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747 in DANGER | The MYSTERY of the world's WORST mid-air collision - deadliest 747 accident ever
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FunTranscript
00:00Two planes carrying 349 people speed towards each other in the evening skies above Delhi.
00:07In one of those planes, five pilots sit at the controls, making preparations to land in the other three pilots.
00:14Are climbing along their departure route, an air traffic controller sits at the top of a tower,
00:19watching two blips on his screen draw closer together.
00:23What do these things have in common?
00:25The people immediately in charge of the outcome.
00:28Those sitting in the pointy ends of these structures also sit at the pointy end of a vast and complex infrastructure which undergirds their actions.
00:37All of these systems and infrastructures make up the foundations for the pyramid of aviation safety,
00:43on top of which pilots and air traffic controllers sit.
00:47What you're about to see is the shocking story of what happens when the foundations of this pyramid are rotten foreign
00:53on the evening of November 12, 1996, 289 passengers and 23 crew stepped on board a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 in Delhi, India.
01:05They were bound for Dodge International Airport in Saudi Arabia, a four hour journey.
01:10Many of the passengers were migrant workers headed for construction and hospitality jobs in the Gulf.
01:16Flight 763 was the beginning of a long journey for them as they settled into their seats a few hundred kilometers to the northwest.
01:24Another group of passengers was descending towards Delhi, getting ready for a much shorter trip to the Indian capital.
01:30Most of the 27 passengers on board Kazak Fight 1907 were traders preparing for a shopping trip to Delhi.
01:38Their plan was to buy up as much cheap textiles as they could,
01:42and to fill the plane up with them for the return journey to Kazakhstan a few days later,
01:47for several strange reasons which we'll explore in a moment.
01:51These two sets of passengers would come closer together than ever intended,
01:56but at least initially, as the Kazakh plane began its descent,
02:00and the Saudi plane was loaded with passengers in baggage, all was normal in command of Saudi flight.
02:06763 was 45-year-old Captain Khalid al-Shabali.
02:12With just short of 10,000 hours of flying time, he was a highly experienced pilot.
02:17He had flown this route many times before and was familiar with the peculiarities of Delhi's airspace.
02:24At the time, sitting to his right was Nazir Khan, an American captain who would be acting as first officer on this flight.
02:31He was 44 years old and was also very experienced with more than 7,000 hours of flying time under his belt.
02:38Behind the two pilots was flight engineer Ahmed Idris, at 33 years old.
02:44He was the least experienced member of this flight crew with just over 3,000 hours total experience on this evening.
02:51These three pilots and the 309 passengers and crew would fall victim to a complex web of systemic inadequacies completely beyond their control.
03:02The foundations of the pyramid, which had supported their safe passage through the skies for all these years,
03:08was about to reveal its fatal flaws once the pilots had completed their checklists,
03:13and all of the passengers had boarded flight 763 pushed back from the gate.
03:19The countdown to disaster had now begun.
03:23The time was 20 past 6 in the evening as the Saudi jet pushed back Kazakh fight 1907 was in the middle of its descent towards the airport.
03:33It was now 19 article miles away, or about 170 kilometers along with 27 passengers.
03:41There were 10 crew on board even though this particular aircraft, a Soviet designed plane called the Illusion 76, was just 4 years old.
03:50The technology on board was ancient of the 10 crew on board this flight.
03:55Five of them were in the cockpit to accommodate all of them.
03:58The cockpit was split into two decks, an upper deck and a lower deck on the Oprah deck.
04:03Sitting in the left-hand seat was 44-year-old Captain Alexander Robertovich Kiropanov.
04:08He was joined to his right by 37-year-old First Officer Ermek Kozumetovich Zangarov.
04:14Behind him was 50-year-old Flight Engineer Alexander Alexandrik Chuprov and 41-year-old Radio Operator Igor Alexievich Rep.
04:24And finally sitting on the lower deck in what might be called an original glass cockpit was a navigator 51-year-old Zehenbek Jusanovich Apriv.
04:34This was an experienced crew, even the least experienced pilot.
04:38The first officer had almost 7000 hours of flying experience, but there was one area in which the crew were all badly lacking the level of English.
04:48This fact, combined with some quirks of the aircraft they were flying, would lead to disastrous consequences as the aircraft near Delhi, at 33 minutes past 6, the controller cleared Flight 1907 down to 1800 feet.
05:04The radio operator acknowledged this clearance as per the captain's instructions.
05:08He would be handling all ATC communications for the approach and landing into Delhi.
