>Volcano erupts in Indonesia
>Locals don’t notice because they have shit weather radar
>747 flies through the dust cloud
>All 4 engines get filled with volcanic ash and burn out
>“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.”
>Spend 12 minutes gliding, dropping 23,500 feet in the process
>The pilots are preparing to be the first 747 ever to attempt a water landing
>Finally one of the engines restarts
>But ILS is offline
>Windscreen is completely opaque due to ash, no way to clean it
>Manage to land running entirely on instruments
>Fatalities: 0
>Injuries: 0
Survivors: 263
One correction I feel is needed, the windscreen wasn’t dirty from ash, it had effectively been sand blasted opaque, with only a small corner of the screen remaining clear
To go further, pretty certain that jets have wipers. If it was just ash, they could have cleaned it to get some visibility.
The level of stakes at some jobs are crazy.
Another example: if the powerpoint slides my team prepares for a board meeting are not pretty enough, my director might be sad.
I literally cannot tell the difference.
Source: am manager, and sometimes my underlings don’t toil hard enough in the PowerPoint mines.
Literally world ending.
I literally cannot tell the difference.
Source: am manager, and sometimes my underlings don’t toil hard enough in the PowerPoint mines.
You should mercilessly berate them until morale improves, that’s MBA 101.
You’re gonna be back in the PowerPoint mines if you don’t fix your soft-hearted attitude.
You missed the chaddiest part.
Got two of four engines running. Climbs to set up for landing, one engine starts surging and flaming.
After losing all engines, nearly ditching at sea with no engines, the elation of getting something back and not knowing what will happen with the other one, with 250 lives on the line they shut it down because they know they should.
Good thing a 747 can carry balls of that size on one engine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_009 Awesome story here
Moody made an announcement to the passengers that has been described as “a masterpiece of understatement”
I didn’t believe that was an actual quote but here we are.
On the descent without visibility…
Moody described it as “a bit like negotiating one’s way up a badger’s arse.”
Oh my word. HAHAHA!
I mean, it begs the question as to how he knows what the inside of a badger’s arse looks like lol
If I had a nickel for every time a 747 lost engines going through volcanic ash and recovered with no fatalities, I would have two nickels.
which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
And that’s how pilots learned to never fly around an erupting volcano and several years back all air traffic in Europe was halted when a volcano with an unpronounceable name in Iceland had a bad moment.
That was shortly after their economy crashed. I remember people saying that the last wish of Iceland’s economy was to have its ashes spread across Europe.
Hey, it is easy to spell how Icelanders pronounce it in my native language:
Islandmountainglacier. Got it. Why didn’t they say that in the first place?
On an island full of mountain glaciers, it does make you wonder how they came up with that name.
The others have names like “rock flake”, “old hag”, “cloak”, “broad shoulders”, "Erik’s “glacier” and “baldric’s bump” from what I can quickly find. It seems they gave up with the Islandmountainglacier.
MorningLightMountain
Good thing they’re pretty isolated over there then
Baldric’s got a bump that looks just like a turnip
The rest of them have names like “NoNotThatIslandMountainGlacierTheOtherOne”
Or a cognate, Eyfallicle; ey as in island, fall as in a valley(?), icle from icicle.
Mér líkar þetta málið!
Catch a throatful from the fire vocal With ash and molten glass like Eyjafjallajökull
When talking about things in Iceland, the u pronounceable part can be safely assumed. You only need to clarify if it can be pronounced.
When I was a kid, there was a TV show on the Discovery Channel called “Mayday” where they would reenact famous plane accidents. The episode about this particular incident (Falling from the sky) was my absolute favorite.
One thing anon left out is that they didn’t actually realize what was going on at the time, and they witnessed something called “Saint Elmo’s Fire” which looks a bit like the way they show stars whizzing past the Enterprise in Star Trek when they warp. So these pilots were not only flying blind and lame, but the whole time were seeing something that looked like they had just been teleported to another dimension out their window.
Edit: It turns out the full episode is on YouTube. Enjoy!
I can recommend the YouTube channel Mentour Pilot who breaks down flight accidents and incidents, how they happened, what went wrong and why and what lessons were learned from them.
There’s also: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/
That show is now called Air Crash Investigation and it still airs! Its my favourite, I highly recommend catching up the recent seasons
show is now called Air Crash Investigation
According to the wikipedia I linked, the name varies based on where the show is aired. In Canada and the US, it’s still called Mayday
Read “The Checklist Manifesto” and you understand why pilots follow their protocols. Outcomes like this are because they did everything exactly according to the checklist.
Seriously fantastic book and it’s a quick read. Definitely recommended.
It’s written by a surgeon who was involved in helping promote the use of checklists in healthcare. A lot of the book is about looking at their use in other places like aviation and construction and realizing why they work and how they can help in other places. The book spends a lot of time on the idea that some fields have become so complex with so many pieces that it’s impossible for any one person to be able to track it all in their head on the fly and the effect that has in “can’t afford failure” industries.
A book about checklists sounds like it’d be dreadfully dry and boring but the author is a solid writer and the book is full of a ton of really interesting vignettes – I find people tend to fly through it. I first read it probably 10 years ago and it’s one of those books that has really stuck with me since.
Checklists are great and they work.
Checklists and training/preparation.
A lot of times these super professional responses are from having practiced emergency procedures until the checklist may as well be tattooed on the back of their eyes.
The calmness and professionalism in the face over terrible odds and potential catastrophe just scream “british”
Could have been a very different outcome if not for the quick thinking of the cabin crew brewing up more tea for the pilots.
Sometimes you just need a cuppa.
That has to be the best “captain speaking” moment in history.
Uhhh ladies and gentlemen… drinks are free.
I’d be so pissed if I was on that plane
Your alternative would be being dead. I’d say they did pretty darn well. Any landing you can walk away from was a good landing after all.
I think you missed the point of my joke.
Now to be fair, I catch 99% of internet sarcasm and I thought you were sincere. There is a fair amount to be upset about despite surviving.
I always assume it’s not a joke if it’s not funny. Later lets me be an ahole when they defend themselves :)
That’s why you should always wear brown chinos while traveling.
Doesn’t work. Been there. Still shows.
0% chaddery. 100% sorcery. The chad knoweth not the mind of the mystic.
I watched the Mentour Pilot video on this landing and it’s crazy!
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it is not ai generated, that photo is from 2014. it is highly edited by the original photographer
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It’s the GIGA Chad my man! It doesn’t get straighter than that. Or gayer, doesn’t matter to the GIGA Chad! He’s beyond your petty sexual preferences!
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I’m not going to call it gay, but I will say it certainly looks like Tom of Finland took up photography
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Mentour Pilot did a good video on this, including an interview with the pilot. https://youtu.be/YYwN1R8hVsI
That only had 262 people aboard the flight though.
Missed the best part, they got a once in a lifetime lightening show located entirely in their kitchen I mean 747
