Even when you’re 30,000 feet in the air flying your own tomb, the first troubleshooting step is still “have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?” Damn.
Kudos to the Airbus flight crew in staying calm and professional in an extraordinary situation. They did their jobs and got everyone in their care to safety.
Yes, in a very critical situation of no radio communication and the aircraft's locator beacon disabled, rendering it invisible to ground tracking (why can't the private airlines resort to primary radar finding, as the military does?! (I just can't fully understand the reasoning behind this policy)
I know! If it wasn't bad enough they lost all communications but that at any moment they could have F15s breathing down their neck. (Don't pilots have cellphones w/a direct line to someone on the ground when they lose all instruments)?
5:38 just to inform you, it looks like you added those ECAM messages while editing, so here's some ECAM tips for more realism: Failures that are prioritised less than master warning are called master cautions and are in amber color (a color close to orange). The checklists you put after some of them with “-” at the start are colored blue, and are cleared when done. Your videos are amazing and enjoyable to watch, I hope those will help in the next ones, thank you for reading.
Thank goodness there was some electricity available to allow the aircraft to be controlled. If I understand correctly there were three electrical generation sources available. Maybe even a forth in the form of battery. Its curious the crew wasn't able to understand which electrical sources were operational and some way to reconnect the electronic systems to a power source.
The standard way to restore power as they were trained didn’t work. So then you are having to improvise or flick through the aircraft manual for a solution
@@fortcrafterbossbehold9027 what does that have to do with this topic? Also….just out of curiosity do you even know how many commercial flights worldwide there have been in the last 10 years? Do not say it doesn’t matter, because it does!
@@christerry1773 Anyone can potentially lose their marbles, simply make a bad judgement call, be a bit fatigued, or just not catch something. It's the same reason one-man train crews are a really bad idea? One person can easily miss something small, but vital. The amount of work it takes to land a plane, or to keep it in the air if things go sideways, simply requires two people. AI isn't anywhere near advanced enough to do the job of a human brain. Will it get there? Maybe. But that's vaporware. AI is inherently _different_ from human cognition. It's alien. I certainly want to see what it develops into. I just note it isn't a human.
I've been watching this channel for a long time because I have a morbid fascination with plane crashes. But instead of a fear of flying, they make me aware of things that can go wrong and how they either force change in routine plane management/design or they end well despite some big problems. I don't think I've ever felt safer. Thanks for covering the happier endings, TFC!
Assuming the pilots do a good job. There was a nighttime crash over the everglades where just two seconds before impact the first officer says "we're still at 2000 feet right?"
A competent crew become more focused, rather than scared; but we've all seen many of these videos where the crew become distracted or are judt5 plain incompetent. Not this crew though, handled perfectly.
Too many problem with this flight From system failure to almost an mid air collision Lucky they are survive but this will be the flight they want to forget in a hurry
It's really scary to know that a simple little electrical problem can cause a very serious plane crash. Hopefully, these incidents will allow the manufacturer to correct these problems for increased aviation safety.
Incidence's like this always cause revisions and changes to aircraft. There's a saying "Aircraft manuals are written in blood" All the accidents get analyzed so we can make sure they don't happen or have a reduced chance of happening again. Whether its a change in aircraft design or aircraft operation, these revisions help make the skies safer.
As an Airbus pilot I can say this is not "a simple little electrical problem". That was an highly unlikely failure of several of the redundant electrical systems. And it didn't caused a crash...
@Pierrot LFSN as an airbus mechanic there was definitely something going on with the DC Bus, willing to bet there were no issues with the idg or apu generator. And had they deployed the rat, which they didn't need to, that would have eventually been another item to fail due to the actual issue. Wish I could review what they corrected
The airplane had been in contact with Brest ATCC (France), when the controller noticed the secondary radar signal was lost about 10 minutes prior to a scheduled shift change. He tried to contact the Easyjet Airbus several times on radio without success. Attempts were made to contact the aircraft via another Easyjet on the company frequency and on the emergency frequency, without success. The ATC personnel feared a catastropic event. A westbound aircraft, flight AA-63, checked in shortly afterwards at FL320. The controller realised that there was a potential conflict with the Easyjet and commanded the American Airlines to descend to FL310 asking, whether they could see the Easyjet on their TCAS, which was replied to in the negative. The shift change took place, the oncoming controller reissued the clearance to immediately descend to FL310 to the American. The American now started their descent, the crew reported a few moments later, that they had seen an "Easyjet 737" pass overhead without being visible on their TCAS. ATC were relieved, that the airplane had been located but concerned about the close proximity to another aircraft. A few moments later the transponder signal of the Easyjet reappeared, one minute later the transponder code changed to emergency. The AAIB reported, that while the AC ESS FEED push button selector switch failed to reconfigure the electrical system in flight disabling the crew to restore power to the left electrical network, the system operated normally on the ground during subsequent testing. The crew could not verify the current selections of a number of systems, as the captions of the switches had disappeared and the switch positions did not change (significantly) with selection. An intermittent fault was found in an electronic component of the #1 Generator Control Unit (GCU 1), which probably caused the #1 generator trip on the outbound flight to Alicante. Recurrence of the GCU 1 fault probably caused the de-energisation of the AC BUS 1 and the following severe electrical system disruption. The GCU1 had been repeatedly been rejected from service, possibly because of the same intermittent fault, and returned to service without the fault being found. No system was in place at the GCU manufacturer's repair organisation to identify units repeatedly rejected from service and not found faulty or identify units suffering repetitive faults. Both audio cards of all three Audio Management Units (AMU) rely on supplies from the DC essential bus. The unit ceases to function when both audio cards are unpowered. Loss of the DC essential bus as result of the loss of the AC BUS 1 and AC essential bus renders all three VHF radios inoperative. Airbus have stated, that in the light of this finding they are evaluating if the power supply to the AMUs needs to be modified. Ciao ;)
Thanks for the report summary. During my time in avionics maintenance, there were occasionally rogue-LRU's that always passed SST but failed on-aircraft, even after extensive soak-checks. More often these units were yellow-banded & became 'ground use only' or bay slave items.
@@scottlarson1548 Sort of funny that inflight entertainment system has more redundancy than the plane's radios have. They also saved several cents on springs for the buttons in the cockpit so they couldn't tell by touch if the buttons are depressed or not.
