This Pilot Was Not Fit To Fly (British European Airways Flight 548) - DISASTER BREAKDOWN
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- Опубліковано 10 лип 2024
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Twitter: / chloe_howiecb
On the outskirts of London, exists the town of Staines-upon-Thames. With a population of 18,000 it is far from the most well-known place in the United Kingdom but on June 18th, 1972, this small town was thrusted into the national spotlight. The town of Staines became the scene of what was and still is to this day, the deadliest air disaster to occur on British soil. British European Airways Flight 548 crashed just minutes after take-off. It was supposed to be a short flight, one of less than an hour to Brussels, so what went wrong? Well for that we need to rewind the clock that day which brings us to Heathrow Airport? So how did things end up in disaster so quickly? It would turn out, there are many layers to this story. But before we get there, we need to have a quick talk about the plane involved.
#aviation
Sources:
www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/4-197...
www.pilotfriend.com/disasters/...
www.britairliners.org/airline...
www.nhs.uk/conditions/atheros...
www.baaa-acro.com/crash/crash...
www.pprune.org/archive/index....
www.baesystems.com/en-uk/heri...
• Trident three G-AWZI
• Video
• Hawker Siddeley Triden...
If you found this video to be interesting, be sure to subscribe as there is a new video every Saturday. This video also went out to my Patrons on Patreon 48 hours before going out publicly. Consider joining here from £1 per month: www.patreon.com/DisasterBreakdown
Twitter: twitter.com/Chloe_HowieCB
I loved this video
I liked this video because you gave extensive description of the crew resource management issues that caused the crash. Essentially, overriding a lot of the safety features that were installed in light of the BAC 1-11 prototype crash was a huge contributing factor in this tragedy.
I REALLY enjoyed how you teased the next episode at the end! Not always possible to link incidents, but I really hope you do more of that moving forward. 😁
Aunt Barbara adores you!
What is the other accident? The only other 2 I know are lockerbie in 1988 and british midland a few weeks later in 1989, and this is my own country! lol. If there were any more other than that involving full size airliners, that would be interesting to know about. I pretty sure we haven't had any more major airliner crashes on british soil since 1989 which is an incredible record (unless someone wants to correct me?)
Imagine being on a plane that is crashing and having to come to terms with the fact that your last few hours on earth were spent in Heathrow
😂😂😂
Wow! Just wow! In tears. Just how???
@@jonimestas9692 Well you see, they went to the airport in Heathrow, and then they died.
Dude 😂
☠️💀
Back in the day, I flew on that first flight, a Trident, to use Autoland. The Captain, calmly, and in an understated British way, said, welcome to London Heathrow Airport. I am pleased to announce that this beautiful aircraft just landed itself...
That must have been awesome. I live in the US so the only British planes I ever encountered were BAE146 and concorde but I miss the trident, bac111, etc
BA used to announce "this was an autolanding" for quite a while until it either got boring or the jobsworths at BA thought it might upset the nervous...
We DID have many manufacturers who designed and built some of the most beautiful and technologically advanced aircraft in history but, unfortunately for us, Boeing don't like competition and they did and still do, everything they can to get rid of its competition. 🇬🇧✌️
@@gooner72 Not everything. They still maintain a culture of profit over safety and deliver unsafe aircraft. They subcontract everything (including quality control). Notice the focus on the manufacturers of the 737 door plug? They have found a way to make safety the responsibility of others. We still don't know what happened, but that's Boeing's current business model. Mark my words - the 787 Dreamliner is next. I believe it's the most widely subcontracted aircraft in the world, and no one has the ability to oversee all of its quality control, least of all the FAA. It's a cheap and profitable way to make a plane, and a great way to avoid responsibility when Boeing can say they didn't manufacture the part that failed.
@@gooner72 Boeing built better aircrafts, thats why they outsold the competition. Nobody forced anyone to buy 727s, they bought them because they were the superior aircraft. And they made money. They built 1,832 of them!
Everybody, including Airbus, outsources aspects of an aircrafts construction. eg: Pratt & Whitney makes the engines for the 727, not Boeing.
The 737-max was perfectly well built, but the carriers weren't training their pilots the right way to handle the new safety systems.
Its the carriers responsibility to follow procedures correctly. After all, Boeings not in the airline business, they're in the airplane building business.
So stop hating on Boeing. The De Havilland Comet exploded in midair on a pretty much regular basis. Why? Because it was poorly designed, perhaps by the same guys who designed the Jaguars electrical systems back in the 60s. It also got rushed forward prematurely, unlike the 707, DC-8, and Convair-880.
Depending on just how worked up the captain got it's quite possible that he was still caught up in the argument which distracted him. I remember in an old job, a manager who had it in for me called me into the building as I was leaving to attend a meeting, just to chew me out over a non-issue. I was furious replaying the incident over and over in my head, so much so that I didn't notice a stop sign and almost crashed.
I have read other accounts of this disaster and one of them said that a witness overhearing the argument stated that it was among the most violent outbursts he had ever heard, or something to that effect. As you alluded to, something like that does not just go away in a short period of time, and definitely affects your normal thought processes and concentration.
@@johnstudd4245 Agree, I read similar, Capt. Keys was extremely angry and red-faced from the encounter .
@johnstudd4245 and in that situation if his crewmates noticed him making a mistake thry might have been afraid to speak up, or he could have reacted with anger to being warned instead of listening to them.
@@tullyDT Not just fearful to speak up, but they were part of the argument also. They could very well have been just as disturbed as the Captain.
As a long distance truck driver I can confirm that misunderstanding and quarrels can indeed affect your ability to control your truck and end up making mistakes which you wouldn't normally do.
I'm relieved that near misses helped me through these rare occasions and my lucky escapades certainly warned me of the unforeseen hazards of my job. Pity about this incident though.
I remember that in 1980 I was a senior manager with a major American company when we had a presentation on this accident. There are a couple of points that I remember being mentioned. The first one was that there was a relief pilot sitting towards the rear of the passenger cabin, who upon realising what was happening as regards the stall he apparently ran the whole length of the aircraft in an attempt to assist. His body was found near or in the cockpit. On a more personal level, there was a party of very senior surgeons from Scotland who were on the flight attending a conference in Brussels. The cream of Scottish surgeons was wiped out that afternoon.
