A Baffling Navigational Error (Varig Flight 254) - DISASTER BREAKDOWN
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
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In the previous video last week, we looked at a peculiar case of a major navigational error. In where the flight crew of a plane inadvertently flew off course into restricted airspace and was shot down. In this video we should take a closer look at another instance of a navigational error. An error which is to put it simply, baffling. Two pilots, flying a Boeing 737 in Northern Brazil, were to perform a short regional route which was the final of a long journey across the country.
Varig Flight 254 seemed to vanish without a trace. Judging by the plane’s route that evening, search, and rescue teams could not seem to find the plane for days. It was as if the plane simply vanished. Where the plane was actually located compared to where it should have been brought a lot more questions than answers and the reasoning as to how this happened is truly baffling.
For days the plane was lost, the incident of Varig 254 not only demonstrates a navigational error with fatal consequences but also a demonstration of human survival.
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The irony of a plane getting lost with a compass on its tail
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The irony of a plane being lost with a compass on its tail
Haha yeah. That some real incompetence from their side
Shouldn't leave your compass on your tail. You need it up front to read it.
Hardly a compass.
It's pretty difficult to argue with a passenger who points out, "The Sun is going down on the wrong side of the aircraft!"
These pilots seem to be so full of themselves that they’d claim that the sun was going in the wrong direction, not them
@@joshcarson1690 😂😂😂
@@joshcarson1690 😂😂😂
They knew they were flying West, that's the direction they expected to fly. Their error lay in not realizing Belém was to the North Northeast.
@@joshcarson1690 That’s not fair at all.
They were too invested in their soccer game to bother giving an answer to anyone.
Continuing to fly directly into the setting sun should've been a clue they were flying in the wrong direction.
Yeah, durr
As if putting 270 in is not enough of a clue.
@@Amilakasun1 agreed 👍
In Brazil, the sun sets in the east.
@@adotintheshark4848 the rotation of the earth doesn't change just because you're in the southern hemisphere, with all due respect.
This is actually a really influential and well known case in brasil, atleast for aviators, during my crew training our teachers always mentioned this flight
CRM
Sure dude, everytime this channel posts a video there are like 5 comments like this!
Do they get trained on where the Sun should be /its path?
The date of the Varig Flight 254 incident was 3 September 1989. The match that was played at the same time when the pilots got a radio broadcast of it, was as controversial as the plane crash itself. The match between Brazil and Chile at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro would enter into the news for all the wrong reasons (and perhaps it overshadowed what happened to the missing Varig flight since football is like a religion in Brazil) - in the 67th minute with Brazil leading 1:0 Chile goalkeeper Roberto Rojas suddenly fell on the ground pretending to be hit by a flare thrown by the crowd, resulting of the entire Chile squad to leave the pitch and the match was abandoned (the idea was to "disqualify" Brazil from the match since Chile needed a win to qualify for the World Cup in Italy). In reality, Rojas has hidden a razor blade in his glove which he used to cut himself at the head to simulate a hit from a thrown object. His lie was further revealed by an Argentine newspaper who showed a photo of a flare that never even came into contact with Rojas in first place. As a result, FIFA banned Chile from participation in the 1994 World Cup and Rojas was banned for life (the ban was lifted in 2001, but by then his career was over anyway).
As for Varig - the company underwent a turbulent time by the turn of the 21st century. In 2002 the administration of Varig and its subsidiary Rio Sul Serviços Aéreos Regionais (wich included another sub-brand in Nordeste) were merged together. By 2004 Varig was lagging behind its chief rivals - TAM and Gol, with Varig seeking merger with TAM which failed. In 2005 the company filed for bankruptcy and this is where things get complicated - Varig was split into two entities. The "old" Varig (considered the judicial successor of Varig) was essentially its Nordeste sub-brand, which was renamed Flex in 2008 before it too went bust in 2010. The "new" Varig - VRG Linhas Aéreas, was eventually absorbed by Gol in 2007
I read up on that match during my research. That in and of itself is a story someone should make a video on
Very interesting! Thank you for typing it all up!
