L’arrogance du capitaine van Zanten du vol KLM à Tenerife était également un cas de figure, son second et le mécanicien ont clairement énoncés des doutes à propos de décoller avec confiance !!!??? Il était une star de KLM et ne souffrait aucunement la moindre remarque ou contradiction… 584 morts
Over the summer i was flying back to Houston IAH from Miami Intl' and the pilot came over the speaker and explained that there was severe thunderstorm activity over New Orleans and that he was taking the plane a little further out into the Gulf of Mexico in order to go around the storms and avoid issues. He explained that it would put us in Houston about 30 minutes later but any connecting flights would be held. I remember other passengers getting ANGRY and cursing to the flight attendants because of the delay. After listening to this i am so thankful that he did!
As someone who is not a calm flyer, I can appreciate any effort by the pilot to avoid severe turbulence from a thunderstorm. Being late is better than them having to collect your remains.
The whining objections of passengers most of which haven't flown anything but a kite need to be ignored and made to thank the captain of any plane who made a decision that may have saved their lives. Passenger safety means far more than fucking dinner reservations. .
I was in Cozunel when hurricane Claudette hit. I see worse storms in Texas all the time. Our flight was delayed. By the time we took off it was night. We flew around the storm which was in the gulf headed north. The light show was incredible. We landed in Austin and soon after we were hit by the same storm again.
It is entirely possible that what the crew was looking at indicated better weather conditions to the west than to the east. Those old radar sets sometimes set traps for crews by simply being too weak to detect what was actually ahead and indicated by quick glance that no adverse weather at all lay ahead.
They didn't learn anything from their crash two years earlier I guess. It was because of bad weather also. Flight 250. My sister was a flight attendant on that flight. I have had to live with the pain of that for 57 years now.
I'm a retired airline captain and after 42 years of flying (military, corporate and airline) I know that the controllers know more about weather in their sectors than I do in the moment. In that 42 years I had only one disagreement with a controller (nothing serious) and I have always been in awe of their professionalism and knowledge.
They're in the capacity seat and the met-man is in the next room! Of course we should consider their input regarding weather. Un/fortunately I think modern aviators have the benefit of a lot of hard learned lessons in the 50s/60s, who were relative pioneers. Even the language used by the crew sounded immediate alarm bells. 'He's trying to get us to admit...'. 'Don't speak to that man too much...'. Ego.
@@robertemmett906 In the 50s through the 70s, maybe more recently, it was often the case that onboard radar was superior to the radar that ATC used. Controllers didn't always have meteorologists in the next room, and I'm not sure that's the case even now. If so, how would that help? Back in the day, the National Weather Service didn't have its own radar. They relied on photos of ATC radar, which wasn't very precise. Yeah, once he realized he was in a very bad situation, the captain wanted to avoid blame, which is understandable. I don't think he understood how the weather got so bad so suddenly (his perspective), and he didn't want to be blamed for what seemed to be a freak of nature. That's poor priorities (work the emergency now, deal with the consequences another time), but on a human level I think it's understandable.
@beenaplumber8379 Well, they crashed and killed everybody, so I'd say when the controller tells you EVERYONE has deviated to the East that you follow their suggestion especially in a wicked storm that can bring down a huge plane but hey you do you. I'm not flying with you 😮😮😮
As a retired B747 Captain, I will say this: NOBODY knows their airspace BETTER than the sector controllers working it. Personally, I ALWAYS took their suggestions SERIOUSLY and now sit here at age 66, my 2 beautiful dogs ready for their walk...about to take them....thank you ATC brothers/sisters and my MILLIONS of passengers NEVER KNEW..
Fair point. Back then, these planes were fitted with Wx scopes I'm assuming. Still, even with todays fantastic tech, CTR usually knows best because they're able to control the deviations and help you through it. I hate hate HATE seeing reports like this where the pilot mucked up because it could have easily been avoided. Really makes me sad.
Im in the left seat on a 74-8 (started on the 74-1 as a FE) and I am 53 so I have a few more yrs till the Govmt. clips my wings and I couldn't agree more about the ATC...Of course my passengers have always been boxes 😊. Enjoy your retirement
The hubris of the flight deck is chilling. “Don’t talk to him (ATC). He’s trying to get us to admit we made a mistake in coming here”. Wow. RIP to the passengers…..
My dad’s, dad, my grandfather Robert Bob Neal was on that flight. Thank you for publishing the audio. My entire family has heard the exchange 55 years later. We learned a lot and gained a handful of clarity and detail that was never shared. 😢
At that time, Braniff had decided they would try to gain an advantage over their competitors by striving for on-time performance no matter what and using it as a selling point for passengers. As someone up above commented, Braniff actually had alarm clocks placed in the passenger cabin that would be set to the arrival time of the flight. If the alarm clocks went off before the flight was at the gate, Braniff would partially refund the passengers for that flight; it was their way of convincing people to buy tickets with them. So as you can imagine, the company was putting an unfathomable amount of pressure on pilots to strive for on time performance at all costs because they didn't want to lose money refunding the passengers. Hence the reason why the pilots on 352 decided to take the deadlier route through the storm; it was shorter and would result in only 2-3 minutes added to the flight; a delay which could be made up by the time the flight arrived at its scheduled destination of Dallas. While I absolutely agree that the pilots are 100% at fault for deciding to fly through a thunderstorm, one also needs to look at the culture that Braniff had instilled in its employees which led to the pilots feeling it necessary to take such an unnecessary and completely avoidable risk.
If I remember correctly, the pilots saw an area on their on-board radar and thought it was a hole or clear spot in the weather. Unfortunately they misread the radar and the area they flew into was actually the heart of the storm. They thought it was clear because their radar signal couldn't penetrate it. The pilots should have listened to what other pilots were doing and not trusted the lives of their passengers to their skill at interpreting an old weather radar screen.
Apparently the contrast was reversed on the screen and what they thought was a hole was the heaviest part of the storm. They realized it too late when they tried to do a 180.
@@marchicago Your statement here doesn't make sense to me. If a pilot was color blind (and note that color blind pilots have restrictions) they'd still be able to see black and white screens, perfectly, since there's no color in those screens and color blind people see certain colors in shades of grey, perfect for viewing a black and white radar screen. You stated: "Radar in those days was black and white. If a pilot was color blind, the radar display was useless."
What's wrong with being honest about your observations? You people always think you would do better. BS. Put on his uniform and sit in the seat he had to work with. No, no. You wouldn't do better. You might choose to follow the pack that's all. But you might not.
@@horacesawyer2487, yes, but the controller told him that “the pack” was deviating east. It seemed clear that the controller knew that other pilots had managed the storm successfully by heading east. Why buck the trend of other competent aviators who completed their missions?
@@mebeingU2: That's one way to do it my friend. But we have to remember their experience was history. Past. Weather changes. Every second, every minute. The Electra was dealing with NOW and likely future as they saw it. The Captain had many years of making those judgments. Who am I to second guess? Besides, Braniff was pushing them to make the flights on time or ahead of schedule. The Captain wants to satisfy his company, satisfy his passengers. Real life pressures, right?
@@horacesawyer2487 Yes but the Captains attitude was kinda crass. Not professional @ all to tell the 1st officer not to talk to the control tower too much, that they're trying to make us admit we made the wrong decision. Really? That sound to u in any way what a competent professional pilot would say? Sounded like a complete novice to me with an ego to match. As the 1st officer i would have been mortified of that exchange from the Captain and i would question his decision making process forthwith.
It’s heartbreaking to hear the background voice of the flight attendant preparing the cabin. I have a tremendous amount of respect for all those folks who move us across the sky. Thanks and God bless you all. I keep you in my prayers.
@@TheGodParticlemaybe if she wasn't talking and they could have focused on the problem at hand. I don't know if the air traffic made it abundantly clear that while he could clear The Crew West he wouldn't recommend it.
@@guyfaux900 That's why sterile cockpit rules must NEVER be broken! The FA's know this but have been known to abuse it, flirting with the male pilots!! There is a telephone that the attendants use to communicate with the pilots, the cockpit door should be locked except to bring food trays to the pilots or a couple of other reasons on a long flight. Flight personnel do NOT need to talk with the cockpit personnel except by phone about 99% of the time. There are several fatal crashes on record where distraction and not heeding the sterile cockpit rule has led to fatal crashes. ESPECIALLY when the pilots are going through their checklist, they should never be disturbed.
Jeremiah 29:11 God has a Plan for our lives, your Dad must have a very special mission to accomplish yet. Holy Spirit Bless this Family in the way you would have them go. Thank you for sharing yourfamily miracle. 🌌🏴💜👣🙏🏻
As a former crewman on the high seas, I remember a Captain saying that the brave mariners are located in the graveyard. Never forgot that. And it applies to aircraft as well.
Penetrating a severe thunder thunder storm is not ideal but we'll never know why the first officer's turn was so aggressive, the accident aircraft rolled 90° on its side and pitched it's nose down 40°, the aircraft broke apart trying to recover from its excessive AOA
As a sea captain of almost 27 years, I kinda agree. However the sky is far less forgiving than the sea is. I always paid attention to weather conditions and forecasts, plus those bits of information from the Coast Guard that help keep you on board and alive. Like almost 70% of drownings that are recovered later reveal that they had their flys open, or pants/foul weather gear pulled down showing they were taking a leak and failed to take proper safety precautions when doing their overboard business… Facts like these that continue a cost in lives.
Less than two years before this accident, another Braniff Flight (Flight 250) crashed for pretty much EXACTLY the same reason: pilot tried to penetrate a storm and ripped the plane apart.
My father's best friend was on that flight. I'll never forget the evening of the accident when we found out about the crash. Horrible. I was 10 years old at the time. Dad has since passed. I don't think he would want to hear this exchange. Due to obvious reasons I won't divulge the name of his friend but his name does appear on the manifest. This is the first time I've heard this transcript.
I never flew airlines but had an airline transport license in Canada. When ATC suggests where others have found safer passage, I have always concurred. When weather is a major issue, I have learned that I will fear where others have feared to travel. I'm still alive now that I'm in my late sixties.
My flight instructor told me one thing i will never forget . There are old pilots, and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots. RIP to all the passengers and crew
I had to fly often as a sports writer when I was younger and experienced so many hairy incidents that I no longer travel by air. One of them came during a PanAm flight from LA to London. We struck an electrical storm about a third of the way in and for the rest of the flight the overhead lights flicked off and on at random, a bunch here or a bunch there, sometimes all of them together. The storm lasted a long time and stomach-churning aircraft drops and plunges took place regularly. With the light show continuing, lots of people were screaming. I can certainly understand an aircraft breaking apart in such a punishing storm. RIP to all those on aboard the Braniff flight.
My dad was an Air Traffic Controller at Jacksonville, Houston and Denver Centers. He had a couple of pilots in his career not heed his advice and paid the price for it. It was always very upsetting for him.
@@annestep3895 An ignorant comment from someone who is not a pilot and generalizing ALL pilots like that. Shut your yap unless you know what you are talking about.
Immediately before acknowledging the mistake and trying to make the 180° turn that cost their lives? My feeling is that they shouldn't have entered the storm, but if he'd been more pig-headed they might have lived.
