An Unbelievable Mistake (Paninternational Flight 112) - DISASTER BREAKDOWN

[@DisasterBreakdown]

I know this video is shorter than other, there are a couple of bigger videos in the works to come out over the next couple of weeks. If you did find this video interesting be sure to subscribe as there are new videos every Saturday! This video went out to my Patrons 48 hours before going out publicly on KZbin. Consider joining from £3 per month here: www.patreon.com/DisasterBreakdown

[@williammorrison6019]

It’s 12 minutes long you are good

[@ivebeenmemed]

Still a great video Please do more small, lesser known incidents. They're my favorite.

[@mikenutter7203]

What awesome videos. So many of these o had no idea about. So much information crammed in. Loving it. What is the song being used at 2mins20seconds. Love it. Will you be doing one on Flight 2605 in Mexico city? To this day, this one still sticks in my mind.

[@kamilkarwat2706]

You should do a video on Polish Air Force flight 101. It's both an aviation disaster as well as a conspiracy theory.

[@orveus6267]

Great, high quality videos Nice job

[@dddrones]

This accident is harrowing but the fact that the one pilot went on to get in another crash and die that way after surviving this.....god I couldn't imagine...

[@rtraub1]

Well, concerning info on the 1987 crash, I just tracked this DER SPIEGEL article published the following week - here it is, translated from the original German: DEATH IN THE CORNFIELD "Prime Minister Uwe Barschel had a narrow escape - the causes of the Cessna crash in Lübeck-Blankensee are mysterious." 07.06.1987, 13.00 Article from DER SPIEGEL, Issue 24/1987 A youngster among the residents saw the disaster coming: "My goodness, is he flying low!" A woman who didn't see it coming immediately thought "there's a war on," terrified by the glow of flames and explosions. "I thought," another professed, "the Russians were shooting". Outside their front doors, at 11:01 p.m. last Sunday [31 May 87], Schleswig-Holstein's state premier, Uwe Barschel, had fallen from the sky. 150 meters from the beginning of the runway of the GDR regional airport of Lübeck-Blankensee, a few meters to the left of the ideal approach line, rescuers came across the burning wreckage of the chartered twin-engine manager jet plane of the type Cessna Citation 501. The rescuers found two people dead: the pilot in charge, Michael Heise, and his co-pilot, Elisabeth Friske, the same pilot who had been in the co-pilot's seat during the bravura emergency crash landing of the "Paninternational" vacation jet on the Autobahn near Hamburg in 1971 (22 fatalities). Barschel's bodyguard Bernd Hansen was recovered seriously injured. The head of government himself, returning from meetings with Chancellor Kohl in Bonn, lay freezing in the wet grass and asked for a blanket. Barschel, who suffered a fractured sacrum and bruises in the crash, could say little about how the accident happened. He had been working on a speech concept when it occurred. The distraught prime minister had staggered out into the open through the gaping opening that opened up after the front part broke away. From eyewitness reports, the discovery of debris and recorded radio contacts with the Blankensee tower and the Hamburg air traffic controllers who had monitored the cruise flight, it was possible to quickly reconstruct the course of the accident - but not the cause. Far away in a dark green waving cornfield, 690 meters before the start of the runway, the gruesome evidence was found in the form of the bent, almost 16 meter high metal transmission mast of an "non-directional radio beacon". It serves as an approach aid to the Lübeck airfield, one of the many landing fields that do not have an "instrument landing system" and must therefore be approached according to visual flight rules. Barschel's aircraft should have been flying at least 60 meters above the ground at this point, but in fact it was already so low that its left wing, and possibly also its left landing gear, touched the mast. Then, traceable by quite a few aircraft parts found in the corn, a fatal final approach through the cornfield began. Two days after the crash Knud Loehnert, managing director of the charter company "Travel Air," which owned the ill-fated plane declared: "This is the outcome when an airplane flies lower than it should," But no expert has yet found an answer to the crucial question: Why did Michael Heise approach too low? Manfred Küppers, head of the accident investigation commission at the Federal Aviation Authority in Braunschweig, took over the case himself because of the high-ranking passenger. He drove to the accident site on the night of the accident. Two days later, the boss in the green overalls had the coked-up wreckage and the loose debris brought to the airport's G hangar. With the help of a thick parts-catalog and the airplane's maintenance documents, the accident investigators tried to trace the plane's misfortune in a kind of puzzle. After the airframe come the controls and engines, followed by all the external circumstances of the flight. The investigation report is not expected for months. At first glance, technical problems seem to have been ruled out as the cause of the accident; at any rate, the pilots made no mention of them on the radio. "So what," Küppers said, "am I as a pilot going to blurt out my problem right away and lose time trying to solve it?" In the end, was the undoing of the pilots due to overfamiliarity, both of them having been very well-acquainted with Lübeck's airfield conditions? And this at an airfield which - according to its accident record, probably unjustifiably - is regarded by some pilots as a "mean place" because of its approach conditions, determined by the proximity to the GDR. [i.e. the frontier with East Germany] Lübeck airport chief Harry Kleinschmidt defended his runway: "There are no bad places, rather bad pilots." During the approach of the Barschel plane, he said, the visual glide angle indicator, which signals the correct glide angle to the pilot far ahead with red, green and yellow lights, was on. According to Kleinschmidt's reconstruction the approaching pilots should have been able to see the airfield at a distance of seven kilometers, and that the visibility of the runway lights at the time of the accident was at least five kilometers, though that isn't exactly a lot for a jetplane approaching at 260 km/h. The pilots radioed "airport in sight" as their penultimate living deed, and "dim the runway lights" as their last request. However, some experts suspect that the weather near the airfield may have been worse than the pilots were told, especially the cloud base, which is crucial for visual approaches. Lübeck ATC had only given the approaching Cessna crew an estimate, in this case 150 meters - a common procedure since the airfield does not have a cloud-altitude meter. "That's a point," Küppers said, "that we still have to investigate." Three days after the crash, accident investigators had not yet been able to determine from the wreckage whether the Cessna's radar altimeter, which allows the crew to read their altitude with almost centimeter accuracy, had failed. Accident investigators are taking a step-by-step approach. "If we can rule out all conceivable technical causes," says commission head Küppers, "then the mystery will remain unsolved". "Then we'll never know why they flew too low - the only people who could have told are dead." (Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)}

[@rtraub1]

@jac fire emoji - for your info, RichT

[@aerohk]

She dead doing what she loved. A life worth living.