Thank you for sharing this very insightful comment, it gives additional context that helps put the viewer closer to what went on during and after the disaster.
Okey, now I need a video about that football game x)
@@DisasterBreakdown Try contacting Oh My Goal, if they haven't made a video on it yet.
If they did, try Raymar Football.
The pilots were commencing their final leg, to a city they knew was to the north. Perhaps you could understand an error of 2.7 vs 27 degrees, but they should have guessed 270 would not take them anywhere near their destination.
I was thinking the same
Absolutely. That was incompetent.
That’s what I was curious about. I know nothing of navigation, but was the incorrect reading something any pilot should spot right away, or was it close enough that an experienced pilot could be fooled.
That’s what I was wondering! Like surely they had an idea of what direction their plane was taking off in, and whereabouts the airport would be in relation to that. Did 270 not sound weird at all to them?
This shows that some pilots are just "doing their job" and don't really think. The flight attendant who did not relay the passengers' concern to the pilots assuming "pilots know best", should be punished as well.
It seems baffling that the pilots did not have basic navigational skills, regardless of the technology they were using. The position of the sun would have been a dead giveaway
It seems like they didn't know the general heading to the destination. If they programmed in heading 270, they would expect to see the setting sun. Maybe the destination is a small airport and it was the pilots first time going there. Remember this is decades before ready access to online maps and smartphones.
@@Bren39 I would have thought that when they got their flight orders and they discovered they were going to Belem they would have either said oh,where,s that,lets look at a map,or they would have said oh, ok,it will be an overnight stop.I think they would have or at least should have knew the general direction of where the city was,I maen they had been flying in a northern direction all day, why would they suddenly be flying west and then south,when flying south did they not think we should have stopped here before the last stop. I think there is a bit of arrogance involved,I live in Brasil and you put a uniform on a Brasilian and suddenly he is a General. Maybe they got too interested in the football game, I had to go for a work visa on a day Brasil were playing a world cup game, sat waiting at a federal police station in Rio,eventually got called to see an officer who was so obviously wanting to go watch the game he tore up my application,said I spelled my mothers name wrong,thats not a joke,now I knew my mother for many years,and I knew how to spell her name,but I was warned not to argue,uniforms do things to people.I bet the pilot was blaming the sun rather than admit he had made an error
@@khutt19100%, that's very astute "I bet the captain blamed the Sun" for himself getting lost. Sorry to hear that arsehole has any power over you & your fellow citizens as a cop. Power corrupts & people quick to anger, with little empathy, should never be given any authority.
The problem is that many people have trouble questioning themselves.
Ask yourself if you second guess each and every decision while operating your own vehicle.......
I did not expect to hear about survivors after being partway through the video knowing how they were basically lost in an area not covered by radar way away from their destination above the Amazon.
Massive respect at the efforts it must've taken for the passengers and crew who survived to stay alive and coördinate to find help.
And in the end, it was the passengers who got them out, it could've been much worse if they hadn't gone out to find help
So they were supposed to be flying roughly north at sunset. Did they not wonder what that big yellow floating ball in the sky was?
Most likely behind the clouds
When you said “navigational error” and “Brazil” I knew which flight you were talking about!
It was a very unfortunate event! I saw a couple documentaries about it, including testimonies of the survivors.
I understand the pilot was on vacation when the change of decimal point happened but how did he fly with soo many stops that way before the last leg of the flight? Fatigue is my only guess
Maybe he wasn't the one that entered the data on the previous legs. Even so, just a minimum knowledge of the general direction of their destination should have made it obvious that 270 was incorrect. 270 is due EAST. Every pilot entering that heading would know it means due east. Did he really believe their destination was due east? And did the co-pilot believe their destination was due east?. And when they discovered they were not where they were supposed to be, why didn't they just plot a course on thier map in a due easterly direction to get an idea of where they were? Had they done so, they'd know that turning towards the south was definitely the wrong thing to do. The level of incompetence displayed by this pair is beyond belief.
@@KenFullman
I’m glad you’re not a pilot…..
