After watching lots of air crash videos I remember seeing one that mentioned that T-tail aircraft are more likely to experience unrecoverable stalls, because during the stall the plane is nose up and the elevators on the tail are inside the turbulent airstream coming off the stalled wings. This means that attempting to use the elevators to nose down to recover from the stall can have little or no effect.
Why didn’t the pilot lower AoA at shaker? Or, adjust trim and/or flap config? Curious to know engine performance data. Cruise, idle? Did they attempt to cycle up power? My opinion on the parachute deployment, it should be default locked and have the height lock only function to unlock for in-flight incidents. You’d think such a potentially lifesaving device would always be secured unless it interferes with flight.
This was the kind of situation an aircraft would never get into in normal operation. The protocols they were operating under were tight, but clearly not tight enough. Two errors: pushing beyond where they were instructed to go, and messing up the chute deployment procedure, which was probably brought on by the stress of fighting a plane that no longer wanted to fly.
Arrogance. Thinking you know the physics of flight better than an engineer. Stupidity: not knowing your drag-chute controls properly. Pilot error, like most crashes.
One would think that the mechanism that locks the chute to the plane would be in "lock" mode by default. Why should you have to lock the chute to the plane before arming it and then deploying it? Requiring three switch activations to deploy the chute in an emergency situation is at least one too many. (In the unlikely event that the chute deploys accidentally, *_then_* you can flip the lock switch to the unlock position to release it.) (And that would be only one switch flip, not three.)
I appreciate the way you explain the situations and circumstances of the accidents. You're thorough without being excessively detailed, you don't have any extraneous content and you don't engage in click bait.
I wonder if a testing mentality played a big part. The pilot may have been wanting to push the plane to the failing point, with confidence that he could recover it, maybe because to him a stall wasn't that big a challenge to deal with, and he presumed that, even in a stall, the aircraft would self re-orientate itself straight, so in his mind all he had to do was add power to recover from the stall. Failing to consider the impact of stalling with the extra air-resistance from the slip, a spin like that may not have even crossed his mind. Did they go over the potential crash/emergency situations before take off? If they hadn't, maybe doing so would have made it clearer in the flight crew's minds why they were to avoid even approaching a stall?
@@hbtm2951 that's the point I was trying to make, maybe the pilot was expecting a straight stall, so the flat spin completely took him by suprise. I was thinking that maybe he took the risk expecting one thing but experienced another.
@@hbtm2951 On a multiengine aircraft like a CRJ, adding power _asymmetrically_ (with more power on the engine on the inside of the spin) actually helps in spin recovery (this isn't usually taught because most multiengine aircraft aren't spin-certified).
About the steady heading sideslip: For many glider pilots this manoeuvre is extremely important to get rid of excess energy during landing. I started glider flying on an old airplane with bad airbrakes and did the sideslip almost every flight to adjust my height during final approach. While getting my approval for solo flying I had to fly a plane I‘d never flown before, due to some unfortunate circumstances. That plane was very ineffective at doing a sideslip and it seriously caught me of guard when landing. So while I have no idea how important this manoeuvre could ever be for a plane like the one in this video, I know it‘s very important for gliders. Tldr: The sideslip is an effective manoeuvre for gliders to quickly get rid of excess height without increasing airspeed. I don‘t know wether the same is true for other plane types but I believe it could be important in certain emergency situations.
This is the job of the test pilot. Pushing the envelope. It's many thanks to these guys & gals who set the parameters on their particular aircraft they test.
Thx MACI for an informative video of a sad flight test incident. I worked at McDonnel Douglas in late '70s on DC9s and remember a similar incident with Ship 909 the 1st Super 80 built which was on test flight for stall at maximum aft CG and GW This aircraft also had a stall recovery chute which was accidently jettisoned after being deployed when the aircraft departed controlled flight in near flat spin at 38k' luckily the crew was able to recover control @ 400' AGL and a max "Q" on the airframe. Maybe you could put together a video on that incident FWIW Aviation Leak covered it BITD. YT has video of this same ship "909" experiencing windsheer while attempting a FAA test flight @ max gross shortfield landing at Edwards when the tail sheered off from extreme "Q".
It should not have been possible to fire the chute if it wasn't locked to the plane. Arming should lock it, then you fire, then disarm to release. That's fewer things to do in an emergency, simpler, and might have saved their lives. Not pushing 40% past the test parameters would also have helped.
Aeronautics may be slightly different but in general for any regulated product, whether it's an elevator, a gas boiler, a medical device, a childrens toy etc. etc. there is a requirement to do post-market surveillance to keep gathering data and continually improving the product and I guess this test flight was a form of PMS for the CRJ model
For me the key is that they weren't sure how the plane will react (said here 2:55). Also the pilots knew what was their task. Sadly they went over that.