Thank God they didn't collide, and this is once again proof that pilots are real life heroes. The amount of things they have to deal with, analyze, decide and act upon during situations like these!
This is one of the best channels ive seen...Never was their a video I didn't like... everything is just so put together perfectly....the.chills and tears i get at the end are because it really draws you in as if you were the passengers😢or the families...as soon as i see 'the flight channel' pop up i drop everything and watch....keep up thre amazing works.This was way too close for comfort.. excellent job to the flight crew
Great pilots! Well trained, excellent crew resource management, and calm decision making in the face of potentially deadly problems. I'd fly with them anytime. 👍❤️
No communication whatsoever, it's a real nightmare in the sky! They are very lucky, by not colliding during the flight but also when approaching Bristol Airport and when landing...
Hats off to the pilots who kept calm and landed the aircraft safely. Pilots are amazing people who do extraordinary things and hardly receive any recognition.
I'm curious about the communicatio between the planes in the air and later atc at the landing side. Were the pilots lucky to fit in or did atc notice the problem and clear the air? Why didn't UK Airforce send planes in the sky to intercept them? Why didn't the atc at origin be alarmed by the missing plane (crashed?)
How lucky were those passengers, the Easyjet crew did a brilliant job in bringing the aircraft home under extreme pressure, the fight deck crew were hopefully congratulated .
That had to be terrifying for the flight crew. Despite that, and despite the fact that the plane was significantly harder to fly, they brought it down perfectly. Im sure the passengers didn't even know there was a problem. Those are top shelf pilots right there
How did they know where the airport/runway was at if all systems were down? And couldn’t them landing without ATC being aware cause a potential crash if another plane was landing/taking off from the same runway?
Not all systems were down, FO's instruments were still operating. ATC could see the after 10 minutes and once they would have seen them descend towards Bristol they would stop traffic
The radar controller has a button to push, that show’s primary target (airplane), but he didn’t push it. Also, there are lost-comm procedures, basically fly your flight plan to destination (unless you have a horrible situation), cleared route and altitudes assigned until you need to descend. From the tower, you look for their light gun signaling “steady green light, cleared to land”. We have procedures for every situation. This plane had multiple electrical problems. It was dispatched properly and legally, and no one was aware of the hidden gremlins, that day. It’s good it was daytime and good weather.
Might be a dumb theory, but any chance this issue with the APU cutting power and thus cutting off signal to the ATC can be similar to what happened to the disappearance of MH370?
I'm not trained in aviation, but it seems like there are a lot of unanswered questions in regard to this incident. Why did the APU fail? Did the Gen 1 circuit somehow interfere with the other power circuits? Also, how did the pilots not have additional incursions if they had no communication with ATC for the landing approach? How would they even know if ATC got the Mayday call? Did ATC get the Mayday call?
APU didn't fail, AC BUS 1 failed. Under normal circumstances AC 1 powers the AC ESS Bus which subsequently powers the DC ESS Bus. Normally if this happens the crew can select AC Bus 2 to power the AC ESS Bus instead. But for some unknown reason this didn't happen. Transponder was set to number 2 a bit later in flight allowing it to be seen by ATC and other planes TCAS
ATC was aware of the inbound flight and that all comms had been lost. Procedure for the situation is to assume that the aircraft is in an emergency and will attempt to land as normal. So they effectively did have clearance to land, and all air traffic inbound to the airport was suspended until the plane was safely on the ground. The controller even sent a weather report on the off chance that the plane could hear him. Though I do find the idea somewhat amusing that a controller was looking at the tower at an easyjet that just showed up out of nowhere on the runway and left him slightly confused, thankfully this wasn't what happened.
That is the wrong solution. There are already two radios and several redundant power sources. The problem was that a single point of failure existed preventing the redundant systems to work properly. Since then Airbus have rectified the way power is handled in case of failures so this kind of error should not happen again.
Meanwhile, in a 3rd world country with barely average pilots, this incident would've resulted in the crew panicking, the captain refusing to give up control with no instruments, raised voices, an argument maybe, the FO ignoring the airspeed /altimeter whilst the plane accelerates into the ground. It'll be all Airbus's fault too. Thank goodness for well-trained US & European crews.
Great channel, man! Wishing you all the best, further development of your channel and wish all your dreams come true! I’ve been watching your vids for approx 3 years, and all of the are top tier. Even though I have no relation to aviation at all.
I find it quite amazing, how is it possible, that 2 small (compared to the whole volume of the skies) planes going around 900kmh each can collide with each other...
I'm paraphrasing an old Air Traffic Controller from the UK who said: "Before ATC, planes flew by visual waypoints and very rarely would they collide in such a big sky, so we invented very narrow and rigid air corridors and forced all the planes down them, necessitating a controller to avoid collisions. And in that way, Air Traffic Controllers invented their own job"
The skies are actually a mess of traffic. I can't imagine the feeling of knowing that all meters and comm have gone dark and you are just on your own. Anything could have happened. Thankfully, the crew showed superior airmanship, awareness, and used their training to get their craft on the ground and everyone in it safely.
Not the most comfortable feeling considering only seconds made a difference in this situation. If that Airbus departed 20 seconds late it could have been a much greater incident. I could say the mystery of why the powers couldn't be restored would have been greatly troubling but it's plenty troubling now.
Great post! Everyone like to talk about how Airbus is perfect, and super easy to fly. I think the pilots in the cock pit of 6074 might have a different position. I have great reverence for the professionals that keep us alive and flying around the world everyday!
Good luck! I hope you get to become a pilot one day. I had flying lessons when I was younger but then a completely unrelated event changed the trajectory of my life so that was my dream of becoming a pilot out the window.
What good would adding a sattelite phone do if they do not fix the electrical power source Adding a sat phone to the 2 working radios.. now they have 2 radios and a sat phone without power. Nett result 0 I would argue they first need seperate electrical feeds to the 2 radios , and a backup battery on those radios. The Sat Radio would be redundant at that point
Quite frightening that the pilots were worried about getting shot down trying to land somewhere else. Also, there should be a battery backup for communication in a situation like this.