The accident had a similar impact in Ireland. Due to the cancellation of the direct flight from Dublin to Brussels that day, some passengers were rerouted to Heathrow and onto the fatal flight. Among the Irish victims were almost the entire senior staff of the Confederation of Irish Industry, also on their way to a conference in Brussels.
Hello Ian, I think the relief pilot (Captain Collins) was in the jump seat in the cockpit. His position over the centre console in the wreckage was thought by some to suggest that he tried to intervene. He was a qualified Trident pilot who was currently flying Viscounts.
@@greatwestern101 Correct
Drunk Scottish surgeons. No thanks.
I drink Whiskey tonight to honor surgeons 😅🤯👍
Here I am as a retired airline Captain and I’m still learning something new. I was not familiar with the Trident. I was impressed by the fact that it was the first auto land certified airliner and it had that style yoke which I first encountered in the Embraer Brasilia. The moving map display was also a surprise.
It was an advanced plane for its day. I flew in one several times as a passenger. It was comfortable and fast by today’s standards. I got to experience its auto-land capability flying into Heathrow once. I couldn’t see the ground until it was over the runway and about to land. No other aircraft was moving in or out of Heathrow that day.
I was a F/A and used to fly 727-100s and 200s. DC-8s and DC-10s, 747SPs, and 707s. The 727 100's tail stairs saved DB Cooper and an inflight airflow lock was installed.
I just saw another clip after a failed take-off due to flaps never deployed and the Capt said on a following flight "To all flap watchers, they are set to xxxx".
Another safety feature on checklists further down in many cases but initiated early in some accidents was the APU and TOGO for an engine failure or bird strike. They always seem to come up on a check list anyhow but if one already experienced a failure sequence check list the safer results showed them engaged before the checklists are even retrieved.
I had lost an engine on a DC-8 so I knew when our 767 had lost an engine after takeoff. #1 was burning the fuel in the lines left after shutdown and usually burnout but I called the C/P in front of the Pax watching the flames and asked how long should we wait to fire the engine's fire suppression that only works once and won't douse fuel. "2 minutes" was the instruction.
mentourspilot.com on UA-cam is an excellent source for flight accident reviews and a learning experience for me.
Suppose a commercial carrier had to land at an an alternate with too short of a runway to take off from after safely landing. Pax are safe and rerouted via regional prop jets but the commercial jet when grounded is losing money.
Can a jet with reverse thrusters on at the runway start with blocks in back of the tires achieve enough thrust when the buckets are removed? With no pax and a light fuel load to a nearby airport would a possible slingshot boost be feasible?
@@dthomas9230 It would depend on the weight whether the aircraft had enough runway to take off safely. If it couldn’t, then it would have to be taken apart and trucked out. There have been cases where this has happened. As far as this boost you are talking about, no.
@@ual737ret I saw a cable launch booster for aircraft on carriers and now rockets in place of solid booster initiation so the rocket is already flying when the propellant ignites with more thrust as less weight from the solid fuel tank.
Cable shooting a commercial plane has its own issues unless it had a hook or planned on flying with the nose gear down once it is used for cable launch.
If the runway was like CLT on a mountain top you're already airborne at the end of the runway.
Taking the wings off and cargo IS best. But, running the numbers with thrust at full before releasing brakes and the reverse thrusters I thought the engine would require less time to reach full speed, (planes don't burn rubber like dragsters, but powering up and timing how long to take off speed from initial Take off roll would be an interesting exercise with various configurations.
Plus, if a 40 mph headwind was planned in 24 hours, would they take the wings off?
Thanks for the reply.
I lived near Staines as a child when this happened. It caused traffic chaos for days. The wreckage seemed to be there for ages, and long afterwards it was a horrible reminder each time we drove past. Thanks for covering this one.
Unfortunately, something that you will never forget.
I lived in Stanwell, 9 years old, mad on aeroplanes. Remember driving with parents past the crash scene next to the reservoir on many occasions. Pure luck it did not crash into populated areas and kill many more people on the ground..
I lived quite nearby, I was 7 when it happened, I vaguely remember the traffic, as the A316 to M3 wasn't a dual carriageway at that point, it was public trying to get there to see the crash site.
I too saw the wreckage, a week later, As I took the rail air link bus from Woking to Heathrow. Not something you want to see on the way to catch a flight.
It was behind the Crooked Billet. Rubberneckers caused chaos and held up the emergency services.
British planes of the 50s and 60s may not be best sellers, but they pioneered some tech we know today
That map thing was pretty interesting. GPS was years away when the Trident was developed. The only way that I could imagine that function working is that the aircraft used dead reckoning to figure out where it was. If it knew what direction it was going and how fast it was going (ground speed not airspeed) then the aircraft's computer could figure out where the plane was.
This is similar to how early missile guidance systems would work.
How could they possibly compete with the economic might of the USA. Back then they literally had something like 50-60% of global wealth.
Its auto-land ability was, for the time, freaky.
This plane seems like a British equivalent of the L1011.
NOT REALLY THE BRITS ARE BAD ABOUT NOT THINKING THINGS OUT.
I'm from Staines (for my sins), and my parents saw that crash happen. They were coming back from visiting local family, driving along exactly that section of Staines Bypass (the major road next to the crash site). They didn't see the plane in the air, but were rocked by what seemed like a huge bomb going off, and saw a massive fireball. It was only later that they realised the full extent of what had happened. They've never talked about it much. Thanks for covering it so comprehensively.
your wrong there, there was no fireball in fact there was only a small fire quickly put out the fire service thatwas alresdy on the scene when that occurred
@@derekmorgan9250 Hmm... maybe they remembering it wrong. By the time it came up in conversation it was something that had occured 40 years before.
Deffo no explosion....False memories I'm afraid.
@@derekmorgan9250 Why would there have been no fireball?
@@Bob31415 pure luck I guess .
This is an excellent reconstruction. I also reviewed the summary on Wikipedia, with a special interest as to the patient's coronary disease, or what I suppose they were referring to as coronary disease. Speaking as a cardiologist, there was no way anyone could tell whether the captain was having any chest pain or any other effects from this coronary disease at the time of the accident unless there was clear evidence on the autopsy that he had suffered an actual acute heart attack, which I did not see any report of. Apparently he had not complained of any symptoms to anyone previously. Just because he had an altercation prior to the flight and he also had atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries does not allow one to conclude that a cardiac event was responsible for his poor performance. This appeared to be just speculation. It seems far more likely that he allowed his judgment to be clouded by the blowup with the flight officer and the toxic relationship with younger crew members.
