How A Dead iPad Almost Killed 206 People | Edelweiss WK3
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- Опубликовано: 23 фев 2024
- This is the story of Edeklweiss air WK3 on the 25th of august 2016 an airbus a330 was making the flight from los angeles to Zurich with 204people on board. You know the deal this was one of those long haul flights like the hundred of ones that take place every day. They took off from los angeles and now after a couple of hours they were getting ready to land in zurich. I imagine that the pilots the crew and everyone on board were getting ready to land. We all know the drill, after a couple of hours in the air we all want to get on the ground and stretch our legs. So as the controllers lined flight ___ up with the runway something else was happening in germany. Now full disclosure, I am not european not by a long shot, and this next section will have a lot of european names in it and im gonna be honest with you despite my best efforts I might mess this up. But if i do please feel free to yell at me in the comments of this video. Okay back to the video. On the ground at traben-trarbach a guy with a motor glider with the tail number D-KOWC was preparing to take a passenger to Biberach. The plan was to take off from Traben-trarvbach fly to Bad Durkheim pick up the passenger and then fly Bieberach. The glider was pretty barebones when it came to navigation, he had a compass a deviation table and an ipad with the app VFR-Nav with charts for the flight. With all the testing done the motor glider took off from bad durkheim at 10:25 UTC with the passenger, they needed to make a refuelling stop in Constance before heading off to Biberach. The two people made their way across europe in this tiny plane and when they were in the felberg region the radio cut out on the motor glider. The pilot quickly checked the fuses and found out that a fuse had tripped killing the radio. Now he did some switch flipping and he was able to trade the transponder for the radio and obviously flying without a transponder is dangerous so he decided to divert to bremgarten. For those od you that dont know the transponder is the piece of equipment that tells air traffic control everything that they need to know about your plane, things like who you are what speed youre at, your altitude all the important bits, flying without a transponder is kind of like swimming in a pool without a lifeguard. The mechanics on the ground at bremgarten looked over the plane and said that the onboard battery was running low on juice and so they charged the battery for about 90 minutes. With the battery juiced up they took off again at 2:55 Pm UTC. while they were overflying the todtmoos region 13 kilometers southwest of Lake Suchluchsee the pilot tried to raise zurich information pn 124.7 and right on cue the fuse tripped again. He tried to get all of his systems back online but nothing worked and then like last time he switched off the transponder to reduce the power consumption so that he could get his radio back up and running. But now he had a problem, his ipad had also died and with that, the VFR nav navigation app was gone, he now had to rely on an ICAO chart to navigate. As all of this was happening the Edelweiss A330 was now being vectored in for a landing on runway 14 by Zurich approach. The controller cleared the jet onto a heading of 110 degrees with permission to descend all the way down to 4000 feet. As this clearance was given the controller noticed a faint shadow on the radar screen that was intermittent. Usually, on a radar screen you have information about a plane, like its type whos flying it speed altitude that sort of thing, this radar return had none of that. The controller obviously concerned radioed and by the way this is from a translated report so this might not be verbatim "Edelweiss Three Alfa, and there is one primary target at DME2 13, just now on the localizer and seems to follow approximately localizer inbound, altitude is unknown." the small glider that we were talking about had somehow strayed into the approach vector of a major international airport. This was highly restricted airspace and this small plane was smack in the middle of it. Later the controller had a better idea of where the
Наука
That motor glider pilot not contacting the tower because "it wouldn't do any good" is peak not-asking-for-directions energy.
Then not saying a word to anyone about the incident 🤣😂🤣
"Why did you turn off your transponder?"
"So I could use the radio"
"Why didn't you use the radio though?"
"Because I didn't have a transponder"
That’s so silly, and goes so hard against training. What the heck were they thinking?
Reminds me of the Spongebob episode where Patrick loses his wallet
Reminds me of people driving around at twilight with the headlights off. "I can see fine." Yeah, but maybe other people need to see YOU.
I must confess, I was one of those people when I stared driving years ago, though I have now learned the errors of my way@@nitehawk86
she swallowed the spider to catch the fly
"They took off from LA and within a couple of hours they were getting ready to land in Zurich .." That's one monster jetstream they flew into.
It's about 10-11 hours flying time. I guess it's up to one's own discretion what "couple of hours" means. "A couple of days" would have been factually wrong, but he didn't say that.
10-11 hours flying time isn’t a “couple of hours” in anyone’s understanding. I agree with the OP - obviously he got caught in the Jetstream 😂
A couple is less than a few! I have always understood a couple meaning about two.
@@Jimmyjimjimjimexactly - that’s why the saying exists - to distinguish it from “a few”.
@@JimmyjimjimjimI've always understood couple to mean 2
Fundamental piloting error for the motor glider pilot: If you lose radio, there is a transponder setting to inform _everyone around you_ that you don't have a radio: 7600. I'm not a pilot and I know that! There are ways to deal with a radio failure. If I recall from other sources: Squawk 7600, find nearby airport and line up on their approach, flash lights/waggle wings to identify yourself to tower, tower will use a light to communicate to you. Land, exit runway, get ground guidance as needed. While an avionics mechanic is fixing your radio, call tower via phone to apologize/report/identify and let them know you're safe and it's getting fixed.
