Totally heartbreaking. Hearing the voices before they lef us really hurts😢💔... You miss them even though you've never known them. I'm glad they at least crossed over to the other world without beeing guilty and responsible for this tragic. God bless their souls and the souls from the passengers too. RIP, dear souls!
When i saw the mayday episode on this flight i was shocked. This makes it so much more real. I can watch a mayday episode without emotions hitting hard but hearing the actual voices of the pilots is haunting
that's hard to hear their voices. i'm sure at this point that they had realised that they were lost. few seconds after the last call all operating equipment went dark....
Controversial but IMO programmes like Mayday should be feature length docudrama episodes with high budgets, very high, to focus on the maximum realism of what it was like to be aboard a flight that crashed. Everything from full cabin mockups used as sets, professional actors who speak the real language (with subtitles, and Screw audiences who are illiterate in that case) and minimal use of music. Of course people would cry "exploitation of a tragedy!" but those same people would still watch it... It's not exploitation, it's respecting the dead by presenting what happened to them without having to fake, invent or sensationalise anything. As if there's any need to embellish a plane crash...
At 11:13 you notice that was the moment when the captain wanted to put out the fire with the fire extinguisher and he then became unconscious and it is the last time you hear the pilot But it was great how they stayed calm, as I said, both pilots were very experienced pilots and they fought until the end R.I.P flight 111
The plane was no longer flyable. I had an instructor who flew for Swissair and knew the captain and copilot. These were very well trained pilots. Urs Zimmermann, the captain, was an experienced and former fighter jet pilot. There was a controversy if they did not follow the procedure and checklists of fuel dumping if they did it to Halifax. And the answer to that is: They had hot smoke, an open fire and they lost all systems. Not only isolation and cables were in flames there was also a magnesium fire. They fought with a fire extinguisher against the flames. At the same time they had to fly, navigate and communicate. Do anyone think he could fly a plane like this and do an emergency landing whit all that fuel on board? They did the right things but they had no chance. Swissair and later Swiss changed the procedure and checklists. If you have any smell in the cockpit they return immediately. And they found, that the isolation was high flammable and it did not pass the safety test. Swissair changed that after a recommendation, others did not. My best wishes to all who lost a beloved person in this tragic accident.
The full tank was the problem with a possible immediate landing bypassing all checklists. Performing the checklists included disabling the "CABIN BUS SWITCH" with the result that the ventilation no longer directed the flames into the more flammable area of the cabin ceiling. Instead, the flames were directed directly over the control cabinet. Leaving the "CABIN BUS SWITCH" in place would have extended the possible flight time. Enforce with the controller to dump the fuel immediately and not fly out to the ocean. It is correct that the pilot acted in accordance with the rules. The other side of the coin is that the aircraft would still have had a minimal chance if he had acted differently.
I watched NOVA’s documentary on the accident and it shed new light on the accident. According to investigators who recreated the flight path, Löw was leaning his head on the window because of the smoke, so he could see ahead while he was frantically looking for the airport. Because of that, he lost guidance of the airplane as the manual gyroscope was not visible enough. He unintentionally banked to the right and the plane slammed in the ocean. The pilots were disoriented and even if Zimmerman skipped the checklist and went straight for landing, they would eventually get lost and would crash somewhere else. Everyone who says the pilots could have landed if they just skipped dumping fuel and doing the checklist doesn’t factor in disorientation and the lack of visibility.
10:10 at this point both pilots declared an emergency simultaneously. That means that something must have happend that both pilots declared "MAYDAY". Maybe there was visible fire in the cockpit now
They found out later, the captain was not in his seat in the end ,probably busy fighting a fire , the cop pilot tried to fly the plane but at that time , the fire had disabled all the electrical systems on the aircraft, there was no way to save the plane . Even if they had forgo dump fuel they still would have crashed, there wasn’t enough time
The whole fuel dumping issue is a bit of a misunderstood thing by both controllers and pilots. Jet fuel will typically evaporate within 200-800 ft after dumping.the FAA requires 2000ft vertical separation between aircraft. As a retired controller who has dealt with this type of issue I would have given given him immediate approval and kept him moving towards the airport. In addition I would have made sure he knew he wasn’t required to slow to 250kts at 10k ft. Dump fuel, burn fuel, and get it on the ground ASAP. That being said what I’ve read was there was never any hope the plane could make it to any airport in time.
The moment they knew they were going to a close airport they should have started dumping immediately stopping the dump at 1000’ on final. If you’re in a position like they were you don’t get permission to dump, you just do it.
As a pilot (only rated on small light prop aircraft types) this scares the hell out of me thinking of these people, smoke, heat, moonless night, no ability to navigate, PFD's failing and no instrumentation, above water. That's just a nightmare. Rip and upmost respect for remaining professional, cause I'm not sure I would be able to in that situation.
with 20/20 hindsight the MD-11 had only a 2 man crew where the former DC-10 30 series had a flight engr that in theory could have rectified elec fire..when captain shut down elec power for A/C & cabin lights this caused a downdraft in ceiling expediting fire.. again 20/20 hindsight...conduit for elec wiring for tv consoles would have also helped..
10:09 Something happened that made the pilots shock. This could have ment that there was visible fire in the cockpit now and they knew the danger of the situation
If there was a visible fire, or even if not, just the smoke would have caused them to pass out. So not sure how much they were able to engage in fighting the fire.
@@stonew1927 Captain Zimmermann wasn’t so lucky but he did his very best to put out the fire. He along with FO Löw, flight attendants, and passengers will be missed. 😢💔
@@StephenLukeI heard that the flight’s First Officer, Stephan Loew, tried to fly the plane all the way up until it impacted the water. That’s professionalism at its finest. 💔🙏🏻🙏🏻
@@relton66 He was the only pilot flying the plane before it crashed, the captain was incapacitated by the smoke while attempting to extinguish the flames.