270 IS DUE WEST!!
Ironic: The logo for the now defunct airline is a compass.
Unbelievable incompetence from both pilots. They should have known the heading was wrong, not just by a few degrees but it was way off. If I am traveling in my home state of Pennsylvania from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh I would expect any instrumentation I am monitoring to show travel in a westerly direction, obviously there would be other clues, including the position of the sun in the sky and so on. RIP those who lost their lives.
Yeah.. at least they should aware that they are flying to the west (270*) which their airport in north heading (027*) basic logic north,west how they don't know about that.. i think fatique play role in this incident too..
When the passengers are telling you as we'll Jesus.
there is a comment above after yours about someone saying that the copilot got an interview or wrote a book or something about their recall of the flight
Even though it seems so obvious from the outside, once imersed on your mistake, you cannot get out of it easily. You can only understand this if you fly and make amistake.
@@geraldo209 don't get into it.
Damn, I'm surprised there were as many survivors as there were. That had to be a horrific experience once the passengers were told what they already knew
The one good thing about crash landing a plane that's out of fuel: no fire.
but imagine the feeling it crashed but you survived? must have been wonderful
Basic knowledge of geography must surely have told the pilots that Belem is more or less north of Maraba so a heading of 270 is NOT going to be correct??!!?
@clarsach29 Seriously... I guess they just turn into robots and don't use their brains when they typed in those numbers. But even then it's hard to understand. For someone who spent so much time in the sky you would think they would notice that the sun is in the completely wrong position or something. Not sure I'm too happy about both of them getting away with only community service for causing death of 12 people with their incompetence and negligence.
Pilots should hear from crew and passengers who notice odd things. Speak up.
I am from brazil and i have been with first officer zille myself. And indeed he was at fault when copying the magnetic course from the captain at the time, but when i asked him about the sun position or rivers, he explained to me that once you are immersed in your mistake, in tunnel vision, you are hardly ever able to get out of it. Believing they were on their right course. This. Indeed is difficult to understand unless you fly and experience making a mistake yourself. The captain on the other end was very arrogant and despite zilles repeated requests to turn around, he refused to admit his error and turn around.
You mean "...you are hardly ever able to get out of it."
@@AsFewFalseThingsAsPossible thank you! Corrected
If I had been the copilot, I would have offered the captain $10,000 to turn around just to save everyone's life.
I flew the 737-200 as late as the mid-1990s. To your point about the lack of INS (or any type or inertial or RNAV system), the aircraft I flew were also equipped solely with VOR/DME/ADF for navigation, and it’s not unsafe or uncommon for that aircraft, though it does require basic situational awareness. The lack of INS as such is not a defect in this case.
It's a defect if the area is devoid of ground beacon. When flying IFR you NEED to have way to positive identify your position - either radio navigation or INS, GPS etc - and you need to have it ALL the time. No dead reckoning.
If I was one of the passengers that warned the flight crew that they were going the wrong way I cant imagine I wouldn't start swinging on the crew either before we crashed or after.
given the fact the pilots didn't die on impact, i'm genuinely surprised there WAS no swinging on them! i would've been strangling them with my bare hands!
@@happywithdrawal flight crew never informed them . its their mistake really
This, that, and the other crap...there's no excuse for this crash. If I was a passenger in a plane doing this "north is south and south is north" while flying over something like the Amazon jungle, you better believe I would be entering the minds of everyone in the cockpit. What's wrong with people? Pilots, flight attendants, burger flippers, politicians, carpenters, drunk or sober, everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time.....talk about reckless endangerment.....boy scouts learn how to find the points of the compass without the compass. Just sad..
RIP to all who perished. That was a pilot fatigue on the last leg after doing so many stopovers.
Airline decided to include 4 digits on the flight plan? Why not some sort of mathematical equation to figure out the course? This way they won't miss it for sure.
Im having a difficult time understanding how an experienced airline captain could not figureout that a heading of 270 would make zero sense for a route to a destination that was northeast of his departure. That is, just..........baffling to me.
That's elementary navigation, aircraft or no.