As a glider pilot, when flying older gliders with weak air brakes, for landing and a bit high, it was common to use strong side slip to descend faster to a runway. This worked safely because a steep glideslope was maintained and air speed did not drop. I think these turkeys tried to maintain level flight while side slipping resulting in a stall/inverted spin which is difficult to recover from.
I found a couple comments that mention why getting out of the stall and spin was basically impossible here, but it would have been good to mention that in the video. You never know which video someone will start with in a good binge-watch of your channel.
I wonder if it was similar to an issue faced at a Gliding Club in the UK. We were flying in very strong cross wind conditions, conditions in which we should have packed up gone home. I was one of two experienced pilots running the flying that day, other being a full cat instructor and whilst I was only a half cat instructor I was also considered a "pundit" being an active competition pilot. I was not comfortable with us still flying but accepted that the more senior instructor had it covered and if he was OK I was OK. However later down the Pub when I was telling him that I was expecting him to call it a day, it turned out he was looking to me who he considered to be the much more experienced pilot and thinking "well he is ok with this so am I". Fortunately no one was hurt and nothing was broken, but we both learnt a lesson of making sure that we made clear any concerns we had clear.
12,500 seems a bit low to me to test the plane for this control issue. What I don't understand is why they weren't able to immediately get out of the cross-controlled condition and recover?
I think they were probably curious about what it would do and maybe it felt cool to them to push the limits that way. I know I've done that kind of things before and, once you start getting really curious about a dangerous situation, it's hard to be disciplined enough to get out before it's too late. I know that sometimes the best people in a profession that tends to create a lot of adrenaline are the adrenaline junkies and sometimes we pay the cost if we don't know when enough is enough.
Sounds like they’ve definitely done this before, pushing the plane too far during test flights. I wonder if their boss or someone has been giving them contradictory instructions.
Great video and report from you. Don't know why the Captain pushed so far. Maybe having some daring fun or not realizing how far past the parameters he actually was.
Great video as always! I almost closed the video when you started talking about other flights and videos. Luckily i let it play while reading comments and caught the last section about the parachute. Maybe you could move other video references and recommendations to the outro after covering everything about the current incident? Really enjoy how thorough you are with describing the crashes in clear language :)
Three of the five hazardous pilot attitudes may have contributed: Macho: “I can do it.” Pilots who are always trying to prove that they are better than anyone else think, “I can do it-I'll show them.” Pilots with this type of attitude will try to prove themselves by taking risks in order to impress others. While this pattern is thought to be a male characteristic, women are equally susceptible. Invulnerability: “It won’t happen to me.” Many people falsely believe that accidents happen to others, but never to them. They know accidents can happen, and they know that anyone can be affected. However, they never really feel or believe that they will be personally involved. Pilots who think this way are more likely to take chances and increase risk. Impulsivity: “Do it quickly.” This is the attitude of people who frequently feel the need to do something, anything, immediately. They do not stop to think about what they are about to do, they do not select the best alternative, and they do the first thing that comes to mind. Quote from Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, Chapter 2 ADM (Aeronautical Decision Making), page 2-5, figure 2-4
Why even have a lock switch on the parachute in order to deploy it? I can understand an unlock switch in case of accidental deployment, but seems like it should always deploy in the lock position.
I belive the captain believed that he could do anything and everything and still maintain control of the aircraft. In other words he thought he was invisible and there was nothing he couldn't get out if. Just my personal opinion.
Invincible , yes. Some of those folks who are "the best of the best" forget that they're still human beings, subject to believing their own personal PR. It's called reality evasions, or, ignoring facts in favor of a desired outcome..
I think there is a flaw in the parachute deployment procedure. There should be one button that locks, arms, and deploys the chute. There should be a separate button that jettisons the chute, if needed. These buttons should be far apart.
You don't get enough credit for the videos you make. They are well detailed and explained and you cover ones that I actually haven't heard of before which is rare with these type of air disaster channels. Well done my friend. 👏👏👏👏👏👏 on a side note, your landings have gotten a lot better. The landings in your earlier videos were a bit rough but you put em down smooth as butter now so again well done my friend. 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
This reminds me of a plane crash across the street from my old house. This wasn't a test flight but commercial. It was ready to leave Little Rock Arkansas when there was an issue with the plane. They moved the passengers to another flight, and repaired the plane then had to have two pilots fly the plane to Minneapolis Minnesota, it's original destination, which it was needed to fulfill its original schedule. It crashed in October 2004 in Jefferson City Missouri. It's last transmission was, I can see the lights of the airport, it was aiming at with both engines not working. They hit our street on the edge of town with large gullies running behind. They pilots never knew that by going higher and higher to check how high they could] push the limits of this plane, did not injure one person on the ground. The plane hit between two homes, with all the kids playing in the lot had just been just called in for darkness, and the main parts of this just smaller than a dc9 (it's how it was described) went down the gully scorching a back deck and the side of another house. I'm not positive that's the entire correct details but, I think it would be interesting to see on this channel how much is true about how the crash happened but it did hit the highest point of the hill we were on and I nearly ran into one of the engines searching for survivors. If a car had not turned on the street and lit up the engine I would have tripped over it 3 steps later. The Cardinals were playing in the World Series
MACI might have done a video on that crash. Nearly all the other accident investigation channels and Mentour Pilot have. But nobody had a report from someone on the ground for that one.