Dear pilots with fire / Smoke / Smell on board: Please land as soon as possible, without dumping fuel. Then everybody had a bigger chance to survive. Fire and smoke are not to underestimate the danger. A little bit of smell or smoke can create a dangerous situation, which often is hidden somewhere, and shut up one system after the other or create a damage at the main structure. When you have fire in the cockpit there is no more rescue.
I was surprised to see the NatGeo "Seconds from Disaster" episode about this accident, in which the controller and the lead investigator both absolve the pilots of responsibility for delaying the landing. It seemed to me that other versions of this depiction -- notably the Nova episode about it from a few years ago -- insinuated fairly strongly that if the pilots had known how bad the situation was, they could have skipped the cabin prep and the fuel dump and landed safely, but both interviewees for the SfD episode assert fairly unequivocally that the plane did not remain flyable for long enough to accord a safe landing in any event. ("They were thirteen minutes away when they shut the fans off, and they had ten minutes of usable flying time. They would have crashed on land instead of over water, but either way they were going to crash.") This being said, your larger point is spot-on and important for people on the ground to realize as well: Fire is a *chemical* reaction, and when it flashes over there is no negotiating with it.
Whether they dumped fuel or not, they would’ve crashed either way. Even if they didn’t dump fuel, the plane would’ve been no longer flyable 3 minutes from the airport
You are correct, absolutely -- but I've recently seen a very credible treatment of this accident, in which the timeline was reconstructed and it was determined that the fuel dump did not cause the crash: They didn't have enough time, regardless.
@@MoosiVibez The crew was too fixated to make an emergency landing at an airport. You should have tried to make an emergency landing at sea or on land. They could have done the fuel dumping on the way to the airport. From the authorities + the Arlines + the manufacturers, you will never find out the whole truth of an accident in order not to deter customers. In a fire, every second counts what we saw in the South African accident. Nevertheless, the crew made the wrong decisions here.
@@CinemaDemocratica The crew was too fixated to make an emergency landing at an airport. You should have tried to make an emergency landing at sea or on land. They could have done the fuel dumping on the way to the airport. From the authorities + the Arlines + the manufacturers, you will never find out the whole truth of an accident in order not to deter customers. In a fire, every second counts what we saw in the South African accident. Nevertheless, the crew made the wrong decisions here.
Y’all in the comments are annoying and uneducated. Watch the mayday episode. Experts concluded that NO MATTER WHAT fuel dump or not, they wouldn’t have had time to land in Halifax. In fact by trying to dump fuel they may have saved lives on the ground as they could have crashed into residential areas. I’m a Halifax native and many experts around here who worked on the investigation says they probably would have crashed into fall River village had they have gone direct to Halifax which is a HEAVILY populated residential area. Sick of people on the internet giving opinions without doing research or having any kind of knowledge 🙄
I would hope that if my life should end in such a way, that I similarly go to my end with a level head and trying to debug the problem. Much respect for men who were sterner than the machines that failed them.
@@MrXimbicas you know what, no. At 10:01 you can clearly hear the precursor alarm before "AUTOPILOT" is said. Since this whole exchange, I've watched MD-11 cockpit videos. Every time the Autopilot alarm goes off there is an alarm before the lady's voice. I can hear the same type of alarm in the CVR here after F/O Loew's voice who's literally talking about how they have to fly the plane manually because their autopilot has failed.
Dear users - Please put yourselves in a situation of trying to land a plane at night with full tanks (230 tons, explosion risk), with your oxygen masks donned, and all electrical systems failing... pilots and crew were perfectly trained to handle such a situation and did whatever was in their reach to land in safety.
Wish they’d just turned directly to Halifax and done an overweight landing and not go back over the sea. The Swiss pilot was so professional, but his Swiss calmness may have underestimated the situation to ATC. You could hear the pilot was wearing his oxygen mask from fairly early on. RIP to everyone lost.
Wearing oxygen mask at the time of the initial Pan-Pan-Pan call was surely done per the checklist even with only the smell of smoke initially. At that moment nobody knew the serious state the A/C was in - before it was too late. One of the sad events aviation learned from afterwards.
I mean a little bit of smoke from AC isn’t dangerous and since they couldn’t smell anything at first they didn’t realize how bad it actually was. And even if they did everything right fuel dumb and land I don’t think they would’ve made it. And they had to do the checklist it was their procedure
I wonder if the crackling sound on the SWR crew’s end had to do with the fire beginning to sever the cables to the CVR. Unless it’s just me, it appears to start around 1:50 and progressively gets worse as the CVR tape goes on.
actually the pilots managed to keep the plane in the air for six minutes even though all instruments had failed and it was dark in the cockpit. unfortunately, they would have needed another six minutes to make it to the landing strip.
My Father(He‘s from switzerland) told me that he was shocked when he heard that a Swiss machine crashed… 2 days later he Flewellyn with an md 11 back zo Zurich
I would just lose altitude any way possible (spoilers/EMER descent) and forget about fuel and an overweight landing. Essential to get on ground and NOW.
it seems clear that the captain did not fully grasp the gravity of the situation and what fire can do to aluminum. He seems very procedural in his priorities.
Thats bullshit if you even bothered to listen to the full transcrpit the captain knew how grave the situstion was.Why did he call a pan pan pan in the first place you idiot.In my eyes the Captain did his best and is a hero.Rip to all the victims of this awful tragedy😥
In all likelyhood, the pilots could have pulled off this landing if they had made an emergency decent at full speed and landed without dumping fuel. I think people have great difficulty understanding just how bad an in flight fire is. you land physically as soon as possible.
Swissair’s checklists were amended after the crash to prioritise a landing in case of smoke of unknown origin. Before the amendment, the pilots were supposed to finish the checklists. The pilots did everything as they were instructed.
