Fatigue played a major role in this tragedy. I am a retired United pilot. The first officer, Phil Modesitt and I were new hires together, 1 seniority number apart. A few days before, a mutual friend encountered Phil in O'Hare, said he looked like something the cat dragged in. Phil had been flying a late night cargo schedule and complained that he "couldn't sleep during the day, couldn't stay awake at night". I didn't know the other 2 pilots, but I know Phil was a damn good pilot, but I also know how fatigue can slow and confuse the normal mental process. They were confronted with a situation, late night, in weather, that would have required clear thinking and quick response. Under the circumstances, it only took a brief moment of hesitation. RIP, my friend.
Thank you for your insight Mr. Lawrence. I'm sure it was and is still a painful memory especially knowing one of the crew. Anyone that has worked through the night, especially with schedules that may change from day then back to night, realize the detriment to our circadian rhythm. The "sleep monster' is a powerful force against our mental process for sure, especially past one in the morning. BTW, my Grandfather started flying for United in 1928.
I spent 40 years flying on the backside of the clock. You adapt but never seem to really get used to it. Even the 14 plus hour legs where you have a relief crew you don't rest well on airplanes. FAA regs for freight pilots have always treated us like second class citizens.
@@Kevin_747 I can sure relate. I did West Coast - Hong Kong enough to understand that full well. I didn't change my watch, and one time walking around Hong Kong, I looked at my watch and it read 4. I honestly didn't know if it was 4 AM or PM. I had to stop and reason it out. The only reason I think we all survived that "Checkerboard" approach after a Pacific crossing was that it was so critical we went on full alert, fueled by caffeine and adrenaline. Get in the cab to the hotel and pass out.
From your transcripts, it sounds like the First Officer did absolutely everything he could to diagnose and remedy the problem. Very professional & Qudos to him. What a sad ending.
Happened to be visiting my grandparents in N. IL when this crash occurred; my grandparents were close friends with the Modesitt’s. What a terrible shock it was upon hearing this news as Phil took this flight for a fellow pilot. Nice to finally know what exactly happened.
This reminded me of Eastern Airlines Flight 401. It crashed into the Fl Everglades because the cockpit crew was so busy focusing on an inoperative landing gear light that they failed to notice that one of the pilots accidentally had bumped the autopilot switch, turning it off and causing the plane to gradually descend unnoticed until it hit the ground.
My in laws lived Southwest of the crash site. The impression was clearly visible on the mountain side for several years. It looked like the front view of a DC -8 with the fuselage, wings, and 4 engine impact points clearly visible. Such a tragedy RIP.
I'm going to have to go look in my DC-8 manuals, been many years and airplanes ago. If DC bus 1 was un-powered then pulling all four throttles to idle with the gear lever in the down position and the flaps extended would give you the warning horn if any one of the three landing gears was not down and locked. The horn is on a different bus for this reason. This accident was back in the day when we always had paper charts out in the cockpit with all the MEA's/MOCA's. Sadly the Captain missed on the terrain avoidance during the holding procedure.
Kevin 747 and anyone else, serious question. Why would a controller (apparently without a lot of other things to do at 1:00 a.m.) send a plane to hold at 6,000 ft in the vicinity of an 8,000 ft mountain?? Oh, and then let him go off freq.
@@mikespencer9913 Good question but its not unusual to go off freq. for a short time. As far as the hold at 6000 it would have been OK if it was a published hold or even a clearance to hold on a particular radial with an EFC time but neither seemed to be issued and it wasn't questioned by the crew. Of course if you venture off from a published hold in a mountainous area you are a test pilot. During my career I often would hear UAL crews calling mom on Airinc for simple problems. Made me wonder how deep they taught systems in ground school. 3 generator dispatch was common on DC-8's back in the day.
Kevin 747: Why wasn't the flight engineer working on the electrical problem instead of the two pilots? I know nothing about cargo flights are the rows filled with cargo too or just the hold?
Didn't I see on another video that the DC-8 has rods that deploy and are visible in the wing area to indicate that the landing gear is down and locked? So, being a cargo flight the windows are painted over so they can't see the rods? Or maybe those rods come off the same bus, but that would be poor planning.
Peggy L I’m totally guessing here, but rods that deploy on the wings would almost surely be mechanically controlled, as they are in such close proximity to the gear itself. If it’s an electrically controlled function why would you put it out on the wings where the pilots couldn’t see it without leaving the cockpit?
Most remote sites, the NTSB only takes what they need. Where I used to live, a firebomber crashed in 1975 in the desert outside of town and a lot of small pieces are still there.
I was 14 years old and lived in Farmington that morning and learned about it in church. There were helicopters flying along the mountains all day and for the next few days.
Yet another classic, tragic consequence as to what can happen with slow-responding pilot responses and simply natural human error. Again, Allec, I deeply appreciate all the hard, rigorous effort you put into carefully crafting out and creating these fascinating videos, whether they be tense, tragic, or close calls, particularly during these bleak times. And for all, once again, stay safe, have fun, and don’t lose hope, these times will eventually come to pass. Happy Summer for all!
Crap. That is so sad. As soon as I heard “maintain 6,000 ft”, I thought, whoa! There are mountains much higher than that in the vicinity of SLC. What a tragedy.
MendTheWorld - This one airport in particular has always scared me. I’ve never liked having to fly in to that airport for a layover ever, I don’t know why, just seeing the mountains on the one side of the airport. PeaCe&ReSPeCt, Shelley
The ATC knew they had ‘problems’, knew they were going to be out of contact, they were the only plane he was dealing with. He could EASILY have given the radial & mentioned ‘terrain, 8,000, just outside holding pattern’. As a person driving along the ROAD it tells me when a ravine at the side of the road is coming up. You need to know conditions and they didn’t have our technology
Yup, right around there "climb immediately" would mean imMEDIATEly. Not an ideal place to circle around in the middle of the night troubleshooting electrical tidbits. I was a high schooler in SLC when this happened and vaguely remember it. RIP to the crew :/
I was going to write "I look forward to the day when air disasters no longer occur, but on the other hand I'd miss Allec's videos". Instead this incident just left me feeling empty. It sounded like the pilots were doing things right, being cautious, maintaining good communications. Yet it all ended in disaster. My sincere sympathy to the crew and their families.
@@cuchidesoto2686 Moreover, the tower had a radar and could see the DC-8 straying off course. But the pilots have not been told about it and it's possible that this aircraft wasn't fitted with a GPWS.
@@cuchidesoto2686 According to the narrative, the plane had only one working radio. And it was in contact with the company to troubleshoot the landing gear problem. The controller informed them when they resumed ATC contact.
@@Pooneil1984 THere were two pilots and a flight engineer. One of the pilots should have been flying the aircraft while the other two attempted to diagnose the problem. Missing in the narrative is whether or not the PIC was attempting the troubleshoot or the PM. The PIC should never become distracted from his or her duties.
not soon after this accident we were then trained as follows during emergencies; the captain will state (capt or) "F/O is flying the airplane, PNF will work with the F/E .... what you do is work with your engineer but monitor the flying pilot...most of the radio work to maintenance is done by the engineer and he will update the pilots...
