I just can't imagine flying on fumes, when I'm in my car and I'm sucking vapour I lose my mind trying to get to the nearest gas station. This is a whole new level of fckn crazy.
The fault lies with the boss higher up telling the controllers that they need to put those planes down no matter what, instead of just closing airspace and telling everyone to go to their alternate routes. The weather was nowhere near correct or good enough for planes, and the stress every pilot had to go through was lucky no more planes got into an accident and more loss of life. I bet one of those planes got damaged by not being able to see and not being able to do much, just pray and hope it's not your time or the people on that plane. But all this could have been avoided if not for the boss putting stress on the tower, then on the pilots and the crew that had to walk and get into an accident with the plane being unstable or the tower being more honest and telling them that the weather is bad, that the hold was at least an hour, and that most pilots that tried to land failed and had to go around. Like that, the captain has more options and not thinking that they were most likely good and most likely his boss for the company that he flies for gets some type of wright down for going to a alternate route specially main route was open and he had fuel so he would’ve been told. Why didn’t he wait? They all ways blame the bottom of the chain and then the top gets some type of talk but nothing like the person just trying to follow rules and protocol
When the little gas light goes on, it scares me. Doesn't help that my cars tank/float is busted so the fuel dial doesn't indicate properly at low fuel.
This was the most stressful episode by far! Both ATC and pilots could have done things differently, but I feel especially bad for the pilots. They didn’t want to die. They didn’t want to crash.
The fault lies with the boss higher up telling the controllers that they need to put those planes down no matter what, instead of just closing airspace and telling everyone to go to their alternate routes. The weather was nowhere near correct or good enough for planes, and the stress every pilot had to go through was lucky no more planes got into an accident and more loss of life. I bet one of those planes got damaged by not being able to see and not being able to do much, just pray and hope it's not your time or the people on that plane. But all this could have been avoided if not for the boss putting stress on the tower, then on the pilots and the crew that had to walk and get into an accident with the plane being unstable or the tower being more honest and telling them that the weather is bad, that the hold was at least an hour, and that most pilots that tried to land failed and had to go around. Like that, the captain has more options and not thinking that they were most likely good and most likely his boss for the company that he flies for gets some type of wright down for going to a alternate route specially main route was open and he had fuel so he would’ve been told. Why didn’t he wait? They all ways blame the bottom of the chain and then the top gets some type of talk but nothing like the person just trying to follow rules and protocol
It's certainly up there. I think THE most stressful episode is Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961. That was another out-of-fuel situation, but rather than weather and miscommunication, it was caused by hijackers forcing the pilot at gunpoint to fly somewhere they couldn't reach.
@@jorgeaspera The pilots never use the word "mayday" every pilot is trained to use the word "mayday", the atc had no reason to believe an emergency was occurring because "mayday" was never called.
@@MegaLokopo I know all about this flight. I live right near the accident. I wasn't alive near it, but I live right near it. It ran out of fuel and it was so dark outside so that they didn't see a hill. It crashed in oyster Bay Cove, Long Island, New York.
@@MegaLokopo and the pilots never called Mayday because they never saw the hill. It was too dark outside outside. They had no reason to call Mayday because they never knew they were going down.
This is absolutely THE worst, most frustrating air crash that should never have happened...bar none! Every time they were handed off to a new controller, I cringed and wanted the crew to tell "No! We are not going to hold! We're out of gas!" They at least should have called "Mayday!" That being said, what part of "we are running out of gas!" did controllers not understand??
They were trained differently in Colombia. All pilots should learn aviation English so something like this doesn't happen again. Mayday Mayday Mayday fuel emergency should have been said by the pilots.
@@sharmilasoomair568 I agree! Although I honestly don't blame the pilots as much as the ATC. The controllers should have realized the dire situation the flight was in the second they said they were running out of gas and should not have kept placing them in a holding pattern.
@@scootermom1791 The pilots said that they were running out of fuel and to make them a priority. They never said Mayday Mayday we have an emergency so ATC couldn't tell that that something was wrong. If they had used the word EMERGENCY and tell them that they can't be put on hold anymore, only then,ATC would have given them clearance to land. Once something is wrong and the pilots need to land an airplane, they must say we have an emergency Mayday Mayday Mayday..
The fault lies with the boss higher up telling the controllers that they need to put those planes down no matter what, instead of just closing airspace and telling everyone to go to their alternate routes. The weather was nowhere near correct or good enough for planes, and the stress every pilot had to go through was lucky no more planes got into an accident and more loss of life. I bet one of those planes got damaged by not being able to see and not being able to do much, just pray and hope it's not your time or the people on that plane. But all this could have been avoided if not for the boss putting stress on the tower, then on the pilots and the crew that had to walk and get into an accident with the plane being unstable or the tower being more honest and telling them that the weather is bad, that the hold was at least an hour, and that most pilots that tried to land failed and had to go around. Like that, the captain has more options and not thinking that they were most likely good and most likely his boss for the company that he flies for gets some type of wright down for going to a alternate route specially main route was open and he had fuel so he would’ve been told. Why didn’t he wait? They all ways blame the bottom of the chain and then the top gets some type of talk but nothing like the person just trying to follow rules and protocol
@@jorgeaspera there were a lot of factors involved that led up to this accident. The thing I don't like about the outcome of the investigation is that ATC AND the people in charge of ATC weren't held accountable for their actions either.
Honestly I’m with the crew on this one. They made it absolutely clear to the controllers that they were dangerously low on fuel and they needed priority but the controllers just brushed them off. The only thing I criticize the pilots for is that they should have called a mayday and declared an emergency after the missed approached. That plus no fuel and the weather that’s too many cheese holes.
No unfortunately as a pilot I can’t agree. The crew did not use the required terminology they were trained to use to get the urgent response they wanted. In the end it’s 100% the pilots fault for not diverting before they couldn’t
@@robertgary3561so priority is not the same as Mayday or emergency? So since he didn't say Mayday, he houldn't use his common sense to know priority means emergency? Some of born with your language don't even understand it
They didn't ask for weather. They didn't properly declare a fuel emergency. They didn't communicate the urgency of their landing to the tower controllers and they didn't divert. There are sins on every side of this situation, but yeah, the lion's share goes to those pilots. If you don't have enough personal integrity to stand up and forcefully state what your situation is and then make decisions when you still have time to divert and you have no business being the pilot of even a general aviation aircraft much less commercial.
The pilots clearly deserve SOME (not all, to be sure) of the blame. As has been said over and over in these investigations...accidents are the result of a combination of events/factors.
@@thebarkingmouseyea everyone is at fault. Maybe they shouldnt be pilots but the airline blaming them alone is crazy. Money is on the line for these companies and they just roll with it. This is just a swiss cheese model situation
They had plenty of fuel when the they left. The continuing circling set their fate in motion. The pilots lack of aggressively telling them they need to land NOW, didn’t help. This crash never should have happened. The bosses wanting over 30 an hour in inclement weather started all the crap happening. I hope they paid dearly.
It’s amazing how good the acting is on these docs. It’s on display in this doc alone this cockpit is believably 3 Colombian commercial pilots. The air traffic control was good too.
Oh but the script is so bad. Unless they’re quoted from a voice recorder the script doesn’t sound like we talk at all. And runway numbers are always said wrong
@@dbzdrag0n they seem to dumb it down and certainly add drama. We don’t sound panics. But there are no two digit numbers in aviation. No runway “thirty two” only runway “three two”.
@@robertgary3561 Air France Flight 447 is all need to be said. You know people are different and can act very different in intense situation despite of how well trained they are.
In July 1990, Avianca offered $75,000 to each crash survivor or the relatives of those killed. The U.S. government eventually joined Avianca and reached a settlement estimated at over $200 million in damages to the victims. The same summer, Avianca flights declared two notable fuel emergencies. The first happened in June, when a flight declared a "minimum fuel situation" and landed with only 10 minutes' worth of fuel left. The second happened in August, when Avianca Flight 020 declared it had "only 15 minutes of fuel left". Confusion arose as to what the pilot meant, but controllers declared an emergency pre-emptively and cleared the plane to land immediately. The flight was later found to have had over two hours' worth of fuel remaining.
