Helios Airways flight 522 - WHAT happened?!
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- Опубліковано 30 жов 2020
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On the 14th Of August 2005 Helios Airways flight 522 took off from Larnaca, Cyprus on a routine flight via Athens to Prague. Due to a combination a of faulty cockpit setup and misidentification of the different cockpit alarms the pilots became unconscious and the aircraft continued it silent flight towards Athens without anyone at the controls.
In this video I will explain the final report and give you my view of the different things that happened on this very tragic flight.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask them in the comments below.
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Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode. Enjoy checking them out!
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The Flight Attendant waving and then pointing down had to be one of those moments that would stay in the fighter pilots mind forever.
It's almost as if it's in my mind as well tbh...
wait why was she doing that?
nvm
@Ionian Thanks for the additional info there. To be a new pilot in training, hoping for some chance, to finally get into the flight deck and then just run out of fuel. To be the last one, and have all your efforts just not be enough... Jesus Christ.
So sad. Sounds like a very brave person. I think this disaster is one of the saddest.
You know what hurts the most about this accident?It was so easy to prevent/avoid.
Indeed. One simple switch of the button... :-(
I think I’m a bit nervous of flying, I have watched mentours videos on take off and landing normal noises, which helps......but the bit that io really worry about is this sort of thing. Where something happens during maintenance, like the Air France one where the external pitriot sensors were taped over to clean the plane and the tape not removed.....those sorts of things scare me.
@@koolerking440 you’re more likely to be involved in a fatal car accident than be involved in a plane accident. If you can get in a car without worrying you can survive a plane just fine. 😄
@@NicolaW72 And even when this had happened, why the flight attendant did not put oxygen masks on pilots faces - that could have saved the day, too.
@@tokenlau7519 Because the flight attendant only got into the cockpit hours later and the pilots were almost certainly dead at that point.
This is easily the most horrific story I've heard on this channel. Something about a plane just auto-piloting and going into a holding pattern with most on board dead or unconscious is just truly upsetting.
It might be in bad taste, but I think of it as a zombie plane. Or a flying cemetery. Horrible
@@dehanbadenhorst1398 in the industry this is called a ghost plane
Probably a more gentle death than being conscious right as you hit the ground I guess. Still doesn't sit right at all though
@@grey6703 You could actually make a decent ghost story about this if the auto land also went through somehow... :/
You've heard of ghost ships appearing on the waves, now you see ghost planes appearing in the clouds. This just kinda made me think of the plane from The Strain that landed at JFK with everyone onboard being dead.
A moral of this story… Just because a checklist was uneventful for the first thousand flights doesn’t mean it won’t save your life on the next.
Similar to seat belts in a car.
Error made by the ground crew, and many errors by the pilots, but how negligent is it for a plane to have an audible alarm with nothing visual to tell the pilots what it is for....
@@alsheremetaAgree. If the difference between manual and auto modes is death, then there should be such an indication that the pilots would have no chance to miss
@@olexandrs3385 Hell yeah, warning lights should have blinded the pilots in this situation, but the difference between manual and auto modes is not death. As he said, it is perfectly normal to fly in manual mode. There is so much negligence here, which was also mentioned several times in the conclusion. You can't design your way to safety without proper training and procedures. Until we have completely autonomous planes, we will have to rely on people being competent at their job.
I've been reading recently about how Japanese railway staff use a system called "point and call". They are trained to physically point at the thing they're checking, and speak aloud what they're seeing. This system has been proven to reduce cases of checklist items being skipped or misread. Involving more of your senses sort of forces you to pay proper attention, where a quick glance does not. Maybe it should be considered for pilots.
From my knowledge a similar system is also used in most airlines nowadays. The crew is trained to put their fingers above the switch they are checking and at least say quietly something like "APU Switch Off"
@@PetstoUwU say quietly? What's that about?
@@thebeaz1 in the Japan system they say those things clearly and loudly even when no one is around.
I doubt that most westeners have the discipline to keep that up
@@PetstoUwU I doubt that you know what you are talking about.
In flight school I was always taught to call out and point any items or actions, regardless of how mundane it might be. Flying dual, sometimes I would be asked to justify/explain a specific action, even if it was a memory item on a checklist.
Even flying solo, I still call out my actions to myself as I do them, as do most others that were trained this way at my school. It helps me to re-assess the situation and consider whether or not what just came out of my mouth makes any sense.
What scares me the most after hearing each step in this incident is how many times it was said "And that procedure wasn't followed." Everywhere from the pilots... to the engineers... to the ATC. Wow.
am pretty impressed how many times ATC tried to contact that plane before someone finally comes up with the idea that there's something wrong .... 2-3 dozen times ?
I'd have thought the cabin crew would have realised very quickly that they were not descending. At which point they should have been banging on the cockpit door.
@@hairyairey ... the FO screwed up real good that time.
@@jamc666 It's just surprising no-one realised that alarm means only one thing in flight.
@@hairyairey ... defenitely ...
Im quite impressed that the aircraft could still fly to its destination, approach, then enter a holding pattern until running out of fuel, all with the pilots incapacitated. Such a tragic accident.
Its a possibility that the pilots prior to going into hypoxia, they may have placed the plane on autopilot. I am really not sure if that was the case. Such an unfortunate incident. Hopefully that the passengers were in a certain stage of hypoxia. Perhaps they were unaware of the circumstances that was happening. Hopefully that was the case. An afterthought, why did not any of the alternative crew, enter the cockpit, to try to rectify that situation. It is so hard to put a positive view on how the crew was acting at that time. They have have also been in a certain level of hypoxia as well.
It was on autopilot, going to the set destination, that only an hour and half or so from the airport it had departed from. Since no landing, apparently it went into a holding pattern. This question had been asked, why was any of the crew that was in cabin area early on, why did they not attempt to enter cockpit. Its an unfortunate accident, not sure if they had uploaded any fuel, prior to departing; since it was only one and hour flight to destination.
Nearly every commercial aircraft you fly on flies itself. The pilots are there to troubleshoot and if anything goes wrong.
@@GodWorksOut yes and I find it quite amazing that we have technology available that makes it possible. Dope
@@justinporter5678 we have technology we're the plane could land itself. They just don't want us knowing that.
You brought tears in my eyes and wake all these memories. I do follow you and one I like about you is that you are trying to explain everything down to the detail in a nice way. It took me several months to watch this video. I use to work with Helios and unfortunately I was the guy to dispatch the aircraft on that day. I talked to the crew and passengers during boarding but no one can imagine what was to come. 15 day prior to the accident I flew with this aircraft and this captain from Athens to larnaca and was a perfect flight.
Helios was a small airline but it was the first time that I saw that special bond amongst the staff in all departments. I do agree with what you said but you have to take into consideration the Cypriot culture to be able to understand some chain of events in this accident.
I always enjoy watching you explain almost everything that has to do with aviation.
Thank you and keep up the good work.
Marios Chrysostomou
What a terrible experience, Mario. Thank you for commenting.
Thank u Mario!!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Could you elaborate a bit on the culture that you think was important background for this accident?
Please do elaborate regarding the Cypriot culture thing.
I am also curious about the Cypriot culture, could you elaborate please?
We would appreciate any more light you can shed on this very tragic event.
The part about the flight attendant signaling to the fighter pilots had me 😪 I cannot imagine how utterly helpless that person must have felt, knowing what was about to happen.
That got me too...completely dreadful in every respect...
Me too
Ya but, they really sat in their chair for almost 3 hours, using up 3 bottles of supplemental oxygen, while everyone else around them died of oxygen starvation. And not until the final moments, when they clearly felt the aircraft go into the holding pattern obviously, did they decide to investigate what was going on. And they had to have been conscious and alert this entire time because they continued to open the new bottles of oxygen to continue breathing. One would think that after everyone else passed out and they still couldn't make contact with the cockpit, they would realize that the pilots must also be unconscious and investigate. They even had a pilot's license, they could've made contact with flight control hours before the crash, armed with the knowledge that everyone else was unconscious due to lack of oxygen, and at the very least lowered the aircraft to an altitude where breathing is possible. I feel like most people in that situation would have reacted the second they had to crack the supplemental oxygen, and most people therefor could've possibly saved most everyone on board before death or brain injury. Just seems suuuper weird to me, but maybe I'm wrong ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@stephentorrey8727 Lack of oxygen is likely the answer. Even they/he had the oxygen it may not been applied all time properly causing some sort of lucid/slow-motion state of mind. May look easy for us when we know what happened, they did not and may not even been properly trained to fully understand this at that time.
