It is possible that both the pilot and the first officer bribed and cheated their way through training and education. That is very typical in certain countries, sadly.
There's something darkly comedic about turning on the no smoking signs as the cabin is filling with smoke. Like, guys, it's a bit too late for that. The fire can't read.
In remembrance to the flight attendants, who fought to keep their passengers safe and calm until the end: Fatima Suppialo Francis, 26 Abden Jafer al-Rahman, 27 Zorayda Hernandez, 24 Fauzia Saifuddin, 24 Ellen Bautista, 23 Rita Zulueta, 26 Margarita Sarmiento, 23 Lorna Bautista, 22 Alice Manalo, 23 Anndaleeb Masood, 20 Louise Henderson, 21
As a pilot and flight instructor, this entire accident is incredibly infuriating. The captain calling the engineer a donkey is incredibly ironic coming from a man that didn't know the presence of smoke is an emergency and immediate return to the field. RIP to the unfortunate souls these clowns took with them.
@Grassy Sands I looked it up and my dad said based on his age, just out of speculation, he’s probably an expat who couldn’t get a job doing what he wanted in the us and most of the time it’s countries like in the middle east or somewhere in the asianic region where they will give you one
As you pilot, and flight instructor, needed to dig the whole story, without missing any fragment of the picture. The captain only one fail, he born on region, where the rules more important against lives. So, that's why called out the flight engineer for the procedure. He actually flew the plane. The "heroic" flight attendant, who leaving the cockpit's door opened, caused the intoxication of the crew on the cockpit. The captain is a slow-learner. That's why when learned hardly something, he extremely focused on one thing: FOLLOW THE BOOK PROCEDURES. If he failed, failed to break rules, and thinking free. He learned, is not allowed. As instructor, what your opinion about "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" rule? Look up for CVR, is available- and then everithing became different. The captain full focus on "Aviate" meanwhile get intoxicated, and that leading more focus on that one job. The last radio communication is also available, and that is not a true, conscious speak, much alike a sample, a pre-learned routine speak. You know, like the meme around motoric callouts on cockpit, e.g. the "Positive climb- gear up" combo. You can realize the flight engineer's license done by pay for a bribe? Listen his unrecognizable sluggish voice without get scared, he actually the ENGINEER out there. Then I adding a fact: As christians began repeats "Oh my god", they made a pray- just the Qura'an recitation is sounds like singing. My opinion is the captain able to land that plane in one piece is a true miracle. Realized, all of engines, flight control stuff on the tail of the plane, and the fire slowly melting down all the wires, and tubes associated controlling the plane? The captain done his part, but, he not had enough "extra" to doing more. No one plane in fire before, or after can be land in one piece, why? You know, "Fire in the cockpit"? Or the another one? The ground crew why waited to reaction instead of preventive began spraying tunnel like nowadays does?
It's genuinely shocking that not one of those poor people left that plane alive. The pilots were slow to identify the fire, went past emergency services, and never showed real urgency. It's so chilling.
@@personzorz tbf, of the cabin pressurezation was wrong, the crew might have been suffering from hypoxia thus explaining their lack of proper response to the situation
I remember reading somewhere that the crew weren't really certain just how bad it was, because they couldn't really see it or tell what was at fault. Part of the issue being they had smoke, but not heat detectors in the cargo holds. It's possible to have smoke in an area, but no visible fire or excessive heat.
The singing and the repeated "No problems" suggests to me that this crew were completely overwhelmed by this incident to the point of almost losing touch with reality.
Leads me to believe that their training was completely inadequate. If they were competent enough to fly the plane, they should have been competent enough to handle when things went wrong in that situation had they been properly trained. If it’s drilled into you “indication that a fire is on board? Land and evacuate immediately, no questions asked, no risk to your livelihood.” Clearly that was not the case.
@@emilyadams3228 I was thinking about making a comment about how this would've seemed like a slapstick comedy if no one had died, but thought it would've been disrespectful. I still stand by that opinion though, and agree with your comment. This is why bosses vet potential employees, especially ones who are going to be responsible for other human lives.
I’ve always had such a deeply uncomfortable personal connection to this incident; my dad was a flight engineer instructor and he signed off on Bradley Curtis’s certification on the L-1011, and I’ve seen his name in the logbook my dad kept of his training flights. He had a lot of misgivings about passing Curtis, who he said was just barely competent and had lots of problems reading instruments and checklists correctly, and though he did technically pass and I gathered there was some pressure from above to let him through, my dad always was haunted by the deaths on this one, as it wasn’t entirely clear who’s lack of competence contributed the most to the tragedy. His stories about this and other incidents pretty much drilled a life-long fear of flying into me too.
I'm sorry to hear such a personal connection. I can see why it would haunt him - that question of "if I'd just made one different decision." But from what you've described and the pressure from above, it also shows how institutional these problems are. We all hope we'd do better in a given situation, but when the system - and the people who decide whether we have a job - are pushing us to make the wrong decision, how many of us can earnestly say we wouldn't crack? Especially when that pressure is probably continuous?
not your dad's fault, there has to be a line between pass and fail somewhere. What choice did he have if the dude passed that line? If the pass/fail line leaves educators seriously concerned about those who barely pass it, then the line needs to be tightened. An educator shouldn't be afraid for people's life if their student barely passes. That's an indicator that the test are bogus.
I’m sorry your dad felt guilt for passing him. Curtis was only 1 of the three idiots on board. The problem began when someone decided to put three incompetent people in the same cockpit.
This is like Vietnam. Absolutely unqualified ignorant, arrogant, no combat experience high-ranking officers giving orders of pure suicide. And, if perchance, there was an investigation, it always went to the lower ranks.
My sister, her husband and her 1 month old baby boy passed away in this disaster. It's been over +42 years but still fresh for our family. Allah swt must have placed them in highest level of Jannah Ameen
I don't know if it helps to know that a stranger from across the globe mourns for your family, but I feel for you very much. You and your family deserve to be comforted, I am so sorry. My heart goes out to you and all the families that are impacted by tragedies such as this. May the rest of your life bring you peace and happiness.
Ah yes a Pilot who wasnt gifted, a co pilot who failed flight school, and a flight engineer with dyslexia and who had to failed to qualify. What can possibly go wrong. Great video!
A dyslexic should never be in charge of such an important role. I'm sorry, it's not a popular thing to say these days with all of this diversity and inclusion stuff, but being able to READ under pressure is a skill that's absolutely needed.
@@YukariAkiyamaTanks Yeah I meant it in the best possible way. I'm the only non dyslexic in my family for which I feel lucky. Many of my friends are too. It's nothing mean, just, I've got ADHD and you would NOT want me piloting anything bigger than a bicycle.
Sorry pressed submit too fast - and in the same vein a dyslexic shouldn't be in a role that requires reading like I shouldn't be in a role that requires strong focus.
@@TheClintoniodiversity and inclusion doesn't say that completely unqualified people should qualify for roles they clearly cannot qualify for. It's like saying, "I don't want to get cancelled but I think people with no hands shouldn't be hand models". Of course they shouldn't. They physically can't. Same with dyslexic people and flying.
@@jccb1124 What you just said is gibberish you realise that? Diversity and inclusion doesn't "say" anything, it's a principle applied unevenly across society but HAS been used to justify hiring less qualified candidates based on race. Honestly where the fuck did that thought even come from?
Nothing was wrong in their flying, navigation, radio skills. The only thing that is wrong is this captain wasn’t trained properly to be in charge, and he won’t be if it’s today’s captain promotion exams.
For real. If I knew a Flight engineer had dyslexia, I would definitely NOT get on that flight... Especially if they were described as "Qualified enough"
It shouldn't matter if they barely made it, only that they DID. The Passing Bar should be set in a way that anyone who passes it is definitely qualified. Clearly that system failed here. These three people should never have been in charge of that plane.
Oh man, this is terrible. The is a pure example why a piece of paper shouldn't qualify someone, for anything. Also, people should not hesitate to fire such a person, and should hesitate to hire them. Experienced a few coworkers who were hired either through assumption or pity. Then they were scared or reluctant to fire them, when it was totally appropriate. These people ended up being expensive paper weights... Then you have people who were fired for no reason, leaving us short of caring, skilled people🙄 Arg, humans! Amiright...
As a former L-1011 pilot, this accident has always broken my heart and infuriated me. What a pointless waste of human life (and an excellent aircraft). That crew should have never been paired together, and in all likelihood, should never have been flying at all. [Edited to fix a typo.]
One very important takeaway from this that I hope everyone pays attention to is the indecisiveness after the smoke alarms. I’ve worked for a number of years in public safety and the number of times as well as the amount of time people spend questioning their equipment and alarms is mind-blowing. They’ll spend so much time trying to figure out why the smoke alarm’s going off, because it could be a faulty sensor, it could be a frayed wire, it could be a raging inferno, but they’re almost so deeply in denial that something is actually wrong that they’ll completely ignore all warning signs and instead search everywhere they can think of to prove the warning signs wrong. Like home smoke alarms, car alarms, etc etc etc. We’ve all done it on a much smaller scale, ignored the car alarm in the parking lot because it’s probably someone else’s and even if it is ours it’s probably just being overly sensitive for example. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to just go with the worst case scenario, play it safe, THEN figure out whether or not the warning signs were valid. Don’t just sit there and ignore them or try to prove them wrong because “it’s just a false alarm and I don’t want to overreact.” I cannot emphasize enough how often I’ve seen this. Again obviously not on the same scale, but that much absolutely has happened, can happen and will happen again and again and again.
Working in public safety you're going to see all the instances where the alarm was warranted, and never hear of the 98% of instances where it was a false alarm. That said, better safe than sorry is the right play.
@@a.nobodys.nobody Nah, couldn’t tell you how many times we’ve responded to false alarms. “When in doubt, send them out” has long been dispatch’s policy. You’re absolutely right, I do have a confirmation bias but ultimately that’s because I’ve seen how bad things get when the alarm IS accurate, not because I only get the calls that ARE accurate. Still agree with you either way.
I once worked in a franchise cafe inside a mall food court, making the salads and sandwiches in the morning. There was work being done at the time and it wasn't uncommon for the fire alarms to go off during the hours I was there before the mall actually opened and every time while most people evacuated our morning barista would stay to make us all drinks before joining us outside. This was often either the manager or the manager's daughter who was a supervisor. It staggered me even at the time but even moreso when I think back on it now, after having lived through natural disasters and working in disaster relief for two years at the Red Cross.