Swept wing a/c do not do well in sideslips. One wing gets straighter to the air, while the retreating wing gets less and less A- and therefore less lift. Sooner or later, with one wing doing great, the other stalling, a big roll becomes inevitable. Sideslips in swept wing a/c are doable, but if you don't pay attention, then upside down you go- followed shortly after by a loud noise.
I think, the captain was bored, because nothing exciting happened, where he he has to use all his skill (engine failure in bad weather). Maybe he thought, if something happened, he will get out with his skills and be challengened in a exciting way.
It's hard to say psychologically with any great degree of accuracy... BUT there are two types that get attracted to the job of "Test Pilot". The stereotype is actually rarer... That's the one who's looking for a THRILL RIDE... The type you'd expect of Tom Cruise in the original Top Gun movie... They're ALWAYS looking to push the envelope a little farther than they're told... AND the problem with the type is that sooner or later their luck runs out... The other type is who you meet more frequently. They tend to be very Zen in their mannerisms. They're calm under INTENSE stress, but they're attracted to the job because it appeals to their meticulous side, being able to plan out some ridiculous level maneuver and then pull it off with a plane that's not designed to do it is FUN... AND they know that pushing it too far will be catastrophic. SO enters the meticulous part, planning carefully, and then STICKING to the plan. It's possible these guys were closer to the stereotype... Maybe there were financial incentives offered to "go a little outside the box" with the test flight, to help skip some steps in the certification process OR maybe it was just to get so-called "better numbers" for some marketing purposes. Whatever the reason, the lack of protest or even acknowledgement of them passing the 15 degree limit or the stick-shaker to avoid was evidence that this "wasn't their first rodeo" with such antics... AND well... "Everything's only alright until it isn't anymore." It sucks, but this is exactly why aspiring test pilots get themselves tossed out of the training programs for "the wrong attitude". The consummate professionals of the service absolutely HATE "Hot dogging" at the yoke, stick, or any other controls. ;o)
I'd theorize that the three had decided before the flight, to keep pushing the envelope and that may explain why nobody protested the Captain's actions. The "Let's see what she can do..." way of flying.
The chances are very high that though the ground engineers gave them limits on paper, the engineers verbally requested the captain and other crew to push slightly further till stick shaker vibrates!
Rules and established procedures are there for a reason. When a stall occurs it must be immediately delt with. Right away, so many crashes result for the same reasons theirs did, my view.
Normally, they're only used on test flights. Jet fighters are probably the planes most tested for spin characteristics, so the chutes are used there far more often. Once the data is in, pilots are told not to exceed certain limits, or if you're Airbus you program the plane's flight control computer so it won't exceed the limits.
No. Anti-spin parachutes are a test flight precaution. Some foreign military aircraft have drag chutes to help them stop after landing, but the US hasn't had a plane like that since the F-4 Phantoms were retired. Currently, only the Cirrus general aviation planes have chutes as part of their design, but the chute comes out of the top of the fuselage, not from the tail.
It's a bad design that the chute can be ejected without knowing it. When your in danger you might not push all the buttons correctly, in the future it should be labeled properly about what the switch does.
One would think that the mechanism that locks the chute to the plane would be in "lock" mode by default. Why should you have to lock the chute to the plane before arming it and then deploying it? Requiring three switch activations to deploy the chute in an emergency situation is at least one too many. (In the unlikely event that the chute deploys accidentally, *_then_* you can flip the lock switch to the unlock position to disengage it.) (And that would be only one switch flip, not three.)
They should have preset the chute switches before the actual test so that only the final switch needed to be thrown to activate the chute. They should have given themselves more altitude to work with. And, of course, they should have followed the engineer’s instructions. Perhaps the pilot kept pushing it beyond the set limits due to his familiarity with another aircraft that tolerated side slipping a lot better. Obviously this plane surprised him.
In simple terms, nobody did the airstream calculations to know at what angle of yaw the cockpit would blank the wing and cause that wing to stall. Rapid rolling into the stalled wing and the crew was flying to be the first to the scene of the accident.
Ha, a tricky thing to ask us to speculate about this tragedy. Think about how the angle is displayed. Maybe there was the room to read a drastically smaller number than it was.
Was the stick shaker working? Is it possible that the flight recorder indicated that the shaker was activated but that it didn't actually alert the pilots? If it's an audible stick shaker, is it on the voice recording?
