This Air Crash Investigation episode was one of the most unique ones in the most recent seasons. The Saab 2000 really surprised me because of how the autopilot worked. They were also very lucky. Had it not been for a random glitch, everyone would’ve been dead.
I love it when he thanks his Patreon supporters and especially enjoy hearing him say 'Mom left me at Best Buy' 'Panic Chicken' 'Sue sue Sue's shoes' and my all-time favorite 'WhereAreMyCheetos' which he always saves the best for last. 🤪
My dad was inbound to Dallas/Ft. Worth decades ago when his plane was struck. They experienced ball lightning from the strike as well. Interesting to hear about another case. Great video👍
oooh, i looked into this one a few months ago when doing research on lightning and planes for smth i was writing, so great to see you do a video on it! probably one of the rare times a mechanical problem has actually saved an aircraft, really interesting video! and merry christmas/happy holidays to all who celebrate!
Just seemed like their particular physical doggedness should have pointed to Auto Pilot Engaged. But I guess being startled erased that reactive tool too. I understand cognitive tunneling as it affects our visual and auditory responses. But to not be able to react to certain physical presentations, that's if you're trained for it, that's scary. Have a blessed day through gratefulness 🤗
Merry Christmas! Another nice gift to all of us! I’m not a patreon but judging by the title of the video you released early to them I thought it was Iran air force flight ULF48 which while descending into Madrid on a flight from Tehran was struck by lightning next to the cockpit and while the electric charge was going through the left-wing static discharger A spark from the electric currant caused the number one fuel tank to explode which contain 11,200 kg of fuel exploded causing the left wing to be blown off which caused the aircraft crash just outside of Madrid in a farmers field, once again Amazing video!
If you go into even more detail, you'll see that a lot of the First Officers little suggestions & decisions are what ultimately led to everyone's survival (& to the autopilot disconnecting). And while the pilots made mistakes, it is always great to see First Officers shine. They go underappreciated too often.
I’ve wondered for 47 years about this! Very oddly I have seen ball lightening three times. One in my bedroom in Singapore (yes!) , one in Germany outdoors and once my mother told me about but I don’t remember..and have to say I didn’t quite believe: inside a VC10 plane on the way to Singapore. 47 years later, I now know I clearly had no reason to doubt her!!
I remember my nan telling me that she saw ball lightening(although I don't think she used that term)when I was around 8 years old. I didn't believe her but she precisely told me what people have now confirmed as ball lightening. I'm 46 years old now and I wish I could go back and tell her that I believe her😊
Having watched the episode, I'm still struggling with 2 things: with the pilot fighting the auto pilot all the way up to 4000ft: 1. Why would the plane go into a nose dive assuming the pilot didn't give up on fighting the auto pilot? 2. Once the plane was in a nose dive and approached 2000ft again, why didn't the auto pilot level out the plane?
1: Trimming takes longer than the elevator surface deflects. As the pilot got the plane to climb, the autopilot started trimming the nose down. By the time the pilot got the plane up to 4000ft., the trimming caught up to the deflected elevator and started to override what the elevator was trying to do. 2: I’m not entirely sure why the autopilot didn’t start to correct the dive either. I can only assume it was the glitch or it contributed to the glitch.
Auto pilot disengage at 10 deg nose down due to the glitch, but because it was so out of trim it drop to 1100 feat before pilot was able to regain the control.
There's a good chance the autopilot was simply unable to trim the aircraft out of the dive, as it was trimmed all the way nose down - this is not normal flight, fully deflected stabilizers are quite unusual. The AP isn't made to handle such an extreme situation, especially if it only has stabilizer authority and no access to elevators. Basically, the whole sequence had that AP system just as confused about what the humans were doing as it was the other way around.
One from my city! Aberdeen International Airport is a few miles from me, didn’t expect to see Aberdeen ever make it to your channel! Flying really helps out the islands, it’s more than a lifeline for Islanders, the air ambulance will take pregnant women to ARI (Aberdeen Royal Infirmary) to give birth, mail is flown back/forth, flying is a more than a lifeline for the islands! We actually have a lot of flights leaving Aberdeen every day to Shetland, it’s probably the most popular flight you can get from Aberdeen!
@@Powerranger-le4up aye! It was a good episode, helped explain all the technicalities as I just knew it as “plane plummets from sky” from friends of friends who’d been on board, sorta like distant acquaintances I’ve met a couple of times. Most of the time when something “dramatic” happens at the airport it’s folk being stuck inside the plane as they’re waiting to deplane because the winds are too strong to safely walk across the jet bridge! Happened a few times this year with the recent storm weather, that’s generally the most excitement you ever get at AIA.
Rewatching so many episodes for the 3rd and 4th times because my 70 y/o dad is addicted. He loves your presentation and professional video quality. The simulations blow his mind. Keep up the amazing work, Chloe!!!
I'm happy I found your channel because you're letting me consider to study something in aviation which I would have never considered if I wouldn't have found you.
I've seen ball lightning strike a tree before and it was a very unsettling experience. A glowing orb drifting gently and silently through the air touched a tree and exploded like a mortar shell. I'm sure glad I didn't have to fly an airplane after that. For a short period (maybe 20seconds) my eyes could not even leave the tree the orb hit, my mind just kept supplying reruns of the gentle floating ball and the explosion.
