As far as I read from local media, the plane crashed right next to a house, 12 people were evacuated from the house. The house was barely touched by the debris. My condolences to all involved. I wish quick recovery for the injured ones.
@@most-average-athelete I hear 2700' pretty clear but still that's no factor for the crash. There are no obstacles that affect to establish the glideslope at 2500' or even 2300' as others have mentioned. You descend below the glidepath, yes, but that's ot likely the cause of the crash. 2300' is altitude check on 5 miles. They crashed 1 mile short.
Incredible that anybody survived at all given the size of the fireball. My thoughts go out to the deceased person's family, and I hope for a speedy recovery of the three injured participants. Exellent work, Victor! Thank you!
According to local news, crew cabin during the crash, got separated from the burning fuselage. Person who was not in the cockpit has relatively minor injuries, however cockpit crew was not as lucky, with 1 dead, 1 unconscious whole time and 1 who was initially conscious but ... Not at the moment.
Wait the other 3 people actually survived this? There was 4 on board from what I read. I saw the accident didn't think there was anyway someone survived that after seeing the fireball on impact
probably 2 factors that helped, 1 they're a cargo flight. So whole crew in the front(4 ppl if the info is correct), nobody in the back. So the after part can take most of the impact, 2nd, they configured for landing( with gear out/flaps) and had a low approach speed, so the impact will be less. But yeah, fly blue sky.
Cockpit separation. On-site paramedics said the cockpit was far enough from the main crash site and fire, which helped to safely and quickly evacuate the survivors. That crew won the best lottery of their lives (at least for now, because two are in critical condition)
I work in ATC myself and also worked on occurrence investigations, here are some thoughts: 1) There are a couple of readback/hearback errors. A wrong QNH, a wrong altitude (2500 instead of 2700), and most importantly the wrong readback of the tower frequency "118 05" instead of "118 205", which most likely was the reason for no more communication at the end. The first two are not essentially important to the crash, but are signs of fatigue on both sides. 2) It especially bothers me, that the aircraft was sent to tower freq even though they never reported established on the ILS and it was obviously visible that they were still left of the LOC. 3) At the end, they were left with 4NM to go until touchdown, not established on the ILS, still being sent to tower and after reading back the wrong tower frequency they had no radio contact with ATC, still going too fast, not configured for landing... with so many things at once, there must have been enormous workload in the cockpit, while 4 miles from touch down equals 1,5 - 2 minutes remaining. That leaves much room for errors. Possible Icing issue leading to stall, possible mechanical issue, possible medical issue, possible issue with the ILS GS... Could legit be anything at this time, so no need for speculations. Wait for the investigations.
@@VASAviation Victor, I really appreciate your videos and love how @blancolirio (big thanks for awesome channel to you too Juan!!) reference you a lot. So big thanks!! Gotta say regarding the altitude readback I also hear the pilot saying 2500 feet, listened to it with Bose-headphones...might not have mattered, but just wanted to chime in.
It was 5.30 am in Vilnius and 4.30 in Leipzig. The plane must have departed around 3 in the morning (germany time), which is a really sensitive time for ones awareness. I wonder wether the crew of the plane was ending their day or starting. When I wrote my master thesis I switched to living nightime. After 5 am my brain would just shut down even if i woke up at midnight.
@@VASAviation Yes the 2nd QNH was correct, but 1st was not and was not corrected, which is a sign of fatigue or lack of awareness, same for the 2700/2500 feet readback/hearback. Both of these were not relevant later on, but for the overall picture.
I was based at Vilnius for over 1,5 year and there is something particular to that ILS approach to runway 19. In my opinion there is an issue with the fly up glide slope signal and localiser side lobes. More than once we had false localiser captures or erratic fly up movement just prior to reaching the final approach point whilst intercepting the ILS. Not saying it had anything to do with it now but the pilot stating “we are still left” is giving me a worrying feeling. Sorry to hear it ended like this. Flying cargo at night is also not the most relaxing experience either. Let’s see what comes next in the reports.
Im not aviator myself, can you clarify what you mean by "flying cargo at night is not the most relaxing experience"? Does carrying cargo pose extra risks?
localiser won't put you below the glide slope but even having to deal with being in a sidelobe at the most crucial and demanding part of the flight can degrade your performance. Not saying that this was a human error but these things have a tendency to pile up.
Working at Brussels Airport , I saw this plane coming in and out multiple times. It's really heartbreaking. I hope the survivors get well soon and all my sincere condolences to the family.
I was checking in at Vilnius airport when this crashed and didn't hear anything, I was very surprised to only hear about it once I'd landed in Luton. Our flight was delayed but the pilot just said due to an incident with the fire brigade.😳 crazy times. R.I.P to the pilot.
I guess with the crash happening outside the airport boundary, the only direct impact on the airport is that they don't have their fire engines because they have left the airport to respond to the crash. They can't operate without fire engines. So technically your pilot was accurate - it was the absence of the fire brigade rather than the crash itself that delayed you.
Should be noted that approach gave the wrong ATC frequency (Vilnius tower is 118.205, the given frequency was 118.5 and the read back was 118.05). That's possibly a distraction factor and that's most likely why after the transfer we didn't hear from postman again. That's also why both frequencies gave a landing clearance, in hopes that postman was on one of them
Nice point. After watching again I realize that Approach indeed says ONE ONE EIGHT TWO ZERO FIVE. Quite fast, difficult to hear. Then for Postman I clearly hear ONE ONE EIGHT ZERO FIVE. Definitely read back the wrong frequency. Shouldn't be much of a factor since frequencies are listed in charts. You call a couple times without reply, either you come back to previous frequency for confirmation or you switch to the correct frequency yourself.
@@VASAviation the issue with that is it might not be a factor at 10 miles or more, but you don't have much time at 4 miles, could be quite a distracting factor taking into account they were overspeeding (judging by the localiser overshoot which only happens when people don't follow speed restrictions) and also considering they were in full IFR weather up until 800-900 FT. You won't be looking at charts for the frequencies at this stage of flight
Wow. This was a quick grab and upload. Thanks for this information, Victor. My sincerest condolences to the family of the deceased, and well wishes for swift recovery to those injured in this incident.
I'm sorry to hear that, and thanksfor the quick upload. My condolences to the victim's family. I hope the others make a full recovery, and the cause of the accident is found quickly.
3:05 You can see the angle of landing lights suddenly changes and go down about 4 seconds later, like the descending flightpath changed abruptly to steeper. Many possibilities: sudden loss of elevator control, unintended deactivation of ILS approach on autopilot, intended deactivation for manual final and trim settings wrong, sudden stalling due to deactivated speed/ thrust control, flaps not extended enough...
Flown into Vilnius countless times. The approach is a straightforward one. The behavior of the plane looks like it dropped suddenly the last few hundred feet- be that wind sheer, control input error or mechanical, its a sad day for those involed.
Pure speculation but more likely autopilot/autothrottle related failure or misuse/misunderstanding by the pilots, could be similar to the AMS crash - ILS capture without autothrottle (for various reasons), attempting to capture the glide from above with incorrect modes etc. Source - pilot with over 10,000hrs on Boeings
@@g1344304 Like you said pure speculation but from the CCTV footage the aircraft appears to be on a fairly stable glide, looks right for a 3 degrees glide and the V/S increases rapidly a few feet from the ground. Could be something with the A/T like you said with the AMS crash but I don't think it was related to capturing the glide from above as it looks stable for a few seconds there.
Airplane was very slow, very low, quite safe and airport and emergency services were nearby. And probably everybody was sitting at the front so didnt get into the "mincer".
It was so lucky that there wasn't more deaths from people inside their homes, my thoughts are with the family of the deceased. Lets hope this isn't anything narfarious.