Most tragedies occur due to a series or chain reaction of bad events or decisions that would not have culminated in the tragedy if just one part of that chain of events/decisions had been corrected
Honestly, they didn't do anything greatly outside what training of the day suggested they should do. At the time, planes only had smoke detectors, but not heat detectors in the cargo areas. Before you say it, yes, it's possible to have smoke, but no real heat. At the time, the procedure was to test the various smoke detectors first, because it was generally understood that under the right conditions they could fault and produce a false positive. So you tested them first, then had a member of the crew go back and check for smoke, and then referred to the manual for what to do. As one of the crew notes "There isn't anything about it in the abnormal procedures." So the manual let them down at that point, as the airline had no specific procedure for what the crew should do in the event of fire.
@@luffyduffy7817 Indeed it was. Assuming the thousand different factors that could have caused the front to break away upon explosive decompression, the high winds that are common place at the airfield they landed at, of which would have surely shaken what was left of the plane to pieces, somehow had a LULL out of nowhere before they arrived. Its a haunting tale for sure, a miracle for certainty.
@@paulkurilecz4209 The people on the Aloha flight LIVED... except that one lady. This picture shows why these didn't. Saudia's roof fell into the cabin as it collapsed from the heat of the fire.
Slow learner, dyslexic, and autistic here. It was haunting to listen to these men perform so badly while also hearing a twinge of familiarity with it. I genuinely think they were trying but the situation was so overwhelming which led to such indecisiveness and slow thinking, which they are still responsible for regardless. Even though i can sympathize, none of these men were skilled enough for flight. They shouldn't have been put on this plan together. Those flight attendants are heros through and through. To face your own death but still be working so hard to keep the calm. Flight attendants never get enough credit.
In these disaster situations people always blame the staff involved in the actual event, but never shift blame onto the incompetent management that allowed them to be there in the first place. Of course there are exceptions, but the obvious pattern seems to be mismanagement of human resources also.
Yes! If there had been one quick-witted, competent cockpit crew member this may have turned out differently. I also wonder if emergency landings had been taught? It sounds like the pilot did what he was trained to do, gradual stop, clear runway...
There's only so much an incompetent crew can do when the real deal happens. They never should have been there. It's scary to wonder how prevalent the problem of incompetence might've been in the past (and maybe the present in some areas of the world), with disaster only being one misplacfed cigarette or faulty screw away.
Apparently one of the men had dyslexia and one had what some considered a learning disability. As a disabled person myself, I believe in equal opportunities, but only to a reasonable standard. Dyslexia can impact quick decision-making, processing of information and perception of written words/numbers. I'm not saying discrimination is okay, but when you're getting into the cockpit of a plane carrying over 300 innocent people around, maybe it's not all about you anymore.
As my late wife once said to me, 'even the guy who graduates bottom of his class at med school still gets to call himself 'Doctor'. Same goes for airline pilots. It's a sobering thought when we put so much trust in the skills of other people.
…and this is why I prefer to drive, if possible. Sure, statistically it’s more dangerous, but the outcome is more in my own control than on an aircraft. Trains, buses, whatever, I prefer to stay landed.
Depends on the training. During my pilot training all students getting lower than a 85% on an exam (you got 1 chance to resit an exam) would be kicked off the training program. You had to undergo several aptitude tests before you were accepted into the training program. Unfortunatly this does not apply to all schools/ training programs (of any profession). In my professional opinion none of the guys on the flight deck of this flight should ever have have been allowed near a plane.
@@mamapetillo8675 I'm sure you have total controle over all the other cars on the road. Yea when one of the other cars decide to slam into you at high speed you are so in controle at that point.
@Pimmemaster you are in control over how you react to any hazards on the road. I find far more comfort in having control over my vehicle than trusting some random person to properly fly a plane with me and a couple hundred other people on board. The vast majority of fatal and seriously injurious car accidents are the result of drugs and alcohol. Don't partake in those substances before driving, and you're very unlikely to ever die in a car accident. Yes, you can be hit by someone else who is doing that, but you're still very unlikely to have that happen to you.
Thank you for covering this tragic case. A couple of things: the plane's engines were never shut down, so the rescuers could not approach the aircraft or try to get in to help without endangering themselves. The flashover must have occurred before the pilots could shut the engines down. Also, it is rumored that the reason the captain didn't stop on the runway and evacuate is because planes landing at Riyadh were expected to keep the runway clear for the Saudi royal family. The burnt out hulk of the L-1011 sat out for years at Riyadh airport, a haunting sight.
I wonder how much of what the flight crew did was out of fear of reprisal rather than incompetence, this bit about keeping the runway clear illustrates that thought. They might have not taken the situation as seriously as they needed to because they were too focused on what would happen to them if there really wasn’t a significant fire. The culture may have been that if they unnecessarily took certain actions, they would think their lives or careers would be ruined. This was a factor in the Tenerife tragedy as well.
@@kristenjensen2589 "read my comment above" What above? There are 712 comments at the time I'm writing this comment and UA-cam's algorithm shows comments differently to every viewer. You want us to scroll thru hundreds of comments to find yours?!?
@@Varangian_af_Scaniae by simple process of elimination, the policy about the runway. What is wrong with you? This is a closed thread with LESS than 10 answers, not 712 comments... are you affected like the flight engineer?
@@LathropLdST 753 comments on the video by the time I'm commenting. Unless you mean solely in responses to exiledstardust, but that cannot be the case as kristens's "read my comment above" is her first comment in that subthread so she must be referring to a comment elsewhere in the 753.
This might be the most insane and outrageous story I've seen on this channel. Literally every action the crew took is shockingly batshit, if you told me this was really just an SNL sketch I would believe it
To me, it sounds as though they were all intoxicated. Maybe the fumes from whatever was burning was altering everyone’s minds? It seems impossible that this was just incompetence.
Imo, the Crash at Crush is SNL skit fodder. The sheer stupidity of crashing live trains for entertainment, and the fact that people took 19th century selfies on it is just bananas. Bonus points for no one learning a damn thing from it .
I think this video set the new record for how many times I thought or said "Wtf" in the span of ten minutes. What happened is truly terrifying and would have been easily preventable if the people in charge hadn't been so incompetent. I've been on a total of four flights in my life (two last month to go home for the holidays and two yesterday to come back to where I live now) and paid attention during the safety briefings on all four mainly because of videos like these. Rest In Peace to those who died on board.
I remember I was taking a flight one time and we were delayed because they found some electrical fault that might have made one of the backup emergency generators malfunction if it became necessary to turn it on. They couldn't fix it on the spot and ended up needing to find a whole different aircraft to put us on. I made sure to ask the flight attendant to tell the pilots how much I appreciated the caution since I figure other passengers might have been more inclined to vent their frustrations. I was also frustrated but I figured I would much rather have a delay from overcaution than to die in a fire because no one is capable of acting decisively.
I am a pilot and know someone who conducts classroom training (CRM) for pilots. Back in the mid 2000's he performed a course that involved watching a video of this accident. This was followed by a group discussion about why these pilots failed. Turned out, one of the attendees was the Son of the First Officer, who died on this flight. He gave a spirited defence of his Father, who with little experience was on a burning big jet with an indecisive Captain and Flight Engineer that could not read the checklists. All being said, I still think an experienced, assertive and capable foreign FO, could have rescued this situation.
I don't blame the man for defending the memory of his father; it must be so hard when your family member's actions become a "teachable moment" for the rest of the world. Still, there really is no defense for this situation. In life there are people who graduate top of their class and those who barely pass. As a passenger, you hope those in the cockpit are all pros, but as crew assignments get shuffled, you usually get a mixed bag. It seems improbable that fate should assign 3 "strugglers" to this one plane, but there you have it.
I have never flown in a three crew cockpit. However, I believe it should work as follows in an emergency. The Captain primarily is there to provide leadership and make decisions. The Flight Engineer is the technical expert, running the checklists and adjusting systems. The First Officer, can be used to fly the plane giving the others capacity to do their jobs. This clearly did not happen and although the FO, had problems in the past, it was not his doing. He just lacked the experience to intervene.
@@philipjamesparsons But the thing is that you already have lots of experience if you get to your ATPL. The FO had at least a few hundred hours of flight experience, the captain probably a few thousand. It's probably rarely easy to be assertive over the Captain, but an on board fire is something pretty clear cut, even with just the standard procedures
It's tragic that all of those people died because of the circus in the cockpit. Hearing FH read out what was going on in there was almost like a comedy movie, but also absolutely horrifying.
Did you notice his tone? This guy always maintains a plain yet dignified narration, but you could almost hear him fighting back his contempt when voicing their confusion and incompetence. And I don't blame him one bit. This scenario defies belief; if it didn't really happen, you'd think it were a bad Hollywood script.
I was in Riyadh the day of this disaster. I have a couple of photos of the same plane, from a hilltop further away. I was in KSA from April ‘80 until May ‘81. I had a friend who taught Saudi pilots to fly C-130’s and was closer to the Saudi aviation scene than most. When the dust settled and the smoke cleared, as it were, he told me that seven errors were attributed to the pilot. I can’t remember all but perhaps the most serious was that he released the oxygen masks, likely explaining the rapid deterioration of conditions in the cabin, and he apparently stopped the plane, on the tarmac, to allow the king’s (Khaled) plane to proceed to take off.
From reddit: "Another theory, more sinister but somewhat less believable, was made known by a witness to the accident nearly 30 years after it occurred. Michael Busby, an American defense contractor, owned a villa overlooking the airport and watched the accident unfold. He asserted in a 2010 article that the reason flight 163 had not come to a stop and evacuated immediately was the presence of the Saudi king’s Boeing 747, which he observed was about to take off right as flight 163 was arriving. According to Busby, protocol mandated that all traffic pause and make way when the king’s 747 was taxiing, and he believed that the crew of flight 163 feared punishment if they delayed his departure by evacuating 300 passengers onto the active runway. The presence of the king’s 747 is obliquely corroborated in a single line of an appendix to the accident report, in a summary of a witness statement by an airport employee. The employee, Nasser Al-Mansour, stated that at the time of the accident he was with the ramp supervisor making an inquiry about “the departure of 747 aircraft HM-1.” The report certainly makes no mention of the fact that 747 HM-1 is the Saudi king’s aircraft!"
I live in San Francisco, and it's interesting to compare this to the results of Asiana Air flight 214, which crashed on landing in 2013. They also had a fire on board after impact, but suffered only two fatalities (from impact damage), and managed to evacuate everyone safely before the fire consumed the plane. This was even the case despite the fact that 4 of 6 emergency slides failed to deploy. So, really shows the importance of acting quickly in this kind of situation....
