Engineering MISTAKE Leads to Near Catastrophe! The Incredible Story of Republic Airways 4439

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  • Опубликовано: 22 май 2024
  • Click here bit.ly/3iqEkiZ and get 65% off with my code HELLOPILOT if you’re in the US but wherever you’re watching from you will also get a very special discount as it’s valid internationally!
    A lot of the #training we #pilots go through is done to enable us to act almost automatically when faced with, for example, handling #difficulties. But what happens when those automatic reactions becomes the very thing that’s causing the #problems in the first place.
    This is the crazy story of what happened to Republic Airways flight 4439.
    Stay tuned.
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    Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode. Enjoy checking them out!
    Sources
    -----------------------------------------------------
    Final Report:
    data.ntsb.gov/Docket?ProjectI...
    Aircraft Used:
    Embraer 170 by SSG E-Jets 170 Evolution:
    store.x-plane.org/SSG-E-Jets-...
    Embraer Video 1: Embraer via RUclips
    • E170 ecoDemonstrator
    Embraer Offices: KeyLimeCS
    www.ainonline.com/sites/ainon...
    FAA Offices: Matthew G. Bisanz
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal...
    CHAPTERS
    -----------------------------------------------------
    00:00 - Intro
    00:22 - The crew
    02:038 - The aircraft
    05:36 - Trim operations and memory items
    08:16 - Leg one
    12:10 - Leg two
    14:12 - Leg three
    17:17 - Emergency declared
    20:14 - Forty five degrees of right bank
    23:11 - The source of the problem
    26:03 - Back to Hartsfield - Jackson

Комментарии • 2,5 тыс.

  • @MentourPilot
    @MentourPilot  Год назад +132

    Click here bit.ly/3iqEkiZ and get 65% off with my code HELLOPILOT if you’re in the US but wherever you’re watching from you will also get a very special discount as it’s valid internationally!

    • @sparky6086
      @sparky6086 Год назад +7

      The Captain of this flight seemed obtuse (hard headed). There were many times, that things should have clicked or rang a bell in his head, but he just kept doubling down on stupid, even taking the controls back, when they clearly should have landed immediately, when the first officer got control of the aircraft, rather than tempting fate.

    • @chad584
      @chad584 Год назад +6

      are you from sweden? because i can see the thing in the back

    • @01fuzzylogic01
      @01fuzzylogic01 Год назад +10

      after watching almost every upload, it's time to say thank you for your great work (again). AND: does everyone agree? He has the most lovely pronounciation of the word: towardge. :) - keep on doing great entertainment @mentour pilot

    • @bikeny
      @bikeny Год назад +8

      Please, I am begging you, please stop using music during your narrations. I am not talking about the particular choice, but rather the general use of more and more YT hosts using music while they are doing their narrations. It is distracting and adds nothing to the story. I can't hear you speak while the music is playing. Using the closed captions and muting, while helpful, also blocks out the screen at times where one wants to see what is being shown.
      Thank you very much.

    • @danmyers7827
      @danmyers7827 Год назад +9

      @@bikeny I agree. Petter's material needs no musical additions! The attention to detail and intelligent analysis stand on their own merit. Maps, graphs and charts help to convey facts, but background music does not.

  • @andrewmaksymiuk986
    @andrewmaksymiuk986 Год назад +1088

    I love when he starts talking about what the pilots were thinking in the moment because that means they survived

    • @LisaNinnymuggins
      @LisaNinnymuggins 9 месяцев назад +12

      Agree! 💯

    • @charlesmiriti3916
      @charlesmiriti3916 8 месяцев назад +58

      Lately am more inclined to watching the survival Stories

    • @tapiocaweasel
      @tapiocaweasel 8 месяцев назад +43

      I feel the same way. Sometimes I'm listening to a story I'm sure must end tragically and suddenly Petter says something that implies they made it and I'm pleasantly surprised

    • @sykwiddit8575
      @sykwiddit8575 8 месяцев назад +3

      Wow spoiler alert

    • @Voltikz95
      @Voltikz95 8 месяцев назад +21

      ​@sykwiddit8575 maybe watch the video BEFORE you read the comments? The whole point of the comment section is for us to comment on the video and discuss it with others.

  • @BritishBeachcomber
    @BritishBeachcomber Год назад +431

    Electronics R&D taught me that if you replace a part more than once and an intermittent fault persists, *look for the problem elsewhere.* They were going for an easy fix, *not diagnosing the actual problem.*

    • @ollybonhomme2729
      @ollybonhomme2729 10 месяцев назад +34

      Exactly what I thought, I’m a car technician and in my job you have to think for yourself, there’s not a set procedure to follow so you need to check everything and as soon as I heard that I would have been looking at wiring

    • @Argumemnon
      @Argumemnon 8 месяцев назад +6

      Exactly.

    • @peterbigblock
      @peterbigblock 8 месяцев назад +34

      Same here. Hearing that they kept replacing the switch and kept getting an intermittent fault, I thought for sure there’s a short somewhere. When the pilot was pushing the switch one way and it was giving him the opposite trim from what he expected, my first thought was “it’s upside-down.” This story kind of makes all involved sound like dopes.

    • @jerry3890
      @jerry3890 8 месяцев назад +19

      “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
      I worked on computers for years. If a replacement did not fix the problem then you had to look somewhere else. Someone should have noticed that several trim switch replacements had not fixed the fault.

    • @Rollin8.0
      @Rollin8.0 8 месяцев назад +10

      ​@@ollybonhomme2729also a mechanic... If a part fails more than twice (or appears to fail more than twice) it's time to start looking carefully at other causes, especially electrical issues!

  • @arthur8301
    @arthur8301 8 месяцев назад +149

    It always amazes when he goes on about the whole situation, and then states it all happend within 5 minutes. Makes you realize how fast it all happens.

  • @generalrendar7290
    @generalrendar7290 Год назад +727

    I'm a Republic pilot and we have definitely changed our procedures and memory items due to this incident. Runaway trim is extremely difficult to catch and react to in time, it took me failing in the sim to realize where I needed to look to catch it and not rely on the 3 second active warning announcement to catch it. This is one of the scarier failures to run across that doesn't include pieces coming off the airplane.

    • @spelldaddy5386
      @spelldaddy5386 Год назад +25

      I'm interested to hear more specifically how your procedures changed. What are the memory items now? How would you be expected to handle this kind of emergency?

    • @nicholasbondarenko9227
      @nicholasbondarenko9227 Год назад +12

      Hey. Where are you based? I’ve just applied for the FO position at Republic. 😊

    • @vernonsmithee792
      @vernonsmithee792 Год назад +10

      However, failure scenarios where parts depart the airplane are usually very easy to troubleshoot. Usually.😳

    • @bohenriksson2330
      @bohenriksson2330 Год назад +38

      I’m a CA w Republic. We press and hold the autopilot trim cut out switch - as before - but now also push the two guarded trim cut buttons. This totally disables the trim system, giving you time to go through the associated checklist and maybe fix the problem. Or land with the configuration you have. I’ve been flying the Embraers for almost 20 years now and have enormous respect for them, they are solid birds with a stellar safety record.

    • @donnabaardsen5372
      @donnabaardsen5372 Год назад +1

      @@bohenriksson2330 What is a CA?

  • @keithshergold9257
    @keithshergold9257 Год назад +1788

    I am a seaplane pilot at my job, and the aeroplanes we use are steered on the water using differential thrust and reverse from the two engines. Manoeuvring is very easy from the captain's position using two power levers on the cockpit ceiling. Occasionally, the engineers want us to park the plane with the starboard against the dock because it makes it easier to work on engine #2. One time I thought it might be easier to do this from the first officer's side, so I could see the dock more easily from there. I was quite mistaken. It turns out that my left hand has no idea how to steer the plane using the power levers. It is all muscle memory. There is no way to use just your knowledge to make your hands obey. The plane was extremely difficult to control until I got back into the seat I was accustomed to. Another time I was doing maintenance on my sailboat and installed the ropes that control the rudder backwards, resulting in reversed steering. It's a massively annoying job so I decided to leave it and go sailing anyway. I thought I could use my brain and remember the steering was reversed. Well, even knowing about the problem didn't help. The minute I left the dock, I was in trouble. I barely made it back without tipping the boat over or hitting something. Both those instances demonstrated to me how powerful "muscle memory" is, and how nearly impossible it is to work against it.

    • @userPrehistoricman
      @userPrehistoricman Год назад +126

      There are a few videos of people riding bikes customised with reverse steering that illustrates the same thing.

    • @alex2143
      @alex2143 Год назад +65

      @@userPrehistoricman even something as simple as holding the bikes handlebar on the wrong side can show you how hard it is to go against muscle memory. It should be perfectly possible to control the bike when you're holding the handle bar on the wrong side, but you'll invariably fall if you try.

