- 5 months ago
Former airline pilot Rob Mark reviews emergency landing scenes from films and television including 'Flight,' 'Sully,' 'Non-Stop,' 'Emergency Declaration,' 'Snakes on a Plane,' and 'Executive Decision.' From landing in the water to technical issues, find out what Hollywood has gotten correct and incorrect.
Director: Funmi Sunmonu
Director of Photography: Brian Wingert
Editor: Alana McNair
Talent: Robert Mark
Producer: Emebeit Beyene
Line Producer: Natasha Soto-Albors
Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi
Associate Production Manager: Elizabeth Hymes
Camera Operator: Sean Pierce
Audio Engineer: Brenden Reilly
Production Assistant: Reggie Swoverland; Alexander James Holtel
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araujo
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Director: Funmi Sunmonu
Director of Photography: Brian Wingert
Editor: Alana McNair
Talent: Robert Mark
Producer: Emebeit Beyene
Line Producer: Natasha Soto-Albors
Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi
Associate Production Manager: Elizabeth Hymes
Camera Operator: Sean Pierce
Audio Engineer: Brenden Reilly
Production Assistant: Reggie Swoverland; Alexander James Holtel
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araujo
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00What's the closest situation to snakes on a plane that you've had?
00:03I did have a couple one time that had a dog with them.
00:08They just brought him in the cabin and he sat on the floor.
00:11And at one point I was flying.
00:13I looked, there was a dog doing that, trying to get under my arm for me to pet him.
00:18And I thought, there's something I'm not used to as a dog in the cockpit.
00:22I'm Rob Mark. I've been flying for more than 50 years.
00:24I'm a retired business jet pilot, a former air traffic controller.
00:28And today, we're going to take a look at some films that feature emergency landings.
00:33And we're going to talk about them a little bit after we watch.
00:36The first movie we're going to take a look at is Flight.
00:38All right, Margaret, get everybody strapped in. Get everybody strapped in tight.
00:44Ladies and gentlemen, Mark.
00:45It's going left hard, sir.
00:49This particular film that we're looking at is based loosely on an actual accident
00:55that happened to an Alaska Airlines flight off the west coast of California some years ago.
01:02When I watched this, actually, and I saw that control wheel get pulled out of the first officer's hands,
01:07it was scary, even though I know it's a movie,
01:10because if that happened in real life, we would be really upset.
01:15Oh, dump the flash. Dump the flash.
01:17You're still fast.
01:18Just do it. Do it. 30 degrees.
01:203-1-5.
01:213-1-5. We'll try our best.
01:23All right, that bought us a little time. That bought us a little time.
01:25Now we've got to revert to manual control.
01:27Your side first.
01:28Okay, got it.
01:31Nothing. No control.
01:33Absolutely, there's an emergency checklist.
01:35It's like a decision tree.
01:36If this happens, then try this and this and this in this order.
01:41But this particular one where the controls basically failed, the vertical control,
01:47this is almost not even in the book,
01:49because everything they were trying already wasn't working.
01:52Okay, on the count of three, I want you to pull it up, turn it clockwise, push it back down.
01:57Ready? One, two, three.
02:01Flight attendants are in the cockpit at times.
02:05They don't spend a great deal of time in the cockpit.
02:08At least they're not supposed to, because the cabin crew, which are the flight attendants,
02:13they have their job.
02:15They have their area of responsibility from the cockpit door through the back end of the cabin.
02:21And the flight crew has the responsibility of the plane from the doors forward.
02:26He is taking a risk by asking the flight attendant to come forward from the cabin.
02:30But at this point, it's a calculated risk.
02:34In these aircraft emergency landings, think of it like a car, because if you're going too fast,
02:40the only thing you can do is take your foot off the gas.
02:43And that's essentially what we do when we pull the throttles back.
02:47If you're going downhill and the car is speeding up, again, you take your foot off the gas,
02:52or you might actually have to touch the brakes.
02:55One thing I noticed in this, when that little boy fell out of his seat,
03:00the one thing that scares the bejesus out of all of us are people that carry kids in their laps
03:07or don't have them buckled in because they always think, oh, it's not a big deal.
03:12Everybody flies.
03:13But many accidents have happened where kids or people weren't buckled in and they got hurt.
03:18In this particular emergency landing, they actually did flip the airplane over
03:24because the control on the back of the tail, the elevator that controls the pitch movement
03:31up and down in the nose was jammed.
03:34And it was jammed in such a way that the nose wanted to go down.
03:38So what they did is flip it over and then the nose would come back up.
03:43But of course, they couldn't land that way.
03:45And that's where things really got interesting.
03:46That's only happened that one time that I know of.
03:51So a control failing completely like that and leaving the cockpit crew with
03:56almost no control of the airplane is extremely, extremely rare.
04:01I think what I was impressed with Denzel was that he kept his cool.