@@ashleyhathaway8548 There was some dispute as to whether or not she was dead before the fire truck ran over her. The official medical examiner's report said she died before, but the family's expert said she had firefighting foam in her lungs, indicating she was breathing after being ejected. The firefighters were also criticized after their helmet cams were released under a public records request and showed one of them referring to her head as an "exploded pumpkin." Their response was to remove all helmet cams.
@@jonathankleinow2073 While that comment ("exploded pumpkin") is not exactly a "proper" reaction, I don't think removing helmet cams was/is the solution...
This one has always perplexed me. Many could likely have gotten off safely. Until now, I was not aware of just how incompetent the flightdeck crew were. 3 people with significant training issues should never have been left alone in charge of an aircraft.
@@hybridShinx they also once crashed a new Airbus plane into the end of the runway when picking it up from Airbus. There was a bit is ta cover-up but it got out.
@@hybridShinx Do you know how many saudi pilots are in Saudi Arabia and do you know how many aircrafts as well and how many accidents Do the math before start spreading judgments that shows your true intentions I’ll say stop the hate and look around you
As someone who is a bit dyslexic I can say I would never, ever apply for a job where a complete necessity for 100% accuracy in a time of duress controlled the lives or deaths of a few hundred people
Looking in the wrong handbook?? For fire procedures??? This is insane I've seen horrifying things happened in this channel but this one baffled me the most
How about the fact the captain let him struggle, waited for him to leave the cockpit, referred to him as a donkey, and told the first officer where to look for the procedures? Way to get your priorities wrong!
No, what baffled me most was that the guy they told to look them up was fucking dyslexic. What was he doing in that Cockpit? Dyslexia should probably disqualify him from being there.
That would be such a grisly sight. Having the plane successfully make an emergency landing, the crew stating they were going to evacuate, only for no one to come out, then finally find out all passengers and crew died from smoke inhalation inside. Edit: Typo
Grisly* Grizzly is a type of bear. But yeah wouldn't want to be any of the first responders overseeing a plane full of charred people still sitting in their allocated seats. That is definition grisly.
I was living & working in Saudi in the 70’s & 80’s & 90’s (12 years total), at Jeddah & in eastern province. The rumor about the plane accident at that time was that some passengers had lit up a stove to cook tea. Totally believable to me. Passengers used to cleanse/bathe = ablution in preparation for prayer, in the restrooms, turning on the water and sloshing around in it, which would result in water flowing from under the restroom door, down into the aisle several feet, soaking the carpet. Many of the foreign workers were uneducated to the modern ways of the world, they were there to make money like everyone else but came from very primitive areas. I could tell you stories about driving accidents that you wouldn’t believe, so I still think the tea explanation is quite valid.
You've overlooked the fact that they found the fire started in the cargo compartment...how many people are going to be heating tea in cargo? Pay more attention.
Those poor people must have been so relieved once that plane landed? I can't imagine how they felt with the fire worsening and NO DOORS being opened? This was TOTAL incompetence. Nothing less.
NONE of these men had any business being anywhere near a plane unless they were passengers. It’s was like blind leading the blind….I can’t even begin to imagine what the passengers were going through
Pilots were originally touted as "Knights of the Sky", and a lot of wealthy and aristocratic families see it as an honorable career (and a way to send off lesser children in the hierarchy). Let's just say there's a history of aviation disasters involving Saudi fail sons.
What are they? There are only three that I know of: This one, Saudia 162 where the main tire exploded and tore through the fuselage (Pilots did well and successfully emergency landed the plane) and the 1996 Charkhi Dadri Air Collision, which 100% did not fault the Saudia pilots.
I recently found this channel, and I must say it’s quite the one to binge. Things that seem so commonplace now, such as emergency exits on buses, answered within a well explained history of an event. So much respect for the time you put into these.
i honestly can't believe shows like Mayday have yet to cover this crash (tho apparently they will next year). its always interested me but finding documentaries on it is hard to come by. so thank you!
Good afternoon and welcome to Saudia airlines. Today Larry, Moe, and Curly will be flying the plane. Relax and enjoy the flight and hurry up and write your will while you still have time. That's almost as bad as some Russian pilot letting his kid play with the flight controls.
@@dougobrien4877From what I understand, females aren't usually fans of the stooges. But I love them. I like Jackass, too.. sometimes. I guess I'm not a typical female, lol.
You should consider doing a video on the Galeras volcano disaster, where a bunch of scientists and tourists went into the crater of an active volcano, with easily predictable and still tragic results.
I first heard of this on Nat Geo's Seconds from Disaster. This would definitely be a good topic to cover. I ended up buying a book about it and the one doctor still feels that he did not do anything wrong and that his actions saved lives....
Out of every plane disaster, this one might be the worst (Only behind a few that I could think of) the passengers were sure they were saved after landing safely from a fire only to be asphyxiated by the smoke due to incompetence, I've heard somewhere that the reason they didn't stop immediately after landing is because a Royal was on a plane behind them and they could not obstruct the arrival of the VIP don't quote me on that but it's been thrown around for a few years
The original source for that myth was a single American present in a nearby hotel at the time but only having made that claim some three decades later. Unfortunately this myth keeps circulating on the internet because people think it would make sense that an evil royal regime would be responsible for every horrific incident in their country.
I remember reading about this: there may have also been reluctance to show an emergency as one of the Princes may have been at the airport and the captain didn't want to embarrass himself or the airline. Didn't work out.
Working in any emergency field, I worked for emergency medical services, exposes you to a lot of things that will cause PTSD. you do your best to make it not about yourself. You are appalled by the situation, so you do everything you can to fix it as much as possible to alleviate as much suffering as you can. For some of us, that makes it better than being a bystander and doing nothing. We take comfort from being involved.
Extremely sad and horrifying to even imagine what those passengers experienced in their last moments. My love and best wishes to their families and loved ones who instantly lost their loved ones.
This is the first air disaster documentary I’ve watched where the flight crew wasn’t described as “experianced” or “veteran”. I was beginning to wonder if disasters only happen to experianced flight crews.
I fly a lot and take a window exit seat. I'm always amazed (and concerned) that flight attendants are basically ignored during all safety briefings including the ones specifically for the window exit passengers. My family knows we are out of there. The same thing is true of school fire drills...they aren't taken seriously. Then there's surprise when something deadly happens.
I remember boarding an Air India plane, during my time working from BA and there was a stove with used cooking utensils in the area of the passenger's mid-main door. Also, did the LTU Tri-Star that burnt out at Dusseldorf during maintenance, burn the roof off due to the passenger emergency oxygen. Can't remember if the system was self-generating packs or large bottles feeding pipework.
I'm having trouble believing the flight engineer was living out the "This is fine." meme, on an aircraft flying hundreds of feet up, at hundreds of knots, getting consumed by flame in real time. Surreal.
If it was that difficult for those 3 to be able to fly a plane and pass their tests, then there's absolutely no way they should have ever been able to have passengers lives in their hands especially being so incompetent.
When you're a passenger, you're bound to get a crew a with mixed bag of experience levels. You may hope for nothing but pros in the cockpit, but then that would mean the next plane over had the barely-passers. It was just a cruel and unlikely twist of fate that these three were together when something wrong happened.
Imagine how horrible it would have been to be a fireman responding. Seeing the plane just casually rolling like nothing and even if you got to it you can't open any of the exits. You would be forced to just watch people burn, unable to help even though it's your job.
This involves a common thing I don't think has a name but I call it flight to normalcy. In a fight or flight situation, people refuse to acknowledge they're in an emergency, refuse to break out of what behavior patterns considered normal and acceptable and get killed as a result. The Station nightclub fire is the same story. Dozens of people died in a crushing main entryway trying to escape a growing fire and nobody thought to break out the huge bay windows right beside it.
I think the same thing has happened on some of the other videos presented on this channel. I forget the name for it though. I have learned to ALWAYS respond as though there's a disaster -- better safe than sorry. There are PLENTY of people who do not, but I don't think I'll ever understand that mentality. I'll never forget the time in high school when the fire alarms went off between classes. (Drills were _always_ planned.) So, we did as we had been trained: we calmly _walked_ to the nearest exits, went out to the safe areas, and waited quietly while the fire trucks arrived. It turned out to be a false alarm from dust in the systems. I remember the faculty thanking us for acting appropriately and remaining calm.
@@daffers2345 That's the tough thing though. Sometimes doing the orderly thing saves lives. Other times trying to do the orderly thing like parking neatly at the jetway or leaving from the same entrance you came in because you didn't take note of other emergency exits, gets you killed. Sometimes following protocol to the letter is how you live. Other times you have to know when to go beyond the protocol and act with some urgent, otherwise unacceptable, unscripted action to live. We'd all like to think we'd rise to that occasion but it's just about impossible to simulate a true emergency like that. It's like the thing that makes it horrible is built into human nature.
Saw this story on Air Disasters..the incompetence of the pilots was chilling! AMAZING THAT THE CAPTAIN DID NOT HAVE THE FIRST OFFICER LOOK UP THE FIRE CHECKLIST IMMEDIATELY WHEN HE KNEW THE FLIGHT ENGINEER COULD NOT DO IT! THEY STARTED 10 MINUTES LATER!
If even one of the three men in the cockpit had been competent to be there, this tragedy might have been averted, or at least minimized. Perhaps they were assigned there together because more knowledgeable pilots wouldn't tolerate them in their crew.
@Grassy Sands don’t shift the blame on the flight attendants. You don’t even know if they were still alive by the time the plane landed. The idiot that decided to put three of the most incompetent pilots in a single cockpit is most at fault.
I believe that the crew also failed to shut down the engines after stopping the plane, which meant the fuselage remained pressurised and that rescue crews could not safely approach the fuselage.
Yes, correct. This should have been mentioned in the documentary. Because of the pressure, the doors could not be opened, and the rescuers could not get near the plane without endangering themselves.
Yes, I remember this sad horrifying incident. I was in school and heard about it. The stove inside the luggage caught fire 🔥. Passengers at that time routinely used to bring such items to facilitate cooking during haj. Civil aviation banned any such items in the luggage after that. saudi gov announced that they would provide food to all hajis and no need to bring such dangerous items while travelling. The whole outlook of haj (pilgrimage)changed after that.
@@daffers2345 I just heard one that kept me up nights. A bunch of old people were killed and robbed and the police didn't really bother to find the killer.