    • @valtersvasilis
      @valtersvasilis Год назад +64

      I have driven in excavator backwards, rotating tower 180°, so the steering is reversed basically. It is all good until at a higher speed lizard brain kicks in and luckily brakes function well to save the day.

    • @lauraelliott6909
      @lauraelliott6909 Год назад +47

      This reminds me of the exercise in a museum where you try to trace a star with an electronic pen while looking in a mirror, so that you have to do the reverse of what you see. Anytime you go off the line, the pen will beep. It's very difficult.

    • @mrkkopola
      @mrkkopola Год назад +40

      A more accessible (if nowhere near as cool) example is trying to play a FPS game when the last person who played uses the opposite look inversion settings to what you're used to. You invariably end up running about staring either at the sky or your feet.
      I have found that you can override your muscle memory with constant conscious effort over a period of about 10 minutes or so but then it messes you up when you change the setting back and you have to relearn again... 😅

  • @JoeyCarb
    @JoeyCarb Год назад +81

    It's absolutely insane that the maintenance techs were like oh well this sticker doesn't work, there is absolutely nothing else we can put here to remind the pilot that it's out of service. A small piece of masking tape with an X on it could have prevented this entire situation. The laziness is unreal.

    • @georgeburns7251
      @georgeburns7251 4 месяца назад +1

      Technicians were union. They dont need to think to get a pay check.

    • @mb2776
      @mb2776 3 месяца назад

      @@georgeburns7251 won't prevent firing

    • @CC-xn5xi
      @CC-xn5xi 3 месяца назад +9

      ​@@georgeburns7251Non union people have the same human failings.

  • @JamesBraunstein
    @JamesBraunstein Год назад +381

    I worked for Republic as a mechanic during this. Afterwards, every plane that came through had a required inspection to inspect the safety wire and the harness on the yokes. We also complied with that service bulletin by installing a bracket so the switch could not be installed upside down.

    • @PhsykoOmen
      @PhsykoOmen Год назад +35

      These are things I like to see, how every issue is addressed immediately and not left until another accident happens.

    • @frankcooke1692
      @frankcooke1692 Год назад +24

      Share your notes with USB cable manufacturers. Har Har.
      No but it should be a practice of any manufacturer of any industry to have little tabs and slots that can only fit the right way - not only does it save time for the manufacturer - it prevents the end user from ending up with a product that works backwards.

    • @kevindonohue2912
      @kevindonohue2912 Год назад +8

      @@frankcooke1692 Just what I was thinking! Poor design, and something so easy to design correctly.

    • @michaeljohn8905
      @michaeljohn8905 Год назад +18

      Im a mechanic at a flight school and if i come onto anything that can be put in upside down or is NON DIRECTIONAL as i call it i put tape on it and when i install it i have a clear idea of how it goes back. Sounds basic but ive seen my share of mistakes.

    • @frankcooke1692
      @frankcooke1692 Год назад +9

      @@michaeljohn8905 wait... how common are these 'non directional' parts?

  • @jerradmechals1
    @jerradmechals1 Год назад +298

    This quality of content is something one would usually pay for to watch on Netflix or any platform, but you give it for free. Thanks Petter, what an inspiration!

    • @Hunter_Bidens_Crackpipe_
      @Hunter_Bidens_Crackpipe_ Год назад +1

      Netflix is a woke shiethole

    • @jasonadamik2206
      @jasonadamik2206 Год назад +5

      Very true. I do pay for RUclips Premium, but I'd pay that fee per year just to watch Petter's videos.

  • @richie1002
    @richie1002 Год назад +88

    I would definitely stick that INOP sticker on the trim switches. It doesn't need to last the flight, just long enough for the captain to register that it isn't working properly.

    • @NicolaW72
      @NicolaW72 Год назад +14

      Indeed.

    • @aarondavis8943
      @aarondavis8943 Год назад +14

      Even next to the switch would make sense.

    • @alyx6427
      @alyx6427 Год назад +1

      or take the switch out

    • @fazerider9287
      @fazerider9287 Год назад +1

      @@alyx6427 That leaves the problem of what to do with the wiring.

  • @GeekFurious
    @GeekFurious Год назад +680

    As someone who has worked in IT, there have been times when I SHOULD have known what to do but because I thought I knew what the problem was I instead did 20 things BEFORE I did the thing I should have done. And I wasn't even flying a plane and worried about dying.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +184

      Yep, human perception and troubleshooting is a complex thing.

    • @Saml01
      @Saml01 Год назад +22

      Step 1: Google it.

    • @jimlatosful
      @jimlatosful Год назад +3

      Saaame here 😂😭

    • @FieryPouncer
      @FieryPouncer Год назад +52

      I also do IT stuff, and I spotted the problem pretty quickly...
      From my home office, on the ground, where absolutely nothing was at stake.
      It's _really_ easy to get into the mindset that you know what the problem is, and then, well... It can take a long time for you to break out of that and reevaluate the situation.

    • @JanBruunAndersen
      @JanBruunAndersen Год назад +64

      I think my colleagues (also working in IT) sometimes gets annoyed with me because when trying to solve a problem, I like to step back and ask dumb questions that seemingly have nothing to do with the problem at hand. But I think there is method to my madness. I ask the dumb, basic questions because I want to know what works before I try to fix what is not working. I verify that I can ping a server using both IP adress and name. I verify that the file system is mounted, mounted correctly, that I can create and delete a test file,... Silly things, but it gives me a solid footing before trying to solve the more complex problem. And in many cases that kind of low level checking have often revealed some basic problems that only manifested itself as a problem at a higher level.

  • @Piaz1n
    @Piaz1n Год назад +79

    It always warms my heart when a history like this end up as the pilots landed safely.

    • @franziskani
      @franziskani 3 месяца назад +1

      Normally when he does not mention the names of the pilots we are good (they are goona make it).

  • @wazopaio
    @wazopaio Год назад +33

    I'm currently in school to become an Aeronautics Electronics Technician and I actually just did an exercise like that today, unintentionally.
    Ended up looping wires inverted and when I set the switch to on, it was off and vice versa. Shocked the hell out of myself trying to take it apart thinking it was off.

  • @LieutenantGarber
    @LieutenantGarber Год назад +356

    I'm no pilot, but after watching 100's of aircraft incident reviews, you explained the trim system better than anybody, which gave such a clear understanding of what lead to this. Bravo Petter, as always.

    • @CieloNotturno86
      @CieloNotturno86 Год назад +18

      Right? He has a gift for explaining really complex things in a way that they can be understood by people with zero prior knowledge of the topic

    • @The_ZeroLine
      @The_ZeroLine Год назад +3

      Couldn’t agree more. I’ve also watched hundreds of video and understand most of the systems now, but this is the first time I’ve truly totally understood the trim system. It seems so simple/obvious now. It really just shows how, like every other skill, requires some true natural talent to rise above the pack.
      BTW, I don’t like to judge, but the captain of this flight seemed like a doofus. It seemed like they should have understood pretty quickly what was going on with the prior problem, especially after the first officer’s trim switch immediately fixed the problem. Props to the ATC though.

    • @The_ZeroLine
      @The_ZeroLine Год назад +1

      Just out of curiosity, as someone who also watches lots of these videos, what is the most intuitive control system for you (not counting the throttles which is dead obvious)? As someone who races (touring and some formula), the rudder system immediately fit perfectly into my underpowered brain as it controls yaw, which is essentially like throttle steering except using wind resistance rather than power and counter steering.

    • @theplanesdude
      @theplanesdude Год назад

      His name is Petter?

  • @atticstattic
    @atticstattic Год назад +113

    There are no more frightening words than, "it was a perfect day for flying."

    • @stryk3r
      @stryk3r Год назад +2

      🤣fr

    • @iztheterrible
      @iztheterrible Год назад +2

      😄😁😉 thank God in heaven for the safe return to stable flight and a safe landing.

    • @guardrailbiter
      @guardrailbiter Год назад +6

      It sets the stage by removing weather as an all-too-common contributing factor to accidents.

    • @atticstattic
      @atticstattic Год назад +1

      @@guardrailbiter
      all too true

  • @hermanappelgren
    @hermanappelgren Год назад +34

    At a tech museum near me, they have a bike with super wheels that is rigged to lean the wrong way during a turn. Trying to ride this bike is one of the most confusing experiences I’ve ever had. The feeling of disconnect between your conscious intentions and what your muscle memory is making you do is unreal.

    • @MephiticMiasma
      @MephiticMiasma 10 месяцев назад +4

      Another variation I've seen is gearing the handlebar so that turning it to the left causes the wheel to turn right and vice versa.... virtually impossible to ride it.