04:08The guy in the right seat was younger, newer to flying.
04:12He was pretty panicked.
04:14And not that we're not at times when there's an emergency.
04:18If we can't keep our cool enough to maintain control of the airplane and work the checklist,
04:26everybody's going to die.
04:27So we realize that that's an awesome responsibility that we have.
04:31And we have to do it right.
04:33Oh, yeah.
04:42We got one rolling back.
04:47We got both of them rolling back.
04:49The expressions on their face, both of them.
04:51You looked at them and you went, these men are professionals, but they're scared.
04:56They know they're in a situation where this is not the normal way they're going to operate.
05:02You could see that they were already below the tops of some of the nearby buildings
05:07when the controller in New York said, do you guys want to try Teterboro or maybe New York?
05:13And Sully looks and says, we can't make it.
05:16Because you already know if they're below the tops, they're not going to be able to get over
05:20those buildings before they could ever get to the airport.
05:22And of course, that's the risk.
05:24They said, we don't want to go in the water.
05:26However, the option is to turn to the airport and probably go down amongst a bunch of buildings
05:34where there are hundreds of people that have nothing to do with this.
05:39And we can't risk their lives as well.
05:41Try the handling.
05:42Caution 49.
05:43Terrain.
05:43Still out?
05:44Caution 151.
05:45Terrain.
05:46God loves to you.
05:47Do you want more?
05:48No, let's stay out to you.
05:48You got runway 29 available at Newark.
05:50It'll be two o'clock at seven miles.
05:51You got any ideas?
05:52Caution.
05:53Terrain.
05:54Actually, none.
05:55Terrain.
05:55You also got a look at the memory items that I was talking about earlier,
06:00because they went through the items on the way down.
06:03And the first officer was calling them out, and the captain was responding as they tried
06:09to restart the engine, and neither one would go because of the damage from the birds.
06:13And so they said, we're in trouble now.
06:16There's only one option.
06:17We're going in the water.
06:17I think that in this particular case, Sully was known as a very experienced pilot, but
06:27he also had a great deal of faith in his first officer.
06:31Jeff Skiles didn't have the amount of experience in the bus that Sully did, but he had a fair
06:37amount.
06:38And so when the captain said, we've tried everything that we can, we can't turn, we're going down,
06:46we're headed for the water, we've got to miss the bridge, he's basically looking over
06:50saying, did I miss something?
06:52I mean, because maybe in this moment of extreme excitement, maybe there's something I missed
06:59that you noticed that I should have done.
07:01There was no other option.
07:02They were already too low.
07:04There were already quite a few people in the cabin that they were taking care of, and they
07:08didn't want to risk anymore by trying to aim at the buildings, because they know they
07:12wouldn't make it over it anyway.
07:13It's very simple.
07:14It's physics.
07:15You know that's not going to work.
07:16And the only open area was the water.
07:20Their biggest problem was making certain they could get it down in the water before
07:25they got to the bridge.
07:26Because if they'd hit the bridge, that would have taken everybody with.
07:29There were a few disconcerting moments.
07:44I mean, the aircraft is a twin-engine airplane, and yet the pilot that was trying to fly had
07:49four throttles in his hand.
07:51But I'm sure nobody noticed that but me.
07:53The part where they put a bullet through the window, and all you saw was the bullet hole,
08:00that wouldn't happen.
08:02And it was later in the film that something else went through the window, and the window
08:06exploded, and a purse went out the window.
08:09Not happening.
08:10If that had really decompressed people, anything that wasn't tied down would be flying toward
08:17that hole.
08:17The pressure inside the cabin is very high, and the pressure outside is very low.
08:22And it's simple physics.
08:23It's trying to balance the pressure.
08:31The emergency where the bomb blew up, that probably was realistic because they were already
08:38at a low altitude.
08:39If that had happened up higher at 25,000 or 35,000 feet, it would have been catastrophic.
08:45That had probably destroyed the whole aircraft.
08:48But in this one, it worked.
08:50In this scene, as he's trying to land the airplane, he's got his hand on the throttles.
08:55They're all the way forward.
08:56And that wouldn't be.
08:57They'd be all the way back because he's trying to get his foot off the gas.
09:01So that didn't make any sense at all, except for the fact that he had four, and there were
09:05only two engines.
09:05I guess there's a little difference of opinion in the way they presented emergency declaration
09:26because when you see one version of the film with the airplane outside, the airplane is
09:33spinning.
09:33It's turning around.
09:35Inside, it's a different story.
09:37It just seems to be headed for the water, which, of course, other than an engine fire, nobody
09:43wants to go down in the water.
09:44The decision to head down, it's like being in a car.
09:49You've got to get your foot off the gas, and you've got to get on the brakes.
09:52And that's why when the guy did break into the cockpit, he said, idle and speed brakes.
