The Chilling Story Of Air Canada 646: When Technology Failed And Heroes Emerged
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- Опубликовано: 29 дек 2022
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This is the story of air canada flight 646. On the 16th of december 1997 an air canada CRj 100 Er was on the way from pearson international airport to fredericton international airport in new brunswick canada. The plane had 42 people on board including two infants. On this day the first officer was the one flying and he had some bad news waiting for him, the weather at fredericton wasnt the best. The visibility at landing would be 1/8th of a mile, this would mean that the runway would be hard to spot even thought the lights would be set to maximum intensity.But pilots are trained to deal with situations like these and so this shouldnt be a problem for the pilots. Especially when the pilots would be making an ILS approach to runway 15 at frericton. When the plane was getting close to fredericton the pilots handed the plane off to the autopilot. As the plane cut through the thick fog the pilots in the cockpit were trying to peer through the fog to get a glimpse of the runway. Then when the plane was just 300 feet off of the ground the captain started to see the glow of the runway through the fog. If this kept up they should break through the fog at any moment and then should just be able to land. At this point they were 100 feet above their decision height and when they hit 100 feet the captain called lights in sight and the first officer said that he was continuing with the landing. You see if the pilots do not have the runway in sight when they hit the decision height then they must go around, no questions asked. Now if youre making a CAT III approach then you can basically land blind but in this case they were not making a CAt III approach so had they not seen the lights of the runway then they would have had to go around. At 165 feet above the airport the first officer disconnected the autopilot and began hand flying the plane. As the autopilot was disconnected the plane started to drift above the glidepath, the captain was concerned and started to coach the first officer a bit to get the plane back on glide. The first officer killed power to the engines in an attempt to get the plane back on the glideslope. Keep in mind as all of this was happening the plane was only 80 feet off of the ground. It was at this point that the captain had realized that the plane was to the left of the extended centerline. The captain had no idea how far down the runway they were this landing was no longer viable and so the captain decided to call for a go around. The first officer pushed the engines to max power and selected the go around mode on the flight director. The first officer pitched the nose up at 10 degrees and acknowledged the go around. Just seconds after that happened the stick shaker went off, this meant one thing. The jet was close to a stall and the pilots did not have a whole lot of time to save the plane. They had no idea why the plane was so close to a stall, they should be climbing away and picking up speed but that was not happening. The captain called for go around flaps and a tone was played in the cockpit signifying that the stall protection system was active. But the plane was already stalling and there was nothing that the pilots could do the plane banked sharply to the right and then and the right wing started to scrape down the runway The plane rolled level and then hit the runway again this time in about 20 degrees of right bank. This time the plane came crashing down and as the plane dragged along the runway the plane lost all electrical power except for the emergency lighting. As the plane dragged along the runway the plane left the runway entirely after the intersection of both runways to the right and then plowed through the snow and went on for another 1000 feet and finally came to a stop next to a hill in the snow. Thankfully all onboard survived.
At the end of the day we have a landing that somehow went horribly wrong, and it was upto the TSB to find out what happened. As soon as the investigation got under way the weather was an immediate culprit in this accident, it was foggy it was dark and it was snowing a deadly combination that are the just right for a crash. Immediately it became clear that the 100 foot cloud ceiling and the 1/8th mile visibility at fredericton was lower than the limits permitted but this landing was allowed to go ahead because the RVR or the runway visual range was 1200 feet, the bare minimum needed to perform a landing. So by all accounts this landing was being very close to being made non viable by the weather. This meant that the crew made the right decision in continuing the landing they had the runway lights in sight and the weather was on 
Наука
You know, a year ago, when I went down a rabbit hole of maritime and air disasters, I never would have guessed that a smaller YT channel where a guy talked about said disasters and how they can occur, and how we prevent them from happening, would become one of the most relaxing playlists in my library. You're always improving, my friend. I like the content that you put more of yourself into. Keep up the great work@
I also find aviation and maritime disaster videos relaxing and this is definitely one of my favourite channels for this type of content. I'd like to echo your praise for the creator. They definitely hussle in comparison to some of the larger channels, with more incidents and coverage of the ones that are less well known. It really is great work!