In theory.
This kind of overconfidence and stupidity is a clear cut case to revoke the license. then take drivers license as well, in germany and switzerland you definitely qualify for unsuitable character to drive / fly anything, with this behaviour. if he reported it himself, you may see a glimpse of hope, that he was kind of pilot material. surprised the did scramble a fighter and brought him in, that's honestly the main reason the swiss air force exists: airspace police.
Yes, that is the proper procedure for comm failure. However, in practice it's next to impossible to see the light from the tower because it's so far away and the light is very small...as well as being inside the tower. The few times it happened to me I eventually gave up on seeing the tower's light, flew a normal pattern and landed, then called the tower to let'm know I couldn't see the light. Never had an issue doing it that way. Also, in one of my experiences it was a totall electrical failure, so squawking 7600 was not an option.
@@paulis7319 yep, 7600 may not directly assist the pilot a lot, but towers wiil know and clear the approach. Nor need jets to be scrambled.
Mobile phones have been used in the past when pilots of small planes gave lost radios. It's not a super reliable option, but way better than using nothing at all.
Rumor has it, when the D-KOWC pilot got back on the radio, his first words were: Welcome to Steam Edition
Nice visualization of the incident! Three comments, 1. it was a serious “incident” - not an accident (fortunately) 2. the Edelweiss flight originated at Las Vegas, not LAX and 3. It does not require a high skill level to navigate with ICAO charts and your compass, this is actually what you are still required to do in a PPL examination in Europe. No technical aids like Ipads are allowed/used during instruction and examination. It’s not the low hours, its the dependency on electronic aids that disable many pilots when it comes back to “stick and rudder” flying. That guy probably never used his paper charts again after he passed his pilots examination…he probably didn’t even have them on board.
Agreed, same in my country, you have to navigate manually for your exam. An iPad certainly reduces the workload, but I think we can agree that this pilot had far worse problems than being overworked. I am also confused why the iPad "died". Do we mean it died because it ran out of charge? Why was he flying with no charge on his only real navigation, and did he not maybe think that the reason he kept overloading circuits was because he was trying to charge an empty iPad and maybe he should have unplugged that for the second leg?
I work as a medic/firefighter and we use iPads in our ambulances for patient care reports and incident documentation. We have a primary, a backup, and a backup backup. If I was relying on an iPad for anything flight related, I’d be damn sure to have a fully charged, synced, and preflight tested backup unit.
Yeah in reality almost nobody does. And that's fine imo. In small aircraft, there are a lot of things you only have 1 of: Pilot, Engine, battery, radio etc. Most of these are quite a bit more essential than a map. If something fails, you shouldn't just go into PC gaming mode and think you can improvise your way around, though.
@@LuLeBe - I know a lot of pilots. I don’t know too many that will fly with only one iPad/EFB. Either the other pilot in the aircraft will also have an iPad. Or, the pilot will carry some sort of backup. The only exception to this are pilots that do not fly with an iPad/EFB. But, those pilots will at least have a paper sectional and other charts.
ForeFlight gives you two iPad licenses and an iPhone license with each subscription. I personally fly with all three and an old sectional chart, just in case.
"They took off from LA and within a couple of hours they were ready to land in Zurich"...
That IS a fast plane. A very, very fast plane. Mach 4 fast !
😄
At least Mach = 4. Make it 12 hours to be realistic.
Hypersonic Edelweiss 😂😂
Don't forget time zones. He might have even arrived the day prior!
I know, I know. That's not how time zones work.
He’s going west to east. You go ahead in time.
did anyone else noticed the truck riding the river and make u-turn because of the bridge ?
People are so reckless nowadays ...
I just posted the same, serious topic but that cracked me up
Or the red truck that vanished into thing air😊
Strange things were afoot. The plane went from the West Coast of the US to Central Europe in just two hours.
This is what happens when one excessively relies on digital charts. This guy had no situational awareness without the iPad. I use digital charts, too, but always know where I'm at in case I need to go the paper backups.
As to radio vs. transponder, there are plenty of procedures for managing NORDO (at least in the US), so the transponder is by far the more important.
It's the same for me when I'm hiking. I do use a GPS (and sometimes my phone) as a navigation aid but always have a paper map and compass (and know how to use them). For navigation I'll use a combination of the two. Should the electronics fail I have a physical fallback. Heck, even if I also lose the map and compass I still know how to navigate through the wilderness. Whenever possible, technology should be treated as an aid, not a necessity.
And it isn't that the device is suddenly turning off, there's usually at least a battery symbol and possibly a power saving setting and maybe even a notification to allow transferring to paper maps... But I don't know how distracted you can get in the cockpit, it might just escape your attention.