I agree theres too much health speculation surrounding the captain. Such coronary matters were discovered post mortem / hypothesis / and were never directly attributed to the crash. The evidence that there was some kind of psychosocial occurrence going on is considerable on the other hand, though after successive reconstructions its begun defaulting to a heart attack at the stick. Some people tend to enter a reification concerning age / cum natural selection disorientation. In that sense maybe it is part of selection for some to hate older persons under the miscomprehension that getting old is so far away for them that it virtually doesn't take place at all (lol). Time will stretch out infinitely for them and loss of youth just never gets there. Whilst in Europe ? - frankly theres been decades of social engineering aimed at helping the young to reify like that & thus see a way to blame the old. When one thinks about it the ideology that 'youth' is not fixed length but indeterminate is a tempting bribe if stated in sublime ways under highly funded circumstances of sovereign state propaganda. Although ? - its the young persons prerogative to feel like this because its a natural feeling & human paradox ( its normal ) And this is what social engineers exploit a great deal - they know people can be activated by being manipulated via these emotions. The current cultural marxist manipulation that preys on the weaker mind is having a bit of a field day with all its sociological tools in fact, but its a human paradox involving real feelings nevertheless.
Perhaps true to remark that nature always will produce numbers who detest older people more and will struggle with such emotion. If so its a big problem combined with establishment determination to continuously update its models decade on decade that stir it up - all well and good. In an aeroplane though when such hate is even scrawled around the cockpit it doesn't harbinger well AT ALL! Also there would be obstacles concerning hypocrisy as age haters tend to demand other inequality removed where it suits them while concurrently THEY are inequality & judge mentalism machines against a chosen target. For that matter ageism is surely the most self loathing and cowardly target of all. So natural selection bites back very hard at times & the ultimate repayment is ageing to all it just stands to reason therefore is a very self destructive path. The basic fact is that the age phenomenon is inescapable & the elites stole the young people wealth & well being. How despicable it is that much lost was spent with psychological companies teaching those who were robbed not to know who by!
The universe has a great sense of humour in these ways as only nature knows how to dispense Equality of Justice & it'll be a pigs ear under politicians. There's no such thing as a hate free lunch such as the UK is trying to make possible right now - NO such thing whatsoever. Theres older people cognitively crashing all over Britain under the stress of being hated because after all 'they caused all the problems' didn't they ?. Key didn't - & no ordinary person like him did. Reasonable people know that ordinary people without wealth have no power or control over what ruins any life with regard to public wealth and policy. The elite have done whatever they wanted whilst quite ignoring the will of the people.
We all best be careful what we wish for just as this crew had best at that time. Its everyones turn to be accused of ruining young peoples lives one day because the elite who take the wealth ( that impairs ALL young lives ) make sure that the older non affluent get the blame!!. Theres been a different version of it in every decade since the end of WW2 & the 70's version was almost as vicious as '2020's' essentialist dystopian model of hating the 'old'. While what is said of the ancient greek experiments with misanthropy ? The masses find out in the end that they were taught to hate anyone in the underclasses including themselves.
The crew procedures were bad, the accident report identified widespread deliberate dangerous actions and basic errors throughout the BEA Trident fleet, healthy pilots were involved. One captain claimed that when asked 50% of inexperienced first officers would disconnect the stick shaker/pusher at the first sign of its activation.
This is a very reasonable comment. There does not seem to be any actual evidence that he had a heart attack or that he was experiencing extreme pain. That is indeed speculation.
There was a series called Air Crash Investigation that went into this crash in great detail, including the forensics. It might be on You Tube if you search for it. Fight to the Death was the name of the episode.
@@johnhead1643 Indeed. As an RAF WWII pilot he would have been a young pilot himself, working with other "tweenage" pilots, taking risks - not as much as the Poles, however - and watching 14 young RAF pilots die or be captured every week. So I don't see "ageism" from his side. The fact that hostile graffiti was in the flightdeck for two weeks is worrying...didn't they clean the planes, or bring that to someone's attention? 1972 was a "rebellious" period in history and "our chaps" were used to mutual respect. I wonder if he had a couple of cognacs after the altercation...we will never know now...but really really sad...
Years ago we did a fire course, the fireman doing the course attended this accident. He said he saw passengers strapped in dead, as though asleep. All suffered basically broken necks or internals.
I grew up just a couple of miles from the crash site. I was 18 at the time. It was horrific. One of the first responder medics later became a good friend. He was so traumatised that he could not work again. But later, I really grew to love flying on the Trident. A beautiful aircraft, but prone to heavy landings. I also flew Trident on an early autoland flight into Heathrow. So smooth you could barely feel touchdown.
A great video as always. I think it was really a mix of everything: tensions in the cockpit, the captain suffering a heart failure etc. Of course, we're all humans with our biases, grudges and emotions, but in the ideal world those should stay outside of the cockpit.
There were survivors from the crash but sadly due to sightseers blocking the roads in Staines the ambulances struggled to get through.
Oh
Not true.
Media created Urban Myth.
Road closed, cars drove onto grass to allow emergency services access.
It’s scary isn’t it!
How much of Our Deeply Held Personal Beliefs And Factual Information turns out to be simply the imaginations of tabloid journalists. People who are paid to create entertainment and a diversion from more relevant information.
Do you think that had anything to do with why they died? Did that come from The Sun?
It’s not true. I’ve read numerous accounts of this accident and this was fabricated by a certain newspaper, whose integrity and truthfulness are known to be non-existent. @@beenaplumber8379
According to the Sun, a coach full of Liverpool fans arrived at the crash site and urinated on the victims.@@beenaplumber8379
You covered a complex accident extremely well with this one.
nah, he literally messed it up at every turn, half of it was made up.. I mean, there's no such place as Brittin. Whateven place is that even at all? cmon
@@brovid-19 dude? 😳
@@brovid-19 tired joke
@@brovid-19 Based
I was in hospital in 2019 when another patient in the same ward told me about this accident his best man at his wedding was cabin crew on this flight he said he never got over losing such a close friend
Very sad
Also, something that needs to be talked about more these days, is age-related vascular dementia. Two of my family members had it. It's a slow clogging of the arteries to the brain, thus gradual oxygen deprivation in the brain. It's insideous, and people adjust to it somewhat and thus minimize the effects, and it's much less striking than other dementias. Personality changes are a hallmark of the start. People often become more extreme in their political and religious beliefs or change them altogether, or just more of what's already there, like anger, perhaps violence, depression, paranoia, and denial. And forgetfulness, of course, but not too noticeable at first. Also inflexiblility, unable to adjust to a changing world. High cholesterol, smoking, and heart disease are risks, as along with heart issues, other blood vessels are affected/clogged similarly. These days, they can easily clean out the build-up in the neck arteries. It can be detected by ultrasound, I believe. Getting the senior to have these simple procedures is often difficult, though.