[@Redridge07]

@@aerohk Wrong .... dying from something you love is a horrible way to go. It is like a betrayal.

[@johnmc3862]

@@Redridge07 No it’s not, if it’s a natural death.

[@orangehoof]

Frankly, ad-libbing a crash landing on a highway and losing only 1/6th of the passengers on board is either extremely lucky or good flying, or both. This is similar to the commercial plane that crash landed in Iowa without any controls and wound up in a ball of flames. Although many were killed, a decent number survived and the pilots were praised for their ability to get the plane down and save half the passengers. A pity these pilots were not so lauded. It wasn't their fault the plane they piloted had engine trouble.

[@frozenuruguayball6436]

I believe the Iowa one your talking about is United 232

[@LemonLadyRecords]

Well, in 1971, if the headline mentioned the female pilot, if they didn't read or understood the technical details and who had command, everyone would have assumed it was the first female commercial pilot's fault. There was a huge uproar when women started flying professionally, esp in military... Well you can imagine, looking at the kind of rhetoric now, just substitute "women". How can you risk mothers? Their husbands won't be taken care of, neglect children, society is crumbling, what will they want to do next? Like, have jobs? Men will feel emasculated, and on and on. I remember when one of the first female Navy fighter pilots ran off the end of her ship (and killed I believe). It was certainly her fault and women weren't fit for it, etc. Nevermind that men crash, too. I believe they did blame her, officially, until a complete investigation was done, which exonerated her, if memory serves. But even today, on YT, I still see misogynistic comments when a female pilot is involved in a crash, 50yrs later.

[@frozenuruguayball6436]

@@TheOriginalCFA1979 people like her make mistakes you know like your parents

[@opalishmoth8591]

Combination of luck and skill. Skill allowed the pilots to make it to the highway. Luck was that the section was under construction and no one on the ground was killed.

[@beenaplumber8379]

@@LemonLadyRecords I think the crew should be lauded, and the fact that she was able to continue flying tells me that the consensus in the field was that she and her captain handled the emergency very well. For one thing, getting down before that overpass was no small feat! I remember the woman who crashed her fighter during an attempted carrier landing. My memory is imperfect, but I believe she was actually the first woman fighter pilot in the US Navy, and that she did indeed lose her life in that crash. It was a sad day. And sadly, when I worked in the airlines in the early 90s, there was an extraordinary amount of misogyny still prevalent among pilots of the major US carriers - United anyway. The fact was that women were indeed being hired with very low time in positions that were extremely competitive in order to try to balance out the gender discrimination that had been endemic for years. Women with only 300-500 hours experience were being hired as FO's flying the big iron, and male pilots resented it. I am very torn on that issue. At the time, the standard had been either 1,000 or 1,500 hours to be eligible for that position, I'm not sure, but women were being hired on with far less experience. Was that the best way, or the safest way to correct the legacy of decades of flagrant sexual discrimination? I don't have a better answer, but I know a lot of the male pilots were furious about it. I can understand some of that at a time when only one of 16 pilots with ATP certification were able to find work with the major carriers. But there was a flagrant misogynistic component to the complaints I heard. I worked for a United Express regional at the time, and we had a few women who were pilots... very few, and in our airline, and they were treated as the professionals they were, with full respect from their fellow pilots. To some of them it seemed they felt it necessary to become what they hated - the bullying, power-mad men who wanted to hold them back. Others were simply pilots who loved flying, nothing else. Obviously there was no difference in job performance by gender. (I suspect the women probably did better in our airline because they had to be better than average to get their jobs, even in the 1990s!) I left the airlines (as a dispatcher) in 1991, so I don't know the history since then, but I know the misogyny was still a major issue at the time.

[@hillaryg4yle]

I feel like there is literally no circumstance in which “this is supposed to contain water but instead contains jet fuel” is going to result in anything other than a disaster. Hats off to the quick thinking & great flying of the pilots, though; that seems a minimal loss of life for an accident of this type.

[@antifa_communist]

Or anything which "this is not supposed to contain jet fuel but it contains jet fuel". TWA 800 had a fuel tank which was supposed to be empty, the large amount of air and a little bit of fuel caused an explosion.

[@wbrenne]

Unbelievably though, one of the operators filling the water tanks with jet fuel noticed the distinctive smell and communicated his suspicion to the other, more senior operator, who just shrugged it off saying "everything here stinks of jet fuel." So they continued and disaster struck due to the couldn't-care-less attitude of a single man.

[@generalkenobi5533]

22 people died in this crash and that's a tragedy, but holy smoke, this could have been so, SO much worse. Those pilots were heroes. They handled that crisis extraordinarily well.

[@smoothmicra]

This accident has gone under the radar, so well done for bringing it up. I watch too many videos on aircraft crashes, first time I saw this account.

[@aircastles1013]

Same here with the “too many”!

