Falling At The Last Hurdle | Saudia Flight 163
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- Опубликовано: 28 апр 2020
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This is the story of Saudia flight 163, on the 19th of august 1980 a saudia L1011 took off from Karachi pakistan. The plan for the day was to fly from karachi to Riyadh and to then fly onto Jeddah, the flight from Karachi to Riyadh was uneventful and at 4:06 pm local time the plane landed at Riyadh. Passengers were deboarded and their luggage was taken out for immigration. After that a sea of activity engulfed the plane, more luggage was put in the cargo hold, more fuel was added and more passengers boarded the plane. By 5:50 pm the plane was ready to go, it now had to make the short hop to jeddah.
With 301 people onboard the plane lifted off from Riyadh at 6:08 PM. Soon after takeoff they were cleared to their cruising altitude of 35000 feet. The plane climbed into the desert sky. At 6:14 pm almost 7 minutes after take off the crew were altered to a fire in the cargo hold. For the next 4 minutes the crew tried to identify if the warning was accurate, the captain sent the flight engineer into the cabin to see if he could spot any signs of a fire. He returned 36 seconds later, with bad news.
The cabin was indeed on fire, The captain immediately elected to turn back to Riyadh. They were now climbing through 22000 feet. the first officer gets in touch with ATC. He says “163, we are coming back to Riyadh”. He probably spoke as if nothing was wrong. Pilots have a way of staying calm under pressure. ATC wants to know why. The first officer says “We have fire in the cabin please alert the fire trucks”. As they made their turn back to the airport the fire trucks at Riyadh were on alert ready for anything. Riyadh ATC cleared them in and gave them priority for landing. They ask flight 163 if their engine is on fire, the first officer responds with “negative in the cabin”. The plane was now 78 miles out.
At 6:21 pm the flight engineer ventured back out into the cabin to see what damage the fire had done but on his second excursion into the cabin all he saw was smoke. The flight engineer mentioned that the people in the back were panicking. I mean you are stuck in a flaming aluminum can that's travelling several hundred knots, miles up in the sky. The captain double checks with the first officer about the fire trucks he is adamant that the fire trucks be there when they land. As the captain called for the preliminary landing checklist another smoke warning went off. Saudia flight 163 was in trouble.
At 6:24 Pm another smoke alarm goes off, To his horror the captain now realised that engine number two was unresponsive to throttle inputs. Riyadh reassures the crew they have fire trucks ready to go as soon as they land. A flight attendant enters the cockpit.She says that there are passengers fighting in the aisles. The situation is growing more desperate by the minute. At this point the CVR picked up announcements from the cabin asking people to be calm, the announcements were in english and arabic and went as follows “Please everybody sit down, move out of the way,everybody sitdown,move out the aisle,there is no danger from the airplane,everybody should stay in their seats”
The crew radio riyadh asking them to position the firetrucks in a way that the fire trucks come up from behind the airplane. As the cabin filled with smoke the pilots searched for riyadhs runway. 
Наука
My mother was a nurse in ER at Shamasy Hospital where the bodies were brought. She still remembers it and cries.
Victims must have been torturous sight. May they RIP. Sad. 😢
Sorry for that had to be horrible sight.
Sad
:(
Thanks God I don't have money to travel that far....
Adding to thee trauma was the fact that all emergency rooms at the major hospitals were put on full alert. The dismay when they were told that there were no survivors hurt for most of them for years.
Similar to St. Vincent's in NYC on Sept 11. On full alert for patients who never came. A 100 foot wall of missing posters.
Robert Platt100 foot wall of missing posters
Means?
@@sailaab
I assume posters for missing people, who had died in the towers but not been identified.
Ellie jee🙏🏼 wikipedia.org/wiki/-ji
Much appreciate and thank you🙂 for that clarity and explanation
@@robertplatt643
Ummm, while many died, many survived & were taken to all facilities.
Every medical facility in the larger area were at or near full capacity.
While certainly, they can wish & anticipated that many more survived, they would not have been able to help them.
If anything, they would reach out to surrounding areas to transfer them. There were no local facilities who were empty waiting at around for victims who never showed up.
These cases are really different, it's f'ed up to go from all is normal, to prepare to save the hundreds of lives needing help now, to no patients arriving because the 1st responders utterly failed their 1 job.
To sitting around realizing, they all died horrifically within sight of help because nobody helped them. I can already say what many were feeling.
Regret, they didn't do anything differently to have changed the outcome; rage, the 1st responders were incompetent; anxiety & trauma, the horrible end you know the victims went through; etc.
It's a really weird situation to have all hands available, all together, waiting with baited breath for the screaming victims to start rolling in but they never come.
We would start out in panicked rush mode, clearing space; setting up impromptu trauma bays everywhere; gloving, masking & gowning up, etc.
Eventually the activity starts dying down once all tasks are competed, then you are left waiting in silence for them. Every passing minute increasing the anxious knot in your stomach, but no one dares put words to our fears.
Eventually someone's phone rings or a patient asks for help; the spell seems to break & 1 by 1, people start tending to various small tasks.
Meanwhile, someone contacts the dispatcher to find out what the holds up is? Do they need to send medical teams to the site to help 1st responders?
Then finally after more than a hour, someone finally tells them there was no survivors & the off duty staff start to leave.
The overwhelming silence in the ER is deafening. The anxiety levels don't disappear when the patients don't arrive. Instead they stay at peak anxiety, it never being resolved by helping the victims & then become overwhelming.
It's a really horrible thing for medical professionals to deal with & many will develop PTSD from this. This is actually worse than all the death, suffering, maiming, burning, etc. of major mass trauma.
My father flew with Saudia '73 to '94 (DC3, 737, L1011, 747). I shared this video with him and he responded: "The Flight Engineer was my DC-3 Saudia Student Pilot. After time training him I recommended 30 additional hours with a new Instructor. The Flight Engineer told our DC3 Supervisor I could not instruct. I told Supervisor he was probably right but Engineer could not fly! The Flight Engineer was fired from being a 737 First Officer. He returned as a Flight Engineer on the 707 and later on the L-1011. The Engineer got a bad critique but the real incompetents were the Pilots."
I remember Capt. Pearson :) Flew with your father several times.
I got a part time job with a well known airline company that handles fueling, pushbacks etc. I had a lot of experience and they were understaffed and really wanted me to get started. Doing paperwork, the manager ask me to look up at the shelve that had over a dozen VHS tapes. He then said," sign this." "What is it?" I ask.. He said," It says that you saw the safety training videos."
My answer would be: "No, i will only sign this, when i´ll see them."
First thing, such company will do, if anything goes wrong, is to ditch you. You are the only person, that can protect yourself - nobody will do it for you.