05:14And it was a rather unusual approach. In fact, every plane departing and arriving into Delhi flew an unusual route in 1996.
05:21Indian airspace was split about 50-50 between military and civilian control.
05:26There was a strict divide between the two airspaces with civilian aircraft being forbidden from flying in military airspace and military aircraft being forbidden from flying in civilian airspace.
05:38Delhi's airport was particularly heavily affected by this divide. The airport had only been handed over to civilian control the previous year, and almost all of the airspace surrounding it was still controlled by the military.
05:52The only way civilian aircraft could get in or out of the airport was along one narrow corridor.
05:58This stretch from the airport out to a waypoint called Lunkar 330 kilometers to the west, it was this corridor which Kazakh fight 1907 was now flying.
06:10Along on its way into Delhi, it was also the corridor along which Saudi Flight 763 would be flying as they departed the airport.
06:19If it strikes you as bad design, the departing and arriving aircraft fly on the same path.
06:25You're not alone. Controllers at Delhi had been protesting this system for years, but nothing had been done about it.
06:32We're about to see the consequences of this inaction at 33 minutes past six.
06:37Just as the Kazakh pilots received their descent clearance, the Saudi pilots lined their massive 747 up with runway 28 and began their takeoff roll.
06:48A few moments later, they and their 309 passengers and crew were airborne climbing out over the densely populated city of Delhi.
06:57It was a good day for flying, the winds were relatively calm, and while there was some smog load to the ground, the visibility was much better up in the air.
07:06After takeoff, the crew of Flight 763 switched their radios over to Delhi Approach Control and made first contact the controller.
07:15VK Dota was responsible for all departing and arriving traffic in and out of the airport.
07:21He identified the Saudi aircraft on his radar and instructed them to climb to 10 000 feet.
07:28Initially, much like the pilots in the Kazakh jet, Dota was using anti-cated technology for his work, the kind of radar he had had not been state-of-the-art since the 1960s.
07:39It didn't get sent any information from the aircraft electronically, but rather a radar dish at the airport sent out a signal in all directions and picked up when the signal was reflected off an aircraft.
07:50As a result of this, it could only tell the position of planes and not their altitude, or even which aircraft they were.
07:58Dota had to take the pilot's word for it when they gave him this information.
08:03For more than a decade, there had been plans in place to install a modern radar system.
08:09But bureaucratic forces had stymied the installation of this technology, so sitting on top of this ancient infrastructure, keeping passenger planes separated at an airport which handled the takeoff.
08:21And landing every four minutes was one man, one man who had to work with one piece of information per aircraft, and who had to do it all in one narrow corridor because there was only one route in and out of the airport.
08:34The only way the controller could keep planes separated was to keep them at different altitudes.
08:40The international standard for this vertical separation is 1 000 feet.
08:45The controller's plan was to keep the inbound Kazakh plane at a higher altitude and to let the Saudi plane pass beneath it.
08:52As the Saudi 747 continued its climb to 10 000 feet, the Kazakh plane was descending through 23 000 feet.
09:01On its way down to 18 000, it was just over 70 nautical miles from the airport at this point, or 130 kilometers.
09:09The radio operator sitting behind the pilots reported their position to air traffic control.
09:15The controller cleared the fight down to 15 000 feet and asked them to report when they had reached this altitude.
09:23The radio operator acknowledged this, and the flight continued its descent as both aircraft were now tuned into the same radio frequency.
09:30The pilots in each plane were able to hear the transmissions from the other plane, and their conversations with air traffic control listening out of the aircraft in order to build a mental picture of what's going on in the airspace is a key way by which pilots can maintain their situational awareness.
09:47This provides an added layer of protection for planes, especially in the busy airspace around airports in the cockpit of the Kazakh plane, a conversation now took place between the radio operator and the pilots they needed to convert the altitude the controller had given them, 15 000 feet, into meters.
10:06This was because most of the altimeters in their cockpit showed altitude in meters, including the first officer's altimeter.
10:13This was important because he was the one flying the plane.
10:17Only the captain's altimeter and the navigator's altimeter on the lower deck showed altitude in feet.
10:23The radio operator checked his conversion chart and told the pilots that 15 000 feet was equal to 4570 meters.
10:33They acknowledged this, and continued their descent one minute after the controller had cleared the Kazakh flight down to 15 000 feet.
10:42The Saudi Arabian pilots told the controller that they were level at 10 000 feet.
10:47They asked the controller if they could climb higher.
10:50The controller then cleared Saudi flight 763 up to 14 000 feet.