    • @jennygrim2057
      @jennygrim2057 4 месяца назад

      😂

  • @Friend_of_the_One-Eyed_Ladies
    @Friend_of_the_One-Eyed_Ladies Год назад +3

    Fun fact, the accelerator pedal in your car has dual redundant circuits like this switch. (Obviously I'm only referring to modern vehicles with drive-by-wire throttle control.) In the event of a mismatch, for instance because of a broken wire as happened to one of my vehicles, the ECU will switch into a severely limited "Limp Mode" where your engine RPM is limited to 3000, and max throttle input is limited to like 25%. Takes minutes to achieve freeway speed, lol. This is to make any runaway situations easy to control with the brakes, and to protect the engine if it erroneously reads a max throttle input when the vehicle is in neutral (3000 RPM won't destroy a gasoline engine). I thought this was a cool set of safety redundancies, developed by some very smart engineers.

  • @FTreba
    @FTreba Год назад +270

    As an electrical engineer, upside down switch was the first thing that came to my mind as soon as I found out it was taken out.
    However I can easily see how it could not be the on less technical person's mind. And even I wouldn't exactly be eager to try to push the switch in the direction that is supposed to make the situation worse - both intuitively and consciously, as that kind of behavior can arise from any number of failures, and it could indeed make the situation much worse.
    Kudos to everyone involved for handling the situation.

    • @justwantresults8768
      @justwantresults8768 Год назад +43

      As an former engineer at a major engine company, I was very surprised at the lack of mechanical mistake-proofing in this switch installation, especially for such a critical system. We spent a lot of time making sure connectors/components/probes could not be mis-installed. Human factors is a huge issue.

    • @rondj1965
      @rondj1965 Год назад +4

      @@justwantresults8768 Quality control and small things like workmanship can have dire consequences.

    • @andreacoppini
      @andreacoppini Год назад +7

      I had the same thought. Although I’m not an electrical engineer, I work in tech, and I’ve learnt to always blame a human (most often, myself) before any machine when things go wrong…

    • @edzanjero353
      @edzanjero353 Год назад +2

      Only a tech would suspect such a possibility. Bingo.

    • @jamesrecknor6752
      @jamesrecknor6752 Год назад +9

      As a certified master toilet technician [plumber].... never mind, I am in over my head here.

  • @epiren
    @epiren Год назад +13

    As soon as you said about the switch being upside down, my jaw dropped. Talk about a simple mistake that was totally avoidable!

    • @kenoliver8913
      @kenoliver8913 Год назад

      And how come there isn't a notch so that is not possible? Having things fit only one direction into a socket is absolutely elementary in design, even in non-safety critical systems.

  • @paulm749
    @paulm749 Год назад +56

    Your ability to clearly explain these issues that commercial pilots sometimes encounter, and do so in a manner that is understandable to the layman is really quite extraordinary. Can't give you enough compliments!

  • @philipjamesparsons
    @philipjamesparsons Год назад +9

    I had a similar problem happen in a Beech Duchess, back in 2005. The mechanics cabled up the trim in the opposite sense to how it was meant to work. When, I trimmed the opposite happened to what I expected, so I stopped trimming and returned to land. Rather than being sorry for the mistake the maintenance guys blamed me, saying that the problem was easy to work out and I should have just trimmed in the opposite sense. Looking back, this was BS and they were lucky they got away with it.

  • @andersmalmgren6528
    @andersmalmgren6528 Год назад +4

    As a engineer I think it's beyond stupid to make the switch in a way that it can be installed in the wrong orientation. It should be asymmetrical in a way that its impossible to mount it wrong even with moderate to extensive force

  • @TheAkashicTraveller
    @TheAkashicTraveller Год назад +131

    I like the way he checked that the backup switch was working but then continued using the yoke switch even though he suspected it was faulty. Muscle memory and stress really mess with you huh.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +30

      Exactly!

    • @myparceltape1169
      @myparceltape1169 Год назад

      I am not in aviation but if anything was sometimes faulty it was never right.
      The trim function was shown on a pre war biplane. I think it was for passengers.

    • @tonysu8860
      @tonysu8860 Год назад

      I'm only going by the computer generated appearance of the two switches because no actual photos of the switches were shown (that I remember) but I'm pretty sure the two switches don't duplicate the same functionality. The backup switches appear to be on/off switches to enable or disable the backup trim system while the yoke switch appears to turn the electrical trim motors one direction or the other. That means that you probably can't operate the trim motors up or down using the backup switches. It's interesting though that there are two backup trim switches and that both need to be activated the same way for those to work... I wonder what the reasoning is for that, especially when both switches are side by side and easy reach of both pilots.

    • @duc9395
      @duc9395 Год назад +7

      @@tonysu8860 the two back up trim switches (on the center pedestal) work EXACTLY like the switches on either yoke. They are of a split switch design, the system logic prioritises the backup switches, then the captains switches, then the first officers switches. The only real difference with the backup switches is what the logic does if only one of the two split switches is registered as depressed for seven seconds.
      There are also two cut-out switches (they can be pushed in, or pushed out), the captain in this case pushed in only the left one thinking that would deactivate his side, but in fact each of the two cut-out switches deactivate one of two channels, but both channels are able to command trimming actions from any of the back up/captains/first officers trim switches, so his understanding of that system was flawed. Funnily enough because he only pushed in one switch it did not cut out his reversed trim switches, however it also allowed the first officer to still be able to trim using his side, as one channel had not been cut-out (the same reason why the back up switches also still worked).
      The QRH actually states to push both channel cut-out switches in, then push one out at a time with the other pressed in, and trying to trim the aircraft by various means.
      I must admit sitting at home watching this there's a lot of very obvious mistakes. I even said to myself as soon as the video started talking about the runaway that the button was clearly installed upside down, and laughed when I was right. But being in the heat in the moment can certainly be different.

  • @Landon.9910
    @Landon.9910 Год назад +12

    As an aircraft mechanic and inspector with almost 20 years experience (2 years of which were with Republic Airlines). My first thought was that the switch was re-installed upside down. I've replaced that switch multiple times and it's an easy mistake that a mechanic can make but not an easy one for a pilot to catch.

    • @sharoncassell9358
      @sharoncassell9358 Год назад

      Like its easy to throw a ball but not easy for someone else to retrieve it.

    • @Placeholderdo3
      @Placeholderdo3 9 месяцев назад +1

      Clear design oversight. Hard to think of every eventuality, but the fact that the up/down indications are separate from the actual switch make that an easy thing to mistake.

    • @Rollin8.0
      @Rollin8.0 8 месяцев назад

      I found this one really interesting because I feel like if I was flying and tapping a switch and it was having the opposite effect to what I expected my first instinct would be to flip it the other way to see if it did what I wanted.
      Seems strange that the pilot didn't register that the more he hut the trim switch the worse things got.... I suppose if you've done thousands of hours on a particular plane you "know" what should happen when you do something so the possibility the plane is "wrong" takes a while to enter your head.

  • @richardgilson3512
    @richardgilson3512 Год назад +36

    Very interesting to see this side of the incident. Pre-pandemic I worked On those trim switches and the back-up trim panels for Embraer customers. I remember the flurry of service bulletins and "read and sign" memos that came out to deal with all this. Till I saw this video I had forgotten all about it.

  • @yiuqwfj
    @yiuqwfj Год назад +59

    This incident reminded me of Air Astana Flight 1388. It's nothing short of a miracle how those pilots from Air Astana Flight 1388 could save the plane despite reversed controls.

    • @SimonWallwork
      @SimonWallwork Год назад +13

      Haha. They saved themselves- the plane was a write off!

  • @gregknipe8772
    @gregknipe8772 Год назад +340

    I had the opportunity to fly as a passenger last month, and found myself relating even more than usual to the flight crew, and their jobs, in no small part comforting rude or anxious passengers, due to delays out of anyones control. as a person thrilled by my infrequent travels, I find this program as a glory hole into technology, (incredibly reliable!!) and the humans who make it all happen. every job is important. it amazes me that you have created this niche, that is rewarding to you, and educational is a very broad set of topics, from psychology, technology, and problem solving. thank you and best wishes pursuing your dreams.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +94

      That’s what we are trying to do! I’m
      Glad it’s working. 💕💕

    • @davidrobertson2826
      @davidrobertson2826 Год назад

      …….um, what? A glory hole? Lol

    • @Danny___Riot
      @Danny___Riot Год назад +12

      I know what you mean! I’m going on vacation next month and I noticed I’m excited for the flight more than anything. 😅

    • @lornemartin7636
      @lornemartin7636 Год назад +33

      You just may want to edit your reference to “g…hole”. Inappropriate and I’m sure inadvertent.

    • @haraldschweda611
      @haraldschweda611 Год назад +10

      @@lornemartin7636 What I thought about it, too…

  • @asmileisspecial
    @asmileisspecial Год назад +42

    This one was such a rollercoaster. I was so scared listening to this one, I don’t blame the captain for going back to the trim switch, the muscle memory and training is too strong. They did such a good job managing it, I was terrified they were going to crash.