He is trying to find a way to get through storm, not pig headed. He is even asking if there is any hail report, to make sure his plan seems adequate. When he realized it was bad he initiated a 180 right away and told atc about it.
@klawlor3659 Nothing pig headed at all about the Captain. Radar in the 1960 had relatively low fidelity. He thought he saw a clearing in the storm but may have been a radar shadow. Immediately upon realizing his interpretation of the radar was wrong he initiated reversal of course. Comments deriding the captain are misplaced and unwarranted.
@@jphickory522 They aren't. He insisted they continue on that course because he was worried about being on time. He failed to use CRM, which includes ATC.
@@jphickory522 ATC told him numerous times that east was preferred. Copilot told him that "it looks worse over there" right before they entered the storm. He didn't want to admit that he made a mistake.
During the time of this crash, Braniff had alarm clocks set to the arrival time placed on the passenger cabin bulkheads. If the alarm went off before arrival, Braniff would pay the passengers $1 each. The airline lost a lot of money over this and the crash of this flight was linked to the pressures to be ontime. The radar contrast in the cockpit was reversed thus the Captain thought what was a hole was actually the heaviest part of the storm.
Wow! Sounds like that baby DC-9 from Southern in Atlanta. They flew TO the heaviest rain shaft when they didn't realize that the weather radar was attenuating
The captain didn't realize this? I wonder if fatigue of the flight crew was a factor? He was an experienced pilot, seems like a mistake he would only make if something else was a factor.
In 1973, I worked for Braniff in Seattle (SEA). I had been displaced from Dulles Airport (IAD), and in a few months I was assigned to work in operations, preparing the weight and balance forms. I was a 20 year old kid, with no airline training, as the company believed "experience was the best teacher." The flight crews warned management that I was in danger of causing the flights to crash, because of the mistakes I was making. The cargo service employees used to laugh at the situation, saying for sure, the plane was going to crash. I resigned in January of 1974, thank God, (I mean that literally), no accidents happened. To this day, I have no respect for management in this company. I begged management for training, but was ignored.
Possibly applying here - it was not recognized at the time that hail absorbs rather than reflects radar waves, causing the worst part of the storm to look like a safe path or “hole” on the planes radar screen. This was still happening a decade later with the crash of Southern Airways 242 where the crew was also using radar to navigate a storm.
Great observation ! they got mislead due to the hail. Better talk to ATC and hear about other pilots in the vicinity of these storms. Tragic you could not trust that radar. Pilots rely so much on what they see on their screens.
Thanks - the newer radar systems are said to be much better at telling the difference. This effect probably caused more accidents - in the 1950’s an Air Force bomber voluntarily flew into a thunderhead and was completely destroyed - was likely doing the same thing with its radar.
@@johnwatson3948 I'm not sure newer radar has that problem sorted out. I know it was a suspected factor in why Air France 447 (an A-330) flew straight into a heavy line of storms in the ITCZ and crashed in 2009. Certainly its radar was capable of showing the same erroneous data, and it was only 4 years old (first flight in 2005).
Yes don’t know if the problem is sorted out but not sure there’s been a repeat accident maybe due to radars becoming computer aided with Doppler. On 447 they purposely flew over the storm line to avoid diverting - which had no bad effects except for minor icing.
@@johnwatson3948 I only brought up 447 to show this is still a possibility with more modern radars. I know it wasn't what brought them down, but the BEA investigation considered it as a possibility until they found the flight recorders. It didn't happen, but they thought it could have happened with the radar on that aircraft. The radar black hole did cause at least one more accident after this one. Southern Airways (flight 232? others have mentioned it in these comments) flew straight into an extremely heavy hail shaft in the 70s. There were survivors in that one as the crew attempted to set down on a rural roadway after dual flameouts and no forward visibility. You've probably already heard of that one - you seem to know a thing or two about this topic. And here's one I'm really not sure of, but in 1988 or so, a Taca crew successfully landed a 737 on a levee outside New Orleans after dual flameout in an unexpectedly heavy storm. I'm not sure if they had the radar black hole/attenuation issue though, but that's how I remember it. It's possible that storm just grew extremely fast. (Three years later I dispatched for Taca. I might have met that crew, but somehow I never heard of that accident while I worked there. Those pilots were decent people, and unusually humble compared to other pilot groups I've worked with.)
I've been an airline pilot for decades. This was in 1968. Commercial aviation was still in it's infancy and Accidents like this changed the way we operate. They didn't have the tools to know better. If they did, they would have NEVER made these decisions. We are all safer in the air today because of these kinds of sacrifices.
Two passengers on Flight 352 were friends of mine. The brother and wife of one of those were later killed in a separate airplane accident. Huge hit to the family. They were good people.
I flew for 16 years. Far and away the most severe turbulence I encountered was not on the radar between Tulsa and Oak City. When the aircraft hit the windshear it felt and sounded like a mid-air collision. Then it went into a steep uncontrolled dive. The captain was very experienced ex military pilot. Kept his cool and finally gained control. He fought just to keep the aircraft stable in horrendous turbulence for about the longest 10 minutes of my life. Finally he was about to get us turned around and back to Tulsa. No one got into Oak city that night from any direction. Everyone on the the plane thought it was over for us. Oddly enough no one screamed. Oxygen masks deployed, overhead bins popped, the trash in the galley bins came out. This is almost impossible due to the location of the bins on the 727 galleys. What a mess.
If you look up United flt 585 into COS (1991)official cause was rudder problem, but I lived about 5 miles North and a mile west of flight path that day. We had some of the highest westerly winds (coming off the front range) I'd ever experienced in over 30 years of living here. Gusts that day exceeded 80 mph. Hardly mentioned in crash report. Wonder what ATC said to cockpit that day. But 585 went down just as it was making it's down wind leg U-turn to land from the south when it went down. If I'm wrong they make that turn at a pretty low alt. Like 1000 ft, lose control at that alt, not a lot of alt left to recover from. I'm I right?
That part of the country can have nasty thunderstorms just about any time of the year. But in March/April/May they can have ugly thunderstorms *and* tornadoes.
So then turbulence is dangerous according to your statement and experience or isnt it? Most people and pilots themselves say that its nothing to be worried about. So how to understand this? Are you scared everytime there is a turbulence if you fly as a passenger these days?@@biff5856
good point that area is notorious for flatline winds. this is a term used for severe winds that start from the ground up to 200ft I had never heard of this term until living in Mn next to minneapolis airport around spring of 1997 one day these winds hit my neighborhood and drove huge trees that actually broke off at ground level and forced into several homes in the Minnehaha area (about 5 min from MSP I feel like Servo valve locking up on Ua 585 when the Rudder Hardover was eventually ruled as the cause of that accdent in 1991 and the UsAir crash a few years later. Those Colorado Rockies are very beautiful but just like the ocean can kill you in a quick minute. @@scubarojo
My aunt was a Braniff stewardess in the 1950s. She says Braniff was absolutely the most glamorous airline in all the skies.The crews stayed at the best hotels too. Her routes were South America up to FLorida. She was so pretty that she got her job at age 19yo with special permission. She met a very wealthy guy on some flight, married him and lived happily ever after - but that was the plan for girls back in the 50s. She really has some great stories!
@@MrTruckerf So true. in spite of what they say about the 'woman's movement'. I was a male ER RN for 40 so years. From the beginning of my career to the end there were female nurses pursuing a doctor.
"Any time you have any comments or suggestions that might in your opinion make this a better airline, let us know." Yes, please don't kill everyone next time.
If things are so bad that you need to pull an emergency 180, then you JUST DO IT and then tell ATC what you’ve done. First they refuse to follow ATC advice for course deviation, then refuse to talk to ATC altogether. Then they waste precious seconds waiting for ATC to give them permission to save their own flight. Sad.
The pilot actually started the turn immediately and did not wait for ATC approval. And the turn is probably what caused the crash. Company policy was to maintain straight and level flight in severe turbulence.
@@Pluviophile218Yeah. I installed and worked on a radar system in the Texas Panhandle that was smashed up badly by a hailstorm, where some of the hailstones were about 6 inches across. One of these went into a colleagues swimming pool, and he said it was like a depth charge had detonated in his pool. If you hit something like that in an aircraft, well, you're toast.
Not necessarily. The airborne radar, especially back then, was much better at weather avoidance than ATC ground radar. Of course interpreting those airborne radar returns might be problematic. Trust me here. I have many thousand hours on the C-130 and we NEVER trusted ground radar weather avoidance and always depended on our own Navigator to get us through bad weather.
@@hmbpnzI’ll bet they were looking at a radar “ shadow “ to the west with their on board radar. Understand of attenuation was very poor in that era of aviation. The crew likely interpreted a hole via their radar return but it was probably an attenuation shadow. They wouldn’t have been the first, nor the last to get suckered in accordingly. Now we understand attenuation. It’s just not always heeded.
@@hmbpnz This is highly dependent on the band the radar is operating on. i.e the wavelengths of the radar beams. Some radar is less affected by moisture attenuation. The C-130 used X-band for the AN/APN-59 radar. X-band shows the worse attentuation. However I can tell you the WC-130s that were used, before the J model, used the same radar to penetrate hurricanes for years. But what the anttenuation does is prevents seeing storms that are behind other storms with high reflectivity. We always seemed to get around that easily enough.
ATC was concerned about it the whole time. "trying to get us to admit" was just the ATC being concerned of their decision. They responded immediately to the 180 request, probably knew it was a rough spot. Rest in peace to everyone on board.
Simply amazing we can get a 1968 CVR/ATC recording with this level of clarity. Most recordings we hear are from the 80's onwards - many with less high quality.
Firstly this video this is a recreation of the traanscript of the cvr tape. This is not the actual cvr audio. This is patently false. CVRs are much more clear now. What you're confusing for CVR is often liveatc repeaters that are at various positions around aports. They are volunteer hardware of varying quality & capability. But it's easy and quick for news stations to hear what was said via radios. How do I know this? uSAF instructor that recommend liveatc to students to listen to how radio calls are made.
I’ll bet they were looking at a radar “ shadow “ to the west with their on board radar. Understanding of attenuation was very poor in that era of aviation. The crew likely interpreted a hole via their radar return but it was probably an attenuation shadow. They wouldn’t have been the first, nor the last to get suckered in accordingly. Now we understand attenuation. It’s just not always heeded.
Yes. We can't judge his decision. I most likely would have followed the other guys that made it through safely but I wasn't there. I started airline flying in 1984 and the radar equipment and knowledge was not what it is today. But even today, with the great equipment available, nature can be very dangerous.
@@flower2289 easy for me to arm chair it now, but like you, I’ve been an airline pilot for many years (since 1993 ) and I have used a large number of varying radar systems. The radar equipment he had at the time was likely monochromatic in combination with the level of weather / radar understanding , didn’t give them the best decision making tools. You made the best out of what you had. Sad story, but like most aviation tragic events- we all learned from these tragedies. I don’t take for granted the multi scan complex radar systems I use now, but I still put the time and effort in to stay up to date on weather knowledge/ radar systems.
ATC could have also said, deviation to the west is DENIED, change course to the east and follow other traffic. However he approved the deviation to the west. ATC could have also said that ATC's weather radar is not showing a clearing to the west, or followed the request with a more direct statement that the western approach is not advised. Sloppy communication.