The controllers could have asked the pilots if they are declaring an emergency just to be on the safe side. The controllers should have known that holding so many planes in so many holding patterns due to weather might cause a possible low fuel conditions on some of those planes. So it would be prudent to ask if they are declaring an emergency if the controller hears a pilot says they are running out of fuel.
@sassytbc7923 he thought it had been declared. he didn't speak good English and as they explain in Columbia priority means 1st and they were saying they were running out. had air traffic just asked are you declaring an emergency the first officer may have realized the error in his aviation English and said yes
@@ArcaneSnowflake He should have relied on his training and used the word "mayday". I know for a fact it was brought up many times during these pilots training.
Air Traffick controler handling was "proper"? Oh really? The moment the pilot said, they are running out of fuel, he should have been granted emergency landing. End of story. ... but then again none of them could spot the damn' runway in that miserable weather. What an incredible tragedy. Awful, just awful. Hopefully the Airline compensated them somehow. That greedy attitude must stop once and for all... money money money is all they care for. Nothing changed so to see.. greed is still number 1 in the world for corporations so we have learned nothing so far. Thank you for the upload, xx..
Exactly. As I was listening I was thinking that ATC definitely screwed up. I was shocked at the conclusion that they were "blameless." Omg! Not in my view, that's for sure.
"The moment the pilot said, they are running out of fuel, he should have been granted emergency landing. End of story. " No, obviously not. ATC cannot see the fuel guages of the plane and depends entirely on what the pilots say. If the pilots don't declare a fuel emergency then ATC has no reason to assume that the plane is out of fuel. Yes the pilots said they were running low on fuel, but HOW low. "low" may mean that they cannot make it to their alternate airport anymore, which is not a problem when they are already close to their primary. It's not ATC's fault that the pilots did not declare an emergency, not even with handoffs; it's always the pilots who have to make sure that ATC knows about their situation. Assumption is the mother of all f-ups.
and not passing over info when transferring. it also seems very odd to me for them to find them completely blameless. That suggests they couldnt have improved any bit of their handling of the craft and well we all know that isnt true.
@@vinny142 Id agree with you except "we do not have the fuel to make our alternate" is an emergency. You dont have to see the gauge, you just have to know they dont have fuel to land at any airport but the one they are holding for now.
@@katecasta7364 It's not "because of one word". It's because the pilots didn't properly communicate that they were about to run out of fuel because they didn't speak English well enough. Saying "mayday" would've been the best, but even if the pilots had actually said "we only have about 10 minutes of fuel remaining" that would've helped as well...
I read the pilot spoke poor English… and the copilot never used/said the word EMERGENCY, when the pilot asked him to inform and talk to the control tower
I will never forget this plan crash. I was living in Syosset NY on Long Island and was home that night and the. Heard the ambulance sirens going off one after that other for several hours as they were bringing crash victims to the local hospitals as Syosset Hospital was one of them. I turned on the TV news and then saw what had happened. Never forgot it
How can they not find any fault with air controllers when they passed this plane off to 4-5 traffic controllers, but I didn’t hear 1 of them say they are low on fuel.
The pilots never declared an emergency. The word "mayday" was never used so there was never an emergency. Low fuel could mean an hour left of fuel. Rules written in blood is why atc deserves no blame, they didn't do anything wrong, a mayday was never declared, there was no emergency. Watch any other fuel related crash.
I see everyone is dead set on placing blame in one place. Truth is, blame lies all over. The airline for not requiring the Captain to understand and speak aviation English, the Captain for not properly reading the situation and diverting, the First Officer for being too timid and not conveying the EXACT nature of the situation, the flight engineer for not informing the Captain that they didn’t have enough fuel for a go-around, and the “no compromise” attitude of the airport managers. Not to mention the weather. There are always many factors that go into an incident. The “who’s to blame” attitude is for lawyers to argue in court. As long as we think in terms of whose fault it is, we’ll never learn the lessons from these incidents. The “Swiss cheese model” is the only acceptable way to describe and understand the consequences of each seemingly minor failure or deviation.
yeah, I'm not sure what about "we are out of fuel" and "two of our engines just went out" doesn't suggest a fuel starvation emergency. like really, you really needed them to say the words? you couldn't figure it out yourself?
@@seraphik Try rationalizing that while juggling a dozen other planes trying to land in the storm. "Mayday" is an emergency, "priority" is not. "Mayday fuel" has a procedure; loosely describing the situation without declaring emergency does not.
@@seraphik The rules and procedures are written in blood, "mayday" is the one and only word you can use to declare a top priority emergency. "Mayday Mayday Mayday, we are out of fuel" is all they needed to say and they would have landed safely. ATC deserves no blame, they followed procedure perfectly, the pilots completely ignored their training.
@@seraphik By the time the FO made those statements it was already well too late to save AF052. FO kept saying "low on fuel" and "priority" before first landing attempt which is not indicative to ATC of an emergency situation. The captain even directly ordered FO to declare an emergency, but for some reason he disobeyed that order. We'll never know why but him doing so was the fatal fault in this situation.
Caption should say it is Mayday. And make sure the 1st officer having delivery the Mayday message to control tower. When there is only 20 minutes fuel left with such weather condition and night condition.
I'm definitely with the crew on this one. But if you guys were to actually hear the flight voice recorder from the boxes retrieved. You would think that these Pilots are not even sweating their low fuel. They sound like it's a normal Sunday for them. They didn't sound like they were in an emergency at all when they were communicating with ATC
Honestly I'm with the ATC in this one, he never declared an emergency, and asking "priority" is kind of meaningless, (also they kind of screwed up when they claimed engine failure, but at that point was too late anyway" . Sure in the episode they say that in Spanish Priority is comparable to emergency, but I would argue that a pilot that isn't fluent in English shouldn't be allowed to make International flights regardless. Try to understand that when your juggling dozens of aircrafts you can't dissect every single sentence to understand what they mean, you need clear communication. If a Mayday was declared, all attention would be one you but it never happened. In the end it was tragic for everyone involved but the crew definitely dropped the ball.
@@AnonimatosTM Pilots are trained to use the word "mayday" if atc doesn't hear that word it isn't an emergency. If they said that one simple word they wouldn't have crashed, ATC deserves no blame.
What did they do wrong? The pilots never declared an emergency, "Mayday" was not used an emergency was not declared. As far as ATC new they were low on fuel, which could easily mean they had an hour left.
@@Tuturial464 If you say you are low on fuel, how am I supposed to know if you mean 5 seconds, minutes, hours or days left of fuel. In the aviation industry, they have decided if something is an emergency you use very specific wording so there is never any room for mis communication when the correct language is used. If the pilots said one word, "mayday" the ATC would have immediately known it was a dire time sensitive emergency, and would have diverted every plane that could divert, to make sure there was room and time for these pilots to land. EVERYONE who flies a commercial airplane is very well trained, and knows "mayday" is a magic word to get all the attention you need. Even if you use the word emergency, there is too much room for interpretation of how bad the emergency is. 3 hours of fuel is low at some airports because it means you won't make your alternate, but that means you can circle around the airport for 3 hours, so saying low fuel emergency means nothing. "mayday" means a lot, and every pilot knows what "mayday" means.
I must say this near constant frequency juggling at some large airports was certainly not inducive to clear headed problem solving. Basically every time you have to change frequencies you have to start back at square one with the controller and remember to recall everything you said previously that might be relevant in case of a problem. And that's on top of trying to troubleshoot / deal with the problem itself.
The controllers were negligent and unprofessional and needed to be fired. If I hear I am low in fuel, the next question from a controller should have been .... how low? having a few minutes left of fuel should have been clear that this was an emergency.
It is easy to second guess the pilots and atc actions. But in reality both parties were to blame. In my opinion the flight crew should have departed the initial holding pattern over Norfolk and proceeded to their alternate (Boston). But this would have cost the airlines a lot of money. You can point the blame at everyone involved, they all share the blame.
So long as pilots don't use "mayday", ATC is expected to do nothing else besides treat them like any other plane. That one word would have been enough to get them to land safely even if it meant closing the airport and forcing everyone else to divert. ATC followed procedure written in blood.
