The pilot is a living probability paradox, he has luck so cartoonishly abysmal it causes planes to gain sentience, yet has the skill to overcome it every time This man deserves to be respected and studied
Actually it is less about luck and more about skill, put it this way : His "bad luck" would have probably crashed his plane, but through sheer skill he made an unsurvivable incident survivable Which is why he could face multiple incidents, none could stop him from flying more Also we are all collectively very lucky that this incident fell onto that capitain instead of loosing the aircraft in the indian ocean without any possibility to understand what had happened
@@Taletad There would have been a possibility to understand what had happened if the plane nose dived into the sea and investigators retrieved the black box in the ocean.
@@eliyahufogel also... if you're referring to *this video* as the "movie..." then someone obviously needs to educate you on the difference between a "movie" and a "documentary."
@@and__lam1152 There were some people severely injured, including some of the flight attendants. Many of the passengers weren't in their seats but hanging over the backrests of the seats and lying on the floor of the isle. So the flight attendants couldn't assist all the passengers, who also were in panic probably not possessing the situational awareness to strap in.
@@and__lam1152people had gotten launched out of their seats after the first dive and were probably too injured to properly get back into their seats and strap in, not a hard concept to understand.
To the captain and first and second officers my hat is so off to you gentlemen you did The Impossible there is no doubt partly a miracle from above whatever it was you made the ground blessings to you gentlemen and the rest of the flight crew let put the passengers well-being in front of theirs God bless all of you
This definitely seems like another instance where some of the pilots' combat training was a major benefit? (The other one we've seen be a huge plus in managing disastrous system failures is glider experience, interedtingly enough!) I guess it all just goes to show that no learning is ever useless, and a lot of skills can be surprisingly transferable....
It's common among those that care for others. I was the same in the army, I carried one of my buddies 150m with a fractured pelvis. Not because people that care are heroes, in fact, for me, looking out for someone else helped me forget the pain I was in.
what an absolute fucking monster of a crew. from being passengers on their own plane to fighting back and rising up to the tasks ahead and saving 315 lives from certain death. massive kudos to them
Yes indeed. We unfortunately tend to become so used to these people who fly us safely around the world. I remember when at the moment of landing people gave an applause. Haven't heard that in years.
Hats off to Capt. Kevin Sullivan and crew for relying on visual and manual control instead of relying on computer systems. All things considered, it really did save the lives of his 300+ passengers despite some injuries caused by the plane's diving. Old School experience always comes in handy in this instance.
This is a huge step forward in your channel getting the pilot interviewed. Keep your shit going, I love your content. You deserve much more recognition than most channels and actual TV shows.
Congratulations to Captain Sullivan and his crew. You guys are true heroes. While people were injured, some quite badly, you three landed that plane and everyone survived. To say I'm impressed is a massive understatement. Wonderful job.
Recently my business partner who is also a retired Military pilot like myself took on a flight from Kennedy in NY going to check on his parents storm damaged home in Florida had just boarded his flight when he heard this gigantic rude fart someone left. The Captain was coming up the isle from the galley with the copilot or first officer big giant plastic coffee mugs in hand. What my BP described to me he said it smelled ten times worse than even any baby gaga he ever smelled. The pilot froze in the isle like a deer in head light s the copilot runs right smack into him on his abrupt stop because he smelled the stench the captain got hot coffee down his back and his leg he said. The pilot he said bursts out cursing & yelling that whoever did that if I find out who you are you're going on the terrorist watch lists he screamed. People were just about rolling around in the isles still gagging but yet laughing at the whole thing y BP said was just that funny. Turns out ppl were pointing to some obese pregnant woman as being the culprit. My BP told me people were still laughing 4 hours later when they landed they couldn't stop laughing because the captain was just funny s was the gagging copilot and that was that. Some stuff it just happens especially on air planes...😜
I was flying in a Piper Lance not more than 150km from this incident at the exact time. It was a beautiful day for flying. As the "may day may day" was audible through our headphones there was the most eerily of moments as both myself and my mate turned and looked at each other.......we sat in total silence and listened to the conversation between the pilots and air traffic control. We knew exactly what was happening in real time. Absolutely frightening and surreal on another level.
What an absolute class act of a pilot and human being. Many pilots, even those highly rated amongst other pilots and with spotless records would have struggled to fight this plane back onto the ground in one piece. And he comes accross so humble too, he's just a man who did his job, and in doing so saved the lives of hundreds of people. Captain Sullivan, and this whole crew in general, are heroes and inspirations to many.
2 pilots & a engineer as the old days to tell dumb pilots what's wrong. Airlines got their flight crew mainly from the Air Forces who knew how to handle a crisis, not now & auto pilot needs to be only on say every 40 mins then manual 20 mins, as is it makes pilots into ex pilots.
I'm only 38 minutes into this video. I've never heard of this flight and sweet Jesus... the fact that these pilots were able to keep calm in a situation this crazy is astounding to me.
Careful not to diminish the involvement of the other two pilots. Even by simply not exacerbating the emergency, the other two pilots may be about equally to blame for saving your ass.
Loved your detailed posting. Years ago, myself and 3 daughters were booked on Quantas out of Vancouver for Hawaii. The plane did not take off (or even liad passengers)... rather from a bird in one engine, it was determined a new engine had to be shipped, installed, configured and flight readiness determined. It took 2 days to make the repairs. Then a trial flight by Quantas staff, engineers, etc. Took place. We eventually were loaded on the plane, and while liquor was liberally offered, we eventually made it to Honolulu. Its an example of why Quantas has such a great safety record.
Qantas not Quantas (Queensland and Northern Territory air service) they are hated in Australia nowadays the leadership has been terrible and has destroyed the company but I'll always look at Qantas as the best option whenever I look at flying history doesn't lie and Qantas has a history of amazing pilots keeping everyone safe at all times I'll take that even if it means it costs a bit more and get delayed
@@roslynaubrey7766except that scene was deleted from all competitor screenings for obvious reasons. Before I understood this significance, I was very disappointed on a Singapore Airlines flight (SIN-SYD) when this was deleted and so said every other passenger watching Rain Man.
Often when flying, as passengers, we are cautioned to buckle in even when the seatbelt sign is off in the case of sudden emergency, etc. This is a good cautionary tale for why they ask us to do that.
@Studio732JRL Basically, In aeroperu, they didnt have any speed nor altitude, atleast not reliably and trusted an incorrect source (ATC) BUT they werent sent in death dives that couldnt be recovered
Excellent work communicating the moment-by-moment, edge of the seat tension, while not getting bogged down by so much minutia that a civilian outside the industry, like me, would struggle to fully comprehend the sequence of events and their significance during this near-disaster. I was easily able to grasp everything you and the captain said. In particular, all of those analogies greatly aided my understanding. Thank you!
You've really got something amazing going on here. I've seen every episode of Mayday, I'd consider myself a connoisseur of this type of content and UA-cam generally and I can say with certainty you are up there with the absolute best of them. The relevant interviews, the eerie music, not being too basic with the details and explaining what 99% of us already know, the tension, and on and on... Its a recipe for success, amazing job, well done!
@@Daveyboy4 You know I often see comments on videos that are high with praise but I think more often than not its someone just looking for recognition from someone they admire and not necessarily their true feelings but in this case it was absolutely earned. Its a masterclass of how to make an interesting and thoughtful video about such a complicated and sometimes difficult subject and in a way that's relatable to the novice and the experienced. Its really amazing stuff, and I'm glad so many other people see it.
@Nefville I understand you, but you can see in your comment how much you value good content. I think youtubers need to hear detailed feedback like yours, again thank you.
This was SUCH a good episode and terrifying because all too often we hear of human error in these stories. I was utterly gripped the entire time. Mad respect to the pilots for landing that plane & saving the passengers. Love it when these stories end on a happy note 🎉
this was human error: - the developers who did not account for the edgy scenario that would instruct their software to wrongly force the plane down - the QA of the software company for not catching the mistake by the developers - the management for not ensuring they had a proper QA/testing for a software that had human lives depend on it
I must say you improve faster than a modern company. The animations and interviews make up everything perfectly and your voice and the music are the perfect atmosphere. VERY well done. Please keep on uploading amazing videos !!!
When he said 50 or so minutes episode, i was like did i mishear 15 as 50 and just glanced at the timeline of the video. Like what the actual hell, props to your storytelling skills bro
There is something about the energy you get when the plane lands and the engines go into reverse and then the calm quietness and subtle relief everyone has that they’re safe, coming out and thanking the captain. It almost makes you want to cry in how much these people hold your life in their hands.
Jet engines do not reverse. Turbines only turn in one direction. There are several types of reverser devices that redirect the thrust forward from the rear of the engine to work synergistically with the brake system.
Absolutely have mad respect for pilots! Ain’t nothing like knowing you are safe back on the ground, especially if you have a fear of flying and/or you’ve been on a particularly rough flight…. I’ve had a few experiences (clear sky turbulence from Paris to Philly, taking off during the start of a hurricane from Orlando and flying out of the storm, aborted takeoff leaving Vegas because a door wasn’t closed properly, and I’m probably forgetting a few due to Xanax 😂) but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t crying with relief, cheering and clapping with the rest of the cabin, and thanking GOD that pilots are so fricking good at their jobs. 🙏🏼😅👏🏼👏🏼
I remember this, the even more terrifying part was how it made no sense and they couldnt figure out why the computer was acting this way for quite a long time. The Captain did everything he possibly could and a fantastic job, Qantas has some of the best pilots in the business.
