I know this is the 2nd time I watch documentary and read about the incident, the probability of him landing safely was below 0.01% but he pulled it off. The percentage is estimated by me, as the circumstances and simulation of it showed it is near impossible (1 out if like 10,000)
@@AlphaGametauri buddy I dont think you understand silly’s situation, he had a mere few seconds to react, and he was near densely populated area while loosing altitude, dude was under immense stress but he handled it perfectly. also if it happened at 39k ft, he’d have undoubtedly glided to an airport. Gliding has been done before, so lets not act like silly situation was easy
@@AlphaGametauri also way to cherry pick apu power. it was sullys quick decision to turn it on and you act like that helped them go to an airport. the sheer forces on water great
The fatal crashes always end up making headlines and revisited all the time yet the near death survival crashes always get glossed over and then forgotten. This flight should be for the history books
The story was buried by the September 11 twin towers destruction. This AirTransat miracle landing story happened a few days before so it was shadowed in the media
My favorite part about this story was their ability to recognize the psychological factors that contributed to the errors involved, and most importantly their willingness to award these two pilots and praise them for their handling of the situation in the end.
This situation is quite dire because the plane was fine just minutes before it lost all that fuel. It was a very tough decision, they can't physically check or see if there is an actual fuel leakage, it's just numbers on a screen.
@@retrokane3629 They could’ve followed one or more of the procedures and verified they had a fuel leak, then isolated the leak to one side of the aircraft and kept the fuel on the side that was not leaking!
@@LeadershipAlliance I thought eventually they did that when they decided to shut the right engine down and had whatever fuel left coming through the left engine until that engine also shut down.
@@retrokane3629correct. They did all they could in about as fast as a human brain can process information. Don't know how anyone could slight this professional air crew.
As amazing it was that they completed a full evacuation, actually this was the maximum time allowed. When a new plane is built, to become approved to fly, the company have to prove that the aircraft can be evacuated in no longer than 90 seconds. If they don’t, the plane isn’t allowed to fly, so we already knew that they all could be evacuated within 90 seconds.
@@Aloo26 thanks for the tidbit! Engineers and flight attendants alike working together to make something amazing. I'm still impressed, however. Testing environments versus real, scared people and unpredictable obstacles are two different things, and you never quite know how well your training worked until it's the real deal.
@@SuperHns Commercial jets typically have a glide ratio of around 17:1 and cruising altitude of around 8 miles. Therefore they have a maximum glide distance of about 136 miles.
CONGRATULATIONS! This the ONLY report on this incident that included details about Piche's early aviation career. He learned the 'S' bend technique from his South American days when he had to drop out of radar coverage when making a fast landing at an uncontrolled mini-airport to dump his cargo and then Re'appear on radar without alerting Customs or Police. Piche's luck eventually ran out and he was caught on one of his landings. Captain Piche retired in 2021 still with Air Transat. Air Transat should be congratulated on it's hiring policy of giving people another chance in life.
As a Flight engineer from my Air Force days, I wouldn’t have allowed a fuel leak to go unchecked. This is a good example why large aircraft should still have a flight engineer. There are fuel systems tests and calculations that an Engineer could have performed to validate the gauges showing a fuel leak. Bravo to these stellar pilots regardless for bringing that beast down safely!
guess what is better than humans, computers, its how they chose to interpret that information that led to this situation and also the lack of proper procedures for scenarios like this, flight engineers were only needed cos computer at that age were not as good as they have been in recent years. having one centralized system is always better than spreading things out and risking mis commutations amongst crews, and statistics backs that up too, the removal of flight engineers has not resulted in more crashes, in fact it has been reduced, but that's not only because computers have replaced flight engineers.
I bet you would've skipped it or shortened the inspection if it was Friday at 5:00 pm. You probably screwed lots of things up but don't think about them.
@@jarlwhiterun7478 - you’re probably thinking of a crew chief or mechanic. A Flight Engineer is part of the flight deck flying crew. I sat behind Co-Pilot and managed all the Aircraft systems in flight before the Aircraft industry automated everything. Skipping or shortening a checklist wasn’t an option because the Pilot or Co-Pilot required me to read out the item before we could continue. It was kinda like a fail safe check in place. In a situation like this where the Pilots were overloaded, this is where a Flight Engineer would have came in handy because it’s another set of eyes & ears on the Flight deck and who can take the burden off the Pilots. They just dismiss these catastrophes as unavoidable when in fact if they had a Flight Engineer still, it’s highly probable it wouldn’t have happened. It’s sad….
I always tell people the workers you never see are more important than the workers you do see the mechanics who maintain a airplane is more important than the pilot one error an that entire plane can’t fly they have to be 100 percent on there job for inspections I mean they have to check everything in that plane it’s a sophisticated system
That did not surprise me. My husband and I we flying out of Philly and on take-off our plane hit the backwash of the plane in front of us. We were sideways. I grabbed my husband and unfortunately was gripping his naughty bits. Think old fashion car, no seatbelt and your mom or dad throws their arm out. There was dead silence. It took quite a few seconds for the planet to right itself and climb. Still no noise. My husband whispered to me that I could let go. I whispered back why is the pilot not saying anything? He whispered back he is flying the plane and cleaning his shorts first. A few minutes later the pilot explained what had happened. The best I can explain is that your brain is still trying to process what has happened so fight or fright is not triggered. There were no babies or children on that flight so no adult triggering to protect young kicked in either. The whole flight was pretty quiet. I kept trying to listen for pitch changes in the engines on the off chance the plane had damage. My husband slept and snored the rest of the flight.
They need to make a movie of the pilot's past , training,and his doing S patterns ,and other learned maneuvers , all of which greatly aided him in the challenge of a lifetime. Inspiring.
Outstanding airmanship. Even though it was pilot error not recognizing the fuel leak for what it was. Still managed to save everyone and did so without proper training. Fantastic job Gentlemen....
This flight crew shows a complete absence of any logical thinking whatsoever and also quite bad decision making. The fuel tanks are always filled equally, thanks to great aircraft design. Fuel does not have sex. So if you have an imbalance after a while, there is only one logical reason why this would be the case, a fuel leak. The argument, that they apperently thought it was a false indication is simply false, otherwise they would not have pumped the fuel over. So this is honestly nothing short of stupid. The airmanship was outstandingly bad.
Once they ditched their dependence on instrument and checklists ... gee, it turns out they knew how to fly! The airport controller who switched the lights on and off, on and off, to create a blink, deserves praise for being smart, too.
@@ogaibo1316 you are totally ignorant and arrogant. This was a serious problem. They took the route to safety. Had they decended early they would have perished in the cold sea. They did the right thing, big ups to them.
I just need to say that you are an incredible storyteller. You clearly have an aptitude for this stuff…. I’ve watched almost every aviation documentary I can get my hands on, and your work stands out amongst the best. I could only imagine if you had a Netflix budget what you could pull off! Keep it up!
I agree. Your mix of eerie music and amazingly authentic graphics makes your videos head and shoulders above everyone else. You should get awards for your work.
I literally thought that this story would end like any other: either crash landed into the ocean, crashed into buildings, or made it into runway but exploded, because the way you're telling this story really had my heart dropped to my bosom. The timing, suspense, and tension in your story telling was Masterful! Impeccable! moreover, supported by a well made animation. No kidding, this is one of the best documentary I've ever watched, I mean, my butt was compressed to the maximum from your narration. Really had me surprised when I look at your subscriber count, THE QUALITY LOOMS OVER THE NUMBERS WTF!
Not paricularly, height is a pilot's friend and provided you have enough of it and are careful to not lose too much, using the aircraft's optimum glide speed given the load onboard etc. any competent pilot should be able to glide to a runway provided that he has sufficient height. I should add, given an anonymous response just received from "skanzool", that this pilot did what any competent pilot would have done in the circumstances, he was definitely a competent pilot imo and all pilots are trained in a similar way to deal with a situation where a glide approach is necessary, right from when they sit their PPL GFT (General Flying Test or, as it is known today, their skills test.) I remember it well on my GFT in 1975. Distance isn't a major factor for length of glide if enough height is had ... height IS definitely one major factor. Fortunately, this pilot was presented with the situation where he was on the "good side", (too much height) as opposed to the bad side, (insufficient height to reach the runway). As I have intimated, the pilot did everything right and didn't lose too much irretrievable height ... this has been done in the past and with tragic consequences. The narrator in the video mentions "stretching the glide" ... Never try to stretch a glide! The person who just responded to me stated, "The pilot, Robert Piché, received an award from the pilots association for what they described as the greatest feat of piloting in history." I don't think so! Why exaggerate? An award from the Airline Pilot's Association was given so I understand. I read this below on a pilot's discussion page, I am only a private pilot but I can understand that a quick reference handbook for that aircraft (QRH) should have been consulted and early on. "Anyone who has flown or is flying a A330 will tell you, that upon receiving an ECAM cautionary messsage regarding a fuel imbalance, it is clearly instructed during training to consult ones QRH. In which, the procedure quite clearly states, if an imbalance has occured AND A FUEL LEAK HAS BEEN CONFIRMED as NOT BEING PRESENT to go ahead and open the cross feed. Airbus has made it very clear that an imbalance situation can be managed with a Fuel leak. Cautious use of the cross feed would keep the imbalance in check. As for handing out awards, well they did get it down, however to put the lives of over 200 passengers, is not good airmanship. Bottom line is, and the incident report will show this, they did not follow correct procedure and did not adhere to the written words of the QRH. NOT GOOD AIRMANSHIP in my opinion."