YOu would think.. Apollo 13 lost All their oxygen, along with loss of water, electrical power, and use of the propulsion system. Yet they were still able to jimmy rig communications and re-establish power from Space with a computer less powerful than your cell phone!
Intercepted is not getting you shot down, there are protocols for non communicating aircraft, shooting it down is probably the last. If they were intercepted it would have likely helped them, as a guiding/comms buddy.
These videos are so interesting, with everything that's involved with flying and then the process and the steps taken to solving the puzzle when something goes wrong. These videos are addictive.
In case of emergencies Airbus need to include a pad of paper and a marker pen in the cockpit so that, when the military escort jets approach, the pilot can stick a note in the windscreen saying 'don't worry - we're not hostile'.
The left generator had backup systems for s reason. The second pilot never should have taken off again without determining the reason for the #1 generator ceasing operation. Note that the same restart procedure that failed to restart generator #1 also failed to restart the disabled electrical systems after they stopped working on the next flight. The same restart components that failed to restart generator #1 could service both the generator and the failed electrical systems. Checking for the cause of generator #1's failure might have uncovered the cause of the next power failure if all systems were somehow connected.
@jessicasnaplesfl7474 Agreed, I just knew at the beginning of the failure that something else was amiss, and there is NO way I would have taken off with that plane. Write me up, fire me, but I'll live to fly another day on a properly functioning aircraft.
Well that was unsatisfying to not learn exactly what the primary and secondary event causes were. You hear a "clunk" and gen 1 fails, I wouldn't care what the MEL says, that aircraft should have not be let back into the air until the cause of the "clunk" had been identified and addressed. A semiconductor control failure would be no big deal [which is what the MEL anticipates] but a "clunk" can indicate a mechanical failure and IS a big deal. The generators and pumps are driven off a turbine shaft gear system as a PTO. [Power Take Off]
@@tomstravels520 The video says they heard a "clunk" and does not specify where the sound came from. A "click" would be an indication of something lighter like a relay, switch or breaker. A "clunk" just like "thunk" [not really a word] implies something heavier.
Well done to the EasyJet crew involved in this flight. A good example of CRM, with the Captain handing control over to the First Officer when he realized that the FO had some flight displays, when we've all seen other unfortunate accidents where the entire crew got distracted in the troubleshoot process.
With all the theories of what happened with MH370, I wonder if what happened to easyjet also happened to MH370 with no communication with the outside world and was ultimately shot down by military somewhere and its being covered up. There are a lot of military bases in that region so if Mh370 also had a generator failure the pilot might have decided to do something different such as turn back instead of continuing forward and could have crossed military airspace (naval base) and perceived as a threat. I find the Mh370 situation so terrifying and this video covering what easyjet was going through is very scary
there's alot to say about mh370 because there's so many theories about it the biggest one is pilot suicide others are kinda wack but at the same time they might be true for example the government of malaysia why would they not want to reveal or put low effort on that flight what if they're trying to cover it up what if the flight didn't crash it might have landed somewhere else where no one can find it although there was wreckage found no one knows for sure if that's part of the plane aka the boeing 777-200 in reality we never know i'm thinking that it's the same with the pan am flight but that's fake the pan an flight is the one that traveled a lot of years to the future but that's false yet mh370 still remains a mystery although this mind sound fake some said that they see a plane in the sky obviously cause planes are always in the sky but who knows
This should be clearly written in the SOP - in the event of radio and transponder failure, you must stick to the flight plan. This solution gives clarity to everyone in the environment (other pilots and ATC). The crew did a good job deciding to stick to the planned flight path until the happy ending.
Not the pilot no, but maybe I would expect the engineer at the airport to do so. Anyway, it was meant to be a humorous comment. People tend to be too serious I see.
I lost my new Garmin NAV/COMM unit while flying to my home airport. I had two radios, but both were connected to the COMM unit, so I had no communications. Luckily, I had a handheld radio that worked great 10 miles out. I know of military pilots who also carry a handheld. They come in handy on rare occasions. Now I carry two handheld NAV/COMM radios, so I have redundancy for the redundancy for the redundancy. BTW, Garmin replaced the unit for free and worked great ever since.
In the event of a total communication failure , Aircraft on an IFR flight plan are cleared to follow their filed route to destination including an approach and landing as filed . ATC is responsible to clear the Airspace to allow for this situation.
The Airbus A319 had a dangerously defective electronics system. It’s nearly miraculous that a tragedy didn’t occur. The plane shouldn’t have been certified as airworthy. I would bet there were signs previously that something wasn’t right, but they were ignored.
I expect that some re-evaluation of the electrical system under fault conditions was carried out, it is entirely possible that things could have been restored to function had the displays and switches operated as expected, if you have buttons that don't clearly show their positions and/or display their status then it will be difficult for the crew to diagnose and rectify a problem. It certainly looks like the radio panel needs reliable power including emergency power from the battery bus if more than 1 of its supplies fail.
Well done the Easyjet Pilots, that was a very busy and stressful flight for them.I wonder if the passengers knew. TFC, thanks another excellent reproduction of the events and well explained.
When did this occur? Did the investigation really not figure out anything about why the entire electrical system failed and all attempts at restoring power or communication (even with mobile phones near an airport at low altitude) failed?
Starting the second leg of the flight with 1 primary generator already out would make Me very nervous..........Giving up a margin of safety from the getgo.....................Don't like it.................Paul
RAT only powers the AC ESS BUS. The aircraft should have been able to power the AC ESS via the AC BUS 2 when pilots pressed the alternate feed button. Because it didn’t work they likely assumed that AC ESS was broken, therefore RAT would not have helped
They were lucky. Imagine if this emergency had happened late at night, in low-thick cloud-cover, and/or in adverse weather conditions. How could the crew have managed it then?
@@time3831 doubtful. This occured in 2006 and revealed the flaw with having all 3 radios moved to the same electrical BUS. After this the radios were split across 3 different electrical DC Buses. The transponder was turned back on when switch to the alternate system (not mentioned in video). MH370 would have had the same ability
The AA captain saw or sensed something? If so, didn't know to climb or descend? ..But both crews are heros. Never would have imagined this. A great job with subtitles to tie the narration.