Lol, i had a similar experience with a FBO i worked for in mke. After working for several big name carriers, i went to work for an FBO who had taken over the ground handling contract for ATA airlines. On the first day of handling their flights, ATA's headquarters switched the aircraft type to an L1011 instead of the usual 757... none of the ramp staff had a clue how to work the L1011. I was supposed to be in training watching safety videos when the manager came in the office in a panic and pulled me out to the ramp. I had to show the "trained" employees how to open the cargo doors and later push the plane off of the gate... After that moment I was considered fully trained...I never watched a single video!
World is fucked
That's where you report it to the FAA or you might have blood on your hands in the future.
Brings back bad memories, I was supposed to be on that flight and was at the airport ready to check in when I was told I had to remain in Riyadh so I when home to bed. The following morning when I went into the office people thought they were seeing a ghost and I lost colour when I was told what happened
That must have felt terrible! I’m sorry
That's awful. I'm so sorry.
The only consoling thought, is that hopefully it was a painless demise as all onboard perished from smoke inhalation.
@@LynxStarAuto Not so sure! They where already fighting for a long time in the cabin while still in flight. I heard they found 17 bodies in the cockpit, but have no confirmation of that. Also, the Tristar had no means of evacuating from the cockpit, as there is on most other aircraft (sliding window and escape rope).
Where does on excape . . once airborne ? All directions, in cabin . . . inevitable disaster ! 😬
My Dad was on that flight. Not an easy watch. I was told a lot of inaccurate information at the time
He died.?
@@azzamkhalil26
Everybody died.
Condolences.
So sorry, sweetheart
😢
Damn. I was kind of excited that they got the plane on the ground but I was NOT expecting that ending. Never heard of this accident before but it’s terrible. So many mistakes. In the air crew’s favor, a fire in the air is probably the most serious and deadly type of emergency you can have in aviation.
Airlines are so despicable. They send their pilots out in thunderstorms, overworked, and in fucked up airplanes because of the incompetent people they hire to save money like unqualified mechanics, supervisors that sign off on work that was not done or checked. Windows installed wrong inside of airplanes that ended up flying off and sucking a pilot out the front window. Luckily the co-pilot and the engineer were able to hold on his feet but the winds that high were cutting him and hard to breathe. They finally landed holding on to their pilot. All because of an incompetent maintenance fool doing his job wrong. I always was in awe of pilots and their crew. I remember when little at JFK seeing the stewardesses and the handsome pilots. I grew up admiring their bravery cause to me it takes guts to get on an airplane every day. They don't get paid what they deserve either. These pilots and their crew every day they go to work have one leg on the ground and the other in the cemetery and are usually the first to die when the plane crashes. Flying might be safer but when they crash they make up for the time they did not crash. This video alone 301 souls dead unnecessarily.
I wonder how much smoke inhalation clouded the judgement of the pilots. Hypoxia is the kind of thing that sneaks up on you and you usually don't realize you aren't thinking right until you are seriously impaired.
Nobody expected that ending. Everybody was shocked back then. They did 99% of the job and missed the most important 1%, to evacuate. If you see my comment on top, we went through this some weeks earlier, and we were amazed on how they let it happen. Fire in cabin is our worst fear, no sim training can duplicate. Some Sims have smoke reproduction but it can't account for the real thing....
@@IFLYTOO Yeah emotions are probably the most disorienting thing about having to make any split second decision, plus you wouldn't want to have people evacuating right out into the fire. It's really sad. The only thing you can do is try to drill your training into your head so that you do the right thing despite the clouded thinking caused by emotions. Some people just can't handle the intense emotions no matter how hard they train. I've seen it happen many times.
@@whoever6458
Read this and your other comment. I understand you were a fireman. In my case, I was the one to put out the fire. I was the flight engineer. We were trained in fire fighting, and I had 3 types of extinguishers in the cockpit. Water, CO2, and chemical. After identifying, it was not electrical fire, just some pillows and blankets, used the water one. Hypoxia was not an issue, we were with goggles and oxy masks, me strapped with a portable oxy bottle. Actions were as per book and that saved the day.
You're a lot more generous toward the Pilot's skill in this retelling than other reconstructions I've seen. You didn't mention the Pilot's history of slow responses, same with the first officer, and the fact the Flight Engineer was dyslexic. They were repeatedly arguing if they should turn back to the airport, not taking the fire seriously until it got seriously out of hand.
The complete failure to call for any evacuation after being asked *multiple times* to do so only further shows how much of a waste of space these pilots were.
Here’s how I structure my videos. I go thorough the report and then I focus on the flight history part and the analysis part of the report and I use that as a skeleton. Then I read the rest of the report and add stuff in for example the firefighters was something I added in later. Cause I thought it was really important. The reason I didn’t add the flight engineers dyslexia was because it didn’t really play an that an important part in the accident. The flight engineer evaluated the cabin and he reported the data accurately. He shut down the engines properly he monitored the hydraulics quite well.
Besides I try to focus on the technical aspects of things.
And finally in the report the findings didn’t really mention the flight engineers dyslexia . Just that the captain really dropped the ball on that flight. So that’s what I focused on
Pilot main focus could hv been landing the flight again as soon as possible. and the first sensation that goes in such situation is your hearing.
I have seen another reconstruction that emphasized the pilots' history of difficulties in becoming certified and their alleged confusion about how to deal with a fire onboard. The flight engineer's dyslexia was considered a factor when he was supposedly unable to find instructions in the manual. It seems clear that there was a long delay in taking appropriate action, and by the time the plane landed I imagine that there was no one still conscious to open the doors. From this report it seems that the incompetence inside the plane was compounded by incompetence on the ground.
@@terryofford4977 Yeah, no, fuck off with your racism.
@@terryofford4977 yes they stuffed up, but your stupid
Man that's just tragic. To make it back, land the plane in one piece, stop it... and then everyone still died.
It's the worst
It's not just "tragedy", it's tragedy plus stupidity. Major pilot error.
I relocated to Riyadh in 1983. Some coworkers took me to the actual plane or what was left of it. Imagine it was still visible from the highway!
King Fahd ofcsaudi was so up set and ordered the plane not to be removed , so the fire fighters will remind them 4 there poor performance
It really is amazing to me that we have three people commenting who had first hand experience with this accident.
Great analysis. This was completely avoidable. I cannot imagine why the Captain was so reluctant to authorize immediat evacuation where the fire was a so severe. Sheer incompetence would seem to be the cause.
Yeah. Nothing short of pure torture to even listen to this story.
Whether fire was serious or not.. he had no right ever to cost lives.. of 1 or 300!