Airbus started having these problems first and then Boeing who, should have known better, chose to ignore their engineers in favor of their share price with the Max. Just like with modern cars software is everything. There are ways to make software much more robust than either company has managed in some cases. They favor profit over spending more time and resources to do it right. Airbus overall has had far more of these kinds of computer related incidents even if they have proven less fatal than the two Boeing crashes. The Airbus fly by wire system is inherently more problematic.
As crazy as it sounds, i think the most plausible theory is cosmic rays causing a glitch in the computer system. I think veritaseum (a science youtube channel) made a video on this. Its fascinating stuff
@@IWantToStayAtYourHouseWhat youve said makes sense and is very possibly what happened, if I remember right the area the plane was in the suns energy/atmopshere is quite strong and its very possible.
Listening to stories like this is exactly why I always keep my seatbelt on whenever I'm on a plane except to get up and use the restroom. I don't want to be another problem on the plane for the crew to deal with when there's already enough ignorance on the lance to go around. Be a solution, not a problem. Keep that seatbelt on.
Mad respect for the Captain and his crew. This was an excellent presentation of the situation. It still comes down to the pilot's experience, even more so when by all appearances your computer system goes rogue on you. Those poor passengers were slung to the ceiling, luckily there were no deaths.
Kudos to those 3 pilots who saved everyone with their shear airmanship. Hope they received some meritorious award, because it's deserving!! Everyone survived, but dozens were injured, but more importantly lives were saved!
The production quality on these are incredible. Everytime I watch them I am shocked to see that they're almost an hour long. These are better than TV Docs which usually bore me. Thank you so much for this channel!
There are so many channels out there with AI script reading, but only you, Mentour and Airspace really nail it. Such professional research and delivery.
These dives must have been absolutely terrifying to the passengers. Thank God everyone on board survived. The three pilots were absolutely outstanding. Hats off to them
As usual the passengers were told 'for your safety keep your seat belt fastened whenever you are seated'. Their injuries were self inflicted. Great work by the pilots.
Absolutely youare right about this documentary video. I bet you must have had also some difficult flight situations in doing this great job. Wishing you and all the pilots of the world alway very good luck for every flight your all are piloting. Many greetings and God bless you Captain.
Modern aviation, i.e. computer operated commercial aircraft is a continuous evolving business. With this incident, Northrop-Grumman improved their ADIRUs and Airbus improved their algorithm to interpret the data from them. Now, even if another ADIRU gives spiky false readings as it was the case, the data from it is also ignored as in other ADIRU malfunction situations - as long as the other units keep working as expected. The thing with these systems means you release a software update and the whole fleet benefits from it. As long as this business learns from its shortcomings, we're good. The problem is when greedy people take the shortcut path.
@@protadec Yes, unfortunately like Boeing did with MCAS. Boeing went several steps back. They've did with one computer and one AoA sensor, what Airbus is doing with 3 computers and 3 AoA sensors since the 80s.
The Top Gun program? That's damn impressive. For those who might be unaware, being a Naval Aviator - which you'd have to be to be in the Top Gun program - means being a highly skilled pilot able to make carrier landings. And carrier landings are _not easy._ Top Gun takes the best of the best Naval Aviators... and puts them through a second special training program to teach them everything they need to know to teach their fellow Naval Aviators how to _dogfight._
So well-told, as suspenseful and fascinating as any action film, and such a privilege to have the actual captain included! Somehow I'd missed hearing about this one, despite it being a semi-local airline, so I really appreciated this doco. All kudos to Quantas who have such a cobsistent history of hiring really skilled pilots that manage crises with flair!!
The issues with the PRIM computer make me think of an angry, out of control Artificial Intelligence nightmare. Scary stuff for sure. Thanks for the content.
The faulty unit was actually the computer ADIRU 1, out of the 3 separate ADIRUs on-board. 1 is connected to the captain's display; 2 to the FO's display; 3 is a spare. It is a shame that nobody in the crew recognized this and shut down ADIRU 1 and switched the captain's display to ADIRU 3. Of course, the captain can fly with a faulty display by looking at the other display, which he did. But if anyone was familiar enough to know to shut down ADIRU 1, they would've also known the autopilot and the protection systems use the same data that's on the displays. Actually, the PRIM computers (a set of 3) were usually ignoring the faulty data, except for the rare times they didn't. This was highlighted as a problem with the way they were designed to ignore faulty data and fixed. (the next part is speculation) They probably didn't all agree on when to not ignore the faulty data, so when one would see the bad AoA and try to push the nose down, the others wouldn't agree and it would light up the PRIM fault.
@@gimmealldafoodz2625 maybe as a mental image. That's not really the reality of how computers work though. It would've been just as okay with totally garbage data as with normal data
@@thewhitefalcon8539 I firmly believe a competent FE would have recognised the ADIRU 1 failure, and likely lit the seatbelt signs. And recognised that while PRIM3 was rebooting the system was functional. Likely realised teh only reason the automation would nose down like that is what it believed was stall recovery. It is daft of us to expect pilots to be engineers, or even see what engineers need to see to make a diagnosis, while they are busy aviating. Bring back the FE
THIS EPISODE is a salutary lesson in the proven fact that technology is not as capable as we are lead to believe. If Sullivan, and the other 2 pilots had not had 'seat of the pants" flying experience prior to this incident, it may have ended very badly indeed. Profit as opposed to safety, as Captain Sullivan alluded to late in the video is, in my opinion correct. Peoples lives are nothing, but monetary profit is everything. My heartfelt commiserations to all passengers who were injured, not by pilot error, BUT COMPUTER ERROR/S. Those 3 pilots cannot be praaised highly enough. No words i can come up with, can ever praise these pilots highly enough.
I tend to agree. I think there is more luck in safe flying than it seems. Still a bit of a crapshoot. On the other hand, we all have to go sometime and the risk of dying while travelling would beat a lingering multi-year death by cancer. The main take away in this case for me is that I am not confident they addressed the root problem that caused this incident. If they don't know what caused the glitch, they can't expect to have solved it. I think we can expect to see more such moments in the future.
I'm the kinda guy that skips through UA-cam videos, but not Green Dot Aviation. I just get pinned to my chair with my eyes and ears wide open, watching and listening to everything and making sure i don't get distracted. This is a world class documentary brought to us for free! please keep the videos coming :D
What a captain! Some really good airmanship on his part. And this should be a PSA to passengers: they dont tell you to keep your seatbelt on even if the sign is off for shits and giggles. Something like this could happen without warning and having a seatbelt on would be very uncomfortable as your stomach feels like it’s in your neck and the blood rushing to your head, but it would be a lot more comfortable than smashing your head into the luggage compartments and then a grand slam onto the floor once the upset has been solved. Only undo it to go to the toilet, then put it back on again. This documentary was so well done! The fact that you managed to get the captain on this video is just amazing!
@@paulralph2022 No offense, but it seems like it doesn't take much to annoy you. I got an actual anxiety issue, and this voice was just super soothing to me.
The video is your best video so far. This is a riveting story, and I felt on the edge of my seat the entire time. I nearly had a tear come to my eyes when I heard the plane landed safely and nobody died. And the fact you got the captain on to interview him adds a whole different level.
The last minute improvisation to use the rudder as the elevator is incredible ingenuity that you just wouldn't see in anyone but top class professional people. I thought they might have just switched everything off and manually reverted the plane to Direct Law or Alternate flight laws and then just manipulated the controls more like on a cable-plane (old Boeings).
This story is a good illustration of why wearing your seat belt in the passenger cabin when seated is a good idea. Unrestrained passengers have a tendency to not only injure themselves but other people too
Let's give a shout out to those incredible pilots! So much phenomenal skill. This story had me stressed throughout. I cannot imagine what those pilots and passengers went through. And for them to function so well through that. I hope they had as much recognition from the airline and public they could possibly get. They saved ao many lives that day. Thank God for this outcome and that no was killed.
This was such a gripping story, even knowing the pilot survived to be interviewed I was so unsure if they'd make it. So cool Capt. Sullivan was interviewed and provided insight! This definitely felt like some Skynet or HAL take over. Scary!
The flight crew were incredible. To get everyone down alive in a situation as stressful and difficult as this sounded is amazing. I hope they’re proud of themselves
I remember when Airbus was new, as was fly-by-wire and flight parameters determined /controlled by software...there always was some concern that this very scenario could occur someday.
A brilliant re-creation of what was a HUGELY stressful situation for this Qantas crew; and how they handled these totally unpredictable alerts, and landed safely!
I'm not a pilot, but this post is so good I've shared it with my family and friends just now..this would be a great movie. This by far is your best!!! Thank you for your time and effort in making this.