Absolutely amazing! I have to think the daylight conditions is what saved these two planes and all their passengers. Great piloting but in the dark, awareness to dodge the other plane would have been lost. Strange to me that so many electrical failures on a new plane. Thank you for another great presentation.
What do you do? These are the kinds of situations these professionals get paid the big bucks for. I think they made the best of what they had to work with. Now, hopefully, the airlines came up with procedures to resolve or mitigate this type of situation in the future. I think the aircrew made the right decision on continuing the flight because Bristol was expecting them. To make an emergency landing anywhere else without communication could have been construed as a terrorist act and created more problems.
OMG. sick to my stomach right now, I shouldn't have eaten and watched this 19 seconds was very close but kudos to the easyjet pilots for their calmness and assessment of the aircraft to continue the flight and land safely
How come inflight entertainment system never fails but critical component of avionics fail. Power to Radio and Emergency must be a small separate source and not coming from same power source. Hardly any cost in aircraft manufacturing
The 3x VHF radio in this aircraft were all connected to the DC ESS BUS after an upgrade from analogue to digital systems. It was subsequently modified to have each one connected to a different DC BUS
@@sandeepmehta5311 the original design of the aircraft with analogue radios had each VHF of different sources. For whatever reason when switching to digital modules they were moved to just 1 electrical bus. After this incident why were moved back to share between 3. No idea why this was without checking the final report
Shouldn't the flight crew receive an award? Cause they absolutely deserve one! I've heard on this channel that there have been other cases where pilots did receive one.
Surely this must be wrong. The FCAS would not have worked as the Easy Jet plane would not have had their FCAS system enabled. From what I heard it was the French ATC that, in the last moments, instructed the American Airline plane to descend and that they saw the Easy Jet pass over them
This is very similar to another video I saw on a 'flight' channel (I can't remember which one) in which a passenger aircraft lost power due to a malfunction in one of the generators. On that occasion though the crew were able to contact ATC at their destination (they continued the flight, as this one did) and landed successfully. I can't recall the APU being involved in that incident
Even when you’re 30,000 feet in the air flying your own tomb, the first troubleshooting step is still “have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?” Damn.
RIGHT!??! That was my thought exactly! I would've been like 'Thanks ECAM, I could've thought of that one!' XD
DRIVING CARS IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN FLYING.
@@carmeng5421 no it isnt
WRONG
Harvard study
Odds of dying in a plane crash 1/1,000,000 (a MILLION)
Odds of dying in a car crash
1/5000 (Five thousand)
@@tortie789 Yes it is.
Kudos to the Airbus flight crew in staying calm and professional in an extraordinary situation. They did their jobs and got everyone in their care to safety.
Les PNT sont formés pour cela. Vous pouvez leur faire confiance à tous
Yes, in a very critical situation of no radio communication and the aircraft's locator beacon disabled, rendering it invisible to ground tracking (why can't the private airlines resort to primary radar finding, as the military does?! (I just can't fully understand the reasoning behind this policy)
Agreed.
*I find funny these thumbnails that kind of screams "I'M FAKE, I'M FAKE".*
I know! If it wasn't bad enough they lost all communications but that at any moment they could have F15s breathing down their neck. (Don't pilots have cellphones w/a direct line to someone on the ground when they lose all instruments)?
Tbh it was so emotional seeing the alicante airport perfectly like irl as im from there
5:38 just to inform you, it looks like you added those ECAM messages while editing, so here's some ECAM tips for more realism:
Failures that are prioritised less than master warning are called master cautions and are in amber color (a color close to orange). The checklists you put after some of them with “-” at the start are colored blue, and are cleared when done. Your videos are amazing and enjoyable to watch, I hope those will help in the next ones, thank you for reading.
The clunk would actually be a relay/solenoid due to the electrical failure or as someone mentioned its the cockpit door lock affected by the failure.
@@tomstravels520 sorry about that. I realised it late after rewatching that scene. Edited that part out now.
Thank goodness there was some electricity available to allow the aircraft to be controlled. If I understand correctly there were three electrical generation sources available. Maybe even a forth in the form of battery. Its curious the crew wasn't able to understand which electrical sources were operational and some way to reconnect the electronic systems to a power source.
The standard way to restore power as they were trained didn’t work. So then you are having to improvise or flick through the aircraft manual for a solution
@@tomstravels520 What about circuit breakers in this plane? Being heavily automated it would make me VERY nervous trying to reset them!
@@watershed44 only a handful of circuit breakers are permitted by the crew to be reset (pull out and push back in). Nothing popped out
History reapeats itself
This shows what a human crew in the cockpit is good for.
watch greedy ceo's on their yacht still try their hardest to get a zero pilot cockpit going just to save what is essentially pennies to them
That wont' stop manufacturers from still trying though. It's a matter of time before you start seeing more single pilot cockpits.
@@christerry1773 Germanwings Flight 9525 should be a clear indicator that this is a no go solution...
@@fortcrafterbossbehold9027 what does that have to do with this topic? Also….just out of curiosity do you even know how many commercial flights worldwide there have been in the last 10 years? Do not say it doesn’t matter, because it does!
@@christerry1773
Anyone can potentially lose their marbles, simply make a bad judgement call, be a bit fatigued, or just not catch something.
It's the same reason one-man train crews are a really bad idea?
One person can easily miss something small, but vital.
The amount of work it takes to land a plane, or to keep it in the air if things go sideways, simply requires two people.
AI isn't anywhere near advanced enough to do the job of a human brain.
Will it get there? Maybe. But that's vaporware.
AI is inherently _different_ from human cognition. It's alien. I certainly want to see what it develops into. I just note it isn't a human.
I've been watching this channel for a long time because I have a morbid fascination with plane crashes. But instead of a fear of flying, they make me aware of things that can go wrong and how they either force change in routine plane management/design or they end well despite some big problems. I don't think I've ever felt safer. Thanks for covering the happier endings, TFC!
Same!
Me, too.
Wow. Glad to hear something positive ❤
That's exactly how I feel and why I watch.
Assuming the pilots do a good job. There was a nighttime crash over the everglades where just two seconds before impact the first officer says "we're still at 2000 feet right?"
That crew was very calm and skilful, and also very lucky. To see all those screens go blank must have been scary.