@@donmoore7785 People are understandably somewhat jumpy because there had been concerns over the last few weeks regarding Russians seeding planes with explosive cargo (this actually happened on DHL flights in Germany and the UK) but this certainly doesn’t seem to case here. At first glance it seems to be either a configuration issue or getting behind the plane to close to the ground to recover, but it’ll be interesting to see what the report says and find out the true cause.
this is insane as it is in a city with high populated multistory buildings and other houses I live near by, sometimes it looks like pilot in last seconds did everything to avoid houses and more deaths, you can not find better place to crash on approach to Vilnius airport then that one how macabre it could sound... god bless pilot
Based on the given data, pilots were flying IRKAL 2B arrival with ILS Z RWY 19 approach. MIZOP point minimums are 5000 feet and max 230 kt. After that, take the right turn heading 104 to VI412 (to intercept the ILS beacon), which you need to intercept at 3000 feet (max 210 kt). Next, fly the runway heading at 194 to D6.2 at 2700 feet, which is 6.2 miles from the runway threshold. This is the point where G/S must be alive, and the 3-degree descent must be maintained. It must have a stabilized approach (the aeroplane must be fully prepared for landing). From 3:04 to 3:07, you can observe a good 3-degree descent. However, at 3:08, you might notice the "dive" manoeuvre. I'm not sure about the pilot flying, but at least the pilot monitoring felt distracted. Several mode videos are available from the Lithuanian mass media. One shows an airplane pitching its nose up just moments before the crash. This could have been an instinctive attempt to recover from the rapid altitude loss. For me, it seems like the crew made some fatal mistakes during the arrival/approach phases. The wrong altimeter setting can be a potential reason for that. The airplane was missing some 200 feet of altitude. When pilots noticed that, they pitched nose up, but it was too late. However, that won't explain the dive moment. Lithuanian authorities have little to no experience in air crash investigations. As it was a US plane, NTSB will provide all the help needed. I would bet on a pilot error or technical failure as two major factors, with minor mistakes from ATC.
First it is always a bad habit and disrespectful to the victims to speculate on reasons without the data. Second it is kinda arrogant to dis on the Lithuanian authorities, who will first and foremost be supported by European investigators. US is only in because it is a Boeing. Again.
@@roxair1@roxair1 I do not act disrespectfully to the victims. Or would you say NTSB or EASA are acting disrespectfully? I'm a forensic investigator myself. You must draw assumptions from your initial data. My data came from VASAviation, ATC, and Flightradar24 data. I draw my initial assumptions based on that data. Investigation will reveal evidence and will either prove or deny assumptions made. I was born in Lithuania and lived there until 2010. Today, Lithuanian authorities officially state that they have almost zero experience in such accidents. And finally, I said, "As it was a US plane, NTSB will provide all the help needed". Did I say something wrong? Of course, the EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency) will play an equally crucial part in this investigation. I'm sorry, but I would very much disagree with you blaming me for being disrespectful.
Looks like an unstable approach compared to 18.11.2024 data. At 840m 263 km/h on 18.11.2024 vs. 391 km/h on 25.11.2024 At 450m 252 km/h on 18.11.2024 vs. 322 km/h on 25.11.2024 The question for authorization of ILS marker is also a bit odd.
The lower speed is consistent with what looks like a stall from the video. Can any pilots in the comments confirm whether you can stall at that speed, the angle of attack didn't look that steep
@@rudySTi you can stall at any speed. you can even stall while flight straight downwards. It's all about the angle of attack. If you pull too hard, you're gonna stall and as the flight controls react much more sensitive in higher speeds, an overreaction can lead to a stall easily. Looking at the video though, the reason wasn't a stall, the aircraft was very fast and had a normal angle of attack. The stall only seemed to happen right before the impact.
agree on unstable approach. Noticed high vertical speed Something strange before crash, increased the angle down as if plane stalled the last second and then hard pull up and after that wing dropped and crashed
While the incorrect altitude read-back may not be a factor as far as terrain obstacles, it does potentially point to an overall problem of fatigue, task saturation, other factors, etc. Also approach giving the incorrect ATC frequency just adds to the swiss cheese model. RIP to the pilot and healing energy to the survivors, friends, and families affected by this horrible event.
I hear the pilot reading back the correct altitude. However he got wrong the QNH first, then his own callsign, then the frequency (although bad spoken by ATC)... Cargo pilots are more prone to fatigue. That's a fact.
@@VASAviation Indeed. The video of the plane appearing to be stable on final, then suddenly *not* stable is interesting. Not familiar with whatever Lithuanian investigative branch that handles plane crashes but hope to see a thorough report in the future.
Місяць тому+9
They selected 2700 ft on their MCP (autopilot), as evident by the Mode S data received by adsb fi.
It reminds me of the Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 crash (was also a Boing 737), which was due to an incorrect altimeter reading impacting the thrust autocontrol, in combination with ILS landing and at night. Pretty much the same situation.
@@timschmitt7550hey tim it was a different situation it was at daylight plus many years later it got confirmed the radioaltimeter was not funcioning correctly after everything that happened with boeing im not suprised
Victor, my condolences to the crew and their families. The Boeing 737 has to capture the localizer before the glideslope will capture on an ILS approach. It appeared they went through the localizer initially and turned back to recapture it. At that point they were above the glideslope and I believe they must have dialed the altitude selector to field elevation and continued to descend in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) and eventually into VMC. They were descending at a higher rate and for some reason and they flew below minimums which is 200 feet above ground level (AGL). This accident will be investigated but I would guess that pilot error is the cause. They seemed surprised when checking in with approach that the ILS Z was in use due the cloud ceiling. The landing checklist on the Boeing 737 confirms gear down, speed-brakes armed, flaps set. The pilots have to fly the approach glideslope guidance on the ILS approach in order to stay above terrain when in IMC. The many surveillance footage appears they were lower in visual conditions which makes this controlled flight into terrain. Easily mitigated by going around and doing another approach. Getting behind on landing while distracted inside the cockpit with checklist and guidance mismanagement can result in CFIT which may be what happened here.
@jonahfinademz8646 You have just agreed with @griffin5184 about leaving the tech info and investigation to the experts but then you post the below crap. I sincerely hope they are extremely acute angled pickets that make up the fence you are sitting on. 🙄 _This accident will be investigated but _*_I would guess that pilot error is the cause._* 🤡
At 2:16 She said "...contact Tower 118.205." Readback was "118.05, Postman 18Delta" No comms after that. It's at least second incorrect readback. At 1:38 He said "Postman 18Zero, eh, 18Delta". Could this somehow contribute to the accident? Was the pilot too tired?
1. 00:24, the pilot read QNH back 1019 instead of 1020, controller does not correct back! 2. 01:05, Descending 2700fr instructed, the pilot clearly read back something else (seems to me 2300 or 2500) 3. 01:23, the pic read back wrong frequency for tower. Maybe the reason why we have 0 communication on last seconds. He was on the wrong freq perhaps? Why does the approach control leave it without correcting? It's a shared responsibility. They had wrong QNH, wrong altitude, wrong freq ...
@@MyGreeed This repeating mistakes on readbacks are indeed irritating. We don´t know it at the moment but it reads as if the Pilot Monitoring was distracted by something.
Even if he was a frequency, the result probably would’ve been the same. Being on a different frequency doesn’t cause like this. It just means we don’t have audio.
I am very curious to see the preliminary report on this. Reaching a conclusion a few a hours after an accident like this based only on a video and the final radio transmissions, is far fetched. Thank you very much for the upload and your hard work.
My good friend works for swiftair and has even worked on this exact plane. She is deciding wether to quit her job or not, as she is really shaken up by this. She knew the crew and everything. Condolences to everyone affected.
My condolences to the family of the victim and I hope the survivors heal well. This is a real puzzle. Thank goodness for those black boxes! Them and the testimony of the (thank heavens) survivors are going to make for a VERY interesting investigation! Thanks for sharing this so quickly!
Anyone else getting stall vibes from that rate of descent? I'm seeing the comments about missing the glideslope, but surely they would realise that degree of drop.
My sincere condolences go out to the family and friends of the deceased at this tragic time. May their memory be a Blessing to you all. I am so very sorry for your loss. For the survivors, wishing each of you a speedy and complete recovery. 🇨🇦
Did they really read back 2700 feat? It's not clearly understandable. I hear twothousandtwelvehundred what makes no sense. Perhaps they understood 2200 and were way below the glidepath while flying manually.
May their memories be eternal 🙏🏼✝️. Thank you Victor for having this up so fast. Im reading that people may have survived this tragedy. That would be a true miracle.
Condolences to the crewmember's family and all on the ground who lost their homes. Awful. I wonder if the incorrect QNH readback is the root cause... Damn. Not a good start to the week. Thanks for all your hard work Vas.
No it isnt. They were flying an ILS which means the glidepath is independent of altimiter setting. And even if it would have been an approach without vertical guidance then 1hpa difference is 27ft. At 1 mile from rwy they should have been at aroud 300ft.