@@hbh3144 ya I thought of that, but with lack of oxygen the first thing to go would be critical thinking. Realizing that you need oxygen, then opening the oxygen and breathing it would be impossible once already in that state of mind. This is exactly why they warn to put your own oxygen source on fist before helping others, because once the lack of oxygen starts to have it's affects, it's already too late and you won't be able to think clearly enough to secure your own mask. So if they were able to find and use the supplementary oxygen bottles, they were not yet suffering from delerium due to lack of oxygen.
This is definitely one of the most haunting accidents in aviation, in my opinion. The fact that everyone was dead except for the last flight attendant as they desperately tried to control the plane is just the stuff of nightmares, truly.
Jesus I didn’t think abt them all being dead until your comment. In my mind they were all sleeping from hypoxia but yah, they must’ve died after so long w/o enough oxygen. I can’t imagine what the flight attendant went through
@@retsis6587 Everyone just drifting into eternal sleep is the best possibility here. Some passengers or crew members might have been on enough oxygen to survive with serious brain damage
It is very much the most heart breaking one, another one is and I have to preface this because its not you know a terrorist attack. Because the pilots in this were desperately trying to save the plane and their last words were unfortunately the same lines used by terrorists. I can't remember which crash it was but it was one similar to where the plane impacted a swamp and vaporized if I remember right. They are basically chanting this as a way to save the plane. It just makes me think of the loss of life, and how people have abused 'god is great' to do even more terrible things. Where these pilots there were using these words to save the plane and all the people inside.
@@mariawhite7337 Allah Akbar is what you mean.
I wonder how he managed to stay alive? That's so strange
When I did my Emergency Rotation as a doctor my boss always said one thing, ‘think about the life threatening conditions first and make sure it’s not before considering the friendlier ones’. I’m not a pilot but I’m pretty sure cabin altitude warning horn is more important than take off configuration horn when you are already airborne
Actual the medical field exchange procedures with aviation quite a lot
I was thinking the same thing. As a ICU nurse, we’re trained to always first consider the worst case scenario - or acute emergency that could cause what we’re seeing. Like aviation, we have to connect clues from different alarms or equipment plus our general assessment of what we’re seeing.
Confirmation bias is another problem that also affects us and can cause us to miss other clues and misunderstand the situation.
True, but that didn't come in the minds of pilots who were already partially hypoxic.
I don't understand, so you should consider life threatening first but 'not before' considering non-life threatening ones? So you should consider the friendlier one first?
@@bbhybris i think they meant to say "think of the life threatening conditions first, make sure [to rule them out] before considering the friendlier ones."
In other words, check for life threatening first, check for everything else second.
The pilots were probably already beginning to suffer from hypoxia when they contacted the engineer. That would explain why they seemed so confused about the alarm.
they probably couldn't believe that it was a pressurization warning
So unfortunate, not switching on the correct lever, so the cabin would be pressurized. Hopefully the passengers had gone into hypoxia, being that they were not awake during this incident.
Its seems that way, the question is why did they not don on oxygen masks. U may be correct agarcia, it depended on what stage they were experiencing of hypoxia. Hypoxia does set in fairly quickly, first thing to do is don the mask (s).
@@kay9549they probably didn't notice. Also the pilots masks are different to passenger masks they don't deploy automatically
@@kay9549and the alarm wasn't dedicated to a low oxygen alarm. It was used for something else as well which is what threw the pilots threw a loop. By the time they realised (if they realised) what was going on it was too late
I had a class in aerospace physiology where we went into a room that could be depressurized to simulate air at different altitudes. At "25,000 feet" they had us take off our oxygen masks and do a simple math test. We had the masks off for 2-3 minutes. After a minute, I could not answer the questions correctly and I was writing at a slant. Later, at "35,000 feet", a select few took off their masks. After 30 seconds, their eyes were open, but the were unresponsive. They were told to put their masks back on and one person was fiddling with his, until the instructor rushed over and put it on him. He woke up startled. Based on my experience, nobody, without oxygen, would have been conscious at 34,000 feet for more than a minute.
Indeed. Thank you for sharing this impressive experience.
@@NicolaW72 Later in the class, we were exposed to 'explosive decompression'. That consisted of a smaller room connected to the larger room by a hatch in the ceiling. We were in the smaller room and told to keep our mouths open, so as not to hold our breath, and wait for the hatch to be released, then put on the mask. The hatch opened with a bang and immediately the air was foggy as the water in the air had no time to leave. To me, there was no discernible effect to my body. It was actually fun.
@@djs2006 But you wouldn´t want to experience this in 25000 feet height.
@@NicolaW72 It was more about the difference in pressures between the rooms. I think the big room was at 30,000 feet and the small room was at 8,000 feet. When the hatch blew open all the air in the small room evacuated until the two rooms were of equal pressure. I'm not sure of the resulting pressure, but we did need our masks. Experiencing that in an airplane at 25,000 feet would not be reassuring. Any or all of these bad things can happen: They stop serving drinks and snacks, They do not land at the destination airport, They lose my luggage (out the plane), The plane crashes.
@@djs2006
I think that is the one and only way to prevent such an incident best.
I guess they didn't put on their masks because they thought that they could still do it if they identified that this is really the problem and wanted to save the time in case that the problem was another.
I studied veterinary medicine and of course we learned about stuff like that as well.
Plus I could never be a pilot, because I would turn around to the airport for every little problem and get fired for that pretty quick ;)
But even if educated in things like that and extremely cautious about everything if it is not "just" my life at stake.
I didn't fully understand what hypoxia does to a brain and how fast until I got in the situation.
Last year I got sick (not covid but a bad infection in the lung) and after I was better already and thought it wouldn't be a big deal to go feed the chicken, I made it back into our bedroom, but I sat there and my husband asked me basic stuff like "Are you alright?" and I couldn't even understand the question, let alone answer anything, as he reported I just stared at him, unable to respond in any way.
Luckily because of my job I have Oxygen at home (and it was in our bedroom already because during the infection it got a few times pretty bad) and my husband identified the problem pretty quickly.
After breathing oxygen for only a few minutes and a few more (it takes a while until enough brain cells are "fed") I went back to normal.
A few weeks later I underestimated that I was still in recovery, went to check on the horses and after getting back to bed my blood oxygen fell down to 73% that quick, that one moment I still knew that I have to get the oxygen and call my husband (thank god he was at home), but that was it, when he came in the room I sat on the bed, sunk down, leaned on the wall with the mask in my hand, but no longer able to put it on my face or think enough to know how to open the oxygen valve, the mask could have been a sandwich, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.
Just like before, I went back to normal (clear thinking and 98% SpO2) in a few minutes after my husband put me on the good stuff :)
If one is healthy and the "experiment" is monitored properly it is not really dangerous, so I think every one who has a job where that matters should "try" it once, no book, no lecture can make you grasp WHAT that does to your brain and how quickly every broccoli can think quicker and more logic than you can (if you still know what "thinking" means or what broccoli is).
The problem is NOT that a pilot in that situation might not be able to know that he has to put the mask on, it is more like there is not much time until you are unable to know what this "oxygen" might be, let alone what steps you need to take to get it.
And if there is no one with enough oxygen in the brain who can help, the point of no return comes really really quick and I think that there are very few people who can understand that without having been there (once is enough, that is something you never forget :))
This was maybe the most tragic of all the airline incidents I've learned about. I appreciate that you handled it with sensitivity and respect, but still managed to be frank about the facts of the case and what we can learn from it.
More tragic was that one were an Aeroflot pilot put his son at the controls and crashed the plane.
If I am destined to die on an aircraft at least that is how I would prefer to go. Unconscious and asleep. The last guy at the controls and the fighter pilots must have felt so utterly helpless.
@@susanh2924 If the oxygen runs out you will start to suffer from hypoxia, meaning that you can still breathe but due to lack of oxygen your brain will shut down. People who have been rescued from CO poisoning have stated that they felt no shortness of breath but something more like falling asleep.