You've described the symptoms that I - unknowingly - have but now know. Thank you. I'll endeavor to see my doctor about this if I can get an appointment, that is.
I wanted to make sure that this was never my problem and more than thirty years ago I became plant-based and I juice and avoid junk food and so forth
lol this reads like the rant of a young hippie accusing any older conservative of being demented due to vascular oxygen deprivation.
Hah, you had me for a minute! Good one!
Yep took my grandpa recently he was normal until like 6 months before then went off a cliff. He couldn't even talk at the end its horrible
One thing not mentioned in the video was that the stick pusher had shown a large number of false activation over many months prior to this accident. My father was also a Captain on Trident at that time. When I asked him why he thought the stick pusher had been turned off he pulled out his log book and was able to find 5 or more incidents where he had experienced a false activation. In the first of those he explained that there was no way to disable it and that he and the co-pilot, between them, were only just strong enough to hold the controls back during their emergency return and landing. They each had one foot braced against the dash leaving one foot each to activate the brakes. After this (i believe) a valve was fitted such that the hydraulic pressure could be released.
My father believed that during this flight the Captain assumed the stall warning to be false whilst being unaware of the slats being withdrawn. It does not however answer why he did not hit the throttles (to hell with noise abatement) in response to the low airspeed.
In later years BA introduced 'failure to respond' scenarios into simulator sessions where a member of the crew were taken aside before the simulator 'flight' and asked to behave unnaturally at a certain point to see how the rest of the crew dealt with it.
The crash report said there were a small number of stick shaker errors but after the initial debugging after introduction the stick pusher was almost 100% reliable and analysed pilot disagreements were down to the pilot not being aware of their configuration and performance errors. The report did not paint that generation of pilots in a good light, there were a lot of similar near incidents.
What an awesome idea for crew training! Is an unnaturally behaving crew member an emergency? I mean, in an aircraft that requires at least two crew members, I would imagine the loss of one of them (for whatever reason) would mean discontinuing the flight ASAP.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 almost 100% reliable is not convincing for a failsafe of this nature. I would not be comforted by that if I were a pilot
@@jd980 The report put the safery improvement firmy on the side of the hardware, do you doubt that in all probability pilot error killed all those passengers and the crew? Keeping your passengers safe is a pilot's ultimate priority and duty.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 no why do you ask
I remember the Trident and even flew aboard several to and from Yugoslavia during my family trips to Yugoslavia in the 70s. My last flight on a Trident was in August 1981 from Zagreb to LHR. I sat on one of the rear-facing rows just ahead of the wing on the right-hand side. She was an excellent plane and a loud one at that.
I vividly remember when this happened, even though I was only a child at the time. It was such a needless accident, so easy to avoid. CRM has come a long way since then.
I have a feeling CRM only became a thing much much later...
I want to say after Tenerife, which seems a few decades after the Tridents in my mind (though cannot be sure)
@@stanislavkostarnov2157 You are right. I didn’t mean to imply that this incident precipitated the CRM changes, just that a lot has changed in the intervening years. On the other hand, I am sure lessons were learned.
@@gosborg I wasn't saying you did, I am just pointing out, this was not even the beginning of the road for CRM...
was always amazed how much time it took for people to start moving in that direction...
I mean I do understand engrained want of hierarchy, top-dog and all, but still, they put the other pilots there for a reason!
The crash at Tenerife was in 1977 and it was one of many crashes at the end of the 70s and into the 80s which provided much impetus for CRM. @@stanislavkostarnov2157
I remember this accident vividly. I had just applied to British Airways as a trainee pilot and may have gone on to fly Tridents.
@Pat Luxor Really? What stopped you?
Do you mean BEA or BOAC maybe? British Airways was formed in 1974 from a merger of those two, this accident was in 1972.
At certain points in my career as an airline pilot, I was a witness to tension between picket line crossers and strikers. I can tell you that it made for tension on the flight deck between them and made for an unpleasant work environment.
Scabs always do. They profit from being a scab and then they profit from others taking strike action. They should be made to feel unwelcome.
@@baronburch6702 I never had any use for them.
there's a lot going on here, but you explained and kept it all in check perfectly! great video, as always :)
Thanks so much for watching!!!!
@@DisasterBreakdownthank you for working yourself off for this stuff! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Accidentally changing the aircraft’s configuration by grabbing the wrong handle and not being aware of it because everyone’s eyes were out of the cockpit, reminds me of the recent ATR crash in Nepal.
That was an outstanding video! I’ve been an air traffic controller since 2001 and really look forward to you new videos. Thank you for the time and effort that you put into this and every other video!!!
The irony of Key seeing strike action as unprofessional, only for him to very unprofessionally blow up at his colleague about the subject of strike action.
I don't blame him
My wife's parents were killed on BEA 548. We went to the 45th anniversary in Staines , Met Mike Bannister, the BEA chief concord pilot, and his wife, along with Nurse Frances, who was the first to arrive on the scene. We also met 2 of the news reporters who arrived on the scene right after the crash. Met several relatives who's family members perished on the flight. I always believed that Captain Key was a victim of circumstance, that his unknown heart ailment may have contributed to the crash, but his younger, immature colleagues were too inexperienced to correct or overcome the unfortunate chaos that happened on the flight deck. I feel, Captain Key was a good guy and great pilot, although he was the butt of jokes from the younger and inexperienced pilots below him. The younger pilots wanted to strike, the older pilots were more mature and just wanted to do their jobs. Good documentary, thanks...
Oh, my. Sorry about your wife's parents.