A competent crew become more focused, rather than scared; but we've all seen many of these videos where the crew become distracted or are judt5 plain incompetent. Not this crew though, handled perfectly.
Too many problem with this flight
From system failure to almost an mid air collision
Lucky they are survive but this will be the flight they want to forget in a hurry
And having to fly with limited protections at a high altitude. Scary! At least it was during the day time.
It's really scary to know that a simple little electrical problem can cause a very serious plane crash. Hopefully, these incidents will allow the manufacturer to correct these problems for increased aviation safety.
Incidence's like this always cause revisions and changes to aircraft. There's a saying "Aircraft manuals are written in blood" All the accidents get analyzed so we can make sure they don't happen or have a reduced chance of happening again. Whether its a change in aircraft design or aircraft operation, these revisions help make the skies safer.
As an Airbus pilot I can say this is not "a simple little electrical problem". That was an highly unlikely failure of several of the redundant electrical systems. And it didn't caused a crash...
@Pierrot LFSN as an airbus mechanic there was definitely something going on with the DC Bus, willing to bet there were no issues with the idg or apu generator. And had they deployed the rat, which they didn't need to, that would have eventually been another item to fail due to the actual issue. Wish I could review what they corrected
What about all the problems that we don't hear about that the pilots resolve on their own.
The airplane had been in contact with Brest ATCC (France), when the controller noticed the secondary radar signal was lost about 10 minutes prior to a scheduled shift change. He tried to contact the Easyjet Airbus several times on radio without success. Attempts were made to contact the aircraft via another Easyjet on the company frequency and on the emergency frequency, without success. The ATC personnel feared a catastropic event. A westbound aircraft, flight AA-63, checked in shortly afterwards at FL320. The controller realised that there was a potential conflict with the Easyjet and commanded the American Airlines to descend to FL310 asking, whether they could see the Easyjet on their TCAS, which was replied to in the negative. The shift change took place, the oncoming controller reissued the clearance to immediately descend to FL310 to the American. The American now started their descent, the crew reported a few moments later, that they had seen an "Easyjet 737" pass overhead without being visible on their TCAS. ATC were relieved, that the airplane had been located but concerned about the close proximity to another aircraft. A few moments later the transponder signal of the Easyjet reappeared, one minute later the transponder code changed to emergency.
The AAIB reported, that while the AC ESS FEED push button selector switch failed to reconfigure the electrical system in flight disabling the crew to restore power to the left electrical network, the system operated normally on the ground during subsequent testing. The crew could not verify the current selections of a number of systems, as the captions of the switches had disappeared and the switch positions did not change (significantly) with selection.
An intermittent fault was found in an electronic component of the #1 Generator Control Unit (GCU 1), which probably caused the #1 generator trip on the outbound flight to Alicante. Recurrence of the GCU 1 fault probably caused the de-energisation of the AC BUS 1 and the following severe electrical system disruption.
The GCU1 had been repeatedly been rejected from service, possibly because of the same intermittent fault, and returned to service without the fault being found. No system was in place at the GCU manufacturer's repair organisation to identify units repeatedly rejected from service and not found faulty or identify units suffering repetitive faults.
Both audio cards of all three Audio Management Units (AMU) rely on supplies from the DC essential bus. The unit ceases to function when both audio cards are unpowered. Loss of the DC essential bus as result of the loss of the AC BUS 1 and AC essential bus renders all three VHF radios inoperative. Airbus have stated, that in the light of this finding they are evaluating if the power supply to the AMUs needs to be modified.
Ciao ;)
Thanks for the report summary. During my time in avionics maintenance, there were occasionally rogue-LRU's that always passed SST but failed on-aircraft, even after extensive soak-checks. More often these units were yellow-banded & became 'ground use only' or bay slave items.
Great that they have all radios on one bus.
Nice detail, thanks.
@@scottlarson1548 Sort of funny that inflight entertainment system has more redundancy than the plane's radios have. They also saved several cents on springs for the buttons in the cockpit so they couldn't tell by touch if the buttons are depressed or not.
@@BanFame So I guess the Airbuses don't have the windmill thing you can drop to generate electricity in an emergency?
I wonder if the passengers realize how lucky they were to have such a skilled crew in the cockpit. Incredible!!!
Thank God they didn't collide, and this is once again proof that pilots are real life heroes. The amount of things they have to deal with, analyze, decide and act upon during situations like these!
Some pilots yes others not so much
More the air traffic controller that kept the separation even tho he did not know easy jets location.
@@se-kmg355 Not gonna lie. Good ATC are heroes too
@@jetmelt True. Some pilots' negligence have cost the lives of thousands of people
Lol. People will slap a “hero” label on literally everyone these days
This is one of the best channels ive seen...Never was their a video I didn't like... everything is just so put together perfectly....the.chills and tears i get at the end are because it really draws you in as if you were the passengers😢or the families...as soon as i see 'the flight channel' pop up i drop everything and watch....keep up thre amazing works.This was way too close for comfort.. excellent job to the flight crew
Absolutely, Day by Day, I was just about to post, including the words “chills” and “tears”; wonderful channel, thank you! ✈️🍾❤️
@@MikeFloutier ❤️❤️❤️
Dear Lord. Glad everyone got on the ground safely. Could have gone very differently.
Great pilots! Well trained, excellent crew resource management, and calm decision making in the face of potentially deadly problems. I'd fly with them anytime. 👍❤️
I never heard of this incident before, sure it must be forgotten. Thank you for the reminder.
Maybe it was deemed an air-prox initially, until the CAA were informed of the totality of circumstances with the aircraft serviceability.
No communication whatsoever, it's a real nightmare in the sky!
They are very lucky, by not colliding during the flight but also when approaching Bristol Airport and when landing...
I love your videos but the titles are getting more and more click bait-y 😢
Hats off to the pilots who kept calm and landed the aircraft safely. Pilots are amazing people who do extraordinary things and hardly receive any recognition.
I'm curious about the communicatio between the planes in the air and later atc at the landing side. Were the pilots lucky to fit in or did atc notice the problem and clear the air?
Why didn't UK Airforce send planes in the sky to intercept them? Why didn't the atc at origin be alarmed by the missing plane (crashed?)
Every airport have "lost com" procedures stated on the charts.