Unfortunately this channel seems to have overlooked some fairly crucial factors regarding the flight crew... The captain had a extensive record of being slow to learn, requiring extra training and being slow to react to anything out of the ordinary... The first officer had be previously fired from another airline due to poor performance... And the flight engineer had failed training as both a pilot and co-pilot and was paying for his flight engineer training as a requirement to keep his job... And what makes it worse is that the flight engineer was dyslexic... So he couldn't read most of his instruments or the handbook... Overall the flight crew was grossly incompetent... Just one would be bad enough... But all 3 at the same time... The flight was doomed before it even left the gate.
Indeed! Of course, Asiana was already banned in many countries and went out of business not long after this crash, it was so to say the straw that broke the camel's back.
@@GabbieTheFox WOW!
I remember watching this years ago on Air Crash Investigation... I'm still baffled by the captain's actions and their emergency/evacuation procedures...
The only times L-1011s ever crashed, were always pilot error. The plane was the best thing in the air, probably still remains the most advanced / over-engineered aircraft ever built for commercial use.
I liked the L 1011 as well. Very nice plane. Only flew in them a few times but the cabin was very nice(former TWa)
Yeah, even Delta 191 crashed due to a weather event that no aircraft would survive at that altitude.
Definitely a beautiful aircraft
I always cringe when I see an airliner with a third engine built into the tail. If the engine fails or explodes it can cause greater damage to the plane. That's what happened with the DC-10 that crashed at Sioux City, which I think was the death knell for the 3-engine passenger plane.
I heartily agree. The L-1011 was the most advanced aircraft of it's time. It even had an analog computer that could land the plane itself, which it did on one occasion. It was doomed as a program because Lockheed wanted a Rolls-Royce engine for the plane and was delayed by that company's bankruptcy. McDonnell-Douglas hurried the DC-10 through development to production to get most of the sales that would have gone to the L-1011. The DC-10 went through it's teething problems by killing several plane loads of passengers. The L-1011 made few sales, and it had a checkered history, as it remained an exotic one-off plane that few understood-- or appreciated.
Seeing the shots of the Tristars and the TWA livery brings back memories: as a toddler my mother used to take me to the airport and I would watch the planes for hours.
Actually this was a failure at the very first hurdle: crew resource management (CRM), which was obviously a foreign concept to the flight crew. Cultural sensibilities are certain to have been a huge stumbling block as well. In a serious crisis with multiple distractions, that's where the mind "hides itself" as it were. There was an interesting study many years ago comparing the effectiveness of CRM across various cultures and it was found that Australian crews came out on top. This was attributed to Australian culture generally being the least hierarchical of all those involved in the study. Effective command requires effective delegation of responsibilities, which requires the humility to be able to admit one cannot do everything.
That's very interesting
Do you have a source for this?
@@Cessna152ful www.academia.edu/21583099/Culture_Error_and_Crew_Resource_Management1
Other terms to search for: "CRM", "Power Distance" (PD), "Individualism-Collectivism", "Uncertainty Avoidance".
Basically, cultures with high Power Distance "...reflects the acceptance by subordinates of unequal power relationships and is defined by statements indicating that juniors should not question the decisions or actions of their superiors and the nature of leadership."
Basically, in high-PD cultures (the paper lists Morocco, Taiwan, the Philippines and Brazil as the top four in their sample), the attitude tends to be, "I'm the captain, you're the copilot, you don't tell me what to do, even if you're telling me we're about to smash into the side of a mountain", whereas cultures with lower PD (the lowest three in their sample were Ireland, Denmark and Norway, with Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. in the lower half also), juniors are more likely to speak up if things are going badly.
Not sure CRM was even a concept back then. That fourth stripe made you a God.
Makes sense. Australian crews were probably the best in Bomber Command. They never gave a damn for needless red tape discipline or class structure.
I was on a plane once that lost it's #1 engine over the Pacific Ocean (I THINK it was a 747; it had the 2-5-2 seat configuration anyway), en route to Maui. I was sitting right over that wing, heard the engine make awful noises, saw the turbine stop spinning, then a minute later watched as the wide-eyed co-pilot leaned over the passengers in the two seats one row ahead of me to look out the window. "Everything look ok, cap?" I asked. "Uhh...yeah. I think we're okay," he answered more candidly than I was expecting.
And we were okay. As the captain eventually announced as we approached the islands, we had plenty more engines we could lose and keep flying, as the plane only needed one to stay airborne--pilot humor, I think. However, besides adding time to the flight, we were diverted from Maui to the military airfield at Pearl Harbor, as a "just in case" precaution. The point of this story is that as soon as we started our initial approach, my father and the father of the family we were traveling with stood up and began speaking first to us kids, and then to random passengers seated around us. They got the rows divided up so that everyone knew which emergency exit they would head to if we had to evacuate; spoke to the people in the exit rows and had them designate one person who would stand by at the door to direct people onto the slides; then had all of us introduce ourselves to the people in the rows immediately in front of, and behind us. The idea was that if the landing went sideways and we found ourselves in a smokey, dark cabin, we would know who to follow, and who would be following behind us; we wouldn't have to worry about trying to find the exits, we'd only have to worry about sticking to the person immediately in our front, and trying to keep an eye on the person immediately in our rear. Also, once outside the plane, we wouldn't have to rely on meeting up with family seated in different rows, as ours was, in order to determine if anyone was missing. Everyone had a front and rear buddy who would know at a moment's glance if someone was missing.
It was all much ado about nothing, as we landed just fine, and it was actually kind of cool landing at Pearl accompanied by blaring firetrucks. But it made everyone feel a lot better to have a plan, know their jobs, and to know that the people around them would be operating under the same plan, (hopefully) not turning into a panicky mob. That's probably why the flight attendants keep watchful eyes and ears on our weekend warrior dads, but didn't interfere with their efforts--everything they said and did was sensible and calming. It's too bad no one on that Saudia flight took charge like that. It might have made all the difference.
A lot of this comes down to culture. In highly hierarchical cultures, the default action is to wait for orders. In less hierarchical cultures, the default action is to do something.
Exactly! Was that a "cultural" difference in passenger demographics, you suppose? (there was no real mention {that I noticed} regarding the nationality of the passengers, only the crew.
I agree, @@Ealsante. An American military retiree has NUMEROUS cultural inputs that would influence behaviours in both the cockpit AND/OR the cabin... that MIGHT have resulted in a different outcome given these circumstances.
Liar
"There is no danger on the plane" If you're going to try a comforting lie, some degree of believability is helpful
😂 seriously though! Like the plane is on fire ma’am
@@DymondCrystal lol i mean in the old saudi airlines they were dealers in the plane but now is every thing changed alhamdullilallah
Well they did land safely, if they'd got the doors open and chutes down they probably would have saved most people
I can't remember what it's called but most people listen to someone in charge, ie: a captain. They convince themselves there is less to worry about.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
Flaming aluminum can, an apt description!