Sir the tennirifee disaster was the worst involving a Panama 747 that was struck by a klm 747
Maybe the most tragic accident was that with the suicide pilot Andreas Lublitz on Germanwings or Malaysia Airlines MH17 that was shot down in Ukraine or the UIA accident in Iran where the aircraft also was shot down.
Of all the air crash stories I've heard so far, somehow this one really gets to me. Maybe it's the way everyone on board was rendered totally helpless, either because they didn't understand the situation as was the case for the pilots, or because they did understand but were powerless to do anything about it, as may have been the case for some of the passengers and the rest of the crew.
That last person left awake must have spent hours trying to break into that cockpit, contacting someone on the ground, fighting the controls, you name it, all while knowing that at the end they were probably the last person on that aircraft who wasn't dead or severely brain damaged. And to then have to signal to a fighter pilot (perhaps the first awake person they saw after a long time - so close yet so far away), that you're probably going to die. Absolutely harrowing.
god i didn't even think about him having to break into the cockpit - i had to scroll back up and check the date to make sure, and yeah, this was after 9/11, so it would've been after the cockpit doors on these planes were reinforced to prevent unauthorized access into the cockpit. i was wondering why it took so long for anybody to try checking in on the cockpit, but that explains it. that's probably just how long it took for him to get through the door.
@@TheGuindo not necesarily. It was a flight attendant. The cockpit door has a keypad outside with a code to open it. Usually, on a flight, some of the flight attendants(not necessarily all of them) have the code to open the door. This code exists for safety reasons in case the pilots need assistance or something like that. However, having the code doesnt mean you can enter. When someone enters the code, the pilots are notified by a sound, and there is about a 30 second delay before the door actually unlocks. The pilots can block the door from being unlocked by pressing a button. This ensures that, if a bad person tries to break by forcing the crew to enter code, the pilots can still prevent it from being opened, while still allowing crew to get inside in an emergency(such as if both pilots are incapacited, they will not stop the door from unlocking)
Most likely, the crew member entered the code to open the door. I do not think there is any way that the flight attendant could have breached the door while in a hypoxic atmosphere(if you are interested in incidents where crew tries to break into the cockpit, there is an incident where a pilot was locked out of cockpit by the other pilot while the pilot in the cockpit crashed the plane in a mountain intentionally, killing all crew and passengers onboard. The captain could be heard banging and bashing against the door on the cockpit recorder from the moment be figured out he was locked out until the moment the plane crashed into the mountain. Despite his adrenaline and his repeated attempt to breach the door in order to save himself and everyone else onboard, he did not breach the door. Thats a full grown adult male without hypoxia
@@FlorenceSlugcat oh interesting - thanks for the additional info, I appreciate it!
@@TheGuindo I can confirm that, it is not possible to open a locked cockpit door.
@@FlorenceSlugcat to be fair, pilots are not very strong people. they sit in a chair all day long
Imagine being just beside that aircraft in a F16 and feeling completely helpless and seeing 200 people going down. Hard and those airforce pilots will never forget in their entire life
200???
well idk, they bomb people for a living
200 people who were already dead.
@@5wheels178121..
Actually was 121 passengers . The pilots of f16 still remember that day also said that the antreas prodromou is the most memorable moment who was the only stuff try to control the plane couple minutes before crush he signal the f16 pilots goodbye signal
Cypriot here. I remember the date and the aftermath.
I flew with this specific aircraft just 15 days earlier. A late flight NCL-LCA, Helios was marred with mismanagement. We had A/C issues on that flight.
A few months later having started a new job in a telecom company, I had to confirm that no one from our clients that died on the flight made a call or send SMS. What stayed with me is all those calls redirected to the voice mail the next few hours. Some really long.
Cyprus is a small society, everybody knew someone. RIP.
Indeed... 😢
That's heartbreaking. Here I was hoping they had no idea they were in that much trouble.
@@MargieM10 I think he means the other way around. People trying to reach the people who were on that flight.
I might have been on that flight with you, I was also on a helios plane 2 weeks before this incident when I was a kid travelling with my parents. AC issues, they were handing out blankets cos we were all cold.
@@Lagahan I remember that the flight came too late from Cyprus and they did not have enough meals.
A life lesson, not just for pilots, but for everyone: Safety checks are not there to annoy you. You should always take the extra 2 seconds.
Yep👍🏻
SO many people get so blasé about this. I've actually heard from my dad of instances where he was reprimanded by his manager for running mandated start-of-day checklists on construction industry vehicles, because the focus was on rush and not safety 🤦🏻♀️ (Needless to say, he left that particular firm very shortly afterwards...)
Years ago someone on a forklift had a fork snap and this resulted in injury or death. Health and safety decided that there had been cracks visible but no one was looking, they were missed and the accident happened. So a mandatory daily check list was issued. The company I was working for took groups of us through the new check. The instructor was going through the list and kept saying don't look too well just give it a token check and tick the box on the list. When it came to checking the wheel nuts we were told that we don't have a torque wrench so don't worry about it. I noticed a gap between one of the nuts and the wheel. I removed the nut by hand and found 2 others loose and gave all 3 to the instructor. I was in the last group. We had over 100 forklift operators and they had all been trained on this particular forklift.
Also, redundancy works best, when you assume it doesn't exist.
The worst thing is when everybody hopes that everybody else will do the job.
@@tinkerduck1373 Really good point!! 👍
This is still the only aircrash that really makes me feel devastated. To be in a position with the skills to save the plane and fortunate enough to have been conscious, only to find that you're already too late and destined to spend the last few moments of your life preparing to die alone... That was and still is always hard to digest. If I had been that fighter pilot that saw the flight attendant motioning "down", I would have asked to peel back and not watch the impact. That right there will grab you right in the soul and never let go
this one was hard to watch
Not sure if its worth mentioning that even if they had miraculously managed to land the plane, pretty much everyone would be already dead or brain dead anyway.
Sad story devastating 🥺
The footage from the f16 following the plane exists on youtube. In it you can clearly hear the pilot's distress as he calls quote "Mayday, mayday. We have a civilian plane crash".
@@gr3yh4wk1 that's the only thing that gives me any comfort about this crash tbh. all of the passengers would have already fallen asleep and died painlessly, long before the plane started going down. The only people who had to suffer through the impact were the one guy in the cockpit and whatever other handful of cabin crew who might've made it to that point.
So brave of the FA trying to level out to reduce impact. I hope the 2 fighter pilots aren't suffering PTSD as that was likely their saddest day flying.
There is actually a shocking recording of the F16 pilot on YT. But it could have been worse. The fighters were not there just to observe.Those planes were armed and they would have shot the 737 down if it seemed to be crashing towards the densely populated Athens.
@@ddseir1443 at the beginning there was fears that the plane was highjacked
@@Pavlos_Charalambous ελα, Ελληνας ειμαι κι εγω. Το ξερω. Τους εστειλαν κατ αρχας να δουν τι γινεται, και οντως, ενα σεναριο ηταν η πειρατεια. Αλλα εσυ πιστευεις οτι ακομα κι οταν ειδαν οτι δεν ηταν πειρατεια, θα το αφηναν να παει προς Αθηνα αν εδειχνε να ειναι ανεξελεγκτο; Μην περιμενεις να το πουν επισημα, αυτα δε λεγονται. Υπαρχει και θεωρια οτι καταρριφθηκε αλλα δεν εχω δει κατι σοβαρο υπερ.
@@ddseir1443 καλά εννοείται αυτό, κατά πάσα πιθανότητα δεν χρειάστηκε γιατί θυμάμαι είχαν βγάλει στην δημοσιότητα βίντεο από της κάμερες των f 16 γιατί υπήρχε η θεωρία ότι αν ήταν το αεροπλάνο ανεξέλεγκτο θα μπορούσαν να το ρίξουν χωρίς πυρομαχικά, μόνο από της αναταράξεις του αέρα...
Τι να σου πω, εμείς μάλλον δεν θα μάθουμε ποτέ στα σίγουρα
I don't know. They're fighter pilots, they've no doubt experienced all kinds of sad or horrible things.
I was impressed by the cabin crew member who entered the cockpit and tried without success to save the aircraft. He knew he was going to die, but stayed with it till the very end.