@@cobaltclass.Air Traffic Controllers have very little authority compared to the pilots. Without a valid traffic reason (potential of collision with another aircraft or closed airspace) ATC couldn’t tell the pilot what to do, just advise.
The Electra has to be one of the toughest airframes out there NOAA uses them for hurricane tracking the forces on that aircraft must have been tremendous
Actually they use the Navy P-3 Orion. The Orion is a descendant of the Electra but so many airframe changes took place it wouldn’t be true calling it an Electra. 3 of my buddies fly for NOAA and I have over 3,000 hours flight time in all models of the P-3 and was a flight test engineer/project specialist. My buddies have some crazy stories such as all engines flaming out during a severe weather flight. Another time altimeter read below sea level when they finally pulled out while flying over the North Atlantic. Good times.
@@kaptainkaos1202 I knew a woman named Judy Bruner who passed away in December 2022. She piloted the P-3 for the Navy and NOAA. She was the first woman in history to both command a P-3, as well as the first to fly through the eye of a hurricane. She went on to work for NASA in Greenbelt, MD.
From wiki: "...the first officer stated: "... it looks worse to me over there." The crew then requested and received clearance from ATC for the 180-degree turn. The turn became extremely steep, with a bank of over 90 degrees and a nose pitch-down of 40 degrees. As they were trying to recover from the turn, the FDR indicated a peak acceleration of 4.3 g, which the NTSB concluded caused overstress the airframe and resulted in its breakup. I am reminded of the saying, "There are old pilots, and there bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots".
Was a Braniff pilot hired after that, safety officer posted pics in ops that still haunt me today. Even now when picking your way through difficult weather, you want to go through where others just ahead did ok.
@@floatpool8307 Different situation, the Delta flight ran into a microburst downdraft, which was not well known at the time, It's a sudden encounter with a vertical shaft of air that causes the aircraft to lose altitude and can occur in visual conditions, pilots are now trained for this type of encounter.
@@marks6663 I was about to say just that. A Learjet landed in front of Delta 191 just fine and that little jet was only about 30 seconds (2.5 miles) ahead of the Delta L1011 at ~150mph approach speed. Enough time for manageable weather to be fatal (as a microburst in that case). I remember that crash specifically in August 1985 as I was flying back on a Delta L1011 from Frankfurt Germany to Atlanta GA when it happened.
At 16:47 the flight encountered an area of severe weather including hail and requested a 180-degree right turn, which ATC immediately approved. While turning to the right in severe turbulence, the bank angle was increased to over 90 degrees, and the nose pitched down to approximately 40 degrees. As the crew attempted to recover from the ensuing steep diving turn, the aircraft experienced acceleration forces of over 4 g, which caused the right wing to fail. The aircraft then broke up at an altitude of 6,750 feet and crashed in flames into the ground at about 16:48, killing all 85 persons on board
I couldn’t have put it better myself. Your comment was spot on. What a tragic mistake, compounded by the fact the captain realised he had made such a very bad mistake which was too late to recover from. So many lives lost, for what?......to maintain Braniff’s ‘on-time’ reputation??!!!
I appreciate you making this comment because there's a lot of negative criticism towards this captain, which is understandable. But you're right. It IS heartbreaking because he definitely had to have some positive attributes as you mention. Pilots MUST be rational and thoughtful or they simply wouldn't be licensed. It seems his tragic decisions were born out of stubbornness, rather than arrogance, but either way, it was a fatal decision that killed many people. But your comment is also a reminder that the pilot was most likely a decent man with a loving family so I hope many others that read it will be reminded of that as well. There are no winners in this. Truly tragic. And truly heartbreaking . . .
@@stevenmorgan5579 I'm not convinced his decision to deviate west was born of stubbornness or ignorance. There is a sort of radar trap pilots can fall into. When viewing a very heavy storm, their radar cannot always penetrate the storm. On their radar it looks like a thin line of precipitation followed by a large area of clear air. I think the captain might have seen that on his radar and mistaken it for the safer direction to deviate. Of course his comments later show he realized his decision turned out to be a bad one, then a dangerous one, and then he died.
@@TheBeingReal It's no good to conclude that most crashes are, one way or another, due to poor decisions by the flight crew, or pilot error. Why is there so much pilot error making planes crash? Who is putting all these error-prone pilots in charge of passenger flights, and why? Why did this captain so confidently fly into the worst part of the storm? If you stop at pilot error, you never discover the reasons. (Thankfully, investigative bodies no longer stop at pilot error.) For example, maybe this captain's radar was showing faulty data. Maybe his company training in its use was inadequate. (I think this was possibly an issue - he didn't recognize that he was looking at a radar void - or whatever it's called.) Maybe he didn't hear all the ATC transmissions clearly. Maybe he had an unknown medical issue. Maybe he wasn't competent, and he never should have been put in charge of that flight. If so, who put him there, and why? Is it a sign of a systemic problem? Concluding "pilot error" is a way to avoid learning about all these important safety factors and correcting any shortcomings they uncover. It's also a way of shielding the airline, the aircraft or equipment manufacturer, ATC, and other entities (NWS, rescue personnel, airport operations, etc.) from responsibility and liability - just call it pilot error, or poor decisions by the flight crew, not any systemic problem with airline training or operations, or a previously unknown fault with a certain model of radar unit. The crew screwed up. If crews make tragic decisions, we always have to learn what informed those decisions. Talented, experienced pilots rarely make tragic decisions. When they do, it's not because they're inherently unskilled or unsafe or incompetent. It's not enough to state the obvious. Lives are saved by following the accident chain all the way, in every direction. People have died. The least we can do is learn everything we can.
Amazing how much the communication between ATC and flight deck has "tightened up" over the years. So much more information is delivered more succinctly and directly in the modern era. Sterile cockpit protocols, etc.
Speeded up too. This was completely understandable without subtitles, modern cockpit-ATC conversations are like this one if played at 1.5 speed. For people not in the business it can be bewildering.
I heard the captain say they were heading to Tulsa after Dallas. I was 10 years old in Tulsa at that time. I wonder who didn't make it home that day.☹️
RIP ito the souls of this flight. I flew with my family from Washington DC to Dallas on Braniff airlines in 1974. Braniff and the days of dress travel was once a formal affair. Men wore suits and ties, women wore dresses, my mother made the girls wear a dress.
Yes, a tragic day indeed and an indication of how times sure have changed. I remember vividly as a kid traveling in the early 1970s when nobody went out in public without being formally dressed. I still can't get used to t-shirts, shorts and sandals on airplanes. Then again, the 60s and 70s were also the time when smoking was considered a sign of sophistication and welcomed on planes which is impossible to fathom (both aspects). I miss the days when we functioned without the internet and wifi and phones...
@@BLAB-it5unyes..been there too. My stepmom worked for Delta, and I'm assuming that all airlines back then made the employee and family dress with suits and dresses like we did. I later went on to work for American Airlines myself. We still dressed nice. I even worked when smoking was allowed. That first class cabin was like fog. We all smelled like smoke. A cigarette in one hand and an alcoholic drink in the other.
This sounds like one of those accidents where the radar echo of the storm is so dense on the near side that radar can't pick up anything past that boundary, and it therefore looks like a clear sky. There's a name for that, but I can't recall it. This captain seemed sincerely convinced his radar showed the safer route to be to the west. Yeah, he made mistakes following his initial decision, but I think maybe he initially had a reason for thinking he had the safer route. Other experienced pilots have fallen into this radar trap. I know that was something they considered with Air France 447, though in the end I don't think it was a causal factor.
Thank god that the personality of the “know-it-all Airline Captain” is mostly a behavior of the past. CRM (crew resource management) has changed that way of thinking today, each pilot in the cockpit has a voice and responsibility for ensuring safety! Having flown for over 35 years as an airline pilot, I have seen quite a change in our procedures over those years in the cockpit (now called “flight deck”) which has remarkably enhanced safety records overall.
It wasn't too many years later that I was in a recurrent training class being taught by a former Braniff captain. He was quite vocal about his low opinion (wrongly, I thought) of the CRM concept. Braniff had a reputation as a "Captains'" airline. Probably a factor in this accident.
Judging from the Wow&Flutter on the CVR on the last few seconds, that escalated quickly. You can really hear the machine must have been shaken massively to cause such Wow&Flutter on a recording that was running smoothly just seconds ago...
As a licensed pilot, I learned very early in my training that fighting a thunderstorm is like a featherweight against a heavyweight. This pilot's arrogance killed nearly a hundred people.
He was decending out of 20.000ft down to 5000ft he was going way to fast the 180degree turn doubled the load on the wing and it broke up the 188eletra was known for wooblely wings at high speed
"Broke apart at 6700 feet", just after the landing gear and fire warning horns sounded. That is an extremely violent end. It take extreme G-forces to break a commercial airplane apart, and those horns were the first indication the plane was being dismantled. I have seldom met a pilot who chose a fight with a major thunderstorm and emerged unscathed.
This is heart breaking. Hit by lightning and torn up by hail ? The debris on the ground is just sickening. I can only imagine the pain of the families.
They actually got torn up by attempting a steep 180 turn, which banked the aircraft past 90 degrees (virtually no life), when into a steep dive because of that, and then hit the structural limits of the the airframe during that overspeed and attempted recovery. Not sure why the video blames the crash completely on weather.
My best friend was to be on that flight. She worked for Hertz rental and because of the weather took a rental car to Dallas instead of flying. She lived in Dallas.
I remember all the Ansett-ANA Electras here in Australia were flown at a reduced speed not long after they bought them as the wings would literally break off Electras due to what they called “Whirl Mode” where the oscillation of its Allison engines on the wings would create fatigue but after modifications it was eliminated, my older brother in laws mate was an airframe mechanic at Ansett at Essendon Airport when all this was going on and used to tell us about it, but as a young bloke that used to fly with my old man, mother and brother up the eastern seaboard to visit family I was too shit scared to fly on them after learning about the wing problem and thereafter we used to go by the Spirit of Progress to Sydney from Melbourne
@@JamesCAsphalt8 Yes it was Victorias Broad gauge Express train to Albury ( later changed to standard gauge ) at the state border of New South Wales where we would have to change trains to the Sydney express because at that early time all of NSW was standard gauge the only train that was thru from Sydney to Melbourne was the new Southern Aurora from 1961, great memories in a great time!
It was later shown that the whirl mode vibration was induced by a synchronization problem between two adjacent props. After they fixed that, it became a safe old bird. Still in use today.
@@geezerhull Hey there ! I remember 1 flight I took with them on Eastern Airlines on the shuttle from New York LaGuardia to Boston. LOVED them. I must have been 6 years old. The engines looked too big to be on an airplane. LOVED the spool up and the lift you felt in the seat of your pants when the bird lifted up!
Always and I mean always take their advice on weather deviations. Especially if They've had people come through there in the last few minutes just fine. The 1960 radar that we were working with at the time was not very good in that it could not see what's Befind the C e l l at all.
