Catching fire SECONDS after takeoff! American Flight 1400 - this plane hit what__ american 1572 - video Dailymotion

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Transcript

00:00Seconds after takeoff from St. Louis, Missouri, the engine of an American Airlines MD-82 erupts into flames.

00:07Alarm bells ring loudly in the cockpit as the pilots grapple with the emergency, but they soon discover that this is no normal emergency.

00:15Within moments, the captain's instruments fail and the aircraft begins to lose vital systems.

00:20Will the crew be able to make it back to the airport, or will the fires build disaster for everyone on board?

00:26This is the story of American Airlines Flight 1400.

00:31On the afternoon of September 28, 2007, 138 passengers and five crew boarded an American Airlines MD-82 at St. Louis Lambert International Airport in Missouri.

00:44They were bound for Chicago, a short one-hour journey north.

00:48It was a warm and sunny day at St. Louis, with light winds, scattered clouds, and temperatures of about 30 degrees Celsius.

00:55All in all, a good day to go flying.

00:59But this picture of perfection was deceptive, in fact.

01:03As the passengers filed in and took their seats, they had no idea quite how much danger they were in.

01:09In a few minutes, a relatively benign technical problem would collide with some very human faults, with disastrous consequences.

01:16Often of this flight was 59 years old, and had been flying for American for the past 17 years.

01:24For the past four years, he had been a first officer on the Boeing 777, and now just six months from retirement, he'd returned as a captain on the MD-80.

01:32He was highly experienced with more than 14 000 total firing hours, to his name 6,000 of which as captain he had started his career with the U.S. Air Force in 1970.

01:45And since joining American Airlines, he had a spotless training and performance record sitting to his right, was a 43-year-old first officer he had joined American in 1999.

01:57And between that and his time with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. National Guard, he had built up about 7 000 fight hours, 3,000 of which run the MD-80.

02:07Maybe, like the captain, he had an unblemished safety and performance record in his time with American Airlines.

02:14But as we're about to see, not all problems show up in training or in performance reviews for Flight 1400.

02:20The problem started almost immediately when the pilots tried to start the left-hand engine.

02:25For some reason, it just wasn't starting.

02:28They wouldn't make it to Chicago on one engine, so the pilots called the ground crew to get the engine started up manually.

02:34A manual engine start doesn't involve spinning the fan blades by hand, but rather it involves a ground crew member inserting a specialized wrench into the side of the engine

02:44and twisting it to open the engine's start valve with the valve open high pressure, is introduced into the engine spinning the compressor blades in the engine's core and starting the engine.

02:55But when the ground crew member reached the aircraft, this is not what he did.

03:00In fact, it was pretty much standard procedure for ground crew at American Airlines not to carry out the procedure the prescribed way,

03:08because it required them to spend a long time trying to locate the particular tool they needed.

03:13So instead of doing it this way, which is outlined in the manuals,

03:17the ground crew member pushed a screwdriver into a different button on the underside of the engine to achieve the same result.

03:23He knew that he was supposed to only use his hand to press this button, but that was hard to do given the position of the button inside the engine.

03:32After a bit of back and forth between him and the captain, the left engine eventually started,

03:37but unbeknownst to anyone on board, this quick fix employed by the ground crew member had created a deadly problem.

03:45Deep inside the left engine was now a ticking time bomb with the last of the baggage loaded.

03:49It was time to get underway. It was Friday, and many of the passengers were looking forward to a weekend trip to Chicago.

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05:33At five minutes past one that afternoon, the plane pushed back from the gate,

05:38fully loaded with fuel baggage and 143 passengers and crew.

05:42The pilots began taxiing out to runway three.

05:45Zero left at St. Louis, happy to have the maintenance nafoo behind them, music.

05:50But the ground crew were not the only ones being sloppy on this day.

05:53As the pilots taxed out to the runway, a casual attitude pervaded the cockpit.

06:00The captain commented that he felt ambivalent.

06:03Now that he had only six months left until retirement as the first officer read out the before-takeoff checklist,

06:09he stopped at various points to chat casually with the captain settling into the mood which he had set in a cockpit.

06:16The captain, rather than instructing the first officer to stay on task, engaged him in conversation between checklist items.

06:25This kind of chatter is strictly against FAA and company policy,

06:30which state that until the plane has reached an altitude of 10.000 feet,

06:35pilots can only discuss things which directly pertain to the flight.

06:40This is known in aviation as the sterile cockpit rule.