As someone who frequently flew Saudia in the 1980s i have to say this was unfortunate and a real blow to the pretty solid reputation of Saudi Arabian Airlines, during those years. They had an amazingly new fleet and they enjoyed a period of rapid growth throughout those times. I often felt safe flying Saudia as we knew many pilots plus the planes were brand new. I think Saudia learned their lesson from this pretty avoidable accident. Saudia is one of the best airlines in the world and one accident shouldn't deter people from flying them. RIP to all those who perished even the amateur cockpit crew. Yes a series of mistakes were made and compare this incident to the recent Japan airlines plane fire where the passengers were quickly evacuated and no one lost their life. How far aviation safety has come due to these unfortunate and sad events. I loved Saudia and i would gladly fly them again.
My Dad was an executive at Goodrich (supplier of the wheels and brakes for the Lockheed L1011) at the time of this accident. I remember talking about this accident with my Dad. He told me that investigators suspected that someone made tea with a portable stove, while in their seat, setting the cabin furniture on fire. I guess finding the camp stove in the wreckage makes sense. He had stories about the "unsophisticated" passengers on Saudia Airlines not using on-board lavatories, etc. so using a stove to make yourself tea during a flight might not be as crazy as it sounds to us today.
That's sounds crazy but makes sense according to your dad's experience, I thought the portable stove was more akin to most passengers going to pilgrimage, so they brought equipment for camping or something
I heard the same, pax making tea on stoves. But the chatter at the time was that the captain had vacated the runway as an aircraft of the Royal Flight (of which there were many) was inbound and thus an imperative not to impede its landing
Possible, but a BBC documentary years later suggested otherwise. They believed it was due to a hydraulic leak dripping on shorting wires. Hydraulic fluid, Skydrol has a high flash point and should not burn. But the shorting wires was enough to get a fire going. It is hard to get at the truth with vested interests.
@@hoof2001 I have heard of many weird things happening on these pilgrimage flights. Another pilot recently told me he opened the unlocked toilet door on a Hajj flight...... there was a man standing on the toilet seat taking a dump. High altitude bombing. So, lighting up a stove seems normal.
As someone who lives in the areas mentioned and enjoys all your videos, it's always nice to see channels like yours covering more disasters in countries that aren't the US or UK!
Listening to him explain how each member of the flight crew operated during this made it sound like there were three Roombas flying the plane and the fire made them short-circuit and start singing, and repeating themselves over and over
TWA trained Saudi Airlines employees. I think the pilot was in a negative panic mode. Something they teach flight attendants when during an emergency a passenger would still be in their seats not moving or stop at the door not jumping on the chute/slide and you have to push them off.
Some of the equipment taken on board Middle Eastern flights was mind boggling in the 1980s. I remember flying back from Dubai to London via Kuwait on Gulf Air. The passenger aisles were filled with gifts and even small camping type cooking stoves. If there had been a similar problem that needed quick evacuation, it would have been very difficult.
This is a perfect illustration of why checklists and procedures exist. If you get a smoke detector warning, you shouldn't waste precious seconds (or minutes!) deciding if there's an actual fire and if you should react. You whip out the checklist and if anyone asks why you did what you did, you were just following the procedure.
My stepfather was an engineer who worked in Saudia Airlines for several years, including 1980. He reported that passengers had lit gas heaters as soon as take off occurred. These were intended to make tea, and in those days this was a common occurrence, especially since many were illiterate peasants (not a pejorative, but literally) who were traveling from their villages for the first time in their lives. We used to hear about small livestock being taken along in the cabin (chickens, goats, sheep) and my father with his team were tasked with redesign of the bathrooms. This meant lining the entire room in a single envelope of plastic, because many passengers had never seen a western toilet before. The walls and fixtures and floors would rust out within months of installation. We frequent passengers knew to use the bathrooms early in the flight while they were still clean, and then just hold it for the duration of the flight...those were the wild days!
@@kristenjensen2589 That's not what I mean. I stated the truth, because I'm a realist. Naturally, this triggers the default setting of parroting the standard catch phrases used by globalists to destroy real people who aren't deluded. If all you have is "racism" this and "racism" that, don't even bother. Your kind isn't going to get away with it much longer, anyway.
The captain saying, “Tell them not to evacuate.” absolutely shocked me. I honestly am lost for words on how preventable this was. May the 301 souls who lost their lives that day never be forgotten.
@Grassy Sands I'm no expert, but wouldn't that have caused a second issue of rapid expansion of the fire? I remember that happening when they tried to vent originally. Sadly, pilot error did cost 300+ their lives so trying anything would have been better, even if it was just one person making it out.
I’ve seen another channel cover this (Mini Air Crash Investigations). They mention it took over 20 minutes for ground rescue to get the doors open because they weren’t trained on how to open them. Testing showed the change in pressure between inside and outside plane was not enough to hamper opening the doors from the outside. Incompetence all around.
Usually, in these stories, the management causes the majority of the harm with greedy business decisions, but this time it was little more than pure human stupidity.
This accident still perplexes me to this day. How could a flight crew be so incompetent?
You should see the Saudi military
It is possible that both the pilot and the first officer bribed and cheated their way through training and education. That is very typical in certain countries, sadly.
@@thebumpercar1344 - The second officer also had flunked out of training.
Geographic location. Look there
@@personzorz
Yeah, never thought that Saudi M1 tank get taken out by Yemen Rebel.
Those pilots and the flight engineer sound like they had no business being anywhere near an aircraft
They shouldn't be operating any complicated machinery at all. Just the initial summary screamed "do not put in the cockpit."
Agreed. 😅
Wouldn’t even use them as chocks for the plane wheels
Thanks jenius
Did he just say, Dyslexia?
There's something darkly comedic about turning on the no smoking signs as the cabin is filling with smoke. Like, guys, it's a bit too late for that. The fire can't read.
i'm just imagining some surly passenger taking out a cigarette and shouting "if the PLANE can smoke so can I!"
Almost sounds like something from a “Final Destination” movie
No fighting in the war room.
Also, a singing pilot. That's got to be a bad sign
@@dunbrine47 I love that movie
I cannot think of anything more terrifying than finding out the person piloting the plane you're on is widely known as "a slow learner" 😭
It would be like something out of a horror movie, except, it's real life.
Or that any of them barely qualified as a pilot or flight crew
In remembrance to the flight attendants, who fought to keep their passengers safe and calm until the end:
Fatima Suppialo Francis, 26
Abden Jafer al-Rahman, 27
Zorayda Hernandez, 24
Fauzia Saifuddin, 24
Ellen Bautista, 23
Rita Zulueta, 26
Margarita Sarmiento, 23
Lorna Bautista, 22
Alice Manalo, 23
Anndaleeb Masood, 20
Louise Henderson, 21
RIP & Innalilahi
I can't get over how young they were :(
Oh god, they were all so young. 💔
They were so young😢
God bless them and may they rest in peace!! 😢🙏🙏🙏
As a pilot and flight instructor, this entire accident is incredibly infuriating. The captain calling the engineer a donkey is incredibly ironic coming from a man that didn't know the presence of smoke is an emergency and immediate return to the field. RIP to the unfortunate souls these clowns took with them.
pot calling the kettle black
Not to mention completely unprofessional
@Grassy Sands I looked it up and my dad said based on his age, just out of speculation, he’s probably an expat who couldn’t get a job doing what he wanted in the us and most of the time it’s countries like in the middle east or somewhere in the asianic region where they will give you one
@@SparklRebel sadly "normal" in the business
As you pilot, and flight instructor, needed to dig the whole story, without missing any fragment of the picture.
The captain only one fail, he born on region, where the rules more important against lives.
So, that's why called out the flight engineer for the procedure.
He actually flew the plane.
The "heroic" flight attendant, who leaving the cockpit's door opened, caused the intoxication of the crew on the cockpit.
The captain is a slow-learner.
That's why when learned hardly something, he extremely focused on one thing: FOLLOW THE BOOK PROCEDURES.
If he failed, failed to break rules, and thinking free. He learned, is not allowed.
As instructor, what your opinion about "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" rule?
Look up for CVR, is available- and then everithing became different.
The captain full focus on "Aviate" meanwhile get intoxicated, and that leading more focus on that one job.
The last radio communication is also available, and that is not a true, conscious speak, much alike a sample, a pre-learned routine speak.
You know, like the meme around motoric callouts on cockpit, e.g. the "Positive climb- gear up" combo.
You can realize the flight engineer's license done by pay for a bribe?
Listen his unrecognizable sluggish voice without get scared, he actually the ENGINEER out there.
Then I adding a fact: As christians began repeats "Oh my god", they made a pray- just the Qura'an recitation is sounds like singing.
My opinion is the captain able to land that plane in one piece is a true miracle.
Realized, all of engines, flight control stuff on the tail of the plane, and the fire slowly melting down all the wires, and tubes associated controlling the plane?
The captain done his part, but, he not had enough "extra" to doing more.
No one plane in fire before, or after can be land in one piece, why?
You know, "Fire in the cockpit"?
Or the another one?
The ground crew why waited to reaction instead of preventive began spraying tunnel like nowadays does?
It's genuinely shocking that not one of those poor people left that plane alive.
The pilots were slow to identify the fire, went past emergency services, and never showed real urgency. It's so chilling.
If the cabin pressurization was wrong, it might not even have been possible to open the doors without help from the cockpit
@@personzorz tbf, of the cabin pressurezation was wrong, the crew might have been suffering from hypoxia thus explaining their lack of proper response to the situation
I remember reading somewhere that the crew weren't really certain just how bad it was, because they couldn't really see it or tell what was at fault. Part of the issue being they had smoke, but not heat detectors in the cargo holds. It's possible to have smoke in an area, but no visible fire or excessive heat.
Emergency responses were expecting an evacuation on the runway. It’s the only time ever that a plane landed, taxied, and everyone died.
Mossad.
The singing and the repeated "No problems" suggests to me that this crew were completely overwhelmed by this incident to the point of almost losing touch with reality.
yeah, clear signs of being completely overwhelmed and in denial of the situation.
Leads me to believe that their training was completely inadequate. If they were competent enough to fly the plane, they should have been competent enough to handle when things went wrong in that situation had they been properly trained. If it’s drilled into you “indication that a fire is on board? Land and evacuate immediately, no questions asked, no risk to your livelihood.” Clearly that was not the case.
Poor things, they must have all been terrified.
Yeah, well that's what happens when you let the Three Stooges and Rain Man fly a plane.