Sure, a fire is the most critical emergency - certainly more so than, say, "just an engine failure", which A/C and crew are generally able to handle. But remember we are all "hindsight smart" here and initially it was just a consistently bad smell in the cockpit. Only now do we know that it became open smoke and fire real soon after that. No doubt - after that tragic event any suspected smoke on any A/C got prioritized even more.
in theory had the MD 11 had an option like the L 1011 with a speed brake lever to lose alt faster especially at 30 miles out est 30k alt this may have saved flight.. throw in the late Bob Hoover put the damn plane in a nose dive quickly pull back throttle to idle.... I swear Bob Hoover could have got this death trap on the ground...
Now i dont want to be rude but 1, There was, 2 it doesnt make you lose alt, it slows you down. 3, pilots are experienced and he was suffering from spatial disorientation due to smoke
“Pan pan pan. We have smoke in the cockpit but want to fly an hour over the ocean to dump the fuel.” “The Fire is almost in the cockpit. May we proceed with dumping the fuel?”
@@josephdale69 And you should, they were unaware it was a cargo fire, they followed the qrh for "smoke in the cockpit unknown origin" and did everything they were trained to do and they did it in accordance to Swiss air policy. Hindsight is 20/20 and it's a shame that they didn't immediately land, they truly believed they had time and the situation wasn't extensively critical. They thought wrong and it cost everyone their lives, I agree it's always better to be safe and sorry the plane should have gotten on the ground sooner. I can armchair pilot all I want but it would only be speculation, apparently the first officer tried taking steps to land quickly and the captain disregarded those steps.
@@josephdale69 as a captain you should know that this fire did not start in a place with smoke detectors. You would be an idiot for not landing quickly if ‘Main deck cargo’ fire alarm tripped.
Calm and collected even in the face of disaster. Pilots did nothing wrong. This was just a perfect storm. Swiss cheese model explains this. The fire was a flashover, so it would have been difficult to detect.
No, it crashed six minutes after the last transmission heard, a garbled message, cannot be made out. After the last tx from the plane, it maintained course close to South, then went into a long turn to the left, came around 180 degrees and headed back almost along the same course out to sea they were on in the first place, then went down, offshore about 10 KM
The captain wanted to dump fuel in order for the aircraft to be lighter for landing. The heavier something is, the more energy and length of runway you need in order to stop it. He also wanted to reduce the risk of a major fire breaking out in flight or in case they crash on the runway. The problem was, that the fire already spread too quickly thanks to the aluminium foil and the cables from the aircraft's entertainment systems. I think at the time, it was a procedure that had to be done, but now it's advised: If there's smoke or fire on board, land immediately at the next possible airport. But to me, the pilots in this aircraft did everything they could in order to keep the passengers safe, but were overcome by the fire. To keep calm in a dangerous situation like this isn't possible for everyone. May their souls rest in peace.
The investigators already calculated that even in the best case scenario, Swissair 111 would have lost all controls 3 minutes from Halifax Airport. So essentially you would have traded away a crash over the sea for a crash over land (likely adding on ground casualties as well.)
It is very hard to do a controlled water landing in the night, it is possible, but you have to land softly, you have to evacuate very fast and plane dont have rescue boats, so youre in the water, miles away from the coast and maybe you have passengers who can't swim.
@@LaFonteCheVi Especially in the ocean-- it's one thing in a river or a lake, but the ocean, at night, with swells, etc., far off the coast with no immediate rescue in freezing waters? That part of Nova Scotia is very sparsely populated. The ocean is frigid.
@@arrowintheknee9956 PROTO-nazis all the same, either one of them - and, NO!, this is NOT said in JEST - i.e., I saw Bavarians 'in action' in/near the public swimming pool(s), and, yes: under 7 years of age, *humans* ; after 7, Germans. VERY DANGEROUS lot - if they FANCY turning predator. As far as I know, the German Swiss - at least - are pretty (!!) much the same.
@@hhjj621 No, swiss germans are very different. I know many Swiss and Germans and the mentality is different. So, as far as you know, you don't know much.
There was a fire in the ceiling of the cockpit. The cause of the fire was determined to be the result of bad wiring for the onboard entertainment system and also the fireproof insulation in the plane was actually quite flammable. After the incident, the fireproof insulation in all MD11s were replaced with a much better one
Mostly they ( Traffic controller and pilot) are exchanging course headings, (what exact direction they are flying, as if they were on a 360 degree flat plane, and altitude changes, given by Level 300, Level 290, which means 30000 feet, and 29000 feet. The smoke had dissipated, or was not getting any worse as far as they could see, they did not know it switched direction to the back of the aircraft, everything appeared stable for the moment, so the pilot opted to dump fuel first. To do so, as he was proceeding to the airport, he turned left to North, then around to SouthWest, to proceed off the coast to dump the fuel. If you can do so, it is a very wise action, whether he should have attempted to land heavy as it were, without dumping, is debatable. Anyway as they are heading out to dump the fuel, all hell breaks loose, as systems fail, wire burning through , they lose power, they lose an engine, they lose the fflight control computer, navigation displays, they are in the dark, one pilot out of his seat supposedly fighting the fire, which had burst through the ceiling overhead, fuses blowing, the breaker cabinet melting from heat.They had no visual reference, the weather was piss poor, and whoever was keeping the plane aloft, said to be the first officer, could not tell which way was what, up, down, you don't know in that environment, and your mind plays tricks on you. Of course, you have no instruments to tell you. Must have been hell.
Trying landing a plane in the water with Smoke in the Cockpit which is nearly pitch black bc everything has failed except small stand by instruments which maybe you can’t even read if the smoke became thick enough. Take this part of the comment with a grain of salt. I was flying my own simulator for fun one day and decided to fly only on stand by instruments with smoke in the cockpit in the middle of the night. I never realised it at the time but the way my plane crashed seemed very similar to what the final report said about the angel and pitch of the crash.