@@how_about_naw I'm so glad to hear that I'm not some one-off in this. I mean, I probably shouldn't watch them right before a loved one is coming to visit me via flight, but I also recognize that flying is still safer than driving a similar distance. Might have something to do with anyone being able to drive and pilots needing specialized years of training. Also, my car isn't a multi-million dollar piece of equipment... yet.
I live in Fredericton and it’s very impressive to witness how the airport and airlines operate here. Weather in winter is very challenging but these guys make it happen.
I love it when everyone survives.
Its crazy that they weren't required to use anti-ice whilst in icing conditions.
Icing conditions were, by procedure, only a threat when detected by the ice detector. If it didn't say there was ice, there was - "officially" - no ice.
Air Canada procedures didn't require it, and pros take their SOPs very seriously.
Anti-ice has performance penalties, so they only use it when they have to.
@@marsgal42 well laura Im a pro, on the crj900 for a few thousand hours, and our bombardier manuals require the ice protection on when entering conditions... I suspect because of this accident.
@@marsgal42 These Sops were as defective as the anti ice automation and the failure by the crew to maintain proper coordination of duties. The weather was too lousy to go take a look! This crew should have chosen the alternate and never started this approach!
ERAU 80 CFIA&I ret.
@@marsgal42 What “performance penalties” could there be?
One additional fact I didn't see mentioned. If you look at the photo of the plane being recovered, at around 4.13 of the video, you see a huge gash in the fuselage starting at the main cabin door and going aft. That was caused by a large tree trunk which ripped into the cabin. (As discussed in section 1.3 of the TSBC report). My understanding is that there had been someone assigned to the seat in the direct path of the tree, but they had moved for some random reason and the seat was empty.
Yes I know the people who did get trapped by the tree. The registration was C-FSKI, like a Bombardier SKI-DO.
Don't talk about that too loud or people who don't like the seat assigned to them will never let flight attendants hear the end of it.
Didn't one of the passengers lose a leg due to that tree?
Can confirm, a tree did puncture the fuselage. I lived in Fredericton when this happened, and it was huge news for a long time. There were a number of injuries, some severe, but no fatalities.
Praise God! 🙏🙌
Around 1999, my boss was on a flight into Saint John, a nearby city, with similarly bad weather conditions. The captain told the passengers they would likely have to divert to another airport, but a few minutes later he came on to say, "The weather in Saint John is still pretty bad, but, we're going to give it the old college try."
One strange fact - the accident happened at night. By morning, when the press were there to take pictures, the Air Canada logos had been painted over. The airline, when asked about this, said that they had determined that the aircraft was a total loss and therefore became the property of the insurer, and that their practice was to remove logos from an aircraft prior to transferring the title.
Hello Mike. That is a very cool and quite odd story, although I do not doubt it's veracity. Priorities I guess.
@4:03. a picture of the wreck in daylight, with the logos visible.
Covering logos as well as any identifying nomenclature is a common post-crash practice among airlines, especially when the wrecked aircraft involved is visible out in the open. This is primarily a brand preservation (PR) move to minimize associating the airline name from negative public perceptions represented by the crashed aircraft. The airline I worked for had one non-fatal runway overrun in which the aircraft was damaged beyond repair. Within 24 hours our on-site maintenance team had covered the tail and forward fuselage.
@@Gremriel and on the next pic with the plane being hoisted by a crane the tail logo has been painted over as well as the fuselage logo . Clearly an attempt was made to cover the carriers identification , but didn't have time to do this to both sides of the plane as only the left side was altered ( covered.
As further evidence that air canada was trying to avoid negative PR , note the pic of when the plane was sitting back at the airport. It has plastic tarps covering the tail and the part of the fuselage that would have the remaining logos on it .
Often I have spoken to people who have visited Canada and they are disappointed to have found Canada and Canadians to be NOTHING like the Canadian PR makes them out to be .
I just respond " Well , that's Canada .. Great PR ... but ...
@@ethics3 Fair enough!
