they calculated their takeoff weight in the cockpit, without knowing how the bags were loaded. I literally used to help with that paperwork when I did station ops, and I just can't fathom being so lackadaisical about it.
I think there is a lot to pass the blame around. That was a cluster mess.. of course something will go wrong when you are so wishy washy with operations
Using root cause analysis, there are always multiple problems. The Swiss Cheese holes definitely aligned that day!
Seeing the pictures of the wreckage, it's amazing 22 people survived this crash. R.I.P. to those who lost their lives, and blessings to the survivors.
Great review! Left seat simply did not have enough information to even leave the gate.
They thought, they thought, they thought… I see a trend there. Calculate, don’t think! The pilots should have refused to take off, but they probably needed the job and couldn’t afford to do that.
Signed,
-Armchair pilot.
Probably part of the issue I agree. Also, African air carriers are so sketchy to start with. Not enough experience, training, or regulatory oversight.
> Calculate, don’t think!
Not thinking presents a whole new set of problems.
Total corruption! Great video. Scary stuff though.
You have a new subscriber.
Awesome video as always! When is the q and a coming up?
Well they reached one goal. They departed on time.
You young people with your copy and pasting book-reports. When I was a teenager, we had to hand copy all that stuff at the last minute.
Cool, your weight v lift slide is a CP Air 727. My father flew for them for 30 years, and flew that type way back in the 70s. He continued through all of those mergers retiring as a 767 cpt. I have a picture on my wall of the first flight of CP Airs first 747 in those glorious orange on red colors, he was 2nd officer at the time.
I've flown on quite a few African airlines in the past and none were a nice experience. The last one in Nigeria has a door seal that kept popping when the cabin reached pressure. I practically kissed the ground when we landed safely.
(Obi Wan voice): "That's no airline."
Sane pilots would have refused to fly without knowing enough to do right by weight and balance factors rather than just crossing fingers and hoping but finding out the hard way. But things have often been catch as catch can in Africa.
Well presented.
Picture of the AN 32 belongs to Sri Lanka Air Force. Thanks for your greats videos mate. Love from Sri Lanka!
I’m not a teenager and that’s how I still submit my written work 😁
I did that in high school and so learned to write considerably better than today's millennials. If not very original in thought.
I’m a dork, I actually read the book and did the reports myself too. Hated that stuff, I was only passionate to write about one book I had read in English: A dry white season.
That book just did something to me and I had no problems working on the summary,characters, symbolism etc. I suppose it showed in an extensive report with a “mark” that said Very well done!
One and only time of all my 4 languages lol.
The reason the west is safer than other areas are because a) we have the rule of law and businesses can be sued in civil court and b) we place higher value on human life. An American life is "worth" USD $11 million in average settlements.
"*higher capital value on lives in terms of corporate liability"
Obey your corporate overloads, motherfuckers.
@@tehKap0w You can always move to China, Russia, Iran, or Venezuela and see how well you get on.
There's always an overlord that must be obeyed.
@@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368 #kwyjibo's 1st Law: _The first person to unironically mention Venezuela during a discussion about the relative merits of capitalism vs socialism automatically forefits and must leave the conversation in shame._
@@tehKap0w Venezuela pays people in toilet paper. Go and see for yourself. America is objectively better. But I guess it's easy for you to judge with words, rather than actual life experience.
@@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368 look who knows everything about my life experience all of them sudden. Go home, son. Your mom is calling you in for dinner.
Its amazing that they manufacture these multi-million dollar planes and still make it an option to add built in weight measuring systems. It should be built into every plane. Not an option, MANDETORY equipment! This way there is no guesswork, no miscalculations, no conversion mistakes. The plane will tell you its exact weight!
The captain had 8000 hours flying 727's. Weight and balance calculations by load control are crucial for the captain to configure the aircraft for departure. The provided information was inaccurate therefore the captain had no chance of configuring the aircraft correctly. It was doomed before it left. I used to trim 727 freighter aircraft for Ansett Cargo years ago so I know how crucial accurate weight and balance calculations have to be.
Now a days I give a thought about airlines I am choosing, I check their safety records and only board the good ones.
Flying in third world countries is certainly different, that's for sure!
Sounds like the passenger division of the infamous air cargo company, Aerosucre. Lots of videos of their antiquated 737's and 727's barely clearing the fence on takeoff - and at least one that didn't.
A generation ago, most African personnel were intelligent enough to learn anything, but that generation's culture was still oriented around family interests and exploitation of resources, rather than around technology and the investment of resources. Even so, back in the 80s and 90s, I flew on several African airlines, experiencing that kind of on-board chaos, yet the pilots proved competent and experienced.