    • @thejailbreaker8675
      @thejailbreaker8675 11 месяцев назад +1

      The funny thing is that as an Airbus A320 and A330 pilot for 9500 hours, I never ever thought about how trim works, until it breaks. I imagine that Airbus pilots for over 5 years going to a Boeing may only remember after having to force the controls.

  • @aaroneisengart9887
    @aaroneisengart9887 Год назад +17

    Being that pretty soon ill be training to be an airplane mechanic. Watching videos like this (and the titan air disaster of course), show me how important an airplane technician is. It shows me what a responsibility this job is, that everything must be precise. Additionally, I never knew planes have a HIL (or the FMC can be a tool for mechanics from titan plane). Thank you for these videos!!!

  • @pluisjenijn
    @pluisjenijn Год назад +210

    ATC can be found on VASAviation channel, including the Delta pilot who is willing to help out. It's clear that the pilots are under a lot of stress: calling the runway 10L instead of 10 and falling to count themselves (6 souls on board). Glad everything went well and that the root cause was found and dealt with

    • @NicolaW72
      @NicolaW72 Год назад +7

      Thank you for the advise!👍

    • @spy2778
      @spy2778 Год назад +1

      Can you post the link to that one?

    • @pluisjenijn
      @pluisjenijn Год назад +1

      @@spy2778 I did first reply

    • @contra1124
      @contra1124 Год назад +18

      @@spy2778 links often get deleted here- search vasaviation channel for republic airways 4439 it will be the first video you find (from 3 years ago)

  • @henryhbk
    @henryhbk Год назад +128

    I would add a comparison to the “runaway acceleration” in the Audi 5000, caused by the pedals being too close together and slightly out of place for US drivers causing people to step harder on the “brake” to stop the acceleration, not realizing they were of course stepping on the accelerator. It is extremely hard to detect you’re doing something like that; funny story I had tacked up my horse in the dark (and my horse and her tack are all black) and was riding (thank goodness) in our indoor training ring, I would rein to the left and my horse turned to the right, in fact at one point turning out the door to the outside. Luckily my horse is both extremely smart and takes care of me, (and didn’t put me in the dirt like most dressage horses would) she then took control and marched (ignoring all my signals) right up to the mirror in the ring and kept staring at the mirror until I finally saw the reins crossing under her chin. It is extremely hard to convince your brain that your control inputs are not the correct ones. (I added an under chin look as part of my “preflight’ walk around on my horse)

    • @sheridan1887
      @sheridan1887 Год назад +27

      You have a very intelligent horse!

    • @henryhbk
      @henryhbk Год назад +36

      @@sheridan1887 you have no idea. I love her to death but it’s kind of a pain sometimes as if I am riding near someone getting a lesson my horse will listen to their instructor and do what she’s saying. But so many times she’s saved my butt. And she is bomb-proof, literally. When they were blasting for a development nearby the farm most of the horses were cowering while mine wanted to meet her friend the explosives technician!

    • @GreatDogs
      @GreatDogs Год назад +13

      I drive horses.... And ya, its nice having an actual smart autopilot. .. 🐎

    • @markmcculfor6113
      @markmcculfor6113 Год назад +12

      @@GreatDogs 😂 my horses autopilot has one major mode, it involves a slow turn back home, and then a walk directly to the barn XD they're good horses though, I love them to bits

    • @PhycoKrusk
      @PhycoKrusk Год назад +1

      Must be a newer model

  • @BaliMystic
    @BaliMystic Год назад +4

    This reminds of a story from an avionics specialist working on a Challenger. One of the instruments was experiencing in flight issues. They tried replacing the unit multiple times and no luck, the in flight issues always came back. When came the time for a major overhaul, the owner insisted on replacing the wiring although the item wasn't mandatory. When they replaced the wiring, they found that some of the insulation had been worn off due to fretting and a short circuit would result only when the cabin was pressurized and the airframe would expand slightly. This explains why the wiring always checked out (pass) on the ground but would cause an instrument malfunction during the flight.

    • @juliajanssens8432
      @juliajanssens8432 6 месяцев назад +1

      'always checks out or "always checked out' OR 'passed the checks'

  • @cypher686
    @cypher686 4 месяца назад +2

    Judging from the thumbnail, One of the biggest engineering issues was the fact that the left engine was incorrectly positioned inside the wing and the right flaps were hanging off

  • @volkhen0
    @volkhen0 Год назад +9

    I immediately knew they put it back upside down but told myself that it must have been impossible as the shape of the switch mounting should be foolproof and it’s shape should prevent upside down insertion.

  • @nekomasteryoutube3232
    @nekomasteryoutube3232 Год назад +11

    Its kinda surprising it was even possible to install the switch upside down, you'd think that something like that would be "keyed" so it can only go in one way.

    • @TheAkashicTraveller
      @TheAkashicTraveller Год назад

      Also ehy reinstall the suspected faulty switch at all? They should have just left it out. As soon as he mentioned them reinstalling it I suspected they'd do it the wrong way around.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +5

      Yep, that’s what the maintenance bulletin was made to fix.

  • @lucascornelisse6896
    @lucascornelisse6896 2 месяца назад +1

    Also i love how even if he seems to lean blame toward the pilot, he never demonizes them. Just breaks it down and points out where there was likely some human error

  • @pauleohl
    @pauleohl Год назад +15

    What a story. It was like living through a nightmare and being able to at last wake up and realize that it was only a bad dream.

  • @SafeBandicoot
    @SafeBandicoot Год назад +74

    I’ve been waiting nearly 3 years for this. Ever since I watched the VAS Aviation recording of the ATC recording. It is bone chilling to hear stress in the pilot’s voice.
    Some of the passengers of 4439 has commented on VAS Aviation’s video.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +34

      Really? Can you tell them about this video? I would love to hear from them

    • @austinchen6549
      @austinchen6549 Год назад +40

      @@MentourPilot I was the one that commented on VASAviation video, and some just notified me of this video. I was one of the very few passengers on 4439. Can verify if needed but would also love to talk to you. I happen to love aviation and watch a lot of videos.

    • @officerahmo
      @officerahmo Год назад +1

      @@austinchen6549 How early did you realize that there was a problem? If you did?

  • @wernerderchamp
    @wernerderchamp Год назад +130

    I really like how you set us up wrongly by first mentioning the cable issues. I think during the accident sequence, most viewers thought that these issues were the cause for the trim runaway.
    But then it actually was just that switch mounted wrongly.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +66

      Haha! Yep, have to keep you guessing 💕

    • @volvo09
      @volvo09 Год назад +2

      Same here!

    • @freeculture
      @freeculture Год назад +12

      I find it a bit curious that the pilot didn't try using it backwards. As a gamer i would. I mean if up isn't doing up but down, just try the opposite to at least see if it goes back to what it was instead of continuing the same action that clearly was doing the opposite.

    • @marcellkovacs5452
      @marcellkovacs5452 Год назад +28

      @@freeculture if you previously had connectivity issues with your mouse, you won’t be thinking that maybe someone inverted your controls while you were in the bathroom. Confirmation bias, they already had an explanation for the problem (runaway stabiliser) and it’s really difficult to abandon it.

    • @eveleynce
      @eveleynce Год назад +14

      I find it really odd that they didn't put the inop sticker on just because it was awkward to mount
      meanwhile with something considerably less dangerous like a bandsaw (you can only kill one or two people with a bandsaw, but quite a lot with an airplane) they would have red tape and lockout tags as soon as anything with the controls are messed up

  • @NielMalan
    @NielMalan 8 месяцев назад +2

    As a designer it seems to me that there was an attempt made to make it impossible to install the trim switch upside down: that's what caused the indentations. Evidently that wasn't enough. The design could be improved even further by making the switch lever asymmetrical in some way, so that the pilot would immediately notice if it was mounted upside-down.

  • @lukeluke3964
    @lukeluke3964 2 месяца назад +1

    We get nice 30 minute walk throughs. In reality these skilled people we call pilots have to deal with this stuff in seconds or if they are lucky minutes. Love seeing them all survive and we get to make flying safer without losing lives and we get these videos.

  • @Karagon17
    @Karagon17 Год назад +49

    I listened to this live on ATC at home that afternoon. It scared the crap out of me, it's the worst thing to happen at Hartsfield-Jackson in the last decade I think.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +11

      I can imagine. I hope you will like the video!

  • @bocckoka
    @bocckoka Год назад +16

    I normally cry on more serious episodes like Hellenic 522 or Tenerife, but here the cooperation here also made me cry, in a good way.