I really don't think testing systems that can cause a loss of control should be done that low. Altitude means time, although it will likely mean more speed as well. I wonder if the captain knew what his angle was, although he likely did, but nobody seemed to call out the most pertinent information in that situation. It doesn't matter how good a pilot is, because each time they go up they are capable of making a mistake. It is interesting that in many dangerous fields the accident rate is high for inexperienced individuals, and then goes down with experience, but then shoots back up with lots of experience. Complacency and assumptions about what will happen based on prior experience can sometimes be a bad thing.
Typical manufacturer behavior, blame all three dead pilots to pay nothing and escape responsibility for a POS airplane. The plane probably started sliding like in a hydroplane situation and rather than jerk it out or overcorrect the controls they went with the slide to try and recover. Pilots had zero incentive to push the aircraft past its limits, manufacturer had all the incentive to hide the planes defects and place blame on rogue pilots (with the help of their investigative cronies). Blaming all 3 for not objecting is a nice touch. They were guinea pigs turned into scape goats. Surprised anyone would fall for this narrative.
The narration starts off to sound like a typical "Air Crash Investigation" episode. Captain, very very experienced, a million flight hours etc. First Officer, as capable with almost as much experience. What could ever go wrong?
They probably thought they were high and fast enough that the plane would right itself regardless how far they went past the limits if only for that meddling ground they would have been fine
Aircraft of such design should be treated with due caution and respect - activated stick shaker literally means "you're already one foot in the grave, be careful what you do next".
I really hope the chute deployment system has been redesigned.. no safety system (especially a literal lifeline like this) should require proper configuration prior to deployment, given what we know about decisions made / actions taken under pressure. totally understand the need to be able to jetison the chute, but it should NEVER be deployable in a detached state. anyone have insight here? am I way off base? has it been changed since this accident?
Your use of Microsoft Flight Simulator to illustrate this accident is top-notch. Great work!
Cheers from AOPA's Air Safety Institute!
Wow thank you! big fan!
@@MiniAirCrashInvestigation Likewise😀
I’m setting up my flight simulator while watching this and now I’m like “I must try this”
Wow! I never thought that I'd see the day the AOPA comments on a video like this!
Woah.
After watching lots of air crash videos I remember seeing one that mentioned that T-tail aircraft are more likely to experience unrecoverable stalls, because during the stall the plane is nose up and the elevators on the tail are inside the turbulent airstream coming off the stalled wings. This means that attempting to use the elevators to nose down to recover from the stall can have little or no effect.
Why didn’t the pilot lower AoA at shaker? Or, adjust trim and/or flap config? Curious to know engine performance data. Cruise, idle? Did they attempt to cycle up power? My opinion on the parachute deployment, it should be default locked and have the height lock only function to unlock for in-flight incidents. You’d think such a potentially lifesaving device would always be secured unless it interferes with flight.
@@iKDH My thoughts exactly regarding the parachute mechanism.
Yep. I've heard this called "super-stall", and it's really challenging to recover.
This was the kind of situation an aircraft would never get into in normal operation. The protocols they were operating under were tight, but clearly not tight enough. Two errors: pushing beyond where they were instructed to go, and messing up the chute deployment procedure, which was probably brought on by the stress of fighting a plane that no longer wanted to fly.
Arrogance. Thinking you know the physics of flight better than an engineer. Stupidity: not knowing your drag-chute controls properly. Pilot error, like most crashes.
One would think that the mechanism that locks the chute to the plane would be in "lock" mode by default. Why should you have to lock the chute to the plane before arming it and then deploying it? Requiring three switch activations to deploy the chute in an emergency situation is at least one too many. (In the unlikely event that the chute deploys accidentally, *_then_* you can flip the lock switch to the unlock position to release it.) (And that would be only one switch flip, not three.)
@@Milesco completely unrelated, but cool name!!
@@Holly_Zena Thanks, Holly! :-D
@@danepatterson8107 Take it easy. No need for that.
I appreciate the way you explain the situations and circumstances of the accidents. You're thorough without being excessively detailed, you don't have any extraneous content and you don't engage in click bait.
... apart from asking for comments! 😉
@@phuketexplorer thats normal
I wonder if a testing mentality played a big part. The pilot may have been wanting to push the plane to the failing point, with confidence that he could recover it, maybe because to him a stall wasn't that big a challenge to deal with, and he presumed that, even in a stall, the aircraft would self re-orientate itself straight, so in his mind all he had to do was add power to recover from the stall. Failing to consider the impact of stalling with the extra air-resistance from the slip, a spin like that may not have even crossed his mind.
Did they go over the potential crash/emergency situations before take off? If they hadn't, maybe doing so would have made it clearer in the flight crew's minds why they were to avoid even approaching a stall?