Why wasn't the flight engineer working on the electrical problem instead of the two pilots? I know nothing about cargo flights are the rows filled with cargo too or just the hold?
@@jorgecallico9177 Yeah, but in all honesty, it was unnecessary. All they had to do was read their charts and ask for the right holding altitude. Not exactly advanced piloting.
Jorge Callico GPWS was installed and operational on this aircraft. They likely received an alert about 7 seconds before impact, but with the CVR inoperative it could not be confirmed due to no cockpit recording.
As this accident occurred in the "old days" when they had a Flight Engineer on board why were both the captain and First Officer dealing with the problem, surely only one of them plus the Flight Engineer should do this leaving the other "pilot" to fly the plane?
Crew resource management formally began with a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendation made during their investigation of the 1978 United Airlines Flight 173 crash.
Plus the flight engineer was found to have earlier imbibed in significant alcohol found on autopsy. Though not likely contributing to the disaster. It is forbidden prior to flight but he'd had about eight stiff drinks that night before.
You have the most interesting and educational aviation accident videos on UA-cam. I'd imagine many commercial airline pilots view these. You can never have too much knowledge about flying and various problems encountered up there.
It is brilliant in that you chose this music to end the videos... A very sad end to this story/ The rule, one pilot flies the airplane whilst one fights the problem. God bless them.
At the risk of sounding like an “armchair quarterback”, it seems that all three focused on the maintenance issue rather than the PF fly the aircraft and leave the PM and Flight Engineer to troubleshoot or action the QRH. How many times have you been told by your instructor(s) to “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate”? Of course this is dependent on other factors (busy controlled airspace, the nature of the problem etc) however it does not absolve the Pilot in Command from knowing the MSA (or MEA if en-route), and knowing to hold as published (or if no hold depicted, what is the standard procedure to hold if no formal holding instructions have been advised). Naturally flying at “oh dark hundred” bears partly consequence especially if the previous rest period was not achieved adequately. Fatigue is usually a huge factor to human error especially when flying during the window of circadian low. RIP to this crew. Great job on the video, Allec. Keep them coming as they are educational for all of us.
Everything you said that you think so obvious was not formally developed in 1977. Crew resource management formally began with a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendation made during their investigation of the 1978 United Airlines Flight 173 crash.
as a former controller, our operating guide 7110.65 was based upon accidents, many of which have been featured here. Every point you make was codified in both the AIM, and FAAH 7110.65 years later. CRM was the last big hurdle, and that fell in the early 80's I believe. The FAA is sadly a reactionary group, they do investigate accidents and try to learn lessons from every one. Once the lesson is learned, it is evaluated and then if needed a new procedure is adopted.
So the accident report includes the approach chart they were using. The SLC VOR no longer exists, TCH is the new one but it's slightly further east, lined up with 16L. But just using current charts, you can see that about 10nm west is Antelope Island which reaches 6559' and 5nm east is the eastern Ridge which reaches close to 10,000'. So it boggles my mind that a prudent pilot would get into this situation. First, 6,000' was a seriously stupid altitude to be holding at in that area. Not trying to confirm an exact radial in said terrain is worse. So basically they were flying blind sandwiched in a 15nm ish wide area in a jet without an exact radial. Without the CVR, it's hard to know what was going on. If you look up the approximate ground track, you can clearly see that whoever was the pilot flying was terrible at holding and/or just wasn't paying attention. It looked like they were intending to hold on the 331° radial as the entry and second turn were established about there. But then on the final turn, instead of flying outbound on an approximate 331° heading, they flew more like 020°. Completely the wrong direction. They at some point would have seen themselves crossing the radial they should have been flying inbound on. This would have been a needle flip on their HSI if they were using that and not the RMI. Then they made the right turn toward the VOR but instead, flew into a mountain. This is why single pilot IFR is so dangerous in general. And why holding is such an important skill to be able to do (and I mean in raw data! Not just following the magenta racetrack!). This likely involved distraction. But much more fundamentally, their situational awareness was very poor.
First jet I trained and crewed on was the DC-8 - 63 (also - 61 with additional difference training). With regard to the gear indicating problem, the front panel gear handle was actually two handles held together by a knurl knobbed screw. When placed in the down position, the shorter handle would release the gear uplocks utilizing hydraulic system pressure, while the longer handle would release the uplocks mechanically via a cable to the three uplocks. We were taught that if the handle could not be placed in the down position, remove the screw joining the two levers, then either handle in the down position would cause the gear to fall into the down and locked position. This could be confirmed by the Second Officer going to the overwing window and observing buttons that extended up from the wing skin, verifying the mains down and locked. On a freighter, solid loaded with igloos, you'd still be able to do a gear check using a window in the cockpit to verify the nose gear down and locked. Again...either handle down...gear down and locked. OK, now to the electrical problem. The "8" has four engine driven a.c. generators coupled via a constant speed drive, or transmission that keeps them a 400 htz (+/- 3). They feed into four independent a.c. busses thru a generator relay (cockpit controlled switch). Each a.c. bus feeds into a transformer rectifier unit (tru) that powers the respective d.c. bus; and from there to the battery bus. Each a.c. bus would be connected to the other three thru four paralleling relays (generator sign waves matched). I believe the respective d.c. busses were paralleled through the the battery bus, but it's been 55 years, so little hazy here. In the same situation as these guys, we were trained to do the following (the I smell smoke drill in the sim). Trip the paralleling relays (isolate the four a.c. buses). Trip each generator relay one at a time ("I still smell smoke"), repower that a.c. bus and move on to the next one. Do this four times ("I still smell smoke"), then one at a time pull the tru circuit breakers (with battery bus tripped offline as I remember). No smoke after tripping one of the transformer rectifier units...fault's on that d.c. bus. If smoke went away when battery bus taken offline...it's on the battery bus. It was always a fault on the battery bus, as the Check Second wanted to ascertain your level of knowledge of electrical system and distribution. So if the fault was on an a.c. or d.c. bus, they'd ask, "What now ?". We'd would pull the breakers on the respective bus until the "smoke" was no longer detected (unless it was a generator fault, in which case we'd leave that generator offline, and reset all four paralleling relays, providing a.c. power to all four a.c. busses). Such was the level of training I received at The Flying Tiger Line in 1978..on every system of that aircraft. I retained that knowledge when I moved up to the front seats...came in handy at times. It appears from the transcript of this accident that the S/O was not given the benefit of such training. United lost a passenger DC-8 -61 in 1978, when the absence of safe gear indications compelled the Captain to run the fuel down to absolute minimum before proceeding inbound on the ILS. The book said no less than 8000 pounds, and at 8000, the crossfeeds go down, and you put it on the runway. He put it down on Burnside Avenue in Portland Oregon on final to PDX. There was no fire, because he went well below 8000 pounds of fuel before initiating the ILS. There's simply no substitute for through knowledge of an aircrafts systems. With increasing automation, we've moved away from this type of thinking...hope it works out.
I was nervous about a SLC Mountain terain crash from the moment the mechanical issues arose. I just flew into & out of SLC a few weeks ago in clear weather - GORGEOUS Mountains views - but dangerously high. I was thinking - seriously, 6,000' ? Get them higher to resolve the mechanical fixes - then descend ! RIP to this ill fated crew ! PS: Alec you managed to make it sound like an 'aging, over the Hill' Freighter - great job !