But why did they wait so long? They would have been on the oxygen tank for a hours...
The hypoxia was taking heavy toll on his mind and consciousness! he simply was under hypoxic relaxation, he simply was not have the mental power to panic! So sad😢
@@tim1398 Maybe the cockpit doors were locked and he had to pry them open which took a very long time? Just a wild guess from someone who didn't read the full report but I mean this happened after 9/11.
Or he also lost his consciousness despite wearing the oxygen mask and regained it several hours later when it was already too late
It's not like he could have just left. Still brave though.
@@Peter_Parker361 Probably one of the two. Because I think if he was the only one conscious, he wouldn't just sit around. He probably did what he could do, but something worked against him to enter the flight deck earlier. It's still a bit of a mystery though. Poor guy, he wanted so hard to save the plane.
I wish aviation's zero tolerance approach to safety hazards and accident investigations were used more widely in other industries
you know the only limiting factor here for many people is money, unfortunatly... there were many many stories where a man died becouse someone didnt buy the propper safety equipment only cause it was a bit more expensive... Aviation is expensive for a reason.
I wish they were used at Boeing.
Like the healt care industry..
And here we are a decade and a half later with the whole Boeing 737 MCAS fiasco. So much for zero tolerance....
Indeed ‘Tombstone Technology’ is one of the names for it. Aside from fiscal constraints other factors include both arrogance and ignorance. Ego attached to an individual or group’s protocol. It’s disgraceful it it still persists.
In addition to flying I used to also work as an O.R. nurse, the anaesthetists were keen to introduce a human factors/CRM influenced system and from patient entry until transfer to recovery or ICU there are numerous parallels to a commercial flight from prior to pax boarding to disembarking.
It was the surgeons who were completely against it. Realistically errors and miscommunication stems from the surgical team far and above the anaesthesia team. Arrogance and ignorance strike again!
I did not know about the flight attendant waving to the F-16s. I can't imagine what that was like for him or the fighter jet pilots. 😥
Wikipedia says this about him: "However, [Andreas] Prodromou succeeded in banking the plane away from Athens and towards a rural area as the engines flamed out. There were no ground casualties."
So he knew the plane was going to crash and one of the final decisions of his life was to make sure it didn't crash into a residential area. He was a hero.
He wanted to be a pilot for Helios and held a CPL, he's a hero.
He should be remembered and a token for rememberence of this
Wow all through the video and the comments, I could look at the case objectively, being compassionate but not emotional. But reading this made me lose it.😭
You must be one of the very few to recognise his heroism. Thank you for being so empathetic, for being able to put yourself in his shoes.
I did not know this. Thank you for sharing.
All the human mistakes aside, we have to appreciate the tremendous failure of the warning system. With all the complicated computers and sensors, the complete failure to deliver a simple message of "low cabin pressure" is impressive.
IKR. Simpler systems could reduce test saturation and misunderstanding.
@@jodyfulford8215 Oxygen deprivation sneaking up on you slowly is exactly the kind of thing a computer could monitor. A human will be partially incapacitated before he notices it. A computer just keeps working the same without oxygen.
As a programmer these reports sometimes drive me up the wall, because implementing something like that is neither complicated nor expensive. It would be really easy to create a voice warning for "Subtle oxygen loss" or something of that sort.
I must disagree for the most part. Yes, it would be nice if there were a different sound for each alarm and I think there should be, but when this alarm sounds both pilots should have instantly checked only two probable causes instantaneously. The fact there are only two reason for this sound and the fact they failed to look at the pressure controls is amazing.
I am an operator at a power plant and the steps I follow to identify alarms and failures is step by step and by knowing what sounds go with what alarms and how all the systems relate to each other. I also have a little right seat time in airplanes and it is the same concept. I must place the blame of this accident on the mechanic that tested the pressure system, FO and Captain.
@@hubriswonk I wonder if one can compare the kind of systems knowledge that is required of a power plant operator to that required of a pilot. While a power plant operator is definitely not a theoretical physicist, your average pilot has a really, really weak systems knowledge. A lot of pilots have zero technical background. That could have been the deciding factor in situations like these.
@@hubriswonk what if hypoxia is already set in? a big booming voice - put on your mask. followed by descend repeatedly until you've reached a safe altitude? really really simple to implement, simple to understand, if hypoxia is the danger take as much understanding and decision making out of the process as you can
As they say, procedures like these are “written in blood” - they are there because someone has already died because it wasn’t done
Sad truth look around us. Most road signs, laws and regulations exist because people lost their lives before
Whatever happened to planning ahead? A lot of these procedures should have been common sense when you really think about it!
The procedures are made to cover everything. But sometimes, a little deviation (caused by multiple factors) can cause an accident. It's quite hard to predict every little thing that can go wrong.
@@NickDalzell
Because there are known knowns, and known unknowns, but there are also unknown unknowns.
Yes, exactly.
I worked with this Captain in a different airline.Its surprising from a procedural point of view because he was very diligent and I remember people always commented that his writing was like a typewriter.However as far as him being difficult to work with,thats an understatement.He also had anger issues.Still this was a shock to learn he was the captain of this flight.God bless them all,may they rest in peace!
I can imagine that. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Still although Captain went to the wrong train of thought, the biggest problems were really done by the first officer imo. He didn't do the due diligence to check the pressurization is on auto or not. Not one but 3 times.
Captain probably thought that since first officer had confirmed thrice already that Pressurization was on auto that there would simply be no issue that end. Confirmation bias really.
Of course not denying that his character would have contributed for the CRM related reasons for the crash.
Still it's my pedestrian opinion though based on video. You would obviously know better.
@@kunalsingh4418 Its always the Captains responsibility to ensure things are done correctly!
I've got to say, I have watched so many of these videos of yours and others, but the case of this flight is so damn eerie. It was a flight full of dead people just flying around and no one knew, and the pilots in the jet communicating with the crew member while the flight is going down. It's so disturbing
It's disturbing that the warning systems weren't greater for something that can cause everyone onboard to die of afyxiation. Should be some kind of massive warning lights and stuff.. so there cannot be any confusion from the start. Just the fact that there are lights and sounds that can mean different things is really dumb. But in the end this is totally a human error - the pilots should have known... first miss checklist, second miss sound alarm, third miss by their superior saying it's the wrong type of warning so they look for something else. What a sad thing.
what brings me shivers is that there was 1-3 crew members using the oxy tanks watching everyone die for 2 hours before they even enter the cockpit. I just cant grab that thought no matter if that would have changed anything.
The passengers weren't dead yet. The final report states that all of them were alive at the moment of impact (though unconscious, and not sure if they could have recovered after such a prolonged state of hypoxia)
the people were technically still alive but in a coma due to hypoxia
@@GratDuForloradeArgumentet , yeah but like the creator of the video stated, their first reaction as a precaution should have been to don their oxygen masks.
This one hits home in an extreme way. I was actually on a beach very close to the airport when this happened and we saw the aircraft on what I’m now assuming was the way down, not having any idea of what was happening of course as planes flew over all the time.
The one thing I keep from all your accident investigation videos is what my father, who was a fighter pilot in the Hellenic Air Force, told me a long time ago.
“Failing to go through checklists thoroughly and with focus will always cause disaster, sooner or later. Always remember, aviation checklists are written in blood”.
Oh my god. I' m from Greece and I will never never forget that day of August 2005. That day will haunt my entire life. Back then I was 16 years old and i still remember that All Greece and Cyprus was mourning. This incident will never be erased from our hearts. I wish no country live this tragedy, no man feel this heavy mourn.
Dear mentor pilot i really appreciate your analysis and your key remarks as an specialized in aircrafts. I think that this flight changed forever the global aviation code. Ηelios was crashed 40chm outside Athens in a mountain called Grammatikos. In this place has erected a monument in memory of the victims. In this monument there are all the photos of the passengers of the fatal flight. This fact is is really creepy and very very touching. Whole families died in this tragic plain mothers and fathers with their little children. 121 passengers and six members of the crew were lost forever. Omg as i write to you tears are rising up to my eyes. For days and days our televisions were showing the debris of the plain, the rescue crews to try to retrieve the bodies from the debris and the huge fire that the fire Department was trying to quench. Oh i remember the black smoke above the sky of Athens....And the tragic families of victims to scream and cry and their deep pain was and still remains unhealed. Only a few bodies were recognized by their relatives in the hospital and the others were recognized by DNA test. After a few years i remember that at the point of they crash they found a nine years old girl's diary that was inside the only one suitcase that were found intact from the crash. It was a black day in the modern Greek and Cyprian history.