Add power... on a flat spin? i'd rather not.
@@hbtm2951 that's the point I was trying to make, maybe the pilot was expecting a straight stall, so the flat spin completely took him by suprise. I was thinking that maybe he took the risk expecting one thing but experienced another.
@@toblexson5020 looking at it this way, makes sense
@@hbtm2951 On a multiengine aircraft like a CRJ, adding power _asymmetrically_ (with more power on the engine on the inside of the spin) actually helps in spin recovery (this isn't usually taught because most multiengine aircraft aren't spin-certified).
I believe in one of John Nance's novels a character muses that "all test pilots are crazy"...
About the steady heading sideslip:
For many glider pilots this manoeuvre is extremely important to get rid of excess energy during landing. I started glider flying on an old airplane with bad airbrakes and did the sideslip almost every flight to adjust my height during final approach. While getting my approval for solo flying I had to fly a plane I‘d never flown before, due to some unfortunate circumstances. That plane was very ineffective at doing a sideslip and it seriously caught me of guard when landing. So while I have no idea how important this manoeuvre could ever be for a plane like the one in this video, I know it‘s very important for gliders.
Tldr: The sideslip is an effective manoeuvre for gliders to quickly get rid of excess height without increasing airspeed. I don‘t know wether the same is true for other plane types but I believe it could be important in certain emergency situations.
This is the job of the test pilot. Pushing the envelope. It's many thanks to these guys & gals who set the parameters on their particular aircraft they test.
Thx MACI for an informative video of a sad flight test incident. I worked at McDonnel Douglas in late '70s on DC9s and remember a similar incident with Ship 909 the 1st Super 80 built which was on test flight for stall at maximum aft CG and GW This aircraft also had a stall recovery chute which was accidently jettisoned after being deployed when the aircraft departed controlled flight in near flat spin at 38k' luckily the crew was able to recover control @ 400' AGL and a max "Q" on the airframe. Maybe you could put together a video on that incident FWIW Aviation Leak covered it BITD. YT has video of this same ship "909" experiencing windsheer while attempting a FAA test flight @ max gross shortfield landing at Edwards when the tail sheered off from extreme "Q".
It should not have been possible to fire the chute if it wasn't locked to the plane. Arming should lock it, then you fire, then disarm to release. That's fewer things to do in an emergency, simpler, and might have saved their lives.
Not pushing 40% past the test parameters would also have helped.
Totally agree. The basic design of the operating mechanism for the chute was fundamentally flawed.
Your non-technical explanations make your posts so enjoyable for those of us who don’t have experience with this field. Thank you!
I could binge watch your videos for hours.. Never stop making videos please.. You're the best channel of this kind.
Aeronautics may be slightly different but in general for any regulated product, whether it's an elevator, a gas boiler, a medical device, a childrens toy etc. etc. there is a requirement to do post-market surveillance to keep gathering data and continually improving the product and I guess this test flight was a form of PMS for the CRJ model
*Love the content of this channel, my new favorite aviation accident channel!*
Love the video!!! I do feel bad for the 3 who lost their lives, but was any more data than intended captured because the pilots went past the limits?
I mean, obviously more data was collected... crash data...
@@danepatterson8107 omg I laughed too hard at that
For me the key is that they weren't sure how the plane will react (said here 2:55). Also the pilots knew what was their task. Sadly they went over that.
The thumbnail caption "Bombarider 388" made me think of Major Kong. 😉
Great video, as usual!
YeeeHoooo!
Overconfidence can be deadly
The moment i saw the altitude ,i just knew........ tests should be done high up in the air,high enough to give room for drastic moves and recovery
As a glider pilot, when flying older gliders with weak air brakes, for landing and a bit high, it was common to use strong side slip to descend faster to a runway. This worked safely because a steep glideslope was maintained and air speed did not drop. I think these turkeys tried to maintain level flight while side slipping resulting in a stall/inverted spin which is difficult to recover from.
I found a couple comments that mention why getting out of the stall and spin was basically impossible here, but it would have been good to mention that in the video. You never know which video someone will start with in a good binge-watch of your channel.
The sole idea that a pilot is good or "the best" because he was in the airforce or an engineer in the past is absurd.
Obviously, when they managed to crash a plane in perfect working condition in perfect weather, these weren't the best.
I wonder if it was similar to an issue faced at a Gliding Club in the UK. We were flying in very strong cross wind conditions, conditions in which we should have packed up gone home. I was one of two experienced pilots running the flying that day, other being a full cat instructor and whilst I was only a half cat instructor I was also considered a "pundit" being an active competition pilot. I was not comfortable with us still flying but accepted that the more senior instructor had it covered and if he was OK I was OK. However later down the Pub when I was telling him that I was expecting him to call it a day, it turned out he was looking to me who he considered to be the much more experienced pilot and thinking "well he is ok with this so am I". Fortunately no one was hurt and nothing was broken, but we both learnt a lesson of making sure that we made clear any concerns we had clear.