I’m crushed. I hadn’t heard of, or don’t remember this accident. It’s always devastating on so many levels for something like this to happen, but it seems especially terrible at Christmastime. Making it more poignant is the landing gear was down the whole time. Reminds me of that accident when a 49-cent lightbulb caused the loss of lives and aircraft. RIP these pilots, and blessings to their families. Another heart-wrenching account so well done, Allec. Thank you once again.
This for me was hard to watch as I knew Capt John Fender well. In September of 1969 he and his wife helped me pack my U-Haul to move to San Francisco. Then when it was packed they said " You go we will clean the apartment." Now those are Friends. According to the voice recorder he had turned and was helping the engineer solve the electrical problem and the first officer was flying, but also trying to help.
Mr Swain, you have my condolences even after all this time for the loss of your friend. My lovely wife and I (I'm a PP-SEL, she's the chief hanger-on-er and navigator extraordinaire) just looked at this video, and shook our heads at this "perfect storm" accident.
@@gunther_hermann : Funny* you should mention Eastern 401, because while I was watching this video, I couldn't help but notice the similarities to that flight. ___________________________________ * (Not "funny -- ha ha" but, you know, interesting.)
Robert Swain I am sorry for your loss and yes, he sounds like a great guy. I’m unsure where the rumor came from about the crew dynamics here, but it wasn’t from the CVR which contained no recording of this accident flight since the metal tape had bound up in the CVR case rendering it inoperative. That’s why there is no CVR transcript in the NTSB AAR either.
I think that was used for Eastern flight 401, the 1972 L 1011 crash in the Florida Everglades while the crew screwed around with a light bulb, eerily also in the landing gear panel.
Hello, I have been watching your channel for too many years I can count and your videos have never changed a bit! That is amazing how you keep the same standard for each video so that they don’t differ from each other. Keep up the great work for many more years to come!
yea I remember this one it crashed just above my house on the on the Wasatch near Francis peak. I was home for Christmas. I heard it crash and saw the flash. That mountain gets crashed into all the time. Never my Hill AFB pilots though.
Another CFIT incident... So many of these similarly tragic incidents had to happen before the advent of modern GPWS equipment. Also, controllers should always issue instructions to the pilots as published on the charts. Omitting the radial information, regardless of whether or not holding at a certain radial from the VOR is obvious, should always be said regardless of what the instrument charts do or don't say. Another amazing video as always, Allec!
The #1 gen failed in route, which took out the landing gear lights, # 1 nav and comm radio's, and the CVR. The bus should have been able to be powered by the other 3 generators, but the # 3 gen would not parallel, which then it couldn't help power the other 3 busses. There was some kind of major electrical fault going on. But the NLG view port is right there on the cockpit floor, and the FE should have gone back and checked the visual MLG indicators on top of the wing. But to check the MLG, he would have had to disconnect the safety barrier net, a real hassle. Unfortunately, many, many mistakes were made. 3 good pilots were killed, and a good airplane lost.
You do not understand the deferral process. The aircraft is built with redundant systems and can be dispatched with some equipment being inoperative. Sometimes there are weather restrictions, others my require the flight be conducted during daylight hours only. The captain and crew determine if the level of safety is acceptable even if the MEL says it is legal to conduct the flight. This accident had several contributing factors, most if which were CRM related. Just like Eastern 401, small problems can be big problems if not dealt with correctly.
Another most excellent video Allec. Unfortunate outcome but the very informative narrative is very telling as to why this accident most likely occurred. Keep up the good work. I look forward to your vids every time. Especially the lack of time wasting, or extra unnecessary bandwidth other channels employ, to get the vid past a certain time line. Cheers!
I know, NTSB is such crap. They always go immediately to blaming the pilots. Whenever they’re confused and don’t know who to blame, they blame the pilots. If the accident is primarily someone else’s fault, they blame the pilots. The NTSB is so stupid and pointless, I just stopped reading their reports because I know they aren’t fully true if all they say is “we blame the pilots for...”
UA had another gear issue with a DC8 in PDX, which ran out of fuel while screwing around with the gear. The reason crews liked the DC8 was, it was so well designed. In both instances, all you have to do is send the FE back to see if the indicator pins were protruding on top of the wings. In the cockpit there is a little sight hole to verify the nose gear.
That was another one in which I lost a friend. Frosty Mendenhall was the F/E. I used to go to his house to play chess. One problem with your observation. I think it's likely on a freighter it may not be possible to get back to where one can observe the "cigarette butts" indicating the mains are down and locked. The Portland crash makes us wonder why someone didn't do that.
Another fantastic video. A sad ending unfortunately that I wish could have been different but I know tragedy sometimes happens. I may not have understood everything that was talked about in the video but I always enjoy them.
What baffles me is when the ATC told them to climb " immediately to 8000'" it took them so long to respond. One minute is a helluva long time without explanation. And what about the TPWS? Not to mention they were VFR with adequate visibility.
I think a mountain, which is not lit, is not visible at night, and would count as IMC. So at night, even in VMC conditons, you would not see the mountain.
The Flight Channel uses a different simulator for their videos. They may have covered this accident as well, but the actual video couldn't be the same.
It's doubly sad when you realize that a year later (one year & 11 days to be exact) another United DC-8 also had a landing gear issue, and the pilots were so focused on dealing with the gear problem that they ran the engines dry. 10 people died, although it could have been more.
This is a video where EVERYONE is Sad, no insults, no pointing, JUST SAD. We are all HUMAN and screw up, that's all this was. GOD just got a bunch of more SOULS, that's how I look at this. THANKS ALLEC, awesome ALWAYS.
Navigational errors were the cause of so many crashes thru the years. Now days there aren't that many domestic passenger flights at night (except in the winter when it gets dark early)
Added side note on this: The aircraft crashed within a few hundred meters of the SLC ATC Center radome on Francis Peak. So it nearly crashed into the radar that was tracking it.
SLC App: ''United 2860, you are too close to terrain on the ridgt side for a turn....'' 09:55 ... SLC App: ''OK, climb immediately to maintain 8,000 feet'' 10:16 IMMEDIATELY from an ATC is scary
@@kcindc5539 yeah i know! felt the same. im easily scared too.. if fast moving downward elevators in tall skyscrapers always got me holding on to things
@@rinsedpie every week it’s a new flavor of surreal pie, I gotta tell you. January was something I never expected to see in my lifetime. A complete 180 going from 10 months of living in a veritable ghost town punctuated with various skirmishes along the way to the wheels coming completely off the bus over the last few weeks. Been here 30 years and never seen such extremes one after the other.
Great vlog as always! I advice you to take a look at the «Asker ulykken» in Norway 23rd dec. 1972. It was the first fatal accident with the Fokker F-28 Fellowship. It started to fly commercialy in march 1969. Braathens, together with Germany`s LTU got the first aircraft. I think the accident report is on the web and in English.
A simplistic question no doubt, but why couldn't. the aircraft make a low pass over the runway and get a visual check? Provided, naturally of course, that the controllers cleared the corridor for them.