Great job with the resesrch, narration and video!!
I hadn't heard of this tragedy.
Speaking as someone who worked in ground ops, you HAVE to give people trial runs on how to open aircraft doors, much less have them memorize the exits on the aircraft they'll be exposed to. Don't even get me started about how they didn't bother giving them any firefighting training, either.
That's insane. The second that planes came to a stop from landing, those doors should have been opened.
The engines we running. If people had have came out, they would have died via going into an engine, or hit by the engines blast. It was also described as a flash fire, i.e. one moment it doesn't seem too bad, the next, fire rushes down the entire plane. They didn't have a chance at that point.
If the captain had have stopped sooner, shut the engines down immediately, and ordered an evacuation, then there would have been survivors. Perhaps all would have survived? Its just one of those things that we'll sadly never know.
Yes, but the crew was told "not to evacuate" Had they been told to evacuate, the crew would have prepared to instantly evacuate on landing.
@@magnustorque5528 I've watched this video twice and I'm still not sure if the captain told them NOT TO evacuate... or just didn't tell them TO evacuate. Subtle difference, but still bad judgment with deadly consequences.
@@michaelscott356 Is STILL the captain's fault for forgetting to turn the engines off. His incompetence cost him everything including his life.
@@michaelscott356 it said do not evacuate
I love this channel because it has actual talking instead of other channels that only show video and text of disasters. Bonus: Thank you for using a format that allows fast-forwarding. Having safely been a passenger for almost 1.5 million miles, I am fascinated by the dangers that could have been!
Well done you 😤 You might have "safely been a passenger for almost 1.5m miles", but your carbon footprint says otherwise.
@@NoBootyBeauty Guess I should have followed the environmentalist example set by AL Gore and flown millionS of miles in private jets.
Most of those people if not all of them could have made it off alive, if the captain had stopped the plane as soon as possible.
There was a theory that the pilots were incapacitated by smoke. Though no one knows what happened.
At least evacuation shd have started immediately
@/X/EN they shut down the engines so they were not incapacitated
@@tangerinelover69 I think the engine controls were burnt out. But the pilots should have worn their oxygen masks and told the passengers to as well. A majority of them could have survived had they.
No problem
That was one of the strangest plane crashes ever. I always wondered if carbon monoxide, cyanide, and other poisonous gases from the fire had rendered everyone unconscious or incapable of sound judgment.
They weren't all burnt corpses, and there are only so many ways fire kills you, so...
Including the fire fighters?
More likely the weird behaviour of the captain was because he was trying to avoid blocking the runway because a member of the royal family was on a plane that was waiting to take off.
It is so easy to tell what to do when you are not in chaotic situation. There is proverb here in Finland: there is many wise man in the land when accident happens in the sea.
I was dating a Saudis air stewy at the time of this incident. She told me that it wasn’t unusual for people to take out a stove to make a brew in the cabin. There wasn’t any security/bag search back then. She got disgusted at the habits of people travelling to Mecca and quit the job as many others did.
the fire started in the aft baggage compartment not the near end of the passenger cabin
@@ClinkItsNicko It could still have easily been some sort of stove in the baggage compartment that set on fire.
We have family friends who lost their father / dad on that flight. He was a Pharmacist. The wife and kids turned out okay overall...but the vacuum left behind when a loved one is taken away is never truly replaced.
They identified his body by the wrist watch worn.
WOW, buddy your work is amazing! Truly loved it to my core, i was watching this with my earphones at 2AM here and could honestly feel my veins with fear for an hour! Had to go pray lol, Please don't stop and make videos like this!!
Thanks, love it, keep up the great work we appreciate it.
Heaven forbid this ever happens at any airport in South Africa... our fire department is so dysfunctional that it may as well not even exist. Fire trucks rarely attend any scenes within an hour of being called, and if/when they ever do arrive, they're unlikely to have water supply capacity to tackle any fires
You do an awesome job at explaining what happened and when. I really appreciate your videos.
This video was suggested by a viewer! Thank you so much for drawing my attention to such an interesting incident, If you have a incident that you want me to cover do drop them down below :)
Thanks! this was so interesting.
Well done, This is one of the incidents i actually want to become an actual Air Crash Investigation episode because it is very intriguing. I think Pan Am flight 292 would also become an interesting case. It was also the only fatal aviation incident on Montserrat
Mini Air Crash Investigation thanks for making the video! I love it!
Mini Air Crash Investigation you should do ONA Flight 980
Asiana 214?
Very good video.
I was in training, with an airline, and we watched a video on this incident. They were using actors, in a 1011 cockpit, the script was right off the voice recorder.
Not only was the Captain taking on too much workload, as stated, the first officer seemed too intimidated to take any additional tasks.
The flight engineer who was older than either the Captain, and FO, had a some questionable things on his record, he repeated the words "no problem" a few times in regards to the questions from the Captain about the situation, which may have caused problems with the Captain not knowing just how bad the situation was, who knows. The cabin doors can be opened from the outside even without electrical power on the airplane, they are clearly placarded on how to operate the emergency functions. But it may not have been in Arabic. Lack of proper training kills.
You make some of the most detailed and interesting accident videos . Yours are right up there with Mentor Pilots with the detail that you add to describe the accident. Thanks so much for making these videos so interesting and informative.
My Dad was Operations Manager at Riyadh that evening, his shift finished just before this flight landed. He said that maybe they tried to taxi off the runway because the King’s flight was due in and in Saudi no one stands in the way of the Royal Family. We flew back to the UK about a week later and the L1-011 was parked at the end of the runway, fully burnt out fuselage. Those poor souls may they RIP!
Exactly correct, I was in Jeddah waiting for the return of the Kings airplane. My supervisor from the King's flight department was on board, in the cockpit. After they landed he unloaded all that went on ... the L1011 taxied back because the King's flight asked if another runway was available. There was only one runway at the old Riyahd airport, that is why they turned around and taxied back. In addition they never shut the engines down, the mechanics had to open the engine cowlings and physically shut them down. By the way, the King had just been dropped off, he was NOT onboard....my supervisor, a Saudi, never spoke of it again
Putzicike thanks dear for the information it was a rumour about this but now it's confirmed about Royal plane where r u from dear
Go watch any other documentary or RUclips video on this incident and you will see the true incompetence of the entire flight crew. Idk why he didn't elaborate more on this because it's really, really bad. The flight engineer actually had failed his training as both a captain and first officer and was only allowed to train as a flight engineer if he paid for it himself. On top of that HE HAD DYSLEXIA which is the actual reason it took him so long to get thru the emergency checklists, he also told the captains their WAS NO PROCEDURE listed for it but the FO found it when the engineer went back to talk to the flight attendant. Go checkout any other video on the incident and you'll see just how incompetent all 3 of them were & their actions is what's listed as the main cause of the tragedy
I doubt the Kings plane theory: First, there's no consensus: Was the Kings plane departing or arriving? Why was it not mentioned in the CVR? Why would the King want to land or takeoff on a runway that just had an emergency landing on it and could not be checked for debris or burning fuel? If the pilot wanted to make way, why would he delay and not apply full break to get off the runway sooner?