Likewise have vivid visuals of an electrical cable failure on a passenger locomotive which ionized the copper instantly forming a" lighting ball " of +/- 3' diameter it collected onto the rail and dissipated over maybe 10 seconds as it bounced down the rail toward my location at the fueling rack. I just was helpless to effect my fate. The plasma ball faded out just a few yards away. Terrifying yet fascinating moments in retrospect.
I have 400 hours in the sf340... Great little plane. One thing that I really miss about it is the Audio Control Panel... Its volume controls for the various channels were sliders like on a mixing console as opposed to rotating pots.
I’m fully addicted to these videos at this point and I love it lol idk if it comes from morbid curiosity or a way my anxiety is manifesting or just for the knowledge aviation accidents. Keep up the awesome work!
Thanks for all the videos! Really enjoyed your content, very well paced and has sufficient explanation to the technical aspects of aviation. See you next year!
I was on an airplane from Copenhagen to Paris in 2014 that was hit by lightning. It hit the right wing and I though that the engine had exploded for sure. I was absolutely terrified! The pilots and the cabin crew were really amazing though! The cabin crew went around and comforted and talked to us, one of them went back to me several times because I basically having a panic attack. The captain was calm and chill and explained what just had happened and that the only thing unusual about this situation was how early in the year it was for lightning to happen. Much props to them!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I'd say it's because of their military aviation heritage. The military fighters they built have the same feature (AP doesn't disconnect on pilot input)
Best of luck to your dad! I used to be cabin crew for Loganair. They trained me as an internal auditor for the company, and I was their Cabin Safety Officer as well.
Fascinating episode! Still wondering though: how come the autopilot made the plane decend further below 2.000 feet that were programmed in to await the storm to be over and why would the autopilot have brought the plane to crash when it was supposed to keep it at 2.000 feet .. Was the autopilot faulty in this case?
My guess is that since the plane managed to get to 4,000 ft and it needed to be at 2k, the plane had to descend _quickly_ . This caused the plane to go into a nose dive that the autopilot alone would not be able to make a recovery Of course it's my guess I'm no expert
I would suspect that at 7.000'/min descending from 4000' would happen rather quickly. The autopilot did this using trim control essentially wrestling the altitude away from the pilot. Stabilizer trim adjustments do not happen as quickly as elevator response so passing through 2000' at nearly 8000'/min gives 15 seconds until impact. They reportedly averted this with 7 seconds to spare. 8 seconds to trim from full nose over to a climb and recover configuration takes time of which they had little. My question is "Was the autopilot disconnect a result of the thrust lever being fully applied by the FO seen by the autopilot as incompatible with the planes vertical descent rate?"
I think the autopilot’s memory or instruction set could have been corrupted by the lightning strike. As the pilots began desperate attempts to gain control, their inputs, including the thrust, caused the autopilot to execute a check which determined the conditions were beyond the limits of the autopilot to manage and it disengaged. So the thrust may have indirectly caused different check code to execute.
Likely the data or instruction in an onboard processor in the autopilot control circuits became corrupted due to the lightning. Hence the need for improved over ride ability.
It's because the autopilot kept trimming it down, while the pilot was trying to push the plane up via the yoke. There was a tipping point where the trim was in such an extreme nose-down position that the yoke has no effect.
One of the most incredible stories… mainly due to the fact that a disaster was averted, but also because it was a mere systematic glitch which turned the autopilot off, a glitch saved countless people’s lives… crazy!
I've never seen ball lightning in the sky but my Dad and I did see it as a ball of fire that hit the ground during a horrific thunder storm back when I was about 12....... it was absolutely amazing. During the storm, it hailed like I've never seen before as well, with hailstones almost as large as a golf ball. When we got home, my Dad saw that the hailstones had dented the roof of his car so badly that it was almost a write off, even though the car was only a year old.
The low production numbers of the SAAB2000 came about because jet commuter airliners like the Canadiar CRJ were taking over the market, so SAAB decided to stop building airliners. I worked on the flight control system for the SAAB2000 and saw some of the lightning strike tests conducted on these systems. It doesn't surprise me that the plane shrugged off the lightning strike.
Indeed a disturbing event caused by a unique autopilot and lack of situational awareness and proper training of the Pilots - and especially very great Luck for all on board to have survived this Incident! Thank you very much for this Video.
I am a rampie at sumburgh and just happend to come across this by chance , I’ll be asking boss about this tmro see if he knows anymore details about it , nice video tho man
Oh cripes. I am always tense with these sort of vids. No crash no foul - A distinct relief. I welcome aviation mis-haps that do not result in disaster.
I’ve done this journey a lot, having relatives in Shetland. It’s not a route pilots are fond of, as the runways, which are in a cross pattern, are just long enough to land on. Coming in from one direction feels as if you’re about to land on the rocks. I can only imagine how terrifying this flight must have been for everyone on board!
Merry Christmas to all!!! I love your videos so much. I've been watching all year long. Never missed one. Keep up the good work!!! I've only have a minor mistake to mention. As a geography geek 🤓 I noticed that you've put a flag in the beginning of the video you thought it belongs to Shetland. Actually it's the greek banner of arms, which has also been used as a national flag. The blue flag with the cross in the middle. Shetland has a blue flag with a cross, but slightly to the left and it's thinner. Just an observation. Thanks for the great videos. Let's have another year full of them! 😉👍
ball lightning are so interesting, my mom had seen it when she was 10 and my grandma (on dads side) had seen one before the war. I grew up with the stories and teachings on how to act when one flies into your house. Yet when after I moved to USA it feels like hardly anyone have ever heard of them.