Judging by the flight data just before the crash, they appear to have been on a wildly unstabilized approach, likely coming in both too fast and too high. Descent rates of over 2,000 fpm at 3,700 ft, and over 1,100 fpm at 1,000 ft. At one point they began to climb before rapidly sinking again. Very unfortunate event, I'm curious to see what the cause turns out to be.
The big question is whether or not it had an incendiary device on it. According to the Wall Street Journal, Russia was in the planning stages of an attack on US-bound DHL planes using incendiary devices. This plane was a contractor for DHL. If there was a dress rehearsal for such an event, it would look a lot like this. Based on the approach, it doesn’t look like it to me.
People survive final approach crashes all the time. It's not the work of a divine agent, it's literally physics of not so speedy thing doing what its supposed to be doing. Asiana Airlines Flight 214 struck the seawall at SFO, broke apart, flung passengers and crew onto the runway, caught fire and burned to the shell, and out of 300+ people only 3 died.
2:20 last contact to airplane - a readback to 4 mile final announcement from ATC and tower frequency to contact. 2:47 approach calls - no response 2:53-2:54 the aircraft moves slighlty off centerline 2:55 Tower calls the clearance - no response 3:04-3:07 you can see the nose getting pulled up 3:08 the nose goes heavily downside (also a landing cleareace from APP) 3:18 crash
That´s a disturbing start into the new week.😯 Thank you very much for publishing the relevant radio communication so quickly. My condolences to the family and friends of the deceased pilot.
The aircraft seems stable in the video up until it suddenly plummets from the sky. Based on the lights remaining pretty much in the same position the whole time this looks like a loss of airspeed close to the ground and likely not caused by weather or anything like that. Very sad for all involved.
The landing lights seem too high in my opinion, like they either didn’t have flaps out and were too slow, or did have flaps out - but were also too slow. Sounds like an unstable approach and they were behind the plane (asking for ILS clearance repeatedly so close to the ground.)
Yeah, angle of the landing lights seem to indicate a big nose-up attitude until stall and then the nose was dropped to recover from the stall, I don't remember if there is a stick pusher in the 737
@@EstorilEm So close to the ground? They were asking for approach clearance confirmation well before mizop which is ~16NM before runway and minimum 5000ft .
A lot of speculation going on here… 737 only has a stick shaker. Stall recovery is like in every other conventional plane: nose down, wings level, thrust increase smoothly, flight path recover smoothly
The Lithuanian that was not in front of the plane apparently was conscious and just a little banged up, first responders already said he was able to explain the situation on the scene.
It reminds me of the Turkish Airlines crash near Amsterdam, my first question would be whether they monitored their airspeed close enough. My condoleances to the family, and hoping for recovery for the survivors.
I listened back twice and clearly heard "two thousand, three hundred feet". I also see a few comments where the CG may have shifted, but I think that the pilot may have realized they were going down and tried to avoid some houses or larger buildings perhaps? CG is definitely a real possibility, but he could have also been trying to mitigate ground casualties.
Perhaps pilot fatigue? It has caused accidents before like UPS 1354. + I heard just right now that vilnius tower is supposed to be 118.2, not 118.05 if im correct here
I heard that also, 2300, but the terrain looks pretty flat around EYVI, field elevation is just under 650". Minimum sector altitudes around there are 2000 or less, so that mistake probably not a factor.
Captions state 2700. Also, listening up close to a speaker multiple times or in headphones would still make it 2700. English teacher here. I believe the pilots need to work on their clear-cut distinct pronunciation. Not only the mic and radio transfer worsen the audio quality per se as it gets transferred, their English needs improvement too. This is why they use these "Foxtrot, Alfa" abbreviations so there is no ambiguity. Still other minor pronunciation things count. As mentioned by others, observing all these cockpit dials, checking the visual field through the windshield while communicating at the same time all add up to task saturation... God forbid if there were any distractions present at that moment, like checking something on the phone or talking off topic to crew members. Pardon my critique and condolescences to deceased. Hope the others make a recovery and we get to hear their testimony.
They performed a very steep descent and the speed seems to be higher as usual. Is there a 2 degrees slope? And no answer to ATC and TWR radio calls before crash.....
@@vlatkomafija Something went wrong in the crucial moment, leaving no room for recovery. The radio silence suggests they knew something with the approach was not correct, but couldn't figure out what was wrong before it was too late to pull up. Maybe it was a bit of slam dunk so they were a bit too high and then went too low
Approach controller didn't correct the tower frequency when the pilot read back as 118.05 instead of 118.5... That's why the pilot was not able to communicate with tower.
5:30 am the controllers were probably at the end of their night shift and the pilots had to start flying in the middle of the night so everyone's tired
I am doing a report on this incident and uhh…. This information was not well available on any other platform, so thank you, Victor and all guys in the comment section who gave more information 😊…… RIP to the pilot ….. fly high,
I hear him say 'two thousand three hundred feet'. That startled me on the first listen, and that is all I hear when I repeat, with good headphones (and old ears!) 1:30 is the timestamp.
Holy.. I don't know if it caused the accident or not but.. - wrong QNH readback - wrong ILS altitude readback - wrong tower frequency readback none of them were corrected by the controller?..
@@VASAviationMaybe it's the language barrier, but I hear a read back of 2,300 ft. Regardless, a 500ft below intercept alone wouldn't have been a causal factor.
@@VASAviation 0:39 0:40 QNH 1020 and readback was 1019 I am aware, 1 hP of difference does not make a huge change, and I am also aware that it can change by air conditions, still unless there is part cut at 0:39 the readback was not correct.
2:17 approach gave 118.205 frequency, pilot read back was 118.05. That's why last transmissions are one sided only, and clearance was given blindly by both, approach and tower.
Not to discourage speculation, as I do enjoy it but we don't have nearly enough information without the black box. Loose cargo, wind shear, mechanical fault, software fault, icing, radar fault, etc etc etc. First observation shows a large deviation followed by immediate attempted correction in the critical stage before landing. My speculation is we can't rule out most causes at this stage. Even the door falling off, it is a boeing. Even something like a bird strike through the cockpit could kill or incapacitate the cockpit crew, medical incident, and so much more. My point is, if you guys can rule out possible explanations or reason them less likely it'd be more impressive.
There were bombs detonating at DHL in Germany in the last time, this may have been a sabotage, given the proximity to the current war, it may have been an issue too. A German spokeperson for the secret services should give a press conference soon today...
That's a Boeing 737-400 that has been going strong for decades. Pretty sure if it had a faulty door (btw the MAX9 blowout was a plug not a door), we would have heard of a crash about 40 years ago. As for the rest, the black boxes give clues and even with all the information they have cannot in many instances explain a crash. The point is, once all unfounded theories (like the door on a 737 Classic being blown out without any maintenance trace for it), the explanation would be staring at the investigators in the face.
With how instant that nosedive was, and immediate pitch up reaction, my best guess is forward cargo shift is most likely. Very deadly in the best of circumstances. Pitch down slowing down for approach are 'ideal' conditions for some load security to fail and domino.
Flown in and out of Vilnius multiple times (not a pilot) but high rise buildings kinda seem to come out of nowhere - at least that’s how I always felt. Was never a gradual oh look at the buildings more a sudden „here we are“
Could there perhaps have been icing as a contributing factor? We have one accident in Sweden (highly recommend reading about it) in "Kälvesta" 1977. They crashed on a parking lot on their way to land. Like a miracle - a parking lot, between residential buildings. No one(!) outside the airplane (Vickers 383 Viscount) was hurt!!!
this is insane as it looks to be the best outcome what could happen after such a crash, as it is in a city with high populated multistory buildings and other houses I live near by, sometimes it looks like pilot in last seconds did everything to avoid houses and more deaths, you can not find better place to crash on approach to Vilnius airport then that one how macabre it could sound... god bless pilot
Pure speculation but most likely autopilot/autothrottle related failure or misuse/misunderstanding by the pilots, could be similar to the AMS crash - ILS capture without proper autothrottle (for various reasons), attempting to capture the glide from above with incorrect modes etc. My personal opinion with over 10,000hrs on Boeings
I got woken up by the emergency alert that went out because of that crash, my first thought was "what plane crash?!" not knowing that it has just happened
These events are luckily so rare within the EU that they somehow hit different (no pun intended). Hope those who are injured are making a speedy recovery.