Very astonishing - and somewhat sobering - that a layer of ice one-fiftieth of an inch thick can have that much effect on a structure the size of an aeroplane's wing. So good to hear that all the passengers survived including the babies. That's always a bonus with these videos when it happens.
Wipe your ass with paper and sand paper then tell me it’s a small difference.
@@michaelcohen904 Many thanks for an informed reply.
@Michael Cohen Turboprops use boots for deicing as they can't use bleed air to heat up wing surface. As such, they do not have slats. ATR is prone to upper area wing surface icing due to the wing design, this is one of the main reasons that you don't see too many ATR's in North America, especially great lakes region that is known for icing conditions.
They'd have crashed it with clean wing. it's necessary to speculate about ice
You would think airports in regions that regularly get bad weather would be equipped with a comprehensive set of runway lights to give the pilots the safest conditions for landing.
Eh.
I mean, that’s not the deciding factor really. A small municipal airport invest in a 30 million dollar cat3 system.
Fredericton is now CAT III, 9/27 was extended & is now the main runway and generally YFC is open and receives diversions when others are shut down.
@@davecass485 YFC is NOT a CAT III airport, it's not even a CAT II airport. Before you tell me otherwise, I'm an airline dispatcher in Canada that gets paid to know these things and has reference to Jeppesen charts. YEG doesn't even have a CAT III and, they could one.
So glad to learn they came out of this so well. This seems like it mostly fell on software rather than the pilots, who seemed to follow the responsible actions for a go around and an aircraft that failed and deceived them.
No expert here, but I'd agree. Why have technology that is unreliable in the cockpit ? If its dubious, then it just becomes another distraction for the pilots.
I don't think the technology failed either. Just several small things added up (subtracted down?) to cause the failure.
@@briant7265 I'm not convinced. When a pilot is faced with a situation where the pilot opts for a go around, there is likely a lot happening in the moment to drive that choice. The last thing a pilot should have to deal with is an aircraft arguing with the decision because of a set of preconditions the plane's avionics developers had decided were needed before a go around could happen.
@commerce-usa What about the regulations allowing a landing in conditions where most other countries would prohibit landing? Certainly, if they had called off the landing far earlier this wouldn't have happened. Software can't create performance that doesn't exist.
@@commerce-usa The point I think that is being missed here is that there is a difference between a Go Around from a relatively stable approach up until decision height and a discontinued (bauiked landing) thereafter, especially if there has been a significant reduction in thrust. Just because the actions are similar, the pitch up has to be applied much more carefully. And yes, the preset avionic demands or system design can bite you in the arse. Examples are the A330 at Toulouse and the 777 at Dubai.
The French internal airline managed to achieve a 100% arrival rate using the 'Pilot looking out and taking over when visual" technique.
No doubt Mapleflot tried to pin all the faults on the F/O, but he was clearly trapped into a corner. When there's a difficult situation as predictable as that was, it would have made more sense for the experienced captain to take it from the ILS onwards.
MAPLEFLOT!! Priceless!
See above. Nothing "Flotty" about it. Good ol' corporate pressure and greed. Remember, AC had been long privatized by that point. And yes, the FO was more or less the scape goat but the Captain took some stick too. Don't think he returned to service as he busted both of his legs in the ordeal. The FO was back inservice within the year if I recall.
Mapleflot. Good one, eh?
@@moosifer3321 que?
@@joeyjamison5772 que?
The current CRJ 200 anti-ice limitations are like 3 pages long. Probably in part because of incidents like this one. Cowls required in visible moisture at or below 10C. Wings required below 10C when in icing conditions and below 230 KIAS, or when descending from cruise, and etc
Not to mention they are fully manual, meaning the system may tell you if there is ice accumulation, but it's up to you to remember to turn it on/off.
dang 1.1k viewed in 29 minutes already (and displayed counts are way behind real time). Nicely done!
glad everybody made it! by the way, thanks for your job and happy new year!
I went to university at UNB Fredericton at this time, and one of my former professors was on this flight.
I fly in Atlantic Canada too and I've done ALOT of RVR landings, however, the most challenging ones I've done are the 1200RVR landing. But you do get used to them after a while.
"ALOT" is not a word. You mean "A LOT".