Great documentary...I live in Scotland but don't recall this one....there must have been a guardian Angel watching over that plane, the reason for it not crashing is insanely fortunate for all those on board, although for the pilots not to understand how the autopilot works seems very sloppy to me and warranting serious retraining at the very least. Loganair doesn't have the greatest safety record for such a small regional airline, a few fatalities and crashes since the late 80s
I was cabin crew for the airline when we lost the Shorts 360 aircraft that was doing a mail flight that day. So fortunate it wasn't full of passengers. We lost 2 friends/colleagues, and it was truly devastating. I never felt the same after that, and quite a few people left the company not long after. It wasn't pilot error or mechanical failure, per se. Just a horrible accident due to a series of unfortunate events with bad weather and icing issues. It'll live with me forever. I had to fly 2 days later, right over the crash site, and I had media onboard. Fortunately someone I knew, so didn't get a barrage of questions I wasn't allowed to answer. They could see I was struggling 😔
Well yes normally I’d agree but in this case the pilot not only believed that the autopilot was disengaged but they had also just suffered a lightning strike. Keeping that in mind I feel like most people would automatically assume that the issue was coming from the lightning strike rather than the system they already thought was no longer a factor in play
Merry Christmas. Over 10 years ago I was on a plane that hit by lighting. It struck the wing and gave a huge explosion. To this day I'm shocked at my reaction, which was a shrug of my shoulders and went back to sleep.We were suppose to land in NYC, but due to a storm (hence the lighting) we circled until finally diverted to Atlantic City due low fuel. It was only there the pilot told us we needed to switch planes because the wing was damaged.
Please, for all of you involved in vehicles, look up and read up on "Faraday's Cage". Even the Mythbusters have covered it multiple times. It's truly remarkable just how much energy can be "routed" around internal systems simply by putting them inside a metallic (and conductive) CAGE... I feel like more people NEED to understand that it works, whether or not they really understand "The How and Why" of the thing... AND if you ever don't trust the Autopilot, maybe try just turning it "OFF" before you get into a fight with your plane. I mean... We've seen too many instances of pilots "technically fighting each other" in the cockpit... and NOW, we're seeing pilots actively fighting with the autopilot and the plane, itself... It's getting just a little bit silly. ;o)
Less Than Fun Fact: Another Saab 2000, also flying Aberdeen-Sumburgh, and incidentally also flying with the number BE6780 was forced to make an emergency landing just over a year later, just before christmas 2015
Doesn’t seem safe to have an Autopilot that doesn’t disconnect even with pilots retracting the stick fully and using trim to control. If the Autopilot is fighting against inputs from human pilots it should yield and disengage. The fact the crew never realized that the AP might still have been on is disturbing. Close call
If "well trained" pilot's does not know how to switch off the AP and are to stupid/lazy to read the display (AP on/off in different colors), than it is a pilot fault. I hope they don't fly any more. But I expect they still fly, therefor no more Information about the pilot's name. Protecting them instead of save the life of their passengers in future.
@@petergrunendahl2074 I'd like to see you do any better in that situation. Both (as you say well trained) Pilots were new to the Saab 2000, and were taught to react differently when handling a lightning strike. An electrical discharge could easilly short circuit any number of mechanical systems(Auto-pilot; Pitch/Attitude Control; etc.) Which is probably why the pilot figured the plane was sluggish to respond. On top of that, I'm guessing the "AP" light is small, and the pilots were focusing on Altitude, Airspeed, and Artificial Horizon figuring the AP was either short circuited or turned of on the pilots attempted retake of the controls. IMO: LOGANAIR is to blame, for putting two pilots with very little experience with the aircraft as the two flightdeck crew.
"Well trained" was sarkasm. If you even don't know how to switch on off an AP you shouldn't fly a plane. In army you made a licence but for each different plane you must finish a special test. You're happy with such "qualificted" pilots? Remember me when your family died in a crash.
@@petergrunendahl2074Do you think that the pilots get to choose which plane they fly? Nope. The company will say you're flying x,y,z days. Different aircraft have different controls. And Saab with their 2000 model reworked the autopilot to not disconnect when a pilot tries to take control, while most other models of planes, including the Saab 340, would yield to the pilot. I stand by my decision that LOGANAIR is at fault. Ok, I'll remember you the next major crash, and think, was that random person on RUclips flying?
@@walleclyde8759 Shut up. He is not a professional pilot, why should he be able to do the right thing? That woman is a poor excuse of a pilot and should never enter a cockpit again!
Forgive me if I’m being ignorant here but I don’t understand the benefit of having an autopilot that doesn’t automatically disengage when the pilot takes over manual control? In what situation would that be useful?