Many years back I took myself off work due to depression. I was upfront with the company as to why I had lost my medical, in hindsight this was a mistake. Once I got myself well again I returned to the job I had as an FO. Shortly after I returned I was flying with a somewhat arrogant Captain, it was my sector on an oceanic flight and there was a large storm painting on our radar. I asked the Captain to request weather deviation and his response was we didn’t need deviation as we were going to fly over it. I made the request several times and each time he rebuffed me. In the end I said “ well f%ck you then” and informed him that he has control. As we got into the storm we were in and out of the tops getting a beating, and it wasn’t until the cabin crew asked for it did he put the seat belt sign on. A couple of days later I got called into the office and my manager asked if I was all right, meaning how was my mental health. When I asked why he asked? he said he had a complaint that I was “very angry”. I told the manager my side of events and that was the last I heard about it. A couple of weeks later the same Captain put two passenger in hospital when he got too close to a thunderstorm. I was a little disappointed they didn’t fire him. I would have.
I worked on the line crew at a relatively small airport where this American Airlines Captain had his Beech Bonanza T tail parked. Everyone hated the SOB. He was arrogant conceited and surly. We all joked and said this guy was an accident waiting to happen. Luckily, never did, but this is the type of guy who would make the same decision as this Captain. Those guys either wouldn't get hired today, or they'd be let go. Times were really different back then, and arrogance was often mistaken for confidence and proficiency.
This is super sad. My grandfather came over from the merger with Panagra from South America. He was the Chief Pilot for Braniff. I have no idea if he was at the time of this crash. If he was, I am sure that he was part of the investigation. He would have been furious with what I just heard. I am so sorry for those that lost their lives and others affected. Horrible.
It wasn't the turbulence of the storm that doomed that aircraft and the souls aboard it, it was the severe weight imbalance due to the oversized ego of the captain. It just pulled that plane out of the sky. A good pilot knows to listen to the sector controllers advice, most especially when it comes to weather in their area.
@iLLBiLLsRoastBeats just a reflection of the times. when I first started watching Diaster Breakdown I was sooo confused on dudes channel. Regardless he's got a damn good plane channel and I find these plane disasters interesting as hell.
Interesting the pilot mentioned the high percentage of the company's aircraft on time, and mentioned their planned deviation may take a few minutes - they were obviously time concious. The route they chose, to the west, was shorter, therefore faster than the route taken by other aircrat, to the east., I'm suprised that wasn't mentioned in the aircraft accident report as a contributing factor, timeliness versas safety, but there again, aircraft accident investigations have come a long way since then, and now consider those factors. Rest in peace all who were on board.
I was flying into Dallas on Braniff Airlines in June of 1977 when the pilot flew deep into Mexican airspace to avoid a massive thunderstorm. It actually added 3 hours to the flight and I lost my connecting flight to Colorado Springs. However, the airline put me up in a nice hotel, bought me dinner in the hotel’s restaurant that night and breakfast the next morning. I also charged several Jack Daniels to the room they provided me! I was sorry to see them go out of business just as TWA and Pan Am had done before them!
The little Braniff spiel the captain recited, about always arriving on time…guessing there was pressure free m the company to save minutes where they could. A serious weather system doesn’t sound like the ideal circumstance to cut corners.
"The Electra has to be one of the toughest airframes out there." NO. Not the early Electras. Look up "whirl mode flutter." The Electra had major design flaws that were only corrected after multiple planes crashed due to severe oscillating vibrations that ripped the wings off. This was one of those crashes.
There were two L-188 crashes as a result of propeller whirl mode flutter. Braniff Flt 542 on 9/29/59 and Northwest Flt 710 0n 2.17/60. A redesign of the engine nacelles and mounting structure resulted. This crash was not one of them. There may be some L-188s still hauling freight today for Buffalo Airways in Canada.
@@Snaproll47518 Seems Buffalo Airways is moving towards jets (just acquired a 737-300) but does still fly Electra's to carry freight & for fire fighting duties. Joe (Buffalo Airlines owner) gave credit to the Electra's service in a recent video. Should be noted their aircraft often fly in very hostile conditions.
@@NesconProductions As a young Eastern Air Lines mechanic starting in 1976, the Electra was the very first aircraft I worked on. Eastern phased the aircraft out 18-months later so they never sent me to school on it. I did overnight checks, service checks, changed engines, props and a lot of TD Amps. High power run ups and pitch lock checks at the blast fence were fun. The engines generated 3750 SHP.
How truly eerie it is to realize that the words that the captain was using to address the passengers were some of the last words they'd ever hear . . .
How weird is it that all these years later we can hear these long-dead voices as clearly as if we were in the cockpit with them. Heck, I wasn't even born until 1990.
The captain was one stubborn headed, self centered, and arrogant man. He didn't listen to the controllers, he didn't even take into consideration the decision of the captain of the other Braniff airliner to deviate eastward from the storm area. All he did was take a decision despite all the warnings and go west, I believe, into what he thought was a clear area; to be on time only??? He made the mistake of his life. Controllers because of the nature of their occupation in managing the air traffic around them have uptodate weather forecasts and info that always will be valuable to aircraft captains. "Don't listen to him. He is trying to make us admit we made a mistake." The controllers fear for the safety of the passengers as well. He was the reason behind this tragedy. I just had the shock of my life just listenning to this. Better be a bit late during a flight than massacring people in a flight crash. Its true statiscally air travel is still the safest way to travel but the number of victims per plane crash is what causes the shock. May Lord Jesus have mercy on us.
Hearing the captain address the cabin and you can also later the flight attendants doing their normal pre landing announcements. I've been on many fights and this is when you start to feel happy you're almost there... then it all ends in an instant wow.
Arrogant captain killed them all. "He wants us to admit we made a mistake." Guess what, Einstein. You did.
He figured out how to avoid admitting it.
Yep
L’arrogance du capitaine van Zanten du vol KLM à Tenerife était également un cas de figure, son second et le mécanicien ont clairement énoncés des doutes à propos de décoller avec confiance !!!???
Il était une star de KLM et ne souffrait aucunement la moindre remarque ou contradiction…
584 morts
Over the summer i was flying back to Houston IAH from Miami Intl' and the pilot came over the speaker and explained that there was severe thunderstorm activity over New Orleans and that he was taking the plane a little further out into the Gulf of Mexico in order to go around the storms and avoid issues. He explained that it would put us in Houston about 30 minutes later but any connecting flights would be held. I remember other passengers getting ANGRY and cursing to the flight attendants because of the delay. After listening to this i am so thankful that he did!
A passenger arriving late is always preferable to arriving as "the late passenger"
As someone who is not a calm flyer, I can appreciate any effort by the pilot to avoid severe turbulence from a thunderstorm. Being late is better than them having to collect your remains.
The whining objections of passengers most of which haven't flown anything but a kite need to be ignored and made to thank the captain of any plane who made a decision that may have saved their lives. Passenger safety means far more than fucking dinner reservations.
.
Since we are putting our lives in their hands, it seems reasonable that we should also defer to their judgement in how to get us there safely.
I was in Cozunel when hurricane Claudette hit. I see worse storms in Texas all the time. Our flight was delayed. By the time we took off it was night. We flew around the storm which was in the gulf headed north. The light show was incredible. We landed in Austin and soon after we were hit by the same storm again.
“Don’t talk to him (ATC). He’s trying to get us to admit we made a mistake in coming here” There is no better example of pride coming before the fall.
It is entirely possible that what the crew was looking at indicated better weather conditions to the west than to the east. Those old radar sets sometimes set traps for crews by simply being too weak to detect what was actually ahead and indicated by quick glance that no adverse weather at all lay ahead.
pilot, innit. Standard.
Right on and amen!
@@megadavis5377 No excuses.
@@megadavis5377 lucky no one else took the bait other than him.
They didn't learn anything from their crash two years earlier I guess. It was because of bad weather also. Flight 250. My sister was a flight attendant on that flight. I have had to live with the pain of that for 57 years now.
same
I'm so very sorry for your loss.
thank you@@shelbyscout
@@TehSWEED what do you mean same? did you also lose someone on that flight?
Oh, I’m so very sorry 😢!
I'm a retired airline captain and after 42 years of flying (military, corporate and airline) I know that the controllers know more about weather in their sectors than I do in the moment. In that 42 years I had only one disagreement with a controller (nothing serious) and I have always been in awe of their professionalism and knowledge.
They're in the capacity seat and the met-man is in the next room! Of course we should consider their input regarding weather. Un/fortunately I think modern aviators have the benefit of a lot of hard learned lessons in the 50s/60s, who were relative pioneers. Even the language used by the crew sounded immediate alarm bells. 'He's trying to get us to admit...'. 'Don't speak to that man too much...'. Ego.
@@robertemmett906 In the 50s through the 70s, maybe more recently, it was often the case that onboard radar was superior to the radar that ATC used. Controllers didn't always have meteorologists in the next room, and I'm not sure that's the case even now. If so, how would that help? Back in the day, the National Weather Service didn't have its own radar. They relied on photos of ATC radar, which wasn't very precise.
Yeah, once he realized he was in a very bad situation, the captain wanted to avoid blame, which is understandable. I don't think he understood how the weather got so bad so suddenly (his perspective), and he didn't want to be blamed for what seemed to be a freak of nature. That's poor priorities (work the emergency now, deal with the consequences another time), but on a human level I think it's understandable.
Good to hear.
@beenaplumber8379 Well, they crashed and killed everybody, so I'd say when the controller tells you EVERYONE has deviated to the East that you follow their suggestion especially in a wicked storm that can bring down a huge plane but hey you do you. I'm not flying with you 😮😮😮
gbedm…right. And we heard the captain boasting how braniff is #1 on being on time eh! That was his priority!
As a retired B747 Captain, I will say this: NOBODY knows their airspace BETTER than the sector controllers working it. Personally, I ALWAYS took their suggestions SERIOUSLY and now sit here at age 66, my 2 beautiful dogs ready for their walk...about to take them....thank you ATC brothers/sisters and my MILLIONS of passengers NEVER KNEW..
have a happy retirement captain. I know i am....retired atc.
Fair point. Back then, these planes were fitted with Wx scopes I'm assuming. Still, even with todays fantastic tech, CTR usually knows best because they're able to control the deviations and help you through it.
I hate hate HATE seeing reports like this where the pilot mucked up because it could have easily been avoided. Really makes me sad.
@@geezerhull Where did you work, if I may ask?
ZDV, southern high and low sectors south of kden.@@incarnateTheGreat
Im in the left seat on a 74-8 (started on the 74-1 as a FE) and I am 53 so I have a few more yrs till the Govmt. clips my wings and I couldn't agree more about the ATC...Of course my passengers have always been boxes 😊. Enjoy your retirement
The hubris of the flight deck is chilling. “Don’t talk to him (ATC). He’s trying to get us to admit we made a mistake in coming here”. Wow. RIP to the passengers…..
Sounds almost like they told him to wear a mask during a pandemic....
@@princeofcupspoc9073 LOL those masks did absolutely nothing except maybe cause health issue for the people foolish enough to wear them for so long.
@@princeofcupspoc9073exactly ❤
Captain was an idiot. Too bad he had to take so many souls with him.
More chilling is that the aircraft wasn't built to fly
My dad’s, dad, my grandfather Robert Bob Neal was on that flight. Thank you for publishing the audio. My entire family has heard the exchange 55 years later. We learned a lot and gained a handful of clarity and detail that was never shared. 😢
Robert 'Bob' Neal. Died before I was born but I bet he was a real decent guy. I hope you got to meet your Grampa Neal. May he always be remembered.