There is another incident where an iPad went dead and was being used for navigation. I think I heard it on ATC Live. Luckily pilot did use his radio, but the controllers incredulity at the absurdity of using only an IPad for navigation is worth the listen
iPad with no charge ? I’d say very foolish from the pilot’s side ! A powerbank is easy to carry.
Totally irresponsible
@@desdicadoric Agree 100%, you can’t take measures I believe for a built it organ but you can for the ones you bring along. A pilot should know that in planes/aviation no single point of failure should be in a plane (maybe the pilot was working in the past for Boeing … MAX).
You know how there are physical navigation charts ? Yes you're supposed to carry them as a back up. If you only print out the ones relevant to your journey the additional weight is minimal and it would hint at good flight preparation...
@@thecon_quererarbitraryname6286Do you know what lives right next to the chart plotter on my boat? PAPER CHARTS! (it's a no-brainer...)
He did not have spare fuses either.
That pilot was irresponsible. Flying without a transponder, internationally(!), inside controlled airspace, and not listening to guard(???)
Like, come on!
The transponder vs lifeguard analogy is very incorrect, but you get a free pass and forgiveness since you don't work in the industry. Flying without a transponder is actually more like driving at night with no lights on, because people won't be able to know your location till it's almost too late.
(edited for formatting)
I know of one incident, but I have never heard of anyone covering it. It was similar to this video in that it was a non-event, no injuries, no crash, but I've always wanted to know what happened, because it happened in the airplane I was a passenger.
It was sometime in the summer of 1990. when my then-boyfriend and I were returning from Toronto to San Francisco via JFK.
When we transferred to a different carrier at JFK, there were some significant issues going on at other airports in the region, causing a lot of diversions to JFK. Taxiing to the runway lasted between two and three hours.
When the airplane finally got on the runway and lined up for takeoff, and the airplane began to move, everyone started to clap and cheer. I'm a bit superstitious and I remember thinking "Wait until we're in the air!" and as I thought that, the nose of the airplane came up, then a moment later came down and they rejected their takeoff.
The rejected takeoff felt like any airplane coming in for a landing, with about that same amount of stopping distance and effort.
At the time I knew nothing much about airplanes, so I didn't realize that having ANY jet reject takeoff after rotation was a big freaking deal.
My theory is that they had some issue that caused the rotation prior to V1, which meant they COULD stop.
I think it was TWA, Delta or United, possibly a 707 or 727 and it would have been slated to arrive in San Francisco around 7 pm..
When our airplane finally taxiied back to the gate, my first thought was to call my parents to tell them not to leave for the airport. we got back to the terminal I caught my parents just leaving the house to go to the airport to pick me up. They were annoyed that I would not be there for some time. We ended up waiting at the gate for three hours for the airplane to be fixed, and then took the same airplane across the country to SFO
I've tried to look it up, but don't know enough details. But to my way of thinking any post-rotation-takeoff rejection should warrant an investigation.
I've also heard of airliners successfully rejecting take-off after V1, so asked a pilot. The response was it all depends, and in some cases it is possible. Of course RTO after rotation would be even more extreme, so who knows?
I checked the NTSB database for incidents in NY through 1989 but only one in January came up - it would be unusual for a report to be filed for a rejected takeoff unless it was something egregious. JFK has a 15k foot runway so if it was lightly loaded, v1 may have been pretty close to rotation speed. You can try searching the ASRS database which is the self reporting system for things like that but it's a lot to wade through. asrs.arc.nasa.gov/search/database.html
Do you remember how long you had to wait for the plane to stop? And do you remember if three hours later you took off in that exact plane, or did you get moved to another?
At first I figured it was a near collision, as the 90s ended up being the most dangerous decade to fly on record and JFK is a hotspot for this as they’re the largest international hub in the US with overlapping runways. Or perhaps wake turbulence. But considering it took hours, that says something was wrong with the plane. If you got moved to another plane then it was a big technical concern. If not, I’d honestly bet the cargo wasn’t secured right or weighted evenly, the plane was too tail heavy and it lifted up too soon.
No matter what you’re extremely lucky this happened at JFK. Their shortest runway (8,400 feet) is the length of many other airports’ longest. JFK’s actual longest is 14,511 ft which at just under 3 miles gives enough time to stop rotation if you haven’t hit Vr/V2, and started at the beginning, and also don’t hesitate.
Oh! Was it jet or turbine? I’m assuming jet due to the distance but that’s a biggie too: the planes from the 60s were being retired, which were much more touch sensitive as it was fly by wire. They were changing to planes that were bigger, more powerful and also controlled differently. Now the risk of aborting after V1 is that a jet takes several seconds to respond, which a pilot might not have been used to back then.
Finally: any chance it could’ve been a defunct airline? This was before PanAm, TWA and several others went under. So if you’re only searching current companies then you might be missing it.