@@jimw1997 RVR landing isn't a thing either.
I remember that crash. We have a very small airport in Fredericton with very few daily flights (the "international airport" designation is really kind of a joke, and all gates lead to the same exit door). That crash was the only major "event" that I can remember in the 40+ years that I have been living here, and was major local news for a few days.
By "international", does that mean that some flights hop over to Maine?
A dozen years ago I think they experimented with flights to Boston and that’s when they slapped on the “international “ part. That didn’t work out and I don’t think they fly outside of Canada anymore but I could be wrong, I don’t keep track of where flights go at the airport.
@@RogerWKnight there used to be flights to the UK and US but mostly now Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic in the winter. It also accepts international business aircraft.
Great video. Loved the fact that everyone--including the babies! Happy New Year!
Another great video. Keep up the good work!
Reducing thrust to chase the glideslope when your already at minimums is a recipe for a very hard landing or worse. The glideslope is extremely sensitive when your at DH. If you have the approach lights in sight, better to hold the already established stabilized approach on the localizer until you get the runway lights in sight. In 30 years of flying, once I got the approach lights at 200 ft, I always got the first runway lights at 100 ft and completed a safe landing. Never have I ever attempted a go around in a passenger jet once the decision was made to go below 200 ft with only approach lights in sight. Watch out for thin layers of ground fog that will allow you to see much of the airport lighting from above but drops vis to near zero as you start to round out for touch down. In a few seconds you can go from good vis to no vis. Its like a dirty trick, it draws you in then blinds you with a sheet of white caused by your own landing lights. If you see what looks like a fairly dense haze layer that seems to be right on the surface, consider turning off landing and taxi lights before you enter this on short final. The runway lights will be easier to see through the haze if your not blinded by your landing lights and taxi lights.
I live in Nova Scotia and have been a passenger on many similar approaches into Halifax. You can feel that you are descending but you have no idea of your altitude pretty much until you are on the ground. The pilots that fly these routes regularly during the winter are probably some of the most competent pilots I have ever flown with.
I’m a bit of a YT accident junkie. Nice to watch a case where everyone lives! I have greater appreciation for the art and science of commercial aviation thanks to great videos like yours!
Great vid!
Cowardly pilots are safe pilots. Ironically, it's often the pilots themselves (and management) who tend to push the limits, sometimes endangering a flight. If the pilots would just ask the pax, "Hey, the weather's really bad at our destination but we might be able to get in. Shall we give it try or go to our alternate where the weather's better?" Guarantee you the PAX would vote for the alternate! (I was a cowardly pilot and my PAX were always grateful.)
WTF is a vid?
@@K1OIKWTF is WTF? Why is WTF (a vulgar expression) more acceptable than "vid"?
@@thomasm1964 Ok what the hell is vid?
@@K1OIK Video.
@@K1OIK Seriously? Video.
This is the first time learning about PMA approaches. I wonder if they do the standard handoff call outs?
The implication that flying the flight director means you don't pay attention to your speed is absolute nonsense, even in the 90s. Also, when the PM is looking outside, you don't transfer controls once the runway or approach lights are in sight. You don't transfer control during such a critical phase of flight, period.
Excellent video!
I worked for Consolidated Aviation at Pearson back then. I remember that night.
Glad I didn't refuel it.
Your videos are always so well done and your commentary is always on target. This accident is like so many where the pilot needs to fight his training which tells him / her to follow the flight management system and instead apply basic stick and rudder techniques - keep the airplane flying. However , that is not how they train the pilots and when under pressure you revert to your memorized training. Even lowering the nose early on may not have changed the outcome, hard to tell. Keep up the great work it is very enjoyable and educational.
> that is not how they train the pilots and when under pressure you revert to your memorized training.
the aviation community depends on technology for a lot more than safety and automation. in large part, it helps to keep many industries growing and profitable, and thousands employed. that of course includes training instructors. it might be for those reasons that basic flying techniques come to be taken for granted, as there is an immense effort to be made just keeping up with the latest in avionics.
His commentary is far from on target. As a 40 year airline pilot, I found it very poorly done.