So sorry for your Loss
I am sorry
Sorry for your loss. I'm sure aviation learned a lot from this tragedy.
@@kilnmasterthat’ll teach em
Sounds like he was more concerned about Braniff's on-time record than the safety of all the souls he was responsible for.
I don’t care what I’d much rather arrive alive and late than dead and never.
At that time, Braniff had decided they would try to gain an advantage over their competitors by striving for on-time performance no matter what and using it as a selling point for passengers. As someone up above commented, Braniff actually had alarm clocks placed in the passenger cabin that would be set to the arrival time of the flight. If the alarm clocks went off before the flight was at the gate, Braniff would partially refund the passengers for that flight; it was their way of convincing people to buy tickets with them. So as you can imagine, the company was putting an unfathomable amount of pressure on pilots to strive for on time performance at all costs because they didn't want to lose money refunding the passengers. Hence the reason why the pilots on 352 decided to take the deadlier route through the storm; it was shorter and would result in only 2-3 minutes added to the flight; a delay which could be made up by the time the flight arrived at its scheduled destination of Dallas.
While I absolutely agree that the pilots are 100% at fault for deciding to fly through a thunderstorm, one also needs to look at the culture that Braniff had instilled in its employees which led to the pilots feeling it necessary to take such an unnecessary and completely avoidable risk.
Well now it's really late.
sounds like?
That was also one of the causes of the Tenerife airport disaster. Among other things, the captain of the KLM flight was impatient to get back on time.
“He’s trying to get us to admit we made a mistake” 😆
The stubbornness and arrogance 🤦🏻♂️
And he wasn't even Dutch.
Exactly. You dont want to go on a flight with a pilot with that attitude.
Ego Ego Ego.
Got news for youse guys... many pilots have that attitude. Almost as much as engineers and M.D.'s ...
Yes. Famous last words cost people their lives 😢
If I remember correctly, the pilots saw an area on their on-board radar and thought it was a hole or clear spot in the weather. Unfortunately they misread the radar and the area they flew into was actually the heart of the storm. They thought it was clear because their radar signal couldn't penetrate it. The pilots should have listened to what other pilots were doing and not trusted the lives of their passengers to their skill at interpreting an old weather radar screen.
Apparently the contrast was reversed on the screen and what they thought was a hole was the heaviest part of the storm. They realized it too late when they tried to do a 180.
Attenuated, i.e., shadow returns . Fools even the best of us.
Radar in those days was black and white. If a pilot was color blind, the radar display was useless.
called attenuation.
@@marchicago Your statement here doesn't make sense to me. If a pilot was color blind (and note that color blind pilots have restrictions) they'd still be able to see black and white screens, perfectly, since there's no color in those screens and color blind people see certain colors in shades of grey, perfect for viewing a black and white radar screen.
You stated:
"Radar in those days was black and white. If a pilot was color blind, the radar display was useless."
Captain: “It’s not clear, but we THINK we see an opening through it.” Unreal.
wow
What's wrong with being honest about your observations? You people always think you would do better. BS. Put on his uniform and sit in the seat he had to work with. No, no. You wouldn't do better. You might choose to follow the pack that's all. But you might not.
@@horacesawyer2487, yes, but the controller told him that “the pack” was deviating east. It seemed clear that the controller knew that other pilots had managed the storm successfully by heading east. Why buck the trend of other competent aviators who completed their missions?
@@mebeingU2: That's one way to do it my friend. But we have to remember their experience was history. Past. Weather changes. Every second, every minute. The Electra was dealing with NOW and likely future as they saw it. The Captain had many years of making those judgments. Who am I to second guess? Besides, Braniff was pushing them to make the flights on time or ahead of schedule. The Captain wants to satisfy his company, satisfy his passengers. Real life pressures, right?
@@horacesawyer2487 Yes but the Captains attitude was kinda crass. Not professional @ all to tell the 1st officer not to talk to the control tower too much, that they're trying to make us admit we made the wrong decision. Really? That sound to u in any way what a competent professional pilot would say? Sounded like a complete novice to me with an ego to match. As the 1st officer i would have been mortified of that exchange from the Captain and i would question his decision making process forthwith.
It’s heartbreaking to hear the background voice of the flight attendant preparing the cabin. I have a tremendous amount of respect for all those folks who move us across the sky. Thanks and God bless you all. I keep you in my prayers.
Yes indeed, just doing her job, hard to take in that within a few minutes she'd be gone. Very sad.
@@TheGodParticlemaybe if she wasn't talking and they could have focused on the problem at hand. I don't know if the air traffic made it abundantly clear that while he could clear The Crew West he wouldn't recommend it.
@@guyfaux900 This is 100% on the PILOT IN COMMAND. HE made the horrible decision and it had nothing to do with that poor stewardess.
@@guyfaux900 That's why sterile cockpit rules must NEVER be broken! The FA's know this but have been known to abuse it, flirting with the male pilots!! There is a telephone that the attendants use to communicate with the pilots, the cockpit door should be locked except to bring food trays to the pilots or a couple of other reasons on a long flight. Flight personnel do NOT need to talk with the cockpit personnel except by phone about 99% of the time.
There are several fatal crashes on record where distraction and not heeding the sterile cockpit rule has led to fatal crashes.
ESPECIALLY when the pilots are going through their checklist, they should never be disturbed.
My father was booked on that flight but missed it because he got to Houston late that morning. He took the next flight to Dallas.
Jeremiah 29:11 God has a Plan for our lives, your Dad must have a very special mission to accomplish yet. Holy Spirit Bless this Family in the way you would have them go. Thank you for sharing yourfamily miracle. 🌌🏴💜👣🙏🏻
If he took the next flight ! then he was not "on" that flight.
@lapipismoker3751 - I believe you meant your Father was scheduled on that flight, not on that flight.
@@Loulovesspeed Yes, exactly. I should have gone back and made the edit. Well, I think I'll do just that. Thanks for the comment.
@@jimreilly6933 Yes, exactly. I thought about that later, but I guess I was too lazy to make the correction. . Thanks for the edit.
As a former crewman on the high seas, I remember a Captain saying that the brave mariners are located in the graveyard. Never forgot that. And it applies to aircraft as well.
Penetrating a severe thunder thunder storm is not ideal but we'll never know why the first officer's turn was so aggressive, the accident aircraft rolled 90° on its side and pitched it's nose down 40°, the aircraft broke apart trying to recover from its excessive AOA
There is a saying in aviation. There are bold pilots and there are old pilots, but there aren't any old bold pilots.
@@RH-cv1rg All young aspiring pilots should be taught that in hapter 1.
Brave gets you killed. The Capt should have listened to ATC.
As a sea captain of almost 27 years, I kinda agree. However the sky is far less forgiving than the sea is. I always paid attention to weather conditions and forecasts, plus those bits of information from the Coast Guard that help keep you on board and alive. Like almost 70% of drownings that are recovered later reveal that they had their flys open, or pants/foul weather gear pulled down showing they were taking a leak and failed to take proper safety precautions when doing their overboard business… Facts like these that continue a cost in lives.
Less than two years before this accident, another Braniff Flight (Flight 250) crashed for pretty much EXACTLY the same reason: pilot tried to penetrate a storm and ripped the plane apart.
Problem is letting cowboys fly passenger planes.
You cant FU&K with mother nature/storms
@@featherbrain7147 John Wayne would have saved the day, by golly.
@@featherbrain7147lol that's a fact😂😂😂
@@James_Bowie Chuck Norris would have roundhouse kicked that storm in the face and then went on to land.
My father's best friend was on that flight. I'll never forget the evening of the accident when we found out about the crash. Horrible. I was 10 years old at the time. Dad has since passed. I don't think he would want to hear this exchange. Due to obvious reasons I won't divulge the name of his friend but his name does appear on the manifest. This is the first time I've heard this transcript.
What are the obvious reasons?
John Rogers@@pamelaleigh4225
❤
Tulsa resident perhaps, Robert Bob Neal? Just asking
Respect for the families privacy for starters.
I never flew airlines but had an airline transport license in Canada. When ATC suggests where others have found safer passage, I have always concurred. When weather is a major issue, I have learned that I will fear where others have feared to travel. I'm still alive now that I'm in my late sixties.
My flight instructor told me one thing i will never forget . There are old pilots, and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots. RIP to all the passengers and crew
I had to fly often as a sports writer when I was younger and experienced so many hairy incidents that I no longer travel by air. One of them came during a PanAm flight from LA to London. We struck an electrical storm about a third of the way in and for the rest of the flight the overhead lights flicked off and on at random, a bunch here or a bunch there, sometimes all of them together. The storm lasted a long time and stomach-churning aircraft drops and plunges took place regularly. With the light show continuing, lots of people were screaming. I can certainly understand an aircraft breaking apart in such a punishing storm. RIP to all those on aboard the Braniff flight.
My dad was an Air Traffic Controller at Jacksonville, Houston and Denver Centers. He had a couple of pilots in his career not heed his advice and paid the price for it. It was always very upsetting for him.
Pilots are arrogant - do not want any advice...
@@annestep3895
Another sofa ninja.
You'll be stunned to hear that
ATCs have made their share of mistakes. Unless one can cite stats, of course. 🤦
That’s heavy stuff. I don’t care who you are.
@@annestep3895 An ignorant comment from someone who is not a pilot and generalizing ALL pilots like that. Shut your yap unless you know what you are talking about.
Me too. been over 40 years ago and still flash back to it once in a while.
"He's trying to make us admit we made a big mistake coming through here"...that is one pig headed Captain right there!
Immediately before acknowledging the mistake and trying to make the 180° turn that cost their lives? My feeling is that they shouldn't have entered the storm, but if he'd been more pig-headed they might have lived.
He is trying to find a way to get through storm, not pig headed. He is even asking if there is any hail report, to make sure his plan seems adequate. When he realized it was bad he initiated a 180 right away and told atc about it.
@klawlor3659 Nothing pig headed at all about the Captain. Radar in the 1960 had relatively low fidelity. He thought he saw a clearing in the storm but may have been a radar shadow. Immediately upon realizing his interpretation of the radar was wrong he initiated reversal of course. Comments deriding the captain are misplaced and unwarranted.
@@jphickory522 They aren't. He insisted they continue on that course because he was worried about being on time. He failed to use CRM, which includes ATC.
@@jphickory522 ATC told him numerous times that east was preferred. Copilot told him that "it looks worse over there" right before they entered the storm. He didn't want to admit that he made a mistake.
During the time of this crash, Braniff had alarm clocks set to the arrival time placed on the passenger cabin bulkheads. If the alarm went off before arrival, Braniff would pay the passengers $1 each. The airline lost a lot of money over this and the crash of this flight was linked to the pressures to be ontime. The radar contrast in the cockpit was reversed thus the Captain thought what was a hole was actually the heaviest part of the storm.
Wow! Sounds like that baby DC-9 from Southern in Atlanta. They flew TO the heaviest rain shaft when they didn't realize that the weather radar was attenuating
Source?
The book "Splash of Colors" about the downfall of Braniff.
It did seem odd that the captain focused so heavily on timekeeping in his message to the passengers.