@@Cris-em9tn Thanks for all the questions. I'm pretty sure it was a jet. I can't say for certain if it was PanAm or TWA.... but my memory (which is often faulty after so many years) was that it Delta or United. But I couldn't be certain. I think the entire sequence of events was fixed in my memory because my then-boyfriend (soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend) was diabetic. We'd visited his family for his brother's wedding. Despite the fact that he was in his 30s (I was 21) he had mommy pack his suitcase for the trip back. And she did. So he discovered that he had his insulin but not his syringes. He finally had to ask one of the stewards to provide him a syringe so he could take his insulin, and he didn't realize that it would be more than 2 hours before we (tried) to take off. So he started having reactive hypoglycemia, so the stewardesses had to find him something to eat. All this was playing out while we made our very slow way to the runway.
I agree with your theory that the nose up attitude was due to cargo shift or imbalance and not necessarily the right speed. My memory insists that the nose went up sooner than I expected, and then when it came down, it felt like a regular landing level of braking and speed reduction.
They put us back on the same exact plane. Some people stayed in the plane, but and the boyfriend went to get him some better food and to call my parents to tell them we would be late. (the plane landed exactly 6 hours after it was supposed to land). I wouldn't know how to search any company to locate that incident. So it may be that those who understand how to look this stuff up could find it. I just tried to see if there were any news articles. and come to think of it, I'm pretty sure it was the summer of 1990 .... I turned 21 in late November so it would have been 1990
This is why you load up your route on your phone *and* your tablet in case one fails, and you update your paper chart regularly as you pass waypoints, landmarks etc! They were not taking things very seriously.
It makes you wonder how we ever managed to fly anywhere without GPS or iPads. ;)
We use Android tablets and Linux laptops instead bad iThings or MSthings.
Pilots were competent, well trained and well prepared.
@@franziskani not always...
I started flying in 2001 before before iAnything, and before GPS was standardized, so it was 100% paper ICAO charts and old school NDB/VOR/compass navigation. Of course being a tech nerd, I acquired an early Garmin traffic GPS with a monochrome screen and only highways, but it came in handy for identifying major waypoints. When aviation GPS because reliable and standardized around 2008 I got one and have stayed up-to-date since then (currently not flying but still keep up with the industry). If I ever decide to start flying again, I'll definitely start out with paper charts again to regain the basics. To this day, some flight instructors won't let their students use any GPS or iDevice until they've shown proficiency with old school navigation.
We had the appropriate charts on board 😊 Started flying in 1990...in most planes you could also tune the nearest VOR and find what radial you were on. If you had DME, you could determine how far away you were from the VOR. Most planes actually have two VOR receivers, so you can tune a second VOR and figure out where you were by where the radials intersect. You could also home in on an NDB, or the broadcast tower of your favorite AM radio station 😅
9:45 River truck
How to get every one of your subs to watch your viveo 10x hide a river truck in them all. 10X the views! You have to make them harder to spot though
I am Swiss and very interested in incidents with Swiss airlines, so this was a hella quick click lol
Nice vid as always
why the holes in cheese?
@@YanDaOne_QC The cows are religious. It's holy cheese
💀☠️🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣@@coolyoutubename16
Wow, you can always count on something new/unknown on this channel! I'm glad you're back! 😃👍🏾
I don't get why people freak out about incorrect pronunciations of foreign names and words. I don't expect every single person to know how to exactly pronounce the names of every single town in the entire world. I don't even expect that people are capable of doing so, as the languages you grow up with greatly influence your ability to produce certain sounds. Then there's the issue that words and names aren't even spelled phonetically correctly and barely anyone is even taught the phonetic alphabet so it's impossible for anyone to know how to correctly pronounce an unfamiliar word they've just read. You don't need to apologize ahead of time. Just do your best and if someone corrects you then your learn.
I'd also recommend showing the word in its written form on screen at the first occurrence, in case you mispronounce things so badly, that even the native speakers are no longer able to recognize the original word.
Props to you for pronouncing all these southern German cities nearly flawlessly! Very good job! 👍
Good episode. Just a small quibble: you use "incident" and "accident" interchangeably. I'd recommend using the term "incident" consistently in a case like this, where there was no bent metal, damage of loss of life.
That would still be an accident though. Accidents can happen with no loss of life and can be minor. I think Accident can be used in this case consistently and it would be fine
@@YankeeRebel1348 Check out the ICAO definition of an accident...... this was not one.
I thought clowns were in the circus. Seems like they fly in gliders too.
Just this past week, a small private plane lost power shortly after takeoff on Long Island, NY. They turned around, but when it was obvious they wouldn’t reach the airport, they landed on the Southern State Parkway, a major artery leading into NYC. By some miracle, not a single car was even touched and they ran up onto an on ramp, then onto the grass. The pilot and one passenger had minor injuries; one didn’t want to go in the ambulance, but the police insisted. The plane was busted up a bit, but can probably be repaired. The main problem then was that the road had to be shut down for the rest of the day while the NTSB investigated, interviewed witnesses, the occupants, removed the plane and such. It kinda made a traffic mess of the evening rush hour since it was in the eastbound side. Of course, the westbound side wasn’t a lot better for all the people who came to rubberneck.
Fuses do not trip due to low battery. Someone screwed up thinking charging the battery for 90 minutes would solve the problem.
