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00:00An Airbus A330 loses power en route to Hong Kong.
00:04What the hell was that?
00:05We now have two engines stalled.
00:07Yeah, my blood ran cold.
00:09To survive, the pilots must avoid ditching in the Indian Ocean.
00:15Soaring six miles in the air, a British Airways 747 suffers a mysterious engine flame-out.
00:23Mayday, mayday, mayday.
00:25What the crew had to deal with was mind-boggling.
00:27And with four engines down, China Airlines Flight 006 plummets thousands of feet in just seconds.
00:37This airplane is totally out of control.
00:40In three terrifying events with all engines out.
00:44That is one of the most dire situations any crew can be in.
00:49Can investigators piece together what really happened?
00:52Stop.
00:53Would you look at that?
00:57Oh, stop.
01:03I mean, one zero, for having you.
01:04I'm going to go.
01:05I'm going to go.
01:06I'm going to go.
01:07I'm going to go.
01:07I'm going to go.
01:08I'm going to go.
01:09I'm going to go.
01:10I'm going to go.
01:11I'm going to go.
01:12I'm going to go.
01:13I'm going to go.
01:14I'm going to go.
01:15I'm going to go.
01:16I'm going to go.
01:17I'm going to go.
01:18I'm going to go.
01:19I'm going to go.
01:20I'm going to go.
01:21I'm going to go.
01:23I'm going to go.
01:24I'm going to go.
02:25I'm going to go.
02:26I'm going to go.
02:27I'm going to go.
02:28I'm going to go.
02:29I'm going to go.
02:31I'm going to go.
02:31hundred feet per minute it's looking good the aircraft is performing perfectly and then something
02:40goes wrong the hell is that I describe it as a low thumping noise and with airframe vibration
02:48so you know David and myself kind of looked at each other like that's unusual the flight
02:55computer alerts the pilots to a problem okay let's see what we got engine to stall the plane's
03:05monitoring system indicates there's an issue with the right engine engine number two okay
03:13thrust lever number two confirm confirm
03:18captain waters reduces power on the engine to idle to protect it from damage idle the lowest
03:28possible level while still keeping it running it has an immediate effect the engine noises disappear
03:38that's better
03:40without thrust from the right engine the pilots are now relying exclusively on the
03:48left engine to get them to Hong Kong a single engine approach is not a big deal we practice
03:53it a lot in the simulator but as the flight crew prepares for landing the left engine engine number
04:01one also fails we were relying on this one engine to get us safely on the ground
04:10and now it had exactly the same symptoms and noises and sounds as the other engine engine one stop
04:18engine one stall confirmed engine one to idle
04:23both engines are now still running but producing no thrust
04:35the plane is gliding damn it our descent rate is not looking good without thrust they won't make it to Hong Kong or any other airport
04:50despite several attempts the pilots cannot get the engines to produce power
05:04we've only got five six minutes before we're at sea level I felt fear and you have all those human responses
05:20two fear the hair standing up on the back of your neck the tightening of your stomach the dryness in your mouth
05:28the pilots confront the grim prospect of ditching in the South China Sea
05:32I'm calling a mayday do it approach mayday mayday mayday mayday
05:40Cathay 780 at engine one stall and engine two stall
05:44Cathay 780 understood
05:47the seas looked very rough it was a lot of white caps the swells would be one to two meters
05:54I felt that our engines would act as two big scoops and we pitched the aircraft down quite violently
05:59and that would probably result in us cartwheeling and and breaking apart
06:05this cannot be happening
06:07first officer hayhoe begins preparing to ditch the plane
06:17then captain waters gets an idea
06:18okay
06:20try slow movements go slowly just ease in fuel
06:27easy does it
06:30I was just pinching the side of the thrust lever just to move it a millimeter each time I pinched
06:34it would just go up a millimeter
06:38incredibly it seems to be having an effect
06:41rotation increasing in engine one
06:43it's working the rotation of the fan was increasing from 28 percent to 29 to 30 to 32
06:53as I move this very very slowly and gently up
07:00captain waters realizes that the engine won't go any higher than 74 percent power
07:06that'll have to do
07:07we've got a thrust setting that resulted in us being able to fly level we weren't descending anymore
07:14and that was like a huge relief
07:18with one engine working the pilots can now attempt a landing at hong kong airport
07:23but there's no margin for error you see that altitude is holding fantastic
07:35okay approach preparation we did have an engine that was now functioning but i didn't trust it
07:43let's do this okay flaps one gear down gear down
07:53the safest plan is to get the plane 5500 feet from the ground
