NO ONE Was Ready for THIS! What Really Happened To Birgenair Flight 301

[@AnotherPointOfView944]

I have seen this sort of thing numerous times in past aircraft crash reports. One thing that stands out to me as an engineer (non-pilot) is that instruments that show faulty readings NEVER fix themselves. They just don't. If there is a clear fault with one of the redundant systems, and acknowledged by the crew, then that system should NEVER be trusted again until it is serviced, regardless of whether it "springs into life" again. This fact should be drilled into all pilots.

[@niklas6576]

Agreed. In my opinion, humans operating complex machines like airplanes should first and foremost be experts at the technical systems and then learn their operating procedures. Pilot training these days seems to aim for that but back in those days, it seems like a different type of personality was mostly chosen for pilot roles

[@aaron6806]

It IS drilled into all of us. These guys just did absolutely everything incorrectly, and in direct opposition to that training. Regardless of the new procedures implemented after this crash, these guys were trained well enough for something so basic. Don't forget, they noticed on the ground and then just played make-believe plane pilot until they killed everyone. And there were THREE of them! Not one person just said "fly it straight and level". Brutal incompetence.

[@tarassu]

I agree. Once data is incorrect the sensor is done. The end. I believe computer should do "INOP" automatically. Like speed going up 100knots a seconds is not possible.

[@bluecoffee8414]

Not an engineer but sounds like a great point. Also, even if 'u nsafe to fly' is subjective, one would think that a pilot would have mentally decided at some point if a faulty airspeed indication would meet his 'unsafe to fly' criteria. Rather than just wing it and decide in 2 seconds when it actually happens.

[@aaron6806]

​@@bluecoffee8414in this case they did decide that they had sufficient airspeed, and sufficient indication of airspeed to rotate and fix it in the air. They then proceeded to not acknowledge the problem in any coherent way. The aircraft was safe to fly, that is the reason for triple redundancy of systems such as Indicated Airspeed. Now, they may have wanted to return and land to get the problem fixed, but it appears they were intending to complete a very long flight in this partially-compromised condition. The failure of three pilots to recognize the symptoms of a blocked pilot tube is inconceivable, and unforgivable. You would fail any written or flight test if you botched that diagnosis.

[@sprogg2001]

Hi Peter this story really resonates with me I was onboard a ATR42 that slammed on the brakes in an aborted takeoff approaching V1 during take off when the co-pilot read zero airspeed. After we taxied back to airport, engineers where called in and we watched the aircraft thunder up and down the runway in tests... Eventually engineer arrived and the fault turned out to be a mud wasp nest blocking the pitot tubes

[@phaethon3124]

there was a previous mentour video about mud wasps.australia i think

[@krzysztofmatuszek]

I have heard about at least two fatal accidents caused by those wasps. You had a strike of immense luck, buddy.

[@freeculture]

The ATR 42/72 had a really sad history with icing (after which most were moved to the tropics), but I'm glad this was caught in time for your flight.

[@phillipdrewmitchell4172]

Here in Alabama we call them Mud Dobbers, and the rule is, don't stand still outside for more than ten minutes; or all your orifices' will start getting plugged up by them.

[@Spacemongerr]

@@phillipdrewmitchell4172 I am SO glad I live near the arctic. Very few bugs, and none are big or dangerous at all

[@sergiord24]

I remember my mother telling me stories of this accident as it took cute a while to recover the bodies. I’m from Dominican Republic, they built a memorial site in the city with the names of all passengers and crews carved in a stone. Locally there is so much speculation of why the plane crashed, thank you for taking the time to cover and clarify this terrible accident. Greetings from DR. Love your content.

[@domesticterrorist483]

There were no bodies recovered, just bits of them.

[@NicolaW72]

It´s until today the crash with the highest number of German Victims. I saw the Memorial in Spanish and in German Language. It includes the information that the remainings from only 68 people on board were found, the remainings of the other 121 people on board were never recovered. It includes indeed also the names of all 189 people on board. Similar Memorials with all names of the Victims are existing in Schönefeld nearby Berlin in front of the Town Church and at the Main Cemetry of the city of Frankfurt (Main) - the two destinations of the Flight.

[@Google_Does_Evil_Now]

Forget memorials. We need executives in prison and major shareholders facing joint liability fines. Disgraceful that the autopilot used a pitot tube it knew didn't function at all during takeoff. These videos are teaching us how some air craft manufacturers cut corners. They had the data but it would require a slightly more complicated and slightly more costly computer to link the 3 air speed pitot tubes together and check them. They have the wing vanes, and 3 pitots, which should have made it clearer they were close to a stall, to level out, then 4% angle, 75% throttle. Literally just a few thousand dollars per entire aircraft. But the executives didn't want that. So they should face justice.

[@NicolaW72]

@@Google_Does_Evil_Now Who do you want to put in Prison? The 757 is one of the best and safest Aircrafts Boeing ever built in accordance with the standards of its time. The three Pilots? They were amongst the Fatalities. Cetin Birgen? The founder, owner and CEO of Birgenair sat thousands of kilometres away in Istanbul when this Accident happened. His Airline felt into bankruptcy only a month after this crash and this crash was a reason for it. It was reported that he committed suicide after this chain of horrible events. Franck Shrontz? Did the then outgoing CEO of Boeing know anything about Autopilots and what had he to do with this Tragedy? Btw. he just passed away in May of this year. Phil Condit, in 1996 the incoming CEO of Boeing? The same question here: What had he to do with this Tragedy? In fact none of the three relevant Top-Manager, neither Birgen nor Shrontz nor Condit was responsible for the not covered Pitot Tubes and none of them was responsible for the crucial Pilot Errors. Birgen was of course responsible that his Pilots didn´t got the Training which was available at that time, especially CRM-Training. But... - as mentioned. There´s still a video available in the net from a Press Conderence in which he participated at February 9th, 1996, shortly after the crash. You can see a totally shocked and broken man. Revenge - seeing somebody in jail - is not the goal of an accident investigation. The goal is to find the reason/s to be able to avoid a repeating.

[@gramateur5776]

Cute a while??

[@kennethmc2601]

I work on 737's for a military unit. Our aircraft spend more time on the ground than most. Sometimes a day or two, sometimes a month when there is major maintenance. Covers have not been SOP, because there has never been a problem. Back in July we started getting all kinds of unreliable airspeed problems, on all aircraft, seemingly one right after another. We'd always blow out the system with nitrogen and it would be fine. We never saw any direct evidence that it was caused by bugs, until one day I saw a wasp hanging out suspiciously close to one of the elevator feel diff probes. From that day forward, nobody goes home till probe covers are on. And dont forget about the elevator feel diff probes, there is a pole that you can use to install them from the aft galley doors! It's my opinion that the unseasonably wet spring we had contributed to a larger wasp population in the summer.

[@matt72991]

Being someone who flies on those planes frequently, I appreciate that y'all put the covers on everyday now.

[@skayt35]

I appreciate your intelligence and carefulness, and that it was valued and acted upon. That's something I don't take for granted tbh.

[@MeppyMan]

This is why it’s important to learn from the mistakes and incidents of others. Just because it’s never been a problem, doesn’t mean that one day it won’t be.

[@mandowarrior123]

Standard Operating Procedure for anyone not ITK.

[@Completeaerogeek]

I know what you mean. I work as an engineering safety investigator for an airline and we have a number of airports we operate into that have mud dauber wasps so covers go on on every turnaround.. We also have a red/white placard that goes on the pedestal every tine the covers are on and the covers are signed for in the TechLog. The Feel/Diff probes are not such an issue but the P/S ones definitely are.

[@j68715]

I used PIOSEE to convince my mom to visit Urgent Care. I emphasized key info she'd excluded (her panic that the problem was serious). She agreed the best option was to be diagnosed sooner rather than wait many days for her personal doctor to say, you're fine. Worked great! Cut right through her anxiety. I was impressed.

[@MentourPilot]

Excellent job!!