There's too much unanswered questions about this to take it seriously.
the king is the scapegoat
The captain did not order evacuation from a burning aircraft:
Supreme Stupidity, under duress or not.
I concur, precisely that.
I find it hard to believe that anyone in that cabin would have stayed put in a blazing cabin if physically capable of evacuation. Even if they were able to jump while in the air at 130kn or so they'd be equally dead.
It's pretty certainly the unpreparedness of the firecrew that cause the complete loss of life.
@@davebox588
In my case, after crisis had ended, still in flight, I walked thru the cabin to check everything was ok. I saw a passenger seating on the overwing emergency exit, trying to open it... I calmed him down , after landing and in the terminal , he was crying , apologizing for his crazy thought...
Thank you Michael. Mine, similar to yours, should be just above.
@@davebox588 You're correct in all regards Dave except that the Captain took his own sweet time bringing it to a stop, on a taxiway (very thoughtful to landing traffic behind him) then waiting until the cooperative folks in the rear were cooked to a medium well over an aluminum grill. Maybe he was a cannibal & had other things in mind?
As a former Saudia employee, I would like to clarify a couple of things. 1. The fire was NOT started by a passenger on the plane trying to heat up his tea. This has been a persistant rumor that has absolutely no basis in fact. 2. The fire was NOT in the cargo compartment but was in the area just forward of the lav waste tanks, in what is known as the J area, between the lav waste tanks and the C3 (bulk) cargo compartment The crew got several J Area over heat warnings but this was, unfortunately, a common problem on all L1011's. The fire warning system consists of two parallel lines (physically together with less than 1" separation), A & B. An 'A' or 'B' fire warning alone usually indicated a fault in the system. When both A & B over heat warnings went off, that was an indication of an actual fire. As far as I remember (I arrived in Riyadh several months after this incident) the crew got several spurious warnings before finally getting both A & B warnings but by then were confused by all the warnings and not sure what to believe. The fire did not break through the skin of the airplane until much later in the incident. Prior to the fire breaking through the skin of the airplane, the airplane was most certainly still pressurized. It will never be known if the flight engineer tried to depressurize the air craft or not. The buttons that fully open the outflow valves, which control the hull pressure, are held in only when the panel has power. The FE may have pushed them in but with no power, the valves would not get the signal and the buttons would not stay in. Maintenance personnel did position a lift truck under the R1 passenger door and attempted to open it. F. Lumboy, a Filipino lead mechanic at the time tried to open the door and got his hands burned in the process as the activation handle was extremely hot. After several unsuccessful tries they gave up and lowered the lift (I do not know who else was on the stand but these men risked their lives!). About this time the fire broke through the aircraft skin just forward of the #2 Engine inlet and due to the pressurized interior of the airplane, roared very loudly, sending smoke and flame out of the hole, scaring the Saudia fire crews into running for their lives. This was something they were simply not trained for! All of them ended up in jail with life sentences but I believe most or all of them have been released many years ago. Also, by the time the fire broke thru the fuselage everyone in the airplane was dead. Most people died from the smoke, not the flames. Afterwards, fire crews found 12 people in the cockpit. One FA almost made it out by taking one of the two lifts to the lower galley but the power went out when she was half way down and she died not being able to open the doors to escape up or down.
The source of the fire has many guesses as to where it started but the most likely place is near the lav waste storage tanks where the flush motors for each lav are located. The hydraulic fluid for most airliners, Skydrol, is touted as being fireproof and I have seen it demonstrated where a torch is put over an open container of it with no fire. However, a British magazine found that when Skydrol is put into a mist, as it would with a leak in the 3000 psi system, it burns furiously. There are hydraulic lines that run thru this J Area so it is the conclusion of myself and many other airline mechanics that this is where the fire started, probably from a flush motor being activated while a hydraulic line was leaking a mist of Skydrol.
It will never be known if the crew screwed the pooch by taxiing the airplane, since at that time an evacuation would have been impossible due to the plane still being pressurized. With just 1.5 psi the doors are impossible to activate as the amount of pressure would hold them in place, overcoming any mechanical leverage (thus, people who try to open aircraft doors in flight are not something anyone needs to worry about! The opening mechanism would break before the door could be opened!). Thus, there was no escape for the people on that airplane and they were all doomed to die a choking death on Saudia 163.
The L1011 was one of my favorite planes to work on but I think this was a failure of the aircraft which resulted in the deaths of 301 people. Good luck proving that! Yes, the crew could (should!) have reacted faster but in the end, I'm not at all sure it would have made a difference. Had the crew immediately declared an emergency and depressurized the airplane on approach, maybe. But they followed procedures (normal proceedures, not emergency as they should have) and the result was the loss of everyone on board. Hindsight is always more accurate than even the best foresight.
Cheers,
jc
Why did they end up in jail? I don't understand that part of what you wrote.
The background footage on this puppy is a real treat. L1011s on parade, baby. That hawaiian air livery takes me back.
Check out Ryan’s channel! He has so much footage like this!
This was such a tragic accident. It was so preventable, yet it happened.
Dude they had 23 minutes on the ground, had the captain braked harder the plane would have stopped 2 minutes earlier. In other incidents an entire L-1011 has been evacuated in less than 2 mins. This ones so sad
Mini Air Crash Investigation I am not sure but i read an article that the airport at that time was prioritizing a flight involving the a service to the saudi royal family
I didn’t read anything about that in the report maybe I missed it. But in the ATC transcript. They were cleared in ASAP. ATC was like you guys need to come back? Runways all yours
@@juliusnepos6013 whatever... smoke is originating from a fire... so fear the worst and hope for the best! Immediate action is required:
Call for MAYDAY
Share the info with ATC askjng for help.
Fly as fast as possible to your alternate ( which should be known at each point of the route)
Land ASAP to the closest suitable airport and also apply the emergency appropriated checklist.
Stop the plane ASAPon the runway.
Call for the EVAC checklist and EVAC via the suitable doors...
No waist of time!!!
