@@ShaunHensley Yeah, but then a lot of us would have known we saw this one before - like me. I figured a 20yr old ATC somehow brought it down…pretty creative, actually. Except instead of a mistake, now it rises to the level of overt deception.
_Criminal negligence, causing death._ An honest mistake is an honest mistake, but not doing the repair as instructed, and then lying about it, is absolutely criminal.
I'm still amazed that investigators can sift through a mountain of debris and come up with the cause of the incident. It's needle in a haystack stuff. Great work.
It tskes pandering RUclips videos to remind you to do the job correctly? You have to be entertained by the mistakes of others so that you can do things the way they're supposed to br done? Wow.
@Gavin Valentino Your reply does not match ANYTHING in Eric Rolland's comment. At all. You are truly pandering to your intentional-and-malicious-distortion-imagination to feel like you are superior to others. We must all learn from your pathetic ego crash-and-burn so we stay humble and remember to be thorough and efficient in life.
Yes and let’s see anyone being held liable for this catastrophy. You are talking about the Chinese govt, so you would have a tough time in a country that is not governed by laws and lawyers. Mechanics, there, are told what they can do regardless of manuals.
I was a corporate pilot for 35 years and I always went down to the maintenance shop when the 3 engine jet I flew everywhere around the planet was having routine maintenance and non-routine repairs were being done. From brake jobs to radio work. I was there! I’m now retired and am 68yo and I never scratched an airplane or scratched a person!
Your eyes on the maintenance and any repairs put a human attachment to the plane. I'm guessing that made a big difference when the mechanics were working on it.
@@smudgey1kenobey In the USAF, they have complete shops dedicated to everything from pneudraulics to sheet metal, and each electronic system has its own specialty, such as navigation, radar, and Comm. Another shop handles nothing but instruments, while another handles only life support systems. It'd definitely not like an auto shop.
@@nickisnyder3450 I doubt it would make any difference whether your can eject or not if the plane breaks up into pieces mid-air ... at supersonic speed ...
I bet. A lot of people don't even realize that, at those speeds, the *air itself* might as well be a solid force, constantly buffeting and scraping over the plane like an endless sandstorm. I have no clue what kind of wizardry you guys use to weld or bolt pieces of metal together so they can withstand that kind of constant stress and friction, but it's pretty amazing.
... Could you imagine the twisting feeling in your stomach and how much fear they must have had knowing that the plane and simply split into pieces and now you're free falling from thousands of feet and there's nothing you can do except see the ground getting closer and closer... I feel so bad for those people.
If it helps you feel better, at 35,000ft the air pressure is so low and thin with barely any oxygen that you lose consciousness within seconds. Most, if not all people probably never regained consciousness after the break up. Still though... Extremely scary no matter how you science it.
@@madezra64 Time of useful consciousness (means you can do things like fly a plane) is 30 seconds to 1 minute at 35,000 feet. By the time you hit that mark, you're already at 20,000 feet, at which is 30+ minutes of useful consciousness. Basically, it's very likely that most passengers didn't lose consciousness, but they'd probably be confused and drowsy toward the end of the fall.
@@derp195 While the oxygen amount at 35,000ft equates to 30 or so seconds of useful consciousness, it however does not account for trauma of explosive depressurization. If you're at 35,000ft and the plane rips in half, 99% of everyone onboard is going to be knocked out from the immediate drop in pressure, on top of that you're going to be hit by 600+MPH of wind which even that by itself would also render you unconscious almost instantly. You would have the immediate trauma of massive depressurization combined with the forces your body experiences while being flung around the now disintegrating airplane. You will be knocked out within a couple seconds after the combined trauma of everything your body is now experiencing. Time of useful consciousness is calculated based on how long you could technically function if your oxygen was reduced at that level. It does not take into consideration the explosive decompression, or the forces slamming into your body.
The pilots who knew how to survive in WWII used to make the mechanic go on the first flight after a repair. Amazingly, some extra checks would suddenly need to be made on the repair work.
This is why I never skip doing anything that protocol ask for. I've seen lazy techs doing the bare minimum and getting fired just only a few months later when the logs did not match the work. I worked in the IT field, so it is a good thing no lives were spent, but for something like this that lives depend on, never skip out on protocol.
Same with cars (as I have never worked on planes but I remember driving my car after getting a tire replaced and the wheel ending up falling off. I was so lucky as it finally fell off as I turned into a parking lot because my car was shaking so much. And I had just come off the express way going at 100km/hr.
Pencil-whipping maintenance procedures has killed a lot of people over the years, and the culprits are almost never held accountable, as by that time, they have usually left their positions or retired. In this case, it took over 20 years for their laziness, or their supervisor's stinginess, to come back to haunt them.
"The workers did this, the workers did that..." Why no consideration that the orders came from their superiors? Or that the improper repair was the only way to meet unrealistic targets set by someone in an office somewhere? "Do it my way or else" is a management culture that I think we're all familiar with...
Keep in mind this is just a silly TV show. It's documented in the final report that CAL management ordered the repair to be accomplished knowing it did not comply with the Boeing SRM.
@@Stephanie-we5ep Agreed, and to Conrad Anderson as well. It's a very, very silly TV show, I'm disappointed that this stuff is starting to compete with the excellent indie documentaries native to RUclips.
A pure COPY of Japan air flight 123 that happened 17 years earlier - when you make a repair, don't even quarter-ass it because it might take years (or even decades), but eventually it'll catch up and people will die.
They played Russian Roulette with the people ! Absolutely horrific ! Actually , I can't even think of a word that describes this negligent, unnecessary rushed job. From now on people, when repairing or inspecting and passing inspection imagine u or a loved one being subjected to Russian Roulette!
I’m a retired A&P mechanic and I can tell you that anytime I did a major repair I would ask myself, would I fly on this aircraft or let my family fly on this aircraft? If in doubt get a second opinion. Also following the Aircraft manufacturer manuals to the letter is paramount with no if ands or buts allowed.
I did similar for military aircraft C141A&B. 1979 through 1984. Went on to sunway signal repair maintainer then sanitation & retirement. Shortcuts don't work in maintenance. Keep the blue side up.
I flew flight 611 half a dozen times every time I did a biz trip to China. It was the connecting flight between Taipei and Hong Kong. It was this exact same plane, same registration number by the door. China Air had this plane assigned to run the heavy traffic flights between Hong Kong and Taipei.. it just flew this route, back and forth several times each day. The morning leg out of Taipei to Hong Kong was always labeled flight 611. It was the exact same crew every morning. I was on flight 611, on this very plane, the morning before it crashed. I flew it so often I knew the stewardess in business class by name and they knew me. It was a shock to see the news the next day and know those sweet young women had died on the very next 611 leg. Had I booked my trip one day later… I would have been with them.
Someone commented in one of the videos that these are made for glorifying NTSB, and their work. I’m like, so what if it glorifies them? They do an admirable job, they are superbly professional about it and they have probably saved hundreds if not thousands of lives just through their investigations. This is one damn good American agency and let’s keep it that way for the sake of safety!
That's good enough is what rules the world. In fact, in this day and age it's the gold standard for excellence. Don't believe me? Just ask the average American voter. Smdh
These poor aviators, god rest their soul and everyone onboard, literally nothing they could do about it, when they took off, it was already decided. :(
@@reckontonottobemovedChrist’s gospel spans the seven continents. Don’t assume something about people you never met. The lord God has called people from all corners of the world to serve him. Cultural Christianity is a lie.
@@Dhaze1983 Nothing wrong with you. Isn't is just "facing down our fears ?" Unspoken fear has power over us. Speaking them out & facing them cuts "fear down to size". Consider just how RARE these crashes are, literally a .000001 chance of death or injury. We take a 1000x greater risk simply driving to the Airport ! Plus, God Almighty 'has our back' - He promises to "never leave or forsake ALL who call upon My name". So leave the worry in God's good hands & have an excellent safe FUN flight ✈️🛫!
My daughter, the night before taking a flight, watched one of those Air Port Crash Movies. I would have been a very nervous Airplane flyer if I had watched the Movie and flown the next day!
Very similar to the Japan Airlines crash years before, also as the result of a bad tail strike repair. Over 500 passengers died in that crash but unfortunately, airlines didn’t learn from this catastrophe.