Possibly weather? There was a low patchy ceiling I believe. That's all I could come up with because I had the same question. There probably wasn't any traffic to speak of at that time of the morning, just dark and rainy.
It is sad that none of the pilots maintained situational awareness of flying the plane and instead got the tunnel vision focus on just the electrical problem. Lots of accidents happened because of such focus. (e.g. UAL 173) Whether fatigued or not there is a psychological tendency to focus on a single problem and lose sight of everything else.
At night? With just one generator online? And it's not that they were flying too low; they lost spatial awareness and left the safety of the holding area until they flew into a mountain
In hindsight, yeah how could 3 pilots not notice? But, they run multiple in-flight manuals and checklists, 90% of the time the pilots are "heads down" (looking down at flight plans, instruments, etc.) There eyes are running scans on dozens of instrument panels every few seconds, throw in spatial disorientation, fatigue, night flight, and other things and it can be a mixture for disaster, and sadly and unfortunately it was one.
Errors all round. What are the lessons learned? Tha blame game again. Hopefully it won't happen again.... Excellent vid Allec. Greetings from South Africa 👋🇿🇦
The FE should have gone to check the visual gear indications, which are there for a reason, and forget troubleshooting the indication issue, and go ahead with the landing. So sad. RIP.
I thought this seemed like very sloppy radio work by the flight crew. Why didn't they have the ATIS info to report upon initial contact with approach control? Who accepts a partial hold clearance? The engineer should have known the systems. I did single pilot IFR into & out of SLC and never got a VOR approach. Why not a ILS or LOC Back course? A DC-8 did a similar thing in PDX also United.
They didn’t have the ATIS because they only had one operational radio, so going off frequency would require permission. When there’s no other traffic out there in the middle of the night it’s easier and safer to ask the controller for the weather.
@Nommadd57 .... I concur the term in this context is “altimeter” - the setting is essentially a barometric pressure function but uses that measurement to calibrate the actual altimeter distance-to-ground display which varies with changes in barometric pressure
Behind all the tech jargon the controller told the pilot to circle around at 6000' while the electrical problem was sorted out, when he must have known very well that SLC is surrounded by mountain ranges, some higher. That's the basic cause of the crash.
I hear "too close to terrain on the right" followed by "climb immediately to 8000", I'm fire walling all 4 engines and pulling hard back. But I'm no pilot.
We have a culture of all work all the time and don't care about allowing for rest or breaks. Not good when people's lives are at risk. Hell, not good for humans in general.
14:03 I am confident that at no time in recent decades has SLC ever had an _established lack of guidelines & lack of adherence to holding procedures,_ much less has SLC ever had such established lacks that must be complied with. Because of this, it is quite unlikely that the NTSB blamed the pilots for _failing to adhere to established lacks...._ Allec needs to revisit his editing.
longest flight i took was 32 hours , from FT Lewis , Washington to Egypt , Sinai at Sharm el Shiek . 4 stop overs for gas. Long 13 month deployment from 05 to 06. Then a long flight back , then in 07 from Miss to Kuwait for another 7 months then back. Got tired of the flying
So was the generator dead or the bus dead? Surely there would be a way for another generator to power 2 buses. Or was this the limit of technology back when this was designed?
How long does one video usualy take to make? Do you work alone? What's harder, getting all the details, or the simulation? BTW I really appreciate your work.
Great video, as always. But if I can nitpick, could you use video titles that do not reveal the end result? I know most of these end "fatally" but the videos are always so much more gripping when I have no idea what happens.
Fatigue played a major role in this tragedy. I am a retired United pilot. The first officer, Phil Modesitt and I were new hires together, 1 seniority number apart. A few days before, a mutual friend encountered Phil in O'Hare, said he looked like something the cat dragged in. Phil had been flying a late night cargo schedule and complained that he "couldn't sleep during the day, couldn't stay awake at night". I didn't know the other 2 pilots, but I know Phil was a damn good pilot, but I also know how fatigue can slow and confuse the normal mental process. They were confronted with a situation, late night, in weather, that would have required clear thinking and quick response. Under the circumstances, it only took a brief moment of hesitation. RIP, my friend.
Thank you Bill for your firsthand insight. I’ve done a lot of back side of the clock flying myself, and it genuinely is a threat.
Thank you for your insight Mr. Lawrence. I'm sure it was and is still a painful memory especially knowing one of the crew. Anyone that has worked through the night, especially with schedules that may change from day then back to night, realize the detriment to our circadian rhythm. The "sleep monster' is a powerful force against our mental process for sure, especially past one in the morning. BTW, my Grandfather started flying for United in 1928.
I spent 40 years flying on the backside of the clock. You adapt but never seem to really get used to it. Even the 14 plus hour legs where you have a relief crew you don't rest well on airplanes. FAA regs for freight pilots have always treated us like second class citizens.
@@Kevin_747 I can sure relate. I did West Coast - Hong Kong enough to understand that full well. I didn't change my watch, and one time walking around Hong Kong, I looked at my watch and it read 4. I honestly didn't know if it was 4 AM or PM. I had to stop and reason it out. The only reason I think we all survived that "Checkerboard" approach after a Pacific crossing was that it was so critical we went on full alert, fueled by caffeine and adrenaline. Get in the cab to the hotel and pass out.
@@billlawrence1899 Just curious, if you don't mind my question, did you happen to fly 10's out of Seattle by chance?
From your transcripts, it sounds like the First Officer did absolutely everything he could to diagnose and remedy the problem. Very professional & Qudos to him. What a sad ending.
Happened to be visiting my grandparents in N. IL when this crash occurred; my grandparents were close friends with the Modesitt’s. What a terrible shock it was upon hearing this news as Phil took this flight for a fellow pilot. Nice to finally know what exactly happened.
This reminded me of Eastern Airlines Flight 401. It crashed into the Fl Everglades because the cockpit crew was so busy focusing on an inoperative landing gear light that they failed to notice that one of the pilots accidentally had bumped the autopilot switch, turning it off and causing the plane to gradually descend unnoticed until it hit the ground.
My in laws lived Southwest of the crash site. The impression was clearly visible on the mountain side for several years. It looked like the front view of a DC -8 with the fuselage, wings, and 4 engine impact points clearly visible. Such a tragedy RIP.
So I guess you could say this plane had quite an impact and left a good impression.
@@Milesco you sound like my dad with those jokes
Whoa! Creepy😳
I'm going to have to go look in my DC-8 manuals, been many years and airplanes ago. If DC bus 1 was un-powered then pulling all four throttles to idle with the gear lever in the down position and the flaps extended would give you the warning horn if any one of the three landing gears was not down and locked. The horn is on a different bus for this reason. This accident was back in the day when we always had paper charts out in the cockpit with all the MEA's/MOCA's. Sadly the Captain missed on the terrain avoidance during the holding procedure.
Kevin 747 and anyone else, serious question. Why would a controller (apparently without a lot of other things to do at 1:00 a.m.) send a plane to hold at 6,000 ft in the vicinity of an 8,000 ft mountain?? Oh, and then let him go off freq.