Yipp. It's the other way around. A fuse/circuit breaker normally trips due to overcurrent which may have been draining the battery. Perhaps there was a equipment fault causing a short or he had additional devices on the circuit increasing the current draw above the rating for the fuse.
@@DeclanMBrennanLike maybe an iPad?
I guess owning a private pilots license is no any indicator of how intelligent you are.
As usual, original content from you! Thanks for the nice vid!
I’m glad you’re still making videos mate I haven’t watched this channel since about 2021
Awesome video as ever Mini, love it. What really tickled me was the truck driving down the river crashing into a bridge and doing a 180 like nope wasn't me I'm a truck I don't drive down rivers @9.52 in case you mised it. Small things amuse small minds I guess
Thanks for pointing that out! I completely missed it.
Quick tip: ICAO is generally pronounced "eye-kay-oh" by people in the industry. Great video!
So... Ipad doesn't work. Didn't use the charts very well. Just looked out the window forgetting both compass and radio.
Too challenging.
And I've been looking into some legalities as well as talked to a hobby pilot because I wanted to do a software project. And as far as I understand, relying on apps etc to calculate, plan, or navigate flights is illegal. They can be used to make it easier but the whole thing has to be mapped out on paper. (pls correct me if things changed)
Can I ask? Why at about 09:50 is there a lorry driving in the river? 😜
Yeah, i was going to ask the same lol
It ran into the bridge!
@@waltradcliffe4482 And then ran off again as if nothing ever happened whistling to the sound of music. Seen a few bridges go down because of things like that
18-paddle river freight!
Because the animation in made in MS Flight Sim ? (it looks like MS Flight Sim to me...).
Youve come so far with this channel! Thanks for all your hardwork!🎉
I’ve not seen this anywhere else, which is nice as it’s not often I watch an aviation mishap channel now and see new material.
You are one of my favorite RUclips channels. Thank you for creating this content!
WK3 departed in Las Vegas, not LAX
"Within a couple of hours"?!?! La to Zurich is a 2 hour flight?!? Lol
more like 10 haha
I'm pretty sure the LA mentioned is Los Angeles, California, or LAX.
exactly my thoughts😂 more like 10 hours or so.
"a couple" =/= "exactly two" in vernacular speech.
@@AutismTakesOn????
That's so unprofessional that it's nearly unbelievable. What's even worse is the fact that there are fast trains in Germany and going by train would have been much safer and even faster...
Traben-Trarbach doesn't even have a trainstation
Newsflash, most gliders in the US fly without a transporter and in some cases no radio either. Pilots need to get their heads out of their phones, iPads, and glass cockpits. Aviator, navigate and communicate in that order.
So disregard what's made the industry so safe all these years just cause, eh? Unless operating near Class B airspace (specifically 30nm out), aircraft that operate under 10,000 feet aren't required to have a transponder, according to the FAA
I loved this video so much!
Good job on the video. I like it! Also good translating of the Name of the towns. No yelling needed 😅👍🏽 Anyway here are some informations about the spelling and Konstanz (EDTZ):
„Tra-Ben Traaa-Bach“ and „Biberach“ has both been pretty good said,
„Con-stance“ has also a small airfield (EDTZ) it is north of the town Konstanz and has AVGAS Fuel, did they wanted to go there or to Friedrichshafen EDNY?
Häusern is originally spelled „Hoi-cern“ and Schluchsee more like „ShhLuuch-say“
Oh and you can see both lakes when you have a good clean sky and also the alpes in the background……but you can see lake zurich first and it looks bigger and even when you are only 3000 to 4000ft high you are only about 1000ft AGL and get into trouble because of the low flying airliners.
Interesting video, which describes the incident very well.
A small mistake in your case description: Edelweiss WK3 departed from Las Vegas-McCarran International Airport not Los Angeles.
Also, the official report (Schlussbericht Nr. 2321 der Schweizerischen Sicherheitsuntersuchungsstelle SUST; translated with deepl) gives another reason for switching of the transponder of D-KOWC: "In the Todtmoos region, the pilot switched off the transponder at 15:23 UTC due to a blown generator fuse in order to keep the total power consumption as low as possible."
These mistakes in the video do not change the story much. Again, from the official report (Schlussbericht Nr. 2321):
The pilot began his flight training at the age of 58. The 20 flying hours flown in the last 90 days before the serious incident testify to a good current level of training. In contrast, a total flight experience of almost 260 hours, 76 hours of which were on the incident type, is to be classified as low.
At the time of the incident the pilot was 70 years old. So in 12 years he has flown only 260 hours.
BTW: The map used (ICAO-Karte, Blatt Stuttgart has a scale of 1:500.000; i.e. 1 cm on the map = 5 kilometer) covers a large area and if you have lost your orientation (which should happen to a pilot!) and do not know the local topography of lake Zurich and Lake Überlingen (upper northwestern part of Lake Constance) then it is an easy to mistake these lakes. However, they are 80 km apart!