The situation in the airline at that stage was toxic, the strike action had pitted the junior pilots against their older more experienced captains and in Cpt. Keys case graffitti had been spotted on a Trident's engineering panel that stated that Keys felt he was god.
The other problem with the situation was that the Trident for all of it's advances to counter deep stall had issues with the air operated control systems and they did malfunction and were isolated in some cases, taken with the Naples Incident where an alleged mechanical malfunction or misuse of the droops had nearly caused a Trident to stall you had an aircraft that while it could land itself could in certain circumstances prove very tricky to keep flying.
Key's outburst prior to the flight was described by a witness as being one of the most violent and aggressive verbal attacks he had ever witnessed on someone, but credit must be given to Cpt. Keys for apologised to his victim before the ill fated flight took place.
I frequently pass by the crash site and always think of that incident and the people on that plane for whom there would be no escape as it was a totally avoidable and more to the point a totally preventable accident had the situation within the airline and within the cockpit been better managed
We were flying in a Northeast Trident that took off 5 minutes after, my late grandfather had dropped us at Heathrow and heard about the crash. It took a day before he found out it was BEA.
@@darreng745 A balanced and coherent assessment of the ethos in the company
Sending condolences to your wife. I can't imagine losing loved ones like that 😢
What an amazing vid!
The information and quality of the content in it is just as detailed as a air crash investigation episode. Definetly I will be watching your videos more often. Continue like that!
RIP to everybody aboard flight 548
I was 14yrs old and obsessed with aviation, living at the time in Pooley Green not far from Staines. Much of my time was spent in the garden with my fathers binoculars watching the planes coming over our house. I was doing this when I heard the impact and saw the smoke rise to the North of us.
Fantastic video and informative. I have mentioned before that my mum was in a local hospital in Staines in 1972. I would have been six at the time. I went with my dad to visit my mum on that Sunday and I commented to my dad, why were there so many emergency vehicles around. When we got home it was on the news what had happened.
I always think of this accident when I drive down the Staines by pass where it happened.
Thanks once again for the work you put into these videos.
To correct the record, the worst aircrash on UK soil was the Lockerbie incident on 21/12/88 killing all 269 onboard plus 11 on the ground.
Wasn't an accident though...😉
I was thinking the same thing. He said this was the worst incident twice. He said "in Britain" but Scotland is part of Britain. He would have been correct if he said "England".
Ok. I'm a bit obsessed with your channel. Once again, a flawless telling of another plane disaster. I love the background and history you provide and how you make the technical stuff easy to understand
I once worked with a lady in Human Resources who had posted for the job that I got. I was new to the company. She had been there for 2 years. At first she was very helpful. But then she asked my boss to fire me and place her in my role. He refused (yep, this is what he told me). That is when she stopped talking to or even answering me when I said "good morning." No eye contact from her either. This was her problem, not mine. One year later Covid-19 craziness happened, she saw that I was fully engaged in the role and doing well when it came to following sanitary protocols. Then one day, she began talking to me like nothing had ever happened. I followed suit. Again, this was not MY PROBLEM. She is a VERY intelligent person and performs very well. Has a great intuition too. Bad situation for a while. But, I think, mutual respect. That is what this flight crew was missing. Mutual respect.
Mutual respect can totally change contentious situations. It has become my golden rule.
Good for you in keeping things in that realm.
Fantastic video as always. I've seen several recaps of this accident and don't remember any others looking as closely at the pilot's potential health concerns, so I've learned something new!
The animation of the jet plummeting towards earth sent a major chill down my spine. Also, my gosh, what a toxic cockpit indeed.
toxic cockpits are a top concern of all aerolines, but things could be worse. imagine of someone's mis-gendered.
@@sheiladikshit5110 alright grandma, time for bed
@@sheiladikshit5110 like the chap creating these videos..? Haha
Thank you for this video. I was a child in London at the time of this disaster and remember being shocked hearing the news on that Sunday. I was very keen on aviation and patriotically proud of England’s pioneering innovative aviation industry, frustrated that the government had cancelled the amazing TSR2 fighter bomber, and therefore the thought of a Trident crashing on a weather-wise perfect day, was unimaginable. Thank you for so sensitively and so accurately presenting the facts.
It's pretty sad how such immature people can end up being responsible for other people's lives.
It's sad how people can grow into their 50s and still be so immature.
Some people truly do hate unions and it clouds there otherwise judgement.
I remember this 'story' breaking on the BBC 6 O'clock news the day it happened. I couldn't believe that a perfectly functional aircraft with three engines could stall and 'fall out of the sky' like that. I was only a child at the time. One of our neighbours happened to be a BOAC maintenance engineer. It seemed to be the only thing that he and my dad talked about for months afterwards.
I was 18 at the time, and remember this well. It was always referred-to as the "Papa India disaster", from the aircraft's last two registration letters (some of this video shots show this, others are of other aircraft). This video doesn't mention the stick shaker, which normally precedes the stick pusher, but the out-of-configuration state caused them both to happen together, compounding the startle effect and possibly causing the thought that the system was malfunctioning, leading to it being disconnected. Before this video I hadn't heard about the fact that they were well below the speed they should have been, as well as the droop retraction. Today's "you learn something every day" item. Great video.
An excellent video on this flight. This is one of my "favorite" accident but it is hardly covered by other informational websites, perhaps in my historical search there are only about 5 websites (including UA-cam Channels like yours) out of the hundreds that are out there that covers this accident.
Excellent work! Kudos to you for making this video.
I have to wonder whether Key was actually having a full-on heart attack, and the rest of the crew were trying to deal with too many things at once.
Go for the simple explanation first, a human error. We all have had almost accidents and nobody is perfect.
Oh goodness, I looked up the event I THINK you’ll be covering next week (1976?), and there’s so many layers to it, but talk about a disaster happening in the blink of an eye. Definitely a worthwhile one to talk about, though, since I haven’t seen any other major airline channel discuss this one. I know you’ll do it justice, Chloe. :) Wonderful job
And I think that you are in fact correct
I remember this accident. Sight-seers went and stopped nearby on the M4 motorway afterwards, some allegedly even took picnics.
A national newspaper the following day described this with the headline 'GHOULS'. Sickening behaviour.
Thanks for the high quality content once again! ❤️
I remember this so well.
I was a frequent 'spotter' with my air band radio at Heathrow.
My uncle flew the Comet .
Great video.