[@HarryFlashmanVC]

We use it every day in crisis management. It's essential to rationally break down crisis situations . You won't believe this one though: I got reported to HR because...wait for it.. I didn't acknowledge the importance of emotion in the PIOSEE training I was delivering... I then had an extraordinary meeting with an HR manager (new to our industry which oil and gas btw) who lectured me on emotional validation and then blah blah blah about patriarchy. I spoke to the HR director who blew a fuse and explained to both these smooth brains that they mufht be happier working in an industry where emotional responses to crisis situations DON'T result in catastrophic explosions and loss of life. Seriously, the ever increasing interference of woke progressive management into the workplace is now starting to undermine health and safety. A friend of mine is a highly decorated naval surgeon in the UK. When not at war and to keep their skills up to date military surgeons work in NHS hospitals. Anyway, he'd just returned from an Afghanistan deployment, was trying to save the life of a car accident casualty, required a junior student doctor who was assisting to pass him a clamp when an artery failed and the guy was bleeding out. The junior panicked, my friend spoke sharply to her to snap our of it , the clamp was handed by a nurse, the life was saved. ...wait for it... the junior doctor complained to HR that he'd bullied her. He was suspended and then the complaint was upheld. He resigned his commission in disgust. So the country loses a war hero surgeon who had saved countless military and civilian lives because he shouted at a colleague whose conduct was about to kill a patient... That is where we are folks.... the lunatics are running the asylum

[@MrNicoJac]

It is so sad to have reached the point as a Mentour Pilot fan where you just _know_ halfway through the video how it's gonna end 😢

[@mb2776]

from the thumbnail alone, few seconds in, my guess, frozen and blocked tubes.

[@MentourPilot]

I will have to step it up a bit..

[@BogdanSass]

You know you have been watching a lot of his videos when you hear "the airplane had been sitting on the ground for a while" and you exclaim "the pitots!!!" :)

[@Blex_040]

When he explained the pitot tubes and said we don't know if the covers were installed, I already knew that it was at least a hull loss and very likely no survivors because otherwise he would have said "the investigators couldn't find out because XYZ" or something like that... 😔

[@michaelyaziji]

@@MentourPilot no, it just shows (1) that we're learning things and (2) many accidents are driven by similar issues. Let's see if we can come up with the top causes: - Panic responses - Pilot fatigue - Unrecognised stalls - Lack of situational awareness - Poor CRM; too much hierarchy - Conflicting inputs from pilot and co-pilot - Any other top hits? What's amazing is how many are human errors! I think I trust computers more than people now.

[@Bandaid_Brigade]

My CFA asked why I’m so focused on the details as a new pilot student. I told him about your discord and videos, he is also apart of the community!

[@MentourPilot]

Excellent!! That’s what I want to hear 💕

[@cwired9407]

Hopefully he can become part of the community. Details! ;)

[@uwekonnigsstaddt524]

Thanks for the video

[@HoneyDoll894]

i always feel so strange with these videos, like why are the pilots not simply taking controls, de-escalating the situation and like idk. Like you have strange indications and warnings, and maybe take control and level the aircraft. then if things look okay start engaging systems or configuring stuff. Like i get that there's confusion and by then it's probably late, but before that i just don't get why they don't look at their attitude indicators and just try to fly normally. Like surely even if your airspeeds are weird, just flying mostly level should be okay and give you time to work on things regardless of which airspeed is correct

[@robertbackhaus8911]

@@HoneyDoll894 Mostly because we are learning from their experience. This accident started them towards having procedures for handling unreliable airspeed - 'Compare both airspeeds with the standby instrument and hand control to the pilot with working instruments' is now a standard procedure, and in hindsight it seems obvious. Perhaps it was obvious to other pilots who found themselves in this situation and just did it without training, but it only takes 2 pilots not to think of it and a plane goes down.

[@tomstravels520]

Remember this. Blocked pitot tubes do not cause crashes, the pilots reaction and response to the loss of airspeed is what causes the crash

[@keithalderson100]

Is there always a handbook response to computers either defaulting to less computer input into flight OR, what is no doubt worse; the computer USING incorrect data inputs; so driving the aircraft into instability?

[@MentourPilot]

Yes, that’s correct

[@notthatcreativewithnames]

We can look at another episode, Malaysia Airlines flight 134, for comparison.

[@Heckatomba]

​​@@keithalderson100 Petter touched on that around 43:00. But of course that was only implemented after this and other accidents

[@RAXITH_playz]

"unreliable airspeed checklist"

[@tmytyson]

I was a young copilot after Air France 447 when we got a bunch of simulator training on various ADC malfunctions. We had been briefed on the accident report the day before and even then, when we got a runaway airspeed in the sim, my first reaction was to rip the throttles back and pitch up to avoid the overspeed; the jumpseater had to call out the decreasing altimeter to snap me and the pilot out of it. It's wild how much situational awareness you lose when the instruments tell you you're about to exceed a structural limit.

[@ZlataChernis]

This comment feels underappreciated and needs more love! Ofc, fully trained experienced crew shouldn't be falling into biased erratic behaviors with same ease as a young copilot, espec when they'd had suspicious indications from the certain instrument beforehand. On that training of yours, did u know what's the matter would be, or it was out of the blue?

[@Kasiek2011]

I am not a pilot, but I have seen a few videos of incidents happened because of unreliable airspeed. Overspeed warning quickly followed up by flying too slow warning. I believe this was the source of pilots confuse - I mean he didn't react on stick shaker, because he kept believing he was overspeeding. He sticked to this initial thought and acted accordingly. In this state of his mind, the other two speed indicators were irrelevant and dismissed. Accidents like this constantly remind us that it can happen even to a very experienced person. Sad but true.

[@tmytyson]

@@ZlataChernis The instructor simply said it would be a sim testing Crew Resource Management. We got a minor electrical fault first as a distraction; then the pitot malfunction when the instructor felt we'd be most caught off-guard by it.

[@sorc3r3r]

As someone who has no connection to aviation but watching your videos regularly, I've watched this video with a sinking feeling in my stomach from first mention of falling speed and high pitch up. It was more and more painful with each next detail. I'm glad that this horrible accident was not in vain, and now pilots all over the world get taught to deal with this. Thank you for making these videos. They make aviation safer because they make this kind of error more known.

[@VegaTheLyra]

I want to thank the Mentour team for including subtitles! It's very convenient and helps me not misunderstand the technical terms!

[@enigmadrath1780]

After so many Mentour videos I've developed a knee jerk fight-or-flight reaction whenever I hear the words "PITOT tubes".

[@andrasbiro3007]

Seriously, I would insist on checking the pitot tubes personally, even as a passenger. It's probably the most vulnerable part of the whole system.

[@NicolaW72]

@@andrasbiro3007 Indeed. But the first ever accident that showed this was this specific crash - so the pilots of this crash sadly had no chance to know it.

[@nlwilson4892]

@@NicolaW72 They did know the pitot tubes were vulnerable to getting blocked and they did know that the pilot's airspeed indicator was faulty on the runway and the other two were reading the same as each other.

[@NicolaW72]

@@nlwilson4892 It is very questionable that they were aware about this vulnerability because their Crash was indeed only the "Wake-up-call" for the Industry in this direction, as Petter put it. Therefore the Pitot Tubes stayed uncovered in a tropical environment for 20 days while the aircraft was parked, what would be unthinkable today. And yes, the Pilots recognized that something was wrong with the Airspeed Indicator of the Captain during the take-off-roll. But after take-off they thought it was working again - and at this point the confusion started. They had no unreliable-airspeed-training and therefore didn´t understand what was going on. Sadly.

[@nlwilson4892]

@@NicolaW72 But at the point where the air-speed indicator wasn't working during take-off, they should have aborted. That isn't something they should have needed to think about, it should have been immediate.

[@aaron6806]

Three pilots, two functioning airpeed indicators, and nobody looked at the artificial horizon? Never noticed the nose-up attitude? This is infuriating, and terrifying.

[@xcalibertrekker6693]

Human error as usual. Terrifying indeed.

[@biggiouschinnus7489]

It's like Flight 401 all over again. They got distracted, simple as that. CRM training took a long time to filter into some airlines, particularly in countries like Turkey and South Korea, which for a long time were authoritarian regimes.

[@kpaasial]

Humans are often unreliable, illogical, full of biases. Under emergency situations such as this it's difficult for a team of people to pull their stuff together because human psyche is built in such a way that we go into survival mode, tunnel visioning on the one obvious apparent thing that seems to be the problem. This is why I'd welcome much more automation that has the authority to override whatever the pilots are doing if it's that what is needed to save the aircraft.

[@freeculture]

@@kpaasial this is why AI will get better and better at this. The last humans in a cockpit will be operators not pilots, until things get so good those operators will remain on the ground. UAVs are already flown that way... monitoring the planes would be easier. The only ones doing hands on flight will be General Aviation, liners are going to AI sooner or later.