[@JosephKulik2016]

Has this accident REALLY "gone under the radar" or is something being covered up ? I've also watch "too many" airline disaster videos, and what caught my attention is that the narrator here said that the accident report was unavailable. But WHY ??? In fact, this is the first airline disaster video that I've seen that didn't involve actual views of the accident investigation itself. Nor did it have any "talking heads" from the NTSB or some similar official body. The high production values of this video tells me that this producer is competent. I can only assume that his hands were tied because there is just much officially covered up about this accident. BTW, does anyone know who was on the passenger list here ? Could this have been an attempted assassination plot ? Was this airline just a CIA "front" operation ? Only a MORON would confuse water with kerosene for a few different reasons (smell, color, etc). SO, what really happened here ? This video makes me want to look deeper into this unlikely accident. ... [e-mail]

[@scootermom1791]

Same here! I actually find it fascinating to see how investigators go from picking up the pieces of an aircraft to figuring out what caused the aircraft to crash. And, it's nice to know that past errors have been corrected to ensure future flights won't suffer the same fate- at least with mechanical errors.

[@julosx]

There was so many crashes back then, that explains why this particular one went under the radar pretty quickly. This was not, by any means, the golden age of aviation.

[@Donatti]

Wow the pilots managed to save a surprising amount of people, it's crazy. I'm glad for the ones who lived and obviously RIP for the ones who didn't.

[@thecoolnerdcolress1738]

RIP to yo mama

[@henrypeter1473]

Yeah, they did a great job.

[@robynzelickson6164]

I'm confused as to why they put down on the Autobahn with overpasses and hydro lines and rush hour traffic. Why didn't they put down into one of the fields adjacent? I'm sure there's a good reason, I just don't get it.

[@suoidolciversispiegalaugel771]

​@@robynzelickson6164 Probably a mixture of time constraint (didn't have a lot of time to think about it) and the nature of the fields. First: Time constraint. The Autobahn looks like a better landing spot from the air. It is solid, relatively straight and long enough. Yes, there is the issue of the bridges etc. But they didn't have much choice. Second: Nature of the fields. From the air, they may look like flat land stretching out. But most of the fields have an uncultured zone between them. Which is full of trees, bushes etc. While there are few which are long stretches of land without said zones, it is not guaranteed. Most are small squares with their own fences of trees. Or small in relation to how much space an airplane needs to land (Not to mention the chance of there being houses). Neither is a good choice for putting down an airplane. Which is worse depends on exactly where and when you land, both which they didn't have much choice in.

[@T-mac69]

Aot survived cause back than everybody got the hell out , jumping out holes and widows stepping on the elderly and using them as human shields , my generation wouldn't b listening to " please remain in your seats until the captain gives the OK and walk in an orderly fashion " NOPE

[@shookya6976]

Kind of a miracle that only 22 people lost their lives, definitely could have ended much worse

[@sintes88]

I doubt the families of these 22 people thought it was a miracle but it's better than nothing.

[@grmpEqweer]

Yes, that was a terrible crash.

[@shookya6976]

@@sintes88 Did I ask them?

[@tieck4408]

Absolutely incredible when you consider they had just 300m altitude. "Sully" had 900m to work with and still no chance for a mistake.

[@kuro9410_ilust]

your "only" statement makes that the lives of 22 people were just statistics 22 people still lost their lives

[@univibe23]

No one on the ground was injured or killed?? If not that in itself is amazing!

[@pingu5746]

According to the german Wikipedia article the highway was under construction at the time.

[@bettagems9209]

@@alpiekaar Maybe the video creator doesn't speak/read German? The info that the highway was under construction came from German Wikipedia.

[@gowoni3086]

@@alpiekaar look at the crash pictures, you can see dirt where the plane was dragged to, signs that the road was still being built.

[@kokopelli0815]

@@pingu5746 In the german documentary (linked in the description) the pilot is interviewed and confirms that "one side" of the autobahn was packed while the other was empty. The autobahn would have been two lanes for each direction, separated by a median, possibly only two lanes were open at the time of the crash due to construction, though according to wikipedia that stretch of the A7 should have been finished the year before. A newspaper also quoted a kid telling his mom to "drive faster, there is a plane landing behind us".

[@BrettonFerguson]

Especially since they landed into oncoming traffic.

[@Elfe628]

It is sad that the First Officer passed away later, it seemed like it was not her time to go yet. RIP for the people who didnt make it. I'm always sad to see those things happen because of a mistake when it could be easily avoided. Keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to your videos every week :)

[@tankthearc9875]

female first officer two crashes. smh

[@gamma_dablam]

@@tankthearc9875 you aren't welcome here

[@tankthearc9875]

@@gamma_dablam simp

[@AlexxxGrrr]

I've lived in Hamburg for 25 years and the A7 is part my daily work route passing the crash site. I've never heard of this airplane crash until now. Great content, M8.

[@grapeshot]

Yeah it is like that Southern Airlines flight that tried to land the plane on a two-lane highway in Georgia. It didn't end so well.

[@DisasterBreakdown]

That will get its own video soon

[@grapeshot]

@@DisasterBreakdown 👍🏿

[@grmpEqweer]

Oh, you like it here too.🙂

[@grapeshot]

@@grmpEqweer oh yeah as you know I like a wide variety of subjects.

[@kenmore01]

Why in the world would ANYBODY put kerosene in a water container and not mark it in big bold print? What numbskulls!

[@stanislavkostarnov2157]

my thought..., if they had decided to use the water for the coffee the death-toll might have gone higher! they were very lucky

[@jenm9099]

It's insane, and reminds me of the ValuJet crash. Now THAT was some crazy negligence.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

@Ken Fullman Maybe they thought it was a jet fuel tank.

[@some-online-dude]

@Ken Fullman This was my first thought

[@kenmore01]

@Ken Fullman Still, that was very sweet of her.