There is an accident of a Lockheed L-1011 of Eastern airlines fight 401 that crashed in 1972 when a Captain accidentally hit the control column while in a hold over the florida everglades trying to change a landing gear position indication lightbulb and he didn't notice that the autopilot turned off when he accidentally bumped the control column and the plane very slowly started descending until it hit the everglades. The worst thing about that crash was the alligator's trying to get to the dead and survivors because they smelled the blood in the water. In that accident 101 people were killed and 75 survived. There have been few close calls where pilots accidentally hit their control column and it disengaged the autopilot without them knowing, even though there is an alarm that sounds when the pilot disengages the autopilot the pilots for some reason didn't hear it. Now most of the autopilot alarms are very loud so it would be hard to miss that alarm, but accidental autopilot disengagments still happen from time to time. Now these days something like flight 401 crash would not happen because all airliners have to have GPWS(Ground Proximity Warning System) that alerts the pilots when the aircraft gets too close to the ground.
Those pilot's had no idea about their plane. They shall not presume, expct or believe...they shall open their f...ing eyes and watch the display, AP on or off, in different colors is absolutely clear. I hope they don't fly any more, those both are even a risk as bus drivers. Regards from Belgium
Best practices today would not place 2 pilots with such low "time in type" as sole fight crew together. The AP indicator in the likely differed in the two instrument panels, to the pilot with thousands of hours, only one being familiar
I’m sorry but I just don’t at all agree that the very small “AP-“ changing from light green to white is at all clear especially to pilots who were in a very high stress situation and (from their points of view) had more pressing matters to focus on
I don't know much about airplane mechanics, but for sure i can understand how pilot(s) can be affected by "cognitive tunneling" in these situations in respect to auditory and visual impairments...but what about actual physical presentations, wherein your body cannot deny symptoms like all the things that were trying to implement not being effective ought to have pointed to 'auto pilot is still engaged'.
Yeah in a moment of panic like that I’m sure auditory and visual cues could have been easily missed. Especially since said visual cue was so minor that I doubt anyone would have caught it given their seemingly more pressing matters. But in defense of the pilots I feel like it’s not entirely fair to assume that “the autopilot is still engaged” would have been a logical conclusion in this situation. The pilots believed the autopilot had disengaged and was therefore no longer a factor in play. On top of this they had just suffered a lightning strike so it would have been easy to assume that this was the root of their sudden issue with the controls. Lastly in their minds, even if the autopilot had still been engaged, the force they were applying to the controls would have overridden it, as is the case with every other airplane model (I still think that’s completely stupid, not sure why Saab thought this was a good idea)
I was on this flight. I didn’t know the extent of the incident and didn’t know it was a 1 in a million glitch that stopped us crashing into the North Sea
The pilots were actually trained that when a lighting bolt strikes the plane it disables the autopilot but in reality the autopilot of the plane they’re flying was still on.
This Air Crash Investigation episode was one of the most unique ones in the most recent seasons. The Saab 2000 really surprised me because of how the autopilot worked. They were also very lucky. Had it not been for a random glitch, everyone would’ve been dead.
It looks like that yes . Pure luck
Merry Christmas
No such thing as most unique
You’re talking out your ////…….nothing to do with random glitch……don’t make such sweeping statements…no one would have died
Until I saw that mayday episode, I could never believe an autopilot would behave like that.
I love it when he thanks his Patreon supporters and especially enjoy hearing him say 'Mom left me at Best Buy' 'Panic Chicken' 'Sue sue Sue's shoes' and my all-time favorite 'WhereAreMyCheetos' which he always saves the best for last. 🤪
she* /nm
My dad was inbound to Dallas/Ft. Worth decades ago when his plane was struck. They experienced ball lightning from the strike as well. Interesting to hear about another case.
Great video👍
oooh, i looked into this one a few months ago when doing research on lightning and planes for smth i was writing, so great to see you do a video on it! probably one of the rare times a mechanical problem has actually saved an aircraft, really interesting video!
and merry christmas/happy holidays to all who celebrate!
Just seemed like their particular physical doggedness should have pointed to Auto Pilot Engaged. But I guess being startled erased that reactive tool too. I understand cognitive tunneling as it affects our visual and auditory responses. But to not be able to react to certain physical presentations, that's if you're trained for it, that's scary. Have a blessed day through gratefulness 🤗
Merry Christmas! Another nice gift to all of us! I’m not a patreon but judging by the title of the video you released early to them I thought it was Iran air force flight ULF48 which while descending into Madrid on a flight from Tehran was struck by lightning next to the cockpit and while the electric charge was going through the left-wing static discharger A spark from the electric currant caused the number one fuel tank to explode which contain 11,200 kg of fuel exploded causing the left wing to be blown off which caused the aircraft crash just outside of Madrid in a farmers field, once again Amazing video!
Thanks for the info. I might look into that for a video
Great choice picking a disaster averted video over a tragedy for the Christmas episode. Happy Holidays!
Even in Christmas, Disaster Breakdown is grinding 🔥🔥
If you go into even more detail, you'll see that a lot of the First Officers little suggestions & decisions are what ultimately led to everyone's survival (& to the autopilot disconnecting). And while the pilots made mistakes, it is always great to see First Officers shine. They go underappreciated too often.
I’ve wondered for 47 years about this! Very oddly I have seen ball lightening three times. One in my bedroom in Singapore (yes!) , one in Germany outdoors and once my mother told me about but I don’t remember..and have to say I didn’t quite believe: inside a VC10 plane on the way to Singapore. 47 years later, I now know I clearly had no reason to doubt her!!