[@kueflies]

@@freeculture UAVs don't have to worry about passengers if something goes wrong. Given the state of something like a modern Airbus pilots are practically operators by now anyways. But where different tech like automated trains tend to brake and stop on any faults aircraft are way more complicated. Even cars that have to rely on more than rails and specific signaling systems are struggling at this.

[@TIMtheTiny]

I'd like to point out a minor error. With a blocked pitot, the IAS does not increase as a result of the air inside the pitot expanding as was stated in the video. As the pitot is blocked the pressure inside it remains constant. The airspeed increases in climb because the static pressure measured by the static ports is decreasing (unchanged total pressure minus a decreasing static pressure will result in an increasing dynamic pressure). Great video, keep up the good work.

[@MentourPilot]

Thank you

[@19godfather93]

I got the concept he was saying, that the ambient 1 bar air was seeing a bigger and bigger differential as the plane climbed, i.e. functioning as an altimeter. But that "expanding air" description jumped at me too as the wrong reasoning. Good to see a fellow pedant (perhaps a Physicist such as myself) in the comments lol.

[@crhvideo]

Another great video, thanks! Being German I remember the news about the disaster well. On a different note, the comment on essentially hovering brought back a memory. On the last flight before my checkride the chief pilot of my flight school made me demonstrate minimum controllable airspeed into a ~45 knot headwind, which made our ground speed net zero. The chief pilot pointed out of the window: "Look, we are hovering!" Interesting feeling indeed.

[@NicolaW72]

I remember it very well, too. It was a big news back then and so far as I know it´s still the crash with most German victims.

[@thanhvunam-w9i]

Each of mentour pilot videos is getting better and better everytime.

[@MentourPilot]

We try to deliver as good quality as we possibly can, glad you think it’s showing

[@johnjoseph7199]

@@MentourPilot

[@mikezappulla4092]

Yet, I miss the days when he would talk about the more technical aspects of flight and discuss topics like turbulence for nervous fliers.

[@Bearwithme560]

@@mikezappulla4092 Nervous fliers who have a grasp of physics perhaps, but too much technical jargon will lose viewers to whom it becomes tedious - and I'm married to a physicist.This had plenty of technical details, btw - turbulence doesn't always factor in.

[@cccherry05]

Nothing traumatizes me more than the accidents where "pitot probe tubes" and "jackscrew assemblies" have to be explained by Petter int he first half.

[@Melanie16040]

As soon as it was said the 57 had been on the ground for an extended period, I said aloud "Oh no...". I knew this would be blocked PITOT tubes.

[@ronniewoodinsteadofmt2615]

@@Melanie16040 For the love of GOD yes . Those damn things . Let me tell you this . Prior to getting involved with watching all these things for the past 6 years late at night or can’t sleep . I was about as sharp as a bowling ball about jets . Now ?? Look out 😂. Couple of years ago while walking through Pitt international airport, saw two pilots and got the standard polite head nod . I said hey fellas is checking on those pitot tubes being done all the time ?? Only one answered oh yeah and I had asked with humor . I’m sure as we separated who knows what nice name they used for me . But your right they always show up for trouble . The worse story was a baggage handler who could not read English regarding the locking mechanism on a (yep you guessed it ??) DC10 . He did not properly double lock or twist some type lock clamp or something along those lines . That mix up is what brought down that DC 10 for Turkish Airline when the door came off and lost all decompression and made the plane absolutely non fly able and no hydraulics . I’m sure I got this wrong and some foul ball will shred me for it . Thats kool . Anyway bottom line Laziness and over familiarity causes bad things ever day in this world . Later Joey in western Pennsylvania next to Y town -OH

[@Melanie16040]

@@ronniewoodinsteadofmt2615 Nothing wrong I see. That was the Paris crash. All because the FAA decided it might cost too much money if they issued an airworthiness directive and just let Douglass "Take care of it".

[@ronniewoodinsteadofmt2615]

@@Melanie16040 Awh thanks . Must say again your writing is prolific. Take care . Joey

[@adul00]

That is basically, what "Triple modular redundancy" is - having three systems, so in case one goes wrong, you can tell not only that one of them is faulty (as with "Dual modular redundancy", with two duplicated systems), but also, _which_ one is wrong, and therefore - what is the correct value. Safety-critical computer systems often follow this principles - in some cases, if CPU can be restarted, two cores working in lockstep (like some Arm designs) are sufficient, but for things like space missions, triple redundancy was also used. In the past sailors, needing to keep time for navigation, used to say to take either one chronometer (clock) or three, never two.

[@richardwyse7817]

well put, that what I was trying to say.

[@richardwyse7817]

all three airspeeds systems should have had a CADC and comparator.

[@adrianjuszczak2752]

Hi Petter. Let me share a short story. Last week I was flying from WAW -> MAD, when after around one hour of flight Captain made a PA saying that there is an issue with one of the Aircraft system, that we should not worry, because Aircraft has backups and that after talking with company's operational center we will divert back to WAW. Some people started to getting upset, ordering drinks, which in case of emergency would not help. We safely landed and after that, we noticed that a window on Captain's side was broken, not completely, but there was a huge crack on it. There was a new plane with new crew ready, for us and after 3h of delay we landed in Madrid. I'm writing this short story, because I want to thank you for everything you are doing on this channel. It's because of your recording, entire Crew (including Captain) being calm, I knew, that there is nothing wrong going on with airplain. I was afraid of flying, but after I discovered your channel, I know it's the safest way of transportation. You really change how regular people see industry for better! Thank you one more time!

[@chamamemestre]

There is nothing wrong for being afraid for putting your life on a complete stranger's hands that might be incompetent, or had a bad day with the wife cheating on him, etc. They are only human after all, and that's why planes fall. Not meaning to be an as$, but fear is normal. Lack of it and being too trustworthy is why accidents happen.

[@johnstreet797]

thanks Petter

[@Snakyy1]

@@chamamemestredo you get afraid every time you take a bus?

[@MundaneThingsBackwards]

@@chamamemestre Panicking doesn't help. You should be aware, sure, but it's out of your hands for all but the most niche circumstances (such as the pilot flying the wrong way into the Amazon jungle, say... lol)

[@JGCR59]

My aunt lost a lot of friends in this crash, so thank you for covering it

[@justintime802]

40:09 is the scariest thing to see on a primary flight display. As Kelsey always says: Keep the blue side up!

[@aaron6806]

Wasn't scary for these clowns. They never looked at it.

[@freeculture]

Indeed, and don't let it become whole blue either, because then you will get a whole brown...

[@pieterdebie4162]

Yeah, I also immediatly thought of that

[@martinda7446]

Kelsey is wonderful.

[@Sableagle]

As a former de Havilland Chipmunk pilot, brown side up is how I roll!

[@ilya_baraev_sail_racing]

0:38 I was a nervous flyer, but now i happily wait to hear PTU barking on A320, then think about V1 and V2 during a take off, do not freak out when pilots refuse a plane after boarding is complete, enjoy light turbulence, and cannot wait for my first go-around experience. Thank you, Peter!!!

[@jacobjardinski9491]

Go-arounds are fun!! my first ever go around was like my fourth flight I’ve ever had. They were coming into Chicago and refused it like a couple hundred feet off the runway. It blew me away how hard that thing pushed me back in my seat.

[@sdaniels7114]

Wow, a 25k experience level pilot didn't feel a stall coming. That's hard to process.

[@samsonsoturian6013]

MENA pilots

[@tlangdon12]

I find it incredible that with that much experience in the cockpit, and the stick shaker going, that one of the other pilots didn't demand the Captain perform a stall recovery.

[@aaron6806]

It really is incomprehensible.

[@biggiouschinnus7489]

I wonder if his age may have been a significant problem. He was 62 years old, and probably started out his career flying DC-3s - Turkey didn't transition to jet airliners until well into the 70s. He was probably an excellent pilot in the 1950s, but there comes a point where experience becomes obsolete. Think of how some officers failed to grasp changes in warfare during the 20th century. Sometimes, old men get left behind.

[@FrostJaeger]

@@samsonsoturian6013 correct!

[@backglasses]

In my flying career I have lost my airspeed indicator 3 times. I handled the situation by referring back to memory of what my power settings were for various airspeeds. Climb, cruise, desents and landing, and all worked out well.