I was curious and searched for reports in German on the aftermath (e.g., penalty for the D-KOWC pilot) but did not find anything. The official report was published in 2018 and did not contain any recommendations.
Thanks for the final report reference.
Motor-glider and pilot are from Luftsportverein Greiz-Obergrochlitz, small place in Thüringen (former German Democratic Republic), more than 400km (over 200nm) NNE of Swiss border.
Not much information on that pilot, he started pilot training in 2006 (aged 59), and was probably absolutely not familiar with the area he was flying in southern Germany.
Looks like he lost orientation in Todtmoos area, crossed the border to Switzerland near Koblenz, quite distinctive landmarks there, mainly Rhine and Aare river confluent next to nuclear power plant with impressive cooling tower at Leibstadt (might be that the power plant was stopped August 2016 for annual maintenance, so no "plume", just the tower).
Flying at sight without any mapping system, without knowledge of terrain in that busy airspace, without transponder and without radio makes really no sense!
The final report by Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board STSB (SUST in german) has no recommendations, could also not find any information on consequences for the motor-glider pilot.
Those pronounciations were pretty good,least to my ears, I've heard a lot, a lot worse, and yes motorized gliders are fairly common. I know someone who has a microlight and has mostly the same issues with having to keep charts on a tablet and the tablet in the plane
Underrated channel
He flew into the airport's airspace because he was woefully unprepared and had a perfect storm of issues. I'm not surprised that happened, it can and does happen.
What I am surprised about though, is that he landed and didn't report it, as if someone wasn't going to have noticed that he was flying within metres of an airliner without clearance. How do people like that even get a pilot's license to begin with? I thought you had to be smart?
I remember being able to spot Friedrichshafen airport last time I flew from Zurich - I always associate that airport with the tragic Bashkirian accident in 2002 :(
Your pronunciation is understandable for most places, such as "Bremgarten". "Schluchsee" not so much though... awesome video :D
0:26 LA to Zurich in a couple of hours! Must have been a SR-71! Thought they all were retired. 😂🤣😂
What is the flight sim you are using in this video?
05:27 Love the RJ 100 with its 4 engines high up.
Pilots between 200 and 450 hours tend to get into the most trouble, or so my instructor told me. They know enough to get confident, but not enough to properly find their way safely out.
Quick note. As an American I say your English is quite good. However as a matter of specificity, this was NOT an accident. In the U.S. this would be characterized as an incident, as I also believe it would be by ICAO. Speaking as a flight instructor, I agree completely with the investigative findings that the PIC displayed a tremendous lack of clear thinking and a high degree of overconfidence in his abilities.
Also by German aviation law, accidents involve damage to someone or something
@ Just a quibble but this incident occurred primarily in Swiss airspace. (Edit: The plane in question is German-registered as, presumably, was the pilot.)
Excellent video!
I’ve been watching a lot of your videos, learned a lot more than videos made by others!
I appreciate that!
@MiniAirCrashInvestigation You’re Welcome!
A worrying fact is that the pilot of the motorglider was not able to navigate with a paper chart. That is basic knowledge for every pilot, especially in aircraft with only one power source for the avionics. Some degades ago, a charter flight (Boeing 737 if I recall correctly) from Norway to Spain had a multiple electric failure and lost all all communications and navigation while over France. Thankfully, the weeather was very good. In his bag, the captain had road maps covering the entire route. During cruise, he enjoyed rading the maps and identifying towns, rivers, and lakes as they passed by. With the avionics lost, he used the maps to navigate to his destination, where they landed safely.
Traben-Trarbach "Mont Royal" airport is actually big fun to fly, it's on a plateau above the river Moselle valley and on final there is a huge antenna that you have to circumnavigate. I highly recommend it to MSFS fans :)
Well said!
Great work on your hand with the report. I lived in Villingen-Schwenningen for four years, near Hausern and Konstanz. Not bad on the language by the way. Would love your try on my city :D
I flew all over Germany in small planes, also in this area and have to say.
1. Lake Constance is very easy to recognize. Maybe the western ends have about the same size, but Lake Constance has no huge city of Zurich!!
2. ICAO charts are very easy to read to anyone with basic everyday skills. Good that he had them, but did he (or was he able to) use them at all?
3. Who owns an iPad generally als has an iPhone or similar divice. Just have a look at Google maps on your phone, if you are lost.
4. If your radio does not work, you can also use your phone to call a nearby-airport and talk to ATC. These small planes fly low and slow. There is reception, hopefull your phone is chraged!
5. As said in the well done video, he should have returned to Bremgarten after second power fail - immediately. Or any closer aerodrome if there was one.
6. I just cannot comprehend that this pilot saved the juice for the radio - and did not use it
7. The pilot finally tried to cover up everything everything.
This pilot is unqualified as he failed in many ways.