@@emilyadams3228 I was thinking about making a comment about how this would've seemed like a slapstick comedy if no one had died, but thought it would've been disrespectful. I still stand by that opinion though, and agree with your comment. This is why bosses vet potential employees, especially ones who are going to be responsible for other human lives.
I’ve always had such a deeply uncomfortable personal connection to this incident; my dad was a flight engineer instructor and he signed off on Bradley Curtis’s certification on the L-1011, and I’ve seen his name in the logbook my dad kept of his training flights. He had a lot of misgivings about passing Curtis, who he said was just barely competent and had lots of problems reading instruments and checklists correctly, and though he did technically pass and I gathered there was some pressure from above to let him through, my dad always was haunted by the deaths on this one, as it wasn’t entirely clear who’s lack of competence contributed the most to the tragedy. His stories about this and other incidents pretty much drilled a life-long fear of flying into me too.
I'm sorry to hear such a personal connection. I can see why it would haunt him - that question of "if I'd just made one different decision."
But from what you've described and the pressure from above, it also shows how institutional these problems are. We all hope we'd do better in a given situation, but when the system - and the people who decide whether we have a job - are pushing us to make the wrong decision, how many of us can earnestly say we wouldn't crack? Especially when that pressure is probably continuous?
not your dad's fault, there has to be a line between pass and fail somewhere. What choice did he have if the dude passed that line? If the pass/fail line leaves educators seriously concerned about those who barely pass it, then the line needs to be tightened. An educator shouldn't be afraid for people's life if their student barely passes. That's an indicator that the test are bogus.
I’m sorry your dad felt guilt for passing him. Curtis was only 1 of the three idiots on board. The problem began when someone decided to put three incompetent people in the same cockpit.
@@cheyj144 Indeed, there apparently were many levels of incompetence in this incident far beyond the flight crew.
This is like Vietnam. Absolutely unqualified ignorant, arrogant, no combat experience high-ranking officers giving orders of pure suicide. And, if perchance, there was an investigation, it always went to the lower ranks.
My sister, her husband and her 1 month old baby boy passed away in this disaster.
It's been over +42 years but still fresh for our family.
Allah swt must have placed them in highest level of Jannah Ameen
I’m sorry for your loss
It makes it a lot worse when if they had competent pilots they would have not perished. Sorry for all the lost souls on board.
I don't know if it helps to know that a stranger from across the globe mourns for your family, but I feel for you very much. You and your family deserve to be comforted, I am so sorry. My heart goes out to you and all the families that are impacted by tragedies such as this. May the rest of your life bring you peace and happiness.
Thanks to all for your kind feelings 🙏
My deepest condolences for your tragic loss.
Ah yes a Pilot who wasnt gifted, a co pilot who failed flight school, and a flight engineer with dyslexia and who had to failed to qualify. What can possibly go wrong. Great video!
A dyslexic should never be in charge of such an important role. I'm sorry, it's not a popular thing to say these days with all of this diversity and inclusion stuff, but being able to READ under pressure is a skill that's absolutely needed.
@@YukariAkiyamaTanks Yeah I meant it in the best possible way. I'm the only non dyslexic in my family for which I feel lucky. Many of my friends are too. It's nothing mean, just, I've got ADHD and you would NOT want me piloting anything bigger than a bicycle.
Sorry pressed submit too fast - and in the same vein a dyslexic shouldn't be in a role that requires reading like I shouldn't be in a role that requires strong focus.
@@TheClintoniodiversity and inclusion doesn't say that completely unqualified people should qualify for roles they clearly cannot qualify for.
It's like saying, "I don't want to get cancelled but I think people with no hands shouldn't be hand models".
Of course they shouldn't. They physically can't. Same with dyslexic people and flying.
@@jccb1124 What you just said is gibberish you realise that? Diversity and inclusion doesn't "say" anything, it's a principle applied unevenly across society but HAS been used to justify hiring less qualified candidates based on race. Honestly where the fuck did that thought even come from?
"Qualified enough," I'm sure those are words that passengers want to hear.
Right up there with 'good enough for government work'.
Nothing was wrong in their flying, navigation, radio skills.
The only thing that is wrong is this captain wasn’t trained properly to be in charge, and he won’t be if it’s today’s captain promotion exams.
They had me at “The captain was a slow learner.”
@@GrisouIII Yeah, and that one with dyslexia? Flying a plane? Are you fucking kidding me?
For real. If I knew a Flight engineer had dyslexia, I would definitely NOT get on that flight... Especially if they were described as "Qualified enough"
A good example of the "Not everyone passes top of the class". For every best qualified person there's always someone who just barely made it.
It’s like the old saying- “Do you know what you call the lowest passing person in medical school? Doctor?
It’s like the old saying- “Do you know what you call the lowest passing person in medical school? Doctor”.
Classic case of "paying the right people" to get their inability to pass ignored.
It shouldn't matter if they barely made it, only that they DID. The Passing Bar should be set in a way that anyone who passes it is definitely qualified. Clearly that system failed here. These three people should never have been in charge of that plane.
Oh man, this is terrible. The is a pure example why a piece of paper shouldn't qualify someone, for anything. Also, people should not hesitate to fire such a person, and should hesitate to hire them. Experienced a few coworkers who were hired either through assumption or pity. Then they were scared or reluctant to fire them, when it was totally appropriate. These people ended up being expensive paper weights... Then you have people who were fired for no reason, leaving us short of caring, skilled people🙄 Arg, humans! Amiright...
As a former L-1011 pilot, this accident has always broken my heart and infuriated me. What a pointless waste of human life (and an excellent aircraft). That crew should have never been paired together, and in all likelihood, should never have been flying at all.
[Edited to fix a typo.]
Wasn’t this supposedly a very advanced aircraft?
One very important takeaway from this that I hope everyone pays attention to is the indecisiveness after the smoke alarms. I’ve worked for a number of years in public safety and the number of times as well as the amount of time people spend questioning their equipment and alarms is mind-blowing. They’ll spend so much time trying to figure out why the smoke alarm’s going off, because it could be a faulty sensor, it could be a frayed wire, it could be a raging inferno, but they’re almost so deeply in denial that something is actually wrong that they’ll completely ignore all warning signs and instead search everywhere they can think of to prove the warning signs wrong. Like home smoke alarms, car alarms, etc etc etc. We’ve all done it on a much smaller scale, ignored the car alarm in the parking lot because it’s probably someone else’s and even if it is ours it’s probably just being overly sensitive for example. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to just go with the worst case scenario, play it safe, THEN figure out whether or not the warning signs were valid. Don’t just sit there and ignore them or try to prove them wrong because “it’s just a false alarm and I don’t want to overreact.” I cannot emphasize enough how often I’ve seen this. Again obviously not on the same scale, but that much absolutely has happened, can happen and will happen again and again and again.
It's sad once one realizes, but 90% of people are idiots.
Working in public safety you're going to see all the instances where the alarm was warranted, and never hear of the 98% of instances where it was a false alarm. That said, better safe than sorry is the right play.
@@a.nobodys.nobody Nah, couldn’t tell you how many times we’ve responded to false alarms. “When in doubt, send them out” has long been dispatch’s policy. You’re absolutely right, I do have a confirmation bias but ultimately that’s because I’ve seen how bad things get when the alarm IS accurate, not because I only get the calls that ARE accurate. Still agree with you either way.
I once worked in a franchise cafe inside a mall food court, making the salads and sandwiches in the morning. There was work being done at the time and it wasn't uncommon for the fire alarms to go off during the hours I was there before the mall actually opened and every time while most people evacuated our morning barista would stay to make us all drinks before joining us outside. This was often either the manager or the manager's daughter who was a supervisor. It staggered me even at the time but even moreso when I think back on it now, after having lived through natural disasters and working in disaster relief for two years at the Red Cross.
Somehow, realizing how many ways this tragedy could have been avoided only serves to magnify the horror.
I can't imagine being a friend of family member of one of the victims and finding out how this happened. Absolutely gut wrenching.
Most tragedies occur due to a series or chain reaction of bad events or decisions that would not have culminated in the tragedy if just one part of that chain of events/decisions had been corrected
Like a blind man driving?
Absolutely
I’m amazed I’ve never heard of this disaster, incredible how awful the pilots handled it
Honestly, they didn't do anything greatly outside what training of the day suggested they should do. At the time, planes only had smoke detectors, but not heat detectors in the cargo areas. Before you say it, yes, it's possible to have smoke, but no real heat. At the time, the procedure was to test the various smoke detectors first, because it was generally understood that under the right conditions they could fault and produce a false positive. So you tested them first, then had a member of the crew go back and check for smoke, and then referred to the manual for what to do. As one of the crew notes "There isn't anything about it in the abnormal procedures." So the manual let them down at that point, as the airline had no specific procedure for what the crew should do in the event of fire.
Why didn't they just emergency stop on the runway tho....?
@@huzcer They seem to have passed out mid-landing.
@@arianebolt1575 no? the pilot taxied and made a 180 degree turn
@@arianebolt1575 Clearly not.
The plane all alone on the runway with the roof completely burnt away is one of the most haunting pictures I've seen
Noting like it until the top of half of the Aloha Airlines 737 came off while in flight.
@@paulkurilecz4209 the fact that ANYONE much less the majority of people on that flight were ok is some kind of miracle
@@luffyduffy7817 Indeed it was. Assuming the thousand different factors that could have caused the front to break away upon explosive decompression, the high winds that are common place at the airfield they landed at, of which would have surely shaken what was left of the plane to pieces, somehow had a LULL out of nowhere before they arrived. Its a haunting tale for sure, a miracle for certainty.
@@MarcABrown-tt1fp I thought there was much faster metal fatigue b/c of it being many short hops.
@@paulkurilecz4209 The people on the Aloha flight LIVED... except that one lady. This picture shows why these didn't. Saudia's roof fell into the cabin as it collapsed from the heat of the fire.
“Qualified enough “ is. A terrifying phrase when talking abou intricate plane systems, surgeons, or building engineers
Slow learner, dyslexic, and autistic here. It was haunting to listen to these men perform so badly while also hearing a twinge of familiarity with it. I genuinely think they were trying but the situation was so overwhelming which led to such indecisiveness and slow thinking, which they are still responsible for regardless. Even though i can sympathize, none of these men were skilled enough for flight. They shouldn't have been put on this plan together.
Those flight attendants are heros through and through. To face your own death but still be working so hard to keep the calm. Flight attendants never get enough credit.