[@mandowarrior123]

Its inconceivable to me these guys learned to fly with real qualifications to not naturally be able to do this. These guys are meant to have learned on the real old stuff.

[@Matt.Thompson.1976]

Thank You Mentour. Your entire team does a superb job with your videos, and they are honestly a highlight of my week. I know you must miss flying, but I support your decision to spend more time at home, and with the channels. I really love your videos because I play flight sims, and mostly fly airliners.....your videos use flight sims, and I love it! As always, have an absolutely fantastic day. Bye, bye for now.

[@spacejani]

At the level of experience the captain had, he should have noticed by just the pitch angle that something was off. If you have unreliable airspeed, just fly a pitch and power setting that you know works!

[@MentourPilot]

Yes, and that’s how we teach this to pilots today.. but back then it was not as much emphasised, sadly

[@biggiouschinnus7489]

@@MentourPilot I wonder how much training he'd actually received on modern aircraft, too.

[@bradleyhalfacre7992]

We see this happen so often , the instrument is clearly showing too much pitch and still they do not drop the nose , they pull up. It really is hard to understand.

[@NicolaW72]

@@MentourPilot This Pilots sadly had no chance to know what the Aviation Industry learned only by studying their Crash. With their training (or lack of it) and their knowledge they had probably no chance to deal succesfully with this situation.

[@すどにむ]

@@bradleyhalfacre7992 yeah must be wrong training with respect to how to "avoid stalls"

[@corpuscollossus]

Easy to see the fault in retrospect, but that they mentioned that the third instrument was correct then ignored that insight, seems an unacceptable level of incompetence.

[@NicolaW72]

Probably more a sign of the level of total confusion about what was going on. At some point such a confusion ends deadly in an aircraft, as it was the case here.

[@mandowarrior123]

​@@NicolaW72confusion in this circumstance can only be described by incompetence. Nose gone space shuttle, i wonder why the stick is shaking? If only we had sherlock holmes for this mystery. Thank goodness our afterburners we don't have are on full. Dung beetles have a better grasp of aerodynamics. This is the most basic understanding.

[@NicolaW72]

@@mandowarrior123 Lack of Knowledge and Lack of Abilities caused by Lack of proper Training, to put it right. When looking what their Training included - or better to say not included: CRM, Stall Recovery in high Altitude, unreliable Airspeed - it is pretty clear and understandable that they were overwhelmed by the situation they found themselves suddenly in. And that means that the Airline and the Regulator were as much responsible for what happened here than these unlucky three pilots.

[@eamonnmorris5331]

" ... but in this case [the specific pre-flight test procedure] had not been done". Chilling words!

[@Malloc1961]

Невероятно полезные и непредвзятые разборы! Как бывший сотрудник НИИ разработчика авионики, смотрю и слушаю с огромным удовольствием - технические нюансы и аналитика по работе приборов на высоте! Помноженная на детальный разбор реакции и поведения пилотов в кабине, картина в обзорах не просто развлечение - это почти готовый материал для внедрения новых механизмов и технологий безопасности для новой авиатехники! Респект и благодарности, мистер пилот!

[@fatladonbike]

The way you do these, going into amazing technical awareness with a really interesting narrative is absolutely brilliant. This is THE way this stuff should be taught. Many of these videos should be required "reading" on pilot courses. I know all this through flying in my youth and an interest in physics, I've not put this all together, especially with the human factors element.

[@fatladonbike]

The one thing I don't get and I know it's easy to play armchair pilot and also I have some small understanding of Human Factors, is why there is so much aversion to just enter straight and level flight and take a minute. I suppose in reality that actually happens a lot more often, but we don't hear about it as the situation is much less serious.

[@trishowsky]

Loving the more frequent uploads. Thank you Mentour Pilot team

[@MentourPilot]

More to come!

[@davidtobs7658]

Petter, I have been a fan of your videos for over a year now. I have watched almost every video on your channel and I have been greatly challenged by them. Your thoroughness and diligence in your videos has inspired me to do same in my career. Since I started learning from your videos, I have received a lot of great feedback about how people have been impressed about my work. And sometimes in my mind i just say “mentor pilot taught me how to be diligent and thorough in my work”. Just wanted to let you know that your videos on aviation are also causing an impact in the career paths of some of us who aren’t working in the aviation industry. We are learning and applying the principles you teach us into what we do. Please keep up the good work and keep mentoring us.

[@schimmilol8580]

I can second that! I started to implement set procedures to critical tasks, checklists for common occurrences so nothing gets left behind, a more birds eye approach about reviewing missteps and much more. For my personal life the Aviate Navigate Communicate mantra had a big impact aswell, to handle stressful situations

[@Kasiek2011]

Agree to both of you! You can list me as well. Basically I am the person who likes to be prepared for whatever the future might bring, I am the one expecting unexpected, and - usually - I am already prepared to face it. One of my co-workers takes my actions as an exagerration, she sais I act like a mother to my other co-workers, but it's not that. I learn from previous experiences and I am always trying to forsee the places that can cause problems, and how to prevent them. Often that means a bit more work for me, a bit more of preparation, but when events unfold, I can let them happen peacefully, because I am prepared. Usually. If I am not prepared, well, I try to Aviate Navigate and Communicate. ;-) You are doing a big fu**ing great work, Petter, that influences our lives in so many ways. Thank you and your Crew.

[@kevincolemantpi]

A while ago I was driving home after a weekend with family on a long highway in a new car. I had the adaptive cruise control and lane following systems on. Driving into the sunset, I nodded off for a moment. When I woke up, my first thought was to look around to see if I was in a stable configuration which I was. Mentour Pilot’s training helped me avoid any quick actions which could have caused a worse problem.

[@lhw.iAviation]

You know, my grandfather always said, "We don't know what to do in life, but we just know what not to do." Every accident seems to be a "what not to do" lesson

[@MentourPilot]

This is unfortunately very true. Aviation becomes safer by learning from the mistakes of the past.

[@halesworth01]

Petter, I love your video's, I'm 54 years old (So too old to be a Airbus pilot, I fly the FBW A320 in MSFS) but they actually help me in MSFS and your technical explanations! I have deliberately caused a failure (and most of the time) recovered from it! Thank you, keep up your great work! Regards Clive from the UK

[@DavidWest2]

I’m not even a pilot and I swear some of these accidents are infuriating. The pilots were doing everything to crash a perfectly flyable plane.

[@ahgflyguy]

Seriously. I only fly hang gliders, but the thought of stalling and keeping an aircraft stalled and not noticing is just unfathomable. They’ve got stick shakers! They TELL YOU you’re stalling. Just point the nose down. Also, aircraft handle differently at different airspeeds. I’ve had to fly my hang glider with my eyes closed before due to getting an irritant in my eyes. The feel of the glider told me about my airspeed and where the thermal was that I was hanging out in. I know how a slow glider handles. I just can’t imagine what kind of training you need to have to fall back to panicking instead of just lowering the nose.

[@cgtrout]

​@@ahgflyguy The one thing that is incorrect here is stating that pilots can rely on their senses in a scenario like this. In the absence of visual cues pilots become "spatially disoriented" which has been a big factor in a lot of aviation crashes. There only hope was to realize that the captains side was showing bad data and/or understanding technically how the stickshaker system worked on their plane and reacting appropriately to it. The sad thing here is that they got to the point where they didn't trust any data they were getting to the extent they didn't even trust the stick shaker any more.

[@ahgflyguy]

@@cgtrout Sure. But when you don’t trust ANYTHING, the most important thing to do is not stall the aircraft. And that means not keeping it nose-high. It’s essentially what the new procedure is: give it plenty of thrust and a slight nose-up attitude. That’s there to encourage the most important thing: not stalling when you don’t know what to trust. Because you can trust the sound of the engines, and you can (almost always) trust the attitude indicators, and they’re easy to cross-check.

[@cgtrout]

@@ahgflyguy Absolutely agree, but the key point here was that the pilots didn't even understand they were in a stall.

[@andyp2000]

@@ahgflyguy And you don't fly a hangglider in a cloud. Because it's life-threatening for the hanggliders. I flew a paraglider in a cloud several times and I can tell you your senses completely betray you. I was slowly turning left, yet my senses told be I am in a steep right turn with high G-s, while wondering why the forces in the breaks are so low when I'm doing the high G turn.