Dear Mentor pilot you re so right when you re saying that the analysis and the explanation of such tragic accidents must be investigated in order to explain the mistakes that lead into lose of innocent human lives. You re so right when you're saying that the juman genre must learn from its mistake. That not only minimizes
but also prevents the future dangers up in the air and also save many many lives. Thank you very much for your enlightening podcast and for your composure and sobriety in this helpful analysis. After all these years now i finally understood what happened back then. Thank you.
God bless you and your family.
i was 16 aswell, stuck with me, recall it on the news and knew what must have happened, then hearing the flt attendant had tried his best to intervene but was helpless.
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My sincere condolences, black rose 89. This was such a horrific tragedy - it's very hard to recover from such a thing. I'll pray for peace in your heart and soul.
“Black Rose 89” 😞.... I have read it all and now realised your ‘YT name’. Things will be better 🙏🏻 and.....
We had friends in this flight, thank for explaining what happened and caused this, it was chaos at the time.
I'm sorry for your loss
@@jenelaina5665 hard to imagine what his friends were like, slowly passing out and desperate for oxygen
@@Gencturk92 Why would you say that.
@@neolexiousneolexian6079 because thats exactly what happened, wonder how scared people were to see people sitting next to them slowly passing out and desperate for the oxygen mask.
@@neolexiousneolexian6079 it seems like there is 0 situational awareness here lol
This is so sad. One switch left in the wrong position sets in motion a chain of events which leads to incapacitated crew and an eventual crash with no survivors. That's a terrifying thought. My heart goes out to that lone flight attendant who stayed conscious. A chilling case, as usual presented excellently by Mentour. Thanks for your superb videos.
autumnleaves2766 unfortunately the flight crew, on doing initial checklist did not realize the switch was in manual not auto setting.
That day, I was returning from the sea with my children. We were driving up the mountain (Pendeli), when we suddenly saw smoke on the back side. For a moment I thought it was a fire and hurried away, but when we got home we saw on the news what had happened. It was a day of great mourning and sadness for all of us, Cypriots and Greeks.
I've got my own "switch in the wrong position" story. I was in ground radio in the Air Force 30+ years ago. I got a call at 2AM that there was no tower recorder indicator in the tower console. The tower recorder and the approach recorder were both in the approach facility. I drove to the approach facility, walked in and found the tower recorder in...(you guessed it)..manual. The approach controllers were only on duty until midnight, and there was a checklist that was done that included checking the recorders when their shift was over. They would have been talking to the tower controllers and going through that checklist. They left the recorder in manual and missed that part of the checklist, and then the tower controllers didn't notice they were missing the recorder light on their console until 2 hours later. I was pissed that I had to wake up at 2AM and go fix their screw up and lose hours of sleep, and I let them know it.
I worked on commercial refrigerators for a hospital. Someone defrosted a freezer and went home. I came on 4pm 1600 duty. I checked temps
And one was climbing. I tried to troubleshoot and jumped out a switch circuit on top of the freezer. It went off. Then i hunted for circuit breakers. The door was locked . I found out the supervisor who turned it off to defrost had gone home & forgot.i had called the boss & told him $5000.00 worth of salmon would rot overnight. He was going to pay a contractor 500 dollars to fix the problem. In the interim we called the supervisor back from home 8 at night 2000 hours. Then we turned on the circuitbreaker thus the freezèr. Cancelled the contractor just in time. Everyone had salmon the next day.
So, im in the US Air Force and i work a job where we use checklists for EVERYTHING. Even as simple as calling a commander to let him know his airman is passed out drunk in the middle of the road... its all standardized and procedural. Having known many pilots, they too are also following their checklists down to the dot. Ive seen it personally how one overlook on one single word, or trying to do one simple task based on memory can completely jeopardize the mission, the resources and lives. Its crucial, its there for a reason, and as someone else said in these comments, “theyre written in blood”
Then if the switch is so important, why haven’t Boeing guarded the switch with a red placard? Pilots have been requesting this for decades!
shankar singh why is Cyprus a third world?
completelly agree but me being in my country's army as well i have to say that those procedures are battered into our heads over many months and years. Furthermore , the army is very rigid and doesnt have any expectations towards customer satisfaction. in th commercial sector this isnt the case. Deadlines are to be met cause money is god...
A bit ironic how although life-saving concerns are in place, the US Air Force is sent out to kill innocents without remorse.
@shankar singh I misread your comment
I remember flying in that plane a week prior to that accident . I remember the cabin was so cold and unbearable, eventually we arrived to Athens and all passengers where complaining about the temperature inside the cabin. A week passed and i can still hear all those peoples relatives crying.
God bless their souls and give strength to their families.
Suddenly felt so tearful (its allowed) when you said about the crew member pointing downwards to indicate to the jet pilots that the flight was doomed to crash. Brave Soul. The good thing about your videos is that we are learning SO MUCH about what goes on that we would otherwise never know about and in the tragic eventuality of eg. ever becoming the friend/relative of someone whose life is lost this way, at least there wouldn't be such a crushing sense of Not Knowing because now we can ALL understand The Causes.
The Flight Channel keeps your attention with a few details and dramatic music, you kept our attention with real images and detailed explanation after detailed explanation that you couldn't stop listening to. An excellent video, sir.
Why you feel the need to hate on TFC?
I bet they're pretty cool with each other. Why shouldn't they. The aviation community is small as it is and toxic people like you are a shame for the whole community.
TFC does a great job in giving you a feeling of being in the cockpit and living the moment.
Stop being so toxic.
@@KingdomArtz
Dude's not allowed to have an opinion? Cry more, Karen.
MEF it's not an opinion it's toxic hate.
Your brain capacity isn't enough to understand the difference. Also liking your own comment like a pathetic low life.. you are a joke
@@KingdomArtz
You're clearly confused about who is the toxic one here, dopey. Oh and I didn't "like" my own comment, little man.
@@mef9327 Why are you such a miserable person ?
The lack of CRM was probably based on the attitude of the captain; he was an intimidating and unpleasant person to work with, and it’s possible the less experienced crew members just defaulted to him not wanting to interfere with his decisions because he was more experienced and was known for his temper and condescension.
They probably assumed he was right because he was so experienced, and they didn’t want a scene.
A fatal mistake but one that’s common with superiors that are like him.
Yeah, this is an aspect of something talked about on this channel, called authority gradient. Too steep and you get something like this, where junior members are too afraid to speak up in a way that suggests the senior member might be doing something wrong. Too flat, and chain of command and team cohesiveness can suffer.
This reminds me of Tenerife :/
"Ah, arrogance and stupidity in the same package. How efficient of you!" Ambassador Londo Mollari B5
German. That’s all I needed to hear
But some of the first officers also said that the captain is fine. I don't think it's right to make judgements and lay all the blame on the captain here. You don't really know what he was like. Language barrier, bad training and CRM, procedures being overlooked, this is the result of many mistakes made by many people.
I don't know what is worse, being that flight attendant who is one of only a handful of people alive, having to watch people fade away in the cabin, or being one or the F-16 pilots that must watch helplessly as this plane goes down. Honestly, I feel bad for both but especially that cabin crewmember who, once they finally got access to the cockpit, saw the horror of all the flight crew being out of commission, confirming their worst fears, but as a pilot, having a feeling they have somewhat of a chance to get this under control, and then seeing the F-16's and feeling a little reassured... they strap in, put on their mask and headset, they start to assess the situation....and just when they have their bearings, the left engine dies...they scramble to figure out why and while that happens, the right engine dies... and at that point...they know...they know it's over. So, all they can do is gesture to the other pilots watching from the fighter jets... with a simple finger point, that they are going down. The cabin crewmember gives them a final nod and wave goodbye as they prepare themselves for the final few horrifying minutes of their life.