Peppermint Patty, when you do go to court wear that cheeky little strapless number, it'll take them a week to recover after seeing that edible lingerie showstopper.
Umbelievablr. You dont assume when in an emergancy. First words out of pilots mouth when switched to second controller shoukd have been WE ARE ABOUT TO RUN OUT OF FUEL. Communication man. Dont count on somebody else. And why so timid?? Its like theyre aftaid of the atc.
No, first words should've been "mayday, fuel emergency". No "about to run out of fuel". Some airlines require the pilots to declare a fuel emergency when they have less than 30 mins fuel left, IIRC. So the fact that these guys didn't do that probably made ATC think they had more than that left.
This is one of my favorite episodes of this series. The acting is particularly well-done. The story is an absolute tragedy and was 100% preventable. This is a failure of training - the majority of the failure being with flight 052’s crew, I think a lot of folks forget that the Spanish word for “emergency” sounds very much like “Emergencia”. Sounds like “emergency” to me. Not identical, no, but…when the captain asks if the first officer has declared emergency…it was clear he had not, because he never said it in English or Spanish…and the captain would have heard the FO’s transmissions to ATC. Even if he didn’t understand a word of English, “emergency” is so similar in both languages that I still think it’s a failure on the captain’s part. Mayday means the same thing regardless of the language. Also, flying into U.S. airspace requires at least a working knowledge of English - enough to use the radio and understand the terminology used. Yep, “mayday” and “emergency” are pretty high up there on the list of “basic terminology used”. Blaming the crew 100% or ATC 100% is wrong. The crew made some serious blunders. So did ATC. However, the crew shoulders *most* of the blame. JFK is one of the busiest airports in the world, it’s well-known that pilots have to be especially assertive on the radio with controllers in that area. The controller didn’t understand your message? He didn’t appreciate the urgency? Then *say again*. Make it clear. Don’t assume that every piece of info about your flight has been relayed to the next controller you’re handed off to. Pushing ATC into a corner with the “make this work despite the weather” was basically asking for a disaster. They’re already at 100%. Things get missed. The first officer and captain share the majority of the blame. The crew should have declared a fuel emergency *when they no longer had enough fuel to make it to their alternate.* That’s when the use of the term “priority” would have been appropriate. The crew also did not ask for weather information or routing to their alternate (or any other airport) during their holds *or at any other point during the flight*. This is a serious breakdown and failure on the crew’s part. They know how much fuel they have left and they have a general idea of burn rates. Nope, it’s not “Mayday” (yes, the correct procedure is to say it 3 times), but “Emergency” conveys very similar urgency.
The ATC system that passes planes from one controller to another is a terrible design. On top of that pilots are asked to switch frequencies. It's as if someone purposely want to stress the pilots.
The fault lies with the boss higher up telling the controllers that they need to put those planes down no matter what, instead of just closing airspace and telling everyone to go to their alternate routes. The weather was nowhere near correct or good enough for planes, and the stress every pilot had to go through was lucky no more planes got into an accident and more loss of life. I bet one of those planes got damaged by not being able to see and not being able to do much, just pray and hope it's not your time or the people on that plane. But all this could have been avoided if not for the boss putting stress on the tower, then on the pilots and the crew that had to walk and get into an accident with the plane being unstable or the tower being more honest and telling them that the weather is bad, that the hold was at least an hour, and that most pilots that tried to land failed and had to go around. Like that, the captain has more options and not thinking that they were most likely good and most likely his boss for the company that he flies for gets some type of wright down for going to a alternate route specially main route was open and he had fuel so he would’ve been told. Why didn’t he wait? They all ways blame the bottom of the chain and then the top gets some type of talk but nothing like the person just trying to follow rules and protocol
There is a big difference between. We are running out of fuel and We are out of fuel...pilots should had said. We have less than X amount of fuel and we need to land lake yesterday or we are going to crash in less than X amount of minutes...
What is so shocking or surprising about this? They ran into a lot of holds on the way north, the crew didn’t have a good command of the English language, CRM was non-existent. This would have been addressed if they just declared an emergency or diverted to an alternate.
If this was in the 80s it was probably Ronald Reagan's deregulation you know the senile King the president that made Donald Trump King to the Republicans anyway
That was the most ridiculous part of this. I’m not an air controller and have little knowledge of how it works but I can’t imagine being in a position where it was life and death and just passing it off to the next guy and grabbing a sandwich.
I was on a flight once with unreal turbulence and mechanical failures. (I'm male) There was a younger woman traveling alone in the seat beside me. When things got wild, all the passengers were loud with oohs and ahhhs and some laughter like they were riding a roller coaster. When things got really scary, you could hear a pin drop. Everyone looked at each other and seemed to be prayerful. I was really nervous. I asked the noticeably scared woman in the seat next to me if she wanted to hold my hand. She smiled and said "no, I'll be okay". I replied "Can I hold your hand then?". We held hands until the emergency was over. I was embarrassed but we both were comforted. I don't care what anyone thinks 🙂
The most important thing about every job is that it is your job to do what is necessary for the success and pay of the business. Error upon error can be found throughout the entire process of the flight.
I think the issue is that, in my experience in the US, "priority" is used like asking for something special like asking to go first before others. HOWEVER I THINK WHEN SOMEONE SAYS "WE ARE OUT OF FUELWE CANNOT HOLD" the whole OUT OF FUEL part is more important.
They were too passive, should of told them cried to them they had no f fuel for the last 30 mins instead of trying to play it cool not to bother the controllers
Imagine you can't call "help" and the ambulance crew uses that as an excuse not to rescue you. So much for the ATC, the pilots did call for help, but not loudly enough. It is ridiculous to let them get away with this psychopathic behavior.
This may be the most direct video of an aircraft accident aftermath. It's absolutely haunting hearing the screams of agony and cries for help immediately following a crash. It's so much worse than you think from other accidents where detailed info of immediate accident is much more detached.
I fully blame the air traffic controllers for this, they were overloaded and knew it and should have sent everyone they could to their alternates... saying your running out of fuel is a clear indication you need to be taken seriously.
I flew more than 20.000 hrs on DC10 and B747, several hundert flights into USA airspace. Included 7 go arounds due to poor separation by ATC. One missed approach at 500 ft in LAX, advised by ATC, gave us heading north and 1500 ft, leading towards the mountains without further instructions, we turned away to the sea by ourself, maintaining visuell separation. Another in MIA, if I remember right, it was into RWY 12, the tower controller sounded very stressed, at around 1000ft we saw an aircraft going into 08R, crossing our track. We leveled off, called for missed approach. standard procedure was not flyable due to the traffic. So we flew 1000ft altitude and heading 180 and advised ATC about that. No answer from the tower, except "Stand By", there where lot´s of traffic, we kept visuell separation . After a while another controller showed up a leeds us around. We accepted that "sorry", because we knew about the stress of these people. I think it´s critical, to say the least. The situation of that AVI 052, send to hold from one controller to the other, without given a EAT on which you can calculate on was still existing years later. IF you have bad wether ahead you always take some extra fuel/flight time. If you go to the USA let it be at least 1 hour. And set your deadline, at which you proceed to a safer place. Most impotent: be happy if you work with an airline where you decide what to put in the tanks, and not a dispatcher. and with an airline that has the policy that a go around in case of doubt is always the best decision. And where you can say I don´t accept a plane without Autopilot.
It started at the very top when they said land 33 planes an hour in extreme weather conditions. At that point they were just trying to make their numbers look good instead of taking into account all those people's lives that were at stake. THEY WERE AROGANT AND NEGLIGENT. And then it was the air traffic controllers and poor communication from them to the pilots during the handoffs it was appalling. When someone tells you "I am low on fuel" you better take that serious I don't know how they could forget something like that. A lot of people failed that flight. Pilot and co-pilot are blameless, although the Navigator could have communicated in a more urgent matter the gas situation.
I blame the pilot, but mostly I blame the traffic controller for not passing on the priority message that were fuel. Also think that the pilot should’ve had the copilot tell them different person. They spoke to they were low on fuel.