Amazing so many people survived crash landing in a jungle, such an unusual set of circumstances that led to the plane crashing so far off course. The pilots dodged a bullet avoiding four years in a Brazilian prison, I imagine that would be pretty hellish, and would probably have left them permanently traumatised if not dead.
To me it is just so absolutely mind-boggling that a plank simply get lost in a time not that long ago. I can only imagine the amount of shame and anger that airline would feel having such a simple mistake occur on their watch nowadays.
have you forgotten malaysian air? lol
@@conzmoleman No. That is why it is such a mystery. We tracked the plane until it was to low to appear on ANY radar. It also went down over the ocean, which adds a great magnitude of difficulty in finding wreckage, since the crash site essentially moves the moment it is formed
First officer of flight 254 , Nilson Zille , gives an interview on channel ASA - Aviation, Space & ATC. The interview is in portuguese but anyone who is interested may choose subtitles > auto-translate > english that will work fine.
The most bizarre thing ever: at 7:30 it was quarter to six in the afternoon. How they have possibly not noticed that they were flying into the sun. "Hey Nilson, the sun sets in the North right"?
I mean the fact that the passengers knew they were going the wrong way says a lot. You would think an experienced professional crew might be able to figure out something is wrong? Unbelievable
Missed out on if they were used to flying the route, doesnt seem so.
I thought it was a cargo plane??
The flight attendants ignored the passengers and never told the pilots about their warnings.
Experienced? The passengers were better navigators than the entire “experienced” crew, including the flight attendants.
i'm brazilian and i've heard of this accident many times rip for everyone who died
Neither of the pilots bothered to look at a map to see where they were supposed to be flying to? That’s incredible.
"Pilots"? Goofballs! The whole crew, stewardesses included! Taking off from Maraba heading west? No one questioned that? No attempt to contact Maraba, instead of Belen? Tuning in to a football game? Moral: when passengers know more than pilots, displace the stewardess. Better to be charged with misdemeanor assault than it is to die in a plane crash and know you did not do enough!
The Aviões & musica channel has a great video about the subject with an interview with one of the parties. Anyway, I was a little kid when this happened and to this day i remember the news talking about it.
So why did both pilots not recognize that they were flying west into a setting sun right in front of them? It is rumored but never proven that they were listening to the huge, highly important soccer game on the radio.
People listening to a radio in a car will still see the sun blind them.
This is why math teachers never give you credits for missing decimal points or units from your answers
Whenever you talk about air disasters in my native country, i can't help but get emotional. I wasn't at all born when 254 got lost in the Mato Grosso rainforest, but i remember the vivid memories of flight 1907, and the sheer fright whenever people were bound to fly over the Amazon. I am a mere teenager passionate for aviation, and i would love to do more for brazilian civil aviation, and your videos make me feel like i am contributing to the safety of airspace around me! Your videos give me tears and goosebumps! May Garcez be ever made responsible for his lack of responsibility!
If they thought they had passed over the airport, did they not wonder why they weren't over the ocean?
How do you not have a million subs??? From one UA-camr climbing towards 100k I can not comprehend how you have not past 200,000 is beyond min?!?! Love the accurate information! Cheers man subscriber earned!
I STILL find this a HORRIBLE story.
HOW on Earth did the pilots NOT know that a heading of 0 means north, at the VERY least??
If they'd just gone straight north until they reached the coast, at the very least they would've ended up in a place from where they could navigate again.
It seems insane that they were smart enough to be pilots but too dumb to look at a compass (or, if their plane didn't have an actual compass, to just know how headings work, aka from 0-359 degrees).
Also, how did the FO not automatically realize that they were on a northern route, and that therefore a heading of 270 was VERY suspicious??
Such a DUMB tragedy....
Yes. There's a compass. Right in front of their noses. So sad
The HF radio the used as an alternative to contact ATC is actually a lower frequency than what is normally used for voice communications. The lower energy frequencies tend to follow terrain features instead of being deflected or blocked by terrain, allowing them to travel farther. The Very High Frequency/VHF radios normally used offer clearer communication, but generally require line of sight between stations.