Interesting video. And, I like the pun in the title: "...chilling story...". Good one. 🙂
The heavy passenger load for the relatively low performing early CRJ could also have been a circumstantial factor. What I do know is, they were prone to weight restrictions after the FAA weights were raised in the US due to similar concerns.
Wow so many accidents happened during my child hood years. That I did not know about yet I new about challenger when I was like 10.
What confuses me is that the crj stall protection system does not know or care if there is ice or not. It simply looks at airspeed vs angle of attack. So a thin layer of ice would not be a factor of its activation. Now in a go around if you rotate to quickly with low power this can certainly set it off.
Worth mentioning that it is legal (and common) on a CAT I ILS to reach decision height and only have the approach lights in sight, not the runway. You are then allowed to descend to within 100' of the runway elevation to try and acquire the runway. If you still don't have the runway at 100' AGL then you must go missed. The approach lights are designed to provide an adequate frame of reference to do this without losing awareness of your attitude.
You have really improved your narration skill every year! Great work. Now, think about making a list that describes your audience. If your list includes non pilots (and I think it does) then stop using acronyms or abbreviations. Don’t say cat-3, sat category 3 approach. Don’t say ILS, say instrument landing system. This will help generalists use context to understand your narrations.
In addition to ice on the wing degrading perfornance, would engine spool up time after throttling up have added to the outcome when done below the decision height?
I’ve had several “interesting” approaches into Fredericton, Moncton, and Saint John. I’ve also chosen just to sleep at YYZ when uncomfortable.
YYZ?
@@K1OIK Pearson at Toronto.
I have to hand it to you. I’ve seen almost every episode of air disasters, have a bachelors degree in aviation, took a class in aircraft accident investigation and I STILL haven’t heard of 90% of the accidents I see videos on
One minor correction for you - you state that to descend below decision altitude the crew absolutely must have the runway in sight. Nope. All you need is the approach lights in sight; then we're allowed per regulations to go down to 100' above touchdown zone elevation. At THAT point, to continue, you must have the runway itself in sight. So, the fact that they went below minimums with just the approach lights in sight is not an error on their part unless they continued below 100'. Thanks for a very informative video.
*THIS is a PRIME example of how automation hurts. It might help more often than not, but it still hurts sometimes. We need to test planes and the monitor all of them in real life for situations exactly like this if we want automation to work in a solid manner.*
It makes no sense. What is "low energy state"? That is every landing, hardly an unusual or unpredictable situation. Full power and pitch for speed, can't imagine it is that complicated.
Yeah, trusting automation also gets car drivers killed when they trust too much into for instance ESC, ESP, or DSC system runs into situation it simply cannot handle and acts contrary to what driver with skills on vehicle that does not have those systems is trying to do to save the situation. System might work just like intended, but still work against you in unusual situation. Had small car crash just because automatic transmission did what it was designed to do to and change higher gear when set RPM was set... too bad revs was the thing i needed in small displacement engine to drift trough icy corner that would not been possible to salvage any other means and no speed was not the issue, perfect weather and road condition, except in part that got close to water and due specific weather has built up mirror ice that had snow on top, just in that one area. Automation chance higher gear and i lost the torque from revs i needed, so slide off the road. Sure system worked like intended but caused the crash when situation went beyond machines capabilities to detect. Adding more capabilities only makes system more complex and increases chances of failure and makes it eventually impossible for human to use it and understand every functions issues with each other like in accident plane and many others like it. Ether make them autonomous, but dont expect any sane person to hop in to that death trap, or remove excess automation off from these things and have users be in control of these devices and vehicles.
Predictable automation is what we need. Automation can be great but when it is so complex that it becomes unpredictable then it can be a real problem.
How does dropping the engine power preclude the possibility of a go around? That made no sense.
Hey aviation expert here (not an expert), pretty much what happens is as they get lower to the ground, the plane doesn’t need as much speed to stay afloat until it touches down. So after cutting the engine they were already at unusually low speeds for flight. This coupled with the fact that jet engines take a few seconds to spool up before reaching full power means they wouldn’t get an immediate increase in speed and would continue to descend a bit since, like he said in the video, the FO pitching up continued to bleed off the air speed
Jet engines are mighty at high speed, but they don't do so well at low speed. They take several seconds to develop full power.