ATC did nothing wrong, the pilots never declared an emergency. In aviation they use very exact language to avoid communication because the procedures and rules are written in blood. It has been decided and all pilots and ATC who can fly in the US or Europe are trained, if it is an emergency, you use the word "mayday" if you don't hear "mayday" it isn't an emergency. Watch any other crash where they run out of fuel. "mayday mayday mayday, we are out of fuel" = plane lands safely. "low fuel priority" = plane crashes. Every pilot knows "mayday"
*Controversy* The probable cause of the crash was determined by the NTSB to be "the failure of the flight crew to adequately manage the airplane's fuel load, and their failure to communicate an emergency fuel situation to air traffic control before fuel exhaustion occurred." However, two NTSB members filed dissenting opinions in the report. Jim Burnett voted against the adoption of the report because he felt it did not adequately address the failures of the air traffic controllers or the FAA's role in allowing more traffic than JFK could handle. Christopher Hart filed a partial dissent because he disagreed with the report's findings of a lack of standardized terminology. In his dissent, he wrote that "we do have standardized understandable terminology ... that would have adequately communicated the existence of a dangerous situation, and the problem was that the pilots failed to use this terminology with the controllers". Colombia's DAAC investigators also disagreed with some of the NTSB's findings. In a comment on a draft of the NTSB's report, the DAAC recommended that the NTSB place some responsibility on the controllers for their "inadequate handling" of the Avianca flight. The DAAC also recommended that the NTSB encourage modifying the EFC system, and that FAA regulations should require an "active flight-following system" to assist flight crews in evaluating weather and traffic delays.
Not enough gasoline, poor weather conditions, communication was not good at all and the tower boss demanding something that they all knew was not a good idea, it’s the recipe for a disaster waiting to happen!!!
It is up to airline companies to train their pilots on laws and regulations in every country whose airspace they enter. It also should have been drilled into their heads that the word "emergency" and/or "mayday" should be used in this type of situation. It is not up to the hosting country's controllers to know what other words might be synonyms in other countries.
There's 2 Questions About This 1. Why Are They Flying With Dangerously Level Of Empty 2. Why Traffic Controllers Keeps Them Waiting If They Knew That's Dangerously To Land On The Pin Airport Not Divert It To The Nearest Where The Plane Located
What arbitrarily! There was more responsibility placed on the Controllers than the crew. However, in 99% of cases when pilots don’t survive, justice tends to lean towards blaming them. 😕
Considering the chaos on the ground, the irresponsible management, and the total lack of assertiveness in the cockpit, this was a disaster waiting to happen. All the Avianca crew had to do was call out a mayday, and all the controller had to do was telling them; "sorry we cannot help you down safely" and direct them to Boston.
Definition of priority: the quality or state of coming before another in time or importance. 2. : a condition of being given attention before others. this project has top priority….that along with “we’re running out of fuel” means emergency ‼️
I was flying in the area that day. I ended up at my alternate. I've been in that stack as well as many others in the area. From a technical perspective, everyone could have done better. It's Better not to blame any one person, but there were a lot of mistakes, and a lot of changes need to be made. On the subject of the wind shear. That particular shear is quite common in the NY area. We used to fly through it quite a bit. We knew what to expect and how to react, and it was still very difficult.
This is on the crew. When they realized there’s bad weather and were on hold for a while, they should have looked at diverting to be safe. Boston doesn’t seem like the closest or safest diversion as the weather is usually similar to NYC. There’s Baltimore, Philadelphia, and other airports they could have diverted to on time and avoid the stress of running out of fuel, which is probably one of the worst situations for a plane. And you accept to take off with the autopilot broken?
I'm surprised that these planes don't have reserve fuel- fuel that is seperate from the rest and if you cut into this fuel you are automatically emergency status- and in trouble with the boss. Surely captains would rather get time off than crash the plane... Surely.
There is something to this effect in the actual fuel planning/flight planning. There's Alternate Fuel, Reserve Fuel and a Contingency %. The Alternate fuel is the fuel remaining at which point the pilots must abandon the initial destination and head to their alternate, in this case was Boston, however it seems the pilots were overwhelmed by the holds and naturally reserved from the intimidating nature of the US controllers, by the time the Flight Engineer started calculating the fuel needed for the alternate and asked about delays into Boston, it was already too late and now they were committed to landing at JFK or a surrounding airport to which that wouldn't have helped because the weather in the entire Northeast was attrocious that night
This episode is so frustrating for me I did not even finish it. Corporate greed is rearing ugly and the employees are just the unwilling scapegoat so the victims' families cannot blame them.
💯 percent airport 🛫 controller at fault, and their manager pushed them to take more flights with the bad weather conditions. Flight crew performed very well and can't be blamed. So sad people lost their life because of running out of fuel ⛽️ and poor job from air controls.
I just can't imagine flying on fumes, when I'm in my car and I'm sucking vapour I lose my mind trying to get to the nearest gas station.
This is a whole new level of fckn crazy.
The fault lies with the boss higher up telling the controllers that they need to put those planes down no matter what, instead of just closing airspace and telling everyone to go to their alternate routes. The weather was nowhere near correct or good enough for planes, and the stress every pilot had to go through was lucky no more planes got into an accident and more loss of life. I bet one of those planes got damaged by not being able to see and not being able to do much, just pray and hope it's not your time or the people on that plane. But all this could have been avoided if not for the boss putting stress on the tower, then on the pilots and the crew that had to walk and get into an accident with the plane being unstable or the tower being more honest and telling them that the weather is bad, that the hold was at least an hour, and that most pilots that tried to land failed and had to go around. Like that, the captain has more options and not thinking that they were most likely good and most likely his boss for the company that he flies for gets some type of wright down for going to a alternate route specially main route was open and he had fuel so he would’ve been told. Why didn’t he wait? They all ways blame the bottom of the chain and then the top gets some type of talk but nothing like the person just trying to follow rules and protocol
When the little gas light goes on, it scares me. Doesn't help that my cars tank/float is busted so the fuel dial doesn't indicate properly at low fuel.
when i was younger and less enriched I ran on fumes today I will not drive with less than a half tank.
This was the most stressful episode by far! Both ATC and pilots could have done things differently, but I feel especially bad for the pilots. They didn’t want to die. They didn’t want to crash.
The fault lies with the boss higher up telling the controllers that they need to put those planes down no matter what, instead of just closing airspace and telling everyone to go to their alternate routes. The weather was nowhere near correct or good enough for planes, and the stress every pilot had to go through was lucky no more planes got into an accident and more loss of life. I bet one of those planes got damaged by not being able to see and not being able to do much, just pray and hope it's not your time or the people on that plane. But all this could have been avoided if not for the boss putting stress on the tower, then on the pilots and the crew that had to walk and get into an accident with the plane being unstable or the tower being more honest and telling them that the weather is bad, that the hold was at least an hour, and that most pilots that tried to land failed and had to go around. Like that, the captain has more options and not thinking that they were most likely good and most likely his boss for the company that he flies for gets some type of wright down for going to a alternate route specially main route was open and he had fuel so he would’ve been told. Why didn’t he wait? They all ways blame the bottom of the chain and then the top gets some type of talk but nothing like the person just trying to follow rules and protocol
It's certainly up there. I think THE most stressful episode is Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961. That was another out-of-fuel situation, but rather than weather and miscommunication, it was caused by hijackers forcing the pilot at gunpoint to fly somewhere they couldn't reach.
@@jorgeaspera The pilots never use the word "mayday" every pilot is trained to use the word "mayday", the atc had no reason to believe an emergency was occurring because "mayday" was never called.
@@MegaLokopo I know all about this flight. I live right near the accident. I wasn't alive near it, but I live right near it. It ran out of fuel and it was so dark outside so that they didn't see a hill. It crashed in oyster Bay Cove, Long Island, New York.
@@MegaLokopo and the pilots never called Mayday because they never saw the hill. It was too dark outside outside. They had no reason to call Mayday because they never knew they were going down.
This is absolutely THE worst, most frustrating air crash that should never have happened...bar none! Every time they were handed off to a new controller, I cringed and wanted the crew to tell "No! We are not going to hold! We're out of gas!" They at least should have called "Mayday!" That being said, what part of "we are running out of gas!" did controllers not understand??