"Staines-upon-Thames" sounds like a town with a severe self-confidence problem. Like, c'mon, you're a fine little town, I bet, there's no need to call yourself a stain.
It changed it's name from Staines to Staines-upon-Thames in 2012 following an Ali-G comedy sketch shown on UK television during the 1990's.
Remarkable but true.
I used to pass Stains on the Reading - Waterloo line on my way to work in Richmond in a job I hated. Sadly every stop on that line has a negative memory in my mind lol
Damn, I was not expecting this and Aeromexico flight 498 to be the preceding episodes for the Zagreb mid-air collision, my guess back on the last week's comment section became a huge miss lol.
This and last week's Disaster Breakdown are very well done. I'll be looking forward towards next week's episode of Disaster Breakdown about the Zagreb mid-air collision.
Thanks for the video. I learnt some new things. I didn't know that the graffiti had probably been made 2 weeks prior. For some reason I thought it was scribbled just before the flight. I didn't know about the T-tail design having that stall quirk either. Yes, this accident is a perfect example of why a flight-deck voice recorder is needed.
This is the first time I have seen one of your videos. I'm so impressed with it, and of course I subscribed.
I remember this accident from the Mayday: Air Disasters show. I feel sorry for the old guy.
RIP everyone who died in that crash.
Old guy? He was in his early 50s. Which happens to be where I am now. He sounds like someone who learned something 100 years ago and that was it. Doesn't sound like a fun guy to be around no matter what your relationship
You arrogant pup! The man was 50 years old, hardly an 'old guy'.
You dont remember this accident since a show told you about it *****
I flew the Trident many times in the late 70's and early 80's. It is still the worlds second fastest commercial jet after Concorde. It was loud but always fun to fly in
Wasn't the Convair 880/990 slightly faster than the Trident?
@@nkt1 I think you may be right, there wasn't much in it. I know the Trident 3 was like a rocket
the sovjet concorde to
@@ThePapaja1996 That didn't do much though did it
@@nkt1 The 990 was a little faster in the cruise but our descent Mmo/Vmo profile had the edge at .88/365kts. Being able to deploy the outboard thrust reversers also gave some operational “flexibility” during descent!
Something I love about the trident is about the trident is that the nose gear is just off to the left and its entirely british. Its just the aircraft that will annoy anyone with ocd
A great disaster video, very well presented. There was no loud, intrusive music to distract from the narration.
Another one please!
I lived close to Heathrow and remember that crash, not far from my late Uncles home. At the time capt Ticehurst got a lot of blame re the flaps, but the mix was a perfect storm. I also remember the disgusting public who were looting the contents from the wreckage, close to the reservoir…. 50 plus years ago like yesterday.
My late Brother was a head designer on Concorde at Fulton but spent most of his time in France at Aero Spatiell Toulouse… that plane was tested far beyond all others, and it took as he said usually a pilot/ human error to cause accidents….which he investigated. Again there were some debatable issues on the plane, weight/ fuel being pushed to the limit, it was a combination of that.Concorde was his life’s main
I remember this accident very well because a friend and I rode our bikes to the crash scene. We both lived in Staines of course and were in the town when the plane came down so rode as fast as we could to where it came down. We knew the quickest way there. The emergency services were on the scene when we got there so couldn’t get too close but l do remember that we could quite clearly see the plane. Well what was left of it. My father worked for BEA at the time and was, if I remember correctly, on duty that day and it effected him quite badly. It was an extremely upsetting time for all the people involved especially the emergency services, BEA, Heathrow Airport and the people of Staines.
The Trident was nick-named "The Gripper" because of it's reluctance to take to the air. Longer versions of the Trident had a small fourth turbojet installed in the tail as can be seen in some of the great photos. An entire delegation of Irish industrial and exporting managers died in the accident.
Wow, great job of hyping up next week’s video. Fantastic video as always.
Another example of how important it is to have respectful communication between colleagues. I've listened to a lot of these reports on air disasters and so many of them have this toxic background in the cockpit anger, resentment , tension, lack of knowledge which have all contributed to crashing they have to talk to each other so they can diagnose the problem and that's obviously the most major thing
I live in Staines. There is memorial window in the local church. At the time of the accident we were going home by train. We saw the jammed roads. The town has never forgotten the sccident
My late Father was working at Heathrow when this happened installing radar in the new control tower. I remember him coming home that night so quiet - he was usually all laughter and funny all the time - not tonight. He had to drive past this crash scene to get home and told us what it looked like. He never forgot that day - many of us didnt, something changed that day. Not the Tridents fault but the toxic Captain!
I understand. I happened to be on I-90, which runs next to Chicago O'Hare, when American 191 crashed in 1979. Although I didn't see the accident, it was impossible to miss the conflagration, and traffic was halted for a long time for first responders. The images remain.
Really informative yet subtle at a beautiful pace..... Thank you
Enjoying your work keep up the great aviation content!
I researched this accident extensively about 10 years ago - it is fascinating.
Due to the strike, the co-pilot (Keighley) was not trained to the highest standards and was being monitored by the third pilot/flight engineer (Ticehurst). Keighley was reported as being slow to respond to emergencies in training.
It is a mystery as to why Ticehurst didn't notice the speed dropping and the droops retracted.
The simplest explanation - and I have thought this through a LOT, almost daily - is that Captain Key's condition was so severe and distracting that the other three people on the flight deck were unable to prevent the plane entering a deep stall because they were trying to help him. Even though the medical evidence is thin, the idea that three other pilots (including Captain Collins in the jump seat - a trained Trident caption now flying Viscounts) were just sitting around in a panic or oblivious doesn't make any sense. The only person who may have been panicking a bit is Keighley due to his junior position.
I believe Captain Key may have had a massive heart attack and fell unconscious. The others would have tried to either remove him from his seat (very difficult) or instruct Keighley to fly the plane.
The idea that the crash happened almost subtly is, in my view, nonsense. Professionalism and lives depended on them getting it right - surely only a massive health incident could have distracted them that much?
Footnote: I have seen at least one web article where the captain's daughter hotly disputes the heart attack theory!
My friends father was a fireman from nearby Slough that attended the crash site. He told us that it was an horrific scene. The aircraft had hit the ground hard on its belly. Most of the passengers that had been in the brace position were found in their seats with their spines sticking up behind their heads due to the massive impact.