I remember my nan telling me that she saw ball lightening(although I don't think she used that term)when I was around 8 years old. I didn't believe her but she precisely told me what people have now confirmed as ball lightening. I'm 46 years old now and I wish I could go back and tell her that I believe her😊
Man there is something really delightful about hearing your soothing voice say my handle ❤ Thanks for all the great videos this year!
I was just thinking the same!
@@hectorpalmatellez @Héctor Palma Téllez haha honestly your name is like synonymous with this channel in my brain now. It sticks out every time :D
@@BarlaVonW 🤭🤭
@@hectorpalmatellez haha I think of your name first during the Patreon members, you’ve been a member for a looong time!
Thanks for supporting the channel.
Having watched the episode, I'm still struggling with 2 things: with the pilot fighting the auto pilot all the way up to 4000ft:
1. Why would the plane go into a nose dive assuming the pilot didn't give up on fighting the auto pilot?
2. Once the plane was in a nose dive and approached 2000ft again, why didn't the auto pilot level out the plane?
1: Trimming takes longer than the elevator surface deflects. As the pilot got the plane to climb, the autopilot started trimming the nose down. By the time the pilot got the plane up to 4000ft., the trimming caught up to the deflected elevator and started to override what the elevator was trying to do.
2: I’m not entirely sure why the autopilot didn’t start to correct the dive either. I can only assume it was the glitch or it contributed to the glitch.
Auto pilot disengage at 10 deg nose down due to the glitch, but because it was so out of trim it drop to 1100 feat before pilot was able to regain the control.
There's a good chance the autopilot was simply unable to trim the aircraft out of the dive, as it was trimmed all the way nose down - this is not normal flight, fully deflected stabilizers are quite unusual. The AP isn't made to handle such an extreme situation, especially if it only has stabilizer authority and no access to elevators. Basically, the whole sequence had that AP system just as confused about what the humans were doing as it was the other way around.
One from my city! Aberdeen International Airport is a few miles from me, didn’t expect to see Aberdeen ever make it to your channel! Flying really helps out the islands, it’s more than a lifeline for Islanders, the air ambulance will take pregnant women to ARI (Aberdeen Royal Infirmary) to give birth, mail is flown back/forth, flying is a more than a lifeline for the islands! We actually have a lot of flights leaving Aberdeen every day to Shetland, it’s probably the most popular flight you can get from Aberdeen!
It was also the subject of a Season 21 Air Crash Investigation episode.
@@Powerranger-le4up aye! It was a good episode, helped explain all the technicalities as I just knew it as “plane plummets from sky” from friends of friends who’d been on board, sorta like distant acquaintances I’ve met a couple of times. Most of the time when something “dramatic” happens at the airport it’s folk being stuck inside the plane as they’re waiting to deplane because the winds are too strong to safely walk across the jet bridge! Happened a few times this year with the recent storm weather, that’s generally the most excitement you ever get at AIA.
Rewatching so many episodes for the 3rd and 4th times because my 70 y/o dad is addicted. He loves your presentation and professional video quality. The simulations blow his mind. Keep up the amazing work, Chloe!!!
I'm happy I found your channel because you're letting me consider to study something in aviation which I would have never considered if I wouldn't have found you.
I've seen ball lightning strike a tree before and it was a very unsettling experience. A glowing orb drifting gently and silently through the air touched a tree and exploded like a mortar shell. I'm sure glad I didn't have to fly an airplane after that. For a short period (maybe 20seconds) my eyes could not even leave the tree the orb hit, my mind just kept supplying reruns of the gentle floating ball and the explosion.
Likewise have vivid visuals of an electrical cable failure on a passenger locomotive which ionized the copper instantly forming a" lighting ball " of +/- 3' diameter it collected onto the rail and dissipated over maybe 10 seconds as it bounced down the rail toward my location at the fueling rack. I just was helpless to effect my fate. The plasma ball faded out just a few yards away. Terrifying yet fascinating moments in retrospect.
Merry Christmas! Also this seems like a really interesting disaster.
@@ThunderBeastAviation did you even watch the video? Nobody died in this one…
@@arandomthing2489 k idk
Hello, happy Festive season to you! Thanks for a wonderful year of wonderful videos ✌🏼❤️
I've said this before but your videos are so well done. You do great research, professional, no unnecessary jokes.
I have 400 hours in the sf340... Great little plane. One thing that I really miss about it is the Audio Control Panel... Its volume controls for the various channels were sliders like on a mixing console as opposed to rotating pots.
Merry Christmas and thank you for your wonderfully informative videos!
awesome job, I love storm stories , I was in a flight over Borneo similar to that one in 2003 .
Fantastic account of what happened .
I worked for Loganair and your facts are spot on ,everyone was extremely lucky
Happy holidays brother we make sure you take a nice long rest after these videos my boy you deserve it
happy christmas chloe
I’m fully addicted to these videos at this point and I love it lol idk if it comes from morbid curiosity or a way my anxiety is manifesting or just for the knowledge aviation accidents. Keep up the awesome work!
I bet you are a ton of fun :)
Well done again, and Merry Christmas.
Great content as always
Thanks for all the videos! Really enjoyed your content, very well paced and has sufficient explanation to the technical aspects of aviation. See you next year!
New favourite channel.
Thank you for the Xmas upload.