They did a good job gliding, that is what they are trained to do, they did everything wrong before then, I don’t see why we should canonize these pilots?
@@steveperreira5850 There ain't a pilot out there who is incapable of gliding any distance, his glide distance depends solely on the height he has when the beginning of the glide begins.
@@Tellitasitis2 Didn't you hear the part where it's pitchblack and most of the useful hydrolic doesn't work ? It's like saying it's not impressive that a guy with one leg beat the world champ in running
In the 80´s, before joining Air Transat, Robert Piché had transported contraband from Jamaica on small planes and was arrested for it. He was used to flying under stressful and difficult conditions. He was the absolute best pilot to have on board that day. He is a national hero here.
Always impressed how this entire industry learns from errors or near misses and ensures never repeated. Unlike so many other industries, eg the medical profession.
I reckon they do that only because their equipment costs hundreds of millions of dollars, plus the lawsuits they would get from the victim's families would cost a lot
Engines off while still in the air is one of the most unnerving things I’ve ever experienced. You don’t expect it to be so quiet…it seems like you’ve landed. In 96, I was on a 747 flight to Sydney from LAX. 12 hours into the flight, I woke up, and heard nothing. I thought we’d landed. I started waking up, but then I noticed I couldn’t see anything outside. I began to get worried. After several minutes, I saw the moon reflecting on the ocean. Right about then, I heard each engine spool up, and we gained altitude. No idea what happened, but that experience still haunts me today. Absolute silence while on a jumbo jet in the air…
We sometimes dream in silence, then you woke up and heard the engine. It’s a common phenomenon and you are not alone. I’ve experienced this while falling asleep behind the wheel.
Having all engines down on a 747 in flight would be an incident that would exist in record. No such incidents exist that year. Probably just a dreaming state.
skilled flightsman right there, saved all those lives in a dire situation...it's easy to sit and talk but when faced with such a situation it becomes a 100 times harder to make decisions...massive respect to these pilots and all pilots who fly passengers daily.
@@AboveAvgMan The only reason planes can land on an aircraft carrier is because planes designed to land and take off from one are fitted with a massive hook that grabs what is essentially a steel cable that slows the jet down rapidly. It is physically impossible to land ANY existing commercial plane on an aircraft carrier, because even if they were equipped with this hook, they would be way to heavy for it to slow them down fast enough. Aircraft carrier runways are at most 300 feet long, while commercial airplanes like a 747 at 80% capacity need 7,500 feet of runway to land. Even with planes designed to land on an aircraft carrier, there is a percentage change of failure, in which case the pilot is supposed to eject from the plane before it explodes on the water below.
Thank you for the report. You forgot to mention the Air Traffic Controller. 1st Sargeant Ramos from the Portuguese Air Force was on duty that night, and played a vital part in the crew's decision making.
The pilot DID ask someone on the crew to make a visual check of the engine. When they COULD NOT SEE a leak , it likely convinced him of a faulty reading. Shame on those blaming the pilots. This was a maintenance glitch, all air Transat responsibility. These guys are true heroes.
For real. What i got was that they should of dropped to 20k ft to do the test but then they wouldn’t of made the landing. Regardless of why they where out of fuel so their decision was the right one.
@@nickgiovanni6518 If there was fuel for one engine they wouldn't have lost hydraulics and would also have some reverse thrust. They would not have gone off the runway.
i have read somewhere, that the captain Robert Piché had a lot of hours in MS flight simulator. I think he is the type of guy, who practice every possible catastrophic scenario
@@chriz9959 As someone who hails from the same region as Piché (Northern Québec) Piché was a bush pilot, piloting planes before he could legally drive a car. He was a young teenager, piloting miners, and forest workers in arctic terrain during snowstorms and everything else nature had to throw out...he later went on to work for Inuit airlines servicing the indigenous arctic communities. You have to have balls to fly in that environment.
I feel like pilot error is the get out of jail free card for airplane manufacturers. These pilots did nothing wrong they were heroes. There's a reason most countries outside USA won't send Boeing CVR or FDR's to Boeing to have them checked as they know whatever happened it will be on the pilots
Completely agreed, and it saddens me when recounters of incidents quickly jump on the Human Error bandwagon. Investigators blaming problems on human errors are only ever scratching the surface and miss the opportunity of making processes and systems more resilient.
"did nothing wrong"? Except look at the fuel levels, notice they were lower on one side of the aircraft than the other when they were equal at takeoff, assume it was a computer problem and just transfer fuel without even questioning if it was a fuel leak and as a result throw their remaining fuel away overboard resulting in fuel starvation and loss of engines?
@@tomstravels520 they were question it. Watch this video throughly, you will find how they ask the flight attendant to check the wings etc for fuel leakage sign
I knew someone that was on this flight, he said it was terrifying, but all of the passengers were thankful for those 2 pilots they owed them their lives. Scary for sure
@@Covid-bv4hp why? Because I think that a person is not a hero if he made a fatal error but barely managed to fix it without other people deaths? He just fixed his own error. Professionally, sure, but it is still his mistake to fix
@@fraisertinko There was no visible fule leak.. they haven't got the training needed and they were in middle of nowhere. What if the procedures didn't fix the problem. Considering this was a really unusual warning, there was a good chance that procedure would fail. They would have ZERO chances of surviving at 20,000.
This is the most amazing aviation strategy I’ve ever heard of, massive respect for everyone on the plane, of course the captain and sub. Amazing channel too.
well to be fair the reason this happened was because the Capt and FO failed to follow proper procedures, but hey he saved the plane and at the end of the day that's what matters the most.
Air transat felt so terrible for their customers ordeal, so management spontaneously and tactfully agreed to gift each passenger with a brand new pair of underwear (sporting the new $ stylish Air Transat livery)
At the mt. st. helens erruption a plane made a 120km glide. (all engines choked by volcanic ash. Happened other 2 times with a KLM over Alaska?Angoriche and over Indonesia/Ocean. In the 2 cases they were able to restart the engines after cooling down so that the "glass" of the ashes came brittle and sprung/broke off.)
Can we also appreciate a very good Crew Resource Management practice they are performing under an extremely stressful situation? The first officer definitely plays a crucial supporting role. Amazing team work!
It's a long time I have started seeing these videos and IM HAPPY THE PASSENGERS MADE IT OUT ALIVEEE!! I had stopped hoping seeing how one small error could lead to crashes. Also that's one record I wouldn't want any flight to break ever🙂
@@mdaniels6311 There are not alternative airports between the us mainland and Hawaii.. ETOPS allows certain twin engine aircraft’s to fly long distances over water
There's no such thing as luck as God's existence is proven. Everything has a cause which is also HOW God's existence is proven. They've taken the proofs for the existence of God out of modern DEeducation but the proofs for the existence of God are a staple in any undergraduate philosophy tract. They're called St Thomas's 5 proofs. You can't get to Catholicism via logic alone but the sheer existence of God and that He must, for example, be One, IS proven. Here's one. You see that things have a cause. If you don't assent to this you're simply a liar. IF you don't have a First Cause of all Himself Uncaused you have an infinite regress of causes of effects and never getting to the First Cause you never get in reverse logic to what you see today by neccessary result of this infinite regress. The infinity (i.e. NEVER ending of causes) creates an insurmountable gap because if its inherent infinity insurmountable to suffice for the existence of anything you see that exists and has a cause of its existence. There MUST therefore by neccesity exist a FIRST Cause that is Himself Uncaused Who is God. You're welcome
I lived at Lajes for 11 years. It has an insanely long runway, but is very tricky to land at. Normally there is a lot of crabbing going on with a functional plane. The fact they didn’t slam the tarmac is amazing, cause it’s happened more than once with working planes.
10,600 feet or so - fairly long for a sea-level (or close) runway, but nowhere near one of the longest in the world. Up side is that the Airbus was VERY lightly loaded when it set down, being out of fuel. It's rated to need just over HALF that length for a normal landing at normal load level.
After seeing all the tragic accidents, it is nice to see such brave and beautiful stories where no lives were lost and the crew did their job brilliantly!
I cannot imagine how the passengers felt when the plane finally landed safely. All that time gliding with death on their minds. I think my heart would have stopped. Great heroic efforts by the pilots. GOD bless you all.👉
WOW wow just wow. After that glide landing, that captain warranted a good long smoke of anything he wanted. He deserved it!! And the awards they got. I only hope that each time I get on a plane I get such talented pilots!!!
You had me on the edge of my seat for all the duration of the video. Very well done, amazing narration. Great content. I’m glad they all ended up alive and well!
I didn’t know how this was going to end, it was so unnerving to watch, thank god they made it. Picking apart the decisions the pilots made is easy to do for the investigators, good to see that they took into account that human nature is a thing. Well done to all the crew involved here. I hope there was recriminations for the ground crew who fitted the wrong part.
I don't understand why the captain hasn't been fired or removed from been a captian. He almost killed everybody on the board by making an arrogant decision to ignore sensors readings and not to follow a standard procedure
Because he A) landed the plane with massive stress at night, and B) it’s easy to guess this was happening as an outside occupant who knows how it’s happening, but as someone in the situation who just got told an issue has occurred when your not trained for it it’s difficult to recognize with thousands of other things to take into factor (I mean just look at all those buttons on the thing) , C) having done it thousands of times before it’s hard to imagine that fuel in the middle of the ocean would just run out like that, he’s not an engineer, technology fails sometimes, was it foolish to assume it wasn’t the issue? Absolutely! But that’s hindsight for ya
@@Grivian what a you talking about? There was a fuel leak procedure that was rejected by the captain) if he followed it - there would be no need for saving the airplane. There is a timestamp for it in the middle
@@fraisertinko The human factor must always be considered in an incident. The investigators ended up commending the pilots and they got awarded, and the investigators know much more about this and aviation in general than you do. Lack of training is very relevant since that is what pilots fall back on when there is a problem. It's easy to judge the pilots in the comfort of your sofa.