WTF
Gruesome 😬; that would be hell to see in person for the first responders 🥺
Omg that's raw 🙈
So there are situations where the brace position does absolutely nothing and may actually make things worse. Good to know
I was going to suggest a video on the munich disaster. Glad to see you've done it already
Another great video as always:)
This is a very well researched and presented video. I was living in Kent at the time, and news of the crash
came on the early evening TV news. Over the next few days, reports came out that Captain Key was
at a pilots meeting just before flying the plane, took the controls in a towering rage and had a heart
attack during the take off. It was said that the co-pilot was perhaps not very experienced, might have panicked, and was unable to correct the stall. Tragic accident.
"It was supposed to be a short flight."
It was.
This video was very interesting and informative. You do an excellent job of explaining what caused the accident. Your coverage is certainly complete.
Particularly excellent video. One of your best!
Congratulations on covering this so well. The Trident was a superb aircraft, although the Trident 1 (G-ARPI was a Trident 1) was very underpowered, its Rolls Royce Spey engines only developing 9,600 lbs of thrust each (the Trident Two & Three had engines pushing out nearly 12,000 lbs thrust).
So after the initial climb out on take-off power, the thrust reduction to 70% was considerable and resulted in a rate of climb of a mere 500 ft/min (compared to today's airliners that achieve rates far in excess of that) and you soon realise that with an airspeed of 156 knots, the super-stall immediately doomed them all. BEA pilots at the time were deeply untrusting of the Trident's stick-push system as they'd had so many false warnings. It required a force of about 90 lbs to overcome it manually, so the dump lever was the first thing to be pulled.
Many pilots rehashed this accident in the simulators. It WAS possible to recover, but ONLY if the DROOP was IMMEDIATELY selected out again, throttles were firewalled to give full power, the nose pushed forward and then immediately the speed was seen to recover, only then eased back on the control column.
The simulator trace would show a recovery only feet above ground level....
All pilots need time to evaluate any aircraft incident before responding, factor that in and this was an UNRECOVERABLE tragedy.
Once again, well done for bringing this excellent production to UA-cam.
A true and accurate consideration of events - I do wish the speculators would re-read the BoI conclusions before jumping in with their sometimes inane comments
I think that a pilot who had such high morals and responsibilities, wouldn’t have flown had he had chest pain.🙄 I think the other younger pilots were still giving him a hard time, as they knew they were not being recorded.
He valued the responsibility of getting the passenger to where they needed most though, that's why he hated strikes so much. It also seems that, while he had high morals, he was prone to look down on younger pilots a bit. This all could've let to hin overrestimating his own physical ability to fly on that day, combined with his sense of duty to do his service.
Why do you always add the eye roll on all ur comments
🙄
My man you put out some great content!🤩
Another great video, well done!
Thank you!
I was a Trident 1E captain in Pakistan International Airlines in the late 1960s. It was a unique aircraft in many ways. We had normal control yokes, not the "motorcycle" type. It had a poor performance in ground summer temperatures (around 40C) and it could barely maintain Mach .78 in cruise. In winter it was a different plane! It could climb at 3000 ft/min plus and cruise at Mach .88. It was the only airliner that I have flown that had a different autopilot for roll and another one for pitch. In and emergency descent the two side engines could be used in reverse to get down fast. An approach was made by the pilot flying using the control column and the pilot not flying handling the three throttles on the PF commands. Getting below the computed airspeed was dangerous. The plane could take on a high descent rate without changing attitude and descend uncontrollably in what would appear to be a normal attitude until ground impact. We only had four Trident 1Es and they were delivered a year late. The penalty cost the manufacturer a lot of money. A somewhat inebriated company executive told one of our flight engineers at a party for the first delivery flight, that the money would be recovered by raising the prices of spares. This happened and the Tridents became too expensive to operate. The plane was streets ahead in advanced systems so the Chinese were interested and they bought them from us and ordered many more. When they were warned about the spares trap, the simply said that they would make their own spares! Once you knew her idiosynchrancies the Trident was a delight to fly manually. Group Captain Cunningham, the DH Chief Test Pilot showed us how to shorten the landing roll by taking reverse in the air before touch down . This took a bit of skill---too high and there would be an unpleasant thump! Only one other captain, besides myself practiced this. Once after take off from Karachi, a new copilot ( from the B 707s) when I asked for flaps up, retracted both the flaps and the L/E Slats. (as happened in this accident case.) the flashing warning lights came on and I immediately reached over and extended the L/E flaps--or we would have mushed down to a crash. We did not have that map display but in that place we had a warning system that illuminated , telling you what was the problem . This illuminated "L/E " but I had already taken remedial action. We always tested the "Stick Pusher" before the flight in the pre start cockpit checks. We trained the Chinese to fly the Trident and one rueful training flight instructor told me it was a bit hair raising as he had to issue instructions through and interpreter who translated English to Chinese! Loved flying the Trident--it was my first jet command--but you had to give her respect!
I'm always impressed by you knowledge and breakdowns of a vast assortment of planes and different technical components on each type making it easier for us *lay persons* to follow along.
Thanks for watching!
I’m impressed as well,
This excellent presentation definitely deserves a subscription.
Excellent job researching and presenting.
This plane is new to me. Thanks for sharing and thanks for your work. Love your channel!
There's a time for labor relations, and a time to fly the plane. It appears that perhaps the pilots forgot this basic rule. I would bet, because of their differences, the two young co-pilots were not communicating with the senior pilot and therefore not working together.
Your videos are great. I love Avaition videos like this but you go deeper. Even into psychology etc. You are in a niche of 1 and i think you will keep growing your channel. Best regards.
My father RIP was a captain on the Trident from the mid 60s to the mid 70s. He loved flying it. Very advanced for it's time. CATIII Zero visibility Full Auto land capable. Very fast cruised at M0.88 and can cruise at M0.96 if fuel consumption is not a problem. Had fans to cool the brakes. Was capable of 10,000 fpm descend rate using reverse thrust in flight. A great aircraft. It's only weakness was it's poor take-off performance in hot weather.
M 0.96 once by test pilots during development!
The Hawker Siddeley HS-121 Trident and the Vickers-Armstrongs VC10 were two of my loves in British aviation.