Honestly, this situation is why TAGOUT/LOCKOUT exists in so many fields and industries, if a switch or control is moved away from a nominal setting for maintenance, or if that connected circuit or "thing" is being worked on or is not "functioning as expected/normal" due to a temporary configuration, fault or alteration, it must be tagged with a physical tag (and locked with a lock or device that prevents the control from moving/changing when possible) that details: WHO is working on the item, WHY they are working on it, and WHEN the condition change started and when it should be finished. When the engineer or worker is done, they simply ensure the switch/control is set to the nominal setting or prior setting if that is what is required, test to ensure proper operation of control in all positions (in case they fixed one thing but broke another, etc.), and THEN they can remove the tag. For cases where a tag may not work then a clear but simple mark (like grease pen)/a clip/a cover/etc. is used on the switch/control to Indicate it is marked/tagged and that it has been or may at any time be moved away from its current or its default/nominal/operating position, so that the person servicing the system in question can easily see what they've modified and set it all back when done, as well as so any person coming into the environment can see right away what is not set to "default/nominal/operating" and be made aware that it is modified somehow and needs to be checked again before final sign-off on the job. Again, the worker simply removes the tag/mark/clip/cover/etc. once work is completed and after setting all controls back to the way they found them, the person signing off on the work then verifies that all switches and controls are in the correct position/status.
Yes, tagout/lockout is annoying to adhere to sometimes, but again this procedure exists because it is proven to save lives and prevent accidents. Sometimes a switch or control is located tens, hundreds, thousands of meters or even thousands of kilometers away from the element being worked on by the engineer/worker, and this tag is essential to preventing injury or death to them by accidental activation or movement of a switch or control surface, it's a way to say "HEY DON'T TOUCH THIS KNOB/SWITCH/ETC! SOMEONE IS WORKING ON THIS CIRCUIT/ELEMENT! DO NOT ALTER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!". I have seen or experienced situations where following the tag procedure has saved lives, and unfortunately, I've also seen where failure to follow this simple procedure has cost lives or caused severe injury and/or damage.
So, I must wonder, was this procedure followed by the Engineer, I'm guessing not, because he would have remembered to move the switch back to Auto, or the pilots would have seen the tag and double-checked things better, I would hope. So, I wonder if the airline strictly enforces tagout/lockout or something like it, if they didn't then, I hope they do now. Had they have done it then, this shouldn't have happened, but then again, it was just one failed link in the chain of checklists and routines that caused this accident, it was a cumulation of one failure to follow one procedure/protocol after another by one person after another.
No amount of checking and rechecking is too much when lives are at stake... This tragedy could have been stopped by a $0.03 clip or cover used on the switch, a $0.02 tag attached to the switch, or even a simple dob with a grease pen to make it standout and known it was changed... If all three were used I guarantee this would have prevented this tragedy...all it would have taken was $0.10 or less and 20-30 seconds for the engineer to affix the cover/clip to the switch and fill out the tag, attach that to the switch... and done. I don't blame the guy solely; it must have been a culture of bad management and safety as well as oversight and training that contributed to this. Glad that changes and updates were made to the instruments as well as the procedures, so long as those poor people's lives weren't in vain. RIP Pax and Crew of 522...
Muhammad Ali said the moment he became afraid of flying was the first time he saw a cockpit.
“When I saw all those controls…buttons, levers, and switches….I thought ‘what if just one thing is off?’”
"Experience" has more than one definition. Sometimes people who have a lot of experience just repeat the first year over and over, never really learning.
I've had experience with people like that ... from someone who had 20 years of experience and was telling me at the time that I had only one year of experience. That didn't change the fact that they were wrong in this instance, but they expected immediate compliance ... maybe the captain of this flight was similar?
Exactly. Experience without learning is useless. And there are many people who spend 10 or 20 years doing something without learning a damn thing.
Well said...!!
Cypriot here !!
I remember this day, my brother was a flight attendant and last minute they told him that they found another guy to go (Andreas) which was best friends with my brother... i can't forget how much he was crying after the news broke out . What a sad day
How incredibly sad for all involved...,
Andreas took the flight to spend time with his girlfriend who was also working on that flight. If she wasn't scheduled for Flight 522, then he wouldn't be working. Your brother was very lucky.
You are my favorite person to listen to these aviation stories. You recognize we don’t know many things about your job and you take time to explain what needs to be explained and you do it in a way that is not condescending. Keep up the good work. And I love your green pillow.
Dear Mentour Pilot. I worked for 40 years to improve science writing and your videos are exactly the sort of thing I was aiming for. Thank you so much.
As someone who has had flight anxiety for twenty years, hearing you talking about these incidents has helped a ton. You're able to give a pilot's perspective, explain why these are such unusual incidents, and describe the kinds of steps that have been taken since then that have been implemented into your own training. I hear you tell these stories and I feel safer to fly with each one. We laypeople often hear about these disasters, but we never hear about how seriously the aviation industry takes each and every one, even the ones that seem like they would never happen again. Other things that have been massively helpful were your descriptions of what's happening during takeoff and landing (the sinking feeling always, always freaked me out) and your summarization of the different types of turbulence.
Completely agree. Esp the sinking feeling during takeoff which used to freak me out… This channel is great at not dramatising the crashes - but explaining the issues and how they are addressed
I totally agree! I am hooked on this channel and it’s actually making me less fearful. The more knowledge I have, the better I feel about flying. It’s really lifted the veil on aviation for me and as tragic as these accidents are, I too feel better knowing each one makes for a safer future.
You might be interested in Tom Scott Plus's video on him confronting a fear of roller coasters. He says that the stomach-drop feeling is just from fear, not physics. I thought it was interesting even if Tom Scott's presentation style doesn't work for you (it doesn't for me).
Yep. I never had flight fright at all, slept through turbulence and landings, but I understand that not knowing how things work can freak some out.
My tip is to just ask to sit besides someone experienced and calm who can talk to you, and / or tell the flight attendants, as they watch and appreciate knowing, so they can easier help if trouble / panick.
I usually get switched by flight attendands, as I am so ridiculously much taller than everyone else that I think they feel bad for me. I literally don't fit in a standard seat, as my legs would reach through the entire seat and likely touch the person in fron's back a little, if the seat wasnt there.
Always have gum, read safety briefings, they aren't all alike, keep windows open on landings and takeoffs.
If you need help, just ask people nicely. If you get a bad response, ask someone else. You can meet both nice and terrible people on a plane. I bring headset to listen to music or watch movies, but I used to fly up to twice a month for 6 + years
I'd heard this story before (as part of a "ghost ship" summary), and the most chilling part was when the interceptors saw someone alive in the cockpit trying to do something. That there was someone still alive when the plane slammed into the ground. Thanks for the detailed breakdown.
I always hoped because he was I’m sure so intensely focusing on staying awake that maybe his adrenaline dropped and he was able to pass out first. I hope so.
I don't know whether anyone else has realised or said this before, but Captain Petter's style of narrations are so calming that his videos are a source of ASMR for me as well. Normally, I watch his videos at night, before sleeping. Despite the videos containing disturbing details of loss of lives & stuff, I always get a good night's sleep, thanks to his reassuring messages & his enchanting style of speaking. 🥰🙂🙏🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I completely agree. The facts are presented without any bias, and with the consideration and respect they deserve.
Me too I listen to him in the evening before going to sleep😊
I have never really had a special interest in aviations, but after watching a mentor pilot video I have been hooked and being watching all of them, you explain things so clearly that most everyone can understand. Great job and thank you for the info and awareness!
Me too, and now I watch his videos everyday 😁
I remember this so vividly. I was in Cyprus with my family at the time for my birthday and we were supposed to be on this exact plane the day after the accident happened. Instead we were put on a plane with no markings and were told what had happened. I was too young to understand at the time but now it was such a tragic accident.
I am from Cyprus and it was a big tragety for our country especially for those families.I knew a whole family ,parents and kids that had gone on that ghost flight.From that day i am very afraid whenever i have to fly and always remember .....
My father is from and lives in Piraeus
Sorry to hear that. This was indeed a tragedy
@@madgreek253 I love Greece!.
@@ellikon9127 opa!!
Actually, after watching the detailed info of the accident, people should stop saying it to be a ghost flight..