In these disaster situations people always blame the staff involved in the actual event, but never shift blame onto the incompetent management that allowed them to be there in the first place. Of course there are exceptions, but the obvious pattern seems to be mismanagement of human resources also.
Yes! If there had been one quick-witted, competent cockpit crew member this may have turned out differently. I also wonder if emergency landings had been taught? It sounds like the pilot did what he was trained to do, gradual stop, clear runway...
True, an incompetent operator lacks the competence to know that they are incompetent.
There's only so much an incompetent crew can do when the real deal happens. They never should have been there. It's scary to wonder how prevalent the problem of incompetence might've been in the past (and maybe the present in some areas of the world), with disaster only being one misplacfed cigarette or faulty screw away.
Oh, I absolutely want to blame management as well. They're as guilty as the operators because they *put* those people there.
Apparently one of the men had dyslexia and one had what some considered a learning disability. As a disabled person myself, I believe in equal opportunities, but only to a reasonable standard. Dyslexia can impact quick decision-making, processing of information and perception of written words/numbers. I'm not saying discrimination is okay, but when you're getting into the cockpit of a plane carrying over 300 innocent people around, maybe it's not all about you anymore.
As my late wife once said to me, 'even the guy who graduates bottom of his class at med school still gets to call himself 'Doctor'. Same goes for airline pilots. It's a sobering thought when we put so much trust in the skills of other people.
…and this is why I prefer to drive, if possible. Sure, statistically it’s more dangerous, but the outcome is more in my own control than on an aircraft.
Trains, buses, whatever, I prefer to stay landed.
Depends on the training. During my pilot training all students getting lower than a 85% on an exam (you got 1 chance to resit an exam) would be kicked off the training program. You had to undergo several aptitude tests before you were accepted into the training program. Unfortunatly this does not apply to all schools/ training programs (of any profession). In my professional opinion none of the guys on the flight deck of this flight should ever have have been allowed near a plane.
@@mamapetillo8675 Same.
@@mamapetillo8675 I'm sure you have total controle over all the other cars on the road. Yea when one of the other cars decide to slam into you at high speed you are so in controle at that point.
@Pimmemaster you are in control over how you react to any hazards on the road. I find far more comfort in having control over my vehicle than trusting some random person to properly fly a plane with me and a couple hundred other people on board.
The vast majority of fatal and seriously injurious car accidents are the result of drugs and alcohol. Don't partake in those substances before driving, and you're very unlikely to ever die in a car accident. Yes, you can be hit by someone else who is doing that, but you're still very unlikely to have that happen to you.
Thank you for covering this tragic case. A couple of things: the plane's engines were never shut down, so the rescuers could not approach the aircraft or try to get in to help without endangering themselves. The flashover must have occurred before the pilots could shut the engines down. Also, it is rumored that the reason the captain didn't stop on the runway and evacuate is because planes landing at Riyadh were expected to keep the runway clear for the Saudi royal family. The burnt out hulk of the L-1011 sat out for years at Riyadh airport, a haunting sight.
I wonder how much of what the flight crew did was out of fear of reprisal rather than incompetence, this bit about keeping the runway clear illustrates that thought. They might have not taken the situation as seriously as they needed to because they were too focused on what would happen to them if there really wasn’t a significant fire. The culture may have been that if they unnecessarily took certain actions, they would think their lives or careers would be ruined. This was a factor in the Tenerife tragedy as well.
I don't doubt that policy..
I have lived in Saudi since 1975, (read my comment above..) and that sounds about right for the time.
@@kristenjensen2589 "read my comment above"
What above? There are 712 comments at the time I'm writing this comment and UA-cam's algorithm shows comments differently to every viewer. You want us to scroll thru hundreds of comments to find yours?!?
@@Varangian_af_Scaniae by simple process of elimination, the policy about the runway. What is wrong with you? This is a closed thread with LESS than 10 answers, not 712 comments... are you affected like the flight engineer?
@@LathropLdST 753 comments on the video by the time I'm commenting. Unless you mean solely in responses to exiledstardust, but that cannot be the case as kristens's "read my comment above" is her first comment in that subthread so she must be referring to a comment elsewhere in the 753.
This might be the most insane and outrageous story I've seen on this channel. Literally every action the crew took is shockingly batshit, if you told me this was really just an SNL sketch I would believe it
To me, it sounds as though they were all intoxicated. Maybe the fumes from whatever was burning was altering everyone’s minds? It seems impossible that this was just incompetence.
It is just the pilots. Not the whole crew. The flight attendants did a good job. The pilots did not.
Imo, the Crash at Crush is SNL skit fodder. The sheer stupidity of crashing live trains for entertainment, and the fact that people took 19th century selfies on it is just bananas. Bonus points for no one learning a damn thing from it .
What is SNL?
@@ThePolaroid669 Saturday Night Live.
I think this video set the new record for how many times I thought or said "Wtf" in the span of ten minutes. What happened is truly terrifying and would have been easily preventable if the people in charge hadn't been so incompetent. I've been on a total of four flights in my life (two last month to go home for the holidays and two yesterday to come back to where I live now) and paid attention during the safety briefings on all four mainly because of videos like these. Rest In Peace to those who died on board.
I remember I was taking a flight one time and we were delayed because they found some electrical fault that might have made one of the backup emergency generators malfunction if it became necessary to turn it on. They couldn't fix it on the spot and ended up needing to find a whole different aircraft to put us on. I made sure to ask the flight attendant to tell the pilots how much I appreciated the caution since I figure other passengers might have been more inclined to vent their frustrations. I was also frustrated but I figured I would much rather have a delay from overcaution than to die in a fire because no one is capable of acting decisively.
I am a pilot and know someone who conducts classroom training (CRM) for pilots. Back in the mid 2000's he performed a course that involved watching a video of this accident. This was followed by a group discussion about why these pilots failed. Turned out, one of the attendees was the Son of the First Officer, who died on this flight. He gave a spirited defence of his Father, who with little experience was on a burning big jet with an indecisive Captain and Flight Engineer that could not read the checklists. All being said, I still think an experienced, assertive and capable foreign FO, could have rescued this situation.
I don't blame the man for defending the memory of his father; it must be so hard when your family member's actions become a "teachable moment" for the rest of the world. Still, there really is no defense for this situation.
In life there are people who graduate top of their class and those who barely pass. As a passenger, you hope those in the cockpit are all pros, but as crew assignments get shuffled, you usually get a mixed bag. It seems improbable that fate should assign 3 "strugglers" to this one plane, but there you have it.
I have never flown in a three crew cockpit. However, I believe it should work as follows in an emergency. The Captain primarily is there to provide leadership and make decisions. The Flight Engineer is the technical expert, running the checklists and adjusting systems. The First Officer, can be used to fly the plane giving the others capacity to do their jobs. This clearly did not happen and although the FO, had problems in the past, it was not his doing. He just lacked the experience to intervene.
@@philipjamesparsons I know guys who fly with the son of the KLM FO from the Tenerife disaster. I wonder what he’d have to say about his father.
@@philipjamesparsons But the thing is that you already have lots of experience if you get to your ATPL. The FO had at least a few hundred hours of flight experience, the captain probably a few thousand. It's probably rarely easy to be assertive over the Captain, but an on board fire is something pretty clear cut, even with just the standard procedures
If in one's culture questioning and criticizing a superior is verbotten, I can understand why the First Officer was not more decisive in his actions.
It's tragic that all of those people died because of the circus in the cockpit. Hearing FH read out what was going on in there was almost like a comedy movie, but also absolutely horrifying.
A Three Stooges short from Hell.
Did you notice his tone? This guy always maintains a plain yet dignified narration, but you could almost hear him fighting back his contempt when voicing their confusion and incompetence. And I don't blame him one bit. This scenario defies belief; if it didn't really happen, you'd think it were a bad Hollywood script.
A comedy of errors that ended in harrowing tragedy.
Ha. Calling the engineer a "Donkey" when he left the room.
@@Unownshipper I did notice that...
I was in Riyadh the day of this disaster. I have a couple of photos of the same plane, from a hilltop further away. I was in KSA from April ‘80 until May ‘81. I had a friend who taught Saudi pilots to fly C-130’s and was closer to the Saudi aviation scene than most. When the dust settled and the smoke cleared, as it were, he told me that seven errors were attributed to the pilot. I can’t remember all but perhaps the most serious was that he released the oxygen masks, likely explaining the rapid deterioration of conditions in the cabin, and he apparently stopped the plane, on the tarmac, to allow the king’s (Khaled) plane to proceed to take off.
From reddit:
"Another theory, more sinister but somewhat less believable, was made known by a witness to the accident nearly 30 years after it occurred. Michael Busby, an American defense contractor, owned a villa overlooking the airport and watched the accident unfold. He asserted in a 2010 article that the reason flight 163 had not come to a stop and evacuated immediately was the presence of the Saudi king’s Boeing 747, which he observed was about to take off right as flight 163 was arriving. According to Busby, protocol mandated that all traffic pause and make way when the king’s 747 was taxiing, and he believed that the crew of flight 163 feared punishment if they delayed his departure by evacuating 300 passengers onto the active runway. The presence of the king’s 747 is obliquely corroborated in a single line of an appendix to the accident report, in a summary of a witness statement by an airport employee. The employee, Nasser Al-Mansour, stated that at the time of the accident he was with the ramp supervisor making an inquiry about “the departure of 747 aircraft HM-1.” The report certainly makes no mention of the fact that 747 HM-1 is the Saudi king’s aircraft!"
I live in San Francisco, and it's interesting to compare this to the results of Asiana Air flight 214, which crashed on landing in 2013. They also had a fire on board after impact, but suffered only two fatalities (from impact damage), and managed to evacuate everyone safely before the fire consumed the plane. This was even the case despite the fact that 4 of 6 emergency slides failed to deploy.
So, really shows the importance of acting quickly in this kind of situation....
Wasn't one of the victims actually killed by one of the responding emergency vehicles?
One person on that flight died because the fire truck ran over her! Imagine making it through the crash only to have that happen!
@@sg7772 she was ejected because she wasn't wearing her seatbelt. Very tragic circumstances :(
@@ashleyhathaway8548 There was some dispute as to whether or not she was dead before the fire truck ran over her. The official medical examiner's report said she died before, but the family's expert said she had firefighting foam in her lungs, indicating she was breathing after being ejected. The firefighters were also criticized after their helmet cams were released under a public records request and showed one of them referring to her head as an "exploded pumpkin." Their response was to remove all helmet cams.