Insane that they weren't required to deice. In Canada, in winter.
Fredericton is now CAT III, 9/27 is now the main runway for commercial / military aircraft, 9/27 was extended as well to over 8,000'. Loaded An-124s and Il-76s have operated from 9/27 on military air lifts for Base Gagetown.
no one dies because there was no fire. Fire changes that 100%
The weather conditions here remind me of other Atlantic Canada airports like Halifax Stanfield Int. (YHZ) and especially St. John's Int. (YYT)
So did the jet thrust increase when they carried out the go around? And the plane stalled despite the added thrust?
I think they should have had a larger threshold for abandoning the landing in favour of an alternate location. There seems to be so many ways that this could have crashed in those conditions.
I also would like to one day see a breakdown that compares crashes that take place in the dark compared with daylight ones. Given a choice, I think I would prefer daylight landings only.
the threshold is the last possible second they can decide to abort landing. so they DO have a huge threshold. if anything, the threshold needs to be smaller so pilots in these big ass jets don’t wait till they’re less 80 feet off the ground to change their minds
I'm in awe at what must have been the cabin crew being aware enough of their situation, surroundings, and training to deboard _every_ passenger safely, via what looks to be the safest exit, after being rattled by such a traumatic event. I definitely think all the contributing factors are prescient of their ultimate lack of envelope. I'm pretty sure newer avionics suites would probably have had a better handle on things going sideways much earlier in the approach, using the same data inputs. Just knowing they should expect to touch, even at TOGA, could have been an invaluable derivation.
I am a person that don't like to travel at night during the winter time, or any time, I know accidents can happen even during day time, but I feel more safe traveling during light day
Why on Earth would de-icing procedures not be mandatory in those types of conditions?
Glad everyone walked away from this crash!!
Who were the heroes you mentioned in the title card?
Please could you tell whats the mapping website you used at 0:12
Did I hear that right? Did some automation override input from the pilot?
Ice or not, it appears that the plane was flying and under control until "energy state" is mentioned.
The energy state is just a reference to factors like speed and so on, how much "go" you've already got that you can play with. In this case they were low and slow with few options other than brute force thrust to achieve anything. They couldn't, for example, dive to increase speed or shed speed to gain altitude (which would stall).
@@KempPlays The way he put it, it sounded like plane would was gauging the "energy state" and wouldn't allow thrust until the it sensed wheels down.
Basically there was no GA, just TO in the TOGA.
@davemckansas4654 Ah, I see where you're coming from. I think what he meant was just that there was no way to avoid contact with the ground given the situation they were in. They wouldn't be able to gain enough speed quickly enough to avoid it.
You did not hear that right. The plane was in a shallow descent with the engines at low power. Pushing the engine controls to TOGA began powering up the engines, but there's a natural delay before it's fully effective. The delay is worse at lower speeds. While they were waiting for the engine power to rise, the aircraft continued its gradual descent. It's not automation, but physics.
@@AdrianColley Thank you. I felt like I missed something and couldn't find the clue on my own.
I imagine it wasn't just the babies who needed nappies when the plane left the runway!
"Give me the checklist for Pantaloons Inoperative."
Okay, they couldn't go around. Did they engage the thrust reversers?
Infants on board...that grabbed some attention.
Worthy investigation
Please use subtitles, everyone couldn't understand the Aviation Terms
You have them if you turn on the "CC" (closed caption) option, verified just now this video does have CC.
3:48 “ including the babies“ I don’t know why but just the way he said that made me laugh. Thankfully though everyone did survive including the babies
Please make a video on Sudan Airways Flight *139*
10 degrees angle of attack seems high. Why didn't the pilot lower the attack, say to 5 degrees or even level flight, when the stick shaker activated?
Cutting power on an approach is perhaps not such a good idea in poor conditions. There are usually other options to get back on the glide slope
Fun Fact This Videos Title Was Written By An AI 🤯
ChatGPT?