@@juliusnepos6013- Yeah what's 301 dead commoners? Plenty more where they came from.
Thank you so much for covering this tragic incident. Most other channels won't even touch this one.
I love the L1011!!! What a great aircraft!!
Well put together, given the circumstances which has been played out with other aircraft fires in the same geographic areas, well done.
I started watching your videos and you have me hooked. Great job
You definitely progressed a lot since this early video to what you have now! Good job, and I like your channel
Omg my father was a captain at Eastern airlines. I love this video it has the exact plane he would fly. Thank you warmed my heart. Haven’t seen a eastern airplane since the 80’s. ❤️💕
You should thank Ryanbomar he has tons of vintage airplane videos on his channel
Warmed your heart? Dude, did you listen to the man??
My grandfather was a mechanic at Eastern Airlines in Pittsburgh.
Warmed your heart WTF, everyone on board died!!
She was referring to the EA L1011 visuals only. Brought back memories for me as flew many times JFK and LGA-MIA when I worked on the EA advertising account in 1987-1988 right before the strike and Ch 11.
Thank you for a good report! It is evident that you are doing a much better job of using the same aircraft in the videos that you are discussing. Doing so adds significant quality and credibility to your videos! I've left constructive criticism regarding this before and it's good to see you've made the changes. I'm now a subscriber with notifications turned on!
Enjoyed it very much, excellent work, thank you!
This channel has come a long way in the last year! At least in sound quality. The content has been great the whole time.
This channel is a blessing.
I was just thinking this, I'm mildly upset that I didn't find this sooner. They've got great content without the repetitive bullshit that normal crash investigation documentaries have.
The fact that the plane managed to LAND SAFELY…. Oh my god the intense facepalm of this tragedy.
The smoke from the fire is toxic. Upon slowing down during taxiing, the air flow probably changed and started pumping smoke into the passenger cabin... The pilot at Tenneriffe said that the yells from passengers stopped quickly as soon as smoke filled the cabin..
As a retired airline Captain, my biggest fear was a fire on my airplane. Our training taught us to turn toward the nearest airport immediately if you had any indication of a fire. This crew took 4 long minutes to decide whether or not to return toward the airport. That probably cost them their lives as well as the lives of all of the passengers and the rest of the crew. I once set a record in the simulator. I put the airplane on the ground in record time after a fire warning. That’s how seriously I took a fire scenario.
My MOS in the Marine Corps Air Wing was Aviation Crash Crew. It makes me angry that they didn’t have fully trained fire crews available to handle situations like this. It’s something we trained on almost every day. We fought multiple training fires almost weekly. We had tools for cutting into fuselage and water nozzles that could puncture the outer shell of the fuselage and at least start water spraying inside. It’s both sad and infuriating that this was handled by a bunch of untrained incompetent people. I hold the airport administrative staff responsible for this incident. It’s their responsibility to see to it that all aspects of their airport and personnel are trained and prepared for any possible emergency. The firemen themselves were never given what they needed to do their job. What a horrible way to die.
It's incredible that fires so easily go out of control. There should be a lot more prevention systems.
I really enjoyed this video, the way you laid out all the facts and the timeline that you use to describe the chain of events was super easy to follow, and I am the captain I’m getting distracted. On another note, the way that you worded considering subscribing made it an easy choice. I was already going to because the video was seriously good, but that’s a really good touch. I’m definitely going to be looking through the other videos that you’ve made, keep up the good work.
I'm surprised if none of the passengers at least tried to open one of the doors from the inside. The engines will not suck you in at idle unless you get within a few feet of them. If there's smoke, I'm outta here!
edit: Excellent video and channel.
Probably already unconscious/dead from smoke inhalation. It seems the flight crew couldn't even get the engines shut down before succumbing to the smoke as well. I wonder if their limited O2 supply was exhausted.
How to open door from inside? Where should I read it from? Might help me in future 😂
@@harshitgupta4238 every time you get on a plane they read the safety procedures to you and point out the safety card in the seat pocket in front of you. The instructions to opening the overwing emergency exits are illustrated there (I always look).
@@harshitgupta4238 There is always a safety instructions brochure in the seat back in front of you. It has visual instructions for how to open all exits on the plane. Usually different doors have different methods, so you really need to read carefully and take note of which exits are closest to you.
Fun fact: psychopaths have a markedly higher survival chance in accidents like this because they don't wait for authority and just do whatever they think serves them best. Which is usually safer than waiting for permission or the luggage of the old lady before you.
"tried to taxi off the runway because the King’s flight was due in and in Saudi no one stands in the way of the Royal Family" That rings a bell
good
I'm glad you understand
No. The reverse. The pilot SAW the King's plane already at the airport, and he didn't want to block the runway by parking his own planes there instead of on the taxi way. Just in case the king wanted to take off.
But I think it more likely that the pilot was the kind of person who was locked into normal procedures and unable to deviate. He therefore performed a normal landing instead of an emergency one. The checklist they used was for regular landing, including mundane things like checking that the airline logo light on the tail was switched on. You can hear them doing that on the cockpit voice recording.
Daniel CH where can you share link ?
@@danielch6662 wow. That's some serious Type A. And, if he'd gotten in the way of the King, it may have cost him his life! A lose / lose.
This is the saddest air craft investigation story I've heard. Going through the comments only made me more sad. So close to safety and still no survivor.
A large commercial aircraft with 301 souls on board lands successfully (at a major international airport) while multiple emergency personnel are standing by, and several minutes later all 301 are deceased???? Hard to imagine that this is possible.
In India or the Middle eats it is not uncommon.
That should read Middle East of course.
Terry Offord Why bring India into it? India has an excellent aviation safety record.
Most likely a typo or auto-correct. I get the same thing, but end up having to edit the errors-when I can catch them in time-anyway.
Pretty easy to imagine when you think about it a little bit. It did happen, after all. Imagining has pretty much been taken out of the equation at that point. For all we know they had succumbed to smoke inhalation outside of the cockpit and were dead before they touched down.
I have to say this clip is the best one that explains this incident.
Captain had very poor situation awareness rivaling a Naked Gun movie
"Everyone stay in your seats and await death.
Nothing to see here." 😐
there were plane crashes, because all passengers fled from smoke to the front of the plane, making it too nose heavy, sending it to the ground like a rock
Audio narration is much better than written narration. well done.
100 times better than the flight channel.
Never heard of this one! Super sad, beyond belief. Thank you for this video.
Excellent, clear narration of the accident in progress and final analysis with aircraft system diagrams. Well done!
You dont know the whole story of this accident.