07:58then pull engine one back to idle reducing speed and altitude
08:05in preparation for a gentle glide onto the runway
08:10we have both runways available for your approach
08:14final items okay
08:19but just one minute from touchdown
08:23it's over speed
08:28an over speed warning sounds a signal the aircraft is flying too fast
08:34they should be slowing down
08:40speed checked 240
08:43800 feet
08:44yeah my blood ran cold just looked completely wrong and i was very uneasy that things were
08:51get out of my control and that there was something that i was missing
08:55then he sees it
08:57engine one is still running at high speed
09:01too high to land safely i had that whole feeling again of fear
09:06anger it was a scary moment
09:07the pilots have no choice but to risk a high speed landing on a runway at the edge of the ocean
09:16it was a one chance to get this on the ground and we had to make the best go at it
09:20too low to rain
09:28going 100 knots faster than normal
09:33captain waters pushes the nose down
09:35forcing the airbus onto the runway
09:38race at the end lies open water
09:49the aircraft did not want to land and i remember thinking wow this is it because it was very violent
10:05the crew deploys reverse thrust and applies full braking power to avoid overshooting the runway
10:17no number two reverse no diesel immediately you just step on the brakes hold them toe brakes to the
10:22floor just one faulty engine is providing reverse thrust will it be enough to stop the plane from
10:29careering into the sea
10:34pull reverse cafe pacific flight 780 screeches to a halt just a few thousand feet from the end of the
10:42airport's runway i can't believe it i made it nice one it was just this humongous relief
10:54you're so happy that um you know we were gonna go home and see our families
11:05the passengers and crew evacuate safely with only a few minor injuries
11:15hong kong's civil aviation department immediately launches an investigation thank you
11:19because the plane's trent 700 engines were made by british company rolls-royce
11:27ann evans of the british air accidents investigation branch joins the investigation
11:32this trent 700 is a very common engine fitted to a lot of airplanes all over the world
11:38so if there's an engineering problem with a particular design then we want to find that quickly
11:42investigators look to the plane's flight data recorder for answers they start with the a330's engine
11:51functions stop what's going on here right away they notice something unusual thrust levers are moving but
12:02fuel flows flatlining right after the pilots tried to restore power to the engines by pushing the throttle
12:09up the fuel flow remained the same nothing happens the engines just are not responding at all they're just
12:18remaining at idle damn it
12:23investigators wonder if a fuel flow problem caused flight 780's engine trouble
12:30thank you evans turns to the plane's in-depth data logs they explain in detail the error messages engine
12:38two stall that appeared on the monitoring system throughout the flight engine two control system
12:43fault and evans discovers that early in the flight the computers detected a problem in a key part of the
12:50fuel system called the main metering valve so the warnings that were coming up were warnings to do
12:56with the main metering valve supplying fuel to the engine the main metering valve is made up of a
13:04piston that slides within a cylinder when the pilots move the thrust levers it increases or decreases the
13:12flow of fuel to the a330's turbofan engines
13:18when investigators cut the valve open to study it that's not normal is it
13:24they find something they've never seen before
13:26what we saw seemed like very very fine powder even finer than caster sugar very very small particles
13:36microscopic analysis reveals that the powder is a type of super absorbent polymer or sap made up of tiny
13:43spheres these are organic compounds designed to absorb water that gave us a clue as to where they'd come from
13:51the powder is used in refueling trucks to prevent water from getting into the aircraft's fuel tanks
14:00the refueling trucks pump fuel from underground tanks and pipes through a filter on the truck and into the aircraft
14:09if the fuel is contaminated with water the powder in the filter absorbs it by forming a gel
14:15inside the filter but the waterlogged gel is supposed to stay in the filter it should never end up in
14:21the fuel it is so commonly used within the industry for this purpose of filtering out water what we
14:28didn't understand was how did it get on board the aircraft this one looks somehow collapsed investigators
14:39recover the filters from the truck used to refuel flight 780 at surabaya airport and when they examine
14:47a sample of the filter under a microscope investigators make a puzzling find it looks like sodium crystals
14:57the powder spheres are encrusted with salt had salt water got into the fuel system