@@jonathankleinow2073 While that comment ("exploded pumpkin") is not exactly a "proper" reaction, I don't think removing helmet cams was/is the solution...
This one has always perplexed me. Many could likely have gotten off safely.
Until now, I was not aware of just how incompetent the flightdeck crew were. 3 people with significant training issues should never have been left alone in charge of an aircraft.
Its a Arab thing, take a look at them driving cars 🤣
@@hybridShinx they also once crashed a new Airbus plane into the end of the runway when picking it up from Airbus. There was a bit is ta cover-up but it got out.
@@huzcer bruh
@@hybridShinx
Do you know how many saudi pilots are in Saudi Arabia and do you know how many aircrafts as well and how many accidents
Do the math before start spreading judgments that shows your true intentions
I’ll say stop the hate and look around you
@@huzcer that was Air France, not Saudia
Putting three incompetent people in the same machine was a perfect storm.. I can only imagine the last moments inside the plane
Its like hiring pilots who learnt flying from GTA 5
Derp, derp, derp derp derp.
My guess is that nobody else wanted to work with them.
@@russlehman2070 🤣
I wonder how many flights we've all survived had a similarly incompetent crew but no emergencies popped up to challenge them.
My parents died on this flight. My dad was working for ICAO, the UN equivalent of the FAA, in Jeddah. It happened on my 25th birthday.
I am so sorry to hear that. You have my condolences.
As someone who is a bit dyslexic I can say I would never, ever apply for a job where a complete necessity for 100% accuracy in a time of duress controlled the lives or deaths of a few hundred people
Looking in the wrong handbook?? For fire procedures??? This is insane I've seen horrifying things happened in this channel but this one baffled me the most
How about the fact the captain let him struggle, waited for him to leave the cockpit, referred to him as a donkey, and told the first officer where to look for the procedures? Way to get your priorities wrong!
No, what baffled me most was that the guy they told to look them up was fucking dyslexic. What was he doing in that Cockpit? Dyslexia should probably disqualify him from being there.
@@dyamonde9555 That’s what I thought as well. How was he allowed to be in the cockpit when he had dyslexia??
@@dyamonde9555 Being dyslexic isn't an automatic disqualifier. There are several FAA-licensed pilots that have varying grades of dyslexia.
Time to make your own procedure: 1)Land 2)Evacuate
That would be such a grisly sight. Having the plane successfully make an emergency landing, the crew stating they were going to evacuate, only for no one to come out, then finally find out all passengers and crew died from smoke inhalation inside.
Edit: Typo
A fucking coffin that lands.
Grisly*
Grizzly is a type of bear.
But yeah wouldn't want to be any of the first responders overseeing a plane full of charred people still sitting in their allocated seats. That is definition grisly.
@@aNotamBiEn I have been using the word 'grisly' wrong my entire life 😭
@@davidci we've all got words like that :)
@@davidci There are far worse things you could've been doing wrong, lol!
F/O: There’s smoke in the cabin!
Captain: *turns on no smoking sign*
That'll show the fire
I was living & working in Saudi in the 70’s & 80’s & 90’s (12 years total), at Jeddah & in eastern province. The rumor about the plane accident at that time was that some passengers had lit up a stove to cook tea. Totally believable to me. Passengers used to cleanse/bathe = ablution in preparation for prayer, in the restrooms, turning on the water and sloshing around in it, which would result in water flowing from under the restroom door, down into the aisle several feet, soaking the carpet. Many of the foreign workers were uneducated to the modern ways of the world, they were there to make money like everyone else but came from very primitive areas. I could tell you stories about driving accidents that you wouldn’t believe, so I still think the tea explanation is quite valid.
Let’s hear some of those unbelievable driving accidents please.
You've overlooked the fact that they found the fire started in the cargo compartment...how many people are going to be heating tea in cargo? Pay more attention.
Those poor people must have been so relieved once that plane landed? I can't imagine how they felt with the fire worsening and NO DOORS being opened? This was TOTAL incompetence. Nothing less.
NONE of these men had any business being anywhere near a plane unless they were passengers. It’s was like blind leading the blind….I can’t even begin to imagine what the passengers were going through
I fear these people would be awful passengers as well. They appear to be the type of individuals that have to be reminded not to drink the sea.
Always make sure your worst pilots are paired with your best pilots, and not with each other.
No, make sure the worst pilots have to work at F& Burger King.
@@emilyadams3228 you will always have worst pilots.
Pilots were originally touted as "Knights of the Sky", and a lot of wealthy and aristocratic families see it as an honorable career (and a way to send off lesser children in the hierarchy). Let's just say there's a history of aviation disasters involving Saudi fail sons.
its when the pilot called another office a "donkey". that was definitely a pot calling the kettle black moment. fml!
What are they? There are only three that I know of: This one, Saudia 162 where the main tire exploded and tore through the fuselage (Pilots did well and successfully emergency landed the plane) and the 1996 Charkhi Dadri Air Collision, which 100% did not fault the Saudia pilots.
@@burningphoneix Aside from the Saudi Air Force being a clown show, I can think of three that happened on the same day.
@@thomasgiles2876 oohh, please elaborate, I would like to know more. :D
I recently found this channel, and I must say it’s quite the one to binge.
Things that seem so commonplace now, such as emergency exits on buses, answered within a well explained history of an event. So much respect for the time you put into these.
i honestly can't believe shows like Mayday have yet to cover this crash (tho apparently they will next year). its always interested me but finding documentaries on it is hard to come by. so thank you!
Good afternoon and welcome to Saudia airlines. Today Larry, Moe, and Curly will be flying the plane. Relax and enjoy the flight and hurry up and write your will while you still have time.
That's almost as bad as some Russian pilot letting his kid play with the flight controls.
That’s an insult to the three stooges😂 I watched the video about the Russian crash…tragic…yet it was obviously avoidable.
Yes! I remember that story as well. It’s hard to believe the things people will let happen without regard for the lives they have control over…
The Howard brothers and their friend Mr Fine had enough sense to get out of a burning structure as quickly as possible.
Well, you know.. before he let his kid play pilot he should have at least first asked the passengers if they didn't mind.
@@dougobrien4877From what I understand, females aren't usually fans of the stooges. But I love them. I like Jackass, too.. sometimes.
I guess I'm not a typical female, lol.
You should consider doing a video on the Galeras volcano disaster, where a bunch of scientists and tourists went into the crater of an active volcano, with easily predictable and still tragic results.
I first heard of this on Nat Geo's Seconds from Disaster. This would definitely be a good topic to cover. I ended up buying a book about it and the one doctor still feels that he did not do anything wrong and that his actions saved lives....
Reading a book about that event cured me from wanting to be a volcanist. What a terrifying eruption.
He has an email posted in the description. Try sending him an email with some details. He was courteous enough to respond to mine. :)
@@beckysprang5517 The doctor who declared it was safe for everyone to go to the summit?
@@MegaMesozoic yep. I'll have to dig the book out I read but even the Nat Geo special came across that way.
Edit. Book called No Apparent Danger.
Out of every plane disaster, this one might be the worst (Only behind a few that I could think of) the passengers were sure they were saved after landing safely from a fire only to be asphyxiated by the smoke due to incompetence, I've heard somewhere that the reason they didn't stop immediately after landing is because a Royal was on a plane behind them and they could not obstruct the arrival of the VIP don't quote me on that but it's been thrown around for a few years
I am going to quote you on that. 🤣
The original source for that myth was a single American present in a nearby hotel at the time but only having made that claim some three decades later. Unfortunately this myth keeps circulating on the internet because people think it would make sense that an evil royal regime would be responsible for every horrific incident in their country.
I remember reading about this: there may have also been reluctance to show an emergency as one of the Princes may have been at the airport and the captain didn't want to embarrass himself or the airline. Didn't work out.
Love your videos mate, just thought I’d say so, ur probably the only UA-camr I check for uploads, keep it up 👍
Nothing brings me more dread and joy than these videos
😂
It must have been horrific for the firefighters and emergency personnel on scene, unable to save even one person. I would be traumatized for life.
Working in any emergency field, I worked for emergency medical services, exposes you to a lot of things that will cause PTSD.
you do your best to make it not about yourself. You are appalled by the situation, so you do everything you can to fix it as much as possible to alleviate as much suffering as you can. For some of us, that makes it better than being a bystander and doing nothing. We take comfort from being involved.
Just in time for my Tuesday dose of Fascinating Horror
Extremely sad and horrifying to even imagine what those passengers experienced in their last moments. My love and best wishes to their families and loved ones who instantly lost their loved ones.
This is the first air disaster documentary I’ve watched where the flight crew wasn’t described as “experianced” or “veteran”. I was beginning to wonder if disasters only happen to experianced flight crews.
I fly a lot and take a window exit seat. I'm always amazed (and concerned) that flight attendants are basically ignored during all safety briefings including the ones specifically for the window exit passengers. My family knows we are out of there. The same thing is true of school fire drills...they aren't taken seriously. Then there's surprise when something deadly happens.
I remember them CHAINING the doors SHUT, even as a kid. Very much against fire codes
The flight attendants, are suppose to be in charge during emergencies.
Oh lord, this one. The 3 Stooges would've been a better crew then the pilots/engineers they hired.
Agreed
I think I’ll take the 3 stooges.
Stay away from Saudi pilots in general
I would take 3 Stooges, Hardy and Laurel and Charlie Chaplin.
Should have sent it to the Marx Brothers.
Nothing like waking up in the middle of the night to a little treat upload. Good work on your videos, keep up the good work
Congrats on 1m subs dude you deserve it
I remember boarding an Air India plane, during my time working from BA and there was a stove with used cooking utensils in the area of the passenger's mid-main door. Also, did the LTU Tri-Star that burnt out at Dusseldorf during maintenance, burn the roof off due to the passenger emergency oxygen. Can't remember if the system was self-generating packs or large bottles feeding pipework.
I'm having trouble believing the flight engineer was living out the "This is fine." meme, on an aircraft flying hundreds of feet up, at hundreds of knots, getting consumed by flame in real time. Surreal.
If it was that difficult for those 3 to be able to fly a plane and pass their tests, then there's absolutely no way they should have ever been able to have passengers lives in their hands especially being so incompetent.
When you're a passenger, you're bound to get a crew a with mixed bag of experience levels. You may hope for nothing but pros in the cockpit, but then that would mean the next plane over had the barely-passers. It was just a cruel and unlikely twist of fate that these three were together when something wrong happened.