  • @Monicaerikarita
    @Monicaerikarita Год назад +10

    Muscle memory is incredible. I began driving in an old jeep and had that same destruction box for over a decade. No matter what it would always drift to the right and I would naturally anticipate it and adjust accordingly depending on the terrain, knowing how that would impact my driving. Imagine the first few weeks in a normal car that did not do that and how many times I got honked at, shot the bird, and because I’m American, once had a gun waved at me (no joke). I COULD NOT break that habit for a longer time than seems believable. It’s like the brain understands it makes no sense on one level and on the other just goes “No, this is how it works, stupid”. It’s amazing when you need it and a huge handicap when you need to do something differently.
    Fortunately, while you’re definitely more likely statistically to die in a Honda Civic, it is definitely smaller and is ON THE GROUND. And it’s much easier to figure out what’s wrong when you have other lanes of cars around you and can easily see the distance from them. I’d drift or mess up turns, but I imagine if I was driving down an unlined road alone like a plane visually alone in the sky I would have run into a ditch more than once.

  • @tomhutchins7495
    @tomhutchins7495 Месяц назад +1

    Petter is an excellent instructor. As a non-pilot I was immediately thinking the switch had become reversed when the opposite trim effect was mentioned. As he says though, it's easy to recognise that from here and when we've been primed for the story, much harder to notice in the middle of a significant emotional event like this.

  • @TheGOLDIdeluxe
    @TheGOLDIdeluxe Год назад +237

    Another great video that shows how we humans subconsciously do things we shouldn't do just because we are used to it and have always done it that way. Thanks as always to the whole team!

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +41

      Yep, that’s one of the things I wanted to highlight. 💕

    • @TheGOLDIdeluxe
      @TheGOLDIdeluxe Год назад +13

      @@TypicxlSortOfOdd If you are a patreon like me (which I can deeply recommend!!) you can watch the videos some hours prior to the official release :)

    • @genericscottishchannel1603
      @genericscottishchannel1603 Год назад +4

      @@TheGOLDIdeluxe ah yes, deeply recommend being a few tax brackets higher, in this economy

    • @TheGOLDIdeluxe
      @TheGOLDIdeluxe Год назад +1

      @@genericscottishchannel1603 If you live in Scotland, definitely not :D

    • @MattyEngland
      @MattyEngland Год назад +3

      @@TypicxlSortOfOdd Bruh, you got pwned.

  • @RufflestheKitten
    @RufflestheKitten Год назад +26

    ATC deserves to be awarded for their effort to try and help.

  • @kennethbowden4129
    @kennethbowden4129 Год назад +7

    Back in the 90's I was ground crew in the US Air force (KC-135) and we had an intermittent issue with a barber pole indication on one of the gear. It was a nightmare to trouble shoot because once we got to work on it and have the air craft jacked up. After weeks we finally figured it out. One of the indicator switches would fail when it was very cold like it was after a long flight.

  • @SmileIso
    @SmileIso Год назад +9

    I love the way you narrate your videos. So clear, so self explaining

  • @MathieuDeVinois
    @MathieuDeVinois Год назад +9

    At 14:22 I thought what a wonderful flight that must be being in a mostly empty and quite small plane at night. Like a privat jet feeling. Then I remembered what channel I am watching 😅

  • @OurCognitiveSurplus
    @OurCognitiveSurplus Год назад +30

    It does feel like if a fault re-occurs more than x-times, there should be a requirement to do a deeper dive into the problem.

    • @justwantresults8768
      @justwantresults8768 Год назад +7

      This is a huge challenge in the aviation industry. Intermittent wiring related faults are absolutely the hardest to isolate. Unfortunately there is huge pressure to take a maintenance action to clear the fault and go, which unfortunately doesn't always address the harder to find root cause. We wracked our brains on this when developing engine control system troubleshooting procedures.

    • @mikemorris3421
      @mikemorris3421 Год назад +2

      There is, and any competent engineer would extend the diagnosis procedure, one would not just continue to repeat to do the same thing over and over. The initial thought was a wiring chaff and the first place to look are areas of loom movement. But putting the switch in the wrong way and not finding out shows lack of testing after the work was completed which is more concerning as simply testing i.e. running it and watching the indicator would have shown the issue. There are always time pressures on turnarounds but ones ingrained training should step in to resist such, as it is you that signs off the log item and as such carries the responsibility.

  • @beltrams
    @beltrams 4 месяца назад +3

    As a non-pilot, I so much appreciate your channel and the several other pilot channels out there. I've probably watched a few thousand videos by now. Anyhow, last winter I was flying out of JFK to BOS with a teenaged friend new to being on a plane at all. Our flight was delayed over 2 hours on departure because the aircraft had come in from Burlington, VT with some item reported as inoperative. We were told that they were attempting a repair at the gate, which took 2 hours as I say, but then we were good to go. The crew briefed us a bit before departure on the specifics. It turns out that the deicing system was the troubled system. Now, while the weather was clear at JFK, BOS was reporting 31F and light snow flurries. My friend was very annoyed at the delay, but eventually he calmed down when I asked him if he really wanted Jet Blue to fly him into known or suspecting icing conditions with a deicing system known to have issues? The pilot briefly touched on all this, but my friend took a long, more informed discussion of what icing does to a plane, how deicing systems work on various sizes and categories of aircraft and so on, and it was possible for non-flier me to do this more elaborated discussion thanks to these wonderful videos.

  • @jamesmcglough5985
    @jamesmcglough5985 5 месяцев назад +1

    Captain Warren Vanderberg would be pleased - The pilot flying did the nose high unusual attitude recovery procedure perfectly and saved the aircraft from stalling.

  • @abdellahchaaibi
    @abdellahchaaibi Год назад +190

    I downloaded the whole playlist of peter’s Airlines’ incidents investigations to watch on my long flight back home last week-end, it made me more conscious about the aircraft during the trip. Absolutely fantastic series, thank you Captain!

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +42

      That’s a fantastic idea!

    • @jack002tuber
      @jack002tuber Год назад +12

      You have more guts than I do. I can't watch these in a plane, only sitting on the ground

    • @abdellahchaaibi
      @abdellahchaaibi Год назад +1

      @@jack002tuber Aviation is safer than ever thanks to the rules set because of the incidents that happened, I believe that everyday, this industry grows safer, and better for us all, passengers, and even pilots and everyone involved in the industry.

    • @bhumikdhandhukia4471
      @bhumikdhandhukia4471 Год назад +3

      That's a great thing to do when you are out of horror movies

    • @buskontention3872
      @buskontention3872 Год назад +2

      You binge watched air crash videos during a flight? Tempting fate?

  • @ByronScottJones
    @ByronScottJones Год назад +6

    The switches should have been designed so that they only fit in the correct direction. NASA learned from a similar issue years ago where a wiring bundle could be plugged in upside down.

    • @kenoliver8913
      @kenoliver8913 Год назад +1

      Hell yes. It is absolutely elementary in design that if you have a circular switch or instrument it must have a notch so it will only fit right way up. And that's for things far less safety critical than an airplane's controls. Whoever designed that yoke needs to go back to design school.

  • @cdnhey
    @cdnhey 6 месяцев назад +1

    Having the aircraft in trim saved my life the seat just rolled back I let go of the yoke instantly good training pays off

  • @SkullFoxDK
    @SkullFoxDK 6 месяцев назад +1

    something about how often the Captain used the Trim Switch reminds me about a stressed out office worker with one of them stress balls or toys "oh im stressed out by all the upward pitch... gotta trim"

  • @TheMitchyb61
    @TheMitchyb61 Год назад +9

    Absolutely love that you called the problem “gremlins”! Gremlins are a real scientific phenomenon!

  • @JohnR31415
    @JohnR31415 Год назад +4

    That switch (and others) really need to be asymmetric…
    (And in the human interface side of it.. if the trim button had a one way arrow, or a different shape up/down - then it would be fairly obvious)

  • @TheCraftedMine
    @TheCraftedMine 5 месяцев назад +1

    As an A&P, these videos are always very useful to me, as a reminder to be wary of everything in my work.
    Thank you.

  • @aaronwallace8397
    @aaronwallace8397 2 месяца назад +1

    As someone who works in cars the second I saw the switch hanging out I was screaming that it was installed 180 off and that was going to cause the whole problem. Especially when the captain took back controls and it immediately did the same thing. Amazing what a sticker could’ve done in this situation no matter how poorly slapped on.

  • @sylvainforget2174
    @sylvainforget2174 Год назад +4

    I remember operating a bridge shop hoist without looking at the pendant and things were not going well. After a bit of struggling, I realised that I was trying to operate it just like the shop hoist from a job I had left thirty years before. Old habits die hard.

  • @seanpeacock4290
    @seanpeacock4290 Год назад +8

    Given my experience keeping an old jeep running for 18 years, as soon as you said the plane kept pitching up I thought the switch had been put back upside down. I have managed similar mistakes without the pressure of getting a plane to the runway on time.