Congratulations to you Piche. You are a real Hero. You did a remarkably job. How terrible that must have been for everyone. Flying at night time with failed engine must have been uncertain and scary. Well done Pilot
While the errors are significant, yet, hats off to the pilots for being so composed and absorbing the stress so well in such circumstances and even able to do a 360 degrees while also knowing that they had only once chance to make the landing... just wow!!!
This was a gripping account. My heart was in my mouth all the way through - though not nearly as scary as it would have been for the passengers, cabin crew and flight crew. Personally I would not blame the pilots - they did a brilliant job of landing the aircraft with no loss of life. Thank God that everyone survived, and that better safety procedures and training have been implemented as a result of this potentially fatal incident.
I totally agree. They really did a brilliant job of flying and landing a giant glider. I have to say that I figured out what was wrong 6 minutes into the video as soon as I heard that the right wing tank had less fuel than the left wing tank. Fuel pouring into engine #2 explained both the low oil temperature and low fuel in the tank. Of course I didn't know the reason for such a large leak, but I would have recommended immediately shutting down and turning off fuel to #2 and flying to the island on #1 without running out of fuel.
I've realised that there's been many aricraft accidents in the recent years that I had never heard of (this one being one of them), and I can relate to the heart in mouth thing. Really remarkable that they managed to land safely.
I worked with a guy that was on that flight with his wife and young daughter. I think the daughter was around 3 or 4. He said it was dead silent on the plane. He didn't want his family to see how scared he actually was. He kept a brave face for them.
My daughter knew a sea monster that was in the ocean that day. He was very perplexed about the plane falling from the sky but mostly just mad he could not eat people for dinner.
@@91bdoug Why would I make that up? To entertain you? It was a flight out of Toronto. My friend and his wife both worked for Toronto Fire Department. Oh and one more thing- go fuck yourself.
this was a brilliant piece. Hats off to the crew. Global aviation experts need to explain why this is not highlighted like miracle on the hudson. This is equally complicated, if not more.
I did too. Very well put together by this channel. I was convinced they were going to crash into the sea 10km before the runway...one of those tragic stories. It really lifted my heart they made it onto the runway with no lives lost.
These planes are amazing but very complicated. A lot of these vids illustrate what a massive workload is put on the pilots during emergencies or troubleshooting. I can’t help but feel that a third crew member ie flight engineer would be a massive help in a lot of these situations. So pleased all were able to walk away from this one.
The other thing that surprises me is that these large airliners don't have an emergency power from a battery to maintain the instrument panel and essential hydraulic systems -rather than being completely reliant on a turbine in the case of engine failure.
A contributing factor is bad software. There should be a fuel flow rate that indicates loss of fuel, that is so easy to program. It is a given that the pilots are going to be idiots and make all kinds of mistakes. That is the human condition, even with all the crazy training.
Not only should there be a second flight engineer but maybe even a software engineer to help with all the problems with the computer what a pain maybe they should go back to analog flying.
Just want to say that although there are many similar channels with higher numbers, your quality, knowledge, and storytelling capabilities make you my 2nd favorite air crash channel, behind mentor pilot though. I only say that so you know what he does that you don't that makes him my favorite, that being his insight into what is 'normal' in commercial aviation and his ability to include more context instead of reading a summarized NTSB report.
Yes, amazing quality! Also, I realized one channel copies exactly what is said on Wikipedia (to a T), which provides some not very accurate information. This one was emotional. Maybe just me, but wow!! on all levels.
are there any similar channels that you would reccomend? I currently watch this channel ofc, mentour & disaster break down but would love to broaden this list!
Props to the crew for landing the plane safely but it’s crazy to think that a faulty reading was perceived as more likely than a leak, when especially there were earlier fuel warnings, AND the leakage getting worse after moving the fuel to the other engine. It’s one thing for computers to give you bogus readings but it’s a different thing when you are clearly losing fuel despite pumping more fuel to the other engine. It’s almost the most specific and definitive explanation to the situation and even in light of confirmation bias it is still surprising that the pilots would just gloss over this
Wooow! Man I had never heard about this. As soon as you said the plane stopped and everybody got off I was like "YEAH! HELL YEAH!" The Captain and First officer are absolute LEGENDS.
Holy wow. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. I cannot even believe this really happened. I was holding my breath at the end. Couldn’t even breath!! Unbelievable strength. Yes- it may have been their fault- but they graciously followed through and saved all those lives!!! Wowsers. What an incredible story.
Can I just comment on how well produced your videos are. From the story telling, aviation details and especially your background audio music - it feels like we’re watching a movie. Well done Sir.
The way you keep it silent in between pauses and your calm pacing makes the story much more engaging. Contrary to what others may do with crazy sound effects.
It sounded like the crew went out their way to make the incident worse though. The fuel should be visible with such fast leak from the engine, and all the wrong decisions made by the flight crew until gliding.
You have a fuel imbalance on one side, then low fuel everywhere when you allow for crossover screams fuel problem on the one side. Combine it with low oil temp and.... I really feel like they should have figured this out.
@mrjdgibbs well with the odd combination of failures going on with no physically visible indication to back it up and nothing happened during the flight that could cause a problem, such as storm or bad turbulence, the most logical problem would be the planed computer. Although I would have still followed procedures just in case, I can see the thought process.
Favorite aviation channel by far. I like how you build suspense and keep the outcome a mystery until the end, like with this one. I was literally praying they would make it to the runway! What a glide! Amazing how you captivate me into these videos. Really enjoying your content, keep up the good work and I hope your channel will grow even more.
Great story, what these pilots did was amazing, the longest glide in history, incredible. Flew from Florida to the UK earlier in the week and was thinking about this incident, we were on an Aer Lingus A330.
Edge of my seat the entire time. Was quite nervous because I didn't know how this was going to end. Stories of flights over water and at night make me uncomfortable because I'm sure that is a terrifying experience. You've gained a new subscriber
I bet that turn was terrifying facing away from the airport like that. Regardless, incredible show by the entire crew on that flight. True heroics and calm under extreme pressure.
I just flew in an Air Transat airbus from Lisbon to Montreal a month ago. Something like this is one of my worst nightmares. Having a mechanical problem at night over the middle of the ocean. They are lucky they were close enough to the Azores to land.
Unbelievable. You have an incredible way of making me incredibly anxious. In most instances I can foretell an outcome however, with your videos I cannot. Compelling viewing for me. Having a good understanding of biases, they also provide me a great understanding of biases at work under extremely stressful situations. Thank you for your work, you deserve some sort recognition for all aspects contained within them.
For anxiety, I down 3 shots and hit PLAY. I down one more when the computer goes off. Sometimes you have to wait for it. It’s a wild ride, esp when you don’t remember the incident.
My palms were sweating during the long 100k to the Azores!!I was calling out every maneuver and flight control as if I were in that aircraft and when too much altitude was realized, that jaw dropping 360 HOLY SH*T ,GIVE THE MAN A MEDAL!!!!!!GREAT VIDEO!!
Wow, this story did not end the way I was expecting. It started to build up the story of complete disaster, so it was an amazing twist to see they made it. I also love the brilliant cinematics used from flight simulator 2020
Yea PeePee & DooDoo in my sweaty dingy funky Draws & prayers I'm entering Heaven NOT Hell after the fiery gas impacted crash fed to the Crabs & starving mouf watering needle sharp teef bitin Sharks ok got dang it.
Thanks for a great post! Usually, serious disasters result in at least some injuries and deaths. It was wonderful to listen to one where everyone came out okay! While the pilots were technically in error, they had not been trained in how to handle a serious fuel leak. Also, the cockpit equipment lacked a warning indicator for this condition. It is understandable that they doubted the presence of a fuel leak when none could be seen by staff looking out of the windows. Once the plane ran out of fuel the pilots did a heroic job of getting the plane, and everyone in it safely to the ground. Rather than punishment for their improper actions earlier in the crisis, what was needed was proper training in dealing with leaks, and also, upgrading the cockpit equipment to include a leak warning. This all was apparently done. I am thrilled that everyone survived okay, but also, that the consequences for the pilots were actually very appropriate and didn't include being fired. That would not have been an appropriate way to treat the pilots.✈️🤗
Your videos are so well made! The attention you pay to detail makes you stand out from any other air crash investigation channels, oh and also the fact that you have the David Attenborough style of voice captivates the audience! You are my favourite aviation channel! Keep up the great work man!
Well the parts that rolls Royce used were correct the problem was when they put the new fuel pump in the hoses that connected from the fuel pump to the combustion chamber were not fastened to a bracket so what happened was the hose that started rubbing up against the bracket and it severed the holes line allowing gas to flow back into the wing so even though they were getting readings a few will be in consumed that wasn't going into the engine it was just kind of like a loop back into the wing
That was an amazing job! An enormous glider indeed. The award was well deserved. - No leak warning seems astonishing, given how vital noticing that fault is
My first flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii we were ready to take off and had to leave the runway so they could fuel the plane. This is how close we were to taking off without enough fuel. Doesn’t seem this is possible but seems to happen often.
was on a flight where they filled the left engine and the right one was close to empty causing an imbalance lol, this same flight kept us onboard for an additional 45 minutes after it landed from SFO tro Chicago because they couldn't open the door and had to have maintenance get it open. United airlines ftw lol
I didn't think I'd be so emotional but this one got me. I am literally in tears. I cannot imgaine what the pilot, the first officer and everyone on the plane went through that night. I am so happy that everyone surivied.