[@elen5871]

im impressed at the digging you did for this one, im kinda similarly obsessed with plane incidents so usually when a video comes out im like "oh THIS one," but this is one I only kinda vaguely remember hearing about and you did a lot of digging. good good shit. 🥰

[@lucidityZ]

I was completely unaware of this incident. Thanks for teaching me something new today.

[@planenboom]

I'm gonna say it. You're the best aviation channel I know of. Continue your great work!

[@ratboii_j]

My dad was a witness of this crash and it has facinated me since he first told me about it! Amazing video!

[@Sashazur]

Did he say whether the highway was empty of vehicles because it was under construction, or was there rush hour traffic? The video says the latter but there are comments from several people saying they landed on an empty area that was under construction. That would seem to make sense since nobody on the ground was injured or killed.

[@Operngeist1]

I'm from Germany and I've never heard of this accident (granted, it was 2 decades before I was born but still). I knew about the possibility of an Autobahn being used/converted to a landing strip in WWII but I never knew something like that actually happened. Is it known if anyone on the ground got injured? From the simulation, it looked like they were landing on the breakdown lane. Great job on digging up these unknown cases!

[@liukang3545]

can you blame them tho? I mean who wants to be reminded of a tragic accident ?? its just depressing.

[@panaberaa]

It seems like noone on ground got hurt, as the side they landed on was under construction. I mean.. when is the german Autobahn NOT under construction?

[@moviemad56]

@@liukang3545 It's called "history" and it's important to learn from it.

[@davefuller7334]

The worst ever cover up was mt Erebus New Zealands worst ever plane crash but corrupt air New Zealand and their government tried cover it up the plane hit a mountain

[@mikeblatzheim2797]

To thus day many stretches of Autobahn are prepared to be converted to emergency air strips on case of war. Wherever you see a paved median under the centre guardrail, it's designed to be removed within a few minutes, and the autobahn will have a long straight section without any obstructions. I don't think they were intended to be used as airfields during WW2, but there were certainly many stretches prepared during the cold war. But even then, they need to be prepared to allow safe landings, and most of the autobahn network is definitely not suited for aircraft landings, even in emergencies.

[@holotori_senior_admin_teno]

Well, only 2 days after finding this channel I have now watched every single video. Some more than once. Very well done videos. 👏

[@NewfieMan98]

This channel gives me a whole new reason to be excited for Saturdays.

[@Escorpio40]

I wouldn't call that a mistake,but pure incompetence.

[@animula6908]

I’m sure people who work with you feel the same way about your mistakes. It is human nature to judge others that way.

[@ThoralfHooghoff]

I actually witnessed this accident. I was a child of 4 and I didn´t understand what was happening. I thought it was a thunderstorm because of the black "clouds" and the "thunder". It wasn´t a big deal for me and I don´t remember it today. But my parents of course were horrified. I have to think about it every time I drive past the scene of the accident on the Autobahn. The Autobahn is now wider, the overpass is new and the powerlines are still there.

[@sarahpiaggio2693]

This had some similarities with the hudson river landing, in that both engines were knocked out soon after takeoff so the pilots had to find somewhere to go quick. Unfortunately, a road meant for cars with all the bridges, trees along the side etc, isn't such a clear area as a river (although rivers have their own problems). I gather from other commenters that this side of the autobahn was still under construction which explains why there were no deaths on the ground. But saving anyone on the flight from that situation is amazing enough, especially when you consider this was 1971 so crew training wasn't a fraction as developed as it is now (eg CRM training not in existence). It would be interesting to hear more about this accident and the actions of the crew, because they must have been great pilots.

[@sarahdon3165]

Chloe this is why I enjoy your channel so much, you explain and show incidents and accidents that other channels just don’t . Plus am a scouser and love your accent ❤❤❤

[@thomasroth84]

To clarify, the part of the Autobahn was still under construction and not yet used by traffic. This is why there were no casualties on the ground. The second crash, that took the life of FO Friske is also a thing of circumstances. The passenger of the flight in question was politician Uwe Barschel, prime minister of the State of Schleswig-Holstein. He was the sole survivor of this crash on May 31st 1987. He would take his own life on October 11th 1987 after a political scandal he was involved in. There are still rumours and question marks surrounding his "suicide".

[@KapsBurnsvile]

wow i cant belive that the ground crew did that. but the crew are heros they did all they could. rip the pasengers who lost thier lives.

[@quasark7314]

What

[@loganhallahan164]

@@quasark7314 Did you watch the video? The ground crew filled 2 important canisters of water and methanol with kerosene instead.

[@tabby73]

@@loganhallahan164 I think they meant the flight crew are heroes.

[@particled1]

Just discovered this channel it's way better than TheFlightChannel or other channels keep it up!!

[@djaneczko4]

Vasaviation, Mystery Diggers and Blancolirio are great aviation channels as well.

[@ivebeenmemed]

@@djaneczko4 mini air crash investigation too

[@djaneczko4]

@@ivebeenmemed Agreed! I forgot about them.

[@djaneczko4]

@@ivebeenmemed Airspace too!

[@Blank-41]

If the flight channel had voiced narration it would be a lot better

[@treresaresaurus1598]

Hey, I'm really loving these vids, but I'd love to see more Disaster Averted episodes. I know that really depends on how many instances you can find, but I find them super interesting and way less heavy than the Disaster Breakdown episodes, but I might only be feeling that way because I've been binging your channel haha.