Somchai: It‘s not that they don‘t learn, but that they don‘t care or get paid enough to think the repairs made might not be enough to hold as needed! 😮
Which is also a sign that this show overly dramatizes certain things. Such as the great mystery of what brought down this plane? The CVR told them more then the show implies. The last real sound in the cockpit is a chime that the plane has reached cruising altitude. 34,000 feet. So it’s reached max stress on the pressure vessel. At that moment they want to rule out a bomb, but their immediate biggest suspicion is failure of the pressure vessel. As soon as they worked out that it started in the rear they immediately would put “tail strike” at the top of their list. JAL123 was and is the nightmare case for air crash investigators. It’s the one they are always fearful of and always thinking about. Really I’m sure from the moment they got that simulation report the only questions they had was was it a failed tail strike repair? Or did the rear cargo door fail? With tail strike being the leading suspect due to how much of the tail came apart early. It is scary because you never really know how many of these things are out there?
Very sad story. I watch your programs to be aware of dangers that can occur if maintenance is not done right. As a firefighter we cannot have our equipment mess up at a fire.
Oh god don't remind me of the year bad air in a few fire departments killed a few firefighters one 2 of the 3 firefighters that went into the water barely came out alive they got that thing forget the name of when come up to quickly in the water without stopping the third guy they believe had got caught on something they had gone in the water to retrieve a body of a man that had drowned and he had tried to get one of his buddies attention but at that point they were all running out of air so the guy didn't notice I forget what the cause was both firefighters would make it that reached the surface a day later they went to retrieve the 2 bodies and another station lost a few firefighters who ran into the same problem not enough air or there was something wrong with the tanks I don't remember oh ik is there was funerals for a few weeks because of that tank problem till they finally figured out what caused their deaths
A lot of people make this childish mistake. They assume that because they view a job as important that the person doing the job is special and above what literally every other person does. Everybody gets complacent in their job. McDonald's worker, doctor, don't matter.
I know flying is the safest way to travel, but the crashes are horrifying, especially when you know it's going down, sometimes for minutes, it's a terrifying thought.
You don't even need to ask the mechanics. After the Boeing 737 Max problems were discovered, the people building Boeing's planes admitted they don't trust riding in the planes they built.
That mechanic most likely would feel comfortable. Most likely this is an error of judgement/evaluation of the situation rather than cutting corners. Are cracks too deep or are they shallow enough?
I was an aircraft mechanic and had all the confidence to fly my own fixins' and did. I had buddies who have flown the same crafts. I knew pilots who flew them too. I always double check any repair we were responsible for. In military down time was not as critical money wise. Except combat times. Pilots rushed a plane for quick turn around.
Chinese made things suck they don't last but communism who use children god the Democrats love child labor since they support these child labor countries
Around 39:00 when they’re ‘riveting’ the panel back on, they’re missing a few parts on the rivet gun! :). Close enuf for demonstration purposes, I guess - only a sheetmetal nerd would notice.
Also, a lot of the radio chatter isn't correct. Starting at 1:46, a "descend and maintain" instruction should be preceded by the airplane you're addressing (e.g. a flight number) and followed by an actual altitude.
@@ryokufox2281 same. Also when they removed the doubler and the rivet was not even bucked. Rivet gun was missing tip & containment spring, but also made drill sound not the taping/hammering sound.
It wasn't a mistake. It was a deliberate failure to follow procedures. And they knew what they were doing was wrong or they wouldn't have covered it up.
This begs the question: What is a reasonable service life for something that is basically just a large aluminum container? How many thousands of expansion/contraction cycles are acceptable for thin aluminum sheet metal panels that are riveted together to form an enormous tube? Logically, there has to be some scientific formula to calculate how many times the fuselage of these huge jetliners can be pressurized before cracks can reasonably be expected to start forming. Visually examining these internal panels is obviously not possible, and the technology to accurately inspect an entire aircraft in a timely and effective manner does not yet exist. Its nothing short of a miracle that these catastrophic failures do not happen more often given that these planes are flown for tens of thousands of hours over several decades of brutal use. Improper repairs notwithstanding
30 years is the typical expected service life of a commercial aircraft. Also, the entire aircraft structure is inspected for defects using real-time-radiography on a time controlled basis. This technology has existed for decades.
Not a structural expert, but from my understanding of basic Fatigue, the number of cycles to failure depends on the stress level, the higher the stress level, the smaller number of cycles to failure.
Look at Aloha air lines flight 243 , 35,000 flight hours and nearly 90,000 flight cycles on that air frame before it burst. They aren't rated for anywhere near that many cycles . If they are repaired properly and not used long after they should have been retired , the fuselages are extremely resilient .
There is , I believe, a formula for airplane life based on Pressure Cycles, but in the case of the Hawaiian Airlines flight, they forgot about Corrosion of being by the Ocean (the flight that lost it's top in the first third just behind the Pilot Cabin). (Your post was on the Video about the China Flight 611 that broke up 747 in air).
The patch was barely larger than the damaged area; but they said the scratches and cracks grew slowly over time. Why weren't the expanding scratches showing up outside the perimeter of the patch? There should have been some evidence of cracking beyond the unexposed section of the repair patch at some point.
Inspectors tend to "sluff by" the repair points figuring they are done already so lets look at another area of the plane. Human nature. "Grog killed the animal with his club" No need for you to bash its skull in AGAIN. Dead is Dead....type of thinking.
Fun fact: Any pilot whose gonna fly internationally must speak fluent English. It's the language of pilots. It's the same for ATC operators, they must also speak fluent English. In the tower and cockpit they can speak their native language all they want, but over radio and anything flight related, such as checklists, it has to be English. It's a requirement of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
i am not into this type of career, i think am only good at washing dishes, but after seeing a lot of these videos, i think i am more capable now, to apply as a lead investigator of any flight crash.
You're certainly qualified to reconstruct any incidents where a plate or saucer accidental falls off the table, which can be catastrophic if the contents of that saucer or plate is such that it causes someone to slip and fall as a result possibly leading to death because someone hit their head on the corner of a sharp corner resulting from the devasting spill. Now let us pray 🙏.
No, the plane was fine with a proper cut & patch. The plane broke apart because the improper patch failed at high altitude, causing the plane to break apart. If the patch had failed at low altitude, the plane's inside atmosphere wouldn't have pressurized, and the crew would return to the airport to figure out the problem.
Sitting on the tarmac inside a china air plane we were delayed for over 2 hours. While sitting there I felt vibrations and bumps resembling people working on the plane and sounds of grinding and a large impact wrench. They were making repairs with over 200 passengers on board. I never flew China air again.
probably was the food truck, honey bucket truck or fuel truck topping off the plane. Doesn't take much for anyone to feel small bumps, and opening of doors, and listening to hydrolic lifts on the trucks. I highly doubt anyone was doing major repairs while people were sitting in the aircraft.
You wouldn't have to be a certified airplane maintenance engineer to know that a doubler should be substantially larger than the damaged area it's covering. The repair wasn't done correctly, but if the doubler had been larger the plane may have held together for another 5 months, until the second part of the inspection, when the doubler would have been removed, and the faulty repair exposed.
This happens more than you think. Questionable repairs happen constantly. Sometimes, the workmen know the repair is not going to hold and they would rather not log the repair at all than to take any credit for it, because they know it will fail. I've seen it more often than I care to mention.
@@ElTee842 He might have but .. sometimes even the bosses don't care sadly. Can't say the bosses did not know. I mean, a stain like that 44:33 was pretty evident. They chose not to investigate it.
I flew on this same exact airplane, the only passenger 747-200 in their fleet. I flew from Taipei CKS airport. This was basically a shuttle flight. I still have a photo of the pocket card. I always took a photo of pocket cards and my ticket stub.
Are airplane maintenance records public? If you can get a carfax, you should be able to get a planefax. Just the ability to view those records would light a fire under the airlines to keep perfect records for their entire fleet.
If you wanted to go over a specific airplane's records before boarding it, there's very little chance you'd finish before the airplane is retired from service. There's an aphorism in the aviation industry that an airplane isn't actually legal to fly until the paperwork on it weighs more than the plane itself.
And you'd probably never figure out anything bad anyways. As a mechanic it would take me forever to go through the logs to see if everything was concurrent. Between horrible penmanship and cryptic entries it's tough. I once found a entry that was just "Replaced p/n:XXXXXXX ". I looked it up and it was the entire left wing assembly, so in other words the plane had most likely had some kind of accident that necessitated a new wing, but they didn't want that clearly in the logs if they were to sell it.