I remember one day during cabin crew training, where avoiding complacency during performing procedures was also discussed. At some point during Q&A the question about safety was raised. The trainer said "...air travel is very safe. It's the safest way to travel. Statistically it's 1 in 8 million that will die in a plane crash". Well. That '1 in 8 million' was sitting right next to me during training. She died on that fatefull day on Helios flight 522 while on cabin crew duty. I too was cabin crew on Helios. Briefly. To this day I shudder for a moment every time I step on a plane. I knew 7 people on that plane, PAX and crew. The lesson I learned is to never become complacent. Never. Complacency kills. Always follow procedures without fail. Thank you for the video.
This even in my job which is to monitor alarm systems including life alert and elevators I see so much complacency that can or I should say will go wrong but bc most of my coworkers function on the mind set "assume everything is ok unless you get the vibe something wrong" rather then the safer "assume somethings wrong unless proven wrong"
Really like how technical your videos are, without that unnecessary buffer and drama discovery makes on their shows. Binge watching!
I can't imagine the horror experienced by the flight attendant. So sad.
That was a superb explanation. The technical stuff combined with the antiquity of this aircraft’s design created the conditions that exposed this crew’s weaknesses. Unfortunately there too many pilots flying who should be doing a different job. I’m talking about the arrogant idiots, the incompetent, the inflexible, those with a personality bypass (and other flaws) and scared pilots. I’ve flown with far too many of these types in both seats. Fortunately they are few in number. I’ll suggest this particular captain was one of those doing the wrong job. I say that not because of what you said but from what two first officers I have flown with told me. They flew several times with this captain and described in detail how he operates. Neither tell a pretty story. My own experience from incident/accident investigation also tells me that there people wholly unsuitable to be anywhere near aircraft.
For members of the general public reading my comments may I will tell you that the chance of being flown by two weak pilots being teamed up AND a technical incident occurring pushing this crew beyond their capabilities AND the flight ending unpleasantly is still exceedingly remote.
Well said
what's your opinion on malaysia 777?
@@elliottkingdom It was sabotaged by the pilot
That command chain attitude doesn’t finish at the crew. It sometimes goes all the way up to to the C.E.O.!
I fully agree with you. Here in this comments you can find some interesting informations about this specific Captain and his history, too. It would be interesting to have more first-hand-evidence on this topic. The Captain was according to this informations a former Interflug Pilot in East Germany who type rated for the 737 during the time of the German reunification. He jumped since than from one short-time-job to the next one. Obviously and - at least what we know in public - he had huge difficulties with CRM. There was obviously also a huge cultural barrier not only between him and his FO but also between him and his other co-workers in this company. It was indeed very bad luck that exceptionally he was the Captain of this flight. And it´s really very sad to see how easily all this lives could have saved.
I first heard about this incident on the series MAYDAY years ago. I found that your expert insight on what happened added a lot on what I already knew about it. Great video!
Well done captain!!! Another OUTSTANDING video with master level instruction!!!
A slow depressurization is scary. When I went through military aircrew training we went "up" in a pressure chamber to FL 240 (pressure altitude) in order for us to experience slow depressurization and our own individual symptoms ( mine are tingling lips) so that if we experienced those same symptoms in flight we would hopefully realize what was occurring and initiate the emergency oxygen procedure with the intercom call ... "CREW! OXYGEN OXYGEN OXYGEN!"
Every pilot rated to fly high altitudes should have this training step!
The plane crashed just some miles north of my summer house. I was 10 years-old at the moment and still remember the whole family watching the news in shock. It was a hot summer day, more than 35 degrees outside and the sky was red that evening. I will never forget the feeling of the atmosphere. Now, 15 years later im training to become a professional pilot. Im in the inital stage and on my flight yesterday i forgot to switch the landing lights on during startup. My instructor told me "remember, helios crashed just because of one knob". I am determined not to ever skip an item in the checklist from now on. We will do our best, to keep aviation the safest industry as our predecessors did. Thank you for the amazing video Peter.
Focus instead on making AI pilots. They will be far superior
I’m so impressed with his ability to remember and relate the incredible amount of detail (seemingly) from memory!!😮
ikr
3:13 As soon as the 'pressurization mode selector set to manual' was mentioned, I realized where this story was going, I was intensely creeped out, and I had to stop & take an minute. This is the stuff of nightmares! 😨😨😨
I can't imagine how the maintenance engineer must have felt / still feels.
This is what I’ve been thinking too. What happened to the ppl who switched it from auto in the first place? Ulgh I just can’t imagine
Still how the pilots missed like 3 checks and sounds is above me, thats a horrible day at the job quite frankly and you are controlling a flying plane, rip...
@@retsis6587 uh yeah thats exactly what the comment said😂
@pyro I would say the engineer's failure to switch pressurization back from manual to auto was the main factor in this disaster. Had he done so, this would not have happened.
@pyro yeah, you're right. as the guy literally said in the video, if you were PROPERLY FOLLOWING the guidelines (as how a normal pilot would,) they would have noticed the manual toggle and have avoided the disaster
Very very sad story, I think the last gateway to heaven is that the engineer asked the pilot if the pressurisation switch is switched to Auto. Thanks for sharing this story and I think it’s also a lesson serves other industries requiring discipline and strict procedures🙏
The engineer should have emphasized more emphatically about the pressurization switch admitting they were testing it. He should look and ask the captain again. Maybe he would have recognized the suggestion.and flipped the vital switch.
Thank you for all the information and work you put into these. I really enjoy each video.
Excellent work on a difficult subject, you mentioned at the beginning about nervous flyers perhaps not watching this video, I am not a good flyer, but much of that is due to a medical condition where I have a lot of severe vertigo rather than being scared of flying, after take off and the initial climb I love flying, you present these videos in a calm matter of fact way that is helping me so much, obviously the vertigo will always be there, but once in the air I feel that the fear of more vertigo will not return, that makes a huge difference to my approach to flying again and all because of your calm and measured approach to how you present these videos, someone is not paying you enough, thank you :)
Man i stumbled upon your channel a while ago randomly and have been hooked. Quality content and all the effort you put in really shows through!
Thank you! Welcome to the channel
Yes great information
Most car accidents happen close to your home, most accidents happen at home or work, and this accident happened because of "standard" procedures which seemed to have been done too quickly. When something becomes "routine" we are less aware and alert.
You are a star!!
I love EVERY SINGLE video! I've been quarantining in BKK and HK for the last 3 weeks, and I have devoured all your videos! I flew for the first time in 1978 on a DC-10, and for many years I have been a fan of aviation. Now, in my fifties, I travel a LOT (since 1995, many times a month) and I am in love with all you narrative! Thank you!!! You say to ask you for questions and or more topics, so here I go!
1) June 27th, 1980, Itavia Flight 870. Everybody in Italy now knows it was hot down by a French Fighter who was trying to shoot down Ghedaffi's plane flying from Tripoli to (I forgot)... Classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time... It has been hidden for decades and it basically cost the private company Itavia to go broke... It would have been a crazy diplomatic incident and so it was kept a secret. The story is intriguing (other that so many civilians have lost their lives in a horrendous stall (plane shot, but no explosion) and subsequent free fall from 30'000 ft, straight into the sea...) and it includes findings of a fighter jet in the Mountains of Calabria nearby and all the politics involved at the time... Berlin wall was still up! Cold war was still on... You could make it a wonderful (although terribly dramatic!) story. The Government, for the reasons highlighted above, continued for YEARS to state it was a technical failure...
2) Air France 447, First office Bonin that pulled back and... Nobody in the cockpit found out until to late... So many other similar stories in your feed... Another dramatic one, unfortunately, where you could possibly share your point of view! How can this be avoided in the future?
3) Malaysian airlines flight 370... So many things have been said... Could you give a quick update of what you think really happened? New evidence would suggest that the plane had been circling around KL for a while (making demands? Talking to Malaysian authorities? What?) before heading south into the oblivion...
TAK!!! You are the best! :-)
Just started watching these videos:
So much more informative and reasons given by an experienced pilot than the sensational tv programs
Unfortunately this happened in my home country and I had a distant relative in that flight. I have learned a lot from your video, thank you.
things that was not explained in detail I imagine!
I’d say when aircraft systems are started up, some settings should DEFAULT to “normal”. One of them being automatic pressurization.