[@grahamj9101]

I came across this channel only very recently and I’m quite old enough remember the Paninternational crash, in which I took a professional interest as a young designer at Rolls-Royce at the time. I replied to some of you who commented first time around and tried to correct various misunderstandings as to what water injection actually does in a jet engine, in permitting an increase in thrust. I’ll now try to pull things together in this comment. To begin with, a mixture of up to 50:50 of water and methanol is often used. The methanol is added primarily as an antifreeze, but it does, of course, burn and must, therefore, tend to limit the thrust increase available, relative to the injection of water only. Water does not burn, of course - though I’ve seen a suggestion in print from a pilot that it does, which is nonsense. If water is used without the addition of methanol, the tanks may be heated, which I believe is the case with B-52s and KC-135As. As most people have understood correctly, it was used on earlier generations of jet engines, such as the J57 and TF33 in the B-52, and the Spey mk.511 in the BAC 1-11, to increase thrust for a short time on take-off. It is still used on the Harrier ‘jump jet’ to perform a short take-off at maximum weight and, on occasions, to perform in the hover at air shows. The advantage of an engine with water injection, relative to using a larger engine with more thrust is that, for a few hundred pounds of extra weight at the start of take-off, the weight will be reduced after only a couple of minutes. It was also an attractive option in the past, as it was a low-tech way of getting more thrust from an existing engine without a major redesign. Moving on to what is happening in the engine when water injection is used, I’ve seen suggestions that a major effect is to increase the mass flow of the engine. It does increase the mass flow of course, but the increase is relatively small, as compared to the air mass flow, and the effect is very secondary. There has also been a suggestion that the massive increase in the volume of the water, as it ’flashes off’ as steam, causes a huge increase in pressure. This is not the case: the combustion process in a jet engine is at constant pressure, unlike that in a piston engine. Any increase in pressure can only be produced by an increase in speed of the compressor, which is directly controlled by an increase in the amount of fuel injected. The primary effect of water injection is the cooling of the combustion products, as the water, with its high latent heat of vaporisation, almost instantly vaporises. This allows more fuel to be burnt and hence more thrust produced, whilst maintaining the turbine entry temperature within a safe maximum that is not detrimental to the life and reliability of the turbine. The cooling effect on the combustion products substantially offsets the increase in volume of the injected water changing to steam. After years in retirement, I’ve had to do some homework on relative fuel and water/methanol flow rates, starting with the Pegasus engine. This has a 50 Imperial gallon (60 US gallon) water/methanol tank, which gets used up in 90 sec during a so-called ‘short lift wet’ take off. That flow rate is about the same as the fuel flow rate. From information given on Wikipedia, it appears that the J57s in the B-52 had a similar water flow rate, relative to the engine fuel flow rate at take-off. All eight engines were supplied from a 360 US gallon tank, which was emptied in two minutes or so. Another source suggests that the tank was heated, and no methanol was added. I have not tracked down any details of the Spey mk.511 water/methanol injection flow rate relative to the fuel flow rate, but I have found a comment from a former pilot that, with water injection, the thrust increased from 10,000lb to 12,500lb. This compares with a quoted thrust increase from 11,800lb to 12,600lb for the J57. I suspect, therefore, that the water injection flow rate of the mk.511 could be similar to that of the Pegasus and the J57. This means that, potentially, if the water/methanol tank of flight 112, which contained kerosene, was discharged at the same rate as the main fuel flow, the total fuel flow might effectively be doubled. Obviously, this would potentially be catastrophic, should the engine be capable of running with its fuel flow doubled. However, the practical effect of suddenly injecting such a large increase in fuel flow would almost certainly be massive and repeated surging of the engine. The engine would be at risk of almost instant destruction, unless throttled back, and the take-off would have to be aborted. My suspicion, therefore, is that, in the case of flight 112, either the flow of kerosene from the water injection system was restricted, and/or the main fuel flow was restricted in some way by the engine control system. This could possibly have been done by an engine top temperature limit, reacting to an overtemperature signal from the exhaust gas thermocouples. The fact that the aircraft made its take-off run and got into the air before the turbine succumbed to overheating is obviously entirely consistent with overfuelling, but not to a sudden massive increase in the total fuel flow rate. Turbine material properties and hence blade life fall off very rapidly above a given temperature threshold. Consequently, a relatively modest excess in fuel flow would result in a rapid failure of the turbine blades, whilst permitting the engine to operate apparently normally, albeit with anomalies. I would hope that, somewhere in the archived material at R-R Derby and/or at the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU) in Germany, there is a report which details the condition of flight 112’s engines, with some indication of the progression of the engine failure and the probable fuel flow rates. I did try Paninternational flight 112 on the latter’s website, but got a ‘no hits’ response, with the oldest available final report dated 1999. PS For anyone interested in studying air accidents and learning the lessons they provide, I would recommend 'Air Disaster', Volumes 1 - 4, by Macarthur Job. Unfortunately, I think they are now out of print.

[@angelachouinard4581]

Thank you so much for this great comment. My late father spent his entire career at Pratt & Whitney, this was like listening to him answer one of my questions again. I have a very clear memory of being in the plant as a young girl and being awestruck by the jet engines. I suspect he wasn't supposed to bring me in there, we didn't talk to anyone, but it gave me a lifelong love of aviation.

[@medea27]

You sir are an absolute legend, that has just made my weekend 😎👍 Crashing on an autobahn because there's Jet-A in the coolant _plus_ a surprising plot twist _and_ I've never heard about this accident before?!! You really hit it out of the park with this one - I simply do not have enough thumbs to adequately 'like' this video 👍👍👍 Thank you!

[@angelachouinard4581]

You are rightthis is not a well-known crash. Thank you the effort to find something different and present it so well. Subscribed

[@mystomachisflat_butheLissilent]

I can't stop watching this videos now I'm *ADDICTED*

[@lezardvaleth2304]

Good work as always! The lack of details for this particular case got me to thinking - would you consider making a vid on why certain airline accidents with few to no casualties have much written about them, while others that are way more deadly have little documentation like this one?