Mr VasAviation, can you tell me what the scale is of the tick marks on the final approach track? Is each tick 1 nm? If the audio and video is correct she says he is at 4 nm and an altitude of 2800 ft or so but in the overlay/graphics he seems to be around 6 nm.
This happens a lot honestly, especially if ATC is a little late in giving you a turn. If established on the course before the Final Approach Fix, its usually no big deal.
What was the temperature, seemed like it was snowing. The more below zero the lower the altimeter thinks you are, so you need to add on cold weather altitude corrections
Atc was very professional there, in such a short time trying to connect via different means (atc & tower). Once clear that she crashed they redacted all takeoff clearances very quickly. Rip to the pilot, and how there were no more casualties is nothing short but a miracle.
The approach controller had several phraseology errors, including not using any standard phraseology for the tower's frequency read, and the readback was incorrect too. The tower controller did well fortunately and got the ground movement under control. Many mistakes that were avoidable on the controller end, unfortunately.
Eh, the approach controller didn't seem to have a good handle on the airspace. Sadly, it has become more common to hear conversations in which either ATC or the pilot seems completely unprepared, as if it is their first day on the job. Anyway, none of that would directly lead to this accident. It may have contributed maybe, but it wouldn't be the only factor.
@calebwsurpris3 @@asclepi well for a civillian who gets all his info from the Internet and his grandpa it sounded allright. But after watching it again I can see some points at which it wasn't as smooth as I thought it was when commenting.
If there was any stall, it can't have been on both wings because they had enough authority to unfortunately go into a severe bank angle right before impact. In fact, the sudden and rapid decent on the last few hundred meters may have been entirely side-slip because of the severe bank. As others comment they seemed too hot and high, rushed the approach, fumbled the approach frequency as well and lost control somehow by erratic control inputs or inappropriate landing configuration. Maybe they took manual control and were totally not ready for it, or even double input in a panic.
Clearly something wrong happened with intercepting that localizer. V/S at -1200 ft when in the glide, no readback from the pilots, they should have done a missed approach if it was even possible
@@cola98765unless we hear CVR the only thing I can think of is the window of circadian low. They could also have locked on false glideslope but that will be clear when investigation finds all conclusions. Rest in peace, FO
This comment will be continuously updated as more information releases.
Please leave your condolences here.
As far as I read from local media, the plane crashed right next to a house, 12 people were evacuated from the house. The house was barely touched by the debris.
My condolences to all involved. I wish quick recovery for the injured ones.
13:30 did the pilot replied saying 2500 ft instead of 2700 that was commanded by approach? ?
@@Mr.Laidukas I hear him say 2700'.
@@VASAviation I've listened it 200 times at least only after your comment :) I think he says 2500
@@most-average-athelete I hear 2700' pretty clear but still that's no factor for the crash. There are no obstacles that affect to establish the glideslope at 2500' or even 2300' as others have mentioned. You descend below the glidepath, yes, but that's ot likely the cause of the crash. 2300' is altitude check on 5 miles. They crashed 1 mile short.
I knew the person who passed away, hes the one communicating from the plane. It is haunting to hear his voice. He was a great person. Fly high king ❤
My condolences.🙏 I can imagine that.
I readed that the Captain passed away, so that would mean that the First Officer was Pilot Flying.
Spanish pilot has died, true
My condolences for your loss. Please convey the same to his family if it is possible. Thank you.
I call bullshit
I’m sorry for your loss!
Incredible that anybody survived at all given the size of the fireball. My thoughts go out to the deceased person's family, and I hope for a speedy recovery of the three injured participants.
Exellent work, Victor! Thank you!
According to local news, crew cabin during the crash, got separated from the burning fuselage. Person who was not in the cockpit has relatively minor injuries, however cockpit crew was not as lucky, with 1 dead, 1 unconscious whole time and 1 who was initially conscious but ... Not at the moment.
What a tragedy...😭
Wait the other 3 people actually survived this? There was 4 on board from what I read. I saw the accident didn't think there was anyway someone survived that after seeing the fireball on impact
@@Linyzas The plane did not burn on approach, only went up in flames on impact.
1 pilot die :(
that is insane that anyone survived a crash like that
Cute sergal
the cockpit was separated from the burning part of the aircraft
probably 2 factors that helped, 1 they're a cargo flight. So whole crew in the front(4 ppl if the info is correct), nobody in the back. So the after part can take most of the impact,
2nd, they configured for landing( with gear out/flaps) and had a low approach speed, so the impact will be less.
But yeah, fly blue sky.
Cockpit separation. On-site paramedics said the cockpit was far enough from the main crash site and fire, which helped to safely and quickly evacuate the survivors. That crew won the best lottery of their lives (at least for now, because two are in critical condition)
@@gardenguy357 Quit misusing the term insane.
That's a really fast upload. Thanks for all your effort!
@CarlitoBre Very quick, this is the first I heard of the crash.
@@grahammonk8013 Same!
Yeah very good to, hats of to uploader, more info here then from all the papers around the glode
I work in ATC myself and also worked on occurrence investigations, here are some thoughts:
1) There are a couple of readback/hearback errors. A wrong QNH, a wrong altitude (2500 instead of 2700), and most importantly the wrong readback of the tower frequency "118 05" instead of "118 205", which most likely was the reason for no more communication at the end. The first two are not essentially important to the crash, but are signs of fatigue on both sides.
2) It especially bothers me, that the aircraft was sent to tower freq even though they never reported established on the ILS and it was obviously visible that they were still left of the LOC.
3) At the end, they were left with 4NM to go until touchdown, not established on the ILS, still being sent to tower and after reading back the wrong tower frequency they had no radio contact with ATC, still going too fast, not configured for landing... with so many things at once, there must have been enormous workload in the cockpit, while 4 miles from touch down equals 1,5 - 2 minutes remaining. That leaves much room for errors.
Possible Icing issue leading to stall, possible mechanical issue, possible medical issue, possible issue with the ILS GS... Could legit be anything at this time, so no need for speculations. Wait for the investigations.
QNH readback was correct the second time. Altitude assigned readback was correct
@@VASAviation Victor, I really appreciate your videos and love how @blancolirio (big thanks for awesome channel to you too Juan!!) reference you a lot. So big thanks!!
Gotta say regarding the altitude readback I also hear the pilot saying 2500 feet, listened to it with Bose-headphones...might not have mattered, but just wanted to chime in.
there was not a single readback where everything was correct. it seems like they were really tired.
It was 5.30 am in Vilnius and 4.30 in Leipzig. The plane must have departed around 3 in the morning (germany time), which is a really sensitive time for ones awareness. I wonder wether the crew of the plane was ending their day or starting. When I wrote my master thesis I switched to living nightime. After 5 am my brain would just shut down even if i woke up at midnight.
@@VASAviation Yes the 2nd QNH was correct, but 1st was not and was not corrected, which is a sign of fatigue or lack of awareness, same for the 2700/2500 feet readback/hearback. Both of these were not relevant later on, but for the overall picture.
I was based at Vilnius for over 1,5 year and there is something particular to that ILS approach to runway 19. In my opinion there is an issue with the fly up glide slope signal and localiser side lobes. More than once we had false localiser captures or erratic fly up movement just prior to reaching the final approach point whilst intercepting the ILS. Not saying it had anything to do with it now but the pilot stating “we are still left” is giving me a worrying feeling.
Sorry to hear it ended like this. Flying cargo at night is also not the most relaxing experience either. Let’s see what comes next in the reports.
please tell the authorities, maybe it can be helpful
Definetly report it
Im not aviator myself, can you clarify what you mean by "flying cargo at night is not the most relaxing experience"? Does carrying cargo pose extra risks?
@@nZym1 Their duty time usually starts very early
localiser won't put you below the glide slope but even having to deal with being in a sidelobe at the most crucial and demanding part of the flight can degrade your performance. Not saying that this was a human error but these things have a tendency to pile up.
Rest in peace, I hope for a speedy recovery for all those injured
Working at Brussels Airport , I saw this plane coming in and out multiple times. It's really heartbreaking. I hope the survivors get well soon and all my sincere condolences to the family.
I was checking in at Vilnius airport when this crashed and didn't hear anything, I was very surprised to only hear about it once I'd landed in Luton. Our flight was delayed but the pilot just said due to an incident with the fire brigade.😳 crazy times. R.I.P to the pilot.
Why should he put into unnecessary stress all the passengers in his airplane? You never know how people can react including unmanaged panic attacks.