[@aubreyleggett4477]

I was taught all about pitot tube blockages in flight school way back in 1978.Yet several serious accidents have happened in the last 30 years from pitot issues. Had the industry forgotten all about the blocked pitot problems since my day?

[@Sonnell]

Also, I commented already many times, why not have a separate GPS unit as backup? The pilot can compare their readings with those and figure out if something wrong, and what is wrong. Also, even a phone has magnetometer, can measure direction and angles compared to ground. So just a phone sized stand alone device could provide tons of backup safety info when all fails.

[@aaron6806]

​@@Sonnellthey had groundspeed indications, they just never considered using them to help work the problem. The problem they had was simple, basic, and understood by 100% of pilots. They were just very, very incompetent.

[@aaron6806]

Apparently these three just forgot every single lesson they'd ever learned. The jumpseat pilot said "ADI" a couple times but never said "push the nose down"? This was one of the most brutal displays of incompetence I've ever seen. And I used to read NTSB reports for entertainment

[@tlangdon12]

@@aaron6806 That's the fundamental issue here. They forgot their most basic training, and yet as professional pilots have been trained to troubleshoot problems. They failed as professional pilots and failed as basic pilots.

[@Cadolyst]

@@SonnellGood idea, but GPS would only be half of the solution! GPS would show groundspeed; as Mentour explained, airspeed can be vastly different than ground speed, and on a windy day or at higher altitudes, this can be the difference between stalling, overspeeding, or flying safely. Maybe if GPS data taking the plane's groundspeed (its speed relative to the ground) is combined with wind speeds relative to the ground, airspeed could be estimated, but I don't know how much continuous data we have for high-altitude winds, since most weather stations that I'm familiar with are on the ground or on buoys. There's likely ways for satellites to scan the atmosphere, but I couldn't find enough on that in a quick search. Could be worth looking into! Wind varies constantly, and planes need precise data from all different layers of atmosphere, so to make this a reality you'd need a lot of satellites with very, very high resolution for that. It's possible, but the infrastructure needed to use this on a wider scale might not be there yet. If all these issues are solved, that could be a good solution to this issue! The pure amount of redundancy in planes and the simplistic system in use at the moment is more than enough for most flights, and it's rare for two indicators to malfunction at once, which is probably why no one's trying such a resource-intensive solution. Still, it's fun to think about, and I wonder if it could help the industry if implemented.

[@WendyDarling1974]

The quick-thinking necessary for the pilot’s job (if they want to keep passengers and crew alive) is among the many reasons why it’s up near the top of my list of jobs I could never ever do.

[@samsonsoturian6013]

You're not allowed to think in Turkey

[@JanBruunAndersen]

You avoid quick-thinking by creating time to think. In this case, all the thinking required was: 1. Something is weird with this airspeed instrument. 2. Let us set engine power to 75 % and level off. Then they could have spent the next 30 minutes discussing what the actual problem was and how to proceed.

[@Slimmeyy]

This crew had 5 entire minutes (from take-off roll to a bit before the crash) to just say "this air speed indicator is clearly broken, we'll disable it and use the other two". They came close to making that decision multiple times, but seemed to just... forget about it immediately whenever it was brought up. There were so many actions they could've taken that would've prevented a crash, and they could've easily completed the entire flight plan if any of them had been taken.

[@Cars-k8e]

@@samsonsoturian6013nowadays you are for sure 😅

[@peterdurand3098]

Way back when flying 737s in the 1970s we were taught in the event of disagreeing airspeeds to do the following: nose to 5 degree and thrust to 80%. This is not something new and has been published for a long time.

[@grant6173]

Thanks! I was wondering about that. It did seem like one of the first things people would need to figure out should be how much thrust, etc. it would take to keep any particular plane flying happily. Excluding ice, etc. So, just doing that should work for quite a while.

[@FutureSystem738]

Absolutely. This was drummed into us when I learnt to fly- 1970s. It was again drummed into into on every subsequent type course- and incl 737, 767, and 747, plus of course licence renewals from time to time. This crash was what I’d call a disaster which could and should have been prevented right from the initial takeoff cross check of speed. The aeroplane should never have become airborne, yet even then it was ENTIRELY preventable.

[@mandowarrior123]

I'm not convinced these guys' qualifications were legitimate.

[@xisotopex]

@@grant6173 long enough to return to the airport. landing would be tricky but certainly doable.

[@SanderdenBoer-vf8uv]

Thanks

[@JasonWardStudios]

I'm glad that you've picked up the mantle of doing these in depth aircraft investigation videos. You and your team to a wonderful job of gathering the facts, combining them with good visuals presentations, and presenting them in a way that keeps the viewers interested. Thank you to you and the team for spending so much of your time and resources to create these videos. I, for one, truly appreciate all of your time and effort.

[@sylviaelse5086]

The air in the pitot tube was not expanding, because its volume was constrained by the blockage. What was happening was that the pressure in the static tube was reducing, and the combined device responds to the difference in pressure.

[@Vincent_Sullivan]

Came looking for this comment. This is a much more accurate explanation of what was actually happening than the explanation that Petter gave.

[@DavidWest2]

I thought the explanation was fishy.

[@treztraylor]

Agreed

[@dew9103]

So it would be the same thing as a water bottle bulging out when the plane climbs

[@alanhelton]

Once when flying over the Tora Bora mountains, my aircraft while flying at 75 kn had a ground speed of -25 kn… Quite odd to fly backwards in a fixed wing plane…

[@MentourPilot]

Yep, but that’s physics for you!

[@alanhelton]

At the time I was remote operating from FOB Fenty (Jalalabad). The aircraft was a RQ7B.

[@piotrstrzyzowski3336]

It's actually possible when you fly an Antonov An-2! These things are capable of flying backwards.

[@aeureus]

Bros aircraft is trolling and it's scary af 💀💀💀

[@skayt35]

The drone insisted on double checking the area you had just flown over. The problem was that you didn't take into account the built-in AI prototype which had correctly identified the area as highly suspicious 😜

[@Jason-ye4vy]

It would be great if you included a real-time recreation at the end of your analysis so we can see truly how fast a lot of these situations develop.

[@dominiquemichaud7945]

Agree!

[@kalashnikovdevil]

That's a cool idea actually.

[@Jswizzle217]

The miracle on the Hudson video has the real time ATC comms with a sim flight. Really drove home how fast things went down

[@Tcb0835]

That's a great idea 💡

[@meewa9076]

You are righttt!!!

[@kabirsingh5502]

I am not a pilot and now not even a science student but I find it fascinating to learn about these small details regarding how planes work how much of a workload pilots have and how quick they need to react if any problem start to occur and I find your way of telling about these incidents really good cause their are many other place who also cover these accidents but they are spicing it up and dramatizing it instead of providing a proper informative video. I watch your video cause when I was a kid I wanted to become a pilot how plane flies and controlled in the sky fascinated me.

[@catouniverse]

not me loudly cursing all throughout this video. the physics and technical explanations are SO fascinating to me, but I gotta admit this one made me cry

[@k6ul]

It’s seems like a lot of these accidents involve ignoring the stick shaker while a bunch of other stuff is going on in the cockpit. To me, a stick shaker is the last gasp of the aircraft trying to tell you what to do. Why doesn’t this cause a total reset in behavior to ignore all else, rely on basic aviation training, get the nose down and stabilize the aircraft?

[@jjfkm]

That is what usually happens. But nobody will make s documentary about a flight that had a technical hicup that was handled like the by the pilots like it should and nothing else happened.

[@k6ul]

@@jjfkm I was kinda wondering about how many of these situations are routinely (if I can use that word) handled where the outcome is not so extreme.

[@Schaddn]

​@@k6ulas far as I understand from these videos, not often. I mean, you saw it here, you have to fly wrong for quite some time before it becomes unrecoverable.

[@cherriberri8373]

​@@k6ul they don't happen often but they absolutely do happen. Often in larger outbursts of multiple planes from one airport or maintence location as wasps have a boom in population. It's not common practice to put covers on in a LOT of places, even when the plane is spending a week or more on the ground. That being said, the sheer volume of normal flights vastly overwhelm it. A pilot is more likely to experience a go around condition, and those are actually not so common for a lot of pilots.

[@cherriberri8373]

It should. It really should, and for most it does. But these were under trained pilots with little to no CRM, it's not a surprise they fell apart under pressure and panicked.