Knew someone who participated in airline crash analysis and diagnostics. It was incredibly sobering to hear the intense scrutiny of each tiny piece recovered. The efforts to recover everything are incredible especially underwater.
I’d like to give props to the person who knows the English language well enough to attempt to write titles. English is said to be one of the most difficult languages to learn . To know one’s own language and to learn another is an achievement!
An age old phenomenon. The Jethros only informed enough to know HOW to do something decided they knew enough to say "That's dumb. It's just a beauty patch. Just gitr done and say you followed the Poindexters' instructions." The Poindexters, the ones who know WHY you do it that way.
I have flown across the pacific ocean 8 times and these type of things are always on my mind it would be a terrifying ordeal to be involved in one of these crashes
Hundreds of flights cross the oceans of the world every single day. Because of the volume of passengers and their size we worry about their safety. But between 1982 and 2019 only 47,719 fatalities occurred. Consider how many flights happened in that time. Now consider that roughly 1.3 million people die due to cars every single year. And start worrying more about crossing the street than crossing an ocean.
@Interitus1 You're right, but most people will always worry more about flying than driving because 1.We drive far more than we fly (normalcy bias); 2. It's simply unnatural for humans to be up so high from the Earth.
During my 24 years in the USAF, the number of repairs that were signed off and verified by a second person, and never completed, was unacceptable. Some folks don’t take it seriously
The proper procedure was to cut away the damaged skin, and "double" a larger area. They did "double skin", though not sufficiently large an area, without cutting away the damaged area beneath. I can see how having too small a patch could lead to eventual failure, but it seems to me that having the inner layer, however ineffectual, should only provide some additional support ... at the cost of a little extra weight. ... OK< as soon as I re-started the video, my questions were explained. :-)
allowing the damaged material is what lead to the catastrophic failure. The microfractures continued to spread every time the metal was stress. If the damaged area was removed, there would been no fractures to spread.
I've watched enough of these to now know if something goes wrong on a flight I can advise the crew lol This series is well done. They stick to the actual recordings for the scripts, interviews with the actual participants and experts and they don't dumb down the investigation for viewers. Dramatization is kept to a reasonable degree. Sometimes they do a little too much flashy editing but it isn't terrible.
It's so crazy to watch this and realize that I've seen the other episode about the Turkish airlines crash, explaining why the floor has different dados...
there is serious metal fatigue on all the load bearing members, the wiring is substandard and totally inadequate for our power needs, and the neighborhood is like a demilitarized zone.
You make me feel old!! I started working for AA in 1987.. I totally remember asking passengers if they preferred smoking or no smoking. As I too was a smoker back then, I remember flying in first class with a cigarette in one hand, and a bloody Mary in the other hand!
My guess on this is investigators were on to the fact that this aircraft had previously suffered structural damage before any wreckage was brought up. I think they were waiting and hoping those specific pieces would be recovered. Its a somewhat different order than portrayed here.
I have been working as an aircraft mechanic since 1992. I have heard stories that would shock you. Like a main spare (the thing the wing is built on) being heavily corroded and the mechanics just used bondo to cover it up. That happened in Israel.
I don't know. But it seems like undue pressurisation may have been a routine factor. Total time in air is one and a half hours to travel 450 miles across a wide open sea. Why do you need to shoot for 35,000 ft in that short a distance. That's almost straight up and straight down. Probably not at altitude for more than a half hour max. Spent a lot of years working on a lot of acft including 747s and sometimes they just create their own misery. The "C" and "D" checks are fairly extended and long winded but the "Work Cards" are routinely pinched for time. If you take more time than allowed on the card regardless of clear necessity you will get "released."
If he thinks that mechanics don't think about the people that will ride the aircraft, he hasn't talked to enough good mechanics. Good mechanics know and care.
My experience working in car dealers, suggest "good" describes about 30 percent of mechanics in that category, another 60% are just parts changers, the other 10%, no mechanical aptitude... just there for the money. 🙁
Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend China airlines, as a Taiwanese, like the safety record is definitely terrible, and service weren’t great either. The two times I flew on it, the fa’s were definitely looking like they didn’t want to be there. I fly with Eva air, another airline of Taiwan, but it’s a private airlines, so it is definitely more expensive, but premium service, and no accident since its start, no hull loss, safety risks etc.
I love how the rivet gun made a drill sound when riveting in the doubler. Oh and those scratches are through the cladding. That means the aluminum alloy below was oxidizing and weakening. No mention of ultrasonic inspection, only visual. If I did this kind of work I would be walked out and charged with sabotage.
The title is incorrect. It should be "A 20 year old mistake" and a "20 years old mistake" The implication is the mistake was done by a 20 year old person, and not a 20 year old mistake.
In my trade, the only systems that have bearing on safety are steering and braking. I wouldnt want to be an A&P (airframe and powerplant for those who dont know) mechanic. Any one of thousands of things on hundreds of systems which are done incorrectly (or not done at all) can potentially cause a fatal accident. You cant pull off to the side of the road at 35,000 feet if something fails. ANY and ALL issues that I find are repaired on steering and braking systems. It boggles the mind that someone would even consider doing a mickey-mouse repair on ANY aircraft, even if its a single engine Cessna.
@@oahuhawaii2141 That was the problem in this case. Instead of checking the manual and realizing the damage was severe enough to require replacement of the entire damaged section, they threw a doubler plate on it and called it good. None of the redundant systems commonly found on commercial aircraft would have prevented disaster in this case. The further failure to thoroughly inspect the area near the repair when obvious nicotine stains from escaping cabin air were found doomed the aircraft with considerable loss of life. Do it right....or DONT do it at all. If I were a pilot doing a walkaround and detected ANY issues, I would refuse to fly the aircraft until inspected by a qualified engineer/technician.
@@donreinke5863: It's possible the A&P techs didn't fully understand the manual, and decided to "wing it" when they saw that the section was too big to cut out. They sanded down the deep grooves from the tail strike, and put in a patch that was too small. It's possible that if you refused to fly that plane, the techs who are called in to examine the patch will say the fix is fine, since they don't know the problem that lay underneath the patch. They would rely on the maintenance logs (which claimed the fix was done according to the manual), and not remove the patch to reveal the problem.
@@oahuhawaii2141 Possibly, but seeing strange discoloration from the edges of the doubler plate would raise concern at least to me, but I am very used to noticing things that are out of the ordinary and according to the video the staining was quite obvious. It reminds me of the incident where a Hawaiian airline was flying an ancient 737 apparently between two of the islands and a large portion of the upper fuselage simply broke apart in flight. Against all odds that plane landed successfully, although one person was sucked out while it was at altitude. Supposedly, there is technology that allows the aluminum "skin" to be analyzed even under a repair, but I doubt it was available at that time
Just shows how unacceptable cutting corners when it comes to stuff like this is. Basically, the fact that they believed that they could just hide the scratches and cover it with a plate THAT WASN'T BIG ENOUGH was just something not even I could imagine a lazy maintenance worker do, at least if he knew the dangers. And the fact that that plane was up for about 22 years meant the damage only got worse as it got stressed even more and more. Probably should have just retired that plane.
I marvel, all the time, at how much we grow. Too often, we blame repair crews for how things go wrong. But we must understand, they are only doing what they have been taught. If one can say there is a "good" thing that happens here, it is that by really looking at what has gone wrong, it is that, the more we know, the less such catastrophies will happen. Every time I see one of these, I still pray for the people gone on. That God took them quickly Home.
I remember this because it was 8 months after 9/11 here in the US. There was a crash a month after 9/11 too. It was a really bad time. I just hope they didn't know what was happening
Yeah, that one right after 9/11 was American Airlines Flight 587. The first thought on everyone's mind was terrorism but it turned out to be bad procedures for handling wake turbulence.
@@fn0rd-f5o dude obviously they knew. I said I “hope”. Do you just come on RUclips to comment on other peoples comments in an ignorant fashion? There is no need to be a troll.
It's crazy to think that any plane no matter how expensive it is to create can be allowed to fly for more than 20 years, no matter how much and how good you can repair a plane, without completely replacing every part of the plane to be a new plane anyways there is no way you can be sure without any doubt at all that a plane can still be trusted to not have an incident after 20 years, no matter how severe.
This and the one describing the JAL 747 crash should be mandatory views at all AP schools around the world. I'm an aerospace engineer and a mechanic, and have had second hand experience of instances such as these. Integrity is as critical as competence, perhaps even more so. RIP all victims, some of whom had a horribly slow deaths having had seconds lasting hours to contemplate their imminent demise.