Whilst I do like the real life footage, computer simulations, reconstructions and re-enactments of shows like Air Crash Investigations and Seconds from Disaster etc, those shows are very tedious because they go on and on and on with so much superfluous and repetitive information. I usually switch off until the end of the episode so I can simply see the outcome of the investigation. What I like about your series is that you get straight to the point. What happened, how it happened and why it happened. Keep up the good work.
Thank you so much!
very systematic explaination of chronology of events,
would love to see the actual videos ( if available) of the episodes,
New sub, really enjoying your content and the way you deliver it!@
I don’t care what anyone says, the L-1011 was one of the most beautiful airliners ever designed, and built.
What a machine, and it didn’t blow out its cargo doors, or leave bits of engine its engine components all over the American Midwest.
It should have been a hit, and Lockheed should be fighting it out with Boeing, and Airbus today.
We had 30 - 40 flights on Saudia L-1011, all pleasant, comfortable and safe.
Omg the he made the video!!!
I heard something about how the people onboard were all killed in a flash fire aka fireball or by smoke inhalation so that’s why they didn’t open the door, still like the video
I remember reading about this on Wikipedia and I could not believe that they actually landed and all the people died anyways. Very sad accident.
Thanks for another great episode.
I was stunned
Looking back a few years ago, a Saudi Airliner did exactly the same , landing anaircraft with a major engine fire,got on the ground but despite the Flight Attendants asking that the doors be opened, the Captain failed to obey (and at that point in time he was still alive. Read it up, seems its safer never to fly Arabian.
At the beginning, you said: fire trucks ready for anything. But I read in an article that the firefighters were not trained for this aircraft / had difficulties opening it. You finally mentioned that, too.
They *thought* they were ready, but they weren’t *actually* ready.
The résumes of the captain, first officer and flight engineer left something to be desired.
I was a Military advisor in Saudi Arabia.... Saudi incompetence knows no bounds...
Hail the advisor of the incompetents.
My father worked for Saudia a transfer from TWA. We were there from 1969-1976. I remember a story about someone finding their passport folded up to balance a short leg of a table. They used to be very flippant back then.....
if anything, they're smart.
They know that if they refuse to give everyone oil, it would cripple the world economy.
@@GiordanDiodato really? The country would be invaded and it taken from them!
Big Sky 1991 I’ve had several NED’s. Not a good time in any circumstance. Makes me love G-d all the more!
Just a friendly tip: If you relax your breathing and think more about your pacing when recording these, it’ll have a significantly positive effect on the delivery. ✌️
The Flight Engineer's dyslexia did play a more major role than I think you made out in the report; given part of the delay in warning the crew came from what seemed on the CVR that he couldn't read which compartment had a fire or temperature warning. Based on the report, it took up to 4 minutes to just confirm the warnings they were receiving. Bradley Curtis perhaps played a larger role in confusing the crew during the incident.
Keep up the work, I hope you refine your craft further as you go on.
His work is already refined
Tbf if his dyslexia was enough to be blamed then he wouldn’t be a pilot.
Larry, Moe and Curly would have been more likely to work safely through this situation than this lot did.
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
@Zak Giffgaff 😂😁
@Trey N Really, it's ok to laugh . 😂😁 nyuk nyuk nyuk.
@@rahkinrah1963 Right on.
Yep. Had 2. Fortunately both were electrical and self extinguished when I turned off the master shutting off all electrical power. It does get your attention!
Terrifying. I can't imagine the absolute fear and dread those people felt. So sad.
Thank you . Gave me chills. As retired flight attendant I know training must be second nature. CRM works!
What airline?
Zorba Zorba I’m 15. I do not work for an airline yet. My goal is to become a pilot for delta airlines or become a freighter pilot for fedex.
@@owenklein1917 may your dream come true.
@Mini Air... I am a retired cabin crew. May I share an incident which happened on MAA-DEL sector on ground. Our plane had pushed back. During push back one engine was started. Got a call from 4L, that there was a smell in the aft cabin. Capt. was immediately infmd on the intercom. Engine was shutdown. Later it was discovered that a drum containing some liquid spice had been loaded in the aft cargo compt. It had opened and its content spilled on the floor of the aft cargo compt.The consignor had declared it something else. A/C took off after thorough cleaning and mandatory checks and requirements. Everyone landed safely in DEL.
🙏
If the crew from Air Canada Flight 797 (which had a similar event, with MUCH less loss of life than this) had been in charge of the plane, I guarantee you, there would be survivors...
the air canada crew wasn't at fault at all. it was a fucking backdraft because of the door opening
I thought I read somewhere that the fire might have been caused by passengers using portable stoves at the back of the plane? Apparently this was not uncommon at the time, and sometimes passengers in this region would bring their own food to heat up and eat on the plane. I also think that many of the people on board died from smoke inhalation before being consumed by the flames. A very sad story, and I can't help but think that carbon monoxide poisoning of the pilots may have played a part in their strange actions with regards to evacuating the aircraft. Especially if they weren't wearing their oxygen masks.
The passengers should not have been in the cargo area.
The portable stove was an early rumor, but there wasn't any evidence found to support it.
All the evidence pointed to the fire starting in the cargo area, not in the passenger compartment.
While passengers using a stove in flight has been disproven (as the fire started in the aft (rear cargo by the tail), I do kind of wonder if they played a part. IIRC, they liked to use butane in these kinds of portable stove and at the time of the crash (and some were found), luggage wasn't searched for flammable materials like it is now. Leaking gas from a broken or malfunctioning stove in the baggage could have ignited. Depending on what passengers had, the fire could have plenty of fuel in an oxygen rich environment. Even worse, the planes at that time weren't as fireproof as they were believed to be (Lockheed modified their plan design for the L-1011 due to this accident). While smoke alarms were installed, there was no fire suppression. The fire need not to start off big and given how quickly it became an issue after take off, there's a sobering thought that the plane may have been on fire before ever leaving the ground.
Or, the plane could have been carrying high risk cargo. ValuJet 592 went down after take off due to a fire caused by oxygen cannisters improperly stored and loaded in the cargo area. I don't know if this plane was carrying any company cargo along with passenger.
Also, burning items from the plane itself release some pretty terrible chemicals. A fire that took place a few years later, Air Canada Flight 797, had passengers overwhelmed by smoke filled with cyanide and fluoride along with good old carbon monoxide - a terrible combination. Most likely, if the passengers were to survive they would have needed to evacuate immediately after landing. By the time the plane stopped, I feel that most were incapacitated. The crew in the cock pit never seemed to use their own O2 and I do think they were making poorer desicions based on a lack of O2 , which is especially bad as they weren't making good ones when their brains weren't shutting down.