I was there on that day. My parents lived close by and I we had just finished lunch when we heard the radio newsflash. My Dad (61 at the time) said, let's go and see! My mother declined, naturally, but I went with my father. We expected to see a belly flopped plane and passengers climbing out. So close to the airport, it didn't occur to us that there could be fatalities. We were among many who crowded the road by the crash scene. Later when the full horror became known the press called us, the sight-seers, "ghouls." I guess that they were right.
I was 24 at the time and my Danish girlfriend and I made made short flights like this from Heathrow, and Gatwick. The implication of this fateful flight stayed in my mind for many years to come.
Absolutely fascinating: you have taught me so much. I greatly enjoy the intelligent and well presented offerings every time.
Another great video!
Big fan and subscriber
22:28 But let us not criticize the fact that the noise abatement procedures force the pilots to fly at less than full thrust, possibly wiping out any speed margin that might have prevented the crash. Oh no, got to keep it quiet for the neighbours.
The photo of the tail section in the wreckage with the distinct ‘Trident’ on it is burned in my memory from childhood where I saw it my dad’s Plane Crashes book.
I think it's amazing that you include the musical information.
Very interesting and informative. You make it easy for non-aviation people like myself to follow.
Good that you mention the phenomenon where many T-tail designs sometimes can't be unstalled. A strange fact - the Mayday episode about this disaster, as well as the one about the West Caribbean Airlines disaster, both fail to mention this. The cynic in me thinks this may be because the show gets funding from the Canadian government; at the time the main manufacture of T-tailed jetliners was Bombardier (who themselves lost a couple of aircraft and crews to this phenomenon in test flights). Maybe they didn't like the prospect of some Bloc Quebecois MP ranting in Parliament about taxpayers' money being used to throw shade at an iconic Quebec company.
The Boeing test pilot recovered a 727 but refused to reveal his technique in case it encouraged others to have a go.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 Yeah, I gather the 727 is less subject to deep stall than most similar aircraft. One case that's sometimes cited is Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, but this isn't really an example; the confused crew were holding it into the stall, and then it suffered structural failure.
@BB49 I wouldn't call it a conspiracy theory; it doesn't require any vast conspiracy, just a few risk averse writers or producers not wanting to rock the boat. Yeah, they're still being made for business jets, and I wouldn't worry about flying on one, but I could see someone with the network not wanting to go there.
@BB49 You're missing the point. It's not that T-tails are all that dangerous (they aren't), just that someone might have been afraid of being seen to suggest that they were. Not that far out really.
Given that the show has done two episodes about accidents involving deep stall without mentioning the phenomenon, I just thought it odd. It's not like a difficult concept to understand; if you can understand stall, you can understand deep stall. So why would they shy away from it then?
@BB49 It made a difference for the recoverability of the situation. It didn't _cause_ the crashes per se; the cause of the crashes, like most crashes, was a confluence of factors, of which the aircraft design. But again, that's not the point, the point is that they might have been reluctant to be seen to imply that T-tails are less safe than other designs.
So again, since it was a factor (albeit one of many) and is mentioned in most discussions of the accidents (including this video) why the reluctance to talk about it?
A very good breakdown of this accident. I like the matter-of-factly, no-drama style. It's unfortunate that the parties involved aren't around to tell what actually happened. I believe that Captain Key was a fine pilot, and there are so many scenarios that could have played out here, including copilot moving controls and not making call-outs, or a fight over the controls. It's hard to imagine, even with his health condition, that this salty old pilot would not be aware of his airspeed or pitch attitude.
Great vid as always
Excellent recap of what happened. Thank you!
A very good summary, relecting the accident report. Many other teenagers and I were sailing on a very nearby reservoir. The wind that day was awful. Of many dinghies that day, only three of us managed to stay upright long enough to finish the race. In my case only using the jib ... I still have the trophy.
Although I was always puzzled as to whether the captain was actually suffering from heart pain, there were clearly serous issues with the crew's performance. prior to the flight.
One factor that always surprised me was there was no significant mention of the wind. Of course the aircraft should have been flying faster, but were they also unlucky with an unhelpful wind shift? From memory we had white water on the reservoir, with severe changes in wind direction. A glance at that day's wether chart will show what was happening.
Great video as always, could you do a video on Malaysian airlines flight 17 please it's such an interesting story. Keep up the good work Chloe I absolutely love your work!!!
I just shared an NPR article on her Twitter page that talks about the recent findings. Would be an interesting video, I agree.
Yeah just saw that. Reading it right now actually!
I like it when these videos use older simulators than MSFS 2020 when describing old pre-2000 accidents as it helps gives the feel of the era.
The mid-air Collision of a Hawker Siddeley Trident with an Inex Adria DC over Yugoslavia
Coming very soon!
Captain Key did nothing wrong. He was approached by a strike supporter, not the other way around. The man wanted to keep himself to himself, which is the way it should be.
How do you know captain Key did nothing wrong? There were no cockpit voice recorders so the atmosphere and conversation in the cockpit will never be known. We do know that the outburst in the BEA crew room prior to the flight and witnessed by many was enough to put Key into a rage, did this outburst trigger his heart attack? Was he in pain in the early parts of the flight and barking out orders? Did he retract the leading edge droops himself? Or was he still in such a rage that he commanded the droops be retracted by the co-pilot, who after witnessing his outburst in the crew room himself, could have been confused or even intimidated by his commands? We will never know due to the lack of cockpit voice recorders. He was clearly not liked much by his worked colleagues, hence the graffiti. Was he difficult to work with? What makes you so sure that he 100% did nothing wrong?
@@bobbank74 So evidence he did something wrong? Lol
boomer once removed
@@ramonmoreno8014 Fucking LOL, (once removed)!
Personally... I think it was a bad crew selection by BEA----putting two "novices" with a seasoned and war experienced senior pilot.
Pretty sure they showed disrespect and contempt for "the old guard"...... and maybe exacerbated the underlying health problems of the senior guy.
Without CVR...it is impossible to say what the atmosphere was like in that cockpit.
I think it foolish and disrespectful to speculate....to all the people who perished. RIP.
If I remember correctly, the father of one of my sister's friends was a senior police officer on-site. Years later as a Chief Inspector he was on-site at the Moorgate tube disaster.
Moorgate...was that the one where the train overshot a station and slammed into a dead end and telescoped into itself
@@Giratina575 yes, it was
Very well covered . Direct to the events of this disaster .