Imagine how horrible it would have been to be a fireman responding. Seeing the plane just casually rolling like nothing and even if you got to it you can't open any of the exits. You would be forced to just watch people burn, unable to help even though it's your job.
That happened at Our Lady of Angels fire much closer. Couldn't save all the kids
Yes. A nightmare
Thanks for doing this video. It's very rare to find content about this event.
Happy 1M! Congratulations to reaching such an amazing milestone!
This involves a common thing I don't think has a name but I call it flight to normalcy. In a fight or flight situation, people refuse to acknowledge they're in an emergency, refuse to break out of what behavior patterns considered normal and acceptable and get killed as a result. The Station nightclub fire is the same story. Dozens of people died in a crushing main entryway trying to escape a growing fire and nobody thought to break out the huge bay windows right beside it.
I think the same thing has happened on some of the other videos presented on this channel. I forget the name for it though. I have learned to ALWAYS respond as though there's a disaster -- better safe than sorry. There are PLENTY of people who do not, but I don't think I'll ever understand that mentality.
I'll never forget the time in high school when the fire alarms went off between classes. (Drills were _always_ planned.) So, we did as we had been trained: we calmly _walked_ to the nearest exits, went out to the safe areas, and waited quietly while the fire trucks arrived. It turned out to be a false alarm from dust in the systems. I remember the faculty thanking us for acting appropriately and remaining calm.
@@daffers2345 That's the tough thing though. Sometimes doing the orderly thing saves lives. Other times trying to do the orderly thing like parking neatly at the jetway or leaving from the same entrance you came in because you didn't take note of other emergency exits, gets you killed. Sometimes following protocol to the letter is how you live. Other times you have to know when to go beyond the protocol and act with some urgent, otherwise unacceptable, unscripted action to live. We'd all like to think we'd rise to that occasion but it's just about impossible to simulate a true emergency like that. It's like the thing that makes it horrible is built into human nature.
*Great research = great video (as usual, FH)! Thank you, sir.*
Saw this story on Air Disasters..the incompetence of the pilots was chilling! AMAZING THAT THE CAPTAIN DID NOT HAVE THE FIRST OFFICER LOOK UP THE FIRE CHECKLIST IMMEDIATELY WHEN HE KNEW THE FLIGHT ENGINEER COULD NOT DO IT! THEY STARTED 10 MINUTES LATER!
This is actually really horrific, may they all rest in peace.
The transcripts of the pilots sounds like something reading out of Laurel and Hardy. Insane that these people were put in charge of almost 300+ lives.
If even one of the three men in the cockpit had been competent to be there, this tragedy might have been averted, or at least minimized. Perhaps they were assigned there together because more knowledgeable pilots wouldn't tolerate them in their crew.
@Grassy Sands don’t shift the blame on the flight attendants. You don’t even know if they were still alive by the time the plane landed. The idiot that decided to put three of the most incompetent pilots in a single cockpit is most at fault.
I believe that the crew also failed to shut down the engines after stopping the plane, which meant the fuselage remained pressurised and that rescue crews could not safely approach the fuselage.
Yes, correct. This should have been mentioned in the documentary. Because of the pressure, the doors could not be opened, and the rescuers could not get near the plane without endangering themselves.
@@ExiledStardust It was mentioned.
Beautifully presented as always. Not an incident I was aware of - thank you for brining this to us.
Yes, I remember this sad horrifying incident. I was in school and heard about it. The stove inside the luggage caught fire 🔥. Passengers at that time routinely used to bring such items to facilitate cooking during haj. Civil aviation banned any such items in the luggage after that. saudi gov announced that they would provide food to all hajis and no need to bring such dangerous items while travelling. The whole outlook of haj (pilgrimage)changed after that.
I would absolutely love it if you did longer detailed versions of these videos, 30-45 minutes. I would absolutely watch every single one
You know you're in trouble when 'Snap Crackle N Pop' are flying you home
🤣🤣🤣
😆😆😆😆😆😆
Again, and again, _real life outdoes fiction when terror is concerned._ *Goddamn...*
I've always found real life more terrifying than any horror movie. :(
@@daffers2345 I just heard one that kept me up nights. A bunch of old people were killed and robbed and the police didn't really bother to find the killer.
I'm glad you're covering this one! No much is talked about it
For those who want more information Black box down did an episode on this. Wonderful job as always
As someone who frequently flew Saudia in the 1980s i have to say this was unfortunate and a real blow to the pretty solid reputation of Saudi Arabian Airlines, during those years. They had an amazingly new fleet and they enjoyed a period of rapid growth throughout those times. I often felt safe flying Saudia as we knew many pilots plus the planes were brand new. I think Saudia learned their lesson from this pretty avoidable accident. Saudia is one of the best airlines in the world and one accident shouldn't deter people from flying them. RIP to all those who perished even the amateur cockpit crew. Yes a series of mistakes were made and compare this incident to the recent Japan airlines plane fire where the passengers were quickly evacuated and no one lost their life. How far aviation safety has come due to these unfortunate and sad events. I loved Saudia and i would gladly fly them again.
My Dad was an executive at Goodrich (supplier of the wheels and brakes for the Lockheed L1011) at the time of this accident. I remember talking about this accident with my Dad. He told me that investigators suspected that someone made tea with a portable stove, while in their seat, setting the cabin furniture on fire. I guess finding the camp stove in the wreckage makes sense. He had stories about the "unsophisticated" passengers on Saudia Airlines not using on-board lavatories, etc. so using a stove to make yourself tea during a flight might not be as crazy as it sounds to us today.
That's sounds crazy but makes sense according to your dad's experience, I thought the portable stove was more akin to most passengers going to pilgrimage, so they brought equipment for camping or something
I heard the same, pax making tea on stoves. But the chatter at the time was that the captain had vacated the runway as an aircraft of the Royal Flight (of which there were many) was inbound and thus an imperative not to impede its landing
Possible, but a BBC documentary years later suggested otherwise. They believed it was due to a hydraulic leak dripping on shorting wires. Hydraulic fluid, Skydrol has a high flash point and should not burn. But the shorting wires was enough to get a fire going. It is hard to get at the truth with vested interests.
@@philipjamesparsons expat gossip at the time so probably wildly out
@@hoof2001 I have heard of many weird things happening on these pilgrimage flights. Another pilot recently told me he opened the unlocked toilet door on a Hajj flight...... there was a man standing on the toilet seat taking a dump. High altitude bombing. So, lighting up a stove seems normal.
As someone who lives in the areas mentioned and enjoys all your videos, it's always nice to see channels like yours covering more disasters in countries that aren't the US or UK!
Is the Pilot survived or died plz tell me
@@mohamuudsheikhnuur273 there were no survivors from the crew or passengers
There are really no words for this one and it is impossible to convey the horror of the final moments of the passengers.
Listening to him explain how each member of the flight crew operated during this made it sound like there were three Roombas flying the plane and the fire made them short-circuit and start singing, and repeating themselves over and over
TWA trained Saudi Airlines employees. I think the pilot was in a negative panic mode. Something they teach flight attendants when during an emergency a passenger would still be in their seats not moving or stop at the door not jumping on the chute/slide and you have to push them off.
This disaster reminds me a lot of the Air Canada flight that landed at the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Airport on fire.
Flight 797.
I'll have to look into this.
@@Vimanas.8209 ty
RIP Stan Rogers
Just saw it and I can't believe the NTSB report, Absolute dog water take.
Never heard of this one and out of all the air accident I've seen and read about, I think this is the most bizarre.
Thanks buddy.
There is no such thing as “qualified enough” when your job is responsible for the safety of hundreds of lives
obviously there is though
Congratulations on 1M subscribers, Fascinating Horror!!!!
Some of the equipment taken on board Middle Eastern flights was mind boggling in the 1980s.
I remember flying back from Dubai to London via Kuwait on Gulf Air. The passenger aisles were filled with gifts and even small camping type cooking stoves. If there had been a similar problem that needed quick evacuation, it would have been very difficult.
This is a perfect illustration of why checklists and procedures exist. If you get a smoke detector warning, you shouldn't waste precious seconds (or minutes!) deciding if there's an actual fire and if you should react. You whip out the checklist and if anyone asks why you did what you did, you were just following the procedure.
My stepfather was an engineer who worked in Saudia Airlines for several years, including 1980. He reported that passengers had lit gas heaters as soon as take off occurred. These were intended to make tea, and in those days this was a common occurrence, especially since many were illiterate peasants (not a pejorative, but literally) who were traveling from their villages for the first time in their lives. We used to hear about small livestock being taken along in the cabin (chickens, goats, sheep) and my father with his team were tasked with redesign of the bathrooms. This meant lining the entire room in a single envelope of plastic, because many passengers had never seen a western toilet before. The walls and fixtures and floors would rust out within months of installation. We frequent passengers knew to use the bathrooms early in the flight while they were still clean, and then just hold it for the duration of the flight...those were the wild days!
This is why primitives absolutely must be kept away from nice things.
@@emilyadams3228 I am not being racist, if that's what you mean
@@kristenjensen2589 That's not what I mean. I stated the truth, because I'm a realist. Naturally, this triggers the default setting of parroting the standard catch phrases used by globalists to destroy real people who aren't deluded. If all you have is "racism" this and "racism" that, don't even bother. Your kind isn't going to get away with it much longer, anyway.
That Captain had no business in control of an aircraft.
I just love your theme music. The most melancholy tambourine ever shaken!
The captain saying, “Tell them not to evacuate.” absolutely shocked me.
I honestly am lost for words on how preventable this was.
May the 301 souls who lost their lives that day never be forgotten.
This one is particularly frustrating since they were so dang close.
@Grassy Sands maybe they couldn't? Not from an obedience standpoint. Maybe the fire has compromised the doors and they couldn't open them?
@Grassy Sands I'm no expert, but wouldn't that have caused a second issue of rapid expansion of the fire? I remember that happening when they tried to vent originally. Sadly, pilot error did cost 300+ their lives so trying anything would have been better, even if it was just one person making it out.
One of the finest channels on the Tube!
Congratulations on the big million fella 💪awesome 🇬🇧
I’ve seen another channel cover this (Mini Air Crash Investigations). They mention it took over 20 minutes for ground rescue to get the doors open because they weren’t trained on how to open them. Testing showed the change in pressure between inside and outside plane was not enough to hamper opening the doors from the outside. Incompetence all around.
Usually, in these stories, the management causes the majority of the harm with greedy business decisions, but this time it was little more than pure human stupidity.