@@mikespencer9913 Good question but its not unusual to go off freq. for a short time. As far as the hold at 6000 it would have been OK if it was a published hold or even a clearance to hold on a particular radial with an EFC time but neither seemed to be issued and it wasn't questioned by the crew. Of course if you venture off from a published hold in a mountainous area you are a test pilot. During my career I often would hear UAL crews calling mom on Airinc for simple problems. Made me wonder how deep they taught systems in ground school. 3 generator dispatch was common on DC-8's back in the day.
Kevin 747: Why wasn't the flight engineer working on the electrical problem instead of the two pilots? I know nothing about cargo flights are the rows filled with cargo too or just the hold?
Didn't I see on another video that the DC-8 has rods that deploy and are visible in the wing area to indicate that the landing gear is down and locked? So, being a cargo flight the windows are painted over so they can't see the rods? Or maybe those rods come off the same bus, but that would be poor planning.
Peggy L I’m totally guessing here, but rods that deploy on the wings would almost surely be mechanically controlled, as they are in such close proximity to the gear itself. If it’s an electrically controlled function why would you put it out on the wings where the pilots couldn’t see it without leaving the cockpit?
I live in Kaysville and I've heard there is still debris up there. Such a sad event.
Most remote sites, the NTSB only takes what they need. Where I used to live, a firebomber crashed in 1975 in the desert outside of town and a lot of small pieces are still there.
Yea if the place the plane crashed is deserted and no one goes there, than there are wreckage left
ua-cam.com/video/eMiFxTe1cqY/v-deo.html
@@nathangreer8219 Thanks for the link but it didn't show any plane wreckage..
I was 14 years old and lived in Farmington that morning and learned about it in church. There were helicopters flying along the mountains all day and for the next few days.
I was just as surprised as the pilots likely were. A few seconds before the crash, I thought "Oh, crap, is that a mountain?" Such a tragedy.
That's the reason allec's videos never disappoint!
Same. As soon as I saw the mountains come into view on the vid, I went "oh no." I imagine that it was sadly the same for the pilots 😔
You've never been to Salt Lake City it is a horseshoe surrounded by mountains.
Yet another classic, tragic consequence as to what can happen with slow-responding pilot responses and simply natural human error. Again, Allec, I deeply appreciate all the hard, rigorous effort you put into carefully crafting out and creating these fascinating videos, whether they be tense, tragic, or close calls, particularly during these bleak times. And for all, once again, stay safe, have fun, and don’t lose hope, these times will eventually come to pass. Happy Summer for all!
Crap. That is so sad. As soon as I heard “maintain 6,000 ft”, I thought, whoa! There are mountains much higher than that in the vicinity of SLC. What a tragedy.
MendTheWorld - This one airport in particular has always scared me. I’ve never liked having to fly in to that airport for a layover ever, I don’t know why, just seeing the mountains on the one side of the airport.
PeaCe&ReSPeCt, Shelley
I know, bizarre. The fact that the Rocky Mtns cover half of Utah, east of SLC isn't like a big secret.
The ATC knew they had ‘problems’, knew they were going to be out of contact, they were the only plane he was dealing with. He could EASILY have given the radial & mentioned ‘terrain, 8,000, just outside holding pattern’. As a person driving along the ROAD it tells me when a ravine at the side of the road is coming up. You need to know conditions and they didn’t have our technology
Yup, right around there "climb immediately" would mean imMEDIATEly. Not an ideal place to circle around in the middle of the night troubleshooting electrical tidbits. I was a high schooler in SLC when this happened and vaguely remember it. RIP to the crew :/
Yes not very wise anywhere in the Rockies.
I was going to write "I look forward to the day when air disasters no longer occur, but on the other hand I'd miss Allec's videos". Instead this incident just left me feeling empty. It sounded like the pilots were doing things right, being cautious, maintaining good communications. Yet it all ended in disaster. My sincere sympathy to the crew and their families.
The NTSB concluded otherwise. Lots of small mistakes added up, including ATC.
Idk, if I'm over mountainous terrain and the controller tells me to do something "immediately", I think I'd do it *immediately.*
@@cuchidesoto2686 Moreover, the tower had a radar and could see the DC-8 straying off course. But the pilots have not been told about it and it's possible that this aircraft wasn't fitted with a GPWS.
maria jose cruzat they were on a different radio frequency ?
@@cuchidesoto2686 According to the narrative, the plane had only one working radio. And it was in contact with the company to troubleshoot the landing gear problem. The controller informed them when they resumed ATC contact.
@@Pooneil1984 THere were two pilots and a flight engineer. One of the pilots should have been flying the aircraft while the other two attempted to diagnose the problem.
Missing in the narrative is whether or not the PIC was attempting the troubleshoot or the PM.
The PIC should never become distracted from his or her duties.
@@cuchidesoto2686 ATC: "Wouldn't it be funny if they flew really close to a mountain?"
You have an excellent UA-cam channel. I always watch these to learn about aviation safety.
not soon after this accident we were then trained as follows during emergencies; the captain will state (capt or) "F/O is flying the airplane, PNF will work with the F/E .... what you do is work with your engineer but monitor the flying pilot...most of the radio work to maintenance is done by the engineer and he will update the pilots...
Why wasn't the flight engineer working on the electrical problem instead of the two pilots? I know nothing about cargo flights are the rows filled with cargo too or just the hold?
another accident where everyone try to fix something and no one fly's plane
Reminds me of Eastern Airlines Flight 401.
.
And another one where a ground proximity warning could have saved the day..
@@jorgecallico9177 Yeah, but in all honesty, it was unnecessary. All they had to do was read their charts and ask for the right holding altitude. Not exactly advanced piloting.
Jorge Callico GPWS was installed and operational on this aircraft. They likely received an alert about 7 seconds before impact, but with the CVR inoperative it could not be confirmed due to no cockpit recording.
@@HEDGE1011
Gracias
As this accident occurred in the "old days" when they had a Flight Engineer on board why were both the captain and First Officer dealing with the problem, surely only one of them plus the Flight Engineer should do this leaving the other "pilot" to fly the plane?
Crew resource management formally began with a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendation made during their investigation of the 1978 United Airlines Flight 173 crash.
You’re absolutely right. We used this accident when I taught CRM for years. If it sounds like a lot of other CRM accidents, it is.
Plus the flight engineer was found to have earlier imbibed in significant alcohol found on autopsy. Though not likely contributing to the disaster. It is forbidden prior to flight but he'd had about eight stiff drinks that night before.
You have the most interesting and educational aviation accident videos on UA-cam. I'd imagine many commercial airline pilots view these. You can never have too much knowledge about flying and various problems encountered up there.
It is brilliant in that you chose this music to end the videos... A very sad end to this story/ The rule, one pilot flies the airplane whilst one fights the problem. God bless them.
Glad that NTSB for once, did not dump all the blame on this flight crew.
At the risk of sounding like an “armchair quarterback”, it seems that all three focused on the maintenance issue rather than the PF fly the aircraft and leave the PM and Flight Engineer to troubleshoot or action the QRH. How many times have you been told by your instructor(s) to “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate”? Of course this is dependent on other factors (busy controlled airspace, the nature of the problem etc) however it does not absolve the Pilot in Command from knowing the MSA (or MEA if en-route), and knowing to hold as published (or if no hold depicted, what is the standard procedure to hold if no formal holding instructions have been advised). Naturally flying at “oh dark hundred” bears partly consequence especially if the previous rest period was not achieved adequately. Fatigue is usually a huge factor to human error especially when flying during the window of circadian low. RIP to this crew.