They were trained differently in Colombia. All pilots should learn aviation English so something like this doesn't happen again. Mayday Mayday Mayday fuel emergency should have been said by the pilots.
@@sharmilasoomair568 I agree! Although I honestly don't blame the pilots as much as the ATC. The controllers should have realized the dire situation the flight was in the second they said they were running out of gas and should not have kept placing them in a holding pattern.
@@scootermom1791 The pilots said that they were running out of fuel and to make them a priority. They never said Mayday Mayday we have an emergency so ATC couldn't tell that that something was wrong. If they had used the word EMERGENCY and tell them that they can't be put on hold anymore, only then,ATC would have given them clearance to land. Once something is wrong and the pilots need to land an airplane, they must say we have an emergency Mayday Mayday Mayday..
The fault lies with the boss higher up telling the controllers that they need to put those planes down no matter what, instead of just closing airspace and telling everyone to go to their alternate routes. The weather was nowhere near correct or good enough for planes, and the stress every pilot had to go through was lucky no more planes got into an accident and more loss of life. I bet one of those planes got damaged by not being able to see and not being able to do much, just pray and hope it's not your time or the people on that plane. But all this could have been avoided if not for the boss putting stress on the tower, then on the pilots and the crew that had to walk and get into an accident with the plane being unstable or the tower being more honest and telling them that the weather is bad, that the hold was at least an hour, and that most pilots that tried to land failed and had to go around. Like that, the captain has more options and not thinking that they were most likely good and most likely his boss for the company that he flies for gets some type of wright down for going to a alternate route specially main route was open and he had fuel so he would’ve been told. Why didn’t he wait? They all ways blame the bottom of the chain and then the top gets some type of talk but nothing like the person just trying to follow rules and protocol
@@jorgeaspera there were a lot of factors involved that led up to this accident. The thing I don't like about the outcome of the investigation is that ATC AND the people in charge of ATC weren't held accountable for their actions either.
Honestly I’m with the crew on this one. They made it absolutely clear to the controllers that they were dangerously low on fuel and they needed priority but the controllers just brushed them off.
The only thing I criticize the pilots for is that they should have called a mayday and declared an emergency after the missed approached. That plus no fuel and the weather that’s too many cheese holes.
It was made clear to the first controller but NOT the second and third controllers.
No unfortunately as a pilot I can’t agree. The crew did not use the required terminology they were trained to use to get the urgent response they wanted. In the end it’s 100% the pilots fault for not diverting before they couldn’t
Agree They should of given a MAY DAY AS IN THIS IS AN EMERGENCY
@@robertgary3561so priority is not the same as Mayday or emergency? So since he didn't say Mayday, he houldn't use his common sense to know priority means emergency? Some of born with your language don't even understand it
@@godloves1821 But it doesn't mean that. Precise language is essential.
yes go on blame the pilots instead of the head managers who forced the airport to remain open and recieve a dangerous number of planes
They didn't ask for weather. They didn't properly declare a fuel emergency. They didn't communicate the urgency of their landing to the tower controllers and they didn't divert. There are sins on every side of this situation, but yeah, the lion's share goes to those pilots. If you don't have enough personal integrity to stand up and forcefully state what your situation is and then make decisions when you still have time to divert and you have no business being the pilot of even a general aviation aircraft much less commercial.
The pilots clearly deserve SOME (not all, to be sure) of the blame. As has been said over and over in these investigations...accidents are the result of a combination of events/factors.
@@thebarkingmouseyea everyone is at fault. Maybe they shouldnt be pilots but the airline blaming them alone is crazy. Money is on the line for these companies and they just roll with it.
This is just a swiss cheese model situation
@@turbofanloverI’m in
They had plenty of fuel when the they left. The continuing circling set their fate in motion. The pilots lack of aggressively telling them they need to land NOW, didn’t help. This crash never should have happened. The bosses wanting over 30 an hour in inclement weather started all the crap happening. I hope they paid dearly.
It’s amazing how good the acting is on these docs. It’s on display in this doc alone this cockpit is believably 3 Colombian commercial pilots. The air traffic control was good too.
Oh but the script is so bad. Unless they’re quoted from a voice recorder the script doesn’t sound like we talk at all. And runway numbers are always said wrong
@@robertgary3561 they usually use the cvr recordings in mayday for the pilot actors script so high chance it is what they actually said
@@dbzdrag0n they seem to dumb it down and certainly add drama. We don’t sound panics. But there are no two digit numbers in aviation. No runway “thirty two” only runway “three two”.
@@robertgary3561 Air France Flight 447 is all need to be said. You know people are different and can act very different in intense situation despite of how well trained they are.
This by far was the hardest episode to watch, I’ve never been so frustrated and terrified watching any of these
In July 1990, Avianca offered $75,000 to each crash survivor or the relatives of those killed. The U.S. government eventually joined Avianca and reached a settlement estimated at over $200 million in damages to the victims.
The same summer, Avianca flights declared two notable fuel emergencies. The first happened in June, when a flight declared a "minimum fuel situation" and landed with only 10 minutes' worth of fuel left. The second happened in August, when Avianca Flight 020 declared it had "only 15 minutes of fuel left". Confusion arose as to what the pilot meant, but controllers declared an emergency pre-emptively and cleared the plane to land immediately. The flight was later found to have had over two hours' worth of fuel remaining.
That last story 😂
Hmmm…
Maybe they should train their pilots to speak and understand better Eng?! 🥺
Basically, Avianca's training was sub-standard?
Better safe than sorry. Better have an unnecessary emergency than a crash.
Always play it safe.
We lived out on Long Island and sitting by out pool on summer nights we watched all the planes in holding patterns. It wasn't a calm feeling.
controllers can also declare an emergency, if they think it's necessary.
The controllers could have asked the pilots if they are declaring an emergency just to be on the safe side.
The controllers should have known that holding so many planes in so many holding patterns due to weather might cause a possible low fuel conditions on some of those planes. So it would be prudent to ask if they are declaring an emergency if the controller hears a pilot says they are running out of fuel.
The pilot could have declared an emergency as well.
@sassytbc7923 he thought it had been declared. he didn't speak good English and as they explain in Columbia priority means 1st and they were saying they were running out. had air traffic just asked are you declaring an emergency the first officer may have realized the error in his aviation English and said yes
Running low on fuel doesn't sound like an emergency. Mayday mayday mayday we have a fuel emergency would get ATC to react differently.
@@sassytbc7923 The point of the argument isn't to make the pilots blameless, it's to point out how ATC wasn't completely blameless in this scenario.
@@ArcaneSnowflake He should have relied on his training and used the word "mayday". I know for a fact it was brought up many times during these pilots training.
Air Traffick controler handling was "proper"? Oh really? The moment the pilot said, they are running out of fuel, he should have been granted emergency landing. End of story. ... but then again none of them could spot the damn' runway in that miserable weather. What an incredible tragedy. Awful, just awful. Hopefully the Airline compensated them somehow. That greedy attitude must stop once and for all... money money money is all they care for. Nothing changed so to see.. greed is still number 1 in the world for corporations so we have learned nothing so far. Thank you for the upload, xx..
Exactly. As I was listening I was thinking that ATC definitely screwed up. I was shocked at the conclusion that they were "blameless." Omg! Not in my view, that's for sure.
In aviation we have key words. We have to say “emergency” or “mayday”. You can’t be ambiguous and assume controllers understand the level of urgency.
"The moment the pilot said, they are running out of fuel, he should have been granted emergency landing. End of story. "
No, obviously not. ATC cannot see the fuel guages of the plane and depends entirely on what the pilots say. If the pilots don't declare a fuel emergency then ATC has no reason to assume that the plane is out of fuel.
Yes the pilots said they were running low on fuel, but HOW low. "low" may mean that they cannot make it to their alternate airport anymore, which is not a problem when they are already close to their primary.
It's not ATC's fault that the pilots did not declare an emergency, not even with handoffs; it's always the pilots who have to make sure that ATC knows about their situation. Assumption is the mother of all f-ups.
and not passing over info when transferring. it also seems very odd to me for them to find them completely blameless. That suggests they couldnt have improved any bit of their handling of the craft and well we all know that isnt true.