How lucky were those passengers, the Easyjet crew did a brilliant job in bringing the aircraft home under extreme pressure, the fight deck crew were hopefully congratulated .
😢😢😢😢🙈❤🌈🌍
10:53
Sheer skill and judgement got the through. They deserve a medal !! 🏅🏅🏅
they deserve a massive bonus
The peak of Airbus vs. Boeing competition
That had to be terrifying for the flight crew. Despite that, and despite the fact that the plane was significantly harder to fly, they brought it down perfectly. Im sure the passengers didn't even know there was a problem. Those are top shelf pilots right there
How did they know where the airport/runway was at if all systems were down? And couldn’t them landing without ATC being aware cause a potential crash if another plane was landing/taking off from the same runway?
Not all systems were down, FO's instruments were still operating. ATC could see the after 10 minutes and once they would have seen them descend towards Bristol they would stop traffic
the first officers instruments were fine. His were powered by the second generator which was functioning fine.
The radar controller has a button to push, that show’s primary target (airplane), but he didn’t push it. Also, there are lost-comm procedures, basically fly your flight plan to destination (unless you have a horrible situation), cleared route and altitudes assigned until you need to descend. From the tower, you look for their light gun signaling “steady green light, cleared to land”. We have procedures for every situation. This plane had multiple electrical problems. It was dispatched properly and legally, and no one was aware of the hidden gremlins, that day. It’s good it was daytime and good weather.
French ATC did nothing wrong, they noted the loss of secondary radar return & took action to deconflict the AA aircraft. Read the report.
Might be a dumb theory, but any chance this issue with the APU cutting power and thus cutting off signal to the ATC can be similar to what happened to the disappearance of MH370?
I'm not trained in aviation, but it seems like there are a lot of unanswered questions in regard to this incident. Why did the APU fail? Did the Gen 1 circuit somehow interfere with the other power circuits? Also, how did the pilots not have additional incursions if they had no communication with ATC for the landing approach? How would they even know if ATC got the Mayday call? Did ATC get the Mayday call?
APU didn't fail, AC BUS 1 failed. Under normal circumstances AC 1 powers the AC ESS Bus which subsequently powers the DC ESS Bus. Normally if this happens the crew can select AC Bus 2 to power the AC ESS Bus instead. But for some unknown reason this didn't happen. Transponder was set to number 2 a bit later in flight allowing it to be seen by ATC and other planes TCAS
ATC was aware of the inbound flight and that all comms had been lost. Procedure for the situation is to assume that the aircraft is in an emergency and will attempt to land as normal. So they effectively did have clearance to land, and all air traffic inbound to the airport was suspended until the plane was safely on the ground. The controller even sent a weather report on the off chance that the plane could hear him.
Though I do find the idea somewhat amusing that a controller was looking at the tower at an easyjet that just showed up out of nowhere on the runway and left him slightly confused, thankfully this wasn't what happened.
Kinda hard to believe they don't have a battery powered emergency radio system.
That is the wrong solution. There are already two radios and several redundant power sources. The problem was that a single point of failure existed preventing the redundant systems to work properly.
Since then Airbus have rectified the way power is handled in case of failures so this kind of error should not happen again.
Meanwhile, in a 3rd world country with barely average pilots, this incident would've resulted in the crew panicking, the captain refusing to give up control with no instruments, raised voices, an argument maybe, the FO ignoring the airspeed /altimeter whilst the plane accelerates into the ground. It'll be all Airbus's fault too. Thank goodness for well-trained US & European crews.
And Australian/Kiwi
@@tomstravels520 apologies, yes, I'd happily fly with a crew from any of our 5-Eyes cousins.
If that happened in US - they would be shot down ..... ( you know - because US have a lot of terrorists )....
Lol
If completely automated, bang. For some years there has been a desire to remove pilots. Life says, Not a good idea.
They are looking at using only a single pilot. The F/A Union is on record saying HELL NO !
Great channel, man! Wishing you all the best, further development of your channel and wish all your dreams come true!
I’ve been watching your vids for approx 3 years, and all of the are top tier. Even though I have no relation to aviation at all.
"AVOID ADVERSE CONDITIONS" That's always good advice.
I find it quite amazing, how is it possible, that 2 small (compared to the whole volume of the skies) planes going around 900kmh each can collide with each other...
I'm paraphrasing an old Air Traffic Controller from the UK who said:
"Before ATC, planes flew by visual waypoints and very rarely would they collide in such a big sky, so we invented very narrow and rigid air corridors and forced all the planes down them, necessitating a controller to avoid collisions. And in that way, Air Traffic Controllers invented their own job"
The skies are actually a mess of traffic. I can't imagine the feeling of knowing that all meters and comm have gone dark and you are just on your own. Anything could have happened. Thankfully, the crew showed superior airmanship, awareness, and used their training to get their craft on the ground and everyone in it safely.
Not the most comfortable feeling considering only seconds made a difference in this situation. If that Airbus departed 20 seconds late it could have been a much greater incident. I could say the mystery of why the powers couldn't be restored would have been greatly troubling but it's plenty troubling now.
Great post! Everyone like to talk about how Airbus is perfect, and super easy to fly. I think the pilots in the cock pit of 6074 might have a different position. I have great reverence for the professionals that keep us alive and flying around the world everyday!
I wish to be a pilot, and these videos are extremely helpful for teaching about common mistakes and malfunctions. Thanks a lot TFC
Good luck! I hope you get to become a pilot one day. I had flying lessons when I was younger but then a completely unrelated event changed the trajectory of my life so that was my dream of becoming a pilot out the window.
That was my dream job. But I think I'm better off living vicariously through others. Good luck to you though.
The cockpit needs to have a satellite phone for instances like this.
What good would adding a sattelite phone do if they do not fix the electrical power source
Adding a sat phone to the 2 working radios.. now they have 2 radios and a sat phone without power. Nett result 0
I would argue they first need seperate electrical feeds to the 2 radios , and a backup battery on those radios.
The Sat Radio would be redundant at that point
Quite frightening that the pilots were worried about getting shot down trying to land somewhere else. Also, there should be a battery backup for communication in a situation like this.
YOu would think.. Apollo 13 lost All their oxygen, along with loss of water, electrical power, and use of the propulsion system. Yet they were still able to jimmy rig communications and re-establish power from Space with a computer less powerful than your cell phone!