Great job on the video, Allec. Keep them coming as they are educational for all of us.
Everything you said that you think so obvious was not formally developed in 1977.
Crew resource management formally began with a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendation made during their investigation of the 1978 United Airlines Flight 173 crash.
as a former controller, our operating guide 7110.65 was based upon accidents, many of which have been featured here. Every point you make was codified in both the AIM, and FAAH 7110.65 years later. CRM was the last big hurdle, and that fell in the early 80's I believe. The FAA is sadly a reactionary group, they do investigate accidents and try to learn lessons from every one. Once the lesson is learned, it is evaluated and then if needed a new procedure is adopted.
@@B3Band But "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" goes back to the 50s!!
Oh, I think the HVN was the problem, as the DHYI connection to the Vt was OB.
What @Dave Smith said :)
Like Eastern flight 401. Flight crew focused on a burnt out light bulb all the way to the ground.
Yeah, I remember reading a book on that one, if it's the one that crashed in the Florida Everglades.
So the accident report includes the approach chart they were using. The SLC VOR no longer exists, TCH is the new one but it's slightly further east, lined up with 16L. But just using current charts, you can see that about 10nm west is Antelope Island which reaches 6559' and 5nm east is the eastern Ridge which reaches close to 10,000'. So it boggles my mind that a prudent pilot would get into this situation. First, 6,000' was a seriously stupid altitude to be holding at in that area. Not trying to confirm an exact radial in said terrain is worse. So basically they were flying blind sandwiched in a 15nm ish wide area in a jet without an exact radial. Without the CVR, it's hard to know what was going on. If you look up the approximate ground track, you can clearly see that whoever was the pilot flying was terrible at holding and/or just wasn't paying attention. It looked like they were intending to hold on the 331° radial as the entry and second turn were established about there. But then on the final turn, instead of flying outbound on an approximate 331° heading, they flew more like 020°. Completely the wrong direction. They at some point would have seen themselves crossing the radial they should have been flying inbound on. This would have been a needle flip on their HSI if they were using that and not the RMI. Then they made the right turn toward the VOR but instead, flew into a mountain. This is why single pilot IFR is so dangerous in general. And why holding is such an important skill to be able to do (and I mean in raw data! Not just following the magenta racetrack!). This likely involved distraction. But much more fundamentally, their situational awareness was very poor.
First jet I trained and crewed on was the DC-8 - 63 (also - 61 with additional difference training). With regard to the gear indicating problem, the front panel gear handle was actually two handles held together by a knurl knobbed screw. When placed in the down position, the shorter handle would release the gear uplocks utilizing hydraulic system pressure, while the longer handle would release the uplocks mechanically via a cable to the three uplocks. We were taught that if the handle could not be placed in the down position, remove the screw joining the two levers, then either handle in the down position would cause the gear to fall into the down and locked position. This could be confirmed by the Second Officer going to the overwing window and observing buttons that extended up from the wing skin, verifying the mains down and locked. On a freighter, solid loaded with igloos, you'd still be able to do a gear check using a window in the cockpit to verify the nose gear down and locked. Again...either handle down...gear down and locked.
OK, now to the electrical problem. The "8" has four engine driven a.c. generators coupled via a constant speed drive, or transmission that keeps them a 400 htz (+/- 3). They feed into four independent a.c. busses thru a generator relay (cockpit controlled switch). Each a.c. bus feeds into a transformer rectifier unit (tru) that powers the respective d.c. bus; and from there to the battery bus. Each a.c. bus would be connected to the other three thru four paralleling relays (generator sign waves matched). I believe the respective d.c. busses were paralleled through the the battery bus, but it's been 55 years, so little hazy here. In the same situation as these guys, we were trained to do the following (the I smell smoke drill in the sim). Trip the paralleling relays (isolate the four a.c. buses). Trip each generator relay one at a time ("I still smell smoke"), repower that a.c. bus and move on to the next one. Do this four times ("I still smell smoke"), then one at a time pull the tru circuit breakers (with battery bus tripped offline as I remember). No smoke after tripping one of the transformer rectifier units...fault's on that d.c. bus. If smoke went away when battery bus taken offline...it's on the battery bus. It was always a fault on the battery bus, as the Check Second wanted to ascertain your level of knowledge of electrical system and distribution. So if the fault was on an a.c. or d.c. bus, they'd ask, "What now ?". We'd would pull the breakers on the respective bus until the "smoke" was no longer detected (unless it was a generator fault, in which case we'd leave that generator offline, and reset all four paralleling relays, providing a.c. power to all four a.c. busses). Such was the level of training I received at The Flying Tiger Line in 1978..on every system of that aircraft. I retained that knowledge when I moved up to the front seats...came in handy at times.
It appears from the transcript of this accident that the S/O was not given the benefit of such training. United lost a passenger DC-8 -61 in 1978, when the absence of safe gear indications compelled the Captain to run the fuel down to absolute minimum before proceeding inbound on the ILS. The book said no less than 8000 pounds, and at 8000, the crossfeeds go down, and you put it on the runway. He put it down on Burnside Avenue in Portland Oregon on final to PDX. There was no fire, because he went well below 8000 pounds of fuel before initiating the ILS.
There's simply no substitute for through knowledge of an aircrafts systems. With increasing automation, we've moved away from this type of thinking...hope it works out.
I was nervous about a SLC Mountain terain crash from the moment the mechanical issues arose.
I just flew into & out of SLC a few weeks ago in clear weather - GORGEOUS Mountains views - but dangerously high.
I was thinking - seriously, 6,000' ?
Get them higher to resolve the mechanical fixes - then descend !
RIP to this ill fated crew !
PS: Alec you managed to make it sound like an 'aging, over the Hill' Freighter - great job !
Didn't the pilot say he preferred to not ascend? I love these videos.
I’m crushed. I hadn’t heard of, or don’t remember this accident. It’s always devastating on so many levels for something like this to happen, but it seems especially terrible at Christmastime.
Making it more poignant is the landing gear was down the whole time. Reminds me of that accident when a 49-cent lightbulb caused the loss of lives and aircraft.
RIP these pilots, and blessings to their families.
Another heart-wrenching account so well done, Allec. Thank you once again.
This for me was hard to watch as I knew Capt John Fender well. In September of 1969 he and his wife helped me pack my U-Haul to move to San Francisco. Then when it was packed they said " You go we will clean the apartment." Now those are Friends.
According to the voice recorder he had turned and was helping the engineer solve the electrical problem and the first officer was flying, but also trying to help.
According to the NTSB the CVR was inop for this flight. You might be conflating the Eastern 401 story with this crash.
Mr Swain, you have my condolences even after all this time for the loss of your friend. My lovely wife and I (I'm a PP-SEL, she's the chief hanger-on-er and navigator extraordinaire) just looked at this video, and shook our heads at this "perfect storm" accident.
@@gunther_hermann : Funny* you should mention Eastern 401, because while I was watching this video, I couldn't help but notice the similarities to that flight.