12,500 seems a bit low to me to test the plane for this control issue. What I don't understand is why they weren't able to immediately get out of the cross-controlled condition and recover?
My question too. Very little room to recover.
Exactly what I thought, perhaps try it at 30,000 feet first before you attempt it so low.
First thing I thought of as well.
Maybe at a higher altitude the air is too thin for the test?
Was thinking of the same think
I think they were probably curious about what it would do and maybe it felt cool to them to push the limits that way. I know I've done that kind of things before and, once you start getting really curious about a dangerous situation, it's hard to be disciplined enough to get out before it's too late. I know that sometimes the best people in a profession that tends to create a lot of adrenaline are the adrenaline junkies and sometimes we pay the cost if we don't know when enough is enough.
Sounds like they’ve definitely done this before, pushing the plane too far during test flights. I wonder if their boss or someone has been giving them contradictory instructions.
Great video and report from you.
Don't know why the Captain pushed so far.
Maybe having some daring fun or not realizing how far past the parameters he actually was.
Great video as always! I almost closed the video when you started talking about other flights and videos. Luckily i let it play while reading comments and caught the last section about the parachute. Maybe you could move other video references and recommendations to the outro after covering everything about the current incident?
Really enjoy how thorough you are with describing the crashes in clear language :)
Hi there👋 there are many air crash channels out there, I like 👍🏼 yours the most☘️🛫
Thank you!!
So... Did the fuselage block the airstream to the right wing? or why did it stall so violently?
Three of the five hazardous pilot attitudes may have contributed:
Macho: “I can do it.”
Pilots who are always trying to prove that they are better than anyone else think, “I can
do it-I'll show them.” Pilots with this type of attitude will try to prove themselves by
taking risks in order to impress others. While this pattern is thought to be a male
characteristic, women are equally susceptible.
Invulnerability: “It won’t happen to me.”
Many people falsely believe that accidents happen to others, but never to them. They
know accidents can happen, and they know that anyone can be affected. However,
they never really feel or believe that they will be personally involved. Pilots who think
this way are more likely to take chances and increase risk.
Impulsivity: “Do it quickly.”
This is the attitude of people who frequently feel the need to do something, anything,
immediately. They do not stop to think about what they are about to do, they do not
select the best alternative, and they do the first thing that comes to mind.
Quote from Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, Chapter 2 ADM (Aeronautical Decision Making), page 2-5, figure 2-4
Side-slip was used by the "Gimli Glider" to lose altitude rapidly.
Excellent video.
Id still love a video covering PanAm losing half a dozen 707s in just a couple years.
Why even have a lock switch on the parachute in order to deploy it? I can understand an unlock switch in case of accidental deployment, but seems like it should always deploy in the lock position.
Great video! It is odd though that they were trying to save the plane at the end yet the rudder angle was still 8 degrees?
Flaps were at 8 degrees, not the rudder.
I belive the captain believed that he could do anything and everything and still maintain control of the aircraft. In other words he thought he was invisible and there was nothing he couldn't get out if. Just my personal opinion.
Invincible , yes. Some of those folks who are "the best of the best" forget that they're still human beings, subject to believing their own personal PR. It's called reality evasions, or, ignoring facts in favor of a desired outcome..
I think there is a flaw in the parachute deployment procedure. There should be one button that locks, arms, and deploys the chute. There should be a separate button that jettisons the chute, if needed. These buttons should be far apart.
Ego, I'm the best and I can make this plane do anything.
Sometimes test pilots seem to forget that the plane could fail the test.
Can you please redo the teaser image, that's saying "Bombarider"? ;-)
You don't get enough credit for the videos you make. They are well detailed and explained and you cover ones that I actually haven't heard of before which is rare with these type of air disaster channels. Well done my friend. 👏👏👏👏👏👏 on a side note, your landings have gotten a lot better. The landings in your earlier videos were a bit rough but you put em down smooth as butter now so again well done my friend. 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Absolutely fantastic video!😸
"Bombarider" is an interesting misspelling.
This reminds me of a plane crash across the street from my old house. This wasn't a test flight but commercial. It was ready to leave Little Rock Arkansas when there was an issue with the plane. They moved the passengers to another flight, and repaired the plane then had to have two pilots fly the plane to Minneapolis Minnesota, it's original destination, which it was needed to fulfill its original schedule. It crashed in October 2004 in Jefferson City Missouri. It's last transmission was, I can see the lights of the airport, it was aiming at with both engines not working. They hit our street on the edge of town with large gullies running behind. They pilots never knew that by going higher and higher to check how high they could] push the limits of this plane, did not injure one person on the ground. The plane hit between two homes, with all the kids playing in the lot had just been just called in for darkness, and the main parts of this just smaller than a dc9 (it's how it was described) went down the gully scorching a back deck and the side of another house. I'm not positive that's the entire correct details but, I think it would be interesting to see on this channel how much is true about how the crash happened but it did hit the highest point of the hill we were on and I nearly ran into one of the engines searching for survivors. If a car had not turned on the street and lit up the engine I would have tripped over it 3 steps later. The Cardinals were playing in the World Series
That would have been a crazy thing to experience!!