If that particular switch is very rarely flipped, I am wondering who flipped it, and under what circumstances. I don’t know anything about aviation procedures, so bear with me.... but is it part of landing check or exit procedures (crew previous to this one) to have it in a certain position? Not that this would excuse the oversight of the switch position by the (accident) flight crew, they clearly didn’t do their job. But it seems that switch was in an unusual position, so why was that? It seems to me that when the flight crew leaves their plane, shouldn’t there be a default position for the essential switches?
@@californiahiker9616 It was set to manual to pressurise the plane on the ground during maintenance, as they earlier crew thought there was something wrong with a door seal, so the switch wasn’t put back to auto.
@@koolerking440 thank you very much for the explanation!
You'd think!
Excellent point..
Every time I hear about strange occurrences that involves airlines I immediately search to see if you have covered it. I have yet to be disappointed. Covered two years ago, I only heard about it today, and I can get the full story telling experience with details I have come to enjoy. This is why I follow you, I learn new things all the time here.
Your videos make a difference. Thank you for spreading clear, concise, and impartial knowledge.
Complacency. You read the same list multiple times a day. See the same dials every day. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next to never never saw that dial moved before so when coming up to it in the check list, they look in the dials direction and “check, yup that dial is still there” but don’t really look AT it as such:
probably what happened exactly
When you mentioned the pilots not using their oxygen masks, that reminded me a Smithsonian video (on another flight, can't remember which one) where the crew became incapacitated because the item was far down in their checklist.
[of a*]
That was the Payne Stewart Learjet crash.
Heart wrenching, by far the saddest single video on your page Captain
I'm only a passenger, and after watching many of your episodes, now have the inclination to duck and cover whenever I hear a plane fly over my home (in Fort Worth TX). Sometimes they seem too low.
Will continue to watch your program as I do learn a lot.
planes are one of the safest ways to travel. youtube has many accident videos like this one, because even though flying is so safe, its so common that accidents will happen. so instead of considering only these accidents, also consider the many many more normal flights that happen every day.
and besides, a key takeaway from these videos is that each one of these incidents is thoroughly investigated and considerations are made so that it does not happen again.
I’ve read about this disaster before, but this level of detail has taught me things I didn’t know before. Thank you
This is the second video I have watched about this accident. Being told form a pilot's point of view gave lots of really important and interesting details. Thank you for your take on this!
This has always been one of the eeriest airline crashes I've heard about. You presented this very well. Thank you for your work.
I've watched most of your videos, but this has to be the most saddening of all. What a nightmare. Thanks for all your work.
That was an awesome video. It really helps with understanding an accident such as this to go through step by step the chain of events that can befall even experienced pilots. The way you unpack these details and the clarity of your explainations are superior to other similar videos. The first officers that fly with you are fortunate to have your tutelage as are we all. As a side note, I just received the Positive Attitude style shirt you were wearing in the video a little while ago and have received lots of compliments on it. Thank you.
Stupid bells and whistles. There should be verbal alarms. “Cabin pressure alert!!!”
Yeah... that would have solved it.
Guillaume Huet This has been possible for years.
@Guillaume Huet in this particular case I didn't understand the sarcasm as well, maybe I was thinking too much about if it's "until" or "that", because I'm no native English speaker
Or, the professionals that we pay and train to oversee and fly the airplane could do their jobs.
@@mikek5298 - Airlines & manufacturers want to make planes that could fly with one pilot. Humans are very bad at repetitive tasks, while computers are very good at these.
I came here after watching the program Mayday. It was good but this programme is way better since it comes from a pilot. Awesome job. Please keep it up!
Bro, every single one of these videos make me feel SAFER about flying. You go through great pains to explain exactly how because of each one of these crashes, that issue can never cause a crash again.
I agree EXACTLY. I always feel respect for the departed,& gratitude for those NTSB crews who provide a lesson from the investigation and information gained. If someone says these detailed 'reconstructions of accidents' are morbid, that is sad. They show us and (hopefully)make us understand what went wrong,& challenge us to discover ways to make commercial aviation safer.
No lives are lost in vain from plane crashes...all are remembered by new education/procedures/fabrication directives. By implementing what their lives taught us, many, many more are saved.
@@barbaraperry5023 - Exactly
Mentour, you did a fantastic job explaining the accident! You showed us how an accident has many layers of failures and how, if not corrected, the failures gain momentum and complexity. Thank you!
This is really wild and sad, especially for the crew member awake and alert to was going on.
Petter, your body language as you tell this terrifying story shows what you are REALLY saying. It must have required a lot of composure to be able to retell this story in such a professional manner.
My mental mantra in the hospital lab is "assume sabotage". Settings get changed. Things happen that don't get communicated. Trust that everything is as it should be at your peril.
I remember being on holiday in Athens at the time of this incident, I was 9 years old but remember as if it was yesterday. The whole country was in a state of shock!
Such a tragic and horrific incident which occurred due to a series of unfortunate events, each one avoidable with sufficient training and proper communication.
It’s a bitter sweet situation that aviation has become a much safer place because of what we have learnt from this. @mentorpilot much appreciated for such a great explanation and fantastic video. I think for those of us especially in aviation can really take note from this.
Thank you for this stream. Explaining this must have not been easy especially nearing the end. Please stay healthy and safe 🙏
When talking about "experience" I'm reminded what a friend of mine would say when someone spoke of their experience or how long that they have been doing something. He would always say, " but have you been doing it correctly." Thousands of hours flying but cutting corners and doing it incorrectly until one day........
Worked in the nuclear power industry for 25 years. We train the same; procedures, critical thinking, mind set, safety culture etc.
The sad thing is 99% of accidents are preventable. Thanks, great channel!
The first channel that made me interested in aviation is the flight channel but yours is just amazing!! Lots of love!! Spending hours watching your channel
I've seen pretty much all of these in Air Crash Investigation series of documentaries on National Geographic and/or Discovery, and I must say that your version really ads a lot of new information and critical insight into these accidents.
By that I mean the fact that you use the final report along with a lot of technical explanations from your own knowledge and experience as a pilot to make for a comprehensive accident analysis, as opposed to just making a dramatic TV show like Air Crash Investigation docs.
Don't get me wrong, I like ACI a lot. But I like yours as well and I'm going to watch all of them because they're really interesting to me as someone who still has hope of becoming a commercial pilot some day in the near future... maybe. Thanks and good job!
Deine Videos sind so interessant und ich liebe es dass du den größten Respekt für alle Beteiligten hast.
A really sad story, but an important one. Thanks for this one Petter.
As always from this channel, this was a considered, logical, and dispassionate assessment of what transpired to result in the loss of the this aircraft and everybody on board. The presenter speaks from the perspective of being a professional commercial pilot himself, so he knows his subject intimately. The description of this air disaster is so much better, and far more comprehensive, than some I have seen, including one that appeared to load the blame squarely on the engineer without mentioning the role played by the pilot and first officer. This account gave a much clearer picture, explaining the situation from all angles. As with similar occurrences, the reasons for the disaster are multi-factoral, meaning there is usually more than one cause that led to the tragic outcome. This has to be one of the most fascinating channels I have discovered on You Tube.
Let me tell you about Louis Rossmann and the right to repair movement...
Check out his channel
As a Greek I remember that day and I have seen many videos and explanations about the Helios accident. I think this is the best video explaining the facts, without unnecessary drama.
nailed it, that´s why I like this channel... it stays on the facts and doesn´t drift into drama and effects as most other "accident reports" do...
Another great video Mentour, as always. This is a really spooky one. It's similar to the final Learjet flight of Payne Stewart back in 1999.
At least the people onboard were unconscious and unaware of the situation in the final moments of both flights. RIP to all.
danozism sure that hypoxia did set in fairly quickly, the flight attitude they were at; and continue to fly higher, if not mistaken. Have not viewed this for a bit. It was a flight of one hour to hour and a half. Since exceeding that limit, no remaining fuel, engines flamed out, stalled. So in hindsight the craft was gliding apparently. Its unfortunate that any of the cabin crew, were not able to enter cockpit sooner that they did. No one is sure if that would have made any difference.
The info about that consious person has always gave me chills. What that person must've been thinking trying to save himself and everyone on board for 30 minutes with no response back, heartbreaking.
"For 30 minutes with no respons back?"🙄🤔
He would have been hypoxic, unable to think straight.