This is one of the potential scenarios going through my head on a plane, so I always keep my lap belt on unless I need to get up. Any discomfort from the belt existing is overshadowed by the fact it'll keep me in the seat, which feels secure IMO. Love the content! I've only found your channel recently and this video is another banger! Huge respect to the captain and crew!! Thanks for having him on the show!
That’s what I always do when flying. I always have. The belt can be loosened a bit so it’s barely noticeable. I don’t know why I kept doing that, but it’s stories like this that make me glad I always have. My best guess is that it was a left over habit from being a passenger in a car. I’ve always worn my seatbelt all my life.
@@mikoto7693 Same here! Taught to always wear my seatbelt in the car and it felt more comfortable that way, even if we weren't moving. I just didn't want to worry about fumbling around to put it back on if required to while in the air.
I am not sure about other airlines, but Qantas tells its passengers to keep the seat belt fastened at all times they are not moving around the cabin. I am pretty sure most Qantas passengers do so.
@@ScarlettStunningSpace To be fair, it’s so deeply ingrained that I literally don’t think about or even notice I’ve put it on, either as passenger or driver. The more I think about it, the more I’m confident that’s why I always wore the seatbelt when flying. Some part of my brain decided if it’s good enough to wear one when in a ground vehicle, it’s good enough to weather in a flying vehicle! 😆
one of the guys on the plane was a speaker who talked at my church when I was a kid. Talked about the whole event and I could barely even imagine it. Wild seeing this video now.
There are so many people in the world today that worship and are brainwashed by all these so called celebrities.But this man Kevin Sullivan should be the type of person young people should be inspired to be.The man is a hero in my eyes for keeping cool and calm under the most severe of situations and also his two other co-pilots.Great channel and the visuals are really above and beyond what You get watching most recreations on either T.V. or Netflix. ☘
I used to be an airhostess and in my time there were a few emergency situations but nothing like this, thank Heaven! This episode gave me chills because of the injuries that you described of people who must have been out of their minds with fear and pain. My utmost respect to the flight crew who handled the situation so well and who remained calm. .. I find your channel absolutely fascinating. Thank you for your detailed descriptions that allow everyone to understand what happened. Once flying is in your blood, it never goes away but it comes with substantial risks and therefore safety always comes first. ❤ Loved this episode and the one about SAA the most, but every single episode is brilliant. Well done with a fascinating channel!
I'd say your videos are, at this point, what "Mayday"/"Air Crash Investigation" should have been if there was actually a desire to educate the public -- not just scare them. Bravo, and well done.
@@ignorance72 You think so? It's a pretty terrifying prospect that computers can just glitch out on a modern plane and wrest away control from the pilots. Its an intriguing thing to consider where we're going.
@@ignorance72Sensationalized? No. Dramatized? Yes. The first implies ignoring the truth for a good story. The second is all about presenting what actually happened in an engaging way. Green Dot nailed it with this one. 💚
Working as a ramp officer for Malaysia Airlines and having so much interest in aircraft engineering, this has been my jam for the past two days. Subscribed!
Thankyou. This is a very well presented and respectful presentation of events. It commends the ability of the operating crew and off duty crew. The CRM was amazing. This is a wonderful account for training other crew too. It will also aid those passengers who were onboard. Sully, Lippy and Ross Thankyou so much for your incredible expertise. You are our Australian heros. We are so proud we got to adopt Captain Kevin Sullivan as an Aussie. Many have said it was meant to be. ✈️
Captain Sullivan and his crew deserves a golden medal for saving 315 human lives what a legends they are hopefully Qantas acknowledged what they've done
Wow, I never heard about this flight. I didn’t see a drop of blood, but it sure felt like a real horror flight. I kept nailed to my seat the whole video. How great you could interview captain Sullivan who saved the lives of so many people. Great CRM of the whole crew. Real airmanship. Good that the captain didn’t trust the computers and was skilled in manual flying. Top!
Superb description of this event, which intrigued me at the time. Congratulations to the authors, who have done a remarkable job of reconstruction. Congratulations also to the pilot and co-pilots for their nerves and professionalism.
Qantas sacked thier maintenance engineers , all maintenance is done off shore , so the company can make more money for CEO's and share holders, Qantas has become a greedy air line , from no1 in the world to no 32 because of greed😡
Great video yet again. Just to reassure flyers, there is a HUGE difference between your PC at home and the safety critical systems on aircraft etc. Automation has improved safety. It still isnt perfect but its definitely not a program running on a pc thats controlling aircraft!
One of few incidents where we get to see the actual mindset and thinking process of the Crew. Those passengers are lucky to have such outstanding Captain.
Green Dot Aviation you have surpassed yourselves on making this video & going 1 step further to having the captain involved in telling his story on what had happened with his plane. I am impressed! What a story can’t even begin to imagine what him/ his FO, passengers and crew were going through at the time. Absolutely blown away. Keep up the fantastic work Green Dot cannot wait for more longer videos to come our way!👏🏻
The captain kept rational , didn’t panic to the point of not coping . Such great past training helped him save this flight . Congratulations to the three crew .
For those blessed with it, the ability to remain calm in a life or death situation greatly turns the odds in your favour. Captain Sullivan certainly was blessed with that ability.
I spent over 10 years working for AirService Australia in Perth and can comfirm that Learmonth Airport looks just like this simulator scenery! (It's a popular town for divers watching whale sharks in the right season). I believe part of the investigation was looking at any possible effect from a high powered low frequency radar located in the centre of Oz.
Every release, I'm like damn that's his best on yet, every time! Sullivan's final words there do resonate with me a lot, I feel that not just in aviation but in many other forms of technology we have reached a critical limit of if the safety given by automation/AI outweighs the safety it takes away. I think this video, as well as many others on your channel, show that pilots should always be at the centre of future decisions by manufacturers rather than the profits they may make.
I’ve always believed that that there should be a way to switch off the computers, for the pilots to override the computer and operate their aircraft manually.
@mikoto7693 and the elephant in the room is: to save money, airlines source components from cheapest sources possible. This translates in real terms to: cheap and unreliable. Excellence in design and production is no more, it's the classic "race to the bottom" scenario. Literally!
@@pipfox7834 The solution is to make the cheapest source possible good enough - by inspections and by holding the top levels of execs and board personally liable (with prison time) for “cheap supplier caused crash” and rope in the stockholders by (not insurable) really painful fees i’d the company is found to have cheapest supplier bad quality issues - even if they do not cause a crash. Once stockholders know the share price will drop like Black Tuesday if they save a few cents too much and the execs face prison, that will focus the minds of these people to avoid that at a cost of only a slightly more expensive supplier and proper quality tests. And it is these people who can enforce such changes.
Awesome video, thanks for this. Also big shoutout to the Captain, that was some fantastic piloting and showing the importance of having an experienced Captain especially with all this automation. This is not like driving a bus.
@@jordanfromit5998 QANTAS itself is one of the safest airlines worldwide but I think it’s the obscurity and typically benign nature of most incidents that interests me. Generally things so minor they fly under the radar and most people would never had heard of them but interesting, nonetheless
I was on the edge of my seat just watching this video... I cannot even begin to imagine what these pilots or crew members were experiencing. These pilots deserved a hefty bonus.
Your discussion of the atavistic fight or flight response reminds me of a psychological law, the Yerkes Dotson principle. This holds that the more complicated the task, the lower the optimum state of arousal necessary to successfully complete that task. It’s fierce, unforgiving, counterintuitive, and it can be dangerous in some situations if not overcome.
Great video! You reincluding the cockpit warnings several times was so eye-opening. It must have been hell to fly a plane you can't trust but a whole other level of stress to have these alarms go off constantly (all that noise) and even worse when you've been conditioned to respond to them immediately usually. Absolutely mind-boggling how they kept CRM working so well despite this. Absolute pros. I would be a wreck from the constant alarm blaring alone
17:00 The dive isn't a mystery. The dive was made by the computers to prevent a stall (Alpha-Floor protection). The computers believed the plane was stalling because of two reasons: 1. One of the three Northrop-Grumman ADIRUs was malfunctioning 2. The algorithm Airbus used to interpret data from the 3 ADIRUs wasn't prepared to deal with the kind of data spikes occurred from this failure.
OMG, finally someone else who actually understands what happened and doesn’t think the plane just developed a mind if it’s own or was controlled by AI.
Captain Sullivan retired after that harrowing experience. He became a sea captain, a much safer endeavor, on container ships traveling around Somalia near the Gulf of Aden.
This expierence is up there with the emergency Lockheed 1011 landing in Iowa, Gimli Glider and don't forget Tammy in Southwest. You captured the fear, anxiety stress and adrenelin perfectly; like a suspense thriller. Capt. Sullivan is an amazing aviator. Not many people could be taken out of the box the way he found himself and respond with logic, intellect and calmness. Although those passengers were unlucky in choosing that particular flight but so lucky to have a jinxed pilot like Sullivan at the controls.