It’s called smoking rivets, it lets a mechanic know, if he is observant and know what he is looking at, it is telling him the rivets are loosening their grip strength. Which holds the skin to the Skelton Frame 49:18 work. Just like the titanic, when the iceberg slid down the side of the ship, it scraped the bulb head rivet off which then caused the skin to open up and let the water in. In an airplane it’s the air going out. That’s why aircraft should only have a life time of 20 years.😮
The skin opened on the Titanic because the cast iron rivets cannot handle any movement in the plating(and there was over 5 mm movement when the side of the ship hit the berg. Then the next one also popped beside it and it ripped along like a zipper. the Cast Iron rivets were used near the bow of the ship because they are more like putty when red hot so hand pounding was possible. The workers were also given a lower grade iron rivet(a #3 instead of #4)(with more impurities making it weaker) In the middle they used steel rivets. They have managed to salvage some of the rivets from the Titanic and put through an electron microscope. If it never hit a berg it would be still plying the waters. (or put in a naval museum) or sent to the bottom by a soviet or German sub. Or be in a breaking yard being broken down to make another ship.
This is why I believe all repairs should be made public. So any one can look up the service records of any aircraft they may fly on! And then on top of the crappy repair, how did anyone miss the growing cracks. If the doubler was too small, the cracks would have been growing outside of the doubler!! This is absurd this could even happen. This is total incompetence and neglect.
The 747 was one the best planes ever built. I think they should have kept building them. With proper maintenance, this just proves on how reliable the plane really was.
I used to work on technical manuals for aircraft. We went to extreme lengths to ensure the manuals were correct because we knew that an incorrect manual could lead to an incorrect repair leading to the loss of an aircraft.
An improperly repaired Boeing 747 derivative flying for an Asian carrier falling victim to fatigue cracks, both having essential parts fall off mid-air (in Dynasty 611's case, the whole thing disintegrated) and were involved in prior tailstrike incidents. Save for some differences as the way they fell from the sky, it's almost a spitting image of the JAL123 incident that occurred 17 years earlier. And the funny thing is that CI611 was hastily patched up a mere 7 years after that 747SR-46 went down near Ueno.
38:52 the reenactment of the doubler installation is how I envision it really happen. One row of rivets that are smaller diameter than the hole and somehow shooting the rivet without a universal set in the rivet gun. Also somehow that rivet gun sounded like a screw runner. As a structures guy with 27 years experience, looks legit 😂😂
I'm amazed that investigators can figure out what happened to a plane just from scraps. I'm glad it gives the family some closure. However in this particular case, to blame the maintenance engineer after a patch fails, after 22 YEARS. I would say a patch that last 22 years is a pretty good patch. These planes are regularly inspected and nobody caught it later. I'm sure there are pressure tests of each section to find weak spots. How long is a patch supposed to last?
This was aired in 2002... the way to suggest this is to them direct. They focus on commercial airlines and effects on the industry. I could have sworn they did military episodes but that may be Secondd from Disaster
What would you like to see more of on the OFFICIAL Mayday: Air Disaster channel?
Not really, I mean you can't even get the sound that a turboprop right, let alone a multi-engine.
Thank you for bringing us Reason No. 572 ... Why we should not fly ... ;-)
@@yarrlegap6940 No did Boeing way, they did Cheap-Charley way!
Incidents with survivors, I think.
I thought she had crossed eyes, too.
I'm just realizing I read the title wrong I thought a 20 year old caused the disaster 🤦🏻♀️
You didn’t misread the title, it was miswritten
@1:44 says 22 years not 20
@@sebcharb7313 ‘A mistake made 20 years prior causes flight 611 to disappear.’ , is the way to write the title.
Me too!
@@ShaunHensley Yeah, but then a lot of us would have known we saw this one before - like me. I figured a 20yr old ATC somehow brought it down…pretty creative, actually. Except instead of a mistake, now it rises to the level of overt deception.
The fact that plane flew relatively perfectly for 20 years with all that structural damage is actually incredible.
And makes this crash that much more reckless and negligent.
_Criminal negligence, causing death._
An honest mistake is an honest mistake, but not doing the repair as instructed,
and then lying about it, is absolutely criminal.
This isn't regular manslaughter. This is *advanced* manslaughter.
Exactly , lied about it and tragedy happened when it could’ve been avoided by proper repairs
There's a saying on many aviation safety bulletin boards in hangars around the world. It says, "If you think safety is expensive...try an accident."
THERE YOU GO, CORRECT 100% - another saying, "You think Education is expensive, Try Ignorance"
@@bobbycv64 hay ! You talkn to me?
@@Louis-qi1gz ???
@@bobbycv64 yeah , I was just kidding around with ya 👍
@@bobbycv64 it's been a long hard week 🙄
It’s amazing to think even though repairs were unsatisfactory the plane still endured 22 years more of pressurization 😵💫
It shows how much safety margin they give on their recommendations, but for good reason.
which is rare for planes.
And the airline was so close to discovering the issue.
As an engineer that has worked in Asia, I'll say Safety is not first :)
@@Tracert-mc1hu Ju u
I'm still amazed that investigators can sift through a mountain of debris and come up with the cause of the incident. It's needle in a haystack stuff. Great work.
As someone in this field, these videos keep me humble and remind me to be as thorough as I possibly can.
Same here
That is very refreshing to hear. Keep up the great work! Any time someone says "Good enough" smack them.
SO-VERY-WELL-SAID!!
It tskes pandering RUclips videos to remind you to do the job correctly? You have to be entertained by the mistakes of others so that you can do things the way they're supposed to br done?
Wow.
@Gavin Valentino Your reply does not match ANYTHING in Eric Rolland's comment. At all. You are truly pandering to your intentional-and-malicious-distortion-imagination to feel like you are superior to others. We must all learn from your pathetic ego crash-and-burn so we stay humble and remember to be thorough and efficient in life.
Could you imagine having your name on that repair and the FAA calling you 20 years later?
There's criminal liability attached to this
The FAA has no authority in Taiwan (ROC).
I was thinking that too. They need to be held accountable. Involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide.
Yes and let’s see anyone being held liable for this catastrophy. You are talking about the Chinese govt, so you would have a tough time in a country that is not governed by laws and lawyers. Mechanics, there, are told what they can do regardless of manuals.
@@marinazagrai1623 ding ding ding
That’s why you do the job the right way to begin with
I was a corporate pilot for 35 years and I always went down to the maintenance shop when the 3 engine jet I flew everywhere around the planet was having routine maintenance and non-routine repairs were being done. From brake jobs to radio work. I was there! I’m now retired and am 68yo and I never scratched an airplane or scratched a person!
How many did you crash though, that's the real question!
Your eyes on the maintenance and any repairs put a human attachment to the plane.
I'm guessing that made a big difference when the mechanics were working on it.
You never had an itch in your 68 years?
Go back to bed sleepy. You are childish.
Aha
As a retired jet fighter mechanic, I can tell you it's even more critical to get it right the 1st time on a plane that can fly at Mach 2, or more.
You must be so stressed at work with the high stakes? Do you have the support to do the best repairs possible?
@@smudgey1kenobey In the USAF, they have complete shops dedicated to everything from pneudraulics to sheet metal, and each electronic system has its own specialty, such as navigation, radar, and Comm. Another shop handles nothing but instruments, while another handles only life support systems. It'd definitely not like an auto shop.
Define "more"? Considering that a jet has only 1 occupant who can eject, verses a plane full of hundreds of people who have no access to a parachute.
@@nickisnyder3450 I doubt it would make any difference whether your can eject or not if the plane breaks up into pieces mid-air ... at supersonic speed ...
I bet. A lot of people don't even realize that, at those speeds, the *air itself* might as well be a solid force, constantly buffeting and scraping over the plane like an endless sandstorm. I have no clue what kind of wizardry you guys use to weld or bolt pieces of metal together so they can withstand that kind of constant stress and friction, but it's pretty amazing.
... Could you imagine the twisting feeling in your stomach and how much fear they must have had knowing that the plane and simply split into pieces and now you're free falling from thousands of feet and there's nothing you can do except see the ground getting closer and closer... I feel so bad for those people.
If it helps you feel better, at 35,000ft the air pressure is so low and thin with barely any oxygen that you lose consciousness within seconds. Most, if not all people probably never regained consciousness after the break up. Still though... Extremely scary no matter how you science it.