06:43If this had been like any other flight, this break from standard operating procedure might have gone without consequence.

06:50But on this day, this laid-back approach would lead to the pilots being caught completely off guard.

06:56Just seconds after takeoff, the captain briefed the first officer on what they would do if they had a problem on takeoff,

07:02saying, quote,

07:03Unless we're on fire, we'll go to Chicago.

07:05If you're on fire, we'll come back and land here.

07:08Little did he know how prescient the statement would be.

07:11Just after 10 past 1, the captain lined the aircraft up on the runway and pushed the engines to take off thrust.

07:19At that very moment, the start valve on the left-hand engine opened the electrical switch which controlled its position,

07:25had been damaged by the ground crew member screwdriver back at the gate,

07:29and now, as the plane accelerated on the runway,

07:33high-pressure air began spinning one of the engine starter turbines as the plane continued down the runway,

07:40this turbine began to freewheel.

07:42Picking up tremendous speed,

07:44the only indication in the cockpit that this was happening was a small enunciator light.

07:50But this light wasn't positioned where the pilots could easily see it,

07:54so when the plane reached takeoff speed,

07:57the captain lifted the nose and brought the plane into the sky.

08:01Both he and the first officer were completely unaware that the left engine was hiding a fatal flaw.

08:07They raised the gear and began climbing out over St. Louis just seconds after lifting off as the plane passed through 1,500 feet.

08:14The first officer noticed that a light had illuminated which said that the start valve for the left engine was open.

08:22He told the captain about it,

08:24who acknowledged the issue as the pilots continue climbing,

08:27figuring that they would fix whatever problem this was.

08:31In a few minutes, the rapidly spinning turbine in the left engine failed catastrophically.

08:36A fire then erupted in the engine.

08:39The engine fire warning sounded like the cockpit.

08:41The first officer immediately declared an emergency telling air traffic control that they had a fire in the left engine

08:48and that they needed to return to the airport straight away.

08:52The controller told the pilots to turn right and said that he would bring them back around to the airport.

08:59Meanwhile, the pilots got to work.

09:01The captain announced that he would fly the plane while the first officer worked through the checklist.

09:06His splitting of duties is exactly how the pilots had been trained to handle emergencies.

09:13Time is critical when it comes to fire on an aircraft the pilots needed to complete some key items in their checklists

09:20to maximize their chances of a safe return to St. Louis.

09:24The first officer took out his checklists and opened the page for engine fire damage or separation.

09:29The purpose of this checklist in the event of an engine fire is pretty straightforward.

09:35It instructs the pilots on how to shut down the affected engine, cut off the fuel supply to it, and then put out the fire.

09:42There are several further steps in this checklist, but these are by far the most important.

09:47But now, at the very beginning of this very serious emergency, the pilots began to flounder despite their spotless records.

09:55And despite the frequency with which engine fires are practiced in the simulator,

09:59the pilots will now make a series of grave errors which will endanger the lives of everybody on board.

10:06The first officer quickly carried out the first two items on the checklist.

10:10He disconnected the autothrottle and set the left engine thrust lever to idle.

10:16But before he could complete the vital third step of cutting off fuel to the engine and pulling the fire handle to extinguish the fire,

10:24the captain interrupted him by handing over the controls in this vital moment

10:28when the first officer should have been shutting down the blazing engine the captain handed in the controls.

10:33His reason for this, he wanted to tell the flight attendants to prepare the cabin for an emergency landing,

10:41something which wasn't necessary at this stage, given that the passengers were already seated and strapped in.

10:48So now, with the first officer flying the aircraft and the checklist sitting idle,

10:53the fire continued burning as it burned.

10:55It began to eat away at electrical wiring and even began to damage the plane's hydraulic systems in a few short seconds,

11:02this emergency was about to get a lot worse.

11:06The captain told the flight attendants that they had a fire in their left engine

11:10and that they would be landing back at St. Louis in the next five minutes.

11:15He told them that they would probably not need to evacuate,

11:18but that they should prepare the cabin just in case at this critical stage of the emergency,

11:23this briefing was completely unnecessary.

11:26The pilot's sole focus should have been on flying the plane,

11:29completing the engine fire checklist and navigating back to the airport.

11:33But the lack of adherence to standard operating procedure as the pilots had exhibited on the ground

11:40was now coming back to bite them in the air.

11:43The controller instructed fight 1400 to turn right again this time to head back parallel to runway 3.

11:50Zero right where they were being set up to land with the first officer now flying the plane,

11:54it was the captain's job to handle the radios and carry out the checklists.