[@amessman]

9:50 do you know why the Citation crashed? In 2007 my grandpa was the pilot of a Citation that crashed in Lake Michigan from chafed wires causing control surface issues (iirc). Great video, thank you!

[@nekomatafuyu]

Just looked it up now. The Citation was attempting to perform a visual landing under marginal weather conditions when it struck the NDB antenna 480m short of the runway. www.baaa-acro.com/crash/crash-cessna-501-citation-i-lubeck-3-killed

[@danielabackstrom]

@@nekomatafuyu that's so sad 😞

[@lindawakiyama1603]

@@nekomatafuyu Thank you for finding this information.

[@BillyAlabama]

I’m amazed that there were survivors at all, much less almost all of them.

[@atomixfang]

Every week you deliver a great episode, thank you so much!

[@DisasterBreakdown]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@juanes2292]

@@DisasterBreakdown Dude honestly this has become one of my favourite KZbin channels. You've got the formula down. You'll make it big

[@ryanwells9304]

I can’t imagine a single scenario where you need water but use kerosine and the affect is not the exact opposite of your intentions

[@kimnice]

In Finland few motorways have designated areas that can work as emergency runway: Long straights with extra wide road. They even have a traffic sign to warn drivers

[@spongebubatz]

Aren’t these intended to be used as some kind of military air base, for example during war? Something like these also existed in Germany

[@thetruecrimeshow6882]

Good video. I appreciated the music was turned down just a notch so I can hear you better this time.

[@monot00nz]

Been binge watching your stuff, so amped to see a new video 🤗

[@davidwhitehouse9665]

WOW! Just wow. Love your content, attention to details and compassion. Thank you.

[@Chibbylicious]

Just discovered your super awesome channel. I'm German and never heard of that incident before! Keep up the good work!

[@MRACTION64]

i literally love your videos please keep going 👍

[@qwato]

I like your videos. They are calm, well explained and a good narrative of information without any unnecessary emotion put in. Well done!

[@pianomanhere]

Fine video about a tragic mistake which, as your video title states, was truly unbelievable.

[@psychopotato87]

I live in Germany near Hamburg and have riden this stretch of the A7 Autobahn several times. Never knew something like this happend there. Thank you for telling this story

[@JesseJester9]

I’m not sure if anybody else has noticed…but though these videos I’ve learned that a lot of plane crashes strangely happen in September?! I love your content, keep it up!!! I’m addicted to your videos

[@taketimeout2share]

Good job. Very well spoken and well paced. So sad that lady pilot died in that crash all those years later and its appreciated you including it. There were so few lady pilots back then flying in the Airline Industry so she must have been a rather special person.

[@tdestroyer1882]

Wow what an amazing video I’m only like 45 seconds in yet in very impressed

[@DisasterBreakdown]

Glad you enjoyed the video :)

[@simonburton992]

I've been studying these videos for a few months now, and I've noticed that several of the accidents involved pizza boxes being loaded on board. Someone should investigate those pizza boxes!

[@Missconduct044]

Lol!!!

[@medea27]

Hmmmm, you may be on to something there.... they do appear strangely discoloured & the incidents have been occurring all over the world and different decades 🤔 Are you perhaps suggesting.... a pizza-related conspiracy of time-travelling baggage handlers?! Exposed!! LOL

[@JonSmith-cx7gr]

Ive noticed that pilots always have thousands of hours flying experience. It may be that most pilots are over experienced. Statistically, it would be safer to fly with a pilot who had 0 hours flying experience?

[@josephconnor2310]

Thank you for posting this. I like many people had never heard of this flight. It's amazing that the crash landing had such a high number of survivors, including the two pilots. Sad note about the first officer.

[@rossmurison]

Dude, your videos are incredible. Definitely the best air incidents channel that I've seen on this site. keep it up!

[@nwadoug]

Thank you for posting this! I'd not heard about this crash.

[@bigsherk42069]

Loved it! If you do ever do any more space flight disasters, I have several space sims, that I would be more than willing to give footage of. Soyuz 1, Apollo 13, any of them really!

[@hannahstone6648]

Very well put together

[@bob1howie]

Another fab video.

[@walkerpantera]

I love your opening music presentation.

[@ljre3397]

Perfect level of detail. Thanks.

[@RodgersA51]

Ok I've watched -ALL- your videos in the past few days and am ready for more!

[@LogieT2K]

Great video as always mate

[@danielabackstrom]

Yet another excellent video!! 😍 😍 😍

[@DisasterBreakdown]

Thank you so much 😀

[@rent.4376]

Listened to this while having some 🍃 and it made me so paranoid… subscribed!

[@sarahalbers5555]

Great coverage of this little known incident. What a nightmare.

[@Aranimda]

Thanks for making this one.

[@postersm7141]

Please keep up the good work. I watched most of the other channels that do this sort of thing but I really like the way you do it! Subscribed and liked!!

[@pascalcoole2725]

In Europe landing on motorways or other type of roads always are a bad option due to the many overpasses, lightpoles and trafic signes. Also keep in mind that a normal runway would be about 45 Meters width while a two lane road only would be about 6 Meters. At the time many engines had a water methanol injection option. Like the RR-Spey jet and the RR-Dart turboprop engines. as used on the BAC-111, Fokker F28 and the Fokker-F27 as wel as the HandleyPage Herald

[@namenamename390]

Side note on the A7: It might be the most important Autobahn in Germany. It runs continuously from Denmark to Austria, passing by many cities, so it carries a lot of traffic. The section in this video is used by many commuters living in the smaller, less expensive cities north of Hamburg. Weirdly enough, my father is one of those commuters, although he wasn't at the time of this accident.