The captain didn't realize this? I wonder if fatigue of the flight crew was a factor? He was an experienced pilot, seems like a mistake he would only make if something else was a factor.
In 1973, I worked for Braniff in Seattle (SEA). I had been displaced from Dulles Airport (IAD), and in a few months I was assigned to work in operations, preparing the weight and balance forms. I was a 20 year old kid, with no airline training, as the company believed "experience was the best teacher." The flight crews warned management that I was in danger of causing the flights to crash, because of the mistakes I was making. The cargo service employees used to laugh at the situation, saying for sure, the plane was going to crash. I resigned in January of 1974, thank God, (I mean that literally), no accidents happened. To this day, I have no respect for management in this company. I begged management for training, but was ignored.
That's horrifying, but unsurprising. My patents told me all kinds of horror stories about safety and training standards back in the 70s.
I also worked at Dulles Ramp Agent For Atlantic Coast Airlines
Kudos to you
Possibly applying here - it was not recognized at the time that hail absorbs rather than reflects radar waves, causing the worst part of the storm to look like a safe path or “hole” on the planes radar screen. This was still happening a decade later with the crash of Southern Airways 242 where the crew was also using radar to navigate a storm.
Great observation ! they got mislead due to the hail. Better talk to ATC and hear about other pilots in the vicinity of these storms. Tragic you could not trust that radar. Pilots rely so much on what they see on their screens.
Thanks - the newer radar systems are said to be much better at telling the difference. This effect probably caused more accidents - in the 1950’s an Air Force bomber voluntarily flew into a thunderhead and was completely destroyed - was likely doing the same thing with its radar.
@@johnwatson3948 I'm not sure newer radar has that problem sorted out. I know it was a suspected factor in why Air France 447 (an A-330) flew straight into a heavy line of storms in the ITCZ and crashed in 2009. Certainly its radar was capable of showing the same erroneous data, and it was only 4 years old (first flight in 2005).
Yes don’t know if the problem is sorted out but not sure there’s been a repeat accident maybe due to radars becoming computer aided with Doppler. On 447 they purposely flew over the storm line to avoid diverting - which had no bad effects except for minor icing.
@@johnwatson3948 I only brought up 447 to show this is still a possibility with more modern radars. I know it wasn't what brought them down, but the BEA investigation considered it as a possibility until they found the flight recorders. It didn't happen, but they thought it could have happened with the radar on that aircraft.
The radar black hole did cause at least one more accident after this one. Southern Airways (flight 232? others have mentioned it in these comments) flew straight into an extremely heavy hail shaft in the 70s. There were survivors in that one as the crew attempted to set down on a rural roadway after dual flameouts and no forward visibility. You've probably already heard of that one - you seem to know a thing or two about this topic.
And here's one I'm really not sure of, but in 1988 or so, a Taca crew successfully landed a 737 on a levee outside New Orleans after dual flameout in an unexpectedly heavy storm. I'm not sure if they had the radar black hole/attenuation issue though, but that's how I remember it. It's possible that storm just grew extremely fast. (Three years later I dispatched for Taca. I might have met that crew, but somehow I never heard of that accident while I worked there. Those pilots were decent people, and unusually humble compared to other pilot groups I've worked with.)
I've been an airline pilot for decades. This was in 1968. Commercial aviation was still in it's infancy and Accidents like this changed the way we operate. They didn't have the tools to know better. If they did, they would have NEVER made these decisions. We are all safer in the air today because of these kinds of sacrifices.
Two passengers on Flight 352 were friends of mine. The brother and wife of one of those were later killed in a separate airplane accident. Huge hit to the family. They were good people.
Dad was Braniff Pilot waiting on 352 in Tulsa for a flight to Little Rock.
I flew for 16 years. Far and away the most severe turbulence I encountered was not on the radar between Tulsa and Oak City. When the aircraft hit the windshear it felt and sounded like a mid-air collision. Then it went into a steep uncontrolled dive. The captain was very experienced ex military pilot. Kept his cool and finally gained control. He fought just to keep the aircraft stable in horrendous turbulence for about the longest 10 minutes of my life. Finally he was about to get us turned around and back to Tulsa. No one got into Oak city that night from any direction. Everyone on the the plane thought it was over for us. Oddly enough no one screamed. Oxygen masks deployed, overhead bins popped, the trash in the galley bins came out. This is almost impossible due to the location of the bins on the 727 galleys. What a mess.
If you look up United flt 585 into COS (1991)official cause was rudder problem, but I lived about 5 miles North and a mile west of flight path that day. We had some of the highest westerly winds (coming off the front range) I'd ever experienced in over 30 years of living here. Gusts that day exceeded 80 mph. Hardly mentioned in crash report. Wonder what ATC said to cockpit that day. But 585 went down just as it was making it's down wind leg U-turn to land from the south when it went down. If I'm wrong they make that turn at a pretty low alt. Like 1000 ft, lose control at that alt, not a lot of alt left to recover from. I'm I right?
@@scubarojo Any sort of severe mixing air could bring it down. Wind shear, tail wind gust.
That part of the country can have nasty thunderstorms just about any time of the year. But in March/April/May they can have ugly thunderstorms *and* tornadoes.
So then turbulence is dangerous according to your statement and experience or isnt it? Most people and pilots themselves say that its nothing to be worried about. So how to understand this? Are you scared everytime there is a turbulence if you fly as a passenger these days?@@biff5856
good point that area is notorious for flatline winds. this is a term used for severe winds that start from the ground up to 200ft I had never heard of this term until living in Mn next to minneapolis airport around spring of 1997 one day these winds hit my neighborhood and drove huge trees that actually broke off at ground level and forced into several homes in the Minnehaha area (about 5 min from MSP I feel like Servo valve locking up on Ua 585 when the Rudder Hardover was eventually ruled as the cause of that accdent in 1991 and the UsAir crash a few years later. Those Colorado Rockies are very beautiful but just like the ocean can kill you in a quick minute. @@scubarojo
My aunt was a Braniff stewardess in the 1950s. She says Braniff was absolutely the most glamorous airline in all the skies.The crews stayed at the best hotels too. Her routes were South America up to FLorida. She was so pretty that she got her job at age 19yo with special permission. She met a very wealthy guy on some flight, married him and lived happily ever after - but that was the plan for girls back in the 50s. She really has some great stories!
That plan is still executed to this day.
That’s still the plan for most girls. Then as now it just doesn’t usually work out according to plan 😂
@@MrTruckerf So true. in spite of what they say about the 'woman's movement'. I was a male ER RN for 40 so years. From the beginning of my career to the end there were female nurses pursuing a doctor.
@bobbyd6680 ummmmm female nurses aren't pursued by doctors? Haha
@@rfcbass6810 Not to the same degree.
"Any time you have any comments or suggestions that might in your opinion make this a better airline, let us know."
Yes, please don't kill everyone next time.
Go to the East. THE EAST!
I have a suggestion………🙋🏻♀️
If things are so bad that you need to pull an emergency 180, then you JUST DO IT and then tell ATC what you’ve done. First they refuse to follow ATC advice for course deviation, then refuse to talk to ATC altogether. Then they waste precious seconds waiting for ATC to give them permission to save their own flight. Sad.
The pilot actually started the turn immediately and did not wait for ATC approval. And the turn is probably what caused the crash. Company policy was to maintain straight and level flight in severe turbulence.
4:02 "...it might just still be a little choppy..."
That's an understatement if ever there was one.
"...if you have any comments on how we can make this a better airline..."
☝🏻"Yeah, don't fly us through a thunderstorm and get us killed!"
No such thing as a little storm in Texas
@@Pluviophile218Yep.
They were getting banged around pretty good. Probably a white knuckle ride, right up until they augered in to mother earth.
@@Pluviophile218Yeah. I installed and worked on a radar system in the Texas Panhandle that was smashed up badly by a hailstorm, where some of the hailstones were about 6 inches across. One of these went into a colleagues swimming pool, and he said it was like a depth charge had detonated in his pool. If you hit something like that in an aircraft, well, you're toast.
As a pilot, I hope to remember this accident if/when I make a wrong decision and hesitate to quickly admit it and reverse it
I think you must have meant to say, "reverse" it.
@@BjorgenEatinger
🙄
Well, these folks realized their mistake and staged a rapid 180 to get away from danger.
But, when your plane comes apart you are done.
What's with you pilots, for crying out loud
ATC gave them best advice they could / great pity it went unheeded. RIP
Not necessarily. The airborne radar, especially back then, was much better at weather avoidance than ATC ground radar. Of course interpreting those airborne radar returns might be problematic. Trust me here. I have many thousand hours on the C-130 and we NEVER trusted ground radar weather avoidance and always depended on our own Navigator to get us through bad weather.
@@my-yt-inputs2580 I defer to your knowledge and experience 👍
@@my-yt-inputs2580 Rain attenuation, anyone?
@@hmbpnzI’ll bet they were looking at a radar “ shadow “ to the west with their on board radar. Understand of attenuation was very poor in that era of aviation.
The crew likely interpreted a hole via their radar return but it was probably an attenuation shadow. They wouldn’t have been the first, nor the last to get suckered in accordingly.
Now we understand attenuation. It’s just not always heeded.
@@hmbpnz This is highly dependent on the band the radar is operating on. i.e the wavelengths of the radar beams. Some radar is less affected by moisture attenuation. The C-130 used X-band for the AN/APN-59 radar. X-band shows the worse attentuation. However I can tell you the WC-130s that were used, before the J model, used the same radar to penetrate hurricanes for years. But what the anttenuation does is prevents seeing storms that are behind other storms with high reflectivity. We always seemed to get around that easily enough.
You can actually hear the plane tearing apart. Damn.
you're right, at 7:02
Yeah, it was unsettling.
Officer said "don't talk to the controller, he wants you to admit we f'd up". Damn
ATC was concerned about it the whole time. "trying to get us to admit" was just the ATC being concerned of their decision. They responded immediately to the 180 request, probably knew it was a rough spot. Rest in peace to everyone on board.
Simply amazing we can get a 1968 CVR/ATC recording with this level of clarity. Most recordings we hear are from the 80's onwards - many with less high quality.
that's cus we went from tape to digital recording.
it's impressive!
It is I agree. 🖤
Firstly this video this is a recreation of the traanscript of the cvr tape. This is not the actual cvr audio.
This is patently false. CVRs are much more clear now. What you're confusing for CVR is often liveatc repeaters that are at various positions around aports. They are volunteer hardware of varying quality & capability. But it's easy and quick for news stations to hear what was said via radios.
How do I know this? uSAF instructor that recommend liveatc to students to listen to how radio calls are made.
@@soccerguy2433 This is not a recreation this is the actual audio recovered from the CVR in the L-188 wreckage.
I’ll bet they were looking at a radar “ shadow “ to the west with their on board radar. Understanding of attenuation was very poor in that era of aviation.
The crew likely interpreted a hole via their radar return but it was probably an attenuation shadow. They wouldn’t have been the first, nor the last to get suckered in accordingly.
Now we understand attenuation. It’s just not always heeded.
Yes. We can't judge his decision. I most likely would have followed the other guys that made it through safely but I wasn't there. I started airline flying in 1984 and the radar equipment and knowledge was not what it is today. But even today, with the great equipment available, nature can be very dangerous.