15:03this one's straight from the manufacturer when anne's team conducts tests on fresh filters exposing them
15:11to salt water well would you look at that the filters collapse just like the ones used to fuel flight 780
15:20allowing both the salt crystals and white powder spheres to pass through what was important was that
15:26we demonstrated we could generate spheres investigators now believe salt water collapsed the fuel filters
15:33leading to powder contamination in the fuel system of flight 780 but one critical question remains so
15:42how did salt water get into the fuel system after a careful review of the fuel system at surabaya airport
15:51investigators make a stunning discovery the fuel system is located close to the sea
15:58and during a recent upgrade the open fuel pipes were possibly exposed to groundwater
16:07investigators now believe they know what happened to cathay pacific flight 780
16:15the underground fuel supply contaminated with salt water broke down a filter
16:20releasing a powder releasing a powder into the fuel the powder jammed the metering valves preventing
16:26enough fuel from reaching the engines engine one stall we had fuel contamination and that contamination
16:40throughout the fuel system led to the seizure of both main metering valves
16:46such that the pilot no longer had control over the power of the engines
16:52investigators believe captain waters was able to restore some thrust in engine number one
16:56only because its fuel metering valve wasn't yet completely jammed
17:01only a small trickle of fuel was getting through slowly slowly come on rotation increasing in engine one
17:08it's working once the spheres jammed the valve it was stuck open
17:18forcing captain waters to make the risky high-speed landing
17:25no number two reverse
17:26expert piloting brought flight 780 safely to the ground
17:35i can't believe it
17:38since the accident there have been efforts to improve the regulation of aviation fuel handling and storage
17:46manufacturers have designed the filters to prevent collapse and powder contamination
17:51the crew's heroic efforts in the face of engine failure save cafe flight 780 from all but certain disaster
18:03total engine failure is an ultra rare occurrence on modern airliners
18:11fortunately the fast-thinking flight crew of flight 780 had some control of their jets engines
18:17allowing them to bring the plane to safety
18:23but 28 years earlier a bizarre incident puts the pilots of british airways flight 9 to the ultimate test
18:31oh my lord look at engine four same on my side when you have an uncontrollable and unpredictable event
18:38that puts your airplane at risk that takes a whole different set of skills to resolve
18:42that's the engine's on fire
18:49of four engines failed
18:53june the 24th 1982 british airways flight 9 cruises high over indonesia
19:02in a few hours the plane and all 263 people on board are scheduled to land in perth australia
19:09captain eric moody commands the flight he's one of the first ever trained on the 747 roger check with jakarta
19:22jakarta control speedbird 9 over halim at level 370
19:28first officer roger greaves has been co-pilot for more than six years
19:32barry townley freeman has been a flight engineer on these aircraft for a little longer i'd not
19:40flown with eric before uh or barry and that was the first time we'd actually we'd actually met on
19:46that uh that flight all right roger it's all clear keep your eyes open i'll be back in a moment just got
19:52to use a loop but while he's gone conditions in the cockpit become unusual you started to get these
20:04imprints of light on the on the windscreen
20:10it smelt like was sort of a sulfuric electrical smell and i went on that flight deck expecting to
20:17hear that we had some electrical smoke somewhere on the aircraft but nothing was further from the truth
20:23anything on radar no it's clear not a cloud
20:29oh my lord look at engine four
20:35it's lit up somehow captain captain have a look at number one
20:39it's the same on my side the pilots notice that the plane's engines are lit by a brilliant white glow
20:51but it's the flight's passengers that first spot flames
20:55the engine's on fire there were huge flames coming out of the back of the engines 40 feet long
21:03shooting out of the back of all the engines what's going to happen
21:06as fire engulfs the engines one of them revs loudly and flames out engine failure number four once
21:17one engine fails you call for the drill to shut that one down
21:23then the unthinkable happens number two engine's gone all right then begin the engine shut no wait
21:31the robot all four engines have failed
21:41somehow all four engines have completely stopped working
21:47roger declare emergency mayday mayday mayday speed bird nine we have lost all four engines
21:53without engine power the 747 is now an enormous glider one of the nightmares for a commercial airman is
22:03the idea of losing all your power 747 can glide 120 miles from high altitude but at the end of that