This looks amazing, I love your videos man! and when you were talking about redoing some of your old videos I think it’s a great idea!
Thanks! Yes at the moment I'm looking to redo the KAL 007 and Helios 522 videos soon(ish)
@@DisasterBreakdown alright! Coincidentally those are two of my favorite videos you’ve made haha
It is important to note that printing out heading instructions in four digits instead of three on the charts was only in operation for a few months at VARIG, and was supposed to make sense on more modern DC-10's and 747's, which made long-haul flights across the atlantic. But on older 737-200 aircraft, this was not very well understood amongst crew, which most times would simply ignore the left hander zero, as it was considered to, mathematically, not contain any value.
[9:12] “Contact ... was established once using a higher frequency, longer range radio.”
Almost invariably, _higher_ frequency radio communication results in _shorter_ range. That’s why the emergency channels, which the pilot was reluctant to use, exist in the high frequency (HF) band rather than the very high frequency (VHF) one. In other accounts of this incident they mention that another Varig aircraft was used as a relay in order for 254 to reach the Belém tower that was too distant for direct VHF communication (another massive clue that they were way off course). Aside from that, an excellent presentation.
Headings aren't just arbitrary numbers. They really should have known that 270 was very, very wrong. This feels like 80s aviation equivalent of following a GPS into a lake.
To anyone interested to know more about the 254 accident, the brazilian channel 'Aviões e Músicas' held an interview with first officer Zille! I'll make the link for the interview available in the following paragraphs! Just bare in mind its a three segment video!
Very interesting to see a foreigner analysing brazilian disasters, but I would like to add some details from the CENIPA investigation report, voice recordings and survivors testimonies:
1) The North region of Brazil was not only sparsely populated, but also didn't have aeronautical charts for the Imperatriz - Marabá - Belém section of the flight, and the tower didn't have a radar either to keep track of the plane (that's why the pilot blindedly used the course given by Varig).
2) There's no indication that the crew had been listening to the football match, but even if it was true the match started 17:00 and was over by 19:00, so they would still had plenty of time to correct their mistakes and try to land somewhere.
3) Sunset in Bélem at september is around 18:15 and the flight took off around 17:45, so despite how obviously they shouldn't be flying towards the sunset, they wouldn't have much time to get it right if they were tired and/or distracted after working since early morning in so many different places.
4) They used ADF as a guide, but because it was a scarcely populated area it was expected the ADF would take some time until it could track the radio frequencies from Belém.
5) When PMS indicated they should be arriving at Belém and they finally contacted the tower using HF, they again made checklists errors and the controller also didn't notice the 270º direction mistake even having heard it from the crew more than once.
6) The crew already had understood the mistake they made by then, but since they were lost at night above the Amazon rainforest without any sign of civilization and no ADF guidance it was very dificult to discover where they were. Furthermore, the pilot simply didn't assume his mistake and refused to hear the copilot, showing terrible CRM practises and forcing the crew to follow his authority.
7) 11 people died on the crash, mainly because the seats came loose from the plane's floor with the impact and smashed the passengers in the front of the fuselage. Not only a few passengers searched for help, but they also used an ELT transmitter to be located. the 12th victim died while waiting for rescue.
In his last speech to the passengers the pilot said: "Ladies and gentlemen, it's the captain who speaks to you. We had a disorientation failure with our compass systems. We're running out of fuel, with only more 15 min left. We ask everyone to keep calm because... It is indeed very difficult to happen a situation like this. We leave you with the hope that this is nothing more than a scare for all of us. For your attention I thank you and wish you a good end."
I‘m unsure whether the pilots can/should be held accountable, especially given that the information wasn’t passed on how it should be. On the other hand they really could’ve known what direction to fly, it should’ve been clear that you can’t reach an airport north of your departure airport when flying to the west with a course of 270°!
I can see how this happened, neither pilot was thinking about where they were supposed to go
but I can't understand how they couldn't figure this out when they made the 180 degree turn
ig maybe they didn't know what cardinal directions the numbers meant but like even I know that and I'm not even a pilot
Of all the places to crash land, you don't want it to be the Amazon rainforest.