@@flower2289 Nope, the controller said everyone else went around it.
@@flower2289 easy for me to arm chair it now, but like you, I’ve been an airline pilot for many years (since 1993 ) and I have used a large number of varying radar systems. The radar equipment he had at the time was likely monochromatic in combination with the level of weather / radar understanding , didn’t give them the best decision making tools. You made the best out of what you had. Sad story, but like most aviation tragic events- we all learned from these tragedies. I don’t take for granted the multi scan complex radar systems I use now, but I still put the time and effort in to stay up to date on weather knowledge/ radar systems.
@flower2289 I agree, he thought he was making the best decision based on the information provided by his radar.
Southern Airlines 242 was another example of misreading attenuation with similar tragic circumstances
3:05 I have a suggestion. When the ATC tells you to deviate East, JUST DO IT!!
Yes, if everyone else is deviating east, there's probably a reason for it.
Yea more likely have a collision.
ATC could have also said, deviation to the west is DENIED, change course to the east and follow other traffic. However he approved the deviation to the west. ATC could have also said that ATC's weather radar is not showing a clearing to the west, or followed the request with a more direct statement that the western approach is not advised. Sloppy communication.
@@cobaltclass.Air Traffic Controllers have very little authority compared to the pilots. Without a valid traffic reason (potential of collision with another aircraft or closed airspace) ATC couldn’t tell the pilot what to do, just advise.
The Electra has to be one of the toughest airframes out there NOAA uses them for hurricane tracking the forces on that aircraft must have been tremendous
Actually they use the Navy P-3 Orion. The Orion is a descendant of the Electra but so many airframe changes took place it wouldn’t be true calling it an Electra. 3 of my buddies fly for NOAA and I have over 3,000 hours flight time in all models of the P-3 and was a flight test engineer/project specialist. My buddies have some crazy stories such as all engines flaming out during a severe weather flight. Another time altimeter read below sea level when they finally pulled out while flying over the North Atlantic. Good times.
@@kaptainkaos1202 I knew a woman named Judy Bruner who passed away in December 2022. She piloted the P-3 for the Navy and NOAA. She was the first woman in history to both command a P-3, as well as the first to fly through the eye of a hurricane. She went on to work for NASA in Greenbelt, MD.
wrong they are not very tough
Surely you are unaware of the collapse of the airframe of a Northwest Electra which crashed in Indiana in 1960.
@kaptainkaos1202 Us ELINT folks use to ride along on the P-3 Orion to see what was happening in the Med, but we had the MAD stinger on the back
From wiki: "...the first officer stated: "... it looks worse to me over there." The crew then requested and received clearance from ATC for the 180-degree turn. The turn became extremely steep, with a bank of over 90 degrees and a nose pitch-down of 40 degrees. As they were trying to recover from the turn, the FDR indicated a peak acceleration of 4.3 g, which the NTSB concluded caused overstress the airframe and resulted in its breakup.
I am reminded of the saying, "There are old pilots, and there bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots".
Chuck Yeager, Bob Hoover, Robin Olds, ... every fighter pilot that survived the wars! I could go on-and-on. Point is, it's a stupid 'old saying'.
Was a Braniff pilot hired after that, safety officer posted pics in ops that still haunt me today. Even now when picking your way through difficult weather, you want to go through where others just ahead did ok.
@@floatpool8307 Different situation, the Delta flight ran into a microburst downdraft, which was not well known at the time, It's a sudden encounter with a vertical shaft of air that causes the aircraft to lose altitude and can occur in visual conditions, pilots are now trained for this type of encounter.
Ever hear of Delta 191?
@@marks6663 I was about to say just that. A Learjet landed in front of Delta 191 just fine and that little jet was only about 30 seconds (2.5 miles) ahead of the Delta L1011 at ~150mph approach speed. Enough time for manageable weather to be fatal (as a microburst in that case). I remember that crash specifically in August 1985 as I was flying back on a Delta L1011 from Frankfurt Germany to Atlanta GA when it happened.
BINGO. You beat me to it. Thank you. @@marks6663
Learn from the tragedies of others . They would want you to !
Everybody has already disected this crash. So I'll simply say Rest in Peace to all aboard that sad flight.
Go ahead and dissect it; as long as you don't deviate to the West.
Yup....Rest in Peace.
First I've heard of it here.
That pilot knew it all, do not question him.
It was horrific. They exploded at about 6K feet and were finding parts of bodies for days.
Which means some people got to spend their last minute of life in the great outdoors.
@@johntechwriterNo they didn't dumb nuts and grow up fgs.
@@johntechwriter god damn mosquitoes
They didn't "explode", they "broke up/apart"...big difference.
At 16:47 the flight encountered an area of severe weather including hail and requested a 180-degree right turn, which ATC immediately approved. While turning to the right in severe turbulence, the bank angle was increased to over 90 degrees, and the nose pitched down to approximately 40 degrees. As the crew attempted to recover from the ensuing steep diving turn, the aircraft experienced acceleration forces of over 4 g, which caused the right wing to fail. The aircraft then broke up at an altitude of 6,750 feet and crashed in flames into the ground at about 16:48, killing all 85 persons on board
Always heartbreaking when rational, thoughtful people make a bad decision and cause tragedy.
I couldn’t have put it better myself. Your comment was spot on. What a tragic mistake, compounded by the fact the captain realised he had made such a very bad mistake which was too late to recover from. So many lives lost, for what?......to maintain Braniff’s ‘on-time’ reputation??!!!
I appreciate you making this comment because there's a lot of negative criticism towards this captain, which is understandable.
But you're right. It IS heartbreaking because he definitely had to have some positive attributes as you mention. Pilots MUST be rational and thoughtful or they simply wouldn't be licensed.
It seems his tragic decisions were born out of stubbornness, rather than arrogance, but either way, it was a fatal decision that killed many people.
But your comment is also a reminder that the pilot was most likely a decent man with a loving family so I hope many others that read it will be reminded of that as well.
There are no winners in this. Truly tragic. And truly heartbreaking . . .
@@stevenmorgan5579 I'm not convinced his decision to deviate west was born of stubbornness or ignorance. There is a sort of radar trap pilots can fall into. When viewing a very heavy storm, their radar cannot always penetrate the storm. On their radar it looks like a thin line of precipitation followed by a large area of clear air. I think the captain might have seen that on his radar and mistaken it for the safer direction to deviate.
Of course his comments later show he realized his decision turned out to be a bad one, then a dangerous one, and then he died.
Almost all aircraft crashes are the result of a series of poor decisions mde by the PIC / flight crew. Eventually the odds are stacked too high.
@@TheBeingReal It's no good to conclude that most crashes are, one way or another, due to poor decisions by the flight crew, or pilot error. Why is there so much pilot error making planes crash? Who is putting all these error-prone pilots in charge of passenger flights, and why? Why did this captain so confidently fly into the worst part of the storm? If you stop at pilot error, you never discover the reasons. (Thankfully, investigative bodies no longer stop at pilot error.)
For example, maybe this captain's radar was showing faulty data. Maybe his company training in its use was inadequate. (I think this was possibly an issue - he didn't recognize that he was looking at a radar void - or whatever it's called.) Maybe he didn't hear all the ATC transmissions clearly. Maybe he had an unknown medical issue. Maybe he wasn't competent, and he never should have been put in charge of that flight. If so, who put him there, and why? Is it a sign of a systemic problem?
Concluding "pilot error" is a way to avoid learning about all these important safety factors and correcting any shortcomings they uncover. It's also a way of shielding the airline, the aircraft or equipment manufacturer, ATC, and other entities (NWS, rescue personnel, airport operations, etc.) from responsibility and liability - just call it pilot error, or poor decisions by the flight crew, not any systemic problem with airline training or operations, or a previously unknown fault with a certain model of radar unit. The crew screwed up.
If crews make tragic decisions, we always have to learn what informed those decisions. Talented, experienced pilots rarely make tragic decisions. When they do, it's not because they're inherently unskilled or unsafe or incompetent. It's not enough to state the obvious. Lives are saved by following the accident chain all the way, in every direction. People have died. The least we can do is learn everything we can.
Amazing how much the communication between ATC and flight deck has "tightened up" over the years. So much more information is delivered more succinctly and directly in the modern era. Sterile cockpit protocols, etc.
It’s definitely tightened up over the years. The stories I’ve heard from the OG’s! Flight deck was also a smoking lounge!
Speeded up too. This was completely understandable without subtitles, modern cockpit-ATC conversations are like this one if played at 1.5 speed. For people not in the business it can be bewildering.
And that, my friends, is how an arrogant pilot killed himself and everyone onboard the aircraft. Very sad.
Incredible find. No idea they had a cockpit recording of this notorious crash. Amazing, chilling.
I heard the captain say they were heading to Tulsa after Dallas. I was 10 years old in Tulsa at that time. I wonder who didn't make it home that day.☹️
RIP ito the souls of this flight. I flew with my family from Washington DC to Dallas on Braniff airlines in 1974. Braniff and the days of dress travel was once a formal affair. Men wore suits and ties, women wore dresses, my mother made the girls wear a dress.
Yes, a tragic day indeed and an indication of how times sure have changed. I remember vividly as a kid traveling in the early 1970s when nobody went out in public without being formally dressed. I still can't get used to t-shirts, shorts and sandals on airplanes. Then again, the 60s and 70s were also the time when smoking was considered a sign of sophistication and welcomed on planes which is impossible to fathom (both aspects). I miss the days when we functioned without the internet and wifi and phones...
@@BLAB-it5unyes..been there too. My stepmom worked for Delta, and I'm assuming that all airlines back then made the employee and family dress with suits and dresses like we did.
I later went on to work for American Airlines myself. We still dressed nice. I even worked when smoking was allowed. That first class cabin was like fog. We all smelled like smoke. A cigarette in one hand and an alcoholic drink in the other.
Also the food was very good, but today you get a scrawny little bag of something crispy/crunchy & a canned or bottled drink or water & that is it!!
@@tracycolvin7789, same thing on old Trailways & Greyhound buses, you could cut the smoke with a knife!!
The deviation of dress is a direct result of forced integration and multiculturalism
The entire list (virtual cemetery) of souls on board is available on Find a Grave.
It looks like the pilot was more concerned about landing on time than the safety of the plane and passengers.
"... Those of you going on..." That's ominous, knowing that in fact, they all were.
"Don't talk to him too much" speaks volumes.
It’s the Boeing virus 😅
This sounds like one of those accidents where the radar echo of the storm is so dense on the near side that radar can't pick up anything past that boundary, and it therefore looks like a clear sky. There's a name for that, but I can't recall it. This captain seemed sincerely convinced his radar showed the safer route to be to the west. Yeah, he made mistakes following his initial decision, but I think maybe he initially had a reason for thinking he had the safer route. Other experienced pilots have fallen into this radar trap. I know that was something they considered with Air France 447, though in the end I don't think it was a causal factor.
Thank god that the personality of the “know-it-all Airline Captain” is mostly a behavior of the past. CRM (crew resource management) has changed that way of thinking today, each pilot in the cockpit has a voice and responsibility for ensuring safety! Having flown for over 35 years as an airline pilot, I have seen quite a change in our procedures over those years in the cockpit (now called “flight deck”) which has remarkably enhanced safety records overall.