Just a little technicality: There's difference in definition of incident and accident. In this case it was incident. But nice work, I like this channel 👍
Since you mentioned the difficulty with pronunciation of words from other languages, I have a suggestion for you. I’ve lived in 7 countries, each with their own language. I have found that listening to the pronunciation provided by google translate is quite a handy way for me to get to know the pronunciation of words. Sometimes it can be easier, like with Latvian where the whole language is written phonetically, and others it’s much harder, like mandarin, since there is no phonetic writing and there are mouth shapes that are unused in European languages. I made the mistake in Sweden of treating the language as being similar to German and thus I pronounced Göteborg in a very German way. I was shocked to learn how different it was, just as I was with places like Skellefteå. It may not come out perfectly, but I assure you that listening to the correct pronunciation first makes things a lot more comfortable going forward. I hope you find this advice helpful.
You mention Sweden, I immediately thumbs up your comment. :-)
@@user-yi3yx2fn7g Jag älskade att bo i Sverige. Det är vackert.
@@TheGreyAreaBetween Ja det är det bästa landet i hela världen. 🙂
@@TheGreyAreaBetween Du är hemskt välkommen åter, glömde säga det. 🙂
@@user-yi3yx2fn7g På samma sätt för dig kommer du alltid att vara välkommen till England, även om det inte är ett lika bra erbjudande när du kommer från ett av de vackraste länderna i världen.
Nice video, thank you
Never expected to hear about Bad Duerkheim in a video on your channel.
That reminded me of the time as a kid in the 80s when we were supposed to drop off my mother at some medical facility for a procedure.
Dad packed the family into our car and we all headed out to Bad Duerkheim. Once there, however, we could not find the medical facility. Asking people didn’t help. No one had heard of the place.
After finding a public pay phone , Dad called our insurance company to confirm the address. They did confirm the address, alright. Just not in “Bad Duerkheim” but in
“Bad Duerrheim”. Wrong town. Bummer.
Mom, Dad and us three kids drive two hours in the wrong direction. Of course my Mom did miss her appointment and my Dad was constantly reminded of this blunder by friends, family etc thereafter. Of course.
That was a fantastic ride back. (“Are we there yet?”)
Naturally, he took Mom to the right place eventually. But he left us kids at home that time. Wonder why.
I suspect he had not marked his maps with his course and in particular the compass headings, had he done that he would have recognised that he was heading in the wrong direction despite losing the ipad.
You spelled everything very well!
Trading your radio for your transponder is a serious failure of the pilot. Set your transponder to 7600 to let ATC know what is going on. You wouldn't need an iPad to fly VFR.
you wouldn't need an ipad to fly period if you planned it right..
Swapping out the transponder for the radio was not a bad idea. You are trading one-way communication for two-way communication. The mistake was in not using the radio. You should never fly into a busy airport’s airspace without two-way communication. ATC can still see the aircraft on their primary radar without it having a transponder. Communication would have made this a non-event. The most egregious failure was not having spare for each fuse.
Couple hours from LA to Zurich? That’s like an 11 hour flight…
@ 0:20 seconds......
From LAX to ZRH only took 'a couple of hours'??
How is this possible?
Possible error?
a couple of hours is more than one hour you nitpicker
@@enjakuro7048
your point being.....(??)
I’ve never heard of a motorised glider. Wow. That pilot could have killed hundreds because he didn’t charge an iPad, crazy, really should be prosecuted. I can speak German by the way and you did pretty well
Thank you!
Could you do the The Lanfranc Air Disaster?
yes there was a recent incident above new delhi ,in which two indigo flights were 300 feet apart
So - that pilot lost his flight licence. And may have been sued for lost operation time (grounding everyone in Zuerich until the idiot was gone). Did he see his day in court (criminal and civil charges ?).
Does anyone use sectional maps anymore? What happened to pilotage?
All the guy had to do was follow the Rhine upstream, with the sun somewhere behind him on the right (afternoon, good visibility) and he would have made it to Constance / Lake Constance without any problems. Even an amateur pilot without a compass, map and analog wristwatch should be able to do that, otherwise the flight simulator on the PC at home might be the better choice.
Was that a delivery truck driving up the river at 9:50 in the simulation?
As a glider pilot, i know its a common practice to not use the transponder becasue the batterys are very short lived. I do not see how 200 hours in gliders is called a unexperienced pilot tho
We all did complex navigation around major airports in the days before GPS and iPads
Where or what is the accident?
A little out off topic.
I enjoy reading and listening to your posts. A tip regarding your question with the pronunciation [Biber ach].
These mean Beavercreek. In German Biber Bach.
Because of the dialect in southern Germany, the B of [B ]ach is often omitted in compound words. In the south of Germany, a creek is often simply referred to as Ach, Ache and so on.
These two letters stand for two different sounds: Ich [ I in english] and Ach are both spelled with ch. But if you say the two words one after the other, you notice that the ch sounds completely different. The ch in ach sounds harsh. The ch in Ich [ I] sounds soft. The phonetic symbol [ç].
German language ist very hard to learn. We have all in all compound words a round 5.300.000 words. I mean trillion in english, Millionen in German. For daily use, around 15.000 words minimum. After Abitur U 'r vocabulary 25.000 words.
The very well-known writer Goethe used 80,000 words. As far as I know, he had the largest vocabulary that a German ever used.