Code brown!
@@madezra64 Time of useful consciousness (means you can do things like fly a plane) is 30 seconds to 1 minute at 35,000 feet.
By the time you hit that mark, you're already at 20,000 feet, at which is 30+ minutes of useful consciousness.
Basically, it's very likely that most passengers didn't lose consciousness, but they'd probably be confused and drowsy toward the end of the fall.
@@derp195 While the oxygen amount at 35,000ft equates to 30 or so seconds of useful consciousness, it however does not account for trauma of explosive depressurization. If you're at 35,000ft and the plane rips in half, 99% of everyone onboard is going to be knocked out from the immediate drop in pressure, on top of that you're going to be hit by 600+MPH of wind which even that by itself would also render you unconscious almost instantly. You would have the immediate trauma of massive depressurization combined with the forces your body experiences while being flung around the now disintegrating airplane. You will be knocked out within a couple seconds after the combined trauma of everything your body is now experiencing. Time of useful consciousness is calculated based on how long you could technically function if your oxygen was reduced at that level. It does not take into consideration the explosive decompression, or the forces slamming into your body.
Speed, air pressure air temperature violent break up. I would only guess that they would be unconscious instantly.
The pilots who knew how to survive in WWII used to make the mechanic go on the first flight after a repair. Amazingly, some extra checks would suddenly need to be made on the repair work.
The moral of this story is honesty and integrity, as opposed to the quick and easy.
But PROFIT over ALL😂😂😂😂😂😂
This is why I never skip doing anything that protocol ask for. I've seen lazy techs doing the bare minimum and getting fired just only a few months later when the logs did not match the work. I worked in the IT field, so it is a good thing no lives were spent, but for something like this that lives depend on, never skip out on protocol.
Same with cars (as I have never worked on planes but I remember driving my car after getting a tire replaced and the wheel ending up falling off. I was so lucky as it finally fell off as I turned into a parking lot because my car was shaking so much. And I had just come off the express way going at 100km/hr.
Yes, if you feel inclined not to do it, find out exactly WHY it is in there and it will motivate more accurate work.
And, knew it wld fly 1000's of ppl. Shame. Karma a B. Even if it takes 20 yrs
It broke my heart to see family holding up pictures of their loved ones. 😢
Pencil-whipping maintenance procedures has killed a lot of people over the years, and the culprits are almost never held accountable, as by that time, they have usually left their positions or retired. In this case, it took over 20 years for their laziness, or their supervisor's stinginess, to come back to haunt them.
"The workers did this, the workers did that..." Why no consideration that the orders came from their superiors? Or that the improper repair was the only way to meet unrealistic targets set by someone in an office somewhere? "Do it my way or else" is a management culture that I think we're all familiar with...
Keep in mind this is just a silly TV show. It's documented in the final report that CAL management ordered the repair to be accomplished knowing it did not comply with the Boeing SRM.
Because sh*t rolls downhill. Keep in mind that this program doesn't always show the details of every issue that contributed to the crash.
@@Stephanie-we5ep Agreed, and to Conrad Anderson as well. It's a very, very silly TV show, I'm disappointed that this stuff is starting to compete with the excellent indie documentaries native to RUclips.
A pure COPY of Japan air flight 123 that happened 17 years earlier - when you make a repair, don't even quarter-ass it because it might take years (or even decades), but eventually it'll catch up and people will die.
It exactly reminded me of Japan Airlines 123 as well. Both crashes were caused by poor repairs of some years-old damage to each plane.
They played Russian Roulette with the people ! Absolutely horrific ! Actually , I can't even think of a word that describes this negligent, unnecessary rushed job. From now on people, when repairing or inspecting and passing inspection imagine u or a loved one being subjected to Russian Roulette!
It took 17 yrs for an anomaly the size of a grain of sand in a fan disc to bring down United flt 232. But that mistake was on GE.
I’m a retired A&P mechanic and I can tell you that anytime I did a major repair I would ask myself, would I fly on this aircraft or let my family fly on this aircraft? If in doubt get a second opinion. Also following the Aircraft manufacturer manuals to the letter is paramount with no if ands or buts allowed.
I did similar for military aircraft C141A&B. 1979 through 1984. Went on to sunway signal repair maintainer then sanitation & retirement. Shortcuts don't work in maintenance. Keep the blue side up.
I flew flight 611 half a dozen times every time I did a biz trip to China. It was the connecting flight between Taipei and Hong Kong. It was this exact same plane, same registration number by the door. China Air had this plane assigned to run the heavy traffic flights between Hong Kong and Taipei.. it just flew this route, back and forth several times each day. The morning leg out of Taipei to Hong Kong was always labeled flight 611. It was the exact same crew every morning. I was on flight 611, on this very plane, the morning before it crashed. I flew it so often I knew the stewardess in business class by name and they knew me. It was a shock to see the news the next day and know those sweet young women had died on the very next 611 leg. Had I booked my trip one day later… I would have been with them.
I can only hope that videos like this are mandatory viewing for maintenance crews and supervisors who perform these kinds of repairs.
I agree 100%. Would make it all much more real for them. I have repaired things all my life. A term I despise is "Thats good enough"
They are now pretty sure. Of course theirs are probably more in depth.
Someone commented in one of the videos that these are made for glorifying NTSB, and their work. I’m like, so what if it glorifies them? They do an admirable job, they are superbly professional about it and they have probably saved hundreds if not thousands of lives just through their investigations. This is one damn good American agency and let’s keep it that way for the sake of safety!
That's good enough is what rules the world. In fact, in this day and age it's the gold standard for excellence. Don't believe me? Just ask the average American voter. Smdh
Does not make a difference if maintenance is indifferent to correct procedures.
These poor aviators, god rest their soul and everyone onboard, literally nothing they could do about it, when they took off, it was already decided. :(
Don't say GOD rest their souls many of these people serve buddah
What god? GOD Is GOD NOT god
Their fate was sealed at takeoff.
@@reckontonottobemovedChrist’s gospel spans the seven continents. Don’t assume something about people you never met. The lord God has called people from all corners of the world to serve him. Cultural Christianity is a lie.
@@reckontonottobemoved God came for all. It is up to God to decide. We can still pray for them. Stop being like the pharisees.
Always watch a marathon of these videos when I have a flight coming up
Keeps one FROSTY 🥶 for the Flight !
I do this to myself. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Isn't that how it works, though? Lol I do the same thing!!
@@Dhaze1983
Nothing wrong with you.
Isn't is just "facing down our fears ?"
Unspoken fear has power over us.
Speaking them out & facing them cuts "fear down to size".
Consider just how RARE these crashes are, literally a .000001 chance of death or injury.
We take a 1000x greater risk simply driving to the Airport !
Plus, God Almighty 'has our back' - He promises to "never leave or forsake ALL who call upon My name".
So leave the worry in God's good hands & have an excellent safe FUN flight ✈️🛫!
My daughter, the night before taking a flight, watched one of those Air Port Crash Movies. I would have been a very nervous Airplane flyer if I had watched the Movie and flown the next day!
Hats off to the Investigation team. They spent so much work and effort to find out the true cause of the accident
Very similar to the Japan Airlines crash years before, also as the result of a bad tail strike repair. Over 500 passengers died in that crash but unfortunately, airlines didn’t learn from this catastrophe.
Somchai: It‘s not that they don‘t learn, but that they don‘t care or get paid enough to think the repairs made might not be enough to hold as needed! 😮
Which is also a sign that this show overly dramatizes certain things. Such as the great mystery of what brought down this plane? The CVR told them more then the show implies. The last real sound in the cockpit is a chime that the plane has reached cruising altitude. 34,000 feet. So it’s reached max stress on the pressure vessel. At that moment they want to rule out a bomb, but their immediate biggest suspicion is failure of the pressure vessel. As soon as they worked out that it started in the rear they immediately would put “tail strike” at the top of their list. JAL123 was and is the nightmare case for air crash investigators. It’s the one they are always fearful of and always thinking about. Really I’m sure from the moment they got that simulation report the only questions they had was was it a failed tail strike repair? Or did the rear cargo door fail? With tail strike being the leading suspect due to how much of the tail came apart early. It is scary because you never really know how many of these things are out there?
Very sad story. I watch your programs to be aware of dangers that can occur if maintenance is not done right. As a firefighter we cannot have our equipment mess up at a fire.