12:00This was a confused and chaotic response to an emergency which they had trained for dozens of times.

12:06Finally, after more than a minute, the captain resumed flying the plane.

12:11But in some important ways, it was already too late.

12:15The captain's primary flight display here and his navigation display here had failed.

12:20The fire in the engine had destroyed the electrical wiring.

12:23Feeding these instruments, these are two of the most vital instruments in the cockpit

12:28which tell the captain his speed altitude and heading.

12:31Now you would have to rely on small, old-fashioned standby instruments to see this important information.

12:38It was an ominous sign what else could be damaged behind the scenes over a minute and a half.

12:44Since he first started it, the first officer resumed the engine fire checklist,

12:48finally getting to that third step, which involved cutting the fuel supply to the engine.

12:54But there was a problem.

12:55The first officer couldn't move the switch for some reason it wouldn't budge.

13:00What's worse is that without this, he wouldn't be able to complete the next step

13:04which involved pulling the fire handle to discharge the engine's two fire extinguishers

13:09amid the first officer's desperate attempts to put out the inferno.

13:15The haunting fire alarm continued to sound in a cockpit.

13:19The right engine was now working at high power just to compensate for the loss and thrust from the left engine.

13:25The captain was working hard to control his stricken aircraft,

13:28with the left engine now producing no power he had to counteract.

13:31The swinging motion of the plane to the left-hand side by stepping on the right rotor.

13:38The pilots were overloaded.

13:39They needed to make it back to the airport as soon as possible.

13:43They had no idea that their problems were only just beginning.

13:47As the aircraft's electrical systems faltered, the pilots began to lose more instruments.

13:53The captain pointed out that the reverser-unlocked indicator light for the left engine was now on.

13:58This is what the thrust levers looked like on an MD-80.

14:02If one of those deployed in flight, it could spell disaster the light telling the pilots that the reverser was unlocked was on.

14:09But was this real?

14:11Or was it just more faulty information generated by the aircraft's failing electrical system?

14:16The pilots were rattled.

14:18The haunting alarms continued to blare, warning them that the fire in the left engine was still raging.

14:24The captain told the first officer to pull the fire handle.

14:28This should have been done minutes ago, but the first officer had been unable to shut off fuel to the engine.

14:35The first officer pulled the fire handle.

14:38But to his horror, the extinguishers wouldn't discharge what was happening their plane.

14:43This was a question the pilots would not have time to answer.

14:47They needed to make it back to the runway fast.

14:50At this point, air traffic control instructed the pilots to fly heading 250 degrees, so that he could set them up for a landing on runway 3, zero right at St. Louis.

15:03The pilots were stretched to the limit behind them, 138 lives hung in the balance.

15:10Then the cockpit door swung open.

15:13The electrical locking mechanism, which kept it closed, had now failed as well.

15:17The first officer reached back and tried to shut it, but it just slammed against the door frame and bounced back again.

15:23He tried again and again, but the door wouldn't close.

15:28Their MD-80 was falling apart.

15:30Flight 1400 was now just minutes from the airport.

15:34The pilots had hauled their crippled aircraft around the airport, and now they would try to limp it onto the runway.

15:40The first officer continued trying to close the cockpit door, but to no avail.

15:46Meanwhile, the captain had managed to discharge both of the fire bottles into the engine.

15:52Finally, it appeared that the fire was under control.

15:55But this wasn't the good news, that it should have been the left engine had been blazing for so long

16:00that it had already caused significant damage, which the pilots were now about to come face-to-face with the runway,

16:08was now in view about six miles out.

16:11As the captain flew towards it, he and the first officer discussed what the flap setting and approach speed should be for landing.

16:19The first officer lowered the landing gear lever and carried out some final checks putting the hydraulic pumps on high

16:25and setting the so-called bugs on the airspeed indicators so that the captain would know what speed to fly it for the approach next.

16:34The first officer lowered the flaps to 23 degrees to allow the plane to slow down for landing.

16:40The captain tried to start the Auxiliary Power Unit, or APU.

16:44This would provide the plane with an additional source of electrical and hydraulic power,

16:49given that the plane's full power supply was now being drawn from just the right-hand engine.

16:54But it wasn't working for some reason the pilots couldn't get the APU to start.

17:00This was no ordinary engine fire.

17:02There was something seriously wrong with their plane.

17:05The sheer variety and complexity of these failures was not something the pilots had trained for in all of their years of flying.