@@12yearssober it definitely was!
MACI might have done a video on that crash. Nearly all the other accident investigation channels and Mentour Pilot have. But nobody had a report from someone on the ground for that one.
Swept wing a/c do not do well in sideslips. One wing gets straighter to the air, while the retreating wing gets less and less A- and therefore less lift. Sooner or later, with one wing doing great, the other stalling, a big roll becomes inevitable. Sideslips in swept wing a/c are doable, but if you don't pay attention, then upside down you go- followed shortly after by a loud noise.
It should really be possible to perform that kind of tests at a higher altitude.
I think, the captain was bored, because nothing exciting happened, where he he has to use all his skill (engine failure in bad weather). Maybe he thought, if something happened, he will get out with his skills and be challengened in a exciting way.
The thumbnail says "Bombarider 388". I was like, what the heck is that? A bomber I've never heard of? LOL
Thought this was the guys who took their plane up to FL410 for fun
Great work!
It's hard to say psychologically with any great degree of accuracy... BUT there are two types that get attracted to the job of "Test Pilot". The stereotype is actually rarer... That's the one who's looking for a THRILL RIDE... The type you'd expect of Tom Cruise in the original Top Gun movie... They're ALWAYS looking to push the envelope a little farther than they're told... AND the problem with the type is that sooner or later their luck runs out... The other type is who you meet more frequently. They tend to be very Zen in their mannerisms. They're calm under INTENSE stress, but they're attracted to the job because it appeals to their meticulous side, being able to plan out some ridiculous level maneuver and then pull it off with a plane that's not designed to do it is FUN... AND they know that pushing it too far will be catastrophic. SO enters the meticulous part, planning carefully, and then STICKING to the plan.
It's possible these guys were closer to the stereotype... Maybe there were financial incentives offered to "go a little outside the box" with the test flight, to help skip some steps in the certification process OR maybe it was just to get so-called "better numbers" for some marketing purposes. Whatever the reason, the lack of protest or even acknowledgement of them passing the 15 degree limit or the stick-shaker to avoid was evidence that this "wasn't their first rodeo" with such antics... AND well... "Everything's only alright until it isn't anymore."
It sucks, but this is exactly why aspiring test pilots get themselves tossed out of the training programs for "the wrong attitude". The consummate professionals of the service absolutely HATE "Hot dogging" at the yoke, stick, or any other controls. ;o)
WOW ... I flew the CRJ and never heard that story ...
I'd theorize that the three had decided before the flight, to keep pushing the envelope and that may explain why nobody protested the Captain's actions. The "Let's see what she can do..." way of flying.
If the best of the best equates to being dead I’ll stay average
The chances are very high that though the ground engineers gave them limits on paper, the engineers verbally requested the captain and other crew to push slightly further till stick shaker vibrates!
another one of those "yeah maybe I was wise to not become a professional pilot" stories
Thanks!
Rules and established procedures are there for a reason. When a stall occurs it must be immediately delt with. Right away, so many crashes result for the same reasons theirs did, my view.
So what I'm getting from your explanation of a steady heading sideslip is that they're drifting the plane?
What is an anti spin parachute???? I’ve never heard of something like that on a plane this big
Normally, they're only used on test flights. Jet fighters are probably the planes most tested for spin characteristics, so the chutes are used there far more often.
Once the data is in, pilots are told not to exceed certain limits, or if you're Airbus you program the plane's flight control computer so it won't exceed the limits.
We don’t need no stinkin badges
We don’t need no stinkin 15 degree limit
Engineers give limits for a reason. Was there a checklist for the chute?
Do the aircraft in service have chutes fitted as standard?
No. Anti-spin parachutes are a test flight precaution.
Some foreign military aircraft have drag chutes to help them stop after landing, but the US hasn't had a plane like that since the F-4 Phantoms were retired.
Currently, only the Cirrus general aviation planes have chutes as part of their design, but the chute comes out of the top of the fuselage, not from the tail.
“anti-spin parachute” 😳
3:41 bottom right of the screen, hey look its what you get when Pacman merges with a Voltorb
Great video
It's a bad design that the chute can be ejected without knowing it. When your in danger you might not push all the buttons correctly, in the future it should be labeled properly about what the switch does.