[@dignaestrella4375]

Thank you for covering this accident! I am from the Dominican Republic, I was born a month after this accident, but my family told me the story about this accident. My parents used to live by Cabarete, very close to where this accident happened

[@manekdubash5022]

You just know that when the stick shaker goes, the pilots will pull back even further. Even I, with my 40 year old, out of date PPL, know how diametrically wrong this is. So tragic.

[@liberalcannibal2346]

Perfect timing. Just sat down to have my tea* 😁 *That’s my evening meal for those of you not from the north-west of England lol.

[@DavidSmith-vr1nb]

You can still have a nice cup of tea with your tea.

[@petecurran3995]

Excellent as always, Petter. Echoes of AF447 Very interesting how when confusion sets in, many instincts, trained or otherwise are overridden.

[@Rasta8889]

39:47 "Pull up"? I may just be a humble student glider pilot but "when in doubt pitch down" seem to be words to live by.

[@Cre8tvMG]

Words to stay alive by.

[@FelixRukanda]

they were falling down with nose down at that time so what he (the 3rd pilot in the jump seat) said was correct

[@johnwolf2349]

@@FelixRukanda They were still stalled. It can be paradoxical, but in that case you may well need to first pitch down further to get the wings working again, *then* pitch up The plane gave that command only because GPWS doesn't actually know or care if you're in a stall or not - basically every crash ends with GPWS shouting "Pull Up!", no matter what is causing it.

[@Rasta8889]

​@@FelixRukanda They weren't falling, they were in a spin. Spin recovery includes full counterrudder, ailerons neutral, wait for the spinning to stop, PITCH DOWN (to unload the wings) and then (and only then!) pull out of the ensuing dive. The fact that the nose is already pointing downwards considerably doesn't matter. It's quite unintuitive to push forward when all you're seeing is already the ground beneath you but you can actually feel the stall ending with a slight jolt of the aircraft as the air flow reattaches to the wing.

[@Hans-gb4mv]

It's often crazy when you realize how fast these things go from no issue to fatal incident. This flight only lasted 5 minutes while it takes 40 minutes to explain the entire thing.

[@Pentium100MHz]

On the other hand, 5 minutes is a lot of time. Usually when driving a car, the time between something going wrong and a crash is a few seconds. Stuff on airplanes usually goes wrong slower (not helicopters though).

[@NicolaW72]

Indeed.

[@torstenscholz6243]

Bears a scarily strong resemblance to Air France 447, where the flight also got completely out of hand within a few minutes.

[@NicolaW72]

@@torstenscholz6243 Indeed. The difference is: The Pilots of Air France 447 had 13 years later (!) the chance to learn from Birgenair Flight 301. The Pilots of Birgenair 301 had with their knowledge - or better: lack of it - no chance.

[@Koffiato]

To be absolutely fair those 5 minutes were filled to the brim with mistakes. They had three air speed indicators and two of them checked out. Instead of using that, they decided that all of them were wrong. Overspeed indication was obviously impossible during a climb, first they thought it was a mistake; then decided to lower thrust as well as pitching up. During the forced climb, due to the lowering air speed, the plane tried to warn pilots with stick shaker, indicating it's stalling. The procedure for stall in every flying vehicle ever created is pitch down & thrust up. You need to trade attitude with airspeed to get back on a flyable state. At each and every decision pilots did the worst thing they possibly could in this instance. Maybe okay for new pilots but having 16k+ hours of flight experience and still thinking a large passanger airplane can somehow do 350+ while climbing at +15°???

[@Evergreen64]

I've always been amazed at how some pilots just don't have an understanding of how the aircraft they are flying works. In the '80's I was working for a company that had a lot of former military working there. I was talking to a former A4 Skyhawk pilot that thought reverse thrust was created by the vanes inside the engine reversing like a prop does! Even I, as a kid (21), knew that this wasn't possible.

[@Freeeez3]

technically possible, if you'd reverse the angle of the turbine blades you'd also reverse the direction of thrust on an already spooled up engine obviously that's not how reverse thrust is implemented, for various reasons... but i wouldn't be surprised if that hadn't been looked at as a concept by engine manufacturers at some point

[@bencappello5324]

Peter, I’ve been watching your videos for a long time. Your research has always been impeccable but man the quality of the production these days is incredible. The change happened slowly but I want to congratulate you and your team!

[@TheShowblox]

It is still amazing to me how us humans created these incredibly complex machines and everything from, starting out, just some rocks and dirt.

[@BlairAir]

Petter - thanks for a basic, but absolutely perfect primer on Air Speed vs Ground speed. Ive had people say "logic dictates they MUST be the SAME. I respond with: "Yes, FLAWED LOGIC, thats missing one of the 3 things that determine air speed in that "logic" - here you supply the 3 parameters, and explain the relationship of each to Air speed v. Ground Speed. Well DONE!

[@Pentium100MHz]

Yeah, there's a video of a someone landing his small fixed-wing airplane with zero ground speed.

[@MattMcIrvin]

The whole back of an E6B Flight Computer is a device for doing vector sums on the fly so that you can calculate around the difference between the two!

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

It's logical that a plane in the air won't behave different to a swimmer or boat in various currents... which means your speed relative to your direct surrounding Medium must obviously not translate to the speed your body has in relations to the fixed ground. Some people...

[@artforz]

@@Pentium100MHz It's also how Red Bull landed a stunt plane on the roof helipad of the Burj Al Arab...

[@volkansanbay]

I was waiting for you to make a video about this flight. It was a shocking accident in my country at the time . Thank you.

[@lewismartinez5130]

I had so many plans for what to do this morning. Then I see a Mentour Pilot video in my feed.

[@wesss9353]

Right! I have a snowblower I should be getting ready for winter

[@dolgesdeleongarcia4567]

Thanks for covering this. Here in the Dominican Republic this accident still fresh in the memory of a lot of people. Greetings from DR 🇩🇴🇩🇴🇩🇴

[@NicolaW72]

It was also the crash with most German citizens until today.

[@priceyA320]

The parallels between this accident and AF447 are stark. However in the Air France case the Airbus side sticks and non moving throttle levers were blamed and MANY commentators claimed if it had been Boeing with a yoke and moving throttles then this wouldn’t have happened. Yet here it clearly did. Thank you Petter for covering this accident. It shows that loss of situational awareness followed by confusion and panic is a deadly combination in any aircraft regardless of type and configuration.

[@tomstravels520]

Have you read the final report. Because if you had you’d have seen there is no mention the sidestick design contributed to the accident. It mentions the limitations but does not list it as a contributor

[@priceyA320]

I did read Bill Palmers book on the 447 accident and he didn’t blame the Aircraft as such. I was more talking about online commentators, e.g. the comments section of this channel’s coverage of that accident. I commented on Petter’s latest video on Boeing Vs Airbus and the first reply was Boeings are safer because they have a yoke.

[@aerotube7291]

Beautifully crafted storytelly!

[@bladi-senpai9398]

i waited so much for this video, being from dominican republic myself, this is one of the worst accident to my country (also AA 587)

[@kaiperdaens7670]

It's interesting how most planes that crash seem to have rather inexperienced crews or very experienced crews.

[@H3LLGHA5T]

it's also the same for workplace accidents, when people get complacent, everything becomes 10 times more dangerous.

[@Wileylikethehawk]

Happens a lot with motorcycle accidents too. Beginners and people with complacency seem to be the ones that make the mistakes.

[@xisotopex]

its also surprising how many crashes involve airplanes that are actually able to fly.... on the flip side, aircraft with actual issues in regards to their ability to stay airborne and controllable sometimes seem to have better results...

[@RedShadowKick]

Great video as always. I was recently on a flight that aborted during the lower speed portion of the takeoff roll. The Captain told us they had received an error with one of their instruments. It resulted in a 6 hour additional delay and a replacement aircraft/new crew (some irate passengers on board who did not understand it was for our benefit!), but I am extra thankful after watching this video that the pilots on my flight did the right thing and aborted as soon as they noticed whatever error they were dealing with. This video reminded me of that day and how many different training scenarios pilots learn from to make aviation safer for everyone.

[@Andrew-iv5dq]

43:31 YES! I was thinking about this during the whole video. In my C-172 days, we specifically trained for this. Put the airplane in a known state: wings level, neutral pitch, and 2200 rpms. That should result in level flight at cruise speed. Then start figuring out what to trust and what not to.