Your channel has become my favorite - you balance everything in a perfect way - I love how you explain things, it’s exactly at the level I love - I can learn things and really understand what’s going on. If things are explained too superficially I stop watching - I want to understand why things are happening the way they are. In this video of course - no one could understand what was really going on (until afterwards), but the other part of my interest in this is the human side - how pilots can stay so calm under pressure and rely on their experience to get everyone safe on the ground. That’s why the interview was an extra perk - I so admire pilots like this. I’m an MD, and in my field many things get very automated as well, we use more and more technical solutions, but when things go wrong we still need to be able to go back to basics and do it the “old fashioned” way. I fear that we’re losing a lot of this both in my field and in aviation. Sure - when all is well the help of computers and automated flying is great… but when things go wrong (like here) the pilots need to think on their feet and be able to keep their cool AND think out of the box. Where will they get enough training for this? I’d like to highlight the outstanding CRM in this video - so impressive 🙏🏼⭐️⭐️
Thank you, and totally agreed - crews have crashed planes which were in far better condition than this one, thanks in large part to poor CRM. Re your point on how keeping one's cool can be trained, in my interview with Sullivan, he said that regular stall/spin/upset training in light aircraft would be one way to do this. The simulator pilots use to train on is highly realistic, but can't replicate the g-forces which can often exacerbate the startle response. Whether airlines will ever actually pay for this training is another question altogether.
It takes a lot of talent and pilot instinct to be a fighter pilot AND on top of that to be admitted to the Top Gun so these pilots are levels above other pilots
This story reminds me of an experience I had as a passenger flying through a thunderstorm on a Braniff flight ✈️ ver Columbia in the mid 1970's. The plane went into a deep dive which the pilot pulled us out of , but several passengers were injured and experienced arm and clavicle fractures. Ever since that flight when I depart the plane on landing, I want to make eye contact and sincerely thank the flight crew for getting me safely to my destination. I am always hyper vigilant to the sounds and movements of the plane and hope that the pilots are well trained and rested.
The mental agility of these pilots is off the scale the pressure they must have been under is unimaginable they must have been so mentally drained and exhausted but their relief of managing to land the plane must have been enormous. They really are amazing thank god everyone survived i really do not know how these guys do this for a job day in day out.....wow😮
Awesome job, man. I gotta say, GreenDot is the best investigation channel on youtube. You do an excellent job of articulating complex technical and procedural information while also dictating the story in a concise and compelling way. Can i also add, as a former Airbus pilot myself, the likelihood of this occurring again is as close to zero as can be. Procedures now exist (or at the very least they did while i was on the bus) to deliberately switch the automation into alternate law should we witness signs of AoA errors. This would prevent the flight envelope protections from pulling stunts like this... in theory anyway.. haha.
as a testament to the strength of your narration + editing, i put this on just to have something casually to listen to in the background while working on something, but i got so invested that i HAD to pull away and see how this ended. really underrated channel! i wish ppl would sub to you more! EDIT: this is such a fascinating case - man vs. machine. the pilot fighting the very systems that control the plane itself. the crew and pilot displayed a tremendous amount of levelheadedness even in the face of absolute chaos.
I love your channel and videos, it’s exciting when the video is longer and the 40 to 50 minute mark is absolutely perfect. Thank you so much. The input from the caption himself was incredible. It must be sad at times to think about how it could have turned deadly and why for many of these videos, interviews of pilots isn’t possible. Thanks so much for all your videos.
@@GreenDotAviationno offence, to me personally the video felt stretched way too much.. I didn't feel like this in one of your other videos I watched before this one. There was a lack of technical details, communication with towers, no timestamps to give any reference, etc.
✈️ Hope you enjoyed this one! Help support the channel and watch my full interview with the Captain here! www.patreon.com/GreenDotAviation
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When you do a video on Air France 447, Could you please interview it's captain too. I would like to hear the story from captain's perspective.
Big fan .... But patreon... No. Cmon man I am 14yo
Your way of storytelling in these vids is great
Mad respect to you forgoing the extra mile and getting the captain for an interview
It’s always worth it to get the full story :)
Great video I love the animations
Mad respect to the captain for saving all his passengers
seriously tho he could have uploaded it without but this man is about QUALITY
Why were passengers unrestrained after 5 hours of issues ffs
The pilot is a living probability paradox, he has luck so cartoonishly abysmal it causes planes to gain sentience, yet has the skill to overcome it every time
This man deserves to be respected and studied
Actually it is less about luck and more about skill, put it this way :
His "bad luck" would have probably crashed his plane, but through sheer skill he made an unsurvivable incident survivable
Which is why he could face multiple incidents, none could stop him from flying more
Also we are all collectively very lucky that this incident fell onto that capitain instead of loosing the aircraft in the indian ocean without any possibility to understand what had happened
@@Taletad That’s…what I said
Wait shit I misread your reply yeah that makes sense
@@Taletad There would have been a possibility to understand what had happened if the plane nose dived into the sea and investigators retrieved the black box in the ocean.
@@rl7012 if they retrieved it, there's a malasia airlines somwhere around where they would have crashed that is still not recovered
It's always so cool when you manage to get an interview with the pilots involved into those accidents
..puts it OVER the top!
Yeah, because it means they survived 😳
@thehomefront1905 lmao check the description of the video
@@thehomefront1905I did indeed interview the Captain for this video. Full interview available on Patreon
@@thehomefront1905Maybe know what you’re talking about before you shoot your mouth off.
This should literally be made into a movie. What an amazing captain - what amazing pilots.
Tom Hanks as the Captain, Matt Daemon as the FO
This is kind of a movie already, no?
@@eliyahufogel if it is, it clearly doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize I wouldn't know, no?
@@eliyahufogel also... if you're referring to *this video* as the "movie..." then someone obviously needs to educate you on the difference between a "movie" and a "documentary."
The most distressing part of these incredible videos is thinking the issue is rectified and seeing you have another 20 minutes remaining
Exactly. I checked the time thinking how long will the explanation of the cause take and to my horror we were not even halfway through.
It was an emotional rollercoaster ... who were the clowns not strapped in after the 1st dive?
@@and__lam1152 There were some people severely injured, including some of the flight attendants. Many of the passengers weren't in their seats but hanging over the backrests of the seats and lying on the floor of the isle. So the flight attendants couldn't assist all the passengers, who also were in panic probably not possessing the situational awareness to strap in.
@@and__lam1152people had gotten launched out of their seats after the first dive and were probably too injured to properly get back into their seats and strap in, not a hard concept to understand.
To the captain and first and second officers my hat is so off to you gentlemen you did The Impossible there is no doubt partly a miracle from above whatever it was you made the ground blessings to you gentlemen and the rest of the flight crew let put the passengers well-being in front of theirs God bless all of you
The fact he actively told the other crew member to take deep breaths while going through all this is absolutely astounding. Really really impressive.
This definitely seems like another instance where some of the pilots' combat training was a major benefit? (The other one we've seen be a huge plus in managing disastrous system failures is glider experience, interedtingly enough!) I guess it all just goes to show that no learning is ever useless, and a lot of skills can be surprisingly transferable....
The SOL captain kept telling his FO "calm" when he was freaking out as they plummeted to the ground.
It's common among those that care for others.
I was the same in the army, I carried one of my buddies 150m with a fractured pelvis.
Not because people that care are heroes, in fact, for me, looking out for someone else helped me forget the pain I was in.
Heck, id be telling the copilots to get into your meditation positions for a couple minutes then we will give it another go….
We call it Combat Breathing in the military and police forces. Highly effective.
what an absolute fucking monster of a crew. from being passengers on their own plane to fighting back and rising up to the tasks ahead and saving 315 lives from certain death. massive kudos to them
Yes indeed. We unfortunately tend to become so used to these people who fly us safely around the world.
I remember when at the moment of landing people gave an applause. Haven't heard that in years.
@@waterkingdavidI hear applauses every time I fly international.
@@BrockettRocket01haha same
@@BrockettRocket01i
they are badass!
Hats off to Capt. Kevin Sullivan and crew for relying on visual and manual control instead of relying on computer systems. All things considered, it really did save the lives of his 300+ passengers despite some injuries caused by the plane's diving.
Old School experience always comes in handy in this instance.
This is a huge step forward in your channel getting the pilot interviewed. Keep your shit going, I love your content. You deserve much more recognition than most channels and actual TV shows.
Much appreciated! Was a pleasure talking to Kevin, and his story is unique
…REALLY helped rate and push the video!
wasnt there another video he had with a pilot interview also? If im not mistaken
@@gxbrielwatches4088yes, I remember one as well.
@@gxbrielwatches4088 yeah it’s the one where all engines failed on a British airways plane
Congratulations to Captain Sullivan and his crew. You guys are true heroes. While people were injured, some quite badly, you three landed that plane and everyone survived. To say I'm impressed is a massive understatement. Wonderful job.
U said it.