How the heck did they navigate to the 4 other airports using the same system but couldn't figure out the last destination when all of the airports were basically all north headings ? incompetence and Gravity don't mix
Unbelievable that they flew west when they had to fly north. Pilot fatigue could account for some of this, but wouldn't the position of the sun be a major clue?
Such great work, & glad you've got a sponsor. As much as I love this channel, does anyone find the supposed "resolutions" to all these accidents make them misanthropic?
Somebody at a desk had a bright idea to change the way compass direction was to be shown.
Honestly, is a 0.1 degree accuracy necessary for a flight plan? Seems like exactly the kind of thing that would cause problems.
Right. Courses are usually stated in just 3 digits.
In celestial navigation, azimith is stated to the tenth of a degree. In books of Location Identifiers, radials are stated to the hundredth.
The Goiânia-Brasília and Brasília-Imperatriz segments also had north-northeast headings and should've run into the same problem. How did the pilots get those two right and then screw up the last one?
Sounds like they tried to use the ADF to find Belem, only to follow the wrong radio station frequencies.
While it turned out to be a mistake; The public radio thing was clever.
It´s an old navigation technique, using your DF loop antenna to get a heading to the source of an AM radio station. It is said that the Japanese used it to correct their course for Pearl Harbor by following the Sunday morning broadcast from Honolulu stations.
@@JuanCarlosCoreaBarrios That's pretty dope!
The fact that the passenger’s realized they where going the wrong way before any of the pilots did is crazy
Great detail of this incident.
How awful for the pilots flying.
Rest in Peace all 12 fatalities.
im no First Officer or Captain but if it was taking me longer than normal to arrive to the airport I would've done a 180 and go back to where i came
Can you imagine putting up with 6 stopovers only to die right before getting to the FINAL DESTINATION
"Where are we heading?" "North", "Roger, West then South it is..."
What was the reasoning for printing heading in 4 digits? There must have been one.
the airline had just bought new airplanes, whose headings had a place for an extra decimal.
Which was not the case of the plane flown in this story.
A cross reference between the heading and compass would have identified the input error after takeoff. Assuming of course that the aircraft was equipt with a compass. Basic airmanship.
I was waiting for your upload every saturday. I'm hooked. Thank you!
Wow, thank you! Always more to come!
These videos are so well done, thank you for your work!!
sentencing the pilots to prison was the worst thing i've heard in a while. because of Varig's missing decimal, *they* get sentenced. shouldn't it be Varig's leadership who decided on such an unorthodox method + their *pure negligence* in not upgrading the planes equipment? it's great the pilots didn't have to serve the prison time, but that *they* got sentenced for something that was the *leaderships* fault (wich is the case in sooo many different situations, not only in aviation) makes my blood boil.
Absolute nonsense. Everyone on board except the pilots knew they were going the wrong way. They're a pair of buffoons who shouldn't be allowed to fly a plane for commercial purposes.
Great. If possible, make a video about the Varig 967, that disappear on Pacific after 30 minutes take off from Narita.
I can understand confusing 270 with 27.0 considering the decimal point was missing but how did they get the other five parts of the journey correct yet mess this one up?
Wow wow wow man!!!! That was a wild ride. I can't believe they were able to crash land and save lives. Wow
Wait, if there is a compass on the tail of the plane, isn't there one inside the plane?! How could they not see that they were flying West and then South, when they should have flown North?!
This is how someone has never seen a map with their eyes and does not know where the city is located.
This was some seriously horrible piloting and lack of common sense as well as spatial awareness. I used to build 737s for Boeing. They are ALL equipped with a stby compass at the center of the windscreen directly above the center of the instrument panel. In what universe would any pilot, especially without IRU system, not at least occasionally glance at the compass. From his last location he should have been headed almost directly north. He should have verified that immediately after departure. And flying at eight thousand feet will limit the "big picture visibility." This whole mess should never have happened.