Merry Christmas! Another great video and really well made as always.
Thank you so much for a great year of your channel, I love them! Merry Christmas and happy new year to you and your family!! 🍻🎉🎄🎆
Merry Christmas! An excellent video to end the year with.
Merry Christmas to you as well. Thx for all the vids. 😉✌️
Designer: if they won't use the autopilot, there's a disconnect button.
Autopilot: I am the master
Pilot: Help me! This won't work!
Happy Christmas! And I know you’re referring to MCAS at the end of the video. So true
You need more subscribers. Great job!
I'm originally from Shetland and now live in Aberdeen, interesting to see both focused on in this video 🥰
merry christmas! thanks for a great year!
I was on an airplane from Copenhagen to Paris in 2014 that was hit by lightning. It hit the right wing and I though that the engine had exploded for sure. I was absolutely terrified!
The pilots and the cabin crew were really amazing though! The cabin crew went around and comforted and talked to us, one of them went back to me several times because I basically having a panic attack.
The captain was calm and chill and explained what just had happened and that the only thing unusual about this situation was how early in the year it was for lightning to happen.
Much props to them!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I have to wonder, had Aeroflot Flight 593 been flown with the Saab 2000, would the accident have happened?
Merry Christmas to you, too! I enjoy your channel very much.
This one is the closest incident to where I live as I live in Moray, Scotland. Have a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!
What was Saab's logic behind the autopilot that wouldn't disconnect when pilots tried to override it? Something more than them wanting to be original?
I’d say maybe to prevent pilot s*icide but seeing how rare that is, probably not the case. Idk.
I'd say it's because of their military aviation heritage. The military fighters they built have the same feature (AP doesn't disconnect on pilot input)
So exciting to see a company my dad is about to join on your channel! Now I know something about the company before he does >:)
Best of luck to your dad!
I used to be cabin crew for Loganair. They trained me as an internal auditor for the company, and I was their Cabin Safety Officer as well.
Hello from Shetland! 😁
Fascinating episode! Still wondering though: how come the autopilot made the plane decend further below 2.000 feet that were programmed in to await the storm to be over and why would the autopilot have brought the plane to crash when it was supposed to keep it at 2.000 feet .. Was the autopilot faulty in this case?
My guess is that since the plane managed to get to 4,000 ft and it needed to be at 2k, the plane had to descend _quickly_ . This caused the plane to go into a nose dive that the autopilot alone would not be able to make a recovery
Of course it's my guess I'm no expert
I would suspect that at 7.000'/min descending from 4000' would happen rather quickly. The autopilot did this using trim control essentially wrestling the altitude away from the pilot. Stabilizer trim adjustments do not happen as quickly as elevator response so passing through 2000' at nearly 8000'/min gives 15 seconds until impact. They reportedly averted this with 7 seconds to spare. 8 seconds to trim from full nose over to a climb and recover configuration takes time of which they had little.
My question is "Was the autopilot disconnect a result of the thrust lever being fully applied by the FO seen by the autopilot as incompatible with the planes vertical descent rate?"
I think the autopilot’s memory or instruction set could have been corrupted by the lightning strike. As the pilots began desperate attempts to gain control, their inputs, including the thrust, caused the autopilot to execute a check which determined the conditions were beyond the limits of the autopilot to manage and it disengaged. So the thrust may have indirectly caused different check code to execute.
Likely the data or instruction in an onboard processor in the autopilot control circuits became corrupted due to the lightning. Hence the need for improved over ride ability.
It's because the autopilot kept trimming it down, while the pilot was trying to push the plane up via the yoke. There was a tipping point where the trim was in such an extreme nose-down position that the yoke has no effect.
This channel is so underrated
Well done as always
One of the most incredible stories… mainly due to the fact that a disaster was averted, but also because it was a mere systematic glitch which turned the autopilot off, a glitch saved countless people’s lives… crazy!
One of the cooler stories for sure. Especially since the plane made it
Yes, indeed.
I've never seen ball lightning in the sky but my Dad and I did see it as a ball of fire that hit the ground during a horrific thunder storm back when I was about 12....... it was absolutely amazing. During the storm, it hailed like I've never seen before as well, with hailstones almost as large as a golf ball.
When we got home, my Dad saw that the hailstones had dented the roof of his car so badly that it was almost a write off, even though the car was only a year old.
The low production numbers of the SAAB2000 came about because jet commuter airliners like the Canadiar CRJ were taking over the market, so SAAB decided to stop building airliners. I worked on the flight control system for the SAAB2000 and saw some of the lightning strike tests conducted on these systems. It doesn't surprise me that the plane shrugged off the lightning strike.
Indeed a disturbing event caused by a unique autopilot and lack of situational awareness and proper training of the Pilots - and especially very great Luck for all on board to have survived this Incident! Thank you very much for this Video.
I am a rampie at sumburgh and just happend to come across this by chance , I’ll be asking boss about this tmro see if he knows anymore details about it , nice video tho man
Hello , I asked some guy from my work about this and he said that same plane that this was the Logan air station manager was on that same flight ,
Oh cripes. I am always tense with these sort of vids. No crash no foul - A distinct relief. I welcome aviation mis-haps that do not result in disaster.