  • @hatman4818
    @hatman4818 Год назад +3

    Intermittency is usually a wiring issue of some kind. It's generally hard to tell if it's bad wiring inside a part you can replace, or in the wiring across the plane from A to B (a lot harder to inspect, troubleshoot and replace). These days, the break could even be on a circuit board in a part, and you're unlikely to actually put eyes on that.
    Normally, its the part itself gone bad at either end of the plane's wire bundles. Those recieve a lot more wear and tear, whereas the wiring across the plane doesnt really "go bad" unless something unusual is occuring, like fraying and rubbing from the vibration of the aircraft (proper clamps and spacing prevents most of this. Often times, if this is occuring, it's because a previous engineer didnt ensure the wiring was spaced and clamped properly).
    The wiring and parts themselves usually can be checked by using a multimeter on a disconnected cannon plug, to see if wires that should have continuity, do have it, and those that shouldnt, dont. This can often tell you if the part itself is bad, or the wiring is bad.
    The problem with intermittent shorts is that they often check fine continuity wise on the ground, but then rear their heads when the plane is bumping around in flight. I was a jet engine mechanic in the USAF. Occasionally, if E&E shop suspected bad wiring from an intermittent fault, and wanted to try and prove it, they would have us run the jet engines to power on the ground, to try and shake the jet into replicating the problem... But that was an unusual troubleshooting technique, and not something they would do until they ran out of ideas.
    Even if a part hasnt specifically checked bad, a troubleshooting tree in the manual will usually end in pointing to a culprit of some kind, and have you replace a part. Personally, I would have gotten suspiscious about the plane's wiring after the first repeat/reoccur from changing the first part, and grown more suspiscious with each part changed that failed to fix it.
    Some tips, it's generally bad form to keep changing the same part for the same problem. Although parts sometimes come bad from depot, it's pretty rare (and the few parts that do, typically get a reputation for that. For example, I was always suspiscious of MECs from depot). More often than not, if a part change doesnt fix the problem the first time, that part wasnt the problem in the first place, and it's not worth changing again. Troubleshoot every other part in the system first before returning to it.
    A lot of times, the same part will be changed multiple times in a row when a mechanic treats a repeat/reoccur as a new problem, and the troubleshooting trees lead right back to changing the same part. This happens when they dont check the aircraft forms to see if it's already had this problem recently. This happened a lot to the electronics shops (E&E, Comm/Nav, GAC), where they'd get chewed out from on high about changing the same part 6 times in a row within a couple months for the same problem, without realizing they were repeat/reoccurs. And we usually had the benefit of having tight knit shops at a home base the same planes always go back to. I'd imagine chasing repeat/reoccurs in the civilian world is a LOT harder. Although ariliners have a main base and main maintenance contractor, they also spend a lot of time away from those bases, getting worked on by other maintenance shops in the course of things. Anyway, whether youre a military mechanic or civilian mechanic- heck, even if youre a car mechanic or something, it pays to learn as much as possible about a vehicles recent maintenance history before diving into troubleshooting. It can save a lot of headaches by showing you what NOT to chase, that other mechanics have already chased without fixing it.
    Another bad practice that I think is becomming more common is called "Shotgunning". Basically, every time a part repacement fails to fix a problem, you pick a new part in the system to change, and hope that fixes it. Sometimes there's no logic to it, sometimes it's like picking a part out of a hat and hoping it's the problem. There are some systems where that is sometimes necessary, because methods of actually CONFIRMING certain parts are bad dont always exist, or require specialty tools you dont have access to. Some parts are just plain broken internally with no way to know from the outside, and best you can do is try to narrow it down by ruling out what you CAN check. So yeah, sometimes it's necessary... Other times, it's a bad mechanic (or worse, their dunning kruger level boss is calling the shots on what to change even if they have little maintenance experience) just changing parts at random. In either case, shotgunning parts isnt that reassuring to the crew. In this case, because the issue is wiring, all the parts they changed in troubleshooting probably operationally checked good on the ground, after replacement, but the system still failed in flight.
    Look, if you've changed 2-3 different parts in the system, and it's still kicking the same error... It's time to stop, regardless of what part the troubleshooting tree wants to implicate next. Stop blindly following the book, stop throwing parts at it, stop allowing it back into service... Take a step back, take some time to scrub the entire system if need be, until you're sure you've found the culprit. If we were 3 parts deep on an intermittent issue, I'd start demanding E&E dig hard on the wiring for any A to B shorts (actually, I think I have done that a few times). Or you know, I guess if youre in the civilian world where A&Ps are jacks of all trades, scrub the whole system yourself.
    And on a final note... This is a warning about the dangers of half @$$ing safety wire. I know doing safety wire is tedious and not fun, IDGAF, do it right often enough, and it will come naturally and quickly. Leaving untucked pigtails like that doesnt just have a chance of fraying anything nearby it (like in this case), it's also rude to any mechanic in the future who has to deal with your b@llsh!t. I cant tell you how many times I've gotten cut up or had my cloths torn by some random safety wire I didnt see, that the previous mechanic only bent the pigtail like 90 degrees. Dude, might as well have just left it sticking out unbent, and blatantly wrong, if youre not going to do it right anyway.

    • @StevePemberton2
      @StevePemberton2 Год назад

      I found what is also important with intermittent problems is to try and get an idea how often it happens. That rarely helps solve the problem, but that's not the purpose. The purpose is to help identify whether your attempt to fix it has solved it. Too many times someone changes something, tries it out, all seems to work fine, and you can tell that they then completely relax their grip on the problem. Then I would be the one to say, "the customer said it happens every two or three days, so if it's still working a week from now then we can probably start to feel good about it, but until then I don't consider the problem solved". Seems obvious, but it's surprising how many people don't think that way and convince themselves that the problem is solved just because the problem doesn't reappear within five minutes. Of course usually there is nothing you can do until the problem pops up again, but the point is to keep the problem in the pipeline, don't kick it out the door assuming it is solved.
      The other important thing is if you want to know what fixes something then only change one thing at a time. Technicians that I worked with so often made two changes at once, then they got all excited when they fixed it, then I would ask them which of the two things fixed it, and they had no idea. Of course problems that are high profile and where fixing it immediately is the priority, sure you throw the kitchen sink at it. But I'm talking about situations where finding out what fixes the problem is extremely helpful, and it takes just a little more time to try one fix at a time. Surprising how many people don't think like that, but of course most people just want to solve the immediate problem and are not thinking beyond that.

  • @rickbarrington
    @rickbarrington Год назад +11

    As a low time pilot I have to say I love your channel. The attention to detail, the quality of production and sheer professionalism is inspiring and educational

  • @Skyhighnupe
    @Skyhighnupe Год назад +51

    I’ve flown this exact plane many times. These pilots did a great job!

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +18

      Yep, they got it down in one piece. That’s the important thing

    • @jesspeinado480
      @jesspeinado480 Год назад +1

      The capt was the problem. Nice cya thinking. Just like cops covering up for other cops.

    • @norwegianzound
      @norwegianzound Год назад +3

      @@jesspeinado480 Nonsense.

    • @aesaphyr
      @aesaphyr Год назад +7

      @@jesspeinado480 ... Right, that's why he immediately reported the fault and incident. Definitely trying to cover up. 🙄

    • @bennaustin6632
      @bennaustin6632 Год назад +4

      @@jesspeinado480 What? The airline chose not to wait 20 minutes for a replacement part and the maintenance crew put it back in upside down and without an inop tag. A physical reminder that could be seen and felt may have been enough of a reminder to break the captain out of automatic muscle memory back to conscious attention. The failure was not with the captain, except in taking back control from the first officer, which was a poor decision.

  • @alanbare8319
    @alanbare8319 Год назад +28

    As a former F-15 maintainer in Flight Line Avionics, these videos are absolutely fascinating. Deferred maintenance/discrepancies are well documented in the aircraft forms. Keep up the good work!

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +5

      Glad you enjoyed it!

    • @asm_nop
      @asm_nop Год назад +3

      I'm surprised that the switch isn't keyed to ensure correct orientation.

    • @TheRedRaven_
      @TheRedRaven_ Год назад +1

      @@asm_nop That and the switch should have a protruding tab that allows it to be installed in only one direction. Small little mods like this are necessary on these passenger airframes IMO.

  • @lukemeow9729
    @lukemeow9729 Год назад +1

    i like that mentour always explains everything and makes good explanations and examples.

  • @AnzsiLux
    @AnzsiLux Год назад +2

    Absolutely loved this video, such great team work!

  • @clagoeiro
    @clagoeiro Год назад +23

    This reminds a bit the Embraer in Portugal which had their aileron cable controls reversed. Amazing videos as always! Thank you so much Mentour Pilot!