@@vinny142 Id agree with you except "we do not have the fuel to make our alternate" is an emergency. You dont have to see the gauge, you just have to know they dont have fuel to land at any airport but the one they are holding for now.
The words of one of the survivors at the very end are so powerful and emotional.😭💔
yeah, specially the last one... can't believe a plane would crash just because of one word. pretty crazy.
@@katecasta7364 It's not "because of one word". It's because the pilots didn't properly communicate that they were about to run out of fuel because they didn't speak English well enough. Saying "mayday" would've been the best, but even if the pilots had actually said "we only have about 10 minutes of fuel remaining" that would've helped as well...
I read the pilot spoke poor English… and the copilot never used/said the word EMERGENCY, when the pilot asked him to inform and talk to the control tower
I will never forget this plan crash. I was living in Syosset NY on Long Island and was home that night and the. Heard the ambulance sirens going off one after that other for several hours as they were bringing crash victims to the local hospitals as Syosset Hospital was one of them. I turned on the TV news and then saw what had happened. Never forgot it
But syosset is far away from jfk
How can they not find any fault with air controllers when they passed this plane off to 4-5 traffic controllers, but I didn’t hear 1 of them say they are low on fuel.
The pilots never declared an emergency. The word "mayday" was never used so there was never an emergency. Low fuel could mean an hour left of fuel. Rules written in blood is why atc deserves no blame, they didn't do anything wrong, a mayday was never declared, there was no emergency. Watch any other fuel related crash.
I see everyone is dead set on placing blame in one place. Truth is, blame lies all over. The airline for not requiring the Captain to understand and speak aviation English, the Captain for not properly reading the situation and diverting, the First Officer for being too timid and not conveying the EXACT nature of the situation, the flight engineer for not informing the Captain that they didn’t have enough fuel for a go-around, and the “no compromise” attitude of the airport managers. Not to mention the weather. There are always many factors that go into an incident. The “who’s to blame” attitude is for lawyers to argue in court. As long as we think in terms of whose fault it is, we’ll never learn the lessons from these incidents. The “Swiss cheese model” is the only acceptable way to describe and understand the consequences of each seemingly minor failure or deviation.
Tru dat
I find at the end of the day they love to favor pilot error.
@@nadineb2726Gets a lot of people with money off the hook.
@@nadineb2726 yeah, it’s cheaper for corporate, I guess.
Yup, this right here. The justice system is more concerned about finding someone to blame than fixing the problem at hand.
how to avoid ATC communication breakdowns... MAYDAY MAYDAY we're coming in for an emergency landing !!!
First officer definitely screwed up ......but there's also blame on the traffic control center as well
Exactly.
yeah, I'm not sure what about "we are out of fuel" and "two of our engines just went out" doesn't suggest a fuel starvation emergency. like really, you really needed them to say the words? you couldn't figure it out yourself?
@@seraphik Try rationalizing that while juggling a dozen other planes trying to land in the storm. "Mayday" is an emergency, "priority" is not. "Mayday fuel" has a procedure; loosely describing the situation without declaring emergency does not.
@@seraphik The rules and procedures are written in blood, "mayday" is the one and only word you can use to declare a top priority emergency. "Mayday Mayday Mayday, we are out of fuel" is all they needed to say and they would have landed safely. ATC deserves no blame, they followed procedure perfectly, the pilots completely ignored their training.
@@seraphik By the time the FO made those statements it was already well too late to save AF052. FO kept saying "low on fuel" and "priority" before first landing attempt which is not indicative to ATC of an emergency situation. The captain even directly ordered FO to declare an emergency, but for some reason he disobeyed that order. We'll never know why but him doing so was the fatal fault in this situation.
Caption should say it is Mayday. And make sure the 1st officer having delivery the Mayday message to control tower. When there is only 20 minutes fuel left with such weather condition and night condition.
Being critically low on fuel should have been emphasised earlier on and with more urgency by the crew.
I'm definitely with the crew on this one. But if you guys were to actually hear the flight voice recorder from the boxes retrieved. You would think that these Pilots are not even sweating their low fuel. They sound like it's a normal Sunday for them. They didn't sound like they were in an emergency at all when they were communicating with ATC
Honestly I'm with the ATC in this one, he never declared an emergency, and asking "priority" is kind of meaningless, (also they kind of screwed up when they claimed engine failure, but at that point was too late anyway" .
Sure in the episode they say that in Spanish Priority is comparable to emergency, but I would argue that a pilot that isn't fluent in English shouldn't be allowed to make International flights regardless.
Try to understand that when your juggling dozens of aircrafts you can't dissect every single sentence to understand what they mean, you need clear communication.
If a Mayday was declared, all attention would be one you but it never happened.
In the end it was tragic for everyone involved but the crew definitely dropped the ball.
@@AnonimatosTM Pilots are trained to use the word "mayday" if atc doesn't hear that word it isn't an emergency. If they said that one simple word they wouldn't have crashed, ATC deserves no blame.
ATC in the USA is below worldwide standards. And they know it.
The controller who knew they were in an emergency and passed them off to the other guy is truly evil.
One word for ATC:
Incompetence
What did they do wrong? The pilots never declared an emergency, "Mayday" was not used an emergency was not declared. As far as ATC new they were low on fuel, which could easily mean they had an hour left.
@@MegaLokopothey can’t understand what an emergency is then it’s their own fault. Do I need to tell you how to eat soup with a spoon
@@Tuturial464 If you say you are low on fuel, how am I supposed to know if you mean 5 seconds, minutes, hours or days left of fuel. In the aviation industry, they have decided if something is an emergency you use very specific wording so there is never any room for mis communication when the correct language is used. If the pilots said one word, "mayday" the ATC would have immediately known it was a dire time sensitive emergency, and would have diverted every plane that could divert, to make sure there was room and time for these pilots to land. EVERYONE who flies a commercial airplane is very well trained, and knows "mayday" is a magic word to get all the attention you need. Even if you use the word emergency, there is too much room for interpretation of how bad the emergency is. 3 hours of fuel is low at some airports because it means you won't make your alternate, but that means you can circle around the airport for 3 hours, so saying low fuel emergency means nothing. "mayday" means a lot, and every pilot knows what "mayday" means.
I must say this near constant frequency juggling at some large airports was certainly not inducive to clear headed problem solving. Basically every time you have to change frequencies you have to start back at square one with the controller and remember to recall everything you said previously that might be relevant in case of a problem. And that's on top of trying to troubleshoot / deal with the problem itself.
Thiss igs of the most tense episode I’ve heard on this channel
You should watch the 1999 little rock AA flight 1420 episode .
The controllers were negligent and unprofessional and needed to be fired. If I hear I am low in fuel, the next question from a controller should have been .... how low? having a few minutes left of fuel should have been clear that this was an emergency.
The pilots should have used "May Day"
isnt this infuritating ffs, he has mouth, use the mouth and declare the freaking emergency!
It is easy to second guess the pilots and atc actions. But in reality both parties were to blame. In my opinion the flight crew should have departed the initial holding pattern over Norfolk and proceeded to their alternate (Boston). But this would have cost the airlines a lot of money. You can point the blame at everyone involved, they all share the blame.
So long as pilots don't use "mayday", ATC is expected to do nothing else besides treat them like any other plane. That one word would have been enough to get them to land safely even if it meant closing the airport and forcing everyone else to divert. ATC followed procedure written in blood.
Everyone of these people have me so angry I want to file a lawsuit.
😹😹😹
😂😂😂😂😂
Peppermint Patty, when you do go to court wear that cheeky little strapless number, it'll take them a week to recover after seeing that edible lingerie showstopper.
Umbelievablr. You dont assume when in an emergancy. First words out of pilots mouth when switched to second controller shoukd have been WE ARE ABOUT TO RUN OUT OF FUEL.
Communication man. Dont count on somebody else. And why so timid?? Its like theyre aftaid of the atc.