Recently my business partner who is also a retired Military pilot like myself took on a flight from Kennedy in NY going to check on his parents storm damaged home in Florida had just boarded his flight when he heard this gigantic rude fart someone left. The Captain was coming up the isle from the galley with the copilot or first officer big giant plastic coffee mugs in hand. What my BP described to me he said it smelled ten times worse than even any baby gaga he ever smelled. The pilot froze in the isle like a deer in head light s the copilot runs right smack into him on his abrupt stop because he smelled the stench the captain got hot coffee down his back and his leg he said. The pilot he said bursts out cursing & yelling that whoever did that if I find out who you are you're going on the terrorist watch lists he screamed. People were just about rolling around in the isles still gagging but yet laughing at the whole thing y BP said was just that funny. Turns out ppl were pointing to some obese pregnant woman as being the culprit. My BP told me people were still laughing 4 hours later when they landed they couldn't stop laughing because the captain was just funny s was the gagging copilot and that was that. Some stuff it just happens especially on air planes...😜
And can't open the windows but on land open the doors, and spray anti-stink aerosol. We're masks available? Maybe oxygen masks shoulda been worn. 😢
Qantas pilots are the best in the world. Zero fatalities since 1951
@@thekingsilverado3266crop dusted the pilot. Ironic.
I was flying in a Piper Lance not more than 150km from this incident at the exact time. It was a beautiful day for flying. As the "may day may day" was audible through our headphones there was the most eerily of moments as both myself and my mate turned and looked at each other.......we sat in total silence and listened to the conversation between the pilots and air traffic control. We knew exactly what was happening in real time. Absolutely frightening and surreal on another level.
no way, what are the odds you watched this video aswell
Saw it come up in recommends
Wow .... omg
Who watches mayday on an airplane 😂😂😂
@@ddajani45 it was being heard from the headphone
What an absolute class act of a pilot and human being.
Many pilots, even those highly rated amongst other pilots and with spotless records would have struggled to fight this plane back onto the ground in one piece.
And he comes accross so humble too, he's just a man who did his job, and in doing so saved the lives of hundreds of people.
Captain Sullivan, and this whole crew in general, are heroes and inspirations to many.
And this brilliantly illustrates why the people in the cockpit need to be PILOTS and not just computer operators.
And why there need to be at least TWO people in the cockpit and not just one pilot, which has been suggested by the airlines!
2 pilots & a engineer as the old days to tell dumb pilots what's wrong. Airlines got their flight crew mainly from the Air Forces who knew how to handle a crisis, not now & auto pilot needs to be only on say every 40 mins then manual 20 mins, as is it makes pilots into ex pilots.
I'm pretty sure they are
Tell that to shitty airbus...
Someone probably asked AI, what would happen if you took over this flight but didn't know how to fly. What would happen?
I'm only 38 minutes into this video. I've never heard of this flight and sweet Jesus... the fact that these pilots were able to keep calm in a situation this crazy is astounding to me.
It really was incredible flying. It’s not so much that they were calm internally, as that they controlled their natural bodily responses
@@GreenDotAviation…VERY tough to work a MAJOR MENTAL stress-load WITHOUT any physical labor!
I was at the end and didn't realise I had been glued for 50 minutes 👀 top tier presenting
In sure this flight was covered in a 7 News segment a while back.
ETA: Yep... here it is ua-cam.com/video/0cS1SMptlnQ/v-deo.html
That’s why we always need good pilots and make sure there paid well!
I was in this flight, still vividly remember the events till these days.
Thanks to Captain Sullivan who saved us all!
Do you remember much that happened in the cabin?
Careful not to diminish the involvement of the other two pilots.
Even by simply not exacerbating the emergency, the other two pilots may be about equally to blame for saving your ass.
@@GemstoneActualreally man too many times the captain is the only one that gets credit when it was teamwork and CRM that really saves the day
But most of all, we thank God who graciously enabled him to land well despite how terrifying the situation became.
People were stuck through the roof, like through the metal?
Loved your detailed posting.
Years ago, myself and 3 daughters were booked on Quantas out of Vancouver for Hawaii.
The plane did not take off (or even liad passengers)... rather from a bird in one engine, it was determined a new engine had to be shipped, installed, configured and flight readiness determined.
It took 2 days to make the repairs. Then a trial flight by Quantas staff, engineers, etc. Took place.
We eventually were loaded on the plane, and while liquor was liberally offered, we eventually made it to Honolulu.
Its an example of why Quantas has such a great safety record.
Qantas not Quantas (Queensland and Northern Territory air service) they are hated in Australia nowadays the leadership has been terrible and has destroyed the company but I'll always look at Qantas as the best option whenever I look at flying history doesn't lie and Qantas has a history of amazing pilots keeping everyone safe at all times I'll take that even if it means it costs a bit more and get delayed
Yes, as pointed out in the Film Rain man, when the autistic brother listed all the accidents and fatalities. The only one accident free was Quantas.
@@roslynaubrey7766except that scene was deleted from all competitor screenings for obvious reasons. Before I understood this significance, I was very disappointed on a Singapore Airlines flight (SIN-SYD) when this was deleted and so said every other passenger watching Rain Man.
Often when flying, as passengers, we are cautioned to buckle in even when the seatbelt sign is off in the case of sudden emergency, etc. This is a good cautionary tale for why they ask us to do that.
@Studio732JRL I hear you there :-) I will now subscribe to your channel.
I really don't understand people removing the seatbelt.
You're sit anyway, what's the point of removing it.
@@BioTheHumanI'm always strapped in when I'm seated, but I can understand why some might feel it uncomfortable
Qantas crm training is just amazing for these pilots to be managing such heavy workloads. Amazing airmanship by the pilots.
They were definitely lucky that it was daytime. I can’t imagine them dealing with this at night or in crazy weather
@Studio732JRLNah that was worse in instruments but better in hydromechanical
@Studio732JRL Basically, In aeroperu, they didnt have any speed nor altitude, atleast not reliably and trusted an incorrect source (ATC) BUT they werent sent in death dives that couldnt be recovered
@Studio732JRL Thats true, to be fair, I was just stating that the 767 of aeropery had direct controls and wasnt sent into a dive
@Studio732JRLyour ego is bigger than you 😂😂😂
@Studio732JRL wait no, fuck you, the qantas crew would have trusted their instruments and as such, they would've survived
Excellent work communicating the moment-by-moment, edge of the seat tension, while not getting bogged down by so much minutia that a civilian outside the industry, like me, would struggle to fully comprehend the sequence of events and their significance during this near-disaster. I was easily able to grasp everything you and the captain said. In particular, all of those analogies greatly aided my understanding. Thank you!
That’s exactly what I was going for, thank you!
You've really got something amazing going on here. I've seen every episode of Mayday, I'd consider myself a connoisseur of this type of content and UA-cam generally and I can say with certainty you are up there with the absolute best of them. The relevant interviews, the eerie music, not being too basic with the details and explaining what 99% of us already know, the tension, and on and on... Its a recipe for success, amazing job, well done!
Thanks for the kind words! I was a big fan of Mayday back in the day too
Great comment for a great channel 👍
@@Daveyboy4 You know I often see comments on videos that are high with praise but I think more often than not its someone just looking for recognition from someone they admire and not necessarily their true feelings but in this case it was absolutely earned. Its a masterclass of how to make an interesting and thoughtful video about such a complicated and sometimes difficult subject and in a way that's relatable to the novice and the experienced. Its really amazing stuff, and I'm glad so many other people see it.
@Nefville I understand you, but you can see in your comment how much you value good content. I think youtubers need to hear detailed feedback like yours, again thank you.
This was SUCH a good episode and terrifying because all too often we hear of human error in these stories. I was utterly gripped the entire time. Mad respect to the pilots for landing that plane & saving the passengers. Love it when these stories end on a happy note 🎉
I do my best to make eye contact with the pilot, if possible, when I board…..I’m willing him to pay attention during the flight, please!!
The evil eyes huh?. Spirits are real at times.
this was human error:
- the developers who did not account for the edgy scenario that would instruct their software to wrongly force the plane down
- the QA of the software company for not catching the mistake by the developers
- the management for not ensuring they had a proper QA/testing for a software that had human lives depend on it
I must say you improve faster than a modern company. The animations and interviews make up everything perfectly and your voice and the music are the perfect atmosphere. VERY well done. Please keep on uploading amazing videos !!!
Thanks so much! I’m trying to make each video a bit better than the last one. Many more on the way :)
I totally agree! I was glued to the screen. I’d watch these videos instead of Netflix any day.
When he said 50 or so minutes episode, i was like did i mishear 15 as 50 and just glanced at the timeline of the video.
Like what the actual hell, props to your storytelling skills bro
There is something about the energy you get when the plane lands and the engines go into reverse and then the calm quietness and subtle relief everyone has that they’re safe, coming out and thanking the captain.
It almost makes you want to cry in how much these people hold your life in their hands.
Jet engines do not reverse. Turbines only turn in one direction. There are several types of reverser devices that redirect the thrust forward from the rear of the engine to work synergistically with the brake system.
Always the best part of the flight for me
Absolutely have mad respect for pilots! Ain’t nothing like knowing you are safe back on the ground, especially if you have a fear of flying and/or you’ve been on a particularly rough flight…. I’ve had a few experiences (clear sky turbulence from Paris to Philly, taking off during the start of a hurricane from Orlando and flying out of the storm, aborted takeoff leaving Vegas because a door wasn’t closed properly, and I’m probably forgetting a few due to Xanax 😂) but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t crying with relief, cheering and clapping with the rest of the cabin, and thanking GOD that pilots are so fricking good at their jobs. 🙏🏼😅👏🏼👏🏼
Old School Pilot Skills will never be out of fashion, Superb Channel 👍
I remember this, the even more terrifying part was how it made no sense and they couldnt figure out why the computer was acting this way for quite a long time. The Captain did everything he possibly could and a fantastic job, Qantas has some of the best pilots in the business.