  • @anthonyblacker8471
    @anthonyblacker8471 Год назад +4

    I realize the tremendous workload the Captain must have been under, but to me, my natural logical thought pattern would IMMEDIATELY tell me to try going the other way with the trim switch, just to SEE what happened! I'm surprised he didn't even consider that, and also for him to have taken control of the plane again after the FO had it under control, that to me sounds crazy! It's funny to me but I have built things in my life that are not as serious as the installation direction (up and down) of a trim switch on a multi-million dollar aircraft that has a tab on it that will ONLY allow it to be installed the correct way. That to me is crazy!! Upside down switch. Ok.. seriously? Maintenance really has some explanations to make on that one!!

  • @stepanbmw
    @stepanbmw Год назад +1

    I found this channel a couple of days ago, and I'm so happy that I couldn't be more!
    I'm studying aerospace engineering, and I love how detailed and technical these videos are. I see that a lot of pilots are on this channel, and they find your videos useful for them, but, as well for us, future engineers, it is essential to see where and how not to make mistakes because, you know, theory and aerodynamics are one thing, but the practice is a bit different.
    All in all, very informative and interesting. Thank you!

  • @agnorpettersen
    @agnorpettersen 4 месяца назад +1

    Fantastic to see the cooperation of both pilots and ground control.

  • @jamescollier3
    @jamescollier3 Год назад +3

    Let's make a trim switch mount that lets you put the switch in upside-down lol

  • @crew-rest
    @crew-rest Год назад +50

    I am an airline pilot and love your videos. Very clear, accurate and to the point. Just here to add my praise for another one beautifully done. Please keep it up!

    • @anna_in_aotearoa3166
      @anna_in_aotearoa3166 10 месяцев назад +2

      It's so cool that there is so much extra learning material available to pilots & other airline professionals for free online these days! Esp. for those who are in training or relatively new. Great free resource.
      Even just as someone in general risk/safety management & incident investigation, the systems issues & psychological learnings are still valuable...

  • @hanyiskandar5567
    @hanyiskandar5567 Год назад +2

    One of few channels who truly earns subscribe. Petter you are doing an amazing job, please never stop. After Studying 5 years of vehicle engineering including all physics behind airplanes, I still gain alots of new knowledge from your videos. Thanks!

  • @johndoh5182
    @johndoh5182 Год назад +2

    So, not saying this to scare people but being a technician can sometimes be a REAL challenge. I worked on older electronics, none of which would probably exist anymore in the world of aviation. The equipment was designed around the time with ICs had started to work their way into electronics but a typical IC would have held only a few logic gates, as opposed to today where a CPU that goes into a PC can have near 10 billion transistors, and if I want to say that a typical logic gate is made up of about 10 transistors then we could say about 1 billion logic gates in today's modern CPUs that go into a typical desktop PC, or at least the newer, more powerful desktop PCs.
    So, this is older electronics, and these were shipboard systems. To be a tech on this kind of equipment you have to have complete understanding of digital logic, understand basic electricity and electronics (BE&E) and learned the specific systems you're working on so it was at least a year of learning before going to a ship and working on these systems. And by learning, that means 7 - 8 hours a day, 5 days a week in a classroom and in labs.
    I could generally figure out any problem in the different systems I learned over many years in the Navy, but every now and then you would get some pretty hard stuff. One problem I troubleshot was a signal coming from sonar systems up to our computer systems (Combat Information Systems). It's something that was never noticed by operators but when we run a full systems test (which took a few hours) that tested every aspect of our systems including all the interfaces and inputs from weapons systems, etc..... there would be an issue with a sonar contact being offset from where it was supposed to be, and it wasn't consistent. It ended being a synchro input from sonar into our switchboard for fine azimuth, and this fault existed since the time the systems were installed on the ship, because a tech NEVER goes into these switchboards unless they absolutely had to, and it looked like it had never been touched. I had to work with a sonar tech of course since the problem was between their systems and ours. But I was pretty good at what I did.
    On one ship we had this one console that would have a problem with radar display. It was a console that a typical operator never sat at and was for an officer to look at for him to get a view of where everything was around us (ships, subs, aircraft). But it was almost never used because there was another console that was closer to where they sat they would look at, if they wanted to. Basically these would only be used in times of combat, so these two consoles would only be looked at when we did combat drills and the one that had the problem was really redundancy.
    But it was HARD to figure it out and I never did. It would only show up when the ship was out at sea, and I was able to figure out that the ship's roll would create the problem, so to troubleshoot it we had to be out at sea, in seas heavy enough to have a certain roll, or it could have been pitch I don't remember the fine details at it was about 25 years ago. But the problem was this console was right at the entrance to Combat (CIC), and to troubleshoot it you had to block that door, and that was the only door in other than a very inconvenient way for people to go to get into Combat so the people in Combat would get bothered when you wanted to work on the problem. We had two other techs who worked on that equipment and none of us could ever figure it out. It ended up we had to hire a tech rep, who the people who worked in Combat couldn't complain to about working on the equipment and this person finally figured out what it was.
    These hard problems are never modules that you can swap in and out to figure out a problem. It required and STILL requires people with very in depth knowledge of how the machines work, the people who understand the 1s and 0s of the logic, and can go into tech manuals and follow signals through the backplanes of equipment through the buses that carry signals to other places. It's VERY hard. And to troubleshoot a problem when the only time you can do it is when seas are rough enough to create it means tying doors open, often having to lay on the floor to look at signals, trying to keep a tech manual in place because they slide, and bracing yourself while trying to hold a test probe in place while looking at test equipment AND looking at a manual that wants to slide away from you.
    Today most technicians don't get this in depth training because we have designed systems to have modules swapped out and sent to facilities that troubleshoot them and send them back out. You order a module if it's bad and swap it out when it's bad. But that doesn't help you when the problem isn't a swappable module.
    Was this REALLY an engineering problem? Or organizational? The technicians were rushed and weren't able to finish their work and the plane was put back into use with an existing problem that the captain forgot about. Why did he forget about it? He wasn't even supposed to use the switch. It turns into a mess when you have conflicting interests and technicians aren't left to do their job correctly, and some problems are VERY hard to deal with. You have a wiring issue and maybe you can use an approved crimp, but since this is an aircraft simply twisting wire together isn't sufficient. Aircraft are subjected to lots of forces. You may have a specific method for crimping wire together or you might have to rerun wire, which can take a long time.
    So, don't be so hard on the technicians. Sometimes their job is REALLY hard. I had a switch I had to replace with about 60 wires that connected to it. It's not something that could be rushed. It took a couple hours because the connections were solder joints and every wire has to be done correctly or you risk a problem in the future. It was what we called a spaghetti mess. We had many large switches we had to deal with and some of them could have a couple hundred wires going to them. We really weren't supposed to deal with them because of how long it took and all the checking required. But I worked with switchboards that were my responsibility and I had to replace the WORST of them and it was over 100 wires. It's really hard to describe how much mental effort goes into dealing with problems like this because it's a few hours of VERY meticulous work. And this is every now and then what technicians that work with different systems have to go through and I'm sure techs that deal with aircraft can tell you all about.

  • @johnnyjoseph1389
    @johnnyjoseph1389 Год назад +4

    As somebody who's been an auto mechanic for 25 years I can't fathom how difficult it must be to be an airplane mechanic. One of the biggest parts of verifying a repair in the auto industry is driving the car to make sure it doesn't do "it" again. Working on a thing that you can't legally operate in real world (flying) conditions would seem me to be extremely difficult.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +1

      The maintenance work is very tightly controlled and follow very clear ABCD etc steps to follow.
      These steps are set up by the manufacturer and must be complied with.
      Normally that works fine but in this case, the original decision to fix the problem was reversed, hence the issue.

    • @johnnyjoseph1389
      @johnnyjoseph1389 Год назад +1

      True enough, but even if a part were available and installed correctly the underlying issue still would have not been solved. Seems to me like you could have installed a thousand trim switches and the original problem still would have been there. We deal with poorly written or incomplete diagnostic flow charts in our industry as well but we often have the opportunity to catch the misdiagnosis before handing it back to the driver.

  • @davidp2888
    @davidp2888 Год назад +60

    The detailed explanations and corresponding video illustrations are extremely well done! You and your team always deliver amazing results.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +10

      Thank you David. We do what we can and the level of detail is the reason it takes a while to produce them.

  • @10-AMPM-01
    @10-AMPM-01 5 месяцев назад

    Your work saves lives. Thank you for always being there, forever vigilant.

  • @cynthiaroswick1621
    @cynthiaroswick1621 Год назад +1

    Captain I love your new videos. The format gives me so much more information especially with the little pictures of the parts of the plane you are talking about. Tell your son he may become the new Anthony Bourdain. Flying is wonderful and cooking is great. I love the new TSHIRTS. I'm too old (79) to wear them but I love them. Thank you again for your precise videos.

  • @DaytonaTurboJ
    @DaytonaTurboJ Год назад +11

    My dad was in the USAF and would tell a story of a how a friend of his was flying a B-52 for an air show and the trim controls were installed reversed after maintenance, and after takeoff the plane just pitched way up and they nearly stalled it out before figuring out what happened.