No, first words should've been "mayday, fuel emergency". No "about to run out of fuel". Some airlines require the pilots to declare a fuel emergency when they have less than 30 mins fuel left, IIRC. So the fact that these guys didn't do that probably made ATC think they had more than that left.
This is one of my favorite episodes of this series. The acting is particularly well-done. The story is an absolute tragedy and was 100% preventable. This is a failure of training - the majority of the failure being with flight 052’s crew,
I think a lot of folks forget that the Spanish word for “emergency” sounds very much like “Emergencia”. Sounds like “emergency” to me. Not identical, no, but…when the captain asks if the first officer has declared emergency…it was clear he had not, because he never said it in English or Spanish…and the captain would have heard the FO’s transmissions to ATC. Even if he didn’t understand a word of English, “emergency” is so similar in both languages that I still think it’s a failure on the captain’s part. Mayday means the same thing regardless of the language. Also, flying into U.S. airspace requires at least a working knowledge of English - enough to use the radio and understand the terminology used. Yep, “mayday” and “emergency” are pretty high up there on the list of “basic terminology used”.
Blaming the crew 100% or ATC 100% is wrong. The crew made some serious blunders. So did ATC. However, the crew shoulders *most* of the blame. JFK is one of the busiest airports in the world, it’s well-known that pilots have to be especially assertive on the radio with controllers in that area.
The controller didn’t understand your message? He didn’t appreciate the urgency? Then *say again*. Make it clear.
Don’t assume that every piece of info about your flight has been relayed to the next controller you’re handed off to.
Pushing ATC into a corner with the “make this work despite the weather” was basically asking for a disaster. They’re already at 100%. Things get missed. The first officer and captain share the majority of the blame.
The crew should have declared a fuel emergency *when they no longer had enough fuel to make it to their alternate.* That’s when the use of the term “priority” would have been appropriate.
The crew also did not ask for weather information or routing to their alternate (or any other airport) during their holds *or at any other point during the flight*.
This is a serious breakdown and failure on the crew’s part. They know how much fuel they have left and they have a general idea of burn rates.
Nope, it’s not “Mayday” (yes, the correct procedure is to say it 3 times), but “Emergency” conveys very similar urgency.
The ATC system that passes planes from one controller to another is a terrible design. On top of that pilots are asked to switch frequencies. It's as if someone purposely want to stress the pilots.
The fault lies with the boss higher up telling the controllers that they need to put those planes down no matter what, instead of just closing airspace and telling everyone to go to their alternate routes. The weather was nowhere near correct or good enough for planes, and the stress every pilot had to go through was lucky no more planes got into an accident and more loss of life. I bet one of those planes got damaged by not being able to see and not being able to do much, just pray and hope it's not your time or the people on that plane. But all this could have been avoided if not for the boss putting stress on the tower, then on the pilots and the crew that had to walk and get into an accident with the plane being unstable or the tower being more honest and telling them that the weather is bad, that the hold was at least an hour, and that most pilots that tried to land failed and had to go around. Like that, the captain has more options and not thinking that they were most likely good and most likely his boss for the company that he flies for gets some type of wright down for going to a alternate route specially main route was open and he had fuel so he would’ve been told. Why didn’t he wait? They all ways blame the bottom of the chain and then the top gets some type of talk but nothing like the person just trying to follow rules and protocol
There is a big difference between. We are running out of fuel and We are out of fuel...pilots should had said. We have less than X amount of fuel and we need to land lake yesterday or we are going to crash in less than X amount of minutes...
no, what they should have said is "mayday mayday mayday, fuel emergency, we have 30 minutes of fuel left, we will not make our alternate"
What is so shocking or surprising about this? They ran into a lot of holds on the way north, the crew didn’t have a good command of the English language, CRM was non-existent. This would have been addressed if they just declared an emergency or diverted to an alternate.
He put them on "indefinite holding" lol... Like they had indefinite fuel 😂 they shouldn't use that word in aviation where fuel is not granted...
I agree. ATC is highly unprofessional, even dangerous.
I agree the person who forced them to take on so many flights should also be held accountable
Air traffic control not taking accountability is insane. Like they were clearly saying there was an emergency. They should be held accountable
Agree, air traffic controllers did not take it seriously
Why did the controller leave his plane when there was an emergency
If this was in the 80s it was probably Ronald Reagan's deregulation you know the senile King the president that made Donald Trump King to the Republicans anyway
I know this joke, because his shift was over?
That was the most ridiculous part of this. I’m not an air controller and have little knowledge of how it works but I can’t imagine being in a position where it was life and death and just passing it off to the next guy and grabbing a sandwich.
He has to live with that the rest of his life
@@jaimesantiago1751 He might as well have flown into the sky, bust through the fuselage and just hosed all those people himself.
Why would there not be a federally mandated procedure to close airports in sufficiently bad weather? It would prevent so many accidents.
@@MegaLokopo $$$
@@leiderhosen7110 True.
I was once on a plane landing at JFK through a blizzard on a cold December night. It was quite scary!
Not gonna lie I wish they would upload videos with the Air Emergency narrator.
Agree
I was on a flight once with unreal turbulence and mechanical failures. (I'm male) There was a younger woman traveling alone in the seat beside me. When things got wild, all the passengers were loud with oohs and ahhhs and some laughter like they were riding a roller coaster. When things got really scary, you could hear a pin drop. Everyone looked at each other and seemed to be prayerful. I was really nervous. I asked the noticeably scared woman in the seat next to me if she wanted to hold my hand. She smiled and said "no, I'll be okay". I replied "Can I hold your hand then?". We held hands until the emergency was over. I was embarrassed but we both were comforted. I don't care what anyone thinks 🙂
The most important thing about every job is that it is your job to do what is necessary for the success and pay of the business.
Error upon error can be found throughout the entire process of the flight.
I think the issue is that, in my experience in the US, "priority" is used like asking for something special like asking to go first before others. HOWEVER I THINK WHEN SOMEONE SAYS "WE ARE OUT OF FUELWE CANNOT HOLD" the whole OUT OF FUEL part is more important.
They were too passive, should of told them cried to them they had no f fuel for the last 30 mins instead of trying to play it cool not to bother the controllers
Imagine you can't call "help" and the ambulance crew uses that as an excuse not to rescue you.
So much for the ATC, the pilots did call for help, but not loudly enough.
It is ridiculous to let them get away with this psychopathic behavior.
how can people blame the pilots lmao it's so obvious the controllers and the managers completely neglected safety
This may be the most direct video of an aircraft accident aftermath. It's absolutely haunting hearing the screams of agony and cries for help immediately following a crash. It's so much worse than you think from other accidents where detailed info of immediate accident is much more detached.
Totally irresponsible behavior from the ATC to the pilot.
I've just prevented that aircraft from crashing! Just pause the video around 13min. Save lives!
The article well written qnd spoken. Thank you.
A lot of incompetence on display in this one. A whole lot of mistakes made on all sides in my opinion, including the controllers.
I fully blame the air traffic controllers for this, they were overloaded and knew it and should have sent everyone they could to their alternates... saying your running out of fuel is a clear indication you need to be taken seriously.
I flew more than 20.000 hrs on DC10 and B747, several hundert flights into USA airspace. Included 7 go arounds due to poor separation by ATC. One missed approach at 500 ft in LAX, advised by ATC, gave us heading north and 1500 ft, leading towards the mountains without further instructions, we turned away to the sea by ourself, maintaining visuell separation. Another in MIA, if I remember right, it was into RWY 12, the tower controller sounded very stressed, at around 1000ft we saw an aircraft going into 08R, crossing our track. We leveled off, called for missed approach. standard procedure was not flyable due to the traffic. So we flew 1000ft altitude and heading 180 and advised ATC about that. No answer from the tower, except "Stand By", there where lot´s of traffic, we kept visuell separation . After a while another controller showed up a leeds us around. We accepted that "sorry", because we knew about the stress of these people. I think it´s critical, to say the least. The situation of that AVI 052, send to hold from one controller to the other, without given a EAT on which you can calculate on was still existing years later. IF you have bad wether ahead you always take some extra fuel/flight time. If you go to the USA let it be at least 1 hour. And set your deadline, at which you proceed to a safer place.