17:12This was a new kind of emergency.

17:14And unbeknownst to the pilots,

17:16it was an emergency that they had caused by their confused reaction to the initial fire warning.

17:21But traveling at over 250 kilometers per hour and just moments from landing,

17:27there was no time to reflect on this yet,

17:29with their plane falling apart system by system.

17:32Their only task was to get back to the runway as soon as possible

17:36at St. Louis Air Traffic Control had scrambled emergency services fire brigades

17:42and ambulances were now waiting beside the runway expecting the worst.

17:45But now, just two or three miles from the runway flight,

17:501400 encountered one of its most serious problems yet.

17:55The first officer noticed that the landing gear indicator lights had not illuminated.

18:01This was a nightmare scenario.

18:03It appeared that whatever electrical and hydraulic problems had been plaguing the aircraft

18:07had spread to the landing gear system, too, without landing gear.

18:11The plane with three hours' worth of fuel in its tanks would have to touch down

18:16on the hard concrete runway, sending sparks flying and possibly igniting a fireball.

18:22But there was a backup system for the landing gear.

18:25Under the first officer's seat was a handle,

18:28which when pulled would extend the landing gear manually.

18:32There was just one problem, now less than a minute from touchdown.

18:36There was no way the pilots could get the gear to extend in time,

18:40but given all of the electrical problems the plane was experiencing,

18:45there was another possibility it could be that the gear was down,

18:48but that the indicator lights had failed.

18:51The captain quickly radioed the tower asking if they could see

18:54whether the landing gear were extended.

18:57The controller said that he could see the main gear,

19:00but that the nose wheel appeared not to have extended.

19:03This was not the news the pilots had been hoping for.

19:06They didn't want to keep their damaged jet in the air for any longer than was absolutely necessary.

19:13But landing without a nose wheel was not a safe option.

19:17They had no choice but to go around.

19:18The captain slammed the one remaining engine to maximum power and pulled the plane's nose up,

19:24but it was a precarious maneuver.

19:26The plane was heavy.

19:27It was low and slow, and with its main gear and flaps extended,

19:32there was a huge amount of drag.

19:34The captain somehow had to pull the lagging plane into the sky with just one engine.

19:39With all of this going against him,

19:41he was finding it nearly impossible to gain the life-saving speed he needed

19:45to keep the plane in the air for the first time.

19:48On this day, the safety of the aircraft's flight path itself was now in peril.

19:52On top of this, the aircraft's condition continued to worsen.

19:58The crew's situation was fast deteriorating into a potentially deadly one.

20:03The captain was at his absolute limits.

20:06There was now so much for him in the first officer to do,

20:09they had started to leave out multiple parts of multiple checklists.

20:13They had to focus on only the most important items.

20:16It was beginning to be too much for the overstretched crew of two

20:20to deal with the captain called a fighter tenant and told her to get the off-duty captain

20:24who was sitting in the passenger cabin to come up to the cockpit immediately.

20:28In less than 30 seconds, the off-duty pilot was open the cockpit.

20:33His presence would lighten the pilot's workload somewhat,

20:36but there was only so much he could do.

20:39Given the state of the plane, he began trying to close the cockpit door

20:43while the captain spoke with air traffic control.

20:46The captain told the controller that he wanted to stay close to the airport

20:50and that he may have to come back and land on runway 2, 4 runway 2.

20:564 was much shorter than runway 3.

20:590 left and right, and it didn't line up with the wind.

21:02But the captain was so concerned about the plane's inability to climb

21:06that he was beginning to think he wouldn't make it back to runway 3.

21:110, in an effort to help the captain gain some much-needed speed,

21:14the first officer raised the flaps a few notches.

21:18The captain then slowly turned the plane to the right.

21:22The controller had cleared him to climb to 3,000 feet,

21:25but there was no way he would be able to make it that high at this rate

21:29despite the need to keep engine power high on the remaining engine.

21:33The captain didn't want to overstress it.

21:35The last thing he needed now was for his one good engine

21:38to exhaust itself and fail as well.

21:40The captain told his colleagues that he needed to go back and land immediately

21:45because he couldn't maintain airspeed.

21:48He was the one flying the aircraft,

21:50and he had a real sense of the sheer difficulty it had with staying airborne again.

21:55Trying to help with this critical speed situation,

21:58the first officer offered to retract the flaps all the way up.

22:02This would make the wings smaller and smoother, creating less drag.

22:07But the captain was concerned that doing so

22:09would cause him to lose the life-giving lift that the flaps were there for.