    • @Mantek430
      @Mantek430 Год назад

      I started to think if such switch could be specifically signed so it will be easier for technicians to distinguish wether they install it in proper way. Some coloured pictogram or paint half of switch in different colour could indicate which way it should be facing - similar to battery instalation when you see which is - and which is +.

    • @HesderOleh
      @HesderOleh Год назад +2

      @@Mantek430 better than that is for it to literally not be able to be put in the wrong way, like diesel and gasoline at petrol station pumps. Or another method could be that it doesn't matter which way you install the switch so that which ever way it was facing that wire would come in to contact with the correct wire for that direction.

  • @sm5970
    @sm5970 Год назад +45

    This is fast becoming my favourite RUclips channel. There’s so much life lessons to be learned from aviation you know. Love the channel, and I love your explanations. Currently catching up with past videos.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +7

      Great to hear! 👍🏻💕

    • @whitelorna1967
      @whitelorna1967 Год назад

      Yup Petter and Kelsey are my 2 most favorite aviatiors in the RUclips channels ( @74gear just in case your flying saucer only landed on Earth today... They have helped me SOOOOO much as I have been preparing to get my PPL. 🖖 Live long and prosper. 😎

  • @thomasherreiner3583
    @thomasherreiner3583 9 месяцев назад

    Thanks Petter for another brilliant video. I just love your channels. Your expertise and way of story telling, visualizing and commenting make your videos super valuable, informative and also entertaining!

  • @Starcradle
    @Starcradle Год назад +1

    I am a new subscriber who is both glad and grateful that your channel appeared in my recommendations today.
    Great work!

  • @mzjkids6404
    @mzjkids6404 Год назад +3

    Never commented on any video until today. My face lit up with a smile after realising a new video has been posted.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +1

      Awesome! 💕
      That’s the type of reaction we are hoping for!

  • @Ozkan_Ozturk
    @Ozkan_Ozturk Год назад +5

    Petter, I know you definitely know what you do but I wanted to emphasize 2 very important points: You not only inform/guide/relieve/inspire aviation enthusiasts & passengers but also offer an enormous knowledge library for pilots, technicians & airlines. With all due respect to official trainings, these series are something to take as valuable resource on what can be done/thought in some never thought scenarios. If I was a pilot, I`d watch every video of yours 2-3 times to use them to sharpen my skills. As an aviation enthusiast, I salute you.

  • @iztheterrible
    @iztheterrible Год назад +3

    These are the best flying documentaries!!! I've watched a dozen and I can finally understand what the narrator pilot is saying now😄. He seems like a super cool young man that is almost like family, and someone you can depend on!!!

  • @michaelschwartz9485
    @michaelschwartz9485 Год назад +1

    One of the best videos you've done! Mostly because I live an hour north of DTW and fly in and out quite a bit!
    You've done a hell of a great job on your channel! I remember watching your first videos, as you added more and more. I'm very happy for your successes!! Take care friend!!

  • @morgan4574
    @morgan4574 Год назад +6

    Ah Embraer 170. I saw that an Embraer 175 was in the news around NYE unfortunately, in Alabama. Their APU was broken so kept their engines running longer than normal after arrival and a baggage handler got too close too fast and she was completely ingested into the Embraer 175's tiny little engine. And she was still killed and liquefied instantly. I almost puked when I read the very few details. Her coworkers saw everything and even some passengers waiting at the gate. she was also a mother of 3. Nothing has been released as far as an investigation yet but it's been on my mind

    • @NicolaW72
      @NicolaW72 Год назад +3

      A Horrible Story, yes.

    • @gavincline209
      @gavincline209 Год назад +1

      The cf 34-8’s are still pretty strong for there size. Also it’s even worse, she was rushing to get done so she could make it to one of her kids bday party…….

    • @Monicaerikarita
      @Monicaerikarita Год назад

      I’m a 205 now living in the 334 but I saw this story when it broke and just thought…I mean we all rush sometimes but around jet engines?

    • @gavincline209
      @gavincline209 Год назад

      @@Monicaerikarita as someone who works on airplanes for a living…..things can and do just kinda blend away. When you see and are around the same thing every day, even jet engines can just kinda “vanish” in your mind. As mechanics we have to fight this a lot. I’ve done it, looked at a tire or other part and thought I saw it being good out of habit, had to do double takes to realize it was bad. I’ve even phased out the entire wing before…..right up till I smacked into it and remembered real quick that it was there. Lol
      Doesn’t help that a lot of us are either deaf, or have lots of ear pro in, muffles the sound so you can’t even tell something is running.
      It’s just a situation where you’ve mentally always gotta remind yourself to be paying attention and be observant. Wich as we all know, the human brain isn’t a computer and we don’t always remember things like we should.

  • @samuelroque5373
    @samuelroque5373 Год назад +8

    Can you do an episode on Northwest Airlines Flight 85? I think that this is one of the beste stories around. With good CRM and amazing flying skills on behalf of the pilot's. They thought of everything during a high stress environment

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +6

      I will add it to the list for sure

  • @elrobo3568
    @elrobo3568 Год назад +2

    I was a trained high performance driver /pursuit driving driver / instructor trainer at the General Motors proving grounds. We were not extensively trained in forward driving but had to drive in reverse using mirrors only. We had to get to fairly high speeds in reverse and had to get used to reverse controls. I am also a pilot and it think this made me a better pilot for unusual attitude control and recovery.

  • @philstanton231
    @philstanton231 Год назад +9

    Thank you for another very informative "story". I did 47 years in ATC (in various places around the world) and I still learn from your posts.
    Purely as a point of interest, had you found yourself in that situation, would you have thought of trying the down trim to see if the reverse would happen? I don't know if I would have been "game" to have tried that myself, but...... Just a simple yes/no will suffice, as I think I can work out what your reasons would be. Thanks in anticipation.

    • @annettetozer894
      @annettetozer894 10 месяцев назад +2

      Following as I was wondering that too. If that trim direction made it harder, try doing it the other way.

  • @Firestorm637
    @Firestorm637 Год назад +3

    Nice other pilots helping. I remember flying my Seneca 2 in a bad storm at 12,000 feet in the 70’s. An American Airlines asked how was the weather at 12,000 ft. I stated not too bad. A few minutes later, the AA 727, pilot said look off your left wing tip. It was a 727 zooming past me. 20 minutes later he called back after he landed and thanked me as well as his passengers. Never will forget

  • @osier769
    @osier769 Год назад +6

    Was great to see the Captain quickly give back control to the First Officer when problem arose again, despite believing they had a very firm understanding of the issues at hand and the unbelievably high amount of stress they were under.

    • @javaking1000
      @javaking1000 Год назад

      I know it's easy for me to be an "armchair pilot", but damn why did it take so long for the pilot to give the controls to the first officer? They both knew there was a problem with the pilot's trim control! Handing over would have literally been the first thing I would have done!

    • @sidorgeorge
      @sidorgeorge Год назад

      Personally, I think the captain was foolish to wait so long to give control to the first officer. And even more foolish to take control back. What if after he got control back, they couldn't control the airplane anymore, or couldn't switch back. I think it was ego.

  • @atticusgq
    @atticusgq Год назад

    Been watching you for years. Thank you for all your help

  • @jasonadamik2206
    @jasonadamik2206 Год назад +3

    Just thought it was a good opportunity to tell you, Petter, if you happen to read this, just how very much I enjoy and look forward every day to your videos. I'm incredibly impressed by your presentation skills, your confidence and clear diction in front of the camera, your perfect English, your amazing explanations, etc., etc. Thank you for everything you're doing.

  • @kvadratbitter
    @kvadratbitter Год назад +8

    I can imagine that starting to use the trim switch in reverse would be like paddling a bike in reverse or steering left for right, right for left, or something similar. Crazy stuff, great video.

    • @sarowie
      @sarowie Год назад +1

      it's even crazier. when cycling, for a right turn, you actually turn slightly left then right. In a car, after turning right, you might slightly left.
      Our you just give steering input to drive straight - you tend to use both directions and feel with very subtle input that something is totally wrong.
      With the trim, you would not think in their right mind to "counter trim" just to see what happens.
      In case of a mechanical failure, that would be crazy.

    • @NicolaW72
      @NicolaW72 Год назад

      Indeed - and you must first get an idea that it works in this reverse direction.

  • @CabinOnTheWater
    @CabinOnTheWater Год назад +5

    They would have been better off just removing the switch and installing a temporary blank off plate in it's place. No question then whether it was functional or not.

    • @MentourPilot
      @MentourPilot  Год назад +3

      Yep, in hindsight that would have been better

  • @theodore388
    @theodore388 Год назад +1

    Excellent video, really interesting and clearly explained. Well done Peter! Kudos to the pilots too I’d say, an incredibly frightening occurrence handled very well indeed.