09:58And the guy reached up and pulled the throttles back, which is getting your foot off the gas.
10:03And then the speed brakes are little panels that come up on the wings, and they help slow
10:09you down.
10:09Thank goodness they did that because at the speed they were going, if they'd hit the water
10:13at that airspeed, the airplane would have disintegrated.
10:21It was a good thing that that fellow knew the code.
10:24He must have been a pilot to know the code to get in the cockpit.
10:29But again, if he was a pilot, it was a little strange that he didn't do what the other guy
10:34was yelling at him for when he came up there, which is get the airplane slowed down.
10:39And then let's try and get the nose up.
10:41And that's not really very easy to do.
10:43We see them do that in the movies all the time, but you can't just go and it'll all come
10:49up because there's so much stress when you're pulling hard.
10:53You can put so much stress on the tail, on the elevators and the rudders that they'll break
11:00off.
11:00This one is snakes on a plane.
11:02Sir, are you telling me that your only real flight time is at the controls of a video game?
11:09No, see, it's not a video game.
11:12All right.
11:12It's a flight simulator.
11:13Is that PlayStation or Xbox?
11:15PlayStation 2.
11:17And it's got an introduction about Chuck Yeager and everything.
11:19I think the best part to me was when Kenan Thompson looked at Jackson in the right seat
11:24and said, trust me.
11:26The other fellow looked and said, okay, because right now I don't have any other option.
11:32I suggest you relinquish the pilot's chair to someone more experienced.
11:37This is agent Neville Flynn, FBI.
11:40You are talking to the only person up here who has that experience.
11:44I suggest you give him what he needs so we can land this thing.
11:47Some of the language that the controller was using about, you know, why don't you put somebody
11:52on the radio that knows what they're doing?
11:55I mean, they wouldn't say that.
11:56They could care less about who's flying the airplane.
12:00All they want to know is what can we do to help?
12:03And if shutting up is the best thing we can do, then that's what we're going to do.
12:07But he was right about the fact that with a tailwind, it makes it harder to stop the airplane.
12:12It was fun when he said, brakes, and Kenan said, we don't have brakes in the simulator
12:31for a 747 that probably weighed three or four hundred thousand pounds.
12:35I think he did a pretty darn good job of instilling the confidence in his co-pilot
12:43that was necessary to get the aircraft down.
12:46And he told the controllers, hey, I may only fly flight sim, but I know what I'm doing here.
12:52And you know what?
12:52Beside the fact there's nobody else.
12:55I had a student once a few years back that had been brought up on flight sim.
13:01And he thought he knew how to do everything.
13:04And I watched him do things that a couple of times really scared me.
13:08I mean, we were turning into the airport for a landing and we were really, really high.
13:14And what he did was something that people try and flight sim.
13:18They pull the throttles back.
13:20They drop all the flaps and they push the nose down and they aim the airplane to the runway.
13:25And he did that with me and I finally took it away from him.
13:29And I, you know, we went around and came back and landed later.
13:31And I said, okay, this is not flight sim.
13:34You cannot do that in a real airplane.
13:39This one's executive decision.
13:50Jesus, I'm down.
13:51I mean, he did do a nice touchdown on the runway, but of course, this was not a runway designed for a 747.
13:59So it wasn't very wide, but he did pretty darn well.
14:03And in this movie, I remember he was supposed to be a pilot that flew small airplanes.
14:08So he knew the basics of flying.
14:10As he begins to slow down, the wings are so long on this airplane from the fuselage that he's knocking over all the airplanes that are parked close to the runway.
14:21So again, that's why we don't park aircraft close to the runway at any airport.
14:26But again, he did a pretty good job.
14:28And I love the line at the end where he says, things almost land themselves, don't they?
14:32Typically, when you go to a Kennedy, an O'Hare, an LAX, the runways are somewhere in the 10,000 to 12,000 foot length category because it's not just simply for landing.
14:44But when these aircraft are really heavy and they're heavily loaded with fuel and passengers, it takes a while for them to get going on takeoff and build up the airspeed they need to get the airflow over the wings so that they can raise the nose and actually lift the airplane off the runway.
15:01Let's be serious.
15:02We've had some pretty serious accidents recently.
15:06The midair over the Potomac near National.
15:10The media, of course, latches on to anything related to airplanes, even when it's not terribly frightening to us as pilots.
15:19You know, somebody made a missed approach and they were going to land at DFW, but the airplane had to go around.
15:25It's not a big deal.
15:27It happens all the time.
15:28We're trained for that.
15:29But I think this is an interesting mix of movies.
15:32Remember that most of these are movies and they're designed to get you to watch them.
15:37Some of the things that happen aren't completely realistic, but all in all, there were some fairly realistic scenes in some of these films.
15:48I think that having technical consultants on the lot when they're making those really shows.
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