Even 40 yrs ago, wouldn't ANYONE cooking ANYTHING with an open flame be insane in a commercial jet? Hell, flight attendants don't/didn't even prep inflight meals or coffee with flames do they?
Separately, I like the conjecture, elsewhere, that the plane MAY have been on fire before takeoff.
Also, I assume this was before the days of lithium battery hazards?
You hav the most intelligent commentary of all air disaster videos. Thanks.
Try the flight channel
I think he and The Flight Channel are quite even. They have nice visuals but this channel has more details. It's just that those unfamiliar with commercial aviation would appreciate if key concepts were somehow explained on the go. Also, when someone reads aloud numbers, dates or times of day or characters fast in English, I can see them written in my mind, but need to stop and think to realize what they mean.
And I think he will be fine as long as he doesn't adopt the tone of Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions (railway accidents). The way that guy overdramatizes everything makes me just plain nauseous. "Little did they know what was awaiting them / how their day would end."
He has the most intelligent commentary because he is not a goddamn pilot worshiper as most of these channels are, because most of these aircraft disaster channels are run by pilots. Fly wire is one of the few channels that actually holds pilots accountable. But most of them find excuses for the Unprofessional behavior of pilots.
I have been watching your videos for a long time, but this crash investigation made more sad than ever. Others die in crash but these unfortunate passenger landed but died on land very miserably someone can't imagine.
Amazing!
I'm a huge fan of these aviation accident documentaries your work is very well done good job u should create longer more in detail versions like the mayday ones etc the problem is their versions are repeats only your versions seem new er if ucould do what u doing in that format u will be golden 10 on 10 subZ would pour in #justaidea
The excessive and inaccurate use of stock footage is really confusing
Excellent explanation
Thank you for this video! It's so sad that they were so close to being saved. I would also add that the security and screening should be more vigilant in checking for contraband items. The investigation wasn't able to pinpoint what started the fire in the cargo hold but it has to be something flammable.
The doors of the L1011 open upwards into the roof of the aircraft. They do not open sideways inwards our outwards like many other aircraft.
Thank you for explaining that I couldn't understand why they couldn't get them open but that is a very strange engineering system and now I understand why they don't do it anymore. It's a great way to seal the hatch because really the door on a plane is a hatch it must prevent decompression just like a submarine only you're in the air not water. The funny thing is I think I feel safer in a submarine than in a plane. I've only flown twice my poor has been thought I was going to have a heart attack. I don't like heights LOL oh but I love helicopters fancy that being inside them several times especially the Grand Canyon really fancy that!
Yo bro That was amazing btw can you do the Flight 370 Story? I want to hear it too
There are reports that the reason why it took the pilot and the firefighters to act once the airplane touched down, was that the King's 747 was taxing at that moment and that strict protocols forbade any other motion on the lanes before his aircraft was safe in the air.
Great analysis!
I used to work as a flight attendant and read some flight magazines.I always thought in my mind that I would evacute even without a captain's order.It seemed like an acceptable price to get fired in return for saving one's self and few others.But who would know in the mayhem that ensue who ordered the evacuation?
They probably passed out from smoke since the airplane took a long time to stop
02:50 LTU German Airlines L-1011 arriving from Düsseldorf at LAX. Maybe I was on that flight? Duck A L'Orange was for dinner. Great memories from 1986!
How was it?
Hi, would you do an episode on Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise flight 612?
The crew should have had the authority to override the Captain and started to open the doors then the captain would have been
forced to stop immediately because the cabin crew saw what was happening and the captain did'nt experience the smoke, then
probably some people would have been saved.
exactly! like seriously stop bugging the captain during emergency when he's focusing on AVIATE and NAVIGATE.
Clearly the flight crew was seriously impaired, even before the aircraft stopped on the runway. In all likelihood, everyone aboard that airplane was dead within minutes thereafter, It’s astonishing that the captain managed to get that plane on the ground without crashing. In my mind, this is the saddest aviation accident I can think of, even worse than Tenerife. There are few ways to die that are as horrifying as a fire in an airborne airplane.
When I was in the fire department, you had to have a lot of experience and several different kinds of special training to work on the ARF unit at the airport. For most regular fires, you either put water on it to put it out or clear away things that could burn around the fire until it goes out for lack of new stuff to burn. When you have a jet fuel or gasoline on fire, if you try to put it out with water, it floats on the water and continues burning, plus now you've made a bigger puddle on the ground on which the flaming fuel can now travel out further than the area of the original fire. This is why the ARF unit puts aircraft fires out with foam instead of water because the foam smothers the fire and it goes out for lack of oxygen. If you took any old person off the street and didn't train them, guaranteed they are going to put water on the fire and then have to retreat a little because of the flaming puddle of water with burning jet fuel on top of it. All that would waste a bunch of time and, once this mistake is made, it probably wouldn't be safe for the people inside to come out and down those slides anymore either. Knowing how things go for untrained people, they probably tried more water at least one more time to put out the fire before realizing that they had foam for a reason. That would put the fire out but, even that delay alone might account for all of the time it took them to open the door, plus I'm sure any sort of illustration that might have helped them figure out how to open the door once they got to it had probably been burned off. In the fire department, sometimes it seems like all you ever do is clean the station and do endless amounts of training but it pays off not to have to figure things out on the fly and in the heat of a real fire if there people who can teach you what to do beforehand.
May I ask a stupid question? I completely understand and agree with what you're saying, but I'm confused as to why I still often see water being used to extinguish aircraft fires even with recent fires. And many obviously have fuel being spilled all throughout the scene. I've always wondered this knowing that fire retardant foam is most effective.
Thank you for your expertise in this manner.
@@AmyAnnLand I've never seen that because water is more likely to make the situation worse. Perhaps the thing burning wasn't the fuel itself or maybe they were out of foam for whatever dangerous reason. Now if it's a fuel that is more dense that water so that it doesn't float on top, then water would work.
@@whoever6458 That's true and probably was the case. Thank you for the reply. And thank you for all you do.
Not that it applies in this case, but water can be used to fight fire involving flammable liquids - you just need to apply it with a fog nozzle. That way, it vaporizes and displaces the air at the surface of the liquid, smothering the fire and also absorbing much of the heat as it vaporizes. I have extinguished a tank of burning aviation fuel this way as part of a hose crew during training at the U. S. Navy's advanced firefighting school.
@@patrickhurley4058 Oh, that's interesting. Thank you.
It took the firefighters 23 minutes to get a door open? They never even learned how to *handle* a fire? Or how to do their jobs??
This entire situation is full of astounding incompetence.
Personally I think most of the passengers would have already died before the plane touched down. The smoke and heat would had made it impossible to survive even with a oxygen mask. The pilot would had more time because of the cockpit door.
Agree.