[@peterborg3340]

It was Not in use at that time, I read somewhere.

[@sauravshekhar3665]

Please do a video on crash of Alliance Air Flight 7412, the plane crashed in a residential area 2kms from my house in the year 2000(City - Patna, India) , the crash has shaped my career in aerospace. There's hardly any content available on it. I beg you please consider my request. I love watching your videos and it's far better than TFC. I'll keep posting this untill you acknowledge. Lots of love...

[@sauravshekhar3665]

The crash is even followed by a decade long rumors of horror stories in the crash area. Data says it was pilot error but I believe it has to do something with the rudder(Parker Hanniffin) malfunction. I would love to see your analysis on this.

[@danielabackstrom]

I hope he does this one, it sounds interesting!

[@sauravshekhar3665]

@@danielabackstrom yeah :)

[@Mochrie99]

One crash I'm hoping you'll eventually cover is Northwest Flight 255 that crashed after takeoff from Detroit's Metro Airport in August, 1987. It was the first major plane crash I vividly recall happening and seeing in the news, especially for the fact that by some miracle, a single little girl was the lone survivor out of almost 150 on board the plane.

[@timothykissinger4883]

Knowing that a second crash was getting ready to happen, that had to be devastating to the first officer.RIP

[@adragol_cabaret]

I do indeed like incidents not really well known, you specialise in these things.

[@michaelstearnesstearnes1498]

I keep hoping that someone will create a video on the 1949 crash of an Air France Super Constellation which took the lives of violinist Ginette Neveu and Boxer Marcel Cerdan.

[@Ztbmrc1]

I had never heard of this airline. But I was born in 1966 and started my aviation hobby in the early 80's when Sir Richard. Branson opened a new Virgin feederline from Maastricht Airport EHBK here in the south east of the Netherlands to London Gatwick. The idea was that the passengers continued their journey to Newark with the Virgin B747. The first years these flights were operated with BAC1-11. Later they used the Vickers Viscount. And to promote this new route, Sir Richard Branson came to Maastricht with the B747, a very rare event at Maastricht Airport back then! Thanks for sharing this story.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

"Subsequent investigation showed that the aeroplane's main fuel tanks had also been filled with water, rather than jet fuel. The secondary fuel tanks were found to be filled with Diet Pepsi."

[@stevenmacdonald9619]

With the story being quietly buried through the years, and the mistake of putting aviation fuel into water tanks, which seems such a weird mistake, I wonder whether any form of possible sabotage was investigated? To me, it seems like an engineer removing the yolks and pedals from the cockpit, and then saying whoops, I didn't think you would need them. There is an unmistakably different smell between water and kerosene. This is one of the most bizarre incidents I have heard of, therefore so much more tragic. I wonder if there is a checklist these days, that makes sure water is water?!?! So much needless loss of life.

[@R2Bl3nd]

Wow, it's just like you said; an unbelievable mistake. I can't imagine what kinds of ridiculously lax safety procedures could lead to such a dangerous result. This was very well presented, and I appreciate the follow-up of the first officer.

[@yasirmohammedali]

Hello, thank you for the video

[@jeremyspurlock6636]

That is really depressing to hear about the first officer

[@inipin510]

Wow! I live near Hamburg. Never knew, this has happened here!!! Greetings from 🇩🇪👋🏼

[@robinsea]

My jaw dropped when you said that kerosene instead of water was in the coolant bit. I cannot think of a worse liquid to be there

[@Flies2FLL]

The BAC-1-11 was the first airplane I ever flew on, at two years old in 1968. Mohawk airways, Detroit to MaNewark~

[@dj_efk]

Nice video but there’s a whole piece of this puzzle missing - how did the kerosene come to be in the water containers and then, how did its presence on the aircraft get missed?

[@timketcham9139]

The purpose of water assisted take off is added thrust. Water turned to steam increases the pressure differential exponentially.

[@BudLight424]

Exactly...USAF uses this principal on takeoff's...USAF also adds nitrogen to fuel tanks to prevent fuel tank explosions which in theory could have saved TWA flight 800...

[@grahamj9101]

Sorry, but you're yet another contributor who misunderstands the principle of water injection. Take a look at my other comments. Yes, the water turns to steam, but it does not increase the pressure. There is no pressure increase during the combustion process of the Brayton Cycle. The latent heat of vaporisation results in a cooling effect on the hot combustion gases at take-off, so that more fuel can be burned and hence more thrust produced for the same maximum permissible turbine entry temperature.

[@timketcham9139]

When I worked on the old J57's they explained it the opposite. Extra fuel was added to overcome all of the water that was dumped in and keep it from putting it out. And to think that water turning to steam does not increase pressure and thrust well good luck that's a principle we still use in nuclear power plants all power plants

[@grahamj9101]