Oh god don't remind me of the year bad air in a few fire departments killed a few firefighters one 2 of the 3 firefighters that went into the water barely came out alive they got that thing forget the name of when come up to quickly in the water without stopping the third guy they believe had got caught on something they had gone in the water to retrieve a body of a man that had drowned and he had tried to get one of his buddies attention but at that point they were all running out of air so the guy didn't notice I forget what the cause was both firefighters would make it that reached the surface a day later they went to retrieve the 2 bodies and another station lost a few firefighters who ran into the same problem not enough air or there was something wrong with the tanks I don't remember oh ik is there was funerals for a few weeks because of that tank problem till they finally figured out what caused their deaths
@@beverlyarcher546"The bends" or decompression sickness
Very sad, the maintenance people often act like hundreds of lives don’t depend on their work. It’s terrifying.
Their pay and status may not reflect it either.
A lot of people make this childish mistake. They assume that because they view a job as important that the person doing the job is special and above what literally every other person does. Everybody gets complacent in their job. McDonald's worker, doctor, don't matter.
I know flying is the safest way to travel, but the crashes are horrifying, especially when you know it's going down, sometimes for minutes, it's a terrifying thought.
IT WAS JUST NORTH OF THE PANG GOO ISLANDS WHEN IT BROKE UP.
I thought the chubby girl in the thumbnail was the 20 year old 😂
Maybe we should teach mechanics to ask themselves if they would feel comfortable having their children fly on the plane they've just serviced.
You don't even need to ask the mechanics. After the Boeing 737 Max problems were discovered, the people building Boeing's planes admitted they don't trust riding in the planes they built.
That mechanic most likely would feel comfortable. Most likely this is an error of judgement/evaluation of the situation rather than cutting corners. Are cracks too deep or are they shallow enough?
I worked on corporate aircraft. Anytime the pilots asked me to fly with them, I would eagerly join them.
I was an aircraft mechanic and had all the confidence to fly my own fixins' and did. I had buddies who have flown the same crafts. I knew pilots who flew them too. I always double check any repair we were responsible for. In military down time was not as critical money wise. Except combat times. Pilots rushed a plane for quick turn around.
The statement from the NTSB equivalent at 6'06" to 6'20" is absolutely stunning! Amazing anyone would fly this airline, an accident every 4 years...
Communism for ya
Most likely they had no other options.
It hasn't had an accident for almost 15 years other than a freighter snow skid incident in Chicago.
Chinese made things suck they don't last but communism who use children god the Democrats love child labor since they support these child labor countries
@@eggreedgious5194Taiwan isn't communist. China is. Taiwan is the democratic Chinese government in exile.
I’m surprised it lasted 20+ years until it broke apart.
Around 39:00 when they’re ‘riveting’ the panel back on, they’re missing a few parts on the rivet gun! :). Close enuf for demonstration purposes, I guess - only a sheetmetal nerd would notice.
The rest of the video was riveting!
LoL same here
That drove me crazy! I used to build aircraft for a living lol!
Also, a lot of the radio chatter isn't correct. Starting at 1:46, a "descend and maintain" instruction should be preceded by the airplane you're addressing (e.g. a flight number) and followed by an actual altitude.
@@ryokufox2281 same.
Also when they removed the doubler and the rivet was not even bucked.
Rivet gun was missing tip & containment spring, but also made drill sound not the taping/hammering sound.
It wasn't a mistake. It was a deliberate failure to follow procedures. And they knew what they were doing was wrong or they wouldn't have covered it up.
This begs the question: What is a reasonable service life for something that is basically just a large aluminum container? How many thousands of expansion/contraction cycles are acceptable for thin aluminum sheet metal panels that are riveted together to form an enormous tube? Logically, there has to be some scientific formula to calculate how many times the fuselage of these huge jetliners can be pressurized before cracks can reasonably be expected to start forming. Visually examining these internal panels is obviously not possible, and the technology to accurately inspect an entire aircraft in a timely and effective manner does not yet exist. Its nothing short of a miracle that these catastrophic failures do not happen more often given that these planes are flown for tens of thousands of hours over several decades of brutal use. Improper repairs notwithstanding
Maybe... just maybe... these planes are built quite well
30 years is the typical expected service life of a commercial aircraft.
Also, the entire aircraft structure is inspected for defects using real-time-radiography on a time controlled basis. This technology has existed for decades.
Not a structural expert, but from my understanding of basic Fatigue, the number of cycles to failure depends on the stress level, the higher the stress level, the smaller number of cycles to failure.
Look at Aloha air lines flight 243 , 35,000 flight hours and nearly 90,000 flight cycles on that air frame before it burst. They aren't rated for anywhere near that many cycles . If they are repaired properly and not used long after they should have been retired , the fuselages are extremely resilient .
There is , I believe, a formula for airplane life based on Pressure Cycles, but in the case of the Hawaiian Airlines flight, they forgot about Corrosion of being by the Ocean (the flight that lost it's top in the first third just behind the Pilot Cabin). (Your post was on the Video about the China Flight 611 that broke up 747 in air).
The patch was barely larger than the damaged area; but they said the scratches and cracks grew slowly over time. Why weren't the expanding scratches showing up outside the perimeter of the patch? There should have been some evidence of cracking beyond the unexposed section of the repair patch at some point.
Inspectors tend to "sluff by" the repair points figuring they are done already so lets look at another area of the plane. Human nature. "Grog killed the animal with his club" No need for you to bash its skull in AGAIN. Dead is Dead....type of thinking.
microfractures would be hidden under the paint.
& im sure it is more now.
The title got my dying. I thought it ment a 20 year old ATC who is a mistake made the flight crash.
It's such a shame with all of these malfunctions and crashes had to come with a loss of lives all to make sure flying today is safer.
Fun fact: Any pilot whose gonna fly internationally must speak fluent English. It's the language of pilots. It's the same for ATC operators, they must also speak fluent English. In the tower and cockpit they can speak their native language all they want, but over radio and anything flight related, such as checklists, it has to be English. It's a requirement of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
In the aviation maintenance world, the technical term used for the repair is a "flim flam job".
Asians are notorious for cutting corners and disregarding regulations. They themselves are all flim flam jobs.
The price of safety improvements is high, but the price we pay in human blood is infinitely higher.
i am not into this type of career, i think am only good at washing dishes, but after seeing a lot of these videos, i think i am more capable now, to apply as a lead investigator of any flight crash.
You're certainly qualified to reconstruct any incidents where a plate or saucer accidental falls off the table, which can be catastrophic if the contents of that saucer or plate is such that it causes someone to slip and fall as a result possibly leading to death because someone hit their head on the corner of a sharp corner resulting from the devasting spill. Now let us pray 🙏.
Me too. Only problem... I'd be too afraid to take a jet to the crash site.
@@quantumpotential7639goddamn my friend 😂
A 20 year old damage from a tail strike shattered the plane
Actually was a bad repair
No, the plane was fine with a proper cut & patch. The plane broke apart because the improper patch failed at high altitude, causing the plane to break apart. If the patch had failed at low altitude, the plane's inside atmosphere wouldn't have pressurized, and the crew would return to the airport to figure out the problem.
@@hittrewweuy7595 both the tail strike and the bad repair caused the accident
Sitting on the tarmac inside a china air plane we were delayed for over 2 hours. While sitting there I felt vibrations and bumps resembling people working on the plane and sounds of grinding and a large impact wrench. They were making repairs with over 200 passengers on board. I never flew China air again.
It isn't just China Air that may do that.
They were just changing a tire. That's the only maintenance they would ever do with passengers on board.
probably was the food truck, honey bucket truck or fuel truck topping off the plane. Doesn't take much for anyone to feel small bumps, and opening of doors, and listening to hydrolic lifts on the trucks. I highly doubt anyone was doing major repairs while people were sitting in the aircraft.
You wouldn't have to be a certified airplane maintenance engineer to know that a doubler should be substantially larger than the damaged area it's covering. The repair wasn't done correctly, but if the doubler had been larger the plane may have held together for another 5 months, until the second part of the inspection, when the doubler would have been removed, and the faulty repair exposed.
This happens more than you think. Questionable repairs happen constantly. Sometimes, the workmen know the repair is not going to hold and they would rather not log the repair at all than to take any credit for it, because they know it will fail. I've seen it more often than I care to mention.
You’ve literally admitted to being negligent if you aren’t reporting these negligent repairs.