___________________________________
* (Not "funny -- ha ha" but, you know, interesting.)
Robert Swain I am sorry for your loss and yes, he sounds like a great guy.
I’m unsure where the rumor came from about the crew dynamics here, but it wasn’t from the CVR which contained no recording of this accident flight since the metal tape had bound up in the CVR case rendering it inoperative. That’s why there is no CVR transcript in the NTSB AAR either.
"Fatal Distraction" would have been just as apt a title for this. Thanks Allec!
I think that was used for Eastern flight 401, the 1972 L 1011 crash in the Florida Everglades while the crew screwed around with a light bulb, eerily also in the landing gear panel.
Hello, I have been watching your channel for too many years I can count and your videos have never changed a bit! That is amazing how you keep the same standard for each video so that they don’t differ from each other. Keep up the great work for many more years to come!
yea I remember this one it crashed just above my house on the on the Wasatch near Francis peak. I was home for Christmas. I heard it crash and saw the flash. That mountain gets crashed into all the time. Never my Hill AFB pilots though.
Another CFIT incident... So many of these similarly tragic incidents had to happen before the advent of modern GPWS equipment. Also, controllers should always issue instructions to the pilots as published on the charts. Omitting the radial information, regardless of whether or not holding at a certain radial from the VOR is obvious, should always be said regardless of what the instrument charts do or don't say. Another amazing video as always, Allec!
Cfit caused by broken Light.. Just like at eastern 401
Also incident means that no one died. This is accident
@@dragoner3211 broken electrical bus actually.
@@GCarty80 i see no diference
This is why I do not become an Air Traffic Controller.
Sounds like UAL has a lot of fault here too dispatching with no CVR, one radio and other electrical deficiences.
The CVR and radio were probably powered by the dead BUS
The #1 gen failed in route, which took out the landing gear lights, # 1 nav and comm radio's, and the CVR. The bus should have been able to be powered by the other 3 generators, but the # 3 gen would not parallel, which then it couldn't help power the other 3 busses. There was some kind of major electrical fault going on. But the NLG view port is right there on the cockpit floor, and the FE should have gone back and checked the visual MLG indicators on top of the wing. But to check the MLG, he would have had to disconnect the safety barrier net, a real hassle. Unfortunately, many, many mistakes were made. 3 good pilots were killed, and a good airplane lost.
You do not understand the deferral process. The aircraft is built with redundant systems and can be dispatched with some equipment being inoperative. Sometimes there are weather restrictions, others my require the flight be conducted during daylight hours only. The captain and crew determine if the level of safety is acceptable even if the MEL says it is legal to conduct the flight.
This accident had several contributing factors, most if which were CRM related. Just like Eastern 401, small problems can be big problems if not dealt with correctly.
Note that while the controller did not specify a radial, he did say "hold west" and that the direction of hold WAS obvious within a few degrees.
never ass/u/me the obvious
Another most excellent video Allec. Unfortunate outcome but the very informative narrative is very telling as to why this accident most likely occurred. Keep up the good work. I look forward to your vids every time. Especially the lack of time wasting, or extra unnecessary bandwidth other channels employ, to get the vid past a certain time line.
Cheers!
What did you do with the time you saved not typing eo?
burt2481 ?
@burt2481 ....later that night he invested those extra .28 seconds in an experimental activity he heard about called “foreplay”.
The video said the approach controller would guide them for a VOR approach to runway 16R but that runway wasn’t built until the early 90’s.
When the pilots are killed in a crash like this it always bothers me to read the words... "The pilots were blamed for...."
Yes not the controller but "Okay" the pilots
I know, NTSB is such crap. They always go immediately to blaming the pilots. Whenever they’re confused and don’t know who to blame, they blame the pilots. If the accident is primarily someone else’s fault, they blame the pilots. The NTSB is so stupid and pointless, I just stopped reading their reports because I know they aren’t fully true if all they say is “we blame the pilots for...”
@@jerrywotkins6344 pilot IN CHARGE. No one else can fly the plane but the pilot so the ultimate responsibility is theres
UA had another gear issue with a DC8 in PDX, which ran out of fuel while screwing around with the gear. The reason crews liked the DC8 was, it was so well designed. In both instances, all you have to do is send the FE back to see if the indicator pins were protruding on top of the wings. In the cockpit there is a little sight hole to verify the nose gear.
That was another one in which I lost a friend. Frosty Mendenhall was the F/E. I used to go to his house to play chess. One problem with your observation. I think it's likely on a freighter it may not be possible to get back to where one can observe the "cigarette butts" indicating the mains are down and locked. The Portland crash makes us wonder why someone didn't do that.
Another fantastic video. A sad ending unfortunately that I wish could have been different but I know tragedy sometimes happens. I may not have understood everything that was talked about in the video but I always enjoy them.
Allec Joshua-Your videos are so awesome! Really! Thank you 🙏 for your work! 👍👏😘
What baffles me is when the ATC told them to climb " immediately to 8000'" it took them so long to respond. One minute is a helluva long time without explanation. And what about the TPWS? Not to mention they were VFR with adequate visibility.
I think a mountain, which is not lit, is not visible at night, and would count as IMC. So at night, even in VMC conditons, you would not see the mountain.
I was thinking that,tall mountains surrounding Salt Lake City....RIP,I love flying.
I have heard of this one, but never able to find it. Thanks and great job once again. So much better than that Mayday show with annoying narrator.
The unanswered question, was the gear down? And why didn't they fly past the tower so someone could look?
This video is from the flight channel, why it's on this channel is interesting...
The Flight Channel uses a different simulator for their videos. They may have covered this accident as well, but the actual video couldn't be the same.
Man. That is a sad one.
Wow. Didn't know about this. I live a couple towns up the road. When this happened, I was still living in Los Angeles.
I do remember this one from the CRM training sessions. It IS very easy to forget to actually fly the aircraft.
Ah yes, Shane Warne, legendary Ozzie Leggie.Actually, legendary might be an understatement.
It's doubly sad when you realize that a year later (one year & 11 days to be exact) another United DC-8 also had a landing gear issue, and the pilots were so focused on dealing with the gear problem that they ran the engines dry. 10 people died, although it could have been more.
And from that Portland crash the concept of Cockpit Resource Management took shape
I never knew that United Airlines would do cargo-only flights back in the day!
This is a video where EVERYONE is Sad, no insults, no pointing, JUST SAD. We are all HUMAN and screw up, that's all this was. GOD just got a bunch of more SOULS, that's how I look at this. THANKS ALLEC, awesome ALWAYS.
Navigational errors were the cause of so many crashes thru the years. Now days there aren't that many domestic passenger flights at night (except in the winter when it gets dark early)
Added side note on this: The aircraft crashed within a few hundred meters of the SLC ATC Center radome on Francis Peak. So it nearly crashed into the radar that was tracking it.
And they were in good weather the whole time. So sad. Seems nobody paid attention to the little things. Nice vid, Allec... :)
What did you do with the time you saved not typing eo?
@burt have you nothing better to do ? Grow up
Date Of Accident : December, 18 1977 (46 Years Ago)
All I am going to say is that I'm glad that only cargo was on board and not people.
Kate Maloney 3 people lost their lives
So very sad. My heart cries!!!