22:09you're going to come in contact with the surface of the earth one way or another all right begin
22:13restart drill set battery check on the flight crew tries to restart the engines on anything
22:22anything no plunging towards the indian ocean the crew has to get their engines going come on
22:32again gentlemen all right from the top battery check on without engine power the cabin's air
22:38pressure decreases releasing the oxygen masks
22:41captain eric moody is running out of options come on anything no we haven't had any success with the
22:52drill at all um despite all the efforts we were putting in but it was it was the only thing we
22:58had left to cling on to descending steadily the flight crew prepares to ditch the boeing 747 in the indian
23:06ocean all right i knew it was so difficult to land airplanes on the sea even when you had everything
23:12going for you uh and i thought that well we haven't got much going for us here i'd never done it before
23:20as a precaution captain moody decides to turn the plane back to the closest airport halim just outside
23:27jakarta if they must ditch the chances of a successful rescue are higher if the plane is closer to land
23:36start level cut off fuel pressure they are available standby ignition on and then as suddenly as it
23:43stopped working the fourth engine roars back to life engine four back online
23:51the noise that a rolls-royce engine makes when it starts up well it was wonderful to hear it
23:57as the plane falls past 4 000 meters another engine coughs and comes back to life engine three back online
24:04it's followed quickly by the final two can't believe it engines one and two goes back online
24:15the crippled jet is back under full power
24:22jakarta speedbird nine we are back in business the crew calls for an emergency landing in jakarta
24:2812 000 let's get this thing on the ground as quickly as we can
24:3950 feet 30 feet
24:44reverse
24:45the airplane just landed itself it it seemed to anyway it kissed the earth it was beautiful wow
24:57that's that's amazing
25:01flight nine and its passengers and crew are safely on the ground but no one knows what happened
25:08the next morning the flight crew returns to halim airport in jakarta to inspect their plane
25:19the pilots and investigators are shocked by what they discover the airplane had lost its sheen
25:26and in some places it had been sandblasted quite well
25:29uh and all the decals and the paint had come off it really was very little to see until they stripped
25:37the engine stand the flight crew and investigators have never seen anything like this before
25:46and their surprising discovery changes aviation safety procedures forever this was an event which was
25:54unique in aviation history the engines from british airways flight zero zero nine are sent to their
26:02manufacturer rolls-royce in the uk engineer malcolm grayburn and his team are tasked with figuring out
26:11what caused them all to mysteriously flame out
26:15the engine's on fire and come back to life
26:19we did do a forensic analysis of the engines grayburn is stunned by what he discovers
26:28the engines were choked with fine dust pieces of rock and sand on close study he discovers that the debris
26:35is volcanic ash the evidence points to a clear suspect on the night of the flight the mount galangun
26:45volcano located just a hundred miles southeast of jakarta erupted unexpectedly the enormous ash cloud
26:54rose nine miles high right into the path of british airways flight zero zero nine never before had a
27:02volcanic cloud seriously affected an airplane mayday mayday mayday a turbofan jet engine works by sucking
27:13in enormous amounts of air the air is then highly pressurized by the engine's compressor this tightly
27:19packed air is mixed with fuel and ignited the force of this reaction propels the jet through the sky
27:30the temperature in the combustion chamber where this ash is flowing through
27:34around 2000 degrees centigrade and so the volcanic ash we know melts at about 1300 1400 degrees
27:41but when the liquid ash reached deeper into the engine it cooled slightly turning into a sticky
27:48molten goo it attached itself to the engine and began choking it we got a fundamental disturbance of the
27:57airflow in the main core of the engine which caused the engine to backfire engine failure number four but if
28:05the engines were choked with ash how did they suddenly roar back to life engine three back online
28:13what greyburn discovers next is that a remarkable piece of chemistry saved the plane as soon as you
28:20came out of the volcanic ash everything cooled down it was enough for this stuff to break off
28:26and allow the engines to restart
28:30i can't believe it engines one and two both back online
28:37the pilots of flight 009 are celebrated as heroes for overcoming total engine failure and guiding their
28:44plane and its passengers to safety but their miraculous discovery also provokes a giant leap forward in