10:57This was as close as the controller was going to allow the planes to get.
11:01He was going to let the Saudi plane pass 1 000 feet below the Kazakh plane.
11:06And then once they had passed each other, he would issue further climbing and descending instructions, respectively,
11:12just to be sure the radio operator on the Kazakh flight asked the navigator to confirm that his conversion between feet and meters was correct.
11:20The navigator confirmed that the conversion was correct.
11:23But importantly, as we'll see shortly, the pilots didn't say anything despite being the only person on the Kazakh plane who was in direct contact with air traffic control.
11:33The radio operator didn't have an altimeter in order to see what altitude his plane was at.
11:38He had to lean awkwardly over to one side to take a look at the pilots' instruments.
11:43The two aircraft were now just a few minutes away from the point in the sky where they would meet the Saudi plane was climbing and the Kazakh plane was descending.
11:52But right on cue, the Saudi pilots called air traffic control and reported that they were now approaching 14 000 feet.
12:01They asked to climb higher, but the controller told them to stay at their current altitude.
12:06He was going to keep them at 14 000 until the Kazakh plane had passed 1 000 feet overhead.
12:13All was normal on board Saudi flight 763.
12:17The pilots were aware of the inbound aircraft, but they were not concerned about it.
12:22They had flown in and out of Delhi plenty of times and had not encountered any major issues with other aircraft.
12:28Within a few moments, they leveled off at 14 000 feet, just as they had been asked to do in the back of the plane.
12:36The passengers were oblivious to the fact that a few miles ahead, behind a dark cloud, another aircraft was bearing down on them with tremendous speed.
12:45Over the next few seconds, a sequence of events would unfold which would shock the world of aviation and raise serious questions about the safety of flying in Indian airspace.
12:55The controller asked Kazakh Fight 1907 to confirm its position relative to the airport.
13:02The radio operator told them that they had now reached 15 000 feet and were 46 nautical miles from the airport strangely.
13:11While the plane was indeed 46 miles from the airport, it was not as the radio operator said at 15 000 feet.
13:19Instead at that moment, the plane was descending through 16 400 feet, it would not reach 15 000 for another minute or so.
13:28Why then did the radio operator tell the controller that they had reached 15 000 the reason behind this strange transmission?
13:36May hold part of the key for what happened next, and that reason was likely very simple.
13:42The radio operator didn't have his own altimeter.
13:45It's likely that he was simply unable to easily peer around to check the pilots' altimeters.
13:51So he just guessed that the pilots had now leveled off at 15 000.
13:55What's bad here is not that the radio operator misjudged the plane's altitude,
14:00but rather it's what this transmission implies about the communication between the crew on board.
14:06This was a flight crew who fundamentally were not on the same page as one another.
14:11The controller told the Kazakh flight to stay at 15 000,
14:15and warned that there was a Saudi Boeing 747 at the 12 o'clock position 10 miles away,
14:21which would cross them in 5 miles.
14:24He asked the flight to report whether they could see the other aircraft in the front of the cockpit.
14:30The two pilots began chatting amongst themselves, looking for the Saudi jet.
14:35If it had been a clear night, they would easily have been able to spot the lights of the 747 of their windscreens,
14:43but with thick clouds ahead of them there was no way they could see the other plane.
14:48The radio operator asked the controller to repeat the distance between his plane and the Saudi plane.
14:55Traffic is at 8 miles level.
14:58140 said the controller.
15:00The radio operator reported that he and his crew were now looking for the other aircraft.
15:05This is where things started to go really wrong.
15:08As the seconds ticked by and the crew looked for the 747 ahead of them,
15:14they began to slip below their cleared altitude of 15 000 feet.
15:19Second by second the Kazakh plane descended, and then it entered a cloud
15:23both aircraft were now in the same cloud hurtling towards each other
15:27at a combined speed of well over a thousand kilometers per hour.
15:31The reason that the Kazakh plane slipped below its cleared altitude is still shrouded in mystery.
15:37Some have suggested that the pilots, with their poor knowledge of English,
15:41misunderstood the controller's report of traffic at 14 000 feet,
15:46and instead took as clearance for them to descend to 14 000 feet.
15:51It's also possible that the first officer with his Soviet altimeter
15:55hadn't heard the radio operator and navigator convert between feet and meters earlier on.
16:00Perhaps he knew that he was supposed to level off at 15 000.
16:05But he just didn't know what this was in meters.
16:08But one thing is clear.