I have been on 8 different flights ✈️ in past 6 months and I think about this every time I get on board. It's scary to think just like that you're going down,good job on the pilots
Fun fact: The top three longest glides in an not purpose built aircraft are Air Transat 236 Air Canada 143 British Airways 009 (Note that all of these incidents had NO fatalities with a total of 638 lives saved) What does this say? Canada has the best glider pilots in the business
True. Or let's say best glider pilots without fuel awareness. Gimli glider was an exception but this incident shouldn't have happened. It was just 2 relaxed pilots relying on the modern technology and at the same time don't believe their modern sensors.
@@marhawkman303 true! Could've been avoided by proper checking of the fuel delivery receipt but human error factor justified the undetected shortage in fuel. In Transat incident, I just see two pilots relying on a modern sophisticated system and at the same time not relying on their modern and sophisticated sensors of the same system. They were too relaxed for a transatlantic flight. The fact that they were offset to the south helped them to reach the runway otherwise the story would ended completely different.
as soon as I saw the fuel imbalance, I would not have diverted fuel from one side to the other, I would have waited to see if the imbalance continued, that alone would have told me if there was a fuel leak on the right side without having to do anything, the right engine would have eventually died out
Great video! I didn’t know if it would end terribly or not and I’m so glad it had a happy ending. Thanks for the thorough retelling of this amazing incident.
This has always been one of my biggest fears. On top of being in the air AND over the ocean, landing into the ocean is enough for me to pass out lol. I've always wanted to go to Europe but it's the fact of flying over the ocean that creeps me out. Idk how famous people do it week after week.
You have two options, firstly count the flights between Europe and North America, and note just how few have any sort of problem, secondly, fly via Iceland where there are much smaller distances over water between airports and land. Whilst nothing is perfect, you are at more danger using the roads than flying across the Atlantic.
I was living there when this happened. I was a kid though. My dad was stationed there and I lived with him. I don't remember much but I remember it happening and I remember our food supply was effected. But thats about it. I'm in the AF now and the base is a skeleton crew. I kinda hope to go back one day. Great memories there. I truly miss the Azores.
Little note the THS (trimable horizontabl stab) you talked about at 16:25 would have been powered by the emergency blue system and therefore controlable by the pilots. On the pitch axis they lost one actuator for the THS wich is powered by blue and yellow and one complete elevator (the right one) powered by green and yellow! The other elevator was still controlable with one blue actuator.
Such a great video!!! Even though I’ve heard about and watched many videos of this exact incident, you did such a phenomenal job telling the story that I was on the edge of my seat wondering if the plane would land or not. Great job!!!🤩
Same here & a gripper! A gifted speaker plus someone, him or team member, is a very good writer-editor. Superb content, really liked the flight deck limited lighting effect. Pilot side only. Quality work.
Not only an emergency situation was handled expertly with incorrect assumptions made about the situation by the pilot but he managed to do a 360 and set a record while he was at it. An absolute masterful landing in an improbable situation. Haven't gotten to the end but I hope he got some kind of metal for having the knowledge, skill and gargantuan pendulous nads to handle the situation. I am in awe of the skill these pilots possess
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Hey did you notice that the Gimili Glider also flew out of Canada😂
Air Crap (Air Canada) owned the GIMLI Glider.
PATREON doesn't accept Vietnamese Dong. (Where l live)
@@YoursNKR ?
@@debebeasefa4706 it’s the other incident where a passenger jet was forced to glide
The utter NERVE to do a 360 spin in total darkness and with no fuel in order to lose altitude. That’s boss stuff right there.
I know this is the 2nd time I watch documentary and read about the incident, the probability of him landing safely was below 0.01% but he pulled it off. The percentage is estimated by me, as the circumstances and simulation of it showed it is near impossible (1 out if like 10,000)
not really compared to landing a jet in a river.
@@Unfluencer Sully didn't hit birds at 39,000 feet though, and had the APU to power the entire jet.
@@AlphaGametauri buddy I dont think you understand silly’s situation, he had a mere few seconds to react, and he was near densely populated area while loosing altitude, dude was under immense stress but he handled it perfectly. also if it happened at 39k ft, he’d have undoubtedly glided to an airport. Gliding has been done before, so lets not act like silly situation was easy
@@AlphaGametauri also way to cherry pick apu power. it was sullys quick decision to turn it on and you act like that helped them go to an airport. the sheer forces on water great
The fatal crashes always end up making headlines and revisited all the time yet the near death survival crashes always get glossed over and then forgotten. This flight should be for the history books
The story was buried by the September 11 twin towers destruction. This AirTransat miracle landing story happened a few days before so it was shadowed in the media
The 9/11 attacks happened just after this and basically this incident was forgotten for obvious reasons
They’re not glossed over by NTSB, thankfully.
Ever heard of sully? They made a movie so definitely not forgotten.
Well, wasn't the worst thing to happen to airplane that year
My favorite part about this story was their ability to recognize the psychological factors that contributed to the errors involved, and most importantly their willingness to award these two pilots and praise them for their handling of the situation in the end.
This situation is quite dire because the plane was fine just minutes before it lost all that fuel. It was a very tough decision, they can't physically check or see if there is an actual fuel leakage, it's just numbers on a screen.
@@squirrelhallowino29 Bro but even if they actually knew it was a fuel leak what more could they have done other then what they did to save everyone?
@@retrokane3629 They could’ve followed one or more of the procedures and verified they had a fuel leak, then isolated the leak to one side of the aircraft and kept the fuel on the side that was not leaking!
@@LeadershipAlliance I thought eventually they did that when they decided to shut the right engine down and had whatever fuel left coming through the left engine until that engine also shut down.
@@retrokane3629correct. They did all they could in about as fast as a human brain can process information. Don't know how anyone could slight this professional air crew.
I love how the official conclusion is basically, "this was an incredible feat done by very talented flight staff. Also, let's never do this again."
didn't fucking ask
@@jillanneyoussef5257 sounds like it’s time for you to log off for a while
@@jillanneyoussef5257someone woke up cranky
@@jillanneyoussef5257 you went into the comments. you did, infact, ask to see what people had to say
@@Mega-rw8mt That’s fucked up….
Can we talk about the 90 second evacuation? Sounds like they had epic flight attendants, too.
I think the pilots and all crews in that plane should be rewarded
@@Vyansya they were awarded
Oh boy.
As amazing it was that they completed a full evacuation, actually this was the maximum time allowed. When a new plane is built, to become approved to fly, the company have to prove that the aircraft can be evacuated in no longer than 90 seconds. If they don’t, the plane isn’t allowed to fly, so we already knew that they all could be evacuated within 90 seconds.
@@Aloo26 thanks for the tidbit! Engineers and flight attendants alike working together to make something amazing.
I'm still impressed, however. Testing environments versus real, scared people and unpredictable obstacles are two different things, and you never quite know how well your training worked until it's the real deal.
Damn imagine being a passenger after this and having to get back on a plane to go home so soon.
Don't worry, this one totally will make it across the ocean.
Statistically very improbable to be in such an incident 2 times
@@ondrejpalata8979 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy
These planes can glide a long distance without engines
@@SuperHns Commercial jets typically have a glide ratio of around 17:1 and cruising altitude of around 8 miles. Therefore they have a maximum glide distance of about 136 miles.
CONGRATULATIONS! This the ONLY report on this incident that included details about Piche's early aviation career. He learned the 'S' bend technique from his South American days when he had to drop out of radar coverage when making a fast landing at an uncontrolled mini-airport to dump his cargo and then Re'appear on radar without alerting Customs or Police.
Piche's luck eventually ran out and he was caught on one of his landings.
Captain Piche retired in 2021 still with Air Transat. Air Transat should be congratulated on it's hiring policy of giving people another chance in life.
Totally agree with your comments. Giving him another chance gave everyone else on board another chance for life above water as well.
Facks..
Perhaps the passingers are lucky to have him, with his experience as a pilot that day. Unbelievable
Repent to Jesus Christ “I thank my God every time I remember you.”
Philippians 1:3 NIV
They should totally make a movie on this guy!
As a Flight engineer from my Air Force days, I wouldn’t have allowed a fuel leak to go unchecked. This is a good example why large aircraft should still have a flight engineer. There are fuel systems tests and calculations that an Engineer could have performed to validate the gauges showing a fuel leak. Bravo to these stellar pilots regardless for bringing that beast down safely!
seriously wtf? and then drain in more to even it out?! if anything drain the other way just in case.
guess what is better than humans, computers, its how they chose to interpret that information that led to this situation and also the lack of proper procedures for scenarios like this, flight engineers were only needed cos computer at that age were not as good as they have been in recent years.
having one centralized system is always better than spreading things out and risking mis commutations amongst crews, and statistics backs that up too, the removal of flight engineers has not resulted in more crashes, in fact it has been reduced, but that's not only because computers have replaced flight engineers.
I bet you would've skipped it or shortened the inspection if it was Friday at 5:00 pm. You probably screwed lots of things up but don't think about them.