Intercepted is not getting you shot down, there are protocols for non communicating aircraft, shooting it down is probably the last. If they were intercepted it would have likely helped them, as a guiding/comms buddy.
@@markmandelbaum3182 That's if you believe ....
@@oliviervanespen5047 As long as you are not flying over the USSR.
@@deepthinker999 That was a tragic incident, but the interceptor did try many times to get their attention.
These videos are so interesting, with everything that's involved with flying and then the process and the steps taken to solving the puzzle when something goes wrong. These videos are addictive.
In case of emergencies Airbus need to include a pad of paper and a marker pen in the cockpit so that, when the military escort jets approach, the pilot can stick a note in the windscreen saying 'don't worry - we're not hostile'.
The left generator had backup systems for s reason. The second pilot never should have taken off again without determining the reason for the #1 generator ceasing operation. Note that the same restart procedure that failed to restart generator #1 also failed to restart the disabled electrical systems after they stopped working on the next flight. The same restart components that failed to restart generator #1 could service both the generator and the failed electrical systems. Checking for the cause of generator #1's failure might have uncovered the cause of the next power failure if all systems were somehow connected.
@jessicasnaplesfl7474
Agreed, I just knew at the beginning of the failure that something else was amiss, and there is NO way I would have taken off with that plane. Write me up, fire me, but I'll live to fly another day on a properly functioning aircraft.
Goodness, at least gravity still worked on that aircraft.
Well that was unsatisfying to not learn exactly what the primary and secondary event causes were. You hear a "clunk" and gen 1 fails, I wouldn't care what the MEL says, that aircraft should have not be let back into the air until the cause of the "clunk" had been identified and addressed. A semiconductor control failure would be no big deal [which is what the MEL anticipates] but a "clunk" can indicate a mechanical failure and IS a big deal. The generators and pumps are driven off a turbine shaft gear system as a PTO. [Power Take Off]
Clunk is either just the sound of the relay/solenoid that you would normally here or cockpit door locking mechanism.
@@tomstravels520 Or it could be a malfunction in the accessory drive gear reduction/drive system.
@@DrHarryT the sound came from inside the cockpit so I doubt it
@@tomstravels520 The video says they heard a "clunk" and does not specify where the sound came from.
A "click" would be an indication of something lighter like a relay, switch or breaker. A "clunk" just like "thunk" [not really a word] implies something heavier.
@@DrHarryT don’t rely on the video. Read the report
Well done to the EasyJet crew involved in this flight. A good example of CRM, with the Captain handing control over to the First Officer when he realized that the FO had some flight displays, when we've all seen other unfortunate accidents where the entire crew got distracted in the troubleshoot process.
With all the theories of what happened with MH370, I wonder if what happened to easyjet also happened to MH370 with no communication with the outside world and was ultimately shot down by military somewhere and its being covered up. There are a lot of military bases in that region so if Mh370 also had a generator failure the pilot might have decided to do something different such as turn back instead of continuing forward and could have crossed military airspace (naval base) and perceived as a threat. I find the Mh370 situation so terrifying and this video covering what easyjet was going through is very scary
there's alot to say about mh370 because there's so many theories about it the biggest one is pilot suicide others are kinda wack but at the same time they might be true for example the government of malaysia why would they not want to reveal or put low effort on that flight what if they're trying to cover it up what if the flight didn't crash it might have landed somewhere else where no one can find it although there was wreckage found no one knows for sure if that's part of the plane aka the boeing 777-200 in reality we never know i'm thinking that it's the same with the pan am flight but that's fake the pan an flight is the one that traveled a lot of years to the future but that's false yet mh370 still remains a mystery although this mind sound fake some said that they see a plane in the sky obviously cause planes are always in the sky but who knows
This should be clearly written in the SOP - in the event of radio and transponder failure, you must stick to the flight plan. This solution gives clarity to everyone in the environment (other pilots and ATC). The crew did a good job deciding to stick to the planned flight path until the happy ending.
Years of technology, engineering, training.
The manual: “Turn it off and on again”
Standard 1st step to recover a computer. It works about 50% of the time.
What do you expect?
If you se a pilot running back and forth with hammer and wrench, pulling cables, then you should get nervous.
Not the pilot no, but maybe I would expect the engineer at the airport to do so. Anyway, it was meant to be a humorous comment. People tend to be too serious I see.
To say that was nerve wracking is an understatement
I lost my new Garmin NAV/COMM unit while flying to my home airport. I had two radios, but both were connected to the COMM unit, so I had no communications.
Luckily, I had a handheld radio that worked great 10 miles out. I know of military pilots who also carry a handheld. They come in handy on rare occasions.
Now I carry two handheld NAV/COMM radios, so I have redundancy for the redundancy for the redundancy. BTW, Garmin replaced the unit for free and worked great ever since.
They had nio clearance to land but landed anyway? You didn't explain that part
In the event of a total communication failure , Aircraft on an IFR flight plan are cleared to follow their filed route to destination including an approach and landing as filed .
ATC is responsible to clear the Airspace to allow for this situation.
@@donallan6396 Well Said !
The Airbus A319 had a dangerously defective electronics system. It’s nearly miraculous that a tragedy didn’t occur. The plane shouldn’t have been certified as airworthy. I would bet there were signs previously that something wasn’t right, but they were ignored.
I expect that some re-evaluation of the electrical system under fault conditions was carried out, it is entirely possible that things could have been restored to function had the displays and switches operated as expected, if you have buttons that don't clearly show their positions and/or display their status then it will be difficult for the crew to diagnose and rectify a problem. It certainly looks like the radio panel needs reliable power including emergency power from the battery bus if more than 1 of its supplies fail.
Well done the Easyjet Pilots, that was a very busy and stressful flight for them.I wonder if the passengers knew.
TFC, thanks another excellent reproduction of the events and well explained.
They should have stayed on the ground at Alicante until the reason was found.
Hindsight is 20/20.
When did this occur? Did the investigation really not figure out anything about why the entire electrical system failed and all attempts at restoring power or communication (even with mobile phones near an airport at low altitude) failed?