[@JTIZZO]

It's incredibly minor, but at 34:10 the wind vane moves the wrong direction. It should move clockwise, not counterclockwise.

[@omgski]

Retard

[@johnnunn8688]

Waaaay back in the early 90s, I was working at 10 Sqn Royal Air Force on the VC10. (The most beautiful pax jet ever?) There was a problem but can’t remember what happened but the aircraft landed safely. The static port bungs were made of a hard-ish plastic and over the years had become brittle. Before the flight when the bungs were removed, a piece of plastic snapped off and blocked the port. So, always check bungs and blanks.

[@andrelanger4553]

Thank you. Was waiting for this video from you as I was affected back then. Great job! Thanks Petter.

[@MentourPilot]

I hope it will explain it well for you! Thanks for watching

[@elcarmi]

Your version of this story looks very different from the Mayday episode. I really prefer your version over theirs as they make it seem like the pilots don't even know how to fly a plane and that makes people less confident in flying plus you add context they would never include. Keep going, this series is amazing content!

[@elcarmi]

Please review flights Avianca 52 and American 965. Those would be really really good episodes even if we know what is going to happen by the end

[@blahblahsuperanon]

Well the pilots didn't really know what they were doing tbh. They had the first officer's reliable airspeed right there and still managed to stall their plane without even attempting to fix the stall warning in the first place

[@outdatedTV]

My friend and classmate died in this, along with her parents. She was only 16. They have a monument in Frankfurt and in Puerto Plata. I remember watching the "Mayday Air Disaster" episode and how it additionally focused on some captain-copilot cultural dependency caused by huge difference in seniority. Not sure. 170+ people are dead, many much prematurely, procedures were enhanced after this and Birkenair went bankrupt instantly. My heart is with all the families and friends of the victims.

[@caput_in_astris]

Oh I remember this story so well. I was wondering when you would cover it. It is today - many thanks!

[@Kostis05cy]

I was just now studying instrumentation for my ATPL exams. I get on KZbin and i get a study lesson about the ASI by Peter!!

[@MentourPilot]

I hope it will be helpful! Best of luck with your exams.

[@Kostis05cy]

@@MentourPilot thank you!

[@wokewokerman5280]

These air speed emergencies have always puzzled me in why the captain then does not respond within his knowledge of the aircraft and his airmanship. When his airspeed is erratic and cannot be trusted, then level off in thick air, say 120, set thrust at a level you know is safe to maintain a reasonable airspeed, then work the problem for a bit and call in - then without resolution, turn back. This, air france, other incidents seem like a good airman could easily escape out of.

[@joshlampe3458]

Sounds like an unreliable air speed checklist 🤣

[@mattym8]

This sounds like a reasonable QRH checklist. I haven’t read the 757 book but your steps seem very reasonable.

[@aaron6806]

Yeah, fly the perfectly airworthy plane! With 1800hrs on type you better have some basic understanding of power settings for different airspeeds, like you would have during initial training for your licence.

[@Jswizzle217]

@@justvid366they were unreliable for like one minute. It’s just that FO Bonin panicked to such a degree that he managed to put the plane into such an insane attitude that the unclogged pitots were sensing a pressure less than the static ports so the computer assumed the pitots were still broken.

[@tegg.7958]

No one else can cover these aircraft disasters like Mentour Pilot. I always understand as he leads us through the facts of air travel emergencies with sensibility, clear descriptions of aircraft failures, and utmost respect for the injured and the deceased. Mentour Pilot shows us the scary fiascos and the air travel safety lessons learned, that makes air travel safer for everyone, who relies on it.

[@eugeneosegovic6260]

Birgenair flight 301, where the pilots did not properly identify and respond to a partial-panel scenario resulting from the failure of an airspeed indicator, reminds me of Air France flight 447, in 2009. Both flights had a clogged pitot tube, but the Air France aircraft's pitot tubes were clogged by ice while flying through a thunderstorm. With both flights, the crew took the aircraft into a full aerodynamic stall and rode the stall all the way down to an impact with the ocean.

[@enigmawyoming5201]

We have those damn mud daubers all around our homestead. They can clog up ANYTHING! Even our dryer vent. Their mud houses aren’t that big, but somehow they figured out that the heat and humidity coming out of our dryer is a great location for a condominium complex, resulting in numerous golf ball sized hardened mud globs inside our 4” vent tube.

[@NicolaW72]

During millions of years they´ve figured out that putting their eggs together with feed into a small tube and closing it with mud is a great way of brood care. They haven´t figured out that a Pitot Tube on an Aircraft isn´t the right place to do so.

[@andykeith1]

Yeah we have lots of them here. I opened a window the other day and found 5 old mud houses embedded in the window frame. From what I've seen, a pitot tube would be their ideal nest site!

[@NicolaW72]

@@andykeith1 Indeed.

[@laszloilles5663]

Aviation is the most inspiring industry because it learns from every disaster and adapts. Kudos for your team to show it us with every episode.

[@xcalibertrekker6693]

Yea I think many people will disagree with you especially lately.

[@laszloilles5663]

@@xcalibertrekker6693 do you mean boeing?

[@GottaLoveGoats]

I love watching your videos! I very much appreciate the level of detail you go into and I learn a lot by watching them. I called the stall risk very early on!! :)

[@TheMaroon47]

Great video highlighting the issue and educating on the various failures. Listening to this was eerily similar to the case I watched as a child with AeroPeru 603 on the old Air Crash Investigation series. Found out these 2 incidents were only 8 months apart from each other.

[@crystalsoulslayer]

It's a testament to how well you explain things that I, a non-pilot, can now reliably predict what's about to happen based on the setup. These fatal accidents are such sad stories, but I think investigating and sharing that story, to help prevent anything similar from happening again, is the best possible way to respect the memory of those who were lost. I often wonder how much safer it would be to drive if we all took that responsibility as seriously as pilots take flying.

[@goodbyemr.anderson5065]

Suddenly my speedometer loses all function while entering a freeway, I immediately slam on the brakes, and swerve left and right.

[@AdrianColley]

Don't forget to engage cruise control as soon as you start drifting.

[@goodbyemr.anderson5065]

@@AdrianColley haha yes, another classic maneuver.

[@crisp.3481]

Pitching up close to 20 degrees node-up, in Climb mode, in an almost fully loaded aircraft and thinking that it is reasonable to overshoot the maximum designed airspeed, that is what I call an extremely experienced Captain! I am sick of thinking that this kind of pilot still flies today.

[@Kasiek2011]

Actually that particular one doesn't...

[@Arvind-fs5zh]

Another Brilliant, balanced assessment and review, Peter. Tack !

[@soundofprice]

This channel is soo awesome, not a pilot but learning quite a lot and not just aviation related but also helps in software development

[@davidp2888]

It's no surprise why your channel has grown so large. Quality content.

[@MentourPilot]

Thank you! That’s nice to hear

[@Klockorino]

Just from the thumbnail, I think I can figure it out, and yeah I dislike those particular insects quite a bit. They build those things on my car annoyingly frequently.

[@MentourPilot]

Yeah, they have a strange affinity for pitot-probes

[@robertpearce8394]

Just insects doing their insect thing.

[@NicolaW72]

During million of years they figured out that putting their eggs and feed for their brood into a tube and closing then the entrance with mud is a succesful way of brood care. They still haven´t figured out that closing the entrance of a pitot tube of an aircraft isn´t a good idea, neither for the aircraft nor for their brood. They simply don´t know it better.

[@DonkenAndToivolaRR]

"4° pitch up and 75% thrust setting" is a thing I wondered through many videos on aviation accidents. As a non-pilot I always wondered if pilots have a set of working settings in their mind that they could apply to any situation when they get irritations from instrument readings or aircraft behaviour?

[@PowerShellWizard]

As painful as it is to watch a video about failure and fatalities, credit must be given to Petter. I see a new mentour pilot video and I watch without question. This is just how good of a content creator he (and his team) is/are and how much attention to detail is there. I also appreciate the fact that even though I am not in the aviation field, I still learn a lot but watching these videos. Thank you Petter and team!

[@JohnHewson-e7u]

Superb graphics, so very helpful to the explanations. Well done. Another professional presentation.