Heart braking listening to this. The pilots remained Pro’s to the end. ATC handled this so well too. RIP all.
Totally heartbreaking. Hearing the voices before they lef us really hurts😢💔... You miss them even though you've never known them. I'm glad they at least crossed over to the other world without beeing guilty and responsible for this tragic. God bless their souls and the souls from the passengers too. RIP, dear souls!
@@orientalgirl8926my mother knew the co pilot and quit stewardesses job few months before this... she flew with this very plane many times
When i saw the mayday episode on this flight i was shocked. This makes it so much more real. I can watch a mayday episode without emotions hitting hard but hearing the actual voices of the pilots is haunting
that's hard to hear their voices. i'm sure at this point that they had realised that they were lost. few seconds after the last call all operating equipment went dark....
You are so soft
Controversial but IMO programmes like Mayday should be feature length docudrama episodes with high budgets, very high, to focus on the maximum realism of what it was like to be aboard a flight that crashed. Everything from full cabin mockups used as sets, professional actors who speak the real language (with subtitles, and Screw audiences who are illiterate in that case) and minimal use of music.
Of course people would cry "exploitation of a tragedy!" but those same people would still watch it... It's not exploitation, it's respecting the dead by presenting what happened to them without having to fake, invent or sensationalise anything. As if there's any need to embellish a plane crash...
At 11:13 you notice that was the moment when the captain wanted to put out the fire with the fire extinguisher and he then became unconscious and it is the last time you hear the pilot But it was great how they stayed calm, as I said, both pilots were very experienced pilots and they fought until the end R.I.P flight 111
This voice was from the copilot Stefan Löw. Normally the captain don’t speak to the Center/Approach/Tower
The plane was no longer flyable. I had an instructor who flew for Swissair and knew the captain and copilot. These were very well trained pilots. Urs Zimmermann, the captain, was an experienced and former fighter jet pilot. There was a controversy if they did not follow the procedure and checklists of fuel dumping if they did it to Halifax. And the answer to that is: They had hot smoke, an open fire and they lost all systems. Not only isolation and cables were in flames there was also a magnesium fire. They fought with a fire extinguisher against the flames. At the same time they had to fly, navigate and communicate. Do anyone think he could fly a plane like this and do an emergency landing whit all that fuel on board? They did the right things but they had no chance. Swissair and later Swiss changed the procedure and checklists. If you have any smell in the cockpit they return immediately. And they found, that the isolation was high flammable and it did not pass the safety test. Swissair changed that after a recommendation, others did not. My best wishes to all who lost a beloved person in this tragic accident.
The full tank was the problem with a possible immediate landing bypassing all checklists. Performing the checklists included disabling the "CABIN BUS SWITCH" with the result that the ventilation no longer directed the flames into the more flammable area of the cabin ceiling. Instead, the flames were directed directly over the control cabinet. Leaving the "CABIN BUS SWITCH" in place would have extended the possible flight time. Enforce with the controller to dump the fuel immediately and not fly out to the ocean. It is correct that the pilot acted in accordance with the rules. The other side of the coin is that the aircraft would still have had a minimal chance if he had acted differently.
I watched NOVA’s documentary on the accident and it shed new light on the accident. According to investigators who recreated the flight path, Löw was leaning his head on the window because of the smoke, so he could see ahead while he was frantically looking for the airport. Because of that, he lost guidance of the airplane as the manual gyroscope was not visible enough. He unintentionally banked to the right and the plane slammed in the ocean. The pilots were disoriented and even if Zimmerman skipped the checklist and went straight for landing, they would eventually get lost and would crash somewhere else. Everyone who says the pilots could have landed if they just skipped dumping fuel and doing the checklist doesn’t factor in disorientation and the lack of visibility.
@@Scorpio19110and how quickly the fire got bad
@@brennathecatlover4360 also that, the plane was slowly becoming inoperable
@@Scorpio19110 they would’ve crashed even if they tried landing in the first place
So professional to the end that crew transcripts to atc just no panic heartbreaking R I P everyone on that md11 x
Caused by in flight entertainment system
@@johnmccarthy6903 Yes! An overheating flight entertainment system.
i read that one passenger realized the situation and he put on his sea vest.
I remember the night of this crash 20 kms away. Such brave fishers and recovery crews. Such trauma all around.
10:10 at this point both pilots declared an emergency simultaneously. That means that something must have happend that both pilots declared "MAYDAY". Maybe there was visible fire in the cockpit now
Co Pilot advised to start dump. not asking the pilot. said wants to land immediatly
There was one. They tried to extinguish it, but the captain lost conciousness during
They found out later, the captain was not in his seat in the end ,probably busy fighting a fire , the cop pilot tried to fly the plane but at that time , the fire had disabled all the electrical systems on the aircraft, there was no way to save the plane .
Even if they had forgo dump fuel they still would have crashed, there wasn’t enough time
@@Paralyzereven if they tried to land right away when the smoke smell happened I don’t think they still would’ve made it
Once the acon was shut off the flow of the fire shifted back to the cockpit.
The whole fuel dumping issue is a bit of a misunderstood thing by both controllers and pilots. Jet fuel will typically evaporate within 200-800 ft after dumping.the FAA requires 2000ft vertical separation between aircraft. As a retired controller who has dealt with this type of issue I would have given given him immediate approval and kept him moving towards the airport. In addition I would have made sure he knew he wasn’t required to slow to 250kts at 10k ft. Dump fuel, burn fuel, and get it on the ground ASAP. That being said what I’ve read was there was never any hope the plane could make it to any airport in time.
The moment they knew they were going to a close airport they should have started dumping immediately stopping the dump at 1000’ on final. If you’re in a position like they were you don’t get permission to dump, you just do it.