Yep that’s the one
@@MiniAirCrashInvestigation I noticed, because it sounds stupid and is too long.
It's fun if you read it in a 1940's radio guy voice.
Not all facts are fun. This one I thoroughly enjoyed.
When I heard "ILS approach to RWY 15", I was like wait a second, 15 doesn't have ILS approach, only 09 has one. I know, because I live here. But then I looked it up and found out that back in the 90s RWY 15 was the only one with ILS. I'm curious why they removed the ILS from 15 and installed one for 09. I mean 09 is longer, but why removed it from 15? Cost saving?
When the pilot monitoring says they have the runway in sight the pilot flying then goes to looking out the window to verify. If the pilot flying doesn't see the runway they are supposed to go-around.
Dude! The algorithm is screwing you over. I'm not getting notifications for your videos and they are not coming up in my feed. Your videos are excellent. When I haven't heard from you for a few days, I do a specific search. That's the only way I get to see your new stuff.
Tell me about it eh?
This is why you want margins. They just ran right up to the edge of the envelope .
The margins for error weren't stringent enough seems to be most important.
I liked your new word.😉
They called the go around far too late, the FO wasn't holding the centre line, he shouldn't have pulled the throttles to idle... Its one of those things and brilliant everyone walked away. That's the main thing
To me it says that there doesn't have to be one big error on the part of the pilot or of the plane, but that a number of small things can add up to a crash. That's even scarier to me.
There's a lot of other factors omitted from this report. This day was the FO's first revenue flight day and was being assessed by the captain through a 4-5 leg duty day. They had performed a number of flights between YYZ-LGA-YUL before heading to Fredericton on the final leg. It was a long day and they were on duty time limits. So the pressure to land was present and the Captain had to complete his assessment of the FO, hence why the FO was PIC. Not very assuring to passengers flying out east into inclement weather if they knew their flight crew were at the end of a long day and potentially over duty hours and fatigued. Then there was the issue of ATC and the only FSS attendant on site had finished his shift literally moments before this flight's arrival who could have provided a more accurate weather report as the recently installed automated weather instrumentation was proven to be faulty. And on. And on.
Why don't they install two big powerful lights, one each side of the runway visible for miles to assist in bad weather or darkness landings?
The lights would simply reflect off the snow
I don't get the energy state thing. When they gave full thrust did the engines not react?
They did react but not fast enough. Jet engines take time to spool up and give thrust, especially if they have been set to idle. It's a bit like "turbo lag" with a car, there's a delay between opening the throttle and maximum power being delivered once the turbocharger has got up to full speed.
Engines take time to spin up to full power.
It takes a while for the engines to react and even longer to change the direction of momentum
It’s like driving a Ford. You press on the gas and it says “huh?” before doing anything
😄😄😄! 👍!
How can the 0.02-inch ice layer affect the stall speed so dramatically? I am under the impression that a normal wing surface has smoothness irregularities of that order even without the ice.
I hope that the co pilot didn't get gigged too badly by the authorities or the airline for this accident. He was almost set up for this event even following inadequate standard procedures and his actions prevented a hull breakup and likely a post-crash fire. Also, I wonder why the deicing gear was not engaged even though the automation deemed it unnecessary- the weather conditions sure seemed like a real risk was present.
If the ILS is not available or defective, why don't passenger planes have forward looking infrared on board these days? In relation to the overall price, such a device can't cost too much. Fog and rain are largely transparent to infrared. In addition to the runway lighting, the appropriate infrared headlights and no aircraft would have to be in danger without ILS in fog and rain.
I think any icing contribution to flight performance degradation is overstated here. The aircraft was put in a regime of flight where the results were practically inevitable.
Also, what kind of ice was it?
Why not install vertical lasers pointing upwards in appropriate places along the runway and a couple at an angle, say 30 or 45 degrees facing back- and outwards, for use in such weather conditions? Maybe even having some of the lightcones/shafts moving back and forth?
Even two cheap handheld ones facing back- and outwards would have contributed tremendously for a positive outcome.
Well. Who am I to say anything?