Scammer hacked the computer system for attempted murder. These people are pure evil. Needs a serious investigation for this incident
@@cormackcormack4991 youre just completely wrong but ok
Airbus started having these problems first and then Boeing who, should have known better, chose to ignore their engineers in favor of their share price with the Max. Just like with modern cars software is everything. There are ways to make software much more robust than either company has managed in some cases. They favor profit over spending more time and resources to do it right. Airbus overall has had far more of these kinds of computer related incidents even if they have proven less fatal than the two Boeing crashes. The Airbus fly by wire system is inherently more problematic.
As crazy as it sounds, i think the most plausible theory is cosmic rays causing a glitch in the computer system. I think veritaseum (a science youtube channel) made a video on this. Its fascinating stuff
@@IWantToStayAtYourHouseWhat youve said makes sense and is very possibly what happened, if I remember right the area the plane was in the suns energy/atmopshere is quite strong and its very possible.
Listening to stories like this is exactly why I always keep my seatbelt on whenever I'm on a plane except to get up and use the restroom. I don't want to be another problem on the plane for the crew to deal with when there's already enough ignorance on the lance to go around. Be a solution, not a problem. Keep that seatbelt on.
Same! That's exactly what I was thiking of while watching this video.
But what if it nose dives while you're taking a dump?
@mcgraw8098 them you get tossed around unfortunately 😢
@@Mrg0219with your shit being thrown everywhere around you 😔
Mad respect for the Captain and his crew. This was an excellent presentation of the situation. It still comes down to the pilot's experience, even more so when by all appearances your computer system goes rogue on you. Those poor passengers were slung to the ceiling, luckily there were no deaths.
There’s no way you got Captain Kevin Sullivan, that’s amazing! I’m absolutely amazed and glad you’re able to interview captains!
Kudos to those 3 pilots who saved everyone with their shear airmanship. Hope they received some meritorious award, because it's deserving!! Everyone survived, but dozens were injured, but more importantly lives were saved!
Pilots really are a different breed, the sheer amount of knowledge and nerves of steel you need.
The production quality on these are incredible. Everytime I watch them I am shocked to see that they're almost an hour long. These are better than TV Docs which usually bore me. Thank you so much for this channel!
100% the best aviation UA-camr and maybe even aviation producer
There are so many channels out there with AI script reading, but only you, Mentour and Airspace really nail it. Such professional research and delivery.
These dives must have been absolutely terrifying to the passengers. Thank God everyone on board survived. The three pilots were absolutely outstanding. Hats off to them
also painful.
Zero G!
Those minor glitches are grinches.
As usual the passengers were told 'for your safety keep your seat belt fastened whenever you are seated'. Their injuries were self inflicted. Great work by the pilots.
This is why I never take my seat belt off.
Absolutely brilliant aviator Cpt. Sullivan is, not only saves aircraft in such situation but also keeps in mind the passengers behind.
as an Aibus captain who's been in a life/death situation before, only in a small private jet, this was a very eye opening watch.
Absolutely youare right about this documentary video. I bet you must have had also some difficult flight situations in doing this great job. Wishing you and all the pilots of the world alway very good luck for every flight your all are piloting. Many greetings and God bless you Captain.
@@ginamiller269
Thanks for forcing your religious beliefs on others, it's unwarranted.
When will you people pull your head out of your ass?
Modern aviation, i.e. computer operated commercial aircraft is a continuous evolving business.
With this incident, Northrop-Grumman improved their ADIRUs and Airbus improved their algorithm to interpret the data from them.
Now, even if another ADIRU gives spiky false readings as it was the case, the data from it is also ignored as in other ADIRU malfunction situations - as long as the other units keep working as expected.
The thing with these systems means you release a software update and the whole fleet benefits from it.
As long as this business learns from its shortcomings, we're good.
The problem is when greedy people take the shortcut path.
@@miks564like boeing with MCAS.
@@protadec Yes, unfortunately like Boeing did with MCAS.
Boeing went several steps back. They've did with one computer and one AoA sensor, what Airbus is doing with 3 computers and 3 AoA sensors since the 80s.
Holy cow. Surely the pilots should have been awarded some decoration in recognition of their truly amazing airmanship.
You sound like a millennial.
The Top Gun program?
That's damn impressive.
For those who might be unaware, being a Naval Aviator - which you'd have to be to be in the Top Gun program - means being a highly skilled pilot able to make carrier landings.
And carrier landings are _not easy._
Top Gun takes the best of the best Naval Aviators... and puts them through a second special training program to teach them everything they need to know to teach their fellow Naval Aviators how to _dogfight._
Not only was he in the Top Gun program, he was in it when Top Gun came out in theatres. So he was in the coolest group to be in at that time.
@@OwlRTATop Top Gun.
That is amazing! I want this Captain to fly a plane I'm on!
@@CrabbadabbaTOP G
So well-told, as suspenseful and fascinating as any action film, and such a privilege to have the actual captain included! Somehow I'd missed hearing about this one, despite it being a semi-local airline, so I really appreciated this doco. All kudos to Quantas who have such a cobsistent history of hiring really skilled pilots that manage crises with flair!!
The issues with the PRIM computer make me think of an angry, out of control Artificial Intelligence nightmare. Scary stuff for sure. Thanks for the content.
The faulty unit was actually the computer ADIRU 1, out of the 3 separate ADIRUs on-board. 1 is connected to the captain's display; 2 to the FO's display; 3 is a spare. It is a shame that nobody in the crew recognized this and shut down ADIRU 1 and switched the captain's display to ADIRU 3.
Of course, the captain can fly with a faulty display by looking at the other display, which he did. But if anyone was familiar enough to know to shut down ADIRU 1, they would've also known the autopilot and the protection systems use the same data that's on the displays.
Actually, the PRIM computers (a set of 3) were usually ignoring the faulty data, except for the rare times they didn't. This was highlighted as a problem with the way they were designed to ignore faulty data and fixed. (the next part is speculation) They probably didn't all agree on when to not ignore the faulty data, so when one would see the bad AoA and try to push the nose down, the others wouldn't agree and it would light up the PRIM fault.
@@gimmealldafoodz2625 maybe as a mental image. That's not really the reality of how computers work though. It would've been just as okay with totally garbage data as with normal data
@@thewhitefalcon8539 ppvbvvvbpppp
Open the pod bay doors, PRIM
@@thewhitefalcon8539 I firmly believe a competent FE would have recognised the ADIRU 1 failure, and likely lit the seatbelt signs. And recognised that while PRIM3 was rebooting the system was functional. Likely realised teh only reason the automation would nose down like that is what it believed was stall recovery.
It is daft of us to expect pilots to be engineers, or even see what engineers need to see to make a diagnosis, while they are busy aviating.
Bring back the FE
THIS EPISODE is a salutary lesson in the proven fact that technology is not as capable as we are lead to believe. If Sullivan, and the other 2 pilots had not had 'seat of the pants" flying experience prior to this incident, it may have ended very badly indeed. Profit as opposed to safety, as Captain Sullivan alluded to late in the video is, in my opinion correct. Peoples lives are nothing, but monetary profit is everything. My heartfelt commiserations to all passengers who were injured, not by pilot error, BUT COMPUTER ERROR/S. Those 3 pilots cannot be praaised highly enough. No words i can come up with, can ever praise these pilots highly enough.
This happened 15 years ago, likely 20 year old tech
Therefore, can we still prove that for travelling by car is not any safer than by air travelling even with the 20 years old computer technology?
I tend to agree. I think there is more luck in safe flying than it seems. Still a bit of a crapshoot. On the other hand, we all have to go sometime and the risk of dying while travelling would beat a lingering multi-year death by cancer.
The main take away in this case for me is that I am not confident they addressed the root problem that caused this incident. If they don't know what caused the glitch, they can't expect to have solved it. I think we can expect to see more such moments in the future.
A.
I'm the kinda guy that skips through UA-cam videos, but not Green Dot Aviation. I just get pinned to my chair with my eyes and ears wide open, watching and listening to everything and making sure i don't get distracted. This is a world class documentary brought to us for free! please keep the videos coming :D
Relatable👍
Kind of like you're in a 2g situation in the passenger cabin!
What a captain! Some really good airmanship on his part. And this should be a PSA to passengers: they dont tell you to keep your seatbelt on even if the sign is off for shits and giggles. Something like this could happen without warning and having a seatbelt on would be very uncomfortable as your stomach feels like it’s in your neck and the blood rushing to your head, but it would be a lot more comfortable than smashing your head into the luggage compartments and then a grand slam onto the floor once the upset has been solved. Only undo it to go to the toilet, then put it back on again.
This documentary was so well done! The fact that you managed to get the captain on this video is just amazing!