I appreciate your comment, you answered a question that came to mind about dumping fuel over a populated area, how low and the fact that it evaporates
As a pilot (only rated on small light prop aircraft types) this scares the hell out of me thinking of these people, smoke, heat, moonless night, no ability to navigate, PFD's failing and no instrumentation, above water. That's just a nightmare. Rip and upmost respect for remaining professional, cause I'm not sure I would be able to in that situation.
Absolute professionals to the very end🙏🇨🇦😢
Yes and that’s why they never gave up
with 20/20 hindsight the MD-11 had only a 2 man crew where the former DC-10 30 series
had a flight engr that in theory could have rectified elec fire..when captain shut down
elec power for A/C & cabin lights this caused a downdraft in ceiling expediting fire..
again 20/20 hindsight...conduit for elec wiring for tv consoles would have also helped..
Rest in peace to all 229 pasengers and crew members
They didn't all die or injured.
@@Rheabunao everyone died.
@@Rheabunao of course they did. get informed before you comment with your nonsense.
10:09 Something happened that made the pilots shock. This could have ment that there was visible fire in the cockpit now and they knew the danger of the situation
You're 100% correct!
If there was a visible fire, or even if not, just the smoke would have caused them to pass out. So not sure how much they were able to engage in fighting the fire.
@@stonew1927 Captain Zimmermann wasn’t so lucky but he did his very best to put out the fire.
He along with FO Löw, flight attendants, and passengers will be missed. 😢💔
@@StephenLukeI heard that the flight’s First Officer, Stephan Loew, tried to fly the plane all the way up until it impacted the water. That’s professionalism at its finest. 💔🙏🏻🙏🏻
@@stonew1927 They put on gas masks at 0:43
11:14 last sound coming from the crew gives me the chills
Sad they had no time to dump the fuel .they had to get the plane on the ground .
Last Word whas up in swiss language capten saying that maby becuse they where to low we will never know for sure do rip
"Hello???"
11:13
@@larrysproul9424 the rellatory said that even he landed first, he has no chances.
RIP
To the passengers and crew of Swissair Flight 111
The first officer seemed like a really nice guy. "Sorry, not for you, Swissair 111, was asking internally, its my fault, sorry about."
@@relton66 He was the only pilot flying the plane before it crashed, the captain was incapacitated by the smoke while attempting to extinguish the flames.
@@StephenLuke yes, I pretty much studied this case along with the ValuJet one and JAL 123
@@relton66 I also know about those incidents as well, very upsetting. 😢💔
@10:16 - We have to land immediately.
- Copy that
sad..
10:21
This was the last time we hear Captain Zimmermann on the ATC recording.
Dear pilots with fire / Smoke / Smell on board: Please land as soon as possible, without dumping fuel. Then everybody had a bigger chance to survive. Fire and smoke are not to underestimate the danger. A little bit of smell or smoke can create a dangerous situation, which often is hidden somewhere, and shut up one system after the other or create a damage at the main structure. When you have fire in the cockpit there is no more rescue.
I was surprised to see the NatGeo "Seconds from Disaster" episode about this accident, in which the controller and the lead investigator both absolve the pilots of responsibility for delaying the landing. It seemed to me that other versions of this depiction -- notably the Nova episode about it from a few years ago -- insinuated fairly strongly that if the pilots had known how bad the situation was, they could have skipped the cabin prep and the fuel dump and landed safely, but both interviewees for the SfD episode assert fairly unequivocally that the plane did not remain flyable for long enough to accord a safe landing in any event. ("They were thirteen minutes away when they shut the fans off, and they had ten minutes of usable flying time. They would have crashed on land instead of over water, but either way they were going to crash.")
This being said, your larger point is spot-on and important for people on the ground to realize as well: Fire is a *chemical* reaction, and when it flashes over there is no negotiating with it.
Whether they dumped fuel or not, they would’ve crashed either way. Even if they didn’t dump fuel, the plane would’ve been no longer flyable 3 minutes from the airport
You are correct, absolutely -- but I've recently seen a very credible treatment of this accident, in which the timeline was reconstructed and it was determined that the fuel dump did not cause the crash: They didn't have enough time, regardless.
@@MoosiVibez The crew was too fixated to make an emergency landing at an airport. You should have tried to make an emergency landing at sea or on land. They could have done the fuel dumping on the way to the airport. From the authorities + the Arlines + the manufacturers, you will never find out the whole truth of an accident in order not to deter customers.
In a fire, every second counts what we saw in the South African accident. Nevertheless, the crew made the wrong decisions here.
@@CinemaDemocratica The crew was too fixated to make an emergency landing at an airport. You should have tried to make an emergency landing at sea or on land. They could have done the fuel dumping on the way to the airport. From the authorities + the Arlines + the manufacturers, you will never find out the whole truth of an accident in order not to deter customers.
In a fire, every second counts what we saw in the South African accident. Nevertheless, the crew made the wrong decisions here.
Where there is smoke, there is fire. RIP.
Imagine being in a literal inferno and having the Atc tell you he will be right back while you’re literally telling them you’re about to die…
"He said 230 times he's gonna dump some fuel"...that is an indicator for stress...
I was four planes behind him flying to Rome to pick up my father 23 years later it's clear in my mind
tonnes, not times.
@@boskee max takeoff weight is around 280tons, 230 tons of fuel seems a bit much doesn't it?
@@antonmothes3160 230 tonnes is the total weight of the aircraft at the time, not just the individual fuel.
I used to take this flight from NewYork to Zurich stopping first in Geneva and I lost one of my colleagues
Y’all in the comments are annoying and uneducated. Watch the mayday episode. Experts concluded that NO MATTER WHAT fuel dump or not, they wouldn’t have had time to land in Halifax. In fact by trying to dump fuel they may have saved lives on the ground as they could have crashed into residential areas. I’m a Halifax native and many experts around here who worked on the investigation says they probably would have crashed into fall River village had they have gone direct to Halifax which is a HEAVILY populated residential area. Sick of people on the internet giving opinions without doing research or having any kind of knowledge 🙄
Calm down
subtitle overlays would be good
I would hope that if my life should end in such a way, that I similarly go to my end with a level head and trying to debug the problem. Much respect for men who were sterner than the machines that failed them.