I think it’s more of doing “nothing” instead of the “wrong thing”. Once they became confused they decided to keep riding that in the hopes that it would turn into a solution
You don’t need a sophisticated navigation system to realize that the sun sets at WEST, and they were supposed to head NORTH. The passengers who notified the crew are the proof of it.
Commenting in a case that I have studied deeply and read a lot about. It was a nice video but glossed over key factors:
1- VRG254 was not the first or last crew to make a mistake with the heading, during the investigation the same heading 0270 was interpreted as 270 by 90% of the questioned pilots. 8 other flights made the same mistake during the 2 days that VRG254 was lost in the jungle. The heading was changed from 4 digits to 3 digits MONTHS after the accident, when another VRG flight was almost lost in the same region due to the same mistake (in this case, 060 instead of 006 due to given heading of 0060)
2- The sun was ahead of them: Brazil has in some places up to 25° magnetic deviation, and as the flight was IFR, pilots did not account for that, just as pilots nowadays don't look outside that much. Adding to that, the crew were overworked and tired due to the multiple legs. Also the copilot did NOT copy the captains heading, he made the same mistake.
3- At the time the passenger asked to enter the cabin to help the pilots, CRM was long gone, the Captain had already lied to ATC and FO, and insulted the Copilot multiple times. The Captain later confessed he already knew about the mistake, but was afraid of being fired due to previous mistakes and bad behavior against other pilots. The copilot tells that he believed that if the passenger had entered the cabin, the situation would become worse, and that the message he received from the FA was that a passenger who knew the region would like to come in to the cabin. (Very unspecific)
4- The football game was an assumption from a journalist that was published multiple times and then became "truth". As the plane was tuning in some radios to hear their designated number (which was used to determine their position on a map) the crew could not hear anything but static, but nonetheless the ADF started pointing to the direction of the Radio, that's why they went south, after the Captain told the Copilot they were north of Belém (based on nothing, but due to company culture and the Captains behavior, the copilot was forced to comply). Even if they wanted to, they would not hear no football game.
5- the final report was extremely biased, the company Varig found the Copilot guilty and the copilot not guilty. Nonetheless due to the extreme influence and insider people the company had at the time inside the regulatory organization, Varig used this influence to put the blame onto the pilots and save face with the public and media.
6- the only reason only 2 people died during the landing was the extreme professionalism of first officer Zille. He performed the whole landing and planning while the captain was catatonic and frozen in place (also locking the control column in his hands, making Zille's job even harder)
Conclusion: this accident could have been avoided in so many different phases of the flight. CRM was not existent in Varig, back then when the captain speaks, first officer should shut up. The captain was notoriously aggressive and arrogant before and during the flight. The captain refused to perform any sort of departure briefing (where while reading the charts, the mistake would have been clearly visible). The first officer Zille did everything he could, short of starting a brawl inside the cockpit to save the flight, culminating at the end where he took the controls away from the frozen in place captain to perform the emergency landing. The captain LIED multiple times to ATC (alleged an instrument failure) and to his first officer, and misled his crew in saying they were somewhere they weren't because he thought so, and his opinion was final.
It says "SUPER ADVANCED 737" on the Fuselage..... But NO Navigation System!!???? 😵😳😜😆
AND there was a Compass on the Tail...
The problem wasn’t the lack of Navigation systems...
You'd think a simple onboard compass would indicate the absolute wrong direction to the pilots.
Pilot here, I place almost all the blame on whoever decided to change the longstanding number of heading digits from 3 to 4.
It seems to me that whenever some sort of a genius changes things that have worked flawlessly for many years, there's at least a serious incident and often an outright crash.
Certainly, aviation needs to evolve but some of the changes we're subject to are......well......lets just leave it at 'idiotic'.
Further, the pilots are to blame to a certain degree, if you know that your destination is north and you enter a westerly heading, it should raise a red flag and in no case should a pilot ever copy anything from the other pilot.
Not-a-pilot here, but I'd still place all the blame on the crew.
If your heading digits magically reproduce, you still know that a circle isn't suddenly cut into 1000 degrees instead of 360, right??
They should've noticed that flying west (either due to the sun or due to the heading) does not get you to your destination up north.