@@jarlwhiterun7478 - you’re probably thinking of a crew chief or mechanic. A Flight Engineer is part of the flight deck flying crew. I sat behind Co-Pilot and managed all the Aircraft systems in flight before the Aircraft industry automated everything. Skipping or shortening a checklist wasn’t an option because the Pilot or Co-Pilot required me to read out the item before we could continue. It was kinda like a fail safe check in place. In a situation like this where the Pilots were overloaded, this is where a Flight Engineer would have came in handy because it’s another set of eyes & ears on the Flight deck and who can take the burden off the Pilots. They just dismiss these catastrophes as unavoidable when in fact if they had a Flight Engineer still, it’s highly probable it wouldn’t have happened. It’s sad….
computers never lie
This is why our lives are not only in the hands of the pilots but but aircraft mechanics as well!
And God
@@sjrclark6618 na
EXACTLY why I'll take a ....BUS!
I always tell people the workers you never see are more important than the workers you do see the mechanics who maintain a airplane is more important than the pilot one error an that entire plane can’t fly they have to be 100 percent on there job for inspections I mean they have to check everything in that plane it’s a sophisticated system
Our lifes are only in god’s hands
Jeez I literally teared up a bit in happiness when they landed and everyone survived. What an insane story.
That was more than a tast🙈🙈
same here
Man I was so excited but nervous in the beginning because I waited to see the comments.
spoiler alert! LOL
spoilers, ahole!
The cabin being dead silent is surprising to me. Those flight attendants must have also been miracle workers to quell that panic.
That did not surprise me. My husband and I we flying out of Philly and on take-off our plane hit the backwash of the plane in front of us. We were sideways. I grabbed my husband and unfortunately was gripping his naughty bits. Think old fashion car, no seatbelt and your mom or dad throws their arm out. There was dead silence. It took quite a few seconds for the planet to right itself and climb. Still no noise. My husband whispered to me that I could let go. I whispered back why is the pilot not saying anything? He whispered back he is flying the plane and cleaning his shorts first. A few minutes later the pilot explained what had happened. The best I can explain is that your brain is still trying to process what has happened so fight or fright is not triggered. There were no babies or children on that flight so no adult triggering to protect young kicked in either. The whole flight was pretty quiet. I kept trying to listen for pitch changes in the engines on the off chance the plane had damage. My husband slept and snored the rest of the flight.
@@ShowdogTiger”Fight or Flight” haa! 😉😁
You're the guy
Tell me
@@ShowdogTigerOh wow - that's actually super interesting
They need to make a movie of the pilot's past , training,and his doing S patterns ,and other learned maneuvers , all of which greatly aided him in the challenge of a lifetime. Inspiring.
Here in Quebec, they actually did a movie about him
@@gslim8097 Cool. Name of movie ?
@@ernestkovach3305 Piché
Piché: entre ciel et terre (2010) 🙂
@@iisenBlomstAvBlod The Discovery Channel several years ago produced an excellent documentary on this incident.
Outstanding airmanship. Even though it was pilot error not recognizing the fuel leak for what it was. Still managed to save everyone and did so without proper training. Fantastic job Gentlemen....
Everybody walked away. Good landing.
This flight crew shows a complete absence of any logical thinking whatsoever and also quite bad decision making. The fuel tanks are always filled equally, thanks to great aircraft design. Fuel does not have sex. So if you have an imbalance after a while, there is only one logical reason why this would be the case, a fuel leak. The argument, that they apperently thought it was a false indication is simply false, otherwise they would not have pumped the fuel over. So this is honestly nothing short of stupid. The airmanship was outstandingly bad.
How is it pilot error, if they had not received training to handle a situation like this? would they still get awarded if it was pilot error?
Once they ditched their dependence on instrument and checklists ... gee, it turns out they knew how to fly! The airport controller who switched the lights on and off, on and off, to create a blink, deserves praise for being smart, too.
@@ogaibo1316 you are totally ignorant and arrogant. This was a serious problem. They took the route to safety. Had they decended early they would have perished in the cold sea. They did the right thing, big ups to them.
I just need to say that you are an incredible storyteller. You clearly have an aptitude for this stuff…. I’ve watched almost every aviation documentary I can get my hands on, and your work stands out amongst the best. I could only imagine if you had a Netflix budget what you could pull off! Keep it up!
Thank you, that's very nice of you to say 🙏 Plenty more videos on the way :)
Facts!!!
Childish.
I agree. Your mix of eerie music and amazingly authentic graphics makes your videos head and shoulders above everyone else. You should get awards for your work.
@@milk11111ok
I literally thought that this story would end like any other: either crash landed into the ocean, crashed into buildings, or made it into runway but exploded, because the way you're telling this story really had my heart dropped to my bosom. The timing, suspense, and tension in your story telling was Masterful! Impeccable! moreover, supported by a well made animation. No kidding, this is one of the best documentary I've ever watched, I mean, my butt was compressed to the maximum from your narration.
Really had me surprised when I look at your subscriber count, THE QUALITY LOOMS OVER THE NUMBERS WTF!
thankfully there was no fuel left to explode.
It’s really not that serious.
@@RatPfink66 lmao
As a nervous flyer, I always love to tuck myself in and listen to greendot aviation when I'm safely on the ground.
That's flat out impressive: the pilots performed the longest glide of a commercial airliner and managed to get to the airport with 13k feet.
Not paricularly, height is a pilot's friend and provided you have enough of it and are careful to not lose too much, using the aircraft's optimum glide speed given the load onboard etc. any competent pilot should be able to glide to a runway provided that he has sufficient height. I should add, given an anonymous response just received from "skanzool", that this pilot did what any competent pilot would have done in the circumstances, he was definitely a competent pilot imo and all pilots are trained in a similar way to deal with a situation where a glide approach is necessary, right from when they sit their PPL GFT (General Flying Test or, as it is known today, their skills test.) I remember it well on my GFT in 1975.
Distance isn't a major factor for length of glide if enough height is had ... height IS definitely one major factor.
Fortunately, this pilot was presented with the situation where he was on the "good side", (too much height) as opposed to the bad side, (insufficient height to reach the runway). As I have intimated, the pilot did everything right and didn't lose too much irretrievable height ... this has been done in the past and with tragic consequences. The narrator in the video mentions "stretching the glide" ... Never try to stretch a glide!
The person who just responded to me stated, "The pilot, Robert Piché, received an award from the pilots association for what they described as the greatest feat of piloting in history." I don't think so! Why exaggerate? An award from the Airline Pilot's Association was given so I understand.
I read this below on a pilot's discussion page, I am only a private pilot but I can understand that a quick reference handbook for that aircraft (QRH) should have been consulted and early on.
"Anyone who has flown or is flying a A330 will tell you, that upon receiving an ECAM cautionary messsage regarding a fuel imbalance, it is clearly instructed during training to consult ones QRH. In which, the procedure quite clearly states, if an imbalance has occured AND A FUEL LEAK HAS BEEN CONFIRMED as NOT BEING PRESENT to go ahead and open the cross feed. Airbus has made it very clear that an imbalance situation can be managed with a Fuel leak. Cautious use of the cross feed would keep the imbalance in check. As for handing out awards, well they did get it down, however to put the lives of over 200 passengers, is not good airmanship.
Bottom line is, and the incident report will show this, they did not follow correct procedure and did not adhere to the written words of the QRH. NOT GOOD AIRMANSHIP in my opinion."
They did a good job gliding, that is what they are trained to do, they did everything wrong before then, I don’t see why we should canonize these pilots?
@@steveperreira5850 There ain't a pilot out there who is incapable of gliding any distance, his glide distance depends solely on the height he has when the beginning of the glide begins.
@@Tellitasitis2 Didn't you hear the part where it's pitchblack and most of the useful hydrolic doesn't work ? It's like saying it's not impressive that a guy with one leg beat the world champ in running
Wow!
In the 80´s, before joining Air Transat, Robert Piché had transported contraband from Jamaica on small planes and was arrested for it. He was used to flying under stressful and difficult conditions. He was the absolute best pilot to have on board that day. He is a national hero here.
He did indeed do very well, it beggars belief the airline hired him with a criminal record though.
@@petpot1962 they were aware of his background, and that he had done his time, He is now retired, and living an amazing life…🇨🇦
Contraband…lol. A bunch of weed. big F’N deal. The guy is a Hero.
Honestly this adds to the story for me, thank you for sharing that amazing fact
And no, I bet he wasn't high when he landed this.
Always impressed how this entire industry learns from errors or near misses and ensures never repeated. Unlike so many other industries, eg the medical profession.
The medical profession are much more about denial in response to their errors.
Either they do that, or the second time they have a similar crash they go out of business. (Airtransat in this case)
I reckon they do that only because their equipment costs hundreds of millions of dollars, plus the lawsuits they would get from the victim's families would cost a lot
Because airliners doesnt directly profit from injuring their customers.
I smell conspiratorial dogwhistle
Engines off while still in the air is one of the most unnerving things I’ve ever experienced. You don’t expect it to be so quiet…it seems like you’ve landed.
In 96, I was on a 747 flight to Sydney from LAX. 12 hours into the flight, I woke up, and heard nothing. I thought we’d landed. I started waking up, but then I noticed I couldn’t see anything outside. I began to get worried. After several minutes, I saw the moon reflecting on the ocean. Right about then, I heard each engine spool up, and we gained altitude.