@@Ig86 I'm not suggesting he told us🙄doh ., I'm just surprised that at the airport it was all very quiet and business as normal.
I guess with the crash happening outside the airport boundary, the only direct impact on the airport is that they don't have their fire engines because they have left the airport to respond to the crash. They can't operate without fire engines. So technically your pilot was accurate - it was the absence of the fire brigade rather than the crash itself that delayed you.
@@thomasdalton1508 Indeed.
@@thomasdalton1508 that is exactly what happened. Spot on. ICAO requirements
Sheeshhh how anyone inside that plane survived is beyond crazy
the cockpit was separated from the burning part of the aircraft
@@LuKas_146 another 2 crew members were behind pilots ? Front part of the plane.. ?
@@aor3200 Where else would they be? Strapped to the cargo pallets?
@@OOpSjm 🙄
1 pilot die
Should be noted that approach gave the wrong ATC frequency (Vilnius tower is 118.205, the given frequency was 118.5 and the read back was 118.05). That's possibly a distraction factor and that's most likely why after the transfer we didn't hear from postman again. That's also why both frequencies gave a landing clearance, in hopes that postman was on one of them
Nice point. After watching again I realize that Approach indeed says ONE ONE EIGHT TWO ZERO FIVE. Quite fast, difficult to hear. Then for Postman I clearly hear ONE ONE EIGHT ZERO FIVE. Definitely read back the wrong frequency. Shouldn't be much of a factor since frequencies are listed in charts. You call a couple times without reply, either you come back to previous frequency for confirmation or you switch to the correct frequency yourself.
Should also be noted that at 1:31 18D doesn't read back the correct altitude.
@@VASAviation the issue with that is it might not be a factor at 10 miles or more, but you don't have much time at 4 miles, could be quite a distracting factor taking into account they were overspeeding (judging by the localiser overshoot which only happens when people don't follow speed restrictions) and also considering they were in full IFR weather up until 800-900 FT. You won't be looking at charts for the frequencies at this stage of flight
@@samiraperi467 he, he did read it back correctly.
@@VASAviationour lithuanian atc rules demand that you say "decimal" when mentioning comma. She didnt and that added to the mistake list.
Wow. This was a quick grab and upload. Thanks for this information, Victor. My sincerest condolences to the family of the deceased, and well wishes for swift recovery to those injured in this incident.
I'm sorry to hear that, and thanksfor the quick upload. My condolences to the victim's family. I hope the others make a full recovery, and the cause of the accident is found quickly.
Wow, RIP to the member who perished, and well-wishes for a full and speedy recovery to the ones who survived.
3:05 You can see the angle of landing lights suddenly changes and go down about 4 seconds later, like the descending flightpath changed abruptly to steeper. Many possibilities: sudden loss of elevator control, unintended deactivation of ILS approach on autopilot, intended deactivation for manual final and trim settings wrong, sudden stalling due to deactivated speed/ thrust control, flaps not extended enough...
PILOT ERROR
@@hannobaali_makendaliWe cannot tell yet anything. If elevator control is lost due to fire in aft section, this also could happen.
@@paulpaulsen7777 ii call PILOT ERROR. They simply fcuked up.
(ii’m a retired Aviation Engineer)
Armchair pilot reporting for duty! I know with 100% certainty what happened, trust me.
forward cargo shift would explain it (they were slowing down in a slight nose down attitude)
Flown into Vilnius countless times. The approach is a straightforward one. The behavior of the plane looks like it dropped suddenly the last few hundred feet- be that wind sheer, control input error or mechanical, its a sad day for those involed.
Pure speculation but more likely autopilot/autothrottle related failure or misuse/misunderstanding by the pilots, could be similar to the AMS crash - ILS capture without autothrottle (for various reasons), attempting to capture the glide from above with incorrect modes etc.
Source - pilot with over 10,000hrs on Boeings
@@g1344304 something like that seems plausible yes, it looks like the plane goes in a lineair way all the way down to the crash site.
Seems like sudden loss of power maybe?
@@g1344304 Like you said pure speculation but from the CCTV footage the aircraft appears to be on a fairly stable glide, looks right for a 3 degrees glide and the V/S increases rapidly a few feet from the ground. Could be something with the A/T like you said with the AMS crash but I don't think it was related to capturing the glide from above as it looks stable for a few seconds there.
looks like a CG shift to me. Maybe a sudden cargo move
Prayers for the two pilots who are in critical condition🕊️
As always, you're the best source of information on an incident or accident.
Thanks for your invaluable work!
It's a horrible day for aviation... my condolences to everyone's families affected by this.
R.I.P
What else happened?
@@tombley5760Russian Sukhoi superjet 100 had a bad landing and caught fire in Antalya, Turkey.
@VASAaviation would you be able to look into that one? A45051 Sochi to Antalya. Thank you!!!
How did 3 out of 4 people on that plane survive that?!
Airplane was very slow, very low, quite safe and airport and emergency services were nearby. And probably everybody was sitting at the front so didnt get into the "mincer".
@@tadass.2675Do we know if the three evacuated, or did they have to be extracted?
@@tadass.2675 Well 150kts is not slow :D
@@DanielsPolitics1 At least some of them had to be extracted according to local news.
@ Oh, that’s not good. Do we know how quickly the airport fire service got to the scene?
RIP. And that’s insane how 3 of the crew survived with minor injuries!
1 with minor injuries and 2 in critical condition, unfortunately
Got goosebumps hearing the twr controller after the crash :(
Yes - his shaken voice and obvious attempt to stay calm.
I literally almost burst into tears reading the title… so sad. I hope they’re ok and recover from something like this. My prayers go out to them.
It was so lucky that there wasn't more deaths from people inside their homes, my thoughts are with the family of the deceased.
Lets hope this isn't anything narfarious.
I think anything nefarious is very unlikely. We will all be aware of the DHL fire, but there is nothing here to suggest an explosion or fire.
Something "nefarious"? Like a member of the crew intentionally crashed it? What evidence is there to suggest that???
@@donmoore7785 People suspect Putin, but there's no evidence for that
@@donmoore7785 People are understandably somewhat jumpy because there had been concerns over the last few weeks regarding Russians seeding planes with explosive cargo (this actually happened on DHL flights in Germany and the UK) but this certainly doesn’t seem to case here. At first glance it seems to be either a configuration issue or getting behind the plane to close to the ground to recover, but it’ll be interesting to see what the report says and find out the true cause.
this is insane as it is in a city with high populated multistory buildings and other houses I live near by, sometimes it looks like pilot in last seconds did everything to avoid houses and more deaths, you can not find better place to crash on approach to Vilnius airport then that one how macabre it could sound... god bless pilot
Based on the given data, pilots were flying IRKAL 2B arrival with ILS Z RWY 19 approach. MIZOP point minimums are 5000 feet and max 230 kt. After that, take the right turn heading 104 to VI412 (to intercept the ILS beacon), which you need to intercept at 3000 feet (max 210 kt). Next, fly the runway heading at 194 to D6.2 at 2700 feet, which is 6.2 miles from the runway threshold. This is the point where G/S must be alive, and the 3-degree descent must be maintained. It must have a stabilized approach (the aeroplane must be fully prepared for landing). From 3:04 to 3:07, you can observe a good 3-degree descent. However, at 3:08, you might notice the "dive" manoeuvre. I'm not sure about the pilot flying, but at least the pilot monitoring felt distracted.
Several mode videos are available from the Lithuanian mass media. One shows an airplane pitching its nose up just moments before the crash. This could have been an instinctive attempt to recover from the rapid altitude loss. For me, it seems like the crew made some fatal mistakes during the arrival/approach phases. The wrong altimeter setting can be a potential reason for that. The airplane was missing some 200 feet of altitude. When pilots noticed that, they pitched nose up, but it was too late. However, that won't explain the dive moment.
Lithuanian authorities have little to no experience in air crash investigations. As it was a US plane, NTSB will provide all the help needed. I would bet on a pilot error or technical failure as two major factors, with minor mistakes from ATC.
First it is always a bad habit and disrespectful to the victims to speculate on reasons without the data. Second it is kinda arrogant to dis on the Lithuanian authorities, who will first and foremost be supported by European investigators. US is only in because it is a Boeing. Again.
The limited communication with the aircraft did not confirm that they were established on the glideslope.