16:09Had these planes been fitted with TCA's or Traffic Collision Avoidance System,
16:13which was mandatory in the United States,
16:16at the time they would have immediately seen the danger by this point,
16:19less than 40 seconds from collision,
16:22the technology would have been frantically ordering the pilots
16:25to climb away from the danger, climb, climb, now, climb, climb, now.
16:30But this last line of defense had not been made mandatory in India
16:33or any other part of the world outside the U.S.
16:36By this point in the control tower,
16:38the human last line of defense, VK Dota,
16:41had no way of knowing that one of the blips on his screen
16:43was not doing what he had asked of it.
16:46He watched blissfully on as the two blips drew ever closer together.
16:50The Saudi pilots had overheard the controller's conversation with the Kazakh pilots,
16:55and they too were blissfully unaware that the Kazakh plane
16:58was not as it had reported to be level at 15 000 feet.
17:02The seconds were counting down as the two planes screamed towards each other
17:06through the cloud all of a sudden at 6.39 p.m. and 57 seconds,
17:10the radio operator shouted.
17:13Hold the level he had probably seen the pilots' altimeters,
17:16showing that they had gotten too low.
17:19Shockingly, the captain asked,
17:20What level were we given?
17:22The two planes were now 18 seconds from collision.
17:26The flight engineer yelled out maintain,
17:28and the radio operator clarified this by shouting,
17:31Keep to level 150!
17:33Don't descend, finally!
17:35The captain realized that he had made a horrendous mistake.
17:38He disconnected the autopilot and ordered the first officer to increase engine power.
17:43The engine spooled up loudly to high power,
17:46and the radio operator shouted,
17:48Get to 150!
17:50Because on the 140 that one,
17:52all of the crews saw the lights of the 747 filling their windscreens.
17:57But it was too late.
17:59The left wing of the Kazakh plane collided with the Boeing's left engines igniting a massive explosion.
18:06The two planes continued forward for a few hundred meters before tumbling down to earth,
18:11spiraling in their own flames.
18:13The controller watched on as the two blips on his radar merged,
18:17and then disappeared shortly after he heard a voice over the radio in Arabic.
18:21It was the Saudi plane he called both of the flights multiple times,
18:25but got no response a minute after colliding.
18:28Both planes slammed into the ground.
18:30There were no survivors, with 349 people dead.
18:34This crash remains the worst mid-air collision in history and the third worst air accident in history.
18:40After the accident, different parties quickly sought to apportion blame to the various people involved.
18:46The final report into the incident emphasizes the crucial role that the Kazakh pilots played,
18:52in that they were the ones who had slipped below their assigned altitude.
18:56With the sheer number of people in the cockpit,
18:58it became very easy for a working culture to develop,
19:02whereby different tasks were seen as not my problem.
19:06In this case, no crew member took responsibility for ensuring the plane stayed at a designed altitude.
19:12It didn't help that the technology on board the Kazakh plane was practically ancient.
19:18Not only did the aircraft not have TCAS,
19:20but it didn't even have something which all Western passenger aircraft had had since the 1960s.
19:26An altitude alert tone, this would have alerted the pilots when they were nearing their assigned altitude.
19:32And on top of this, the plane's autopilot didn't even have an altitude capture mode,
19:37so it couldn't level off automatically when the selected altitude was reached.
19:42These are incredibly basic autopilot functions which had been in other aircraft for decades.
19:47Either of them would have prevented the collision entirely all of this,
19:51when combined with the grossly inadequate and outdated airspace infrastructure made this accident all but inevitable.
19:58As a direct result of this accident, in 1999, India became the second country in the world to mandate the use of TCAS in its airspace.
20:08Other nations soon followed, and now its standard across the world.
20:12Delhi's airport and Indian airspace more generally also finally got the overhaul it so desperately needed,
20:19all major airports in the country now have modern radar systems,
20:23and the airspace surrounding them has largely been handed over to civilian control now,
20:28as much as half a million people safely take to the sky in India each day,
20:33a figure that is growing year on year ultimately,
20:36while the confusion and disorderliness in the Kysak cockpit caused this accident,
20:41inadequate infrastructure and outdated technology sealed the fate of all 349 people on board the two planes.
20:48It's just unfortunate that this wake-up call came at the cost of so many lives.
20:53Thanks for watching this episode if you'd like to see more episodes like this.
20:57You can watch this playlist up here, and if you'd like to support the channel and join all of these people,
21:03you can sign up on Patreon.
21:05And I put the link to that just at the bottom of the screen here.
21:08Thanks again for watching, and I'll see you soon for the next episode.
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