9:51 didn't realize you could hear the autopilot alarm on that recording
@@MrXimbicas look up md-11 autopilot disconnect alarm.
@@MrXimbicas just because you know it all doesn't give you the excuse to be a douchebag about it.
@@MrXimbicas you know what, no. At 10:01 you can clearly hear the precursor alarm before "AUTOPILOT" is said. Since this whole exchange, I've watched MD-11 cockpit videos. Every time the Autopilot alarm goes off there is an alarm before the lady's voice. I can hear the same type of alarm in the CVR here after F/O Loew's voice who's literally talking about how they have to fly the plane manually because their autopilot has failed.
I heard that.
Dear users - Please put yourselves in a situation of trying to land a plane at night with full tanks (230 tons, explosion risk), with your oxygen masks donned, and all electrical systems failing... pilots and crew were perfectly trained to handle such a situation and did whatever was in their reach to land in safety.
Wish they’d just turned directly to Halifax and done an overweight landing and not go back over the sea. The Swiss pilot was so professional, but his Swiss calmness may have underestimated the situation to ATC. You could hear the pilot was wearing his oxygen mask from fairly early on. RIP to everyone lost.
Wearing oxygen mask at the time of the initial Pan-Pan-Pan call was surely done per the checklist even with only the smell of smoke initially. At that moment nobody knew the serious state the A/C was in - before it was too late. One of the sad events aviation learned from afterwards.
I mean a little bit of smoke from AC isn’t dangerous and since they couldn’t smell anything at first they didn’t realize how bad it actually was. And even if they did everything right fuel dumb and land I don’t think they would’ve made it. And they had to do the checklist it was their procedure
I wonder if the crackling sound on the SWR crew’s end had to do with the fire beginning to sever the cables to the CVR. Unless it’s just me, it appears to start around 1:50 and progressively gets worse as the CVR tape goes on.
investitgations said, that the was a smell in the previous flights. noticed by the crew...
Its not a CVR, it's recording from the tower
actually the pilots managed to keep the plane in the air for six minutes even though all instruments had failed and it was dark in the cockpit. unfortunately, they would have needed another six minutes to make it to the landing strip.
My Father(He‘s from switzerland) told me that he was shocked when he heard that a Swiss machine crashed…
2 days later he Flewellyn with an md 11 back zo Zurich
The check list in case of smoke in the cockpit is so long that pilots didn't have enough time to land in emergency after the situation get worst.
r.i.p md 11 from 1985 to 1998 11:12
At 11:12 it sounded like they said "Rauf!" in german. Translation for "Rauf" is "Pull up"
@@wolfgameplays3291 or maybe rauch=smoke?
@@dimitriskotsks389 yesh it sounds more like Rauch tbh you can clearly hear the CH
@@wolfgameplays3291 I also heard that
MD 11 alarms are scary 💀😱
This was what the pilots were listening to at the time:
ua-cam.com/video/ILRgtN35WFw/v-deo.html
What timestamp?
I would just lose altitude any way possible (spoilers/EMER descent) and forget about fuel and an overweight landing. Essential to get on ground and NOW.
it seems clear that the captain did not fully grasp the gravity of the situation and what fire can do to aluminum. He seems very procedural in his priorities.
Thats bullshit if you even bothered to listen to the full transcrpit the captain knew how grave the situstion was.Why did he call a pan pan pan in the first place you idiot.In my eyes the Captain did his best and is a hero.Rip to all the victims of this awful tragedy😥
Situation i meant
Trolls like you @ Kambaya do my head in you trolls think you know it all.You need to get a life
Says the guy with only 2 subs. Get a life😡😡
Michael Dunne woah chill
This is terrifying
Sad incident
*engine noise*
Subtitles said "music"
In all likelyhood, the pilots could have pulled off this landing if they had made an emergency decent at full speed and landed without dumping fuel. I think people have great difficulty understanding just how bad an in flight fire is. you land physically as soon as possible.
Swissair’s checklists were amended after the crash to prioritise a landing in case of smoke of unknown origin. Before the amendment, the pilots were supposed to finish the checklists. The pilots did everything as they were instructed.
Sure, a fire is the most critical emergency - certainly more so than, say, "just an engine failure", which A/C and crew are generally able to handle.
But remember we are all "hindsight smart" here and initially it was just a consistently bad smell in the cockpit. Only now do we know that it became open smoke and fire real soon after that. No doubt - after that tragic event any suspected smoke on any A/C got prioritized even more.
They wouldn't have made it. This has been studied at nausem.
Die Untersuchungsbehörde NTSB ist aber auch zum Schluss gekommen, dass sie es nicht bis zum Flughafen geschafft hätten
Bloody BA butting in on the frequency during a clear emergency. Do you not think the Canadian controller might just have had the YHZ weather, Nigel?
in theory had the MD 11 had an option like the L 1011 with a speed brake lever to lose alt
faster especially at 30 miles out est 30k alt this may have saved flight.. throw in the late
Bob Hoover put the damn plane in a nose dive quickly pull back throttle to idle....
I swear Bob Hoover could have got this death trap on the ground...
Now i dont want to be rude but 1, There was, 2 it doesnt make you lose alt, it slows you down. 3, pilots are experienced and he was suffering from spatial disorientation due to smoke
Mr keyboard warrior, why don’t you actually learn some stuff about planes or even better be that pilot on that plane…
“Pan pan pan. We have smoke in the cockpit but want to fly an hour over the ocean to dump the fuel.”
“The Fire is almost in the cockpit. May we proceed with dumping the fuel?”