22:14He decided to compromise and told the first officer

22:17to retract the flaps at the back of the wing

22:19as these create most of the drag

22:22and to keep the slats at the front of the wing extended again.

22:26The captain said that they needed to land.

22:28Now he knew that if they kept on flying,

22:31they would either burn up the remaining engine

22:33or get so slow that the plane would start descending in the back of the aircraft.

22:38It wasn't just the passengers who were nervous.

22:41It was the flight attendants, too.

22:43They could tell that the aircraft was struggling,

22:45and it didn't exactly inspire confidence

22:47that the pilots had aborted their landing

22:49and called for an off-duty pilot to come up to the cockpit.

22:53Immediately they knew that whatever this was, it was serious.

22:56The first officer asked the captain

22:59what runway they should go back and land on the captain,

23:02said that he wanted the longest one.

23:05The off-juicy pilot pointed out that that was runway three.

23:10Zero left, which was a full 2,000 feet longer

23:12than the next longest runway

23:14with the controllability problems

23:15and hydraulic issues the aircraft was having,

23:18that 2,000 feet could make all the difference.

23:21Ben the relief pilot noticed something alarming.

23:23The plane had lost all hydraulic pressure on the right-hand side.

23:28This explained why the nose wheel hadn't dropped,

23:31and combined with the loss of the left hydraulic system,

23:34it explained some of the difficulty the captain was having

23:37with controlling the aircraft.

23:39At this point, the plane was now flying parallel to runway three.

23:44Zero left, with the controller directing the pilots back for a landing,

23:47the captain was still struggling to maintain altitude,

23:50but his speed was now gradually increasing

23:52thanks to the raising of the flaps.

23:55The sense of urgency mounted

23:57as the plane's condition continued to worsen now.

24:00The first officer decided to try to lower the landing gear.

24:03It was better that he did this now than just before landing.

24:06He pulled the gear extension handle under his seat.

24:10The pilots waited to their great relief.

24:12They could hear the noise as the landing gear bay doors opened into the substream

24:16and the wheels slowly dropped,

24:19just to confirm the first officer radioed the tower,

24:22asking whether they could see the nose wheel.

24:25This time they could.

24:27The gear indicator lights were still blank.

24:30But now the crew had the confirmation

24:32they so desperately needed their landing gear were down now.

24:36Just minutes from landing,

24:38it was time for the crew to tell their passengers what to expect,

24:41open to this point.

24:43They had been more or less in the dark

24:45about what had been happening this time.

24:47The captain delegated the task to the off-duty pilot,

24:50who got on the intercom and told the passengers

24:53that they would shortly be making an emergency landing

24:55and that they should fasten their seatbelts

24:58and follow the instructions of the fighter tenants.

25:01Many of the passengers were terrified

25:03they had no idea what to expect finally,

25:06after a strange journey around the airport flight 1400

25:10was lined up with runway three.

25:13Zero left.

25:14The controller had clued it to land

25:16and now there was nothing left to do

25:18but for the captain to get his plane

25:20and his 142 passengers and crew safely onto the runway,

25:24no longer working against the aircraft to get it to climb,

25:27the captain was now letting the plane settle

25:30into where it wanted to go back down towards the ground.

25:33The first officer lowered the flaps to 28 degrees,

25:37helping the plane to slow for landing

25:38and then, finally, some good news.

25:41The landing gear indicator lights had just started to work.

25:45All three of them were green,

25:47telling the pilots that the gear were not just down

25:50but locked into position.

25:52This was a relief.

25:53But the pressure the captain was under was immense.

25:56He had to avoid another go-around at all costs.

25:59The aircraft was just 500 feet above the ground now

26:02and the runway was dead ahead.

26:05The first officer told the captain that he was fast

26:08so that the best way to land

26:10would be to pull the throttle to idle just before landing

26:13and let the plane float down onto the runway.

26:16The automated voice began counting down

26:19the plane's height above the runway.

26:21Finally, the plane touched down.

26:24The captain slammed on the brakes

26:26and within a few moments,

26:27the speeding plane skidded to a stop.

26:30On the runway, the passengers erupted into applause

26:33after horrendous ordeal.

26:35Everyone on board was finally safe,

26:38but despite the positive outcome,

26:40big questions remained.

26:42What caused the engine fire in the first place?

26:45And why did it cause so much damage?

26:48Investigators from the U.S. National Transportation

26:50Safety Board got to work immediately

26:53to find the answers to these questions

26:