No idea what happened, but that experience still haunts me today. Absolute silence while on a jumbo jet in the air…
That could be an engine failure your plane had. You should check out the British Airways 4 engines failed video on this channel.
You were probably dreaming …
We sometimes dream in silence, then you woke up and heard the engine. It’s a common phenomenon and you are not alone. I’ve experienced this while falling asleep behind the wheel.
Having all engines down on a 747 in flight would be an incident that would exist in record. No such incidents exist that year. Probably just a dreaming state.
skilled flightsman right there, saved all those lives in a dire situation...it's easy to sit and talk but when faced with such a situation it becomes a 100 times harder to make decisions...massive respect to these pilots and all pilots who fly passengers daily.
Why didnt he land on one of the aircraft carriers that he flew over?
Because he's not flying a jet. Not nearly enough runway to land on one of those
funny how the mistaken opening of x-feed lead to recovery instead of panic
@@AboveAvgMan The only reason planes can land on an aircraft carrier is because planes designed to land and take off from one are fitted with a massive hook that grabs what is essentially a steel cable that slows the jet down rapidly. It is physically impossible to land ANY existing commercial plane on an aircraft carrier, because even if they were equipped with this hook, they would be way to heavy for it to slow them down fast enough. Aircraft carrier runways are at most 300 feet long, while commercial airplanes like a 747 at 80% capacity need 7,500 feet of runway to land. Even with planes designed to land on an aircraft carrier, there is a percentage change of failure, in which case the pilot is supposed to eject from the plane before it explodes on the water below.
Thank you for your service ❤
Thank you for the report. You forgot to mention the Air Traffic Controller. 1st Sargeant Ramos from the Portuguese Air Force was on duty that night, and played a vital part in the crew's decision making.
The pilot DID ask someone on the crew to make a visual check of the engine. When they COULD NOT SEE a leak , it likely convinced him of a faulty reading. Shame on those blaming the pilots. This was a maintenance glitch, all air Transat responsibility. These guys are true heroes.
For real. What i got was that they should of dropped to 20k ft to do the test but then they wouldn’t of made the landing. Regardless of why they where out of fuel so their decision was the right one.
If this plane landed on that runway with any bit of more fuel onboard it would have more than likely completely gone pass the end of runway
@@nickgiovanni6518 If there was fuel for one engine they wouldn't have lost hydraulics and would also have some reverse thrust. They would not have gone off the runway.
@@EvenFive my mistake I thought both engines were needed for reverse thrust
@@EvenFive yes but in this case both engines ran out of fuel, they had no reverse thrust available
This pilot from Canada is awesome, all his experience flying in different planes and terrains probably really paid off. Just incredible.
i have read somewhere, that the captain Robert Piché had a lot of hours in MS flight simulator. I think he is the type of guy, who practice every possible catastrophic scenario
@@chriz9959 As someone who hails from the same region as Piché (Northern Québec) Piché was a bush pilot, piloting planes before he could legally drive a car. He was a young teenager, piloting miners, and forest workers in arctic terrain during snowstorms and everything else nature had to throw out...he later went on to work for Inuit airlines servicing the indigenous arctic communities. You have to have balls to fly in that environment.
@@GaisSacredCreations well this is wild.
I feel like pilot error is the get out of jail free card for airplane manufacturers. These pilots did nothing wrong they were heroes. There's a reason most countries outside USA won't send Boeing CVR or FDR's to Boeing to have them checked as they know whatever happened it will be on the pilots
Completely agreed, and it saddens me when recounters of incidents quickly jump on the Human Error bandwagon. Investigators blaming problems on human errors are only ever scratching the surface and miss the opportunity of making processes and systems more resilient.
"did nothing wrong"? Except look at the fuel levels, notice they were lower on one side of the aircraft than the other when they were equal at takeoff, assume it was a computer problem and just transfer fuel without even questioning if it was a fuel leak and as a result throw their remaining fuel away overboard resulting in fuel starvation and loss of engines?
@@tomstravels520 they were question it. Watch this video throughly, you will find how they ask the flight attendant to check the wings etc for fuel leakage sign
Good point!
Boeing always play this card
I knew someone that was on this flight, he said it was terrifying, but all of the passengers were thankful for those 2 pilots they owed them their lives. Scary for sure
NOW U JUST ON HERE LYING?😭😭👀
@@ndojimmy i can confirm. I'm the guy he knew
@@lukasstorie2947 dude what was that like?
@@lukasstorie2947 YOU NEVER EVEN BEEN ON A PLANE 😂😂 STOP THE FKIN CAP and he doesn’t know u😂😂
@@lukasstorie2947 LYING IS NO GOOD LUKAS
Fantastic flying by the pilots . What a recovery from an absolutely dire situation. A well deserved reward.
Reward for creating a big problem and barely fixing it...if the captain followed procedure - there wouldn't be a big problem
@@fraisertinkoshut the fuck up lmao. Yeah they definitely messed up there but atleast they had the ability to recover the situation.
You will never be happy in life.@@fraisertinko
@@Covid-bv4hp why? Because I think that a person is not a hero if he made a fatal error but barely managed to fix it without other people deaths? He just fixed his own error. Professionally, sure, but it is still his mistake to fix
@@fraisertinko There was no visible fule leak.. they haven't got the training needed and they were in middle of nowhere.
What if the procedures didn't fix the problem. Considering this was a really unusual warning, there was a good chance that procedure would fail. They would have ZERO chances of surviving at 20,000.
This is the most amazing aviation strategy I’ve ever heard of, massive respect for everyone on the plane, of course the captain and sub. Amazing channel too.
well to be fair the reason this happened was because the Capt and FO failed to follow proper procedures, but hey he saved the plane and at the end of the day that's what matters the most.
Air transat felt so terrible for their customers ordeal, so management spontaneously and tactfully agreed to gift each passenger with a brand new pair of underwear (sporting the new $ stylish Air Transat livery)
I had no idea these planes could stay in the air that long after engine failure. I'm glad this story had a happy ending.
At the mt. st. helens erruption a plane made a 120km glide. (all engines choked by volcanic ash. Happened other 2 times with a KLM over Alaska?Angoriche and over Indonesia/Ocean. In the 2 cases they were able to restart the engines after cooling down so that the "glass" of the ashes came brittle and sprung/broke off.)
3miles/1000ft glide ratio
Me too. I never knew that huge body can stay in the air without the engines. Do birds glide after they died. No they dropped dead.
@@KassaTedla-r7n lol true, although their wings aren't made of steel
Never thought a documentary style video would have me on the edge of my seat hoping for a good outcome. Excellent video.
Thanks for the kind words :)
Can we also appreciate a very good Crew Resource Management practice they are performing under an extremely stressful situation? The first officer definitely plays a crucial supporting role. Amazing team work!
It's a long time I have started seeing these videos and IM HAPPY THE PASSENGERS MADE IT OUT ALIVEEE!! I had stopped hoping seeing how one small error could lead to crashes. Also that's one record I wouldn't want any flight to break ever🙂
They were really really lucky to be within the gliding distance of an airport in the middle of the ocean.
@@mdaniels6311 There are not alternative airports between the us mainland and Hawaii.. ETOPS allows certain twin engine aircraft’s to fly long distances over water
There's no such thing as luck as God's existence is proven. Everything has a cause which is also HOW God's existence is proven. They've taken the proofs for the existence of God out of modern DEeducation but the proofs for the existence of God are a staple in any undergraduate philosophy tract. They're called St Thomas's 5 proofs. You can't get to Catholicism via logic alone but the sheer existence of God and that He must, for example, be One, IS proven. Here's one. You see that things have a cause. If you don't assent to this you're simply a liar. IF you don't have a First Cause of all Himself Uncaused you have an infinite regress of causes of effects and never getting to the First Cause you never get in reverse logic to what you see today by neccessary result of this infinite regress. The infinity (i.e. NEVER ending of causes) creates an insurmountable gap because if its inherent infinity insurmountable to suffice for the existence of anything you see that exists and has a cause of its existence. There MUST therefore by neccesity exist a FIRST Cause that is Himself Uncaused Who is God. You're welcome
Thank God'.
@@mdaniels6311 No they are not. Not at all.
Yes. Saved by the islands. Landing on the ocean isn't as easy as landing on the Hudson especially at night.
I lived at Lajes for 11 years. It has an insanely long runway, but is very tricky to land at. Normally there is a lot of crabbing going on with a functional plane. The fact they didn’t slam the tarmac is amazing, cause it’s happened more than once with working planes.
10,600 feet or so - fairly long for a sea-level (or close) runway, but nowhere near one of the longest in the world.
Up side is that the Airbus was VERY lightly loaded when it set down, being out of fuel.
It's rated to need just over HALF that length for a normal landing at normal load level.
Very few people will ever experience what these pilots did. Their performance was outstanding and saved all the lives on board.
i dont think i ever wanna "experience" it
And I'm not jealous for not experiencing it!
After seeing all the tragic accidents, it is nice to see such brave and beautiful stories where no lives were lost and the crew did their job brilliantly!
I cannot imagine how the passengers felt when the plane finally landed safely. All that time gliding with death on their minds. I think my heart would have stopped. Great heroic efforts by the pilots. GOD bless you all.👉
They landed with everyone alive and well, that was their main job and they did it so respect to them.
And clean the poop stains after, please
yes, even tho it's right to say they didn't handle the decision making well in the early stages, it's still just Monday morning quarterbacking.
WOW wow just wow. After that glide landing, that captain warranted a good long smoke of anything he wanted. He deserved it!! And the awards they got. I only hope that each time I get on a plane I get such talented pilots!!!