I'm not familiar with the cockpit lay-out of that plane at that time, but a compass heading would've been a dead giveaway, and even without it, you'd expect smart people like pilots to get suspicious when the sun isn't where it's supposed to be...
Right? :)
@@MrNicoJac There's a thing called mils. It's 4 digits.
@@Cptjonmiller
Mils is for gun scopes, right?
@@MrNicoJac No, mils also exist as navigational direction, much like 360 degrees in a compass, mils are in smaller increments, 6400 mils make a circle. It's mainly used in navigation in military.
@@Cptjonmiller
Ah, I see...
Very cool info!
Thanks for sharing + explaining ^^
(6400/360 makes one hell of an annoying conversion factor, haha)
Hi! I'm really enjoying your channel. What about United flight 811 (cargo door blowout) and of course Aloha flight 243. I'm from Hawaii and they both have local significance. Keep up the good work!
I imagine their careers came to an unceremonious end .
Wouldn't a simple glance at the map be enough to tell you that 270, as opposed to 027, was the wrong heading? Belem is over there, north-ish. 270 is due west. That just can't be.
Lovely aircraft the 200, thanks for a brilliant video again.
So I'm not a pilot. But if, for example, I was flying from LA to San Francisco, there's no way I would fly due east or due west for hours and expect to get there. Even though I've never been to San Francisco.
Okay but the question is killing me; who won the football game?
I think I speak for most of us when I say we don't mind sitting through paid adds in your videos, your content is too good. Whatever they're paying you they should double it. Thanks for the amazing story telling and well put together visuals.
I mean, most people let alone pilots are fairly aware that the 4 cardinal compass headings are 0 (or 360), 90, 180, and 270 degree's, and the pilots absolutely would have known that their destination was roughly northish of where they were departing from. I just can't understand how the captain or FO didn't immediately notice that a heading of 270 degrees due west was obviously incorrect, and then it didn't strike them as odd that they were flying into sun! It almost seems like there must be more to the story than just a wrong number accidentally being entered. Were they drunk or totally distracted from their flying by something possibly?
People should have listened to the passengers. That really pisses me off. What is more important, one man's ego or 50 people's lives? I hope the airline was sued.
Oooh! This looks awesome.
Thanks for watching :)
So basically let's just wing it and try to find our way to the airport
I mean honestly sometimes you probably need to retrain your flight crews in order to find your way to the airport or not make these mistakes
6:53
that number is mind blowing
poor pilots i really feel for them after 6 stop like a commuter boss.
Mistake reading the “4” digit heading code aside… is it not standard for the commercial pilot to check a sectional map to confirm the heading? It’s be pretty clear that a 270 heading is not right for their destination…
i dont understand how thats even possible? Im assuming the pilots had looked at a map of brazil sometimes in their life and would know which general direction they need to go... if i know from looking at a map the place im going is northeast from where i am, im not going to fly straight west for hours without asking some questions ..
despite the captain's best efforts, 42 people survived
As soon as you said your working on a big project I knew I’m spending my Sunday doing a massive binge watch of your vids and taking notes
Get ready to be Raided by Brazilians….we quite like Varig….great vid
A 4 digit heading is just stupidity. I have 7,000 hours of flight time and can't fly a fraction of a heading.
It’s also because the radio stations that they were trying to tune to we’re probably repeater stations so they probably it would have broadcast from the radio station in Belme but they were repeated so they would have radio repeaters or a translator station
in fact, it was another radio station, rather south, in the same frequency.
What simulator and which aircraft and scenery addon did you use to record the video? I know the program you used isn't the point of the video but I would like to know so that I can get my sim to look similar to yours
Niceeee now you started getting sponsors. Beautiful.
I thought they had Air-way Charts with them. Odd if the did not
Yea they did, but on such a short and rather simple flight, they simply did not grab it to cross check their bearings, a verybad mistake yea, but the repeated routine will make you complacent with your skills and knowledge
Amazing. Could make for a great movie.
The direction of the setting Sun was obvious to everyone on the plane.
Their navigation equipment was entirely adequate.