Bad idea to land an airplane that's extremely overweight and would never stop in time even on the longest runway without dumping fuel.
@@gregorybentley5707 As a Captain of a major airline in the US, if we have a cargo fire, we are landing immediately. Period.
@@josephdale69 And you should, they were unaware it was a cargo fire, they followed the qrh for "smoke in the cockpit unknown origin" and did everything they were trained to do and they did it in accordance to Swiss air policy.
Hindsight is 20/20 and it's a shame that they didn't immediately land, they truly believed they had time and the situation wasn't extensively critical.
They thought wrong and it cost everyone their lives, I agree it's always better to be safe and sorry the plane should have gotten on the ground sooner.
I can armchair pilot all I want but it would only be speculation, apparently the first officer tried taking steps to land quickly and the captain disregarded those steps.
They should dumped the Fuel during the descent.
@@josephdale69 as a captain you should know that this fire did not start in a place with smoke detectors. You would be an idiot for not landing quickly if ‘Main deck cargo’ fire alarm tripped.
Calm and collected even in the face of disaster. Pilots did nothing wrong. This was just a perfect storm. Swiss cheese model explains this. The fire was a flashover, so it would have been difficult to detect.
My moms friend was on that plane ;c RIP lucky she was not on the flight
at 11 minutes I heard something like "ahh!" could that be the time when Swissair 111 crashed?
No, it crashed six minutes after the last transmission heard, a garbled message, cannot be made out. After the last tx from the plane, it maintained course close to South, then went into a long turn to the left, came around 180 degrees and headed back almost along the same course out to sea they were on in the first place, then went down, offshore about 10 KM
it's too soon, probably when they lost the electrical systems
"Hellooo???"
He said „Rauch!“ (german for „smoke“), not „Aah“
@@mesariyo1882 Maybe he also said "Rauf!" But rauch also sounds similar. Rauf means "Up!" or "Pull up!"
I remember this happened late night in NYC and in the morning all the papers said there where survivors for some reason. There where no survivors.
11:13
Last voice : Swiss Air 111
Why didn't he choose to stay close to the airport for fuel dumping instead of going south??
he was to high
@@norbertwild6983 oh ty
No they were given a choice do you want to stay close to the airport or go 30 miles to the coast..
Did they really have to dump the fuel first? Wouldn’t they have been better off heading straight to Halifax? ‘The Book’ I guess? 🙄
The captain wanted to dump fuel in order for the aircraft to be lighter for landing. The heavier something is, the more energy and length of runway you need in order to stop it. He also wanted to reduce the risk of a major fire breaking out in flight or in case they crash on the runway. The problem was, that the fire already spread too quickly thanks to the aluminium foil and the cables from the aircraft's entertainment systems. I think at the time, it was a procedure that had to be done, but now it's advised: If there's smoke or fire on board, land immediately at the next possible airport. But to me, the pilots in this aircraft did everything they could in order to keep the passengers safe, but were overcome by the fire. To keep calm in a dangerous situation like this isn't possible for everyone. May their souls rest in peace.
The investigators already calculated that even in the best case scenario, Swissair 111 would have lost all controls 3 minutes from Halifax Airport.
So essentially you would have traded away a crash over the sea for a crash over land (likely adding on ground casualties as well.)
Its also pretty clear, that they didn‘t think its that problematic probably until right after the autopilot went out
From 10 minutes of smelling smoke to impact . that flight was doomed no matter what the pilots did ..very sad
Cuz wasn’t Halifax 13 mins away and plus u have to do a fuel dumb since the plane would just crash hitting the runway
on your channel?!
Never rooted for the pilots more than this crash. Rest in peace legends, ik they getting some lap dances in heaven rn
10:01 autopilot warning
That’s what I heard!
May they RIP
8:02 is haunting - this was an accidental transmission
When you have fire , have control landing on water.Very big chances of surviving. And when there is fire it helps to be surrounded by water.
It is very hard to do a controlled water landing in the night, it is possible, but you have to land softly, you have to evacuate very fast and plane dont have rescue boats, so youre in the water, miles away from the coast and maybe you have passengers who can't swim.
"have control landing on water. Very big chances of surviving. "
Dumbest thing I have ever heard. Successful commercial water landings at night is 0.
@@LaFonteCheVi not to mention the lack of visibility in the cockpit from the smoke and the blunt force impact shattering the aircraft
@@LaFonteCheVi Especially in the ocean-- it's one thing in a river or a lake, but the ocean, at night, with swells, etc., far off the coast with no immediate rescue in freezing waters? That part of Nova Scotia is very sparsely populated. The ocean is frigid.
@@LaFonteCheVi I almost spit my soda all over my phone reading their comment did u ever read such a spoken from ur ass comment
Where did you get a copy of this ? Or is this re enactment?
Not a re-enactment.
This is real audio!
Btw this was caused by tape called kapton
Rip
0:01 what is this noise?
@@Боинг747-8dunno
it means that the transmission was “stepped on” so another aircraft was speaking. whenever that happens the beeping noise happens.
If only did they had atc asked about the fuel the plane would have landed immediately
I don’t think they would’ve made it as the fire spread fast
unbelievable, typical German response, cleared to descend to 3000 but captain prefers to remain at 8000 "until the cabin is ready"! 4:35
They're swiss not german. BIG difference.
@@arrowintheknee9956 PROTO-nazis all the same, either one of them - and, NO!, this is NOT said in JEST - i.e., I saw Bavarians 'in action' in/near the public swimming pool(s), and, yes: under 7 years of age, *humans* ; after 7, Germans.
VERY DANGEROUS lot - if they FANCY turning predator.
As far as I know, the German Swiss - at least - are pretty (!!) much the same.
@@hhjj621 No, swiss germans are very different. I know many Swiss and Germans and the mentality is different.
So, as far as you know, you don't know much.