@@roxair1@roxair1 I do not act disrespectfully to the victims. Or would you say NTSB or EASA are acting disrespectfully? I'm a forensic investigator myself. You must draw assumptions from your initial data. My data came from VASAviation, ATC, and Flightradar24 data. I draw my initial assumptions based on that data. Investigation will reveal evidence and will either prove or deny assumptions made.
I was born in Lithuania and lived there until 2010. Today, Lithuanian authorities officially state that they have almost zero experience in such accidents.
And finally, I said, "As it was a US plane, NTSB will provide all the help needed". Did I say something wrong? Of course, the EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency) will play an equally crucial part in this investigation.
I'm sorry, but I would very much disagree with you blaming me for being disrespectful.
I noticed the nose-down attitude change at 3:08 also.
@@bond_andrewSome people don't appreciate facts, not your fault. They revel in creating drama where there is none.
Thank you Victor, for the speedy upload. Much appreciated.
Looks like an unstable approach compared to 18.11.2024 data.
At 840m 263 km/h on 18.11.2024 vs. 391 km/h on 25.11.2024
At 450m 252 km/h on 18.11.2024 vs. 322 km/h on 25.11.2024
The question for authorization of ILS marker is also a bit odd.
The lower speed is consistent with what looks like a stall from the video. Can any pilots in the comments confirm whether you can stall at that speed, the angle of attack didn't look that steep
@@rudySTi what lower speed, today had higher speed.
@@kefirtruskawkowyyou are correct. My bad
@@rudySTi you can stall at any speed. you can even stall while flight straight downwards. It's all about the angle of attack. If you pull too hard, you're gonna stall and as the flight controls react much more sensitive in higher speeds, an overreaction can lead to a stall easily. Looking at the video though, the reason wasn't a stall, the aircraft was very fast and had a normal angle of attack. The stall only seemed to happen right before the impact.
agree on unstable approach.
Noticed high vertical speed
Something strange before crash, increased the angle down as if plane stalled the last second and then hard pull up and after that wing dropped and crashed
I heard of this crash jusd 5 minutes ago, yet Victor's upload is 2 hours old. Nice work.
RIP to rhe FO.
While the incorrect altitude read-back may not be a factor as far as terrain obstacles, it does potentially point to an overall problem of fatigue, task saturation, other factors, etc. Also approach giving the incorrect ATC frequency just adds to the swiss cheese model. RIP to the pilot and healing energy to the survivors, friends, and families affected by this horrible event.
I hear the pilot reading back the correct altitude. However he got wrong the QNH first, then his own callsign, then the frequency (although bad spoken by ATC)... Cargo pilots are more prone to fatigue. That's a fact.
@@VASAviation Indeed. The video of the plane appearing to be stable on final, then suddenly *not* stable is interesting. Not familiar with whatever Lithuanian investigative branch that handles plane crashes but hope to see a thorough report in the future.
They selected 2700 ft on their MCP (autopilot), as evident by the Mode S data received by adsb fi.
It reminds me of the Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 crash (was also a Boing 737), which was due to an incorrect altimeter reading impacting the thrust autocontrol, in combination with ILS landing and at night. Pretty much the same situation.
@@timschmitt7550hey tim it was a different situation it was at daylight plus many years later it got confirmed the radioaltimeter was not funcioning correctly after everything that happened with boeing im not suprised
Condolences to the family of deceased and 🙏 for those injured. Amazing quick footage, Victor.
Victor, my condolences to the crew and their families. The Boeing 737 has to capture the localizer before the glideslope will capture on an ILS approach. It appeared they went through the localizer initially and turned back to recapture it. At that point they were above the glideslope and I believe they must have dialed the altitude selector to field elevation and continued to descend in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) and eventually into VMC. They were descending at a higher rate and for some reason and they flew below minimums which is 200 feet above ground level (AGL). This accident will be investigated but I would guess that pilot error is the cause. They seemed surprised when checking in with approach that the ILS Z was in use due the cloud ceiling. The landing checklist on the Boeing 737 confirms gear down, speed-brakes armed, flaps set. The pilots have to fly the approach glideslope guidance on the ILS approach in order to stay above terrain when in IMC. The many surveillance footage appears they were lower in visual conditions which makes this controlled flight into terrain. Easily mitigated by going around and doing another approach. Getting behind on landing while distracted inside the cockpit with checklist and guidance mismanagement can result in CFIT which may be what happened here.
I’d leave the technical information and investigation to the experts.
@@griffin5184 I agree
@jonahfinademz8646 You have just agreed with @griffin5184 about leaving the tech info and investigation to the experts but then you post the below crap. I sincerely hope they are extremely acute angled pickets that make up the fence you are sitting on. 🙄
_This accident will be investigated but _*_I would guess that pilot error is the cause._* 🤡
Look at that established approach and then sudden change right before terrain.. man, RIP.
looked ok then seemed to nose in,, weather looked ok,,, its a strange one
@@davidblurton7158 They pulled up sharply right before impact.
@@Vpmatt yeah the other vid shows it better,, too low maby and stalled it,,, guess we will find out soon enough very sad
Thanks, Vic. Your updates are the best. We need to hear Juan Browne's thoughts on it next.
Indeed.
At 2:16 She said "...contact Tower 118.205."
Readback was "118.05, Postman 18Delta"
No comms after that.
It's at least second incorrect readback. At 1:38 He said "Postman 18Zero, eh, 18Delta".
Could this somehow contribute to the accident? Was the pilot too tired?
Just ESL
1. 00:24, the pilot read QNH back 1019 instead of 1020, controller does not correct back!
2. 01:05, Descending 2700fr instructed, the pilot clearly read back something else (seems to me 2300 or 2500)
3. 01:23, the pic read back wrong frequency for tower. Maybe the reason why we have 0 communication on last seconds. He was on the wrong freq perhaps?
Why does the approach control leave it without correcting? It's a shared responsibility. They had wrong QNH, wrong altitude, wrong freq ...
@@MyGreeed This repeating mistakes on readbacks are indeed irritating. We don´t know it at the moment but it reads as if the Pilot Monitoring was distracted by something.
Even if he was a frequency, the result probably would’ve been the same. Being on a different frequency doesn’t cause like this. It just means we don’t have audio.
yeah, sounds tired
I am very curious to see the preliminary report on this. Reaching a conclusion a few a hours after an accident like this based only on a video and the final radio transmissions, is far fetched. Thank you very much for the upload and your hard work.
1:29 did the pilot reply “2300” feet and not 2700 ?
My good friend works for swiftair and has even worked on this exact plane. She is deciding wether to quit her job or not, as she is really shaken up by this. She knew the crew and everything. Condolences to everyone affected.
ua-cam.com/video/MXyXgSu5CBE/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/5MHfeqvaBP0/v-deo.html
apparently few cctv footage from nearby
Am I seeing it wrong in the first video, or one of the planes' wings (right) goes down and touches the ground? So the plane flipped on the side?
first clip looks like bank angle and wingstrike, while second looks like massive pitch up.
Stall as they tried to recover too late?
Better quality of the first clip: ua-cam.com/video/MXyXgSu5CBE/v-deo.html
Some scenes after the first responders have secured the site: ua-cam.com/video/NaUQVF2MX1E/v-deo.html
@@cola98765 speed too low
My condolences to the family of the victim and I hope the survivors heal well.
This is a real puzzle. Thank goodness for those black boxes! Them and the testimony of the (thank heavens) survivors are going to make for a VERY interesting investigation!
Thanks for sharing this so quickly!
Anyone else getting stall vibes from that rate of descent? I'm seeing the comments about missing the glideslope, but surely they would realise that degree of drop.
ADS-B suggests 149 knots so not getting stall vibes here, but if the glide slope antenna was bent maybe (i think there was a storm?)
Icing.
@@IslandSimPilot Nope.
@@foobarf8766😂
Instant pitch down looks like foward cargo shift, given they were slightly nose down and slowing down.
My sincere condolences go out to the family and friends of the deceased at this tragic time. May their memory be a Blessing to you all. I am so very sorry for your loss. For the survivors, wishing each of you a speedy and complete recovery. 🇨🇦
Did they really read back 2700 feat? It's not clearly understandable. I hear twothousandtwelvehundred what makes no sense. Perhaps they understood 2200 and were way below the glidepath while flying manually.
two thousand svn hundred feet. Too fast. But definitely 2700'.
1.31, he readback 2500 feet.
@@petereef4001 I hear 2700' pretty clear.