Beautifully written and narrated mate! Enough detail to 'pull us in' to the story without being too flowery or overly dramatic. 10/10 mate! 👍
Two of my favorite UA-camrs happen to be pleasant speaking Irish creators. Love your content. And Real Engineering. You both rock.
Big fan of Real Engineering as well. Glad you’re enjoying the vids :)
@@GreenDotAviationokay 3 favourites, gotta include That Chapter too!
@@ZombieSazza Don't forget Tantacrul as well!
Until now I never quite realized how much of these genial Irish content creators there are.
Pleasant speaking and Irish they may be, but I find the word 'Annie' for 'any' a tadge annoying.
@@paulralph2022 No offense, but it seems like it doesn't take much to annoy you. I got an actual anxiety issue, and this voice was just super soothing to me.
The video is your best video so far. This is a riveting story, and I felt on the edge of my seat the entire time. I nearly had a tear come to my eyes when I heard the plane landed safely and nobody died. And the fact you got the captain on to interview him adds a whole different level.
How can you be on edge when he said he interviewed the captain....
The last minute improvisation to use the rudder as the elevator is incredible ingenuity that you just wouldn't see in anyone but top class professional people. I thought they might have just switched everything off and manually reverted the plane to Direct Law or Alternate flight laws and then just manipulated the controls more like on a cable-plane (old Boeings).
This story is a good illustration of why wearing your seat belt in the passenger cabin when seated is a good idea. Unrestrained passengers have a tendency to not only injure themselves but other people too
I always put on my seatbelt as soon as i sit down
Let's give a shout out to those incredible pilots! So much phenomenal skill. This story had me stressed throughout. I cannot imagine what those pilots and passengers went through. And for them to function so well through that. I hope they had as much recognition from the airline and public they could possibly get. They saved ao many lives that day. Thank God for this outcome and that no was killed.
Kudos to Sullivan. What a madlad. Top tier crew members through and through all of them
Captains knowledge is insane, he did everything perfectly under a huge amount of pressure 👌
This was such a gripping story, even knowing the pilot survived to be interviewed I was so unsure if they'd make it. So cool Capt. Sullivan was interviewed and provided insight! This definitely felt like some Skynet or HAL take over. Scary!
A perfect example of why automation is not only an amazing brilliant innovation of the future but a terrifying pho when going wrong
this gives me the same vibes as the crew of Apollo 13, how quickly they were able to think on their feet and avoid disaster. absolutely incredible!
The flight crew were incredible. To get everyone down alive in a situation as stressful and difficult as this sounded is amazing. I hope they’re proud of themselves
I remember when Airbus was new, as was fly-by-wire and flight parameters determined /controlled by software...there always was some concern that this very scenario could occur someday.
A brilliant re-creation of what was a HUGELY stressful situation for this Qantas crew; and how they handled these totally unpredictable alerts, and landed safely!
I'm not a pilot, but this post is so good I've shared it with my family and friends just now..this would be a great movie. This by far is your best!!! Thank you for your time and effort in making this.
This is one of the potential scenarios going through my head on a plane, so I always keep my lap belt on unless I need to get up. Any discomfort from the belt existing is overshadowed by the fact it'll keep me in the seat, which feels secure IMO. Love the content! I've only found your channel recently and this video is another banger! Huge respect to the captain and crew!! Thanks for having him on the show!
I do the same! You can loosen the belt and barely notice that it's there. And thanks, glad you enjoyed the video :)
That’s what I always do when flying. I always have. The belt can be loosened a bit so it’s barely noticeable. I don’t know why I kept doing that, but it’s stories like this that make me glad I always have.
My best guess is that it was a left over habit from being a passenger in a car. I’ve always worn my seatbelt all my life.
@@mikoto7693 Same here! Taught to always wear my seatbelt in the car and it felt more comfortable that way, even if we weren't moving. I just didn't want to worry about fumbling around to put it back on if required to while in the air.
I am not sure about other airlines, but Qantas tells its passengers to keep the seat belt fastened at all times they are not moving around the cabin. I am pretty sure most Qantas passengers do so.
@@ScarlettStunningSpace To be fair, it’s so deeply ingrained that I literally don’t think about or even notice I’ve put it on, either as passenger or driver. The more I think about it, the more I’m confident that’s why I always wore the seatbelt when flying. Some part of my brain decided if it’s good enough to wear one when in a ground vehicle, it’s good enough to weather in a flying vehicle! 😆
one of the guys on the plane was a speaker who talked at my church when I was a kid. Talked about the whole event and I could barely even imagine it. Wild seeing this video now.
There are so many people in the world today that worship and are brainwashed by all these so called celebrities.But this man Kevin Sullivan should be the type of person young people should be inspired to be.The man is a hero in my eyes for keeping cool and calm under the most severe of situations and also his two other co-pilots.Great channel and the visuals are really above and beyond what You get watching most recreations on either T.V. or Netflix. ☘
I used to be an airhostess and in my time there were a few emergency situations but nothing like this, thank Heaven! This episode gave me chills because of the injuries that you described of people who must have been out of their minds with fear and pain. My utmost respect to the flight crew who handled the situation so well and who remained calm. .. I find your channel absolutely fascinating. Thank you for your detailed descriptions that allow everyone to understand what happened. Once flying is in your blood, it never goes away but it comes with substantial risks and therefore safety always comes first. ❤
Loved this episode and the one about SAA the most, but every single episode is brilliant. Well done with a fascinating channel!
I'd say your videos are, at this point, what "Mayday"/"Air Crash Investigation" should have been if there was actually a desire to educate the public -- not just scare them. Bravo, and well done.
That's a strange thing to say considering that this is one of the most sensationalized videos on this channel so far.
@@ignorance72 You think so? It's a pretty terrifying prospect that computers can just glitch out on a modern plane and wrest away control from the pilots. Its an intriguing thing to consider where we're going.
@@ignorance72Sensationalized? No. Dramatized? Yes. The first implies ignoring the truth for a good story. The second is all about presenting what actually happened in an engaging way. Green Dot nailed it with this one. 💚
Working as a ramp officer for Malaysia Airlines and having so much interest in aircraft engineering, this has been my jam for the past two days. Subscribed!
Haven’t even watched I’m busy working, but I already know this is a certified Green Dot Aviation banger
Ha, enjoy it 🙏🏼 I do need a stamp for that
The pilots were emotionally
and mentally strong thank
God.
I thank God for all these
miraculous works.
Thankyou. This is a very well presented and respectful presentation of events. It commends the ability of the operating crew and off duty crew. The CRM was amazing. This is a wonderful account for training other crew too. It will also aid those passengers who were onboard. Sully, Lippy and Ross Thankyou so much for your incredible expertise. You are our Australian heros. We are so proud we got to adopt Captain Kevin Sullivan as an Aussie. Many have said it was meant to be. ✈️
Captain Sullivan and his crew deserves a golden medal for saving 315 human lives what a legends they are hopefully Qantas acknowledged what they've done
I hope the captain and crew turn that down.
You sound like a millennial.
@@Istandby666 It's called empathy if you know what that means
@@marykacollins9191
Your lack of education is showing
@@marykacollins9191
You sound like a millennial
Wow, I never heard about this flight. I didn’t see a drop of blood, but it sure felt like a real horror flight. I kept nailed to my seat the whole video. How great you could interview captain Sullivan who saved the lives of so many people. Great CRM of the whole crew. Real airmanship. Good that the captain didn’t trust the computers and was skilled in manual flying. Top!
i think the worst injury was one to one of the cabin crew who had just finished meal service.
Superb description of this event, which intrigued me at the time. Congratulations to the authors, who have done a remarkable job of reconstruction. Congratulations also to the pilot and co-pilots for their nerves and professionalism.
Qantas sacked thier maintenance engineers , all maintenance is done off shore , so the company can make more money for CEO's and share holders, Qantas has become a greedy air line , from no1 in the world to no 32 because of greed😡
Holy moly. I was on the edge of my seat 10 mins into this video. Raise my hat to the flight crew. Did an amazing job and saved everybody's life.
Imagine being on a seat on that airplane. I would need a change of underware...
Great video yet again. Just to reassure flyers, there is a HUGE difference between your PC at home and the safety critical systems on aircraft etc. Automation has improved safety. It still isnt perfect but its definitely not a program running on a pc thats controlling aircraft!
One of few incidents where we get to see the actual mindset and thinking process of the Crew. Those passengers are lucky to have such outstanding Captain.
Green Dot Aviation you have surpassed yourselves on making this video & going 1 step further to having the captain involved in telling his story on what had happened with his plane. I am impressed! What a story can’t even begin to imagine what him/ his FO, passengers and crew were going through at the time. Absolutely blown away.
Keep up the fantastic work Green Dot cannot wait for more longer videos to come our way!👏🏻
The captain kept rational , didn’t panic to the point of not coping . Such great past training helped him save this flight . Congratulations to the three crew .
For those blessed with it, the ability to remain calm in a life or death situation greatly turns the odds in your favour. Captain Sullivan certainly was blessed with that ability.
Documentation, writing, voice over, illustration through flight sim images. Everything is top notch ! You've earned a subscriber !
Heros! All of the pilots worked together to save the lives of everyone on the flight.