28:51aviation safety now more than 30 years later there's a worldwide system in place to warn pilots when
28:59there is a risk of volcanic ash in the air so the aircraft can avoid this kind of hazard it has worked
29:05wonderfully over the last few years
29:06but total engine failure happens again just three years later
29:18china airlines flight 006 cruises on autopilot 39 000 feet above the pacific
29:25it was a routine commercial flight sat there and read some books went to sleep
29:30while many of the 251 passengers doze the plane nears its destination of los angeles california
29:41in the cockpit the experienced three-man flight crew led by captain min yuang ho has amassed more than
29:4738 000 flight hours but as the crew prepares for an easy landing engine four is giving us weak thrust
29:56the flight engineer spots something troubling there's a problem with one of the engines when the engine
30:05is throttled it doesn't respond we're losing speed then the strange situation suddenly gets much worse
30:16engine four slamed out engine four stops working completely
30:21take a look at the engine out procedures work out a three-engine cruise altitude yes captain
30:30without the fourth engine the plane slows down airspeed 240
30:37reignite engine four yes captain at 39 000 feet there isn't much oxygen so the chances of a successful relight are slim
30:51no response captain as the crew tries to restart their engine their plane slowly begins to roll to the right
31:01we're banking right captain airspeed 230 as the plane loses speed it's in danger of stalling
31:11altitude hold off nose down hoping to increase his speed captain ho tries pushing the plane's nose down
31:21nothing the crew does seems to help their jet is banking more and more steeply i'm disengaging autopilot
31:36captain ho takes manual control of the aircraft but he struggles as the plane veers into thick cloud
31:43he can't see the horizon instruments that normally would help him keep the plane level don't seem to be
31:53working i've lost adi the adis have malfunctioned it's going out of limits
32:02just minutes after engine number four stops working the china airlines flight suddenly stalls
32:08and begins falling from the sky a 747 jumbo jet is flipping upside down china airlines flight 006 plunges
32:22towards the pacific ocean people just popped up like popcorn hitting the cabin
32:27in the cockpit the flight engineer struggles against the plane's wild motion to restart his fourth engine
32:40the g-forces are so powerful that the flight engineer is pinned to the control pedestal
32:48but his attempt is unsuccessful then the situation suddenly gets a lot worse
32:54in the cabin the g-forces are punishing
33:16and i close my eye i thought i was gone
33:19no response the stress of the dive tears the landing gear doors off the plane
33:35in less than a minute the plane drops almost 20 000 feet
33:38the plane suddenly breaks free from the clouds i can see the horizon 42 10 000 feet the captain uses the
33:53horizon as a reference to level the plane just 30 seconds before they hit the ocean
33:58now the g-forces suddenly change direction
34:08passengers are pressed to the floor feeling five times their normal weight
34:14you know the g-force was so strong and i weighed 200 pounds so my weight was almost 1200 pounds
34:22it's a race against time
34:32and finally adi is coming back the plane starts to win
34:39adi is coming in as mysteriously as the incident began three of the plane's engines regain power
34:46engines one two and we are coming back engine four still negative
34:54reignite engine four yes captain once again the flight engineer tries to reignite the fourth engine
35:05but now
35:08engine four reignited
35:09for the first time in minutes the plane is flying under control
35:22they saved the airplane that was a masterpiece of flying ladies and gentlemen this is the captain
35:29speaking is anyone hurt do we have a doctor on board captain ho declares an emergency
35:39and diverts the flight to san francisco
35:55he made one of the best landings i've ever seen i mean it was just perfect touchdown
36:00on the ground the full extent of the damage to the plane shocks everyone parts of the entire
36:09tail plane at the end were ripped off as though a tornado had come through two dozen passengers have
36:15minor injuries a near disaster was avoided but what had gone wrong in the first place
36:21the national transportation safety board is on site that very day
36:34the cockpit voice recorder is sent to washington but it's designed to tape over itself every 30 minutes
36:41none of what happened in the cockpit during the terrifying plunge from the sky remains without a cockpit
36:47voice recorder we had to reconstruct what the crew said and how they interpreted things and what was
36:53going on in the cockpit to the best of our abilities with the other data that was available to us but the
36:58plane's flight data recorder which suffered intense electrical damage has several gaps in the data