Bit contradictory here, you first say they were not allowed to go below minimums based on seeing only the approach lights and not the runway (wrong)m and then later on you say they were totally legal to continue approach below minimums. 🤷🏽♂️
The Canadair Regional Jet is one of the very least tolerant aircraft to ice.
You would think a plane that is manufactured and marketed in a cold place like Canada would be able to defrost itself.
Scary tale of insufficient safety margins, insufficient engineering (in terms of anti ice) and a modestly poor judgement. Thankfully everyone walked away. *successful landing* 😊
There is nothing more I can add given your excellent presentation of this video depiction. I agree with your assessment that the main contributing factors were icing, SOPs and the low energy state during the baulked landing. Well done!!
The Canadian Maritimes get some of the worst weather for landings I've ever seen - low ceilings, low visibility, snow, blowing snow, fog, and/or high winds. So, why doesn't the Canadian government (which collects more taxes and is more socially conscious than the U.S.) put in top notch ILS systems and runway lighting at airports with more than a few flights a day. This accident reminds me of what happened in Halifax in 2015. You think they would have learned. Does their FAA suffer from a bush pilot mentality?
Makes it more prone to stalling
This is another informative and well-presented video. I find it strange that Air Canada didn't have PMA as the officially recognised landing procedure. This sounds to me like a massive oversight on the part of the company, especially when it was the norm with most other airlines.
PMA?
This was also 25 years ago.
Me: 1997. That wasn't long ago. (Does subtraction.) Crap. I'm old.
@@briant7265 this times 100
How many Tom Cruises are in a mile, and how many teaspones make 0.02 inch?
Certainly very plausible
This reads and sounds like a matter of "hair splitting statistics"... Meaning they were on the very edge of just falling down and tumbling out across the runway and other acreage.
By the time the Capt'n called for a Go Around, they were below 80 feet, and had done EVERYTHING in preparation to land except the Flare to scrub off speed... Lots of Go Arounds from even 100 feet "incidentally touch down" because there just isn't enough lift to get by without it by conventional piloting.
We ALSO already know that upon increasing thrust from the minimal required to land, it takes up to 8 seconds for the engines to spool back up, so even with the TOGA mode, there's significant deceleration BEFORE any chance at gains in elevation...
I'm going to propose a new point... "What can WE learn?"
I'm not a professional airline pilot... SO this is "conjecture" based on how the video was presented and my dubious conclusions above, pared down to "the essential core".
IF you're past the "decision point" on approach, and you've decided to Go Around, maybe it's wise to keep the stick/yoke STEADY (say... within +3 degrees of "dead level") so you're resisting further descent, to the best of the plane's capacity at the time, but not rushing to climb so that you lose further speed... AND count to 8 "Mississippi's" or so... This should let the engines spool up for more thrust, and probably begin accelerating the aircraft so you can THEN ease the nose up SLOWLY to the +5 to +10 degree territory and start climbing out.
Obviously, I'm suggesting this WITHIN the general rules of a Go Around. This means acknowledging that the plane has been slowed and is experiencing significant drag for the gear being down, and making a SMALL adjustment to procedure "just to keep on the safer side" as best we can. Similarly obviously, I also mean (or intend to mean) that we should continue to heed the stick shakers and any other warnings in the cockpit/flight deck.
Sure, the winter weather contributed. Sure, so did the lack of daylight and the resulting difficulty both pilots had with depth perception and judgments. It's still a matter of nothing being quite so simple as that. ;o)
They did enough right to be alive still. Hope some of the protocols were changed in Canada after this
There's no brightline on these things, except in the law. 1200 ft, Good2Go. 1199 ft. No go. They need to be more conservative on these close cases and just go to the tighter rule when it's a close case.
Were the the crew blamed for this crash or was it seen as an unfortunate set of circumstances ?
This just shows you how sensitive engineering actually is.
4:34 Apparently this landing was not viable for these pilots. 😲🤔
we have visual on the 200k subs milestone 👀
This story is like a Twilight zone episode. 😱 Thank God no one was killed.
CRJ - That's the problem.
Air crashes are media gold.
'Stallable' is a perfectly cromulent word.
Wow I'm early first time ever! 🤭
🤣