I spent over 10 years working for AirService Australia in Perth and can comfirm that Learmonth Airport looks just like this simulator scenery! (It's a popular town for divers watching whale sharks in the right season). I believe part of the investigation was looking at any possible effect from a high powered low frequency radar located in the centre of Oz.
What a treat to actually get to hear from the captain himself! Great work, awesome video man!
Every release, I'm like damn that's his best on yet, every time! Sullivan's final words there do resonate with me a lot, I feel that not just in aviation but in many other forms of technology we have reached a critical limit of if the safety given by automation/AI outweighs the safety it takes away. I think this video, as well as many others on your channel, show that pilots should always be at the centre of future decisions by manufacturers rather than the profits they may make.
The "computer says NO!" senario must not be allowed to happen but nothing comes before safety expect profit.
@@amazer747exactly just the thought terrifies me!
I’ve always believed that that there should be a way to switch off the computers, for the pilots to override the computer and operate their aircraft manually.
@mikoto7693 and the elephant in the room is: to save money, airlines source components from cheapest sources possible. This translates in real terms to: cheap and unreliable. Excellence in design and production is no more, it's the classic "race to the bottom" scenario. Literally!
@@pipfox7834 The solution is to make the cheapest source possible good enough - by inspections and by holding the top levels of execs and board personally liable (with prison time) for “cheap supplier caused crash” and rope in the stockholders by (not insurable) really painful fees i’d the company is found to have cheapest supplier bad quality issues - even if they do not cause a crash.
Once stockholders know the share price will drop like Black Tuesday if they save a few cents too much and the execs face prison, that will focus the minds of these people to avoid that at a cost of only a slightly more expensive supplier and proper quality tests. And it is these people who can enforce such changes.
Awesome video, thanks for this. Also big shoutout to the Captain, that was some fantastic piloting and showing the importance of having an experienced Captain especially with all this automation. This is not like driving a bus.
Always like when Australian incidents make it onto popular channels. Appreciate it muchly friend!
Much obliged 😁
I don't like hearing about Aussies being hurt
Do Australians have a lot of plane issues??? Lol
Australian incidents always seem to be interesting and typically not hopeless, which is always a relief.
@@jordanfromit5998 QANTAS itself is one of the safest airlines worldwide but I think it’s the obscurity and typically benign nature of most incidents that interests me. Generally things so minor they fly under the radar and most people would never had heard of them but interesting, nonetheless
I was on the edge of my seat just watching this video... I cannot even begin to imagine what these pilots or crew members were experiencing. These pilots deserved a hefty bonus.
What an amazing episode. The choice of music and the production was top tier. Made me feel like i was on the flight. Keep up the amazing work.
Glad you enjoyed it. More on the way!
Your discussion of the atavistic fight or flight response reminds me of a psychological law, the Yerkes Dotson principle.
This holds that the more complicated the task, the lower the optimum state of arousal necessary to successfully complete that task. It’s fierce, unforgiving, counterintuitive, and it can be dangerous in some situations if not overcome.
As it happens I'd just been reading about this principle. Completely fascinating and utterly counterintuitive, thanks for commenting
We asked, and you deliver. Thank you for these longer videos.
You’re very welcome 😁
I like long videos 👍
Great video! You reincluding the cockpit warnings several times was so eye-opening. It must have been hell to fly a plane you can't trust but a whole other level of stress to have these alarms go off constantly (all that noise) and even worse when you've been conditioned to respond to them immediately usually. Absolutely mind-boggling how they kept CRM working so well despite this. Absolute pros. I would be a wreck from the constant alarm blaring alone
What a professional narration, tone of voice, background music, visual animation, editing, etc, you are Hollywood material, good luck
Very nice of you to say :) More videos on the way ✈️
17:00 The dive isn't a mystery. The dive was made by the computers to prevent a stall (Alpha-Floor protection).
The computers believed the plane was stalling because of two reasons:
1. One of the three Northrop-Grumman ADIRUs was malfunctioning
2. The algorithm Airbus used to interpret data from the 3 ADIRUs wasn't prepared to deal with the kind of data spikes occurred from this failure.
OMG, finally someone else who actually understands what happened and doesn’t think the plane just developed a mind if it’s own or was controlled by AI.
Or maybe it was someone from Boeing who was remotely hacking the plane? :)
Yeah genious, watch the whole fucking video
@@AmauryChihuahua ?
@@miks564 he's being sarcastic because the video spells out what caused the plane to do the dive. That's the whole point of the video.
Captain Sullivan retired after that harrowing experience. He became a sea captain,
a much safer endeavor, on container ships traveling around Somalia near the Gulf of Aden.
This expierence is up there with the emergency Lockheed 1011 landing in Iowa, Gimli Glider and don't forget Tammy in Southwest. You captured the fear, anxiety stress and adrenelin perfectly; like a suspense thriller. Capt. Sullivan is an amazing aviator. Not many people could be taken out of the box the way he found himself and respond with logic, intellect and calmness. Although those passengers were unlucky in choosing that particular flight but so lucky to have a jinxed pilot like Sullivan at the controls.
Your channel has become my favorite - you balance everything in a perfect way - I love how you explain things, it’s exactly at the level I love - I can learn things and really understand what’s going on. If things are explained too superficially I stop watching - I want to understand why things are happening the way they are. In this video of course - no one could understand what was really going on (until afterwards), but the other part of my interest in this is the human side - how pilots can stay so calm under pressure and rely on their experience to get everyone safe on the ground. That’s why the interview was an extra perk - I so admire pilots like this. I’m an MD, and in my field many things get very automated as well, we use more and more technical solutions, but when things go wrong we still need to be able to go back to basics and do it the “old fashioned” way. I fear that we’re losing a lot of this both in my field and in aviation. Sure - when all is well the help of computers and automated flying is great… but when things go wrong (like here) the pilots need to think on their feet and be able to keep their cool AND think out of the box. Where will they get enough training for this?
I’d like to highlight the outstanding CRM in this video - so impressive 🙏🏼⭐️⭐️
Thank you, and totally agreed - crews have crashed planes which were in far better condition than this one, thanks in large part to poor CRM.
Re your point on how keeping one's cool can be trained, in my interview with Sullivan, he said that regular stall/spin/upset training in light aircraft would be one way to do this. The simulator pilots use to train on is highly realistic, but can't replicate the g-forces which can often exacerbate the startle response. Whether airlines will ever actually pay for this training is another question altogether.
@@GreenDotAviation thank you for your reply! 🙏🏼
It’s always so cool to see how well the ex fighter pilots do in these situations, it seems to be a consistent trend on all these videos
It takes a lot of talent and pilot instinct to be a fighter pilot AND on top of that to be admitted to the Top Gun so these pilots are levels above other pilots
This story reminds me of an experience I had as a passenger flying through a thunderstorm on a Braniff flight ✈️ ver Columbia in the mid 1970's. The plane went into a deep dive which the pilot pulled us out of , but several passengers were injured and experienced arm and clavicle fractures. Ever since that flight when I depart the plane on landing, I want to make eye contact and sincerely thank the flight crew for getting me safely to my destination. I am always hyper vigilant to the sounds and movements of the plane and hope that the pilots are well trained and rested.
The mental agility of these pilots is off the scale the pressure they must have been under is unimaginable they must have been so mentally drained and exhausted but their relief of managing to land the plane must have been enormous.
They really are amazing thank god everyone survived i really do not know how these guys do this for a job day in day out.....wow😮
Their clear thinking in such a situation was remarkable.
Amazing video and well put together...never heard of this potential crash. Kudos to the pilots and the cabin crew for keeping everyone safe
Awesome job, man. I gotta say, GreenDot is the best investigation channel on youtube. You do an excellent job of articulating complex technical and procedural information while also dictating the story in a concise and compelling way. Can i also add, as a former Airbus pilot myself, the likelihood of this occurring again is as close to zero as can be. Procedures now exist (or at the very least they did while i was on the bus) to deliberately switch the automation into alternate law should we witness signs of AoA errors. This would prevent the flight envelope protections from pulling stunts like this... in theory anyway.. haha.
Thanks for explaining the procedure! The most vital piece of information was missing from the story. 😆
as a testament to the strength of your narration + editing, i put this on just to have something casually to listen to in the background while working on something, but i got so invested that i HAD to pull away and see how this ended. really underrated channel! i wish ppl would sub to you more! EDIT: this is such a fascinating case - man vs. machine. the pilot fighting the very systems that control the plane itself. the crew and pilot displayed a tremendous amount of levelheadedness even in the face of absolute chaos.
I love your channel and videos, it’s exciting when the video is longer and the 40 to 50 minute mark is absolutely perfect. Thank you so much. The input from the caption himself was incredible. It must be sad at times to think about how it could have turned deadly and why for many of these videos, interviews of pilots isn’t possible. Thanks so much for all your videos.
Thank you so much! I’m glad you’re enjoying the videos :)
@@GreenDotAviationno offence, to me personally the video felt stretched way too much.. I didn't feel like this in one of your other videos I watched before this one. There was a lack of technical details, communication with towers, no timestamps to give any reference, etc.