It wasn't too many years later that I was in a recurrent training class being taught by a former Braniff captain. He was quite vocal about his low opinion (wrongly, I thought) of the CRM concept. Braniff had a reputation as a "Captains'" airline. Probably a factor in this accident.
Dude said "don't talk to them anymore" like a codefendant would say in front of a detective
Judging from the Wow&Flutter on the CVR on the last few seconds, that escalated quickly. You can really hear the machine must have been shaken massively to cause such Wow&Flutter on a recording that was running smoothly just seconds ago...
56 years ago.......My sympathies go out to those poor souls on that plane.....they trusted in a man that failed them miserably....
"Me afraid of a little cloud? What do those other pilots and the controller know?! Onward!"
😂😂
As a licensed pilot, I learned very early in my training that fighting a thunderstorm is like a featherweight against a heavyweight. This pilot's arrogance killed nearly a hundred people.
He was decending out of 20.000ft down to 5000ft he was going way to fast the 180degree turn doubled the load on the wing and it broke up the 188eletra was known for wooblely wings at high speed
It was a death trap all around.
"Broke apart at 6700 feet", just after the landing gear and fire warning horns sounded. That is an extremely violent end. It take extreme G-forces to break a commercial airplane apart, and those horns were the first indication the plane was being dismantled. I have seldom met a pilot who chose a fight with a major thunderstorm and emerged unscathed.
I like the way the Captain (over the intercom to the passengers) pumped up how great and on time his Airline was. Famous last words.
Sounds like the pilot was more concerned about his company's record for punctuality than he was the safety of his passengers
This is heart breaking. Hit by lightning and torn up by hail ? The debris on the ground is just sickening. I can only imagine the pain of the families.
They actually got torn up by attempting a steep 180 turn, which banked the aircraft past 90 degrees (virtually no life), when into a steep dive because of that, and then hit the structural limits of the the airframe during that overspeed and attempted recovery. Not sure why the video blames the crash completely on weather.
This is what I was searching for @@andyevans9967
To sum up then,the aircraft was not fit for purpose?If there were no structural fault's that has to be the answer.
When you prioritize being "the best airline in terms of punctuality" over safety. Rip to the passengers.
They were by no means the only one that had problems taking that approach.
@natural-born_pilot my thoughts too ...
Dumb question ..... did one of the wings fall off? What do they think happened to the plane?
I bet that the "on-time" talk he was giving the passengers had something to do with his decision not to take the longer route around the storm.
Well, they did terminate the flight pretty damn early.
How did a flight not getting there at all affect their #1 On Time rating?
My best friend was to be on that flight. She worked for Hertz rental and because of the weather took a rental car to Dallas instead of flying. She lived in Dallas.
I remember all the Ansett-ANA Electras here in Australia were flown at a reduced speed not long after they bought them as the wings would literally break off Electras due to what they called “Whirl Mode” where the oscillation of its Allison engines on the wings would create fatigue but after modifications it was eliminated, my older brother in laws mate was an airframe mechanic at Ansett at Essendon Airport when all this was going on and used to tell us about it, but as a young bloke that used to fly with my old man, mother and brother up the eastern seaboard to visit family I was too shit scared to fly on them after learning about the wing problem and thereafter we used to go by the Spirit of Progress to Sydney from Melbourne
What is the "Spirit of Progress" as train I assume?
@@JamesCAsphalt8 Yes it was Victorias Broad gauge Express train to Albury ( later changed to standard gauge ) at the state border of New South Wales where we would have to change trains to the Sydney express because at that early time all of NSW was standard gauge the only train that was thru from Sydney to Melbourne was the new Southern Aurora from 1961, great memories in a great time!
Were you a spy?@@jamesgovett3225
It was later shown that the whirl mode vibration was induced by a synchronization problem between two adjacent props. After they fixed that, it became a safe old
bird. Still in use today.
@@geezerhull Hey there ! I remember 1 flight I took with them on Eastern Airlines on the shuttle from New York LaGuardia to Boston. LOVED them. I must have been 6 years old. The engines looked too big to be on an airplane. LOVED the spool up and the lift you felt in the seat of your pants when the bird lifted up!
Always and I mean always take their advice on weather deviations. Especially if They've had people come through there in the last few minutes just fine. The 1960 radar that we were working with at the time was not very good in that it could not see what's Befind the C e l l at all.
I bet they won't fly through severe weather again.
Many years back I took myself off work due to depression. I was upfront with the company as to why I had lost my medical, in hindsight this was a mistake.
Once I got myself well again I returned to the job I had as an FO. Shortly after I returned I was flying with a somewhat arrogant Captain, it was my sector on an oceanic flight and there was a large storm painting on our radar. I asked the Captain to request weather deviation and his response was we didn’t need deviation as we were going to fly over it. I made the request several times and each time he rebuffed me. In the end I said “ well f%ck you then” and informed him that he has control. As we got into the storm we were in and out of the tops getting a beating, and it wasn’t until the cabin crew asked for it did he put the seat belt sign on.
A couple of days later I got called into the office and my manager asked if I was all right, meaning how was my mental health. When I asked why he asked? he said he had a complaint that I was “very angry”.
I told the manager my side of events and that was the last I heard about it.
A couple of weeks later the same Captain put two passenger in hospital when he got too close to a thunderstorm. I was a little disappointed they didn’t fire him. I would have.
I worked on the line crew at a relatively small airport where this American Airlines Captain had his Beech Bonanza T tail parked. Everyone hated the SOB. He was arrogant conceited and surly. We all joked and said this guy was an accident waiting to happen. Luckily, never did, but this is the type of guy who would make the same decision as this Captain. Those guys either wouldn't get hired today, or they'd be let go. Times were really different back then, and arrogance was often mistaken for confidence and proficiency.
I doubt any of your story.
@user-zm1ft3ob7i doubt you're real
This is super sad. My grandfather came over from the merger with Panagra from South America. He was the Chief Pilot for Braniff. I have no idea if he was at the time of this crash. If he was, I am sure that he was part of the investigation. He would have been furious with what I just heard. I am so sorry for those that lost their lives and others affected. Horrible.
It wasn't the turbulence of the storm that doomed that aircraft and the souls aboard it, it was the severe weight imbalance due to the oversized ego of the captain. It just pulled that plane out of the sky. A good pilot knows to listen to the sector controllers advice, most especially when it comes to weather in their area.
Now, is the audio a re-enactment using readers to read the transcript?
Came from Chloe's, Disaster Breakdown 😊. Thabks for releasing this interesting piece of history.
That’s a dude homey
@iLLBiLLsRoastBeats just a reflection of the times. when I first started watching Diaster Breakdown I was sooo confused on dudes channel. Regardless he's got a damn good plane channel and I find these plane disasters interesting as hell.
@iLLBiLLsRoastBeats it's a women, her name is Chloe. I also thought it was a dude when I first started watching the channel
@@TaylenIsInsane not a real woman, bro. he is a biological male. that's why you thought it was a man.
To me the most chilling lines are: Are there any reports of hail? Nope, no one would go [to the west], they all deviated to the east.
wow, that happened within seconds
Holy...might have been better to keep straight ahead. I keep imaging people falling to the ground through a thunderstorm.
Interesting the pilot mentioned the high percentage of the company's aircraft on time, and mentioned their planned deviation may take a few minutes - they were obviously time concious. The route they chose, to the west, was shorter, therefore faster than the route taken by other aircrat, to the east., I'm suprised that wasn't mentioned in the aircraft accident report as a contributing factor, timeliness versas safety, but there again, aircraft accident investigations have come a long way since then, and now consider those factors. Rest in peace all who were on board.
The pilot actually believed he was taking the safest route; any time saved would just be a fortuitous event.
Why so long to release the audio?
I was flying into Dallas on Braniff Airlines in June of 1977 when the pilot flew deep into Mexican airspace to avoid a massive thunderstorm. It actually added 3 hours to the flight and I lost my connecting flight to Colorado Springs. However, the airline put me up in a nice hotel, bought me dinner in the hotel’s restaurant that night and breakfast the next morning. I also charged several Jack Daniels to the room they provided me! I was sorry to see them go out of business just as TWA and Pan Am had done before them!
dont want to die alone ,become an airline pilot
When he said most traffic is diverting to the east would have been clue enough for me
The little Braniff spiel the captain recited, about always arriving on time…guessing there was pressure free m the company to save minutes where they could. A serious weather system doesn’t sound like the ideal circumstance to cut corners.
"The Electra has to be one of the toughest airframes out there." NO. Not the early Electras. Look up "whirl mode flutter." The Electra had major design flaws that were only corrected after multiple planes crashed due to severe oscillating vibrations that ripped the wings off. This was one of those crashes.
There were two L-188 crashes as a result of propeller whirl mode flutter. Braniff Flt 542 on 9/29/59 and Northwest Flt 710 0n 2.17/60. A redesign of the engine nacelles and mounting structure resulted. This crash was not one of them. There may be some L-188s still hauling freight today for Buffalo Airways in Canada.
Do you not know how to reply to someone's comment?
@@Snaproll47518 Seems Buffalo Airways is moving towards jets (just acquired a 737-300) but does still fly Electra's to carry freight & for fire fighting duties. Joe (Buffalo Airlines owner) gave credit to the Electra's service in a recent video. Should be noted their aircraft often fly in very hostile conditions.
And we must remember, Amelia Earhart was last seen flying one .
@@NesconProductions As a young Eastern Air Lines mechanic starting in 1976, the Electra was the very first aircraft I worked on. Eastern phased the aircraft out 18-months later so they never sent me to school on it. I did overnight checks, service checks, changed engines, props and a lot of TD Amps. High power run ups and pitch lock checks at the blast fence were fun. The engines generated 3750 SHP.
Pride comes before destruction
How truly eerie it is to realize that the words that the captain was using to address the passengers were some of the last words they'd ever hear . . .
How weird is it that all these years later we can hear these long-dead voices as clearly as if we were in the cockpit with them. Heck, I wasn't even born until 1990.
... Seems to me like the wx radar was inop?
This happened on May 3, 1968.
Thanks Keith!! That was awesome!!
The captain was one stubborn headed, self centered, and arrogant man. He didn't listen to the controllers, he didn't even take into consideration the decision of the captain of the other Braniff airliner to deviate eastward from the storm area. All he did was take a decision despite all the warnings and go west, I believe, into what he thought was a clear area; to be on time only??? He made the mistake of his life. Controllers because of the nature of their occupation in managing the air traffic around them have uptodate weather forecasts and info that always will be valuable to aircraft captains. "Don't listen to him. He is trying to make us admit we made a mistake." The controllers fear for the safety of the passengers as well. He was the reason behind this tragedy. I just had the shock of my life just listenning to this. Better be a bit late during a flight than massacring people in a flight crash. Its true statiscally air travel is still the safest way to travel but the number of victims per plane crash is what causes the shock. May Lord Jesus have mercy on us.
Hearing the captain address the cabin and you can also later the flight attendants doing their normal pre landing announcements. I've been on many fights and this is when you start to feel happy you're almost there... then it all ends in an instant wow.