I’ve done this journey a lot, having relatives in Shetland. It’s not a route pilots are fond of, as the runways, which are in a cross pattern, are just long enough to land on. Coming in from one direction feels as if you’re about to land on the rocks. I can only imagine how terrifying this flight must have been for everyone on board!
Merry Christmas….I remember watching the Air Crash investigation episode on this one
Merry Christmas to all!!! I love your videos so much. I've been watching all year long. Never missed one. Keep up the good work!!!
I've only have a minor mistake to mention. As a geography geek 🤓 I noticed that you've put a flag in the beginning of the video you thought it belongs to Shetland. Actually it's the greek banner of arms, which has also been used as a national flag. The blue flag with the cross in the middle. Shetland has a blue flag with a cross, but slightly to the left and it's thinner. Just an observation.
Thanks for the great videos. Let's have another year full of them! 😉👍
ball lightning are so interesting, my mom had seen it when she was 10 and my grandma (on dads side) had seen one before the war. I grew up with the stories and teachings on how to act when one flies into your house. Yet when after I moved to USA it feels like hardly anyone have ever heard of them.
Great documentary...I live in Scotland but don't recall this one....there must have been a guardian Angel watching over that plane, the reason for it not crashing is insanely fortunate for all those on board, although for the pilots not to understand how the autopilot works seems very sloppy to me and warranting serious retraining at the very least. Loganair doesn't have the greatest safety record for such a small regional airline, a few fatalities and crashes since the late 80s
I was cabin crew for the airline when we lost the Shorts 360 aircraft that was doing a mail flight that day. So fortunate it wasn't full of passengers.
We lost 2 friends/colleagues, and it was truly devastating. I never felt the same after that, and quite a few people left the company not long after.
It wasn't pilot error or mechanical failure, per se. Just a horrible accident due to a series of unfortunate events with bad weather and icing issues. It'll live with me forever. I had to fly 2 days later, right over the crash site, and I had media onboard. Fortunately someone I knew, so didn't get a barrage of questions I wasn't allowed to answer. They could see I was struggling 😔
I used to work on a Sabb-340 for Northwest Airlink was my fave plane and knew it inside an out.. was a pleasure..
I worked on it too, for Loganair! Lovely little aircraft, but very noisy 😬
Happy holidays, DB fans! I hope you're having a peaceful, happy day💖
Merry Christmas!
So in the end I think the problem here is why the auto-pilot pushed the plane into a dive ,not the fact that it didn’t disconnect at pilot’s input
Panic is deadly, & we're seeing it everywhere today. Merry Christmas all! 🎄👍😆
Merry Christmas 🎅 🎄
Merry Christmas and happy new year
i LOVE disaster averted🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
How you make the plane scenes?
Merry Christmas 🔥👍✌️
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas everyone!
The auto pilot is the first thing I would double check as soon as the plane wasn't doing what I wanted it too.....
Well yes normally I’d agree but in this case the pilot not only believed that the autopilot was disengaged but they had also just suffered a lightning strike. Keeping that in mind I feel like most people would automatically assume that the issue was coming from the lightning strike rather than the system they already thought was no longer a factor in play
This is one of my favourites, love your pronunciation of Scottish cities.
Merry Christmas. Over 10 years ago I was on a plane that hit by lighting. It struck the wing and gave a huge explosion. To this day I'm shocked at my reaction, which was a shrug of my shoulders and went back to sleep.We were suppose to land in NYC, but due to a storm (hence the lighting) we circled until finally diverted to Atlantic City due low fuel. It was only there the pilot told us we needed to switch planes because the wing was damaged.
Don't look, just fly. We got...something. I ain't saying what it is. Just...trust me. - Superman 1977
I am astonished they hadn't checked the autopilot regardless.
Please, for all of you involved in vehicles, look up and read up on "Faraday's Cage". Even the Mythbusters have covered it multiple times. It's truly remarkable just how much energy can be "routed" around internal systems simply by putting them inside a metallic (and conductive) CAGE...
I feel like more people NEED to understand that it works, whether or not they really understand "The How and Why" of the thing...
AND if you ever don't trust the Autopilot, maybe try just turning it "OFF" before you get into a fight with your plane. I mean... We've seen too many instances of pilots "technically fighting each other" in the cockpit... and NOW, we're seeing pilots actively fighting with the autopilot and the plane, itself... It's getting just a little bit silly. ;o)
Less Than Fun Fact: Another Saab 2000, also flying Aberdeen-Sumburgh, and incidentally also flying with the number BE6780 was forced to make an emergency landing just over a year later, just before christmas 2015
Merry christmas 🎄🎁
Merry Christmas
Weirdest case i e heard ever. The lighting ball is a strange phe omenon, but to see it inside de plain is something else.
There is an odd humor about the pilots literally reacting by "screw this, I'm going home."
Merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays to whomever is reading this! May you have a wonderful day no matter where you are :)
This is similar to yak service flight 9633 because the pilots on flight 9633 both flew the yak 40 and the yak 42
Doesn’t seem safe to have an Autopilot that doesn’t disconnect even with pilots retracting the stick fully and using trim to control. If the Autopilot is fighting against inputs from human pilots it should yield and disengage.
The fact the crew never realized that the AP might still have been on is disturbing. Close call
If "well trained" pilot's does not know how to switch off the AP and are to stupid/lazy to read the display (AP on/off in different colors), than it is a pilot fault. I hope they don't fly any more.