He's flying an ILS so doesn't really matter if he got the altitude wrong by a couple hundred feet. He can see the Glideslope/altitude he should be at.
They are below the cloud cover. PAPI should be plainly in sight. Also, they 100% have a radioaltimeter.
May their memories be eternal 🙏🏼✝️.
Thank you Victor for having this up so fast. Im reading that people may have survived this tragedy. That would be a true miracle.
Condolences to the crewmember's family and all on the ground who lost their homes. Awful. I wonder if the incorrect QNH readback is the root cause... Damn. Not a good start to the week. Thanks for all your hard work Vas.
Only 0.01 off on the QNH. From the video I would guess icing is a factor.
No it isnt. They were flying an ILS which means the glidepath is independent of altimiter setting. And even if it would have been an approach without vertical guidance then 1hpa difference is 27ft. At 1 mile from rwy they should have been at aroud 300ft.
Anyone else notice controller gave QNH 1020 and Swiftair 5960 read back incorrectly QNH 1019?
Correct readback later
Judging by the flight data just before the crash, they appear to have been on a wildly unstabilized approach, likely coming in both too fast and too high. Descent rates of over 2,000 fpm at 3,700 ft, and over 1,100 fpm at 1,000 ft. At one point they began to climb before rapidly sinking again. Very unfortunate event, I'm curious to see what the cause turns out to be.
it culd be a cargo not fixed coretly
PILOT ERROR
@@hannobaali_makendali Maybe, maybe not. It is a Boeing after all.
@ It’s an old Boeing, a well built one.
The big question is whether or not it had an incendiary device on it. According to the Wall Street Journal, Russia was in the planning stages of an attack on US-bound DHL planes using incendiary devices. This plane was a contractor for DHL. If there was a dress rehearsal for such an event, it would look a lot like this.
Based on the approach, it doesn’t look like it to me.
When they said there was survivors, I thought they meant on the ground. It's an absolute miracle anyone made it out of that alive.
People survive final approach crashes all the time. It's not the work of a divine agent, it's literally physics of not so speedy thing doing what its supposed to be doing. Asiana Airlines Flight 214 struck the seawall at SFO, broke apart, flung passengers and crew onto the runway, caught fire and burned to the shell, and out of 300+ people only 3 died.
There were 2 pilots and 2 crew members. 1 pilot dead, 1 in critical condition. 2 with non critical injuries.
2:20 last contact to airplane - a readback to 4 mile final announcement from ATC and tower frequency to contact.
2:47 approach calls - no response
2:53-2:54 the aircraft moves slighlty off centerline
2:55 Tower calls the clearance - no response
3:04-3:07 you can see the nose getting pulled up
3:08 the nose goes heavily downside (also a landing cleareace from APP)
3:18 crash
Thank you, good summary of what can be seen and heard in the video!👍
That´s a disturbing start into the new week.😯 Thank you very much for publishing the relevant radio communication so quickly.
My condolences to the family and friends of the deceased pilot.
The aircraft seems stable in the video up until it suddenly plummets from the sky. Based on the lights remaining pretty much in the same position the whole time this looks like a loss of airspeed close to the ground and likely not caused by weather or anything like that. Very sad for all involved.
Same thoughts...
At 3:07 the angle of the landing lights suddenly tilt down. With this the sinkrate increased as well as well.
The landing lights seem too high in my opinion, like they either didn’t have flaps out and were too slow, or did have flaps out - but were also too slow. Sounds like an unstable approach and they were behind the plane (asking for ILS clearance repeatedly so close to the ground.)
Yeah, angle of the landing lights seem to indicate a big nose-up attitude until stall and then the nose was dropped to recover from the stall, I don't remember if there is a stick pusher in the 737
@@EstorilEm So close to the ground? They were asking for approach clearance confirmation well before mizop which is ~16NM before runway and minimum 5000ft .
A lot of speculation going on here…
737 only has a stick shaker. Stall recovery is like in every other conventional plane: nose down, wings level, thrust increase smoothly, flight path recover smoothly
thanks for upload of communication, it is terrible.
Three people survived the disaster, let's hope they will still be alive.
Condolences to the victim’s family.
💜💜💜
The Lithuanian that was not in front of the plane apparently was conscious and just a little banged up, first responders already said he was able to explain the situation on the scene.
Crazy that this is already online. Happened hours ago and you've uploaded it all across the world! It's crazy.
It reminds me of the Turkish Airlines crash near Amsterdam, my first question would be whether they monitored their airspeed close enough.
My condoleances to the family, and hoping for recovery for the survivors.
they crashed with speed or around 140kt while turkish below 100. speed was not an issue here
@@vlatkomafija Source of speed 140kts ?
With nose down, and uncontroled aircraft, it's look like a stall on short final.
@ compare all previous dhl flights on flight radar. He came in extremely fast and low only on the day of the accident.
Thank you for the video😊
Apparently there was a 30 knot loss of headwind between 1,600 feet and the ground. So wind shear may have been a factor here.
Thanks for your efforts....one of the fastest uploads
I listened back twice and clearly heard "two thousand, three hundred feet". I also see a few comments where the CG may have shifted, but I think that the pilot may have realized they were going down and tried to avoid some houses or larger buildings perhaps? CG is definitely a real possibility, but he could have also been trying to mitigate ground casualties.
Perhaps pilot fatigue? It has caused accidents before like UPS 1354.
+ I heard just right now that vilnius tower is supposed to be 118.2, not 118.05 if im correct here
atmintis amžina. May that poor pilot's soul rests in peace.
Great job VAS! I could not understand the coms on ATC! RIP for the one who died, glad the rest is ok.....
100% pilot said 2300, on 0.25 playback clear as day it's not 2700
I heard that also, 2300, but the terrain looks pretty flat around EYVI, field elevation is just under 650". Minimum sector altitudes around there are 2000 or less, so that mistake probably not a factor.
@@firstielasty1162 No. Airport is on the hill.
Try using close captions.
Heard that too. 1:28 2300. at 0,5x speed it's very obvious.
Captions state 2700. Also, listening up close to a speaker multiple times or in headphones would still make it 2700. English teacher here. I believe the pilots need to work on their clear-cut distinct pronunciation. Not only the mic and radio transfer worsen the audio quality per se as it gets transferred, their English needs improvement too. This is why they use these "Foxtrot, Alfa" abbreviations so there is no ambiguity. Still other minor pronunciation things count. As mentioned by others, observing all these cockpit dials, checking the visual field through the windshield while communicating at the same time all add up to task saturation... God forbid if there were any distractions present at that moment, like checking something on the phone or talking off topic to crew members.
Pardon my critique and condolescences to deceased. Hope the others make a recovery and we get to hear their testimony.
Didn’t the DHL reply approach altitude 2500 instead of the directed 2700.
I hear 2700
They performed a very steep descent and the speed seems to be higher as usual. Is there a 2 degrees slope? And no answer to ATC and TWR radio calls before crash.....
Yes, too fast and falling under glide slope, forgot engines on idle and stalling when pulling nose up
@@tuuchen2990 but won't they notice on the instrument that they are under the glide slope? because they had time to react I think
@@vlatkomafija Something went wrong in the crucial moment, leaving no room for recovery. The radio silence suggests they knew something with the approach was not correct, but couldn't figure out what was wrong before it was too late to pull up. Maybe it was a bit of slam dunk so they were a bit too high and then went too low
@@tuuchen2990 Indeed. And the investigation will probably have to look into the CVR recording to figure out what exactly went wrong.
Approach controller didn't correct the tower frequency when the pilot read back as 118.05 instead of 118.5... That's why the pilot was not able to communicate with tower.
She said „118 205“, as that is the tower frequency. But you‘re right, the wrong read back was was not corrected.
All involved sound quite tired...fatigue???
Can already hear certain Swedish guy explain concept of Circadian Low once again.
Of course they're tired at 5:30am
5:30 am the controllers were probably at the end of their night shift and the pilots had to start flying in the middle of the night so everyone's tired
@@sanantonio855 Indeed - and it was Monday morning, too => the worst workday in the week.
I am doing a report on this incident and uhh…. This information was not well available on any other platform, so thank you, Victor and all guys in the comment section who gave more information 😊…… RIP to the pilot ….. fly high,
In the video you can see they were mostly stable coming in and then suddenly the descent rate increased rapidly.
Thanks for sharing, is impressive for un amateur like me. My condolences.