@@timketcham9139 I had a career lifetime in the design of gas turbine engines and I can tell you that the explanation you were given all those years ago was wrong-headed. But then, only a few years ago, my son was given a wrong-headed explanation of how a wing generates lift by a retired airline pilot, as part of his ground school instruction as a military pilot. Misunderstandings and misconceptions perpetuate: so let me straighten you out. The amount of water injected for a so-called 'wet' take-off is relatively small (no more than 50percent), as compared to the fuel flow at take-off. Yes, water injection results in an increase in thrust, because it allows an increase in the fuel flow relative to an equivalent 'dry' take-off rating. And yes, there is a small increase in pressure in the combustion process, but this is primarily as a result of the increase in fuel flow and the increase in speed of the engine, not because of a massive increase in the volume of a small amount of water flashing off into steam. The vaporisation of that relatively small amount of water (as compared to the air mass flow) cools the combustion products, allowing an increase in fuel flow and hence thrust, without a potentially dangerous increase in the turbine entry temperature. As an example, just consider flight 112 again for a moment. Instead of water, just a small additional amount of kerosene was added to the ten combustors of each of those Spey engines. That small additional amount of fuel was sufficient to increase the turbine entry temperature to a dangerous level, causing the HP turbine to 'burn out' in only a matter of minutes. A gas turbine engine operates on the Brayton cycle: there is no increase in pressure during the combustion process, for a constant fuel flow rate. Injecting a small extra amount of water into that process (as compared to the air mass flow) modifies the conditions slightly, but it cannot and does not produce a large increase in pressure. You are way off the mark if you are trying to draw any parallels with the Rankine cycle of the steam plant with which you have had experience. I've done you the courtesy of a fairly length explanation. Please do me the courtesy of accepting that, as a result of my years of experience, including the design of gas turbine combustion systems, I know what I'm talking about. PS I'm years into retirement but, out of interest, I've been checking the amount of water/methanol typically used for 'wet' take-offs, using Wikipedia and my memory of one R-R military engine, with which I was closely involved. Checking out information on KC-135A and B-52 engines, it appears that they used water/methanol injection for a couple of minutes at take-off, in the case of the latter, from a 360 gallon (US) tank, which supplied all eight engines. This compares with the 50 Imp gallon tank that was used with the engine to which I refer, which was emptied in 90 sec. Now that is, very approximately, the same as the engine fuel flow at T/O and, as best as I can estimate, the flow rates were similar for the B57. The water flow is, therefore, about half of the fuel flow, with the other half of the extra flow being methanol, which must also act as a fuel. Despite the addition of the water and methanol, plus the additional fuel flow, there is only a relatively small increase in thrust as compared to, say, the massive thrust increase produced by an afterburner, and the engine rotational speed increases, but not massively. The volumetric increase, as a result of the water turning into steam, is substantially offset by its cooling effect on the combustion products. If it were not, then the engine(s) would potentially be subject to a dangerous overspeed. In the case of flight 112, I suspect that the normal flow rate equivalent of water/methanol, but of kerosene, was not achieved, or the EGT thermocouples actually pulled back the main fuel flow. Otherwise the engines would have been massively overfuelled the instant water injection was selected and they would almost certainly have surged repeatedly. If this had happened, I would have hoped that the take-off would have been aborted.

[@thomasm1964]

I recognise those baggage handlers: they were special forces in the Air France hijacking video!

[@MovieMakingMan]

That airline had incompetent procedures. How can you not CLEARLY mark a plastic container WATER ONLY??? I didn’t see any markings on the plastic containers. But why would the ground crew put kerosine in those containers. What happened to those people. They caused the crash that killed all those people. But if the water containers were marked with simple markings the crash would not have happened. The airline is also at fault for horrible training and having a system that even has the possibility of putting kerosine in a water bottle. Too bad there is no additional information on this. But it’s been 51 years. But I’m sure local papers would have records of all the details.

[@djaneczko4]

Another solid video!

[@fsxaviator3866]

My fav channel now

[@simonf8902]

Great pilot skills !!

[@OleJanssen]

In fact, in a few places, there are emergency runways embedded into straight stretches of Autobahn with no overpasses. Sadly, none of those was near the accident site.

[@Sashazur]

That’s interesting! But isn’t any long straight section of highway without overpasses essentially already an emergency runway?

[@OleJanssen]

@@Sashazur Those ones are specially prepared so the middle barrier can be removed quickly and the traffic can be blocked by electronic signs.

[@thomasbell7033]

"With no engine power, the plane cannot keep climbing for much longer." No, not much at all.

[@abernabeh]

Can you do United airlines flight 093

[@rick9977015]

Such an awesome name, WHEREAREMYCHEETOS!

[@sintes88]

Great video but I wonder how landing on the autobanh didn't cause any casualties out of the cars driving there, especially if it was during rush hour.

[@JackWeller]

Yeah, I would love to know more details in that regard

[@pingu5746]

The highway was under construction at the time (according to german Wikipedia)

[@kellyhunte9668]

@ pingu5746. So there was no traffic on that highway?

[@colinreece3452]

I never knew about water tanks in the rear of a 1-11 before, also I wonder if the person/s who filled them instead water was ever questioned etc?

[@stnicholas54]

I'm not clear at all what he's saying in this video. Is he saying that canisters of water are (were) regularly poured into the fuel tanks of this aircraft ? Or they were poured into a separate water tank that kept the engines cool ?

[@BigBlueJake]

The water-methanol blend was put in separate tanks that fed that mixture into the engines. I'm guessing it went into the first compressor stages since the idea was to increase the air density, not to cool the engines. Cool damp air can generate more thrust going through a jet engine than, say, hot dry air given the same amount of fuel burn.

[@grahamj9101]

Whilst other contributors might not have been aware of this crash, I was certainly well aware of it at the time, probably because I was working at Rolls-Royce, where accident reports were circulated, with flight safety and lessons to be learned in mind. I am reminded of British Midland flight 92, which came down on a motorway in the Midlands of England in January 1989. There was a degree of pilot error in that case, but the root cause of the failure was inadequate testing under representative conditions of a new design of fan blade. I had to drive past the scene of the crash two weeks after the event, which was marked by the freshly cultivated earth of the embankment.

[@DevaPein]

found the channel, watched everything on it. cant wait to see more in the future.

[@peterguirguess853]

Good job Chloe

[@Kitkattycat]

fantastic video! could you tell me what the music is at the start? its so good!!!

[@DioTheGreatOne]

-The water canisters did not contain any water. -Well that doesn't sound so ba... -It was filled with kerosene. -*e x c u s e m e w h a t ?*