One would think that the mechanism that locks the chute to the plane would be in "lock" mode by default. Why should you have to lock the chute to the plane before arming it and then deploying it? Requiring three switch activations to deploy the chute in an emergency situation is at least one too many. (In the unlikely event that the chute deploys accidentally, *_then_* you can flip the lock switch to the unlock position to disengage it.) (And that would be only one switch flip, not three.)
They should have preset the chute switches before the actual test so that only the final switch needed to be thrown to activate the chute. They should have given themselves more altitude to work with. And, of course, they should have followed the engineer’s instructions. Perhaps the pilot kept pushing it beyond the set limits due to his familiarity with another aircraft that tolerated side slipping a lot better. Obviously this plane surprised him.
My theory is that the captain and maybe others were over confident.
Why not push it a bit, what's the harm?
In simple terms, nobody did the airstream calculations to know at what angle of yaw the cockpit would blank the wing and cause that wing to stall. Rapid rolling into the stalled wing and the crew was flying to be the first to the scene of the accident.
That is why I will buy a Gulf stream 7!
This has been covered by so many other UA-camrs already
i think They kept expecting the parashute to work
💜🙏⚡️
Maybe, the captain wanted to prove something more than what normally one can do, or simply, he was just a daredevil!
RIP TO EVERYONE INVOLVED ❤
The captain may have been a former Air Force/Navy pilot pushing the limits?
Na he was the engineer->flight engineer
This is just strange why they did this!!! Did someone suggest that they push the limits and that person has kept it quiet?
Ha, a tricky thing to ask us to speculate about this tragedy.
Think about how the angle is displayed. Maybe there was the room to read a drastically smaller number than it was.
Was the stick shaker working? Is it possible that the flight recorder indicated that the shaker was activated but that it didn't actually alert the pilots?
If it's an audible stick shaker, is it on the voice recording?
Yes - the stick shaker was working and could be heard on the CVR.
So they went passed the slip limit, but I’m more surprised that it’s not recoverable
When Yosarian checked his chute he found a slip of paper for a share of stock in the syndicate that Milo had left, he screamed Milos name.
many motivational speaker said that we should break our limit
well, They should watch this video. hahaha
5:35 idk why my heart sank
Altitude is life.
So did they not have a checklist to run thru before executing this maneuver?
I like your work in principal but I prefer listening to it at 1.5 x Speed.
I really don't think testing systems that can cause a loss of control should be done that low. Altitude means time, although it will likely mean more speed as well. I wonder if the captain knew what his angle was, although he likely did, but nobody seemed to call out the most pertinent information in that situation. It doesn't matter how good a pilot is, because each time they go up they are capable of making a mistake. It is interesting that in many dangerous fields the accident rate is high for inexperienced individuals, and then goes down with experience, but then shoots back up with lots of experience. Complacency and assumptions about what will happen based on prior experience can sometimes be a bad thing.
given there descent speed and rate of spin, it is unlikely the chute would have helped much... they were well outside its envelope I think.
My guess is they were instructed off the record to push to a higher angle.
I drive Bombardier Locomotives... and those have taken away any trust i had in Bombardier before.
Especially their softwares are... beyond... bad.
Typical manufacturer behavior, blame all three dead pilots to pay nothing and escape responsibility for a POS airplane. The plane probably started sliding like in a hydroplane situation and rather than jerk it out or overcorrect the controls they went with the slide to try and recover. Pilots had zero incentive to push the aircraft past its limits, manufacturer had all the incentive to hide the planes defects and place blame on rogue pilots (with the help of their investigative cronies). Blaming all 3 for not objecting is a nice touch. They were guinea pigs turned into scape goats. Surprised anyone would fall for this narrative.
The narration starts off to sound like a typical "Air Crash Investigation" episode.
Captain, very very experienced, a million flight hours etc. First Officer, as capable with almost as much experience.
What could ever go wrong?
I could see this being something a suit told the captain to do behind closed doors. But who knows.
Why perform spin inducing tests at 12,500 feet agl? Certainly not enough recovery altitude
It says bombarider (instead of bombardier) in the thumbnail pic.
So was that test designed to test the plane's tolerance towards uncoordinated flight at min. speed?
It seems more like something to use in crosswind handling, such as landing in a storm or a blustery day.
Why this so low altitude? Reminds me of XL Airways 888T crash
They probably thought they were high and fast enough that the plane would right itself regardless how far they went past the limits
if only for that meddling ground they would have been fine
Aircraft of such design should be treated with due caution and respect - activated stick shaker literally means "you're already one foot in the grave, be careful what you do next".
I really hope the chute deployment system has been redesigned.. no safety system (especially a literal lifeline like this) should require proper configuration prior to deployment, given what we know about decisions made / actions taken under pressure. totally understand the need to be able to jetison the chute, but it should NEVER be deployable in a detached state. anyone have insight here? am I way off base? has it been changed since this accident?
Oh and the link didn't work...I would love to see it as I don't think I have!