37:04log that have to be painstakingly reconstructed in the meantime investigators begin by inspecting the plane's engines
37:15despite the horrific dive through the sky engines one two and three are found to be in working order
37:22engine four the first engine to fail gets special scrutiny they believed that the engine had flamed out
37:30or that there was something seriously wrong with the engine after examining every inch of engine four
37:36investigators determined that it was faulty
37:42engine four is giving us with thrust and at 39 000 feet wasn't able to produce adequate thrust to keep the
37:49faulty engine running engine four flamed out the loss of thrust on a four-engine airplane is a minor event
37:57and the airplane will fly on three engines with no difficulty investigators are puzzled if the 747 was never
38:06in immediate danger is it possible that the plane's swift plunge began somewhere other than in the engines
38:19the crew of china airlines flight 006 are brought in for intensive interviews by the ntsb
38:30i heard the captain without a cockpit voice recorder investigators rely on the pilot's statements to
38:35piece together how a manageable problem became a near catastrophe i lost adi the adis have no function
38:44it's going on the limits when we started banking right engine four was already flamed out
38:53we started to descend faster and engines one two and three also failed engines one two and three
39:05but the pilot's stories don't match the flight data which clearly shows that engines one two and three
39:11were running perfectly the entire flight they never lost thrust
39:20what could possibly have caused the plane to flip twist and hurtle towards the sea
39:30after months of analyzing the flight data and pilot interviews the ntsb can finally piece together
39:37the series of events that led to this near disaster
39:44just after 10 o'clock pacific time the flight engineer spots the engine trouble engine four is
39:50giving us weak thrust he struggles to fix the problem but investigators discover he misses a basic step
40:01he leaves the engine's bleed air valve open the bleed air valve regulates the flow of compressed air from the
40:09engines into the cabin when an engine isn't working properly the valve is supposed to be closed
40:16so the engine can use all available air to restart it's a little puzzling that the flight engineer
40:23didn't shut off bleed air the end result is that the engine which is slow to start won't start at all
40:31unwittingly the flight engineer has started a ticking clock engine four is slowly losing its ability to
40:38stay lit we're losing speed with more engine power on the left wing than the right the china airlines flight
40:47begins turning the proper thing to do would have been a step on the rudder that would have produced a
40:54twisting force so to speak that would have overcome the imbalance of the engines instead of adjusting
41:01the rudder himself captain ho continues to let the autopilot fly the jet
41:09but the autopilot isn't designed to move the rudder the autopilot can adjust the ailerons and spoilers on
41:16the plane's wings but these flaps aren't strong enough to overcome the imbalance that the plane is
41:21experiencing i'm disengaging autopilot
41:30by the time captain ho takes manual control of the plane it's already banking alarmingly to the right
41:37while he fights for control the 747 flips onto its back and enters a vertical nosedive
41:49moments later as g-forces rapidly increase the flight engineer makes another enormous mistake
41:57we started to descend faster and engines one two and three
42:06but the engines are perfectly fine
42:11investigators now know the throttles were deliberately set to idle in an attempt to
42:15slow the jet's furious fall something the flight engineer doesn't notice in the chaotic dive
42:22if he had not seen the captain pull the power to idle on the the engines he would reasonably assume
42:31that the fact that they went to idle was a problem rather than intentional
42:39an investigation that starts with faulty engines reveals that in fact a chain of mistakes by the crew
42:46puts flight 006 just moments from certain death the crew didn't behave as they should have behaved
42:53pilot error but whatever mistakes the flight crew made
42:59they still achieve the ultimate goal
43:02the one big thing they did right is they saved the airplane
43:07china airline 006 is a extreme example of why high altitude upset recovery training is so important
43:18it became a learning experience based on what this crew did when an aircraft loses engine power
43:26the response must be quick concise and efficient i can't believe it i made it when you've got an
43:33engine problem when you've lost an engine the only thing you have to rely on is literally your
43:42training as a pilot i can see the horizon and it makes all the difference in the world
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