[@semadt]

I remember the extensive media coverage in German media at the time. I've heard a bit about this accident now and again over the intervening years, but the conclusion was usually along the lines of "pitot tubes were blocked, mechanics on the ground didn't do what they should have, that's why the plane went down". This video is the first one I can remember that clearly presents the entire accident sequence with comments not only about what happened and why, but also which indicators the pilots could have used to find out what is going on or what they could have done to recover. We could discuss endlessly what should have been done when and by whom, but for me the takeaway from this video is a much clearer understanding of what actually went on, what constraints the pilots were under, and why in the end a lot of relatively minor mistakes were made that sent this plane into the ocean. That starts with the first signs during the takeoff roll, but as you explained and I've heard elsewhere, I guess the captain wasn't too keen on facing passengers and his employer if he decided to stop takeoff and declare the plane unsafe to fly. I can very well understand why someone in that situation might be focussed on every detail that might enable the flight to continue, and downplay everything that wouldn't. Added to that that he was called in at the end of the day and after a week and a half off, to take over a flight whose passengers were already on edge because of the delays and waiting, plus then being confronted with a situation that he was never trained for and that wasn't, as you said, very well understood at the time, and it gets much easier to understand why the pilots more or less panicked - which then made a better outcome even more unlikely. Thanks a lot for your work and that of your team, I appreciate your insights into those accidents very much!

[@aaron6806]

"Never trained for"? You must not be a pilot, because unreliable indications have been well understood since pressure gauges were invented, and every single pilot will have passed written and in-flight exams on such problems. The PIC had 25000hrs, and yet completely lost his shit over something he would have been drilled on for decades. Never once chose to fly the perfectly airworthy plane and work the problem, as he was well trained to do.

[@jaekae13]

This is an excellent summary! I think you broke down the factors at play in the minds of the pilots during the takeoff in a thoughtful and well-reasoned manner. I think that the end result of all those factors created something similar to a panic response by the pilot, and he froze up, unable to make the decision to abort the takeoff. And the way things continued to play out in the cockpit during the next five minutes confirms that, in my mind. Petter mentioned the startle response in a recent previous video, and how humans tend to respond to it. Their decision-making and problem-solving skills usually deteriorate, contributing to confusion and a loss of situational awareness. This is why we have checklists and memory items, because under these conditions, pilots tend to default to their training and/or their usual routine. And if they haven't been trained in how to handle the situation they're faced with, and what steps they ought to take, they often develop tunnel vision, hyper-focusing on one specific problem and ignoring all others- and they can also start to take actions that don't make any sense in that situation. So it was the stall that ultimately caused the crash, and the mindset of the pilots at the time led to them failing to execute a proper stall recovery procedure. Unfortunately, this is a near-universal response when we are under a certain amount of pressure or stress, and then faced with something unexpected and confusing that requires excellent problem-solving and decision-making skills. All of which is to say, I've read other comments blaming the pilots for this crash. But hindsight is 20/20, and very few people have ever had the lives of hundreds of people in their hands during a very stressful and chaotic situation. So it's tempting, and easy, to judge the pilots- especially when we are unable to put ourselves in their shoes. So the accident, even though a blocked pitot tube was the inciting issue, was still preventable if the pilots had taken certain actions. While this is incredibly tragic, I don't think it's helpful to place blame solely on pilot error or perceived incompetence. They are only human, and this was a situation that they had not been trained for and likely did not have any relevant checklist for. Anyway, thank you for a very thoughtful and reasonable contribution to the conversation! 😊 I appreciate your input, and think it's important to highlight these things to gain a better understanding of, and sympathy for, what is likely going through the minds of the pilots when they make (or fail to make) critical decisions under pressure.

[@semadt]

@@aaron6806 I am indeed not a pilot, I never worked in any aviation-adjacent field even. So my knowledge is just that of a layperson who's interested in the reasons and backgrounds of these crashes. In other words, rather suspect knowledge. But what I understood from the video is that the pilots only had the sort of basic instruction in the matter that every pilot has, the captain likely didn't have any recent detailed info about that airspeed indication issue and the blocked pitot tube functioning as an altimeter Petter explained, the crew didn't have any CRM training, so neither junior pilot was able to make his opinion known clearly even though the relief pilot at least did have an idea of what's wrong and what to do. Neither was the captain trained to more clearly take his fellow pilots opinions into consideration when he found himself confused. I've heard a couple times in various videos what seems to be the pilot-specific adaptation of the old adage of taking a deep breath in stressful and confusing situations before sorting through the issues at hand systematically, but even that seems to have been forgotten here. But I can't condemn the captain for that, since it's vastly different judging this from an armchair safely on the ground with your favorite drink in hand or late at night after a surprise call-in to work and several days off beforehand. I don't know about you, but I know if I have been off a week and a half, even more if my time off was cut short very unexpectedly, I need some normality to reboot my brain before I am able to deal with complications efficiently. Thankfully I was never in a position where lives depended on me working at top efficency without warning.

[@aaron6806]

​@@semadtThat is a very thoughtful, and well-written comment. One of the glaring issues in this case was not the failure to diagnose the ASI issue, but the total loss of situational awareness and recovery from an unusual attitude. Those factors, I can assure you, were well-understood, and well trained for. The inattention to pitch angle and the completely incorrect (opposite)reaction to a developing stall are the real unforgivables here.

[@Potato-dx5mc]

Pilots checking circuit breakers to fix issues just like my grandpa when he smash the TV to fix the image

[@MentourPilot]

Well… almost

[@TJ-vh2ps]

Well, with the old analog tube TVs, banging on them would actually often fix the problem for a while.

[@christophpoll784]

Thx for explaining the difference of indicated air speed to ground speed. Just asked that question in an older video of your channel😅. Keep flying, you are doing some great videos that really help me understand a lot of things in aviation.

[@nevermind3147]

I absolutely love the new schedule, being able to look forward to a new amazing video every week. Thank you for the great work you and your team do! It has generated quite the fascination for aircraft in me.

[@triplex86]

Another great video - very thorough and informative. The graphics and animations that you use in your videos are really superb. Thank you for posting the video.

[@dennisspears7177]

I’m surprised the pitot tubes do not have a facility (such as high pressure air) to blow outwards so the tubes are cleared of any obstructions.

[@Vincent_Sullivan]

Blasting high pressure air into a pitot tube would give the very sensitive air pressure measuring transducers a rough time, possibly upsetting their calibration or destroying them.

[@dennisspears7177]

@@Vincent_Sullivan thanks for the insight.

[@mediocreman2]

And how would that guarantee that they're clear?

[@DarthEvilicus]

Air speed unreliable may seem like an innocuous emergency but it’s one of the most terrifying if you aren’t prepared for it because of so many alarms, false indications and false warnings associated with it. It’s hard to concentrate when you have the overspeed clackers blaring at you as you are trying to solve an issue

[@kellyem33]

I took off in a 172 with a clogged pitot tube. ALWAYS look for airspeed alive before you commit. It is NOT just something for jets. I resorted to engine speed management and feel. I decided to use the stall warning as a backstop for too slow an airspeed. I circled the pattern in the normal manner, with engine and flaps aat normal settings, and which gives you a second hand point for probable airspeed. Then I just landed normally, alert to whether the plane is mushy or too crisp.

[@Mrmelody85]

I just can't understand how the captain could have believed the plane was truly in overspeed, given the nose up attitude and power settings. Surely with so much experience, one would immediately question the IAS on his side, especially after the anomaly immediately prior to takeoff? Another fantastic video Petter, great job as always by you and the team!

[@infinitewisdom9619]

The quality of these videos is getting better and better!

[@StephenLuke]

RIP To the passengers and crew of Birgenair Flight 301

[@MentourPilot]

Indeed 😔

[@AnetaMihaylova-d6f]

​@@StephenLukeit was stupid pilot mistake.

[@StephenLuke]

@@AnetaMihaylova-d6f Every time I call my grandmother and tell her about this type of history of how aviation changed because of these plane crashes, she guesses some right as human error! Have you listened to the CVR recording of Birgenair 301? It’s not the full recording but it’s the final moments of the flight.

[@AnetaMihaylova-d6f]

@@StephenLuke no ,but the plane shouldn't havevtaken off at all with faulty instruments. I don't know what the pilots were thinking....

[@StephenLuke]

@@MentourPilot The majority of the passengers were German, but there were also nine Poles, including two MPs, Marek Wielgus of the Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms (BBWR) and Zbigniew Gorzelańczyk of the Democratic Left Alliance. The majority of travelers had made reservations for Caribbean vacation packages through Öger Tours, of which Birgenair owned 10%.