I´m astonished that it is even possible to glide a massive passenger jet for hundreds of miles and to land it without crashing. Just remarkable!
70 miles approx.
Once at cruise altitude, a plane doesn't need its engines to fly. It just needs them to KEEP flying.
You had me on the edge of my seat for all the duration of the video. Very well done, amazing narration. Great content.
I’m glad they all ended up alive and well!
I didn’t know how this was going to end, it was so unnerving to watch, thank god they made it. Picking apart the decisions the pilots made is easy to do for the investigators, good to see that they took into account that human nature is a thing. Well done to all the crew involved here. I hope there was recriminations for the ground crew who fitted the wrong part.
I don't understand why the captain hasn't been fired or removed from been a captian. He almost killed everybody on the board by making an arrogant decision to ignore sensors readings and not to follow a standard procedure
Because he A) landed the plane with massive stress at night, and B) it’s easy to guess this was happening as an outside occupant who knows how it’s happening, but as someone in the situation who just got told an issue has occurred when your not trained for it it’s difficult to recognize with thousands of other things to take into factor (I mean just look at all those buttons on the thing) , C) having done it thousands of times before it’s hard to imagine that fuel in the middle of the ocean would just run out like that, he’s not an engineer, technology fails sometimes, was it foolish to assume it wasn’t the issue? Absolutely! But that’s hindsight for ya
@@fraisertinko They pilots lacked the training for this kind of scenario which is the responsibility of the airline
@@Grivian what a you talking about? There was a fuel leak procedure that was rejected by the captain) if he followed it - there would be no need for saving the airplane. There is a timestamp for it in the middle
@@fraisertinko The human factor must always be considered in an incident. The investigators ended up commending the pilots and they got awarded, and the investigators know much more about this and aviation in general than you do. Lack of training is very relevant since that is what pilots fall back on when there is a problem. It's easy to judge the pilots in the comfort of your sofa.
Congratulations to you Piche. You are a real Hero. You did a remarkably job. How terrible that must have been for everyone. Flying at night time with failed engine must have been uncertain and scary. Well done Pilot
While the errors are significant, yet, hats off to the pilots for being so composed and absorbing the stress so well in such circumstances and even able to do a 360 degrees while also knowing that they had only once chance to make the landing... just wow!!!
This was a gripping account. My heart was in my mouth all the way through - though not nearly as scary as it would have been for the passengers, cabin crew and flight crew. Personally I would not blame the pilots - they did a brilliant job of landing the aircraft with no loss of life. Thank God that everyone survived, and that better safety procedures and training have been implemented as a result of this potentially fatal incident.
I totally agree. They really did a brilliant job of flying and landing a giant glider. I have to say that I figured out what was wrong 6 minutes into the video as soon as I heard that the right wing tank had less fuel than the left wing tank. Fuel pouring into engine #2 explained both the low oil temperature and low fuel in the tank. Of course I didn't know the reason for such a large leak, but I would have recommended immediately shutting down and turning off fuel to #2 and flying to the island on #1 without running out of fuel.
I've realised that there's been many aricraft accidents in the recent years that I had never heard of (this one being one of them), and I can relate to the heart in mouth thing. Really remarkable that they managed to land safely.
If it's like that for you just imagine how it is for pple who were onboard I reckon a life changing event
Can't imagine rear facing F.A.s. blindly gripping lap belt not seeing a thing till bu
BUMP
bump..
@@szilagyitimothy4714 What are F.A.s please?
My heart has never palpitated this hard! 😮💨 This was so eerie to watch! So glad everyone survived!
Wow ppl are soft nowadays
@@mab1ism yea like your mothers son
I worked with a guy that was on that flight with his wife and young daughter. I think the daughter was around 3 or 4. He said it was dead silent on the plane. He didn't want his family to see how scared he actually was. He kept a brave face for them.
Where do you work?
I'll take, "things that didn't happen" for $400, Alex.
My daughter knew a sea monster that was in the ocean that day. He was very perplexed about the plane falling from the sky but mostly just mad he could not eat people for dinner.
@@elnosh138 Toronto Fire Department
@@91bdoug Why would I make that up? To entertain you? It was a flight out of Toronto. My friend and his wife both worked for Toronto Fire Department. Oh and one more thing- go fuck yourself.
this was a brilliant piece. Hats off to the crew. Global aviation experts need to explain why this is not highlighted like miracle on the hudson. This is equally complicated, if not more.
😱That must have been a proper nightmare...God bless the Captain for saving everybody's life🙏
I thought this was going to end badly but it ended up good. This pilot has got some serious resiliency.
I did too. Very well put together by this channel. I was convinced they were going to crash into the sea 10km before the runway...one of those tragic stories. It really lifted my heart they made it onto the runway with no lives lost.
funny how the mistaken opening of x-feed lead to recovery instead of panic
6 6666767976766668
This presentation kept me on the edge of my seat equal to the highest quality suspense movie. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it! 🙌
Possibly THE greatest feat in airplane piloting history.
Great video. Deserves the subscription.
These planes are amazing but very complicated. A lot of these vids illustrate what a massive workload is put on the pilots during emergencies or troubleshooting. I can’t help but feel that a third crew member ie flight engineer would be a massive help in a lot of these situations. So pleased all were able to walk away from this one.
The other thing that surprises me is that these large airliners don't have an emergency power from a battery to maintain the instrument panel and essential hydraulic systems -rather than being completely reliant on a turbine in the case of engine failure.
@@catinthehat906All commercial aircraft have one or two batteries which would supply power to essential instruments and a radio.
A contributing factor is bad software. There should be a fuel flow rate that indicates loss of fuel, that is so easy to program.
It is a given that the pilots are going to be idiots and make all kinds of mistakes. That is the human condition, even with all the crazy training.
Not only should there be a second flight engineer but maybe even a software engineer to help with all the problems with the computer what a pain maybe they should go back to analog flying.
That they landed this was amazing and brilliant work by those pilots. Absolutely heroic.
Just want to say that although there are many similar channels with higher numbers, your quality, knowledge, and storytelling capabilities make you my 2nd favorite air crash channel, behind mentor pilot though. I only say that so you know what he does that you don't that makes him my favorite, that being his insight into what is 'normal' in commercial aviation and his ability to include more context instead of reading a summarized NTSB report.
Mentour is great but I agree. The quality of these vids and the scripting is extremely high 👌
Yes, amazing quality! Also, I realized one channel copies exactly what is said on Wikipedia (to a T), which provides some not very accurate information. This one was emotional. Maybe just me, but wow!! on all levels.
It’s my favorite survival incident!
Petter is great! And I agree with everything here, I actually think Green may be my favourite
are there any similar channels that you would reccomend? I currently watch this channel ofc, mentour & disaster break down but would love to broaden this list!
Props to the crew for landing the plane safely but it’s crazy to think that a faulty reading was perceived as more likely than a leak, when especially there were earlier fuel warnings, AND the leakage getting worse after moving the fuel to the other engine. It’s one thing for computers to give you bogus readings but it’s a different thing when you are clearly losing fuel despite pumping more fuel to the other engine. It’s almost the most specific and definitive explanation to the situation and even in light of confirmation bias it is still surprising that the pilots would just gloss over this
Wooow! Man I had never heard about this. As soon as you said the plane stopped and everybody got off I was like "YEAH! HELL YEAH!" The Captain and First officer are absolute LEGENDS.
Pilots ability to stay cool is unparalleled! Running out of gas over the ocean yet still gliding it in, at night! And all those people safe and sound.
Holy wow. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. I cannot even believe this really happened. I was holding my breath at the end. Couldn’t even breath!! Unbelievable strength. Yes- it may have been their fault- but they graciously followed through and saved all those lives!!! Wowsers. What an incredible story.
Can I just comment on how well produced your videos are. From the story telling, aviation details and especially your background audio music - it feels like we’re watching a movie. Well done Sir.
As always, a well narrated and accurate video without fluff.
well it was about 25 minutes so it was a little fluffed lol
Very well narrated. This literally had me at the edge of my seat. Well done to the pilots. Sheesh 😰 Subscribed!
Glad you enjoyed it!
The way you keep it silent in between pauses and your calm pacing makes the story much more engaging. Contrary to what others may do with crazy sound effects.
Right!
Same! Subscribed now.
A superlative performance in handling this emergency by Captain and FO. Hats off to you Sir ! 👏
How incredible that they all survived. Simply astonishing
This was a well managed incident. Much respect to the crew. This is the stuff nightmares are made of.
Many people in that plane confessing their sins to God, like a giant
confessional at a Catholic Church. 🤐
It sounded like the crew went out their way to make the incident worse though. The fuel should be visible with such fast leak from the engine, and all the wrong decisions made by the flight crew until gliding.
You have a fuel imbalance on one side, then low fuel everywhere when you allow for crossover screams fuel problem on the one side. Combine it with low oil temp and....
I really feel like they should have figured this out.
@mrjdgibbs well with the odd combination of failures going on with no physically visible indication to back it up and nothing happened during the flight that could cause a problem, such as storm or bad turbulence, the most logical problem would be the planed computer. Although I would have still followed procedures just in case, I can see the thought process.
Favorite aviation channel by far. I like how you build suspense and keep the outcome a mystery until the end, like with this one. I was literally praying they would make it to the runway! What a glide! Amazing how you captivate me into these videos. Really enjoying your content, keep up the good work and I hope your channel will grow even more.