This is why every repair and maintenance item needs the signature of the responsible party.
@@MarinCipollina except if OP is seeing them do negligent maintenance and doesn’t speak up he is also responsible for any accidents or loss of life.
You are also responsible if you don't speak up, what a shame on your part.
@@ElTee842 He might have but .. sometimes even the bosses don't care sadly. Can't say the bosses did not know. I mean, a stain like that 44:33 was pretty evident. They chose not to investigate it.
I flew on this same exact airplane, the only passenger 747-200 in their fleet.
I flew from Taipei CKS airport.
This was basically a shuttle flight.
I still have a photo of the pocket card. I always took a photo of pocket cards and my ticket stub.
Are airplane maintenance records public? If you can get a carfax, you should be able to get a planefax. Just the ability to view those records would light a fire under the airlines to keep perfect records for their entire fleet.
If you wanted to go over a specific airplane's records before boarding it, there's very little chance you'd finish before the airplane is retired from service. There's an aphorism in the aviation industry that an airplane isn't actually legal to fly until the paperwork on it weighs more than the plane itself.
@@HiddenWindshield That's horrifying and hilarious at the same time.
@HiddenWindshield: The more common saying is "A newly designed plane won't fly until its R&D documents weigh more than the plane itself."
And you'd probably never figure out anything bad anyways. As a mechanic it would take me forever to go through the logs to see if everything was concurrent. Between horrible penmanship and cryptic entries it's tough. I once found a entry that was just "Replaced p/n:XXXXXXX ". I looked it up and it was the entire left wing assembly, so in other words the plane had most likely had some kind of accident that necessitated a new wing, but they didn't want that clearly in the logs if they were to sell it.
@@rwill156 😬
Geez that's 2 major 747 crashes initially caused by tail strikes years earlier.
Ironically around same time.
Knew someone who participated in airline crash analysis and diagnostics. It was incredibly sobering to hear the intense scrutiny of each tiny piece recovered. The efforts to recover everything are incredible especially underwater.
2:26 You know its bad when you see the same dude that piloted Singapore Airlines Flight 006 again.
*I Don't BeLieve You!!!!*
I’d like to give props to the person who knows the English language well enough to attempt to write titles.
English is said to be one of the most difficult languages to learn .
To know one’s own language and to learn another is an achievement!
This series is made in Canada.
not their original meterial
An age old phenomenon. The Jethros only informed enough to know HOW to do something decided they knew enough to say "That's dumb. It's just a beauty patch. Just gitr done and say you followed the Poindexters' instructions."
The Poindexters, the ones who know WHY you do it that way.
MAGA!
@@northernbohemianrealist LOL!
I was surprised that they didn't BONDO the gouge and sand it smooth and paint....like we do cars for 20 years of additional life.
I have flown across the pacific ocean 8 times and these type of things are always on my mind it would be a terrifying ordeal to be involved in one of these crashes
Hundreds of flights cross the oceans of the world every single day. Because of the volume of passengers and their size we worry about their safety. But between 1982 and 2019 only 47,719 fatalities occurred. Consider how many flights happened in that time. Now consider that roughly 1.3 million people die due to cars every single year. And start worrying more about crossing the street than crossing an ocean.
The destruction of China Air 611 happened so suddenly that nobody on board the flight knew that they'd be dead in a moment.
@@oahuhawaii2141 I bet when they realized the back of the plane was missing, they knew.
@Interitus1 You're right, but most people will always worry more about flying than driving because 1.We drive far more than we fly (normalcy bias); 2. It's simply unnatural for humans to be up so high from the Earth.
@@Interitus1 flown in the similar air frame over the ocean two thousand three hundred times. I'm here to tell you a fuel pump just doesn't do this.
Glad they were able to figure out the problem and fix it
During my 24 years in the USAF, the number of repairs that were signed off and verified by a second person, and never completed, was unacceptable. Some folks don’t take it seriously
The proper procedure was to cut away the damaged skin, and "double" a larger area. They did "double skin", though not sufficiently large an area, without cutting away the damaged area beneath. I can see how having too small a patch could lead to eventual failure, but it seems to me that having the inner layer, however ineffectual, should only provide some additional support ... at the cost of a little extra weight. ... OK< as soon as I re-started the video, my questions were explained. :-)
allowing the damaged material is what lead to the catastrophic failure. The microfractures continued to spread every time the metal was stress. If the damaged area was removed, there would been no fractures to spread.
Title is so we think a 20 year-old was at fault... when in fact it was a mistake 20 years prior in history. Amazing.
I've watched enough of these to now know if something goes wrong on a flight I can advise the crew lol
This series is well done. They stick to the actual recordings for the scripts, interviews with the actual participants and experts and they don't dumb down the investigation for viewers. Dramatization is kept to a reasonable degree. Sometimes they do a little too much flashy editing but it isn't terrible.
You have to at least commend Boeing for building an aircraft that lasted 22 more years with a defect that should have grounded the plane.
It's so crazy to watch this and realize that I've seen the other episode about the Turkish airlines crash, explaining why the floor has different dados...
This is alarmingly similar to Japan Air Flight 123.
It actually is yea... how has no one noticed...
flew on this a/c 3 weeks before breakup was covered with scab patches didn't want to board
there is serious metal fatigue on all the load bearing members, the wiring is substandard and totally inadequate for our power needs, and the neighborhood is like a demilitarized zone.
Omg, I couldn’t imagine being stuck inside a cabin with people smoking in it.
I know. Second hand smoke is never as tasty as first hand. Times were tough back then.
The days before smoking restrictions sucked, but it did drive us kids outside to play 😂
@@ShaunHensley 🔥⭐
You make me feel old!! I started working for AA in 1987.. I totally remember asking passengers if they preferred smoking or no smoking. As I too was a smoker back then, I remember flying in first class with a cigarette in one hand, and a bloody Mary in the other hand!
Lmao I’m old enough to remember when you still could. It’s not that noticeable. They had a good air filtering system.
Inspection of repairs need to be examined more frequently to avoid disasters like this one.
In nursing, if it was not documented, it was not done.
I remember the accident. Excellent structural mechanics analysis!! Explosive decompression!
My guess on this is investigators were on to the fact that this aircraft had previously suffered structural damage before any wreckage was brought up. I think they were waiting and hoping those specific pieces would be recovered. Its a somewhat different order than portrayed here.
I have been working as an aircraft mechanic since 1992. I have heard stories that would shock you. Like a main spare (the thing the wing is built on) being heavily corroded and the mechanics just used bondo to cover it up. That happened in Israel.
I don't know. But it seems like undue pressurisation may have been a routine factor. Total time in air is one and a half hours to travel 450 miles across a wide open sea. Why do you need to shoot for 35,000 ft in that short a distance. That's almost straight up and straight down. Probably not at altitude for more than a half hour max. Spent a lot of years working on a lot of acft including 747s and sometimes they just create their own misery. The "C" and "D" checks are fairly extended and long winded but the "Work Cards" are routinely pinched for time. If you take more time than allowed on the card regardless of clear necessity you will get "released."
225 people on a 747 is a golden route? That may fill a 757/767 on that route, way under a 747.
If he thinks that mechanics don't think about the people that will ride the aircraft, he hasn't talked to enough good mechanics. Good mechanics know and care.
My experience working in car dealers, suggest "good" describes about 30 percent of mechanics in that category, another 60% are just parts changers, the other 10%, no mechanical aptitude... just there for the money. 🙁
Yeah that's kind of the thing, good mechanics didn't do this repair.
My family flew back to Canada aboard China Airlines from Taipei, i heard about this before our flight and I got scared, but we were fine
Yes clearly...
Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend China airlines, as a Taiwanese, like the safety record is definitely terrible, and service weren’t great either. The two times I flew on it, the fa’s were definitely looking like they didn’t want to be there. I fly with Eva air, another airline of Taiwan, but it’s a private airlines, so it is definitely more expensive, but premium service, and no accident since its start, no hull loss, safety risks etc.
@@eh-269I mean it’s better now, back then it was like one of the deadliest airlines but rn it seems to be doing fine
I love how the rivet gun made a drill sound when riveting in the doubler.
Oh and those scratches are through the cladding. That means the aluminum alloy below was oxidizing and weakening. No mention of ultrasonic inspection, only visual. If I did this kind of work I would be walked out and charged with sabotage.
The title is incorrect. It should be "A 20 year old mistake" and a "20 years old mistake" The implication is the mistake was done by a 20 year old person, and not a 20 year old mistake.