Most impotent: be happy if you work with an airline where you decide what to put in the tanks, and not a dispatcher. and with an airline that has the policy that a go around in case of doubt is always the best decision. And where you can say I don´t accept a plane without Autopilot.
Good grief, between ATC and Pilots I can't believe the incompetence.
It started at the very top when they said land 33 planes an hour in extreme weather conditions. At that point they were just trying to make their numbers look good instead of taking into account all those people's lives that were at stake. THEY WERE AROGANT AND NEGLIGENT. And then it was the air traffic controllers and poor communication from them to the pilots during the handoffs it was appalling. When someone tells you "I am low on fuel" you better take that serious I don't know how they could forget something like that. A lot of people failed that flight. Pilot and co-pilot are blameless, although the Navigator could have communicated in a more urgent matter the gas situation.
I blame the pilot, but mostly I blame the traffic controller for not passing on the priority message that were fuel. Also think that the pilot should’ve had the copilot tell them different person. They spoke to they were low on fuel.
ATC did nothing wrong, the pilots never declared an emergency. In aviation they use very exact language to avoid communication because the procedures and rules are written in blood. It has been decided and all pilots and ATC who can fly in the US or Europe are trained, if it is an emergency, you use the word "mayday" if you don't hear "mayday" it isn't an emergency.
Watch any other crash where they run out of fuel. "mayday mayday mayday, we are out of fuel" = plane lands safely. "low fuel priority" = plane crashes. Every pilot knows "mayday"
*Controversy*
The probable cause of the crash was determined by the NTSB to be "the failure of the flight crew to adequately manage the airplane's fuel load, and their failure to communicate an emergency fuel situation to air traffic control before fuel exhaustion occurred." However, two NTSB members filed dissenting opinions in the report. Jim Burnett voted against the adoption of the report because he felt it did not adequately address the failures of the air traffic controllers or the FAA's role in allowing more traffic than JFK could handle. Christopher Hart filed a partial dissent because he disagreed with the report's findings of a lack of standardized terminology. In his dissent, he wrote that "we do have standardized understandable terminology ... that would have adequately communicated the existence of a dangerous situation, and the problem was that the pilots failed to use this terminology with the controllers".
Colombia's DAAC investigators also disagreed with some of the NTSB's findings. In a comment on a draft of the NTSB's report, the DAAC recommended that the NTSB place some responsibility on the controllers for their "inadequate handling" of the Avianca flight. The DAAC also recommended that the NTSB encourage modifying the EFC system, and that FAA regulations should require an "active flight-following system" to assist flight crews in evaluating weather and traffic delays.
I love how the actors even have east coast accents. It's little things like that, that make this series so enjoyable.
Pilot should have contacted earlier that fuel was low.
US businesses are always trying to avoid accountability.
It's not just US. It's worldwide!
It's not just US. It's worldwide!
Not enough gasoline, poor weather conditions, communication was not good at all and the tower boss demanding something that they all knew was not a good idea, it’s the recipe for a disaster waiting to happen!!!
What part of Low on fuel/Out of fuel did the traffic controllers not understand?
This crash is entirely on THEM.
Its the jfk controllers fault, the pilot has been flying manually more than 6 hours
It is up to airline companies to train their pilots on laws and regulations in every country whose airspace they enter. It also should have been drilled into their heads that the word "emergency" and/or "mayday" should be used in this type of situation. It is not up to the hosting country's controllers to know what other words might be synonyms in other countries.
There's 2 Questions About This
1. Why Are They Flying With Dangerously Level Of Empty
2. Why Traffic Controllers Keeps Them Waiting If They Knew That's Dangerously To Land On The Pin Airport Not Divert It To The Nearest Where The Plane Located
What arbitrarily! There was more responsibility placed on the Controllers than the crew. However, in 99% of cases when pilots don’t survive, justice tends to lean towards blaming them. 😕
How incompetent were the air traffic controllers. First officer should have said mayday. What where they thinking:(
Considering the chaos on the ground, the irresponsible management, and the total lack of assertiveness in the cockpit, this was a disaster waiting to happen. All the Avianca crew had to do was call out a mayday, and all the controller had to do was telling them; "sorry we cannot help you down safely" and direct them to Boston.
Definition of priority: the quality or state of coming before another in time or importance. 2. : a condition of being given attention before others. this project has top priority….that along with “we’re running out of fuel” means emergency ‼️
I was flying in the area that day. I ended up at my alternate. I've been in that stack as well as many others in the area. From a technical perspective, everyone could have done better. It's Better not to blame any one person, but there were a lot of mistakes, and a lot of changes need to be made. On the subject of the wind shear. That particular shear is quite common in the NY area. We used to fly through it quite a bit. We knew what to expect and how to react, and it was still very difficult.
That little girl 😢
In 2001 there were couple of planes that went missing in New York if i remember correctly. It was quite a big deal.
Pilots should not feel hesitant about declaring an emergency. Declaring an emergency too late is much worse than declaring it too early.
It seems the fuel injectors inside the fuel tanks would be positioned more gravity friendly considering it's an aircraft.
@@tamiiymchristine exactly!!
Communication issues, it was sad 😢
This is on the crew. When they realized there’s bad weather and were on hold for a while, they should have looked at diverting to be safe. Boston doesn’t seem like the closest or safest diversion as the weather is usually similar to NYC. There’s Baltimore, Philadelphia, and other airports they could have diverted to on time and avoid the stress of running out of fuel, which is probably one of the worst situations for a plane. And you accept to take off with the autopilot broken?
No New York should have diverted all flights.
Well I hope there's a better system by now to prevent long holding patterns! 😮
There's not.
The manager is to blame for this.. not the crew😢😢😢, they should have used may day though 😮
I'm shocked that both D.C. and New York screwed up!
Total air traffic fault poor
Greed. Love of money.
👍At the end of the day The love of money is the root of all eevil
What about Washington that told them to land all 33 planes
23:43 First Officer Mauricio Klotz: which means we'll have hamburger tonight
Captain was right - he should use a word "emergency" and he never use it.
But in English "priority" never means emergency...
Good example of why people need to have enough spine to tell their bosses no
I'm surprised that these planes don't have reserve fuel- fuel that is seperate from the rest and if you cut into this fuel you are automatically emergency status- and in trouble with the boss. Surely captains would rather get time off than crash the plane... Surely.
There is something to this effect in the actual fuel planning/flight planning. There's Alternate Fuel, Reserve Fuel and a Contingency %. The Alternate fuel is the fuel remaining at which point the pilots must abandon the initial destination and head to their alternate, in this case was Boston, however it seems the pilots were overwhelmed by the holds and naturally reserved from the intimidating nature of the US controllers, by the time the Flight Engineer started calculating the fuel needed for the alternate and asked about delays into Boston, it was already too late and now they were committed to landing at JFK or a surrounding airport to which that wouldn't have helped because the weather in the entire Northeast was attrocious that night
Corporate greed is the 1st to blame.
ATC end of shift operator's 2nd.
Illiterate captain 3rd.
I can see how this so-called air controller is being too neglected...and thus this crash happened only because of them😢
This episode is so frustrating for me I did not even finish it. Corporate greed is rearing ugly and the employees are just the unwilling scapegoat so the victims' families cannot blame them.
Why don't the controllers just tell pilots there are 39 planes ahead if them & give them the info to make the decision to divert to another airport?
Or advise the planes to divert right away because of unsafe conditions?
Air traffic controllers are not well trained to handle intense situations like this. This is what this episode proves.
Actually pilots are wrong they must shout we are in emergency!! Mayday Mayday Mayday in such situation
Only if you're dealing with deaf obstinate American ATC personnel.
This as a combination of factors that made the plane crash..
It was as easy as to just declare an emergency
They did.
Being out of fuel IS an emergency. Duuhhh
Hopefully JFK learned what priority means 😡 it is very upsetting 😔
💯 percent airport 🛫 controller at fault, and their manager pushed them to take more flights with the bad weather conditions.
Flight crew performed very well and can't be blamed.
So sad people lost their life because of running out of fuel ⛽️ and poor job from air controls.
typical american airport authority, take loads of flights but can't maintain them properly!