Thanks for the kind words! More videos on the way :)
And to think Piché’s smuggling days are what prepared him to do a silent glide in the darkness.
All in All, those 2 saved hundreds of lives! Well done 👏
What an incredible story! You did an amazing job telling it. I cannot believe that I don't recall ever hearing about this incident.
Glad you enjoyed it! 😊
Great story, what these pilots did was amazing, the longest glide in history, incredible. Flew from Florida to the UK earlier in the week and was thinking about this incident, we were on an Aer Lingus A330.
Edge of my seat the entire time. Was quite nervous because I didn't know how this was going to end. Stories of flights over water and at night make me uncomfortable because I'm sure that is a terrifying experience. You've gained a new subscriber
I bet that turn was terrifying facing away from the airport like that. Regardless, incredible show by the entire crew on that flight. True heroics and calm under extreme pressure.
Less so when you have 10k of altitude to kill.
That was the scariest moment for me. I have experience flying and a lot of sailboat racing where I do the same.
I just flew in an Air Transat airbus from Lisbon to Montreal a month ago. Something like this is one of my worst nightmares. Having a mechanical problem at night over the middle of the ocean. They are lucky they were close enough to the Azores to land.
Unbelievable. You have an incredible way of making me incredibly anxious. In most instances I can foretell an outcome however, with your videos I cannot. Compelling viewing for me. Having a good understanding of biases, they also provide me a great understanding of biases at work under extremely stressful situations. Thank you for your work, you deserve some sort recognition for all aspects contained within them.
For anxiety, I down 3 shots and hit PLAY. I down one more when the computer goes off. Sometimes you have to wait for it. It’s a wild ride, esp when you don’t remember the incident.
@@greggstrasser5791 Good for you Gregg. I don't keep alcohol around my house, I would only end up doing what you do👍
Thanks for the kind words, I’m glad you’re enjoying the videos :)
This is one of the most infamous accidents
@@peterguirguess853 Thanks Peter. I wasn't aware of this one tbh.
My palms were sweating during the long 100k to the Azores!!I was calling out every maneuver and flight control as if I were in that aircraft and when too much altitude was realized, that jaw dropping 360 HOLY SH*T ,GIVE THE MAN A MEDAL!!!!!!GREAT VIDEO!!
Wow, this story did not end the way I was expecting. It started to build up the story of complete disaster, so it was an amazing twist to see they made it. I also love the brilliant cinematics used from flight simulator 2020
Props to the capt. He did a great job landing safely
and an asinine job to get it there in the first place. did you even listen?
@@Unfluencerboth true ...
@@Unfluencerhe did a pro gamer move to show off.
Amazing piloting skills. Gliding training should be compulsory for all commercial pilots.
And cocaine smuggling skills apparently 😁
They are.
Every pilot learns this general and pro.
Yea PeePee & DooDoo in my sweaty dingy funky Draws & prayers I'm entering Heaven NOT Hell after the fiery gas impacted crash fed to the Crabs & starving mouf watering needle sharp teef bitin Sharks ok got dang it.
I watch a fair amount of air crash / investigation videos and I have to say yours are amazing and by FAR the most stressful. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for a great post! Usually, serious disasters result in at least some injuries and deaths. It was wonderful to listen to one where everyone came out okay! While the pilots were technically in error, they had not been trained in how to handle a serious fuel leak. Also, the cockpit equipment lacked a warning indicator for this condition. It is understandable that they doubted the presence of a fuel leak when none could be seen by staff looking out of the windows. Once the plane ran out of fuel the pilots did a heroic job of getting the plane, and everyone in it safely to the ground. Rather than punishment for their improper actions earlier in the crisis, what was needed was proper training in dealing with leaks, and also, upgrading the cockpit equipment to include a leak warning. This all was apparently done. I am thrilled that everyone survived okay, but also, that the consequences for the pilots were actually very appropriate and didn't include being fired. That would not have been an appropriate way to treat the pilots.✈️🤗
Your videos are so well made! The attention you pay to detail makes you stand out from any other air crash investigation channels, oh and also the fact that you have the David Attenborough style of voice captivates the audience! You are my favourite aviation channel! Keep up the great work man!
Thank you for the kind words! Much more to come :)
Goes to show how important it is to use exactly the right replacement parts when services a machine as complex as a jet airliner.
Well the parts that rolls Royce used were correct the problem was when they put the new fuel pump in the hoses that connected from the fuel pump to the combustion chamber were not fastened to a bracket so what happened was the hose that started rubbing up against the bracket and it severed the holes line allowing gas to flow back into the wing so even though they were getting readings a few will be in consumed that wasn't going into the engine it was just kind of like a loop back into the wing
That was an amazing job! An enormous glider indeed. The award was well deserved. - No leak warning seems astonishing, given how vital noticing that fault is
I am glad this situation ended well despite all the odds. Fantastic storytelling as well. Thumbs up!
My first flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii we were ready to take off and had to leave the runway so they could fuel the plane. This is how close we were to taking off without enough fuel. Doesn’t seem this is possible but seems to happen often.
was on a flight where they filled the left engine and the right one was close to empty causing an imbalance lol, this same flight kept us onboard for an additional 45 minutes after it landed from SFO tro Chicago because they couldn't open the door and had to have maintenance get it open. United airlines ftw lol
I didn't think I'd be so emotional but this one got me. I am literally in tears. I cannot imgaine what the pilot, the first officer and everyone on the plane went through that night. I am so happy that everyone surivied.
I have been on 8 different flights ✈️ in past 6 months and I think about this every time I get on board. It's scary to think just like that you're going down,good job on the pilots
Fun fact: The top three longest glides in an not purpose built aircraft are
Air Transat 236
Air Canada 143
British Airways 009
(Note that all of these incidents had NO fatalities with a total of 638 lives saved)
What does this say? Canada has the best glider pilots in the business
True. Or let's say best glider pilots without fuel awareness. Gimli glider was an exception but this incident shouldn't have happened. It was just 2 relaxed pilots relying on the modern technology and at the same time don't believe their modern sensors.
*Quebec
What it really says is that all other pilots know how to read a fuel gauge.
@@bobhenry6159 In fairness, the Gimli Glider had a BROKEN fuel gauge.
@@marhawkman303 true! Could've been avoided by proper checking of the fuel delivery receipt but human error factor justified the undetected shortage in fuel.
In Transat incident, I just see two pilots relying on a modern sophisticated system and at the same time not relying on their modern and sophisticated sensors of the same system. They were too relaxed for a transatlantic flight. The fact that they were offset to the south helped them to reach the runway otherwise the story would ended completely different.
This was truly terrifying, the dark, quiet cabin made me physically react.
Amazing that the pilots made it to land safely and that a huge airplane can glide for so long!
as soon as I saw the fuel imbalance, I would not have diverted fuel from one side to the other, I would have waited to see if the imbalance continued, that alone would have told me if there was a fuel leak on the right side without having to do anything, the right engine would have eventually died out
Great video! I didn’t know if it would end terribly or not and I’m so glad it had a happy ending. Thanks for the thorough retelling of this amazing incident.
This has always been one of my biggest fears. On top of being in the air AND over the ocean, landing into the ocean is enough for me to pass out lol. I've always wanted to go to Europe but it's the fact of flying over the ocean that creeps me out. Idk how famous people do it week after week.
Same like you. I hate long flights
Flew from Atlanta to Honolulu when we left the west coast over San Diego I said to myself that is a lot of deep blue water and nothing else
You have two options, firstly count the flights between Europe and North America, and note just how few have any sort of problem, secondly, fly via Iceland where there are much smaller distances over water between airports and land. Whilst nothing is perfect, you are at more danger using the roads than flying across the Atlantic.
It's not the crashing tho is it? It's the feeling that u would survive alone in the dark in the ocean😩
@@BipoIarbear Uh, no. . . for me, it's the crashing. And finding your luggage in a situation like that is also quite frightening.
Listening to this chilling narrative was like reading a thriller. Kudos to the pilot and captain for a marvelous job.
A fine Québécois with nerves of steel and an incredible pilot......
I was living there when this happened. I was a kid though. My dad was stationed there and I lived with him. I don't remember much but I remember it happening and I remember our food supply was effected. But thats about it.
I'm in the AF now and the base is a skeleton crew. I kinda hope to go back one day. Great memories there. I truly miss the Azores.
Little note the THS (trimable horizontabl stab) you talked about at 16:25 would have been powered by the emergency blue system and therefore controlable by the pilots. On the pitch axis they lost one actuator for the THS wich is powered by blue and yellow and one complete elevator (the right one) powered by green and yellow! The other elevator was still controlable with one blue actuator.
Such a great video!!! Even though I’ve heard about and watched many videos of this exact incident, you did such a phenomenal job telling the story that I was on the edge of my seat wondering if the plane would land or not. Great job!!!🤩
Same here & a gripper!
A gifted speaker plus someone, him or team member, is a very good writer-editor.
Superb content, really liked the flight deck limited lighting effect. Pilot side only. Quality work.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it 🙌
Same. Usually I only watch an incident once "know the story" type thing, but this one was suspenseful even knowing the outcome.
Human error/demonic..
Not only an emergency situation was handled expertly with incorrect assumptions made about the situation by the pilot but he managed to do a 360 and set a record while he was at it.
An absolute masterful landing in an improbable situation. Haven't gotten to the end but I hope he got some kind of metal for having the knowledge, skill and gargantuan pendulous nads to handle the situation.
I am in awe of the skill these pilots possess