The twilight zone Monster.. official cause and the pilot didn't pay his T-Mobile Bill so the "Can you hear me now?" Answer was a big NO
@@markmandelbaum3182 😂😂😂🎉
Could this have happened to MH370 too??...hence no radio communication and plane got lost from radar??
Unfortunate to see that it might have been copied from Green Dot Aviation. Maybe it’s a coincidence but I’m not so sure
Starting the second leg of the flight with 1 primary generator already out would make Me very nervous..........Giving up a margin of safety from the getgo.....................Don't like it.................Paul
Every UA-camr seems to be doing this one lately.
They copy.
The plane should never have been cleared to return. As for losing all radio communications simply disgraceful
The time this happended its insane,the new plane they make are still not good enough
Can you please explain why the A319's RAT wasn't deployed to maybe make energy available for the transponder/tcas?
RAT only powers the AC ESS BUS. The aircraft should have been able to power the AC ESS via the AC BUS 2 when pilots pressed the alternate feed button. Because it didn’t work they likely assumed that AC ESS was broken, therefore RAT would not have helped
I knew I wasn’t dreaming. For the first time this channel reconstructed an event that includes a Jet2!
Thank God, they landed safely
geez, just 19 seconds away from total obliteration!
Your reconstructions are amazing! Great video!
huge salute to the pilots !!
They were lucky. Imagine if this emergency had happened late at night, in low-thick cloud-cover, and/or in adverse weather conditions. How could the crew have managed it then?
Use the FO’s navigation display to line up with the runway and use the FO’s MMR to capture the localiser/glideslope
Could have been what happened to mh370
@@time3831 doubtful. This occured in 2006 and revealed the flaw with having all 3 radios moved to the same electrical BUS. After this the radios were split across 3 different electrical DC Buses. The transponder was turned back on when switch to the alternate system (not mentioned in video). MH370 would have had the same ability
First time I've ever seen an easyJet on this channel. I choose them for their immaculate safety record. But this was a little too close for comfort!
Very so close! luckily no one's injured or dead onboard once again and how lucky pilots they are!
I remember this. This happened in 2004 when the EasyJet airbus A319 had a full system failure. Mentour Pilot did a video of it the other week.
No this was in 2006. And I think you mean Green Dot Aviation. Mentour Pilot hasn’t covered this one
Oh my gosh. How awful for the pilots. The angels must have been watching out for them ✨️
It's unknown with which airline's aircraft this EasyJet aircraft nearly collided with, but you used an American Airlines aircraft for example.
It is known which airline.
The AA captain saw or sensed something? If so, didn't know to climb or descend?
..But both crews are heros. Never would have imagined this. A great job with subtitles to tie the narration.
So cruising is not without its perils. Not a time to let down your guard.
What a nightmare 😱
You steal the video, and don’t even get it right. The easyjet flight was going to Bristol from Spain.
Maybe watch the entire video before criticising. Read carefully at 3:47
If the companies would not put profit over potential loss of aircraft and lives these incidents would not occur
Absolutely amazing! I have to think the daylight conditions is what saved these two planes and all their passengers. Great piloting but in the dark, awareness to dodge the other plane would have been lost. Strange to me that so many electrical failures on a new plane. Thank you for another great presentation.
Airbus wanted the computer to fly the plane. There was a famous air show crash which demonstrated that logic to be faulty.
They are lucky it wasn't a typical cloudy, rainy British day!
If this was at night could have been a lot worse
the 2 planes almost crash together as mid-air but they didint crash
What do you do? These are the kinds of situations these professionals get paid the big bucks for. I think they made the best of what they had to work with. Now, hopefully, the airlines came up with procedures to resolve or mitigate this type of situation in the future. I think the aircrew made the right decision on continuing the flight because Bristol was expecting them. To make an emergency landing anywhere else without communication could have been construed as a terrorist act and created more problems.
Can you make a video on yeti airlines flight 691?
OMG. sick to my stomach right now, I shouldn't have eaten and watched this 19 seconds was very close but kudos to the easyjet pilots for their calmness and assessment of the aircraft to continue the flight and land safely
How come inflight entertainment system never fails but critical component of avionics fail.
Power to Radio and Emergency must be a small separate source and not coming from same power source. Hardly any cost in aircraft manufacturing
The 3x VHF radio in this aircraft were all connected to the DC ESS BUS after an upgrade from analogue to digital systems. It was subsequently modified to have each one connected to a different DC BUS
@@tomstravels520 subsequently??. Was Airbus had a trainee design this important component.
The full redundancy from single source??
@@sandeepmehta5311 the original design of the aircraft with analogue radios had each VHF of different sources. For whatever reason when switching to digital modules they were moved to just 1 electrical bus. After this incident why were moved back to share between 3. No idea why this was without checking the final report
Shouldn't the flight crew receive an award? Cause they absolutely deserve one! I've heard on this channel that there have been other cases where pilots did receive one.
* opens door to cabin *
yo does anyone have a satellite phone? cause we flying blind.
Surely this must be wrong. The FCAS would not have worked as the Easy Jet plane would not have had their FCAS system enabled. From what I heard it was the French ATC that, in the last moments, instructed the American Airline plane to descend and that they saw the Easy Jet pass over them
Lucky that they were 19 .seconds apart, although that is a common time differential between parallel airspaces
Lucky to not have others planes near them for the landing…
Good thing they were heading to Bristol, rather than one of the busier airports in the UK.
Amazing display once again. Thanks for the content
Maybe another look at the MEL…amazing that having one generator inop isn’t a grounding discrepancy.
But you have two operational.
We really don't give flight crew enough credit. They hold our lives in their hands every day and have to remain calm when things go wrong.
It was this plus a couple of other incidents that led airbus to install an automatic alternate AC essential bus feed switchover.
Easy Jet Crew: “We have one wing and an engine still left, let’s continue”
No doubt! If the systems are down, get on the ground!
Surprised the aircraft was considered airworthy with an undiagnosed electrical fault condition, scary stuff.
This is very similar to another video I saw on a 'flight' channel (I can't remember which one) in which a passenger aircraft lost power due to a malfunction in one of the generators. On that occasion though the crew were able to contact ATC at their destination (they continued the flight, as this one did) and landed successfully. I can't recall the APU being involved in that incident