@@arrowintheknee9956 I certainly do NOT know *everything* .
I found that very bizarre!
Allec you do like planes so do I
Sara Lopsy well no shit he just makes videos about planes 🙄😒😑
dat boi 😂😂
where did the smoke originate?
There was a fire in the ceiling of the cockpit.
The cause of the fire was determined to be the result of bad wiring for the onboard entertainment system and also the fireproof insulation in the plane was actually quite flammable. After the incident, the fireproof insulation in all MD11s were replaced with a much better one
This Flight was Jfk to ZH?
JFK to Geneve
@@mawu8379 thx 👍
is this a repeat ?
paul dow no it is a ATC recording of the flight it s the real recording of the crew and ATC in 1998
I remember this accident back in 1998. It was remarkable to me as it killed an AIDS researcher.
Interesting.
Patricia DelMercado i
Notsinkflug Sturzflug landen Leben..
Sie hätten es wahrscheinlich geschafft, wenn sie sofort in den Notsinkflug übergegangen wären 🙏🏻🖤
@@StephenLuke oh🫶🏼 siehe da…das hätte ich jetzt übersehen … sorryyyy😇 sooo lieb!!! Danke ❤️ vl sollte ich bald mal meinen eigenen Kanal starten🤗
@@StephenLuke 🙏🏻❤️🙏🏻
@@StephenLuke Danke🙏🏻 sehr gut… und dir? Habe mittlerweile sehr viel recherchiert über Swissair 111🖤
@@StephenLuke sehr cool👏🏻 gratuliere zum ersten Jahr seines Studiums! Welcher Bereich?
Was the 'No Smoking' rule already integrated at the time of this accident?
This was not a cigarette problem.
Maurits Veen This was an entertainment system fire problem I believe.
Drew Layton no someone smoked in the lavatory and it didn't go out
Maurits Veen "Investigators identified evidence of arcing in wiring of the in-flight entertainment system"
@@DrewJPS I thought they said some batteries were in storage and it caught fire because they got too connected to each other
ruined 400 views turned it into 401
kathryntheboeing747 747 I've seen you at PandaFly
Swissair 😔
🥲
@@StephenLuke turkish speak please brother:( 🇹🇷🙋🏼♂️
@@kamuguvenligiteskilati10 Ne yazık ki 2001 yılında iflas etti ve gelecek yıl faaliyetlerini durdurdu. 😢💔
@@StephenLuke 😔😔 soryy:( swissair R.I.P.🙏🙏😔😔
If they hadn't delayed to dump fuel they might have made it.
A comment 5 months ago explains alot from a flight controller
dabs*
:(
The REPLY I made on this Video was REMOVED by someone.. Shame on ANYONE Covering up, the TRUTH.. sigh..
whats the point. it is so hard to understand clearly what is being said. there is no subtitle or anamation.
Mostly they ( Traffic controller and pilot) are exchanging course headings, (what exact direction they are flying, as if they were on a 360 degree flat plane, and altitude changes, given by Level 300, Level 290, which means 30000 feet, and 29000 feet. The smoke had dissipated, or was not getting any worse as far as they could see, they did not know it switched direction to the back of the aircraft, everything appeared stable for the moment, so the pilot opted to dump fuel first. To do so, as he was proceeding to the airport, he turned left to North, then around to SouthWest, to proceed off the coast to dump the fuel. If you can do so, it is a very wise action, whether he should have attempted to land heavy as it were, without dumping, is debatable. Anyway as they are heading out to dump the fuel, all hell breaks loose, as systems fail, wire burning through , they lose power, they lose an engine, they lose the fflight control computer, navigation displays, they are in the dark, one pilot out of his seat supposedly fighting the fire, which had burst through the ceiling overhead, fuses blowing, the breaker cabinet melting from heat.They had no visual reference, the weather was piss poor, and whoever was keeping the plane aloft, said to be the first officer, could not tell which way was what, up, down, you don't know in that environment, and your mind plays tricks on you. Of course, you have no instruments to tell you. Must have been hell.
What does this video mean??
It's in the title.
It is atc recording before the crash
@@jehannemarie1163 or a water landing where everyone survived
@@Rheabunao ist is impossible because they didn´t see anything: inside ist was dark und outside ist was night.
@@norbertwild6983 srry I was dumb back then LMAO
at the first hint of smoke in the cockpit and that plane needs to land immediately no if's and's or but's. too much hesitation by the pilot
They could've chose to land at Boston so that a little more fuel was burned
You can't be serious. The cockpit was on fire!
@@1998bikeguy when it was just smoke they should've sticked with boston
No they would have never made Boston ever
Thank goodness this plane made it down.
@@emerybonner7973 He’s losing his mind. And this really is a photo of the plane involved in the accident.
Yes, it made it down, just not where they intended.
@@emerybonner7973 Yes, this flight was registered as HB-IWF, the photo was taken at Zurich Airport on July 14, 1998.
@@StephenLuke i apologize. It was August 30th, 1996. I misread the six. If I could delete the other post I would.
@@relton66 It’s good.
Maybe some lives could have been saved in a water landing. Their only real option, but they didn't know that.
Could have been possible to land, if they did the fuel dumb on approach to Halifax and not do a re-route for it.
no, you don't understand, all control of the aircraft was cut and they could do nothing to control the aircraft so the plane crashed in the ocean.
@@GTFan8899 actually incorrect. Read the final report. Starting Page 150.
Trying landing a plane in the water with Smoke in the Cockpit which is nearly pitch black bc everything has failed except small stand by instruments which maybe you can’t even read if the smoke became thick enough.
Take this part of the comment with a grain of salt. I was flying my own simulator for fun one day and decided to fly only on stand by instruments with smoke in the cockpit in the middle of the night. I never realised it at the time but the way my plane crashed seemed very similar to what the final report said about the angel and pitch of the crash.