Approach control does not issue landing clearances. That’s done by the tower
SLC App: ''United 2860, you are too close to terrain on the ridgt side for a turn....'' 09:55
...
SLC App: ''OK, climb immediately to maintain 8,000 feet'' 10:16
IMMEDIATELY from an ATC is scary
@rinsedpie at the very moment I saw the word immediately I got that nauseating feeling and the involuntary urge to yell “CLIMB GODDAMNIT!!”
@@kcindc5539 yeah i know! felt the same. im easily scared too.. if fast moving downward elevators in tall skyscrapers always got me holding on to things
@@rinsedpie it’s that sense of impending doom. Ugh I hate it
@@kcindc5539 absolutely man. hey, how's DC? Tucker says last night the place is crawling with ''troops''
@@rinsedpie every week it’s a new flavor of surreal pie, I gotta tell you. January was something I never expected to see in my lifetime. A complete 180 going from 10 months of living in a veritable ghost town punctuated with various skirmishes along the way to the wheels coming completely off the bus over the last few weeks. Been here 30 years and never seen such extremes one after the other.
Great vlog as always! I advice you to take a look at the «Asker ulykken» in Norway 23rd dec. 1972. It was the first fatal accident with the Fokker F-28 Fellowship. It started to fly commercialy in march 1969. Braathens, together with Germany`s LTU got the first aircraft. I think the accident report is on the web and in English.
A simplistic question no doubt, but why couldn't. the aircraft make a low pass over the runway and get a visual check? Provided, naturally of course, that the controllers cleared the corridor for them.
Possibly weather? There was a low patchy ceiling I believe. That's all I could come up with because I had the same question. There probably wasn't any traffic to speak of at that time of the morning, just dark and rainy.
It is sad that none of the pilots maintained situational awareness of flying the plane and instead got the tunnel vision focus on just the electrical problem. Lots of accidents happened because of such focus. (e.g. UAL 173) Whether fatigued or not there is a psychological tendency to focus on a single problem and lose sight of everything else.
It really hits me every time when it says “Everybody on Board is Killed” because it’s just not right😞
@@saiganjugolf644 or if at least a few people survived
Great Work Allec👍👍
You'd think one of the three pilots wouId have noticed they were too Iow.
At night? With just one generator online?
And it's not that they were flying too low; they lost spatial awareness and left the safety of the holding area until they flew into a mountain
In hindsight, yeah how could 3 pilots not notice? But, they run multiple in-flight manuals and checklists, 90% of the time the pilots are "heads down" (looking down at flight plans, instruments, etc.) There eyes are running scans on dozens of instrument panels every few seconds, throw in spatial disorientation, fatigue, night flight, and other things and it can be a mixture for disaster, and sadly and unfortunately it was one.
Your videos are the best.
another great video from my man Allec!
Errors all round. What are the lessons learned? Tha blame game again. Hopefully it won't happen again....
Excellent vid Allec.
Greetings from South Africa 👋🇿🇦
What did you do with the time you saved not typing eo?
Tragic. Great video, Allec.
Back in the day, flying a hold was a bit more complicated than today as well...
Would be useful for the video to display a map showing the terrain and the path of the airplane.
The FE should have gone to check the visual gear indications, which are there for a reason, and forget troubleshooting the indication issue, and go ahead with the landing. So sad. RIP.
I thought this seemed like very sloppy radio work by the flight crew. Why didn't they have the ATIS info to report upon initial contact with approach control? Who accepts a partial hold clearance? The engineer should have known the systems. I did single pilot IFR into & out of SLC and never got a VOR approach. Why not a ILS or LOC Back course? A DC-8 did a similar thing in PDX also United.
In 1977 was there an ILS installed? Maybe it wasn’t functioning
They didn’t have the ATIS because they only had one operational radio, so going off frequency would require permission. When there’s no other traffic out there in the middle of the night it’s easier and safer to ask the controller for the weather.
Didn`t the DC-8 have a secondary mean of checking the gear down and locked?
Another very compelling video, as always! 2:30 - (minor detail: "...altimeter 29.58". Guessing that should be 'barometer'.)
No the phraseology is altimeter ##.##
@Nommadd57 .... I concur the term in this context is “altimeter” - the setting is essentially a barometric pressure function but uses that measurement to calibrate the actual altimeter distance-to-ground display which varies with changes in barometric pressure
Would the pilots have been aware of the impending collision at any time or would it have happened before they had a chance to realize?
Likely unaware or only at last few seconds at most
Every time I watch one of these videos I always get the feeling that someone is going to die.
Allec, can you do the Hindenburg Disaster if you can???
Climb immediately should mean now not at your convenience
Behind all the tech jargon the controller told the pilot to circle around at 6000' while the electrical problem was sorted out, when he must have known very well that SLC is surrounded by mountain ranges, some higher. That's the basic cause of the crash.
No. Breakdown in situational,awareness by the pilots. Root cause was likely fatigue.
I hear "too close to terrain on the right" followed by "climb immediately to 8000", I'm fire walling all 4 engines and pulling hard back. But I'm no pilot.
We have a culture of all work all the time and don't care about allowing for rest or breaks. Not good when people's lives are at risk. Hell, not good for humans in general.
Liking your videos before even watching them is a sign of excellence!
I did not anticipate the sudden crash. Shocking
14:03 I am confident that at no time in recent decades has SLC ever had an _established lack of guidelines & lack of adherence to holding procedures,_ much less has SLC ever had such established lacks that must be complied with.
Because of this, it is quite unlikely that the NTSB blamed the pilots for _failing to adhere to established lacks...._
Allec needs to revisit his editing.
Great job, Allec, as always.
82ND AIRBORNE
Question : Would a flyby of the tower be considered??
I just farted out my ass 😮
Actually, this is a general question. Have you done a video of 1960 New York mid-air collision?
He did I thinn
Isn't the aircraft always referred to as Douglas DC8? Why is it titled McDonnell Douglas DC8 in the video? Curious to know
Good morning from St John Parish, Louisiana 7 Sep 20.
Just because someone doesn't feel tired doesn't mean they're not suffering from sleep deprivation or its associated effects.
Did the investigation ever determine if the landing gear was actually down?
longest flight i took was 32 hours , from FT Lewis , Washington to Egypt , Sinai at Sharm el Shiek . 4 stop overs for gas. Long 13 month deployment from 05 to 06. Then a long flight back , then in 07 from Miss to Kuwait for another 7 months then back. Got tired of the flying
I was waiting for the "..the pilots were blamed" bit
Climb immediately..
When the pilots hear terrain and climb immediately what is with a one minute delay.
well done as always, allec.
A year later United Flight 173 crashed and CRM is placed in
So was the generator dead or the bus dead? Surely there would be a way for another generator to power 2 buses. Or was this the limit of technology back when this was designed?
Is landing gear working??
How long does one video usualy take to make? Do you work alone? What's harder, getting all the details, or the simulation? BTW I really appreciate your work.
Would it be so hard to install a camera to inspect the landing gear.
In 1977 probably yes.
Great video, as always. But if I can nitpick, could you use video titles that do not reveal the end result? I know most of these end "fatally" but the videos are always so much more gripping when I have no idea what happens.