Please excause my bad english. I learning this 60 years before in school.
Greats frm Germany. 😂
This madlad openly inviting Germans to yell at him in the comments
You do realize that RUclipsrs don't care what you comment only that you DO, because it makes the algorithm consider that video popular and show it to more people, right...?
@@AttilaAsztalos Yeah, algorithms here are very bad. Also AI doing checking of videos and comments instead of real human moderators. Thats why I started to use another video services.
Taikuu.. Now that was scary, glad it wasn't any worse..
No idea where Häusern is but I'm 37km from it, is that close enough? xD
edit: that's by road
and on the map you showed I can find the town I grew up in as well as the town I live in now, kinda exciting xP
Thats why electrical problems should be solved by electricians (or electronic technicians/engineers) and not by mechanics. Mechanic will charge battery and tell You its good... Electrician will make at least one more thing - (s)he will measure capacity of a battery and maybe electric current drawing by a machine. With that, this incident would be avoided.
mechanics do that as well…
@@pushingporsche4830 I think mechanics specialization is mechanic things. Electricians study electrical "things" couple years and they are more aware of what/when is good and when is not. I know some plumbers (and other specializations) are doing electrical stuff because they think its easy and they dont need to read books about it, which is not true.
In this case, you'd actually want a Avionics mechanic/technician.
There's different specialties within aircraft maintenance--Airframe and Powerplant works structure and engine, Avionics specializes in the electrical and controls, I believe there's also one for skin but that might be lumped with A&P.
You don't necessarily want an engineer out there, we mess things up all the time. (Some countries use "engineer" when they mean "technician". Drives me nuts.)
@@erichusmann5145 most car electro-mechanics don't know about electrical resistance and how its related to battery clamps. So its no surprise to me, avionics mechanic cant do this properly either.
Do not equate an aviation maintenance technician with a car mechanic. They both have their own specific specialties. I would not let an electrician touch my aircraft with a ten foot grounding rod. That is not their specialty. And, in the US, it would be illegal unless they happen to also be an aviation maintenance technician.
Fuses pop do to excess current to stop fires. Like modern breakers in houses. If his fuses were popping like firecrackers, he was having a major electrical issue that was sucking the battery dry. He was lucky he didn’t burst into flames.
You hear 2 hours and you think - DOH!!!!
"I might mess this up"!! Already done buddy!!!
Happens alot at in the dallas fort worth area
At the end of the day the pilot wasn't genuinely situationally aware. He'd let the iPad essentially lead him down his navigation route without actually cross-checking his location against his own navigation. BTW in Europe we are used to flying with paper charts, compass and watch, a level of competence still needed to pass a PPL.
Great video as always! Shoulda outsourced the pronunciation to mentour pilot!
I think it takes more than *a couple* of hours to fly from LA to Zurich, unless you're travelling at hypersonic speed 😄
It was good that you mentioned the names and pronunciation. A couple of things: (1) the Z in Zurich isn't aspirated; it should sound more like a 'ts' sound than the typical English Z. Schluchsee contains the word for lake - "see" - so it would be better to call it "Lake Schluch"; otherwise it's like saying "lake lake".
Your description of a transponder is not correct. The only thing the transponder does is attach a four digit identifier on the primary radar return that ATC uses. Most modern transponders will also attach the barometric altitude to that return. The identifier is not unique to the aircraft. In the US, most VFR pilots use the same identifier (1200). ATC CAN NOT identify the pilot or the type of aircraft simply from the transponder. ATC can still use their primary radar to see the position/location, heading/direction, groundspeed, and very rough altitude of the aircraft even if it did not have a transponder.
A separate transmitter called an ADS-B can attach a unique identifier to the radar return that identifies the specific aircraft. However, it still does not identify the pilot.
Hi there, just to confirm: Swiss media covered this event quite extensively, international media (NeueZüricherZeitung), too.
Flying without a transponder is more like driving at night with your headlights off.
Nice one.
For a non-speaker your pronunciation was quite acceptable. I was able to understand all places.
Actually, what you asked around 6:00 IS A THING. A major air disaster over Los Angeles happened because of a tiny plane that flew into the landing vector of LAX. The large plane didn't see the coming, struck the small plane, slicing off its own aileron, and both planes plummeted to the ground. This isn't just a video game scenario. It was quite common in the past.
I live a few kilometers away from that location where it happened
Das ist sehr interessant.
Flying into the CTR of a major airport, it's actually super easy. For example, Denham (EGLD) in the UK is very very close to Heathrow (actually right next to it), also Kladno (LKKL) is literally inside the Prague CTR in the Czech Republic. I'm sure there are tons of examples like that. Straying into the CTR is very easy and during training it is emphasized all the time, DO NOT ENTER THE CTR. STAY OUTSIDE THE CTR AND BELOW THE TMA.
Trusting an iPad is peak stupidity. I've had them crash just using maps.
To allow pilots to use them without carrying paper backups seems ridiculous especially when they've only got one onboard.