A proper repair costs time and money. Which many airlines would prefer to avoid paying for?
All the lost souls on board did not die in vain. Their deaths caused changes that makes it safer for us to fly today. Thank you! R.i.p
I have no association with this industry but still find these videos very interesting 🤔! 🤷
It is ridiculous that in this era there is not a camera in the top of the vertical fin showing the whole airplane.
The data storage or bandwidth issues would be too much of a pain, not to mention implemention and adoption
In my trade, the only systems that have bearing on safety are steering and braking. I wouldnt want to be an A&P (airframe and powerplant for those who dont know) mechanic. Any one of thousands of things on hundreds of systems which are done incorrectly (or not done at all) can potentially cause a fatal accident.
You cant pull off to the side of the road at 35,000 feet if something fails.
ANY and ALL issues that I find are repaired on steering and braking systems.
It boggles the mind that someone would even consider doing a mickey-mouse repair on ANY aircraft, even if its a single engine Cessna.
Just flow the Service Repair Manual. It does the thinking for you.
*follow
@@oahuhawaii2141 That was the problem in this case.
Instead of checking the manual and realizing the damage was severe enough to require replacement of the entire damaged section, they threw a doubler plate on it and called it good. None of the redundant systems commonly found on commercial aircraft would have prevented disaster in this case. The further failure to thoroughly inspect the area near the repair when obvious nicotine stains from escaping cabin air were found doomed the aircraft with considerable loss of life.
Do it right....or DONT do it at all.
If I were a pilot doing a walkaround and detected ANY issues, I would refuse to fly the aircraft until inspected by a qualified engineer/technician.
@@donreinke5863: It's possible the A&P techs didn't fully understand the manual, and decided to "wing it" when they saw that the section was too big to cut out. They sanded down the deep grooves from the tail strike, and put in a patch that was too small.
It's possible that if you refused to fly that plane, the techs who are called in to examine the patch will say the fix is fine, since they don't know the problem that lay underneath the patch. They would rely on the maintenance logs (which claimed the fix was done according to the manual), and not remove the patch to reveal the problem.
@@oahuhawaii2141 Possibly, but seeing strange discoloration from the edges of the doubler plate would raise concern at least to me, but I am very used to noticing things that are out of the ordinary and according to the video the staining was quite obvious.
It reminds me of the incident where a Hawaiian airline was flying an ancient 737 apparently between two of the islands and a large portion of the upper fuselage simply broke apart in flight. Against all odds that plane landed successfully, although one person was sucked out while it was at altitude.
Supposedly, there is technology that allows the aluminum "skin" to be analyzed even under a repair, but I doubt it was available at that time
Just shows how unacceptable cutting corners when it comes to stuff like this is. Basically, the fact that they believed that they could just hide the scratches and cover it with a plate THAT WASN'T BIG ENOUGH was just something not even I could imagine a lazy maintenance worker do, at least if he knew the dangers. And the fact that that plane was up for about 22 years meant the damage only got worse as it got stressed even more and more. Probably should have just retired that plane.
I marvel, all the time, at how much we grow. Too often, we blame repair crews for how things go wrong. But we must understand, they are only doing what they have been taught. If one can say there is a "good" thing that happens here, it is that by really looking at what has gone wrong, it is that, the more we know, the less such catastrophies will happen. Every time I see one of these, I still pray for the people gone on. That God took them quickly Home.
Probably arguably the one of the worst ways to die. It's your worst fear coming true.
I remember this because it was 8 months after 9/11 here in the US. There was a crash a month after 9/11 too. It was a really bad time. I just hope they didn't know what was happening
Yeah, that one right after 9/11 was American Airlines Flight 587. The first thought on everyone's mind was terrorism but it turned out to be bad procedures for handling wake turbulence.
of course they knew what was happening. for the whole 3 minutes it takes to fall. maybe some passed out because of pressure but I doubt it.
@@fn0rd-f5o dude obviously they knew. I said I “hope”. Do you just come on RUclips to comment on other peoples comments in an ignorant fashion? There is no need to be a troll.
@@fn0rd-f5o
hypoxia at 35,000 30-60 seconds.
@@debbielwilliamson8546 wow even that's a long time considering
It's crazy to think that any plane no matter how expensive it is to create can be allowed to fly for more than 20 years, no matter how much and how good you can repair a plane, without completely replacing every part of the plane to be a new plane anyways there is no way you can be sure without any doubt at all that a plane can still be trusted to not have an incident after 20 years, no matter how severe.
I'd like to see the latest seasons, episodes. The older seasons up to 20-21 already had been watched too many times and memorized for life
This and the one describing the JAL 747 crash should be mandatory views at all AP schools around the world. I'm an aerospace engineer and a mechanic, and have had second hand experience of instances such as these. Integrity is as critical as competence, perhaps even more so. RIP all victims, some of whom had a horribly slow deaths having had seconds lasting hours to contemplate their imminent demise.
It’s called smoking rivets, it lets a mechanic know, if he is observant and know what he is looking at, it is telling him the rivets are loosening their grip strength. Which holds the skin to the Skelton Frame 49:18 work. Just like the titanic, when the iceberg slid down the side of the ship, it scraped the bulb head rivet off which then caused the skin to open up and let the water in. In an airplane it’s the air going out.
That’s why aircraft should only have a life time of 20 years.😮
The skin opened on the Titanic because the cast iron rivets cannot handle any movement in the plating(and there was over 5 mm movement when the side of the ship hit the berg. Then the next one also popped beside it and it ripped along like a zipper. the Cast Iron rivets were used near the bow of the ship because they are more like putty when red hot so hand pounding was possible. The workers were also given a lower grade iron rivet(a #3 instead of #4)(with more impurities making it weaker) In the middle they used steel rivets. They have managed to salvage some of the rivets from the Titanic and put through an electron microscope. If it never hit a berg it would be still plying the waters. (or put in a naval museum) or sent to the bottom by a soviet or German sub. Or be in a breaking yard being broken down to make another ship.
This is why I believe all repairs should be made public. So any one can look up the service records of any aircraft they may fly on!
And then on top of the crappy repair, how did anyone miss the growing cracks. If the doubler was too small, the cracks would have been growing outside of the doubler!! This is absurd this could even happen. This is total incompetence and neglect.
The 747 was one the best planes ever built. I think they should have kept building them. With proper maintenance, this just proves on how reliable the plane really was.
Why would they keep building them when no one wants them any more. All airlines want 2 engine aircraft.. Less cost, less maintenance
I used to work on technical manuals for aircraft. We went to extreme lengths to ensure the manuals were correct because we knew that an incorrect manual could lead to an incorrect repair leading to the loss of an aircraft.
36:20 "I kissed its boo boo and put a band-aid on it"
A lot of detail there. I hope pictures are now added to such repairs.
The last one of these episodes I watched said China airlines had a spotless record
An improperly repaired Boeing 747 derivative flying for an Asian carrier falling victim to fatigue cracks, both having essential parts fall off mid-air (in Dynasty 611's case, the whole thing disintegrated) and were involved in prior tailstrike incidents. Save for some differences as the way they fell from the sky, it's almost a spitting image of the JAL123 incident that occurred 17 years earlier. And the funny thing is that CI611 was hastily patched up a mere 7 years after that 747SR-46 went down near Ueno.
Why do they have 20+ year old planes flying? It’s not a car. They need to be new. We’re in the air.
Cost too much. Cheaper to get sued and to pay off insurance claims. But with the proper mainten. they can be as safe as new.
38:52 the reenactment of the doubler installation is how I envision it really happen. One row of rivets that are smaller diameter than the hole and somehow shooting the rivet without a universal set in the rivet gun. Also somehow that rivet gun sounded like a screw runner. As a structures guy with 27 years experience, looks legit 😂😂
I'm amazed that investigators can figure out what happened to a plane just from scraps. I'm glad it gives the family some closure. However in this particular case, to blame the maintenance engineer after a patch fails, after 22 YEARS. I would say a patch that last 22 years is a pretty good patch. These planes are regularly inspected and nobody caught it later. I'm sure there are pressure tests of each section to find weak spots. How long is a patch supposed to last?
We would like to see accurate sounds of aircraft on new episodes, and coverage of military accidents
This was aired in 2002... the way to suggest this is to them direct. They focus on commercial airlines and effects on the industry. I could have sworn they did military episodes but that may be Secondd from Disaster