But I expect they still fly, therefor no more Information about the pilot's name. Protecting them instead of save the life of their passengers in future.
@@petergrunendahl2074 I'd like to see you do any better in that situation. Both (as you say well trained) Pilots were new to the Saab 2000, and were taught to react differently when handling a lightning strike. An electrical discharge could easilly short circuit any number of mechanical systems(Auto-pilot; Pitch/Attitude Control; etc.) Which is probably why the pilot figured the plane was sluggish to respond. On top of that, I'm guessing the "AP" light is small, and the pilots were focusing on Altitude, Airspeed, and Artificial Horizon figuring the AP was either short circuited or turned of on the pilots attempted retake of the controls.
IMO: LOGANAIR is to blame, for putting two pilots with very little experience with the aircraft as the two flightdeck crew.
"Well trained" was sarkasm. If you even don't know how to switch on off an AP you shouldn't fly a plane. In army you made a licence but for each different plane you must finish a special test.
You're happy with such "qualificted" pilots? Remember me when your family died in a crash.
@@petergrunendahl2074Do you think that the pilots get to choose which plane they fly? Nope. The company will say you're flying x,y,z days. Different aircraft have different controls. And Saab with their 2000 model reworked the autopilot to not disconnect when a pilot tries to take control, while most other models of planes, including the Saab 340, would yield to the pilot.
I stand by my decision that LOGANAIR is at fault.
Ok, I'll remember you the next major crash, and think, was that random person on RUclips flying?
@@walleclyde8759 Shut up. He is not a professional pilot, why should he be able to do the right thing? That woman is a poor excuse of a pilot and should never enter a cockpit again!
Happy Christmas
Forgive me if I’m being ignorant here but I don’t understand the benefit of having an autopilot that doesn’t automatically disengage when the pilot takes over manual control? In what situation would that be useful?
There is an accident of a Lockheed L-1011 of Eastern airlines fight 401 that crashed in 1972 when a Captain accidentally hit the control column while in a hold over the florida everglades trying to change a landing gear position indication lightbulb and he didn't notice that the autopilot turned off when he accidentally bumped the control column and the plane very slowly started descending until it hit the everglades. The worst thing about that crash was the alligator's trying to get to the dead and survivors because they smelled the blood in the water. In that accident 101 people were killed and 75 survived. There have been few close calls where pilots accidentally hit their control column and it disengaged the autopilot without them knowing, even though there is an alarm that sounds when the pilot disengages the autopilot the pilots for some reason didn't hear it. Now most of the autopilot alarms are very loud so it would be hard to miss that alarm, but accidental autopilot disengagments still happen from time to time. Now these days something like flight 401 crash would not happen because all airliners have to have GPWS(Ground Proximity Warning System) that alerts the pilots when the aircraft gets too close to the ground.
Those pilot's had no idea about their plane. They shall not presume, expct or believe...they shall open their f...ing eyes and watch the display, AP on or off, in different colors is absolutely clear.
I hope they don't fly any more, those both are even a risk as bus drivers.
Regards from Belgium
Best practices today would not place 2 pilots with such low "time in type" as sole fight crew together. The AP indicator in the likely differed in the two instrument panels, to the pilot with thousands of hours, only one being familiar
I’m sorry but I just don’t at all agree that the very small “AP-“ changing from light green to white is at all clear especially to pilots who were in a very high stress situation and (from their points of view) had more pressing matters to focus on
That was one lucky glitch
why did autopilot not level the plane at 2000ft ?
In the tropical conversion zone an aircraft is struck by lightning even 1-3 times a yr.
I don't know much about airplane mechanics, but for sure i can understand how pilot(s) can be affected by "cognitive tunneling" in these situations in respect to auditory and visual impairments...but what about actual physical presentations, wherein your body cannot deny symptoms like all the things that were trying to implement not being effective ought to have pointed to 'auto pilot is still engaged'.
Yeah in a moment of panic like that I’m sure auditory and visual cues could have been easily missed. Especially since said visual cue was so minor that I doubt anyone would have caught it given their seemingly more pressing matters. But in defense of the pilots I feel like it’s not entirely fair to assume that “the autopilot is still engaged” would have been a logical conclusion in this situation. The pilots believed the autopilot had disengaged and was therefore no longer a factor in play. On top of this they had just suffered a lightning strike so it would have been easy to assume that this was the root of their sudden issue with the controls. Lastly in their minds, even if the autopilot had still been engaged, the force they were applying to the controls would have overridden it, as is the case with every other airplane model (I still think that’s completely stupid, not sure why Saab thought this was a good idea)
Pan Am 707 over Elkton MD struck by lightning!
So who was the genius that specified that this autopilot should behave differently from every other autopilot in history? And why??
I was on this flight. I didn’t know the extent of the incident and didn’t know it was a 1 in a million glitch that stopped us crashing into the North Sea
The pilots were actually trained that when a lighting bolt strikes the plane it disables the autopilot but in reality the autopilot of the plane they’re flying was still on.
They were trained on another type of Saab Aircraft, the Saab 340 were it worked in another way than in this Saab 2000.
More like disaster almost caused. :Ρ I can't think how the pilots felt when they learned what happened. Glad they are all okay.
Yes.
Best glitch ever.
Never assume anything, check and verify.