Did i mishear it or did the Pilot read back 2300ft? It sounds like it
He said 2700'.
I heard the same 2300. They did not say 2700 vas.
I hear him say 'two thousand three hundred feet'. That startled me on the first listen, and that is all I hear when I repeat, with good headphones (and old ears!) 1:30 is the timestamp.
@@jinitom I hear 2700'.
Sorry, You are wrong. He said 2500 ft. If you reduce the speed to 0,5 times you can hear it loud and clear.
Landing lights appear to be at a higher up angle? Could nose up approach have caused a stall?
That was only right at the end. The pilot was just reacting to seeing the ground coming up and he wanted to avoid hitting it.
3:08 instant direction change
Lights pointed down. Did they stall?
Holy.. I don't know if it caused the accident or not but..
- wrong QNH readback
- wrong ILS altitude readback
- wrong tower frequency readback
none of them were corrected by the controller?..
He read back the CORRECT QNH, he read back the CORRECT altitude.
@@VASAviation I'd bet my right foot that he's reading back 2500 feet, no doubt whatsoever. He does not say 2700.
@@VASAviationMaybe it's the language barrier, but I hear a read back of 2,300 ft. Regardless, a 500ft below intercept alone wouldn't have been a causal factor.
@@VASAviation 0:39 0:40 QNH 1020 and readback was 1019
I am aware, 1 hP of difference does not make a huge change, and I am also aware that it can change by air conditions, still unless there is part cut at 0:39 the readback was not correct.
@@jm-holm I hear him say 2700'.
2:17 approach gave 118.205 frequency, pilot read back was 118.05. That's why last transmissions are one sided only, and clearance was given blindly by both, approach and tower.
Tower Freq is 118.205, and was read back as 118.05 and not corrected by app. That would be the reason for not contacting tower.
Rest in peace pilot 💔
Solid content
Not to discourage speculation, as I do enjoy it but we don't have nearly enough information without the black box. Loose cargo, wind shear, mechanical fault, software fault, icing, radar fault, etc etc etc. First observation shows a large deviation followed by immediate attempted correction in the critical stage before landing. My speculation is we can't rule out most causes at this stage. Even the door falling off, it is a boeing.
Even something like a bird strike through the cockpit could kill or incapacitate the cockpit crew, medical incident, and so much more.
My point is, if you guys can rule out possible explanations or reason them less likely it'd be more impressive.
There were bombs detonating at DHL in Germany in the last time, this may have been a sabotage, given the proximity to the current war, it may have been an issue too.
A German spokeperson for the secret services should give a press conference soon today...
Not a birdstrike through a window for sure. Saw a post crash picture with intact cockpit windows.
Indeed. At the moment the reason for this crash can be everything. We simply don´t know it at the moment.
That's a Boeing 737-400 that has been going strong for decades. Pretty sure if it had a faulty door (btw the MAX9 blowout was a plug not a door), we would have heard of a crash about 40 years ago. As for the rest, the black boxes give clues and even with all the information they have cannot in many instances explain a crash. The point is, once all unfounded theories (like the door on a 737 Classic being blown out without any maintenance trace for it), the explanation would be staring at the investigators in the face.
With how instant that nosedive was, and immediate pitch up reaction, my best guess is forward cargo shift is most likely. Very deadly in the best of circumstances.
Pitch down slowing down for approach are 'ideal' conditions for some load security to fail and domino.
Flown in and out of Vilnius multiple times (not a pilot) but high rise buildings kinda seem to come out of nowhere - at least that’s how I always felt. Was never a gradual oh look at the buildings more a sudden „here we are“
Could there perhaps have been icing as a contributing factor?
We have one accident in Sweden (highly recommend reading about it) in "Kälvesta" 1977. They crashed on a parking lot on their way to land. Like a miracle - a parking lot, between residential buildings.
No one(!) outside the airplane (Vickers 383 Viscount) was hurt!!!
this is insane as it looks to be the best outcome what could happen after such a crash, as it is in a city with high populated multistory buildings and other houses I live near by, sometimes it looks like pilot in last seconds did everything to avoid houses and more deaths, you can not find better place to crash on approach to Vilnius airport then that one how macabre it could sound... god bless pilot
Read back sounds incorrect...2700 not 2500 feet...
2700
What do you use to track the planes
Pure speculation but most likely autopilot/autothrottle related failure or misuse/misunderstanding by the pilots, could be similar to the AMS crash - ILS capture without proper autothrottle (for various reasons), attempting to capture the glide from above with incorrect modes etc.
My personal opinion with over 10,000hrs on Boeings
I agree with you here. this was my thought.
Seems to roll left and pitch nose down….stall on Approach?
@ when an aircraft stalls (such as trying to maintain a glide slope without thrust) one wing typically stalls and drops first
@@g1344304 not without sideslip β
it could be forward cargo shift load security failure, given they were slightly pitch down and slowing down. They happen very fast and not recoverable
Great work Victor. So sad. RIP deceased.
I got woken up by the emergency alert that went out because of that crash, my first thought was "what plane crash?!" not knowing that it has just happened
Interesting take on a developing sitatuation, showing the data and comms only you can only imagine the horror of the ATC person in charge
These events are luckily so rare within the EU that they somehow hit different (no pun intended). Hope those who are injured are making a speedy recovery.
My fear of flying as somebody from this country has just increased.
Mr VasAviation, can you tell me what the scale is of the tick marks on the final approach track? Is each tick 1 nm? If the audio and video is correct she says he is at 4 nm and an altitude of 2800 ft or so but in the overlay/graphics he seems to be around 6 nm.
Condolences to all involved
Not too sure, but it sounded like atc said contact Tower 1182 05, with the eight slurred into the two. The airplane then read back 118 05.
They also seemed to have flown through the ILS localizer and had to turn back to capture it from the other side.
Looks like they made a large heading change, of course this would be inevitable for an intercept of much more than 30 degrees or so.
This happens a lot honestly, especially if ATC is a little late in giving you a turn. If established on the course before the Final Approach Fix, its usually no big deal.
Sorry for the loss of the crew member. BTW, I have never performed a flight, I flew one or more though!
Just saw the Associated Press video of from a ski cam. Oh my they were motoring, and then a sudden hard wing over to the right.
What was the temperature, seemed like it was snowing. The more below zero the lower the altimeter thinks you are, so you need to add on cold weather altitude corrections
Atc was very professional there, in such a short time trying to connect via different means (atc & tower). Once clear that she crashed they redacted all takeoff clearances very quickly.
Rip to the pilot, and how there were no more casualties is nothing short but a miracle.
The approach controller had several phraseology errors, including not using any standard phraseology for the tower's frequency read, and the readback was incorrect too. The tower controller did well fortunately and got the ground movement under control. Many mistakes that were avoidable on the controller end, unfortunately.
Eh, the approach controller didn't seem to have a good handle on the airspace. Sadly, it has become more common to hear conversations in which either ATC or the pilot seems completely unprepared, as if it is their first day on the job. Anyway, none of that would directly lead to this accident. It may have contributed maybe, but it wouldn't be the only factor.
@@asclepi At the very beginning she sounded indeed like "Monday Morning", the Pilot had to call her twice to get an answer.
@calebwsurpris3 @@asclepi well for a civillian who gets all his info from the Internet and his grandpa it sounded allright. But after watching it again I can see some points at which it wasn't as smooth as I thought it was when commenting.
If there was any stall, it can't have been on both wings because they had enough authority to unfortunately go into a severe bank angle right before impact. In fact, the sudden and rapid decent on the last few hundred meters may have been entirely side-slip because of the severe bank. As others comment they seemed too hot and high, rushed the approach, fumbled the approach frequency as well and lost control somehow by erratic control inputs or inappropriate landing configuration. Maybe they took manual control and were totally not ready for it, or even double input in a panic.
Indeed, something must have gone very wrong at the very last part of this flight. Hopefully CVR and FDR will clarify what.
Clearly something wrong happened with intercepting that localizer. V/S at -1200 ft when in the glide, no readback from the pilots, they should have done a missed approach if it was even possible
Tired cargo pilots trying to finish the night?
@@cola98765unless we hear CVR the only thing I can think of is the window of circadian low. They could also have locked on false glideslope but that will be clear when investigation finds all conclusions. Rest in peace, FO
Your transcript of the changeover to Tower is wrong. The controller said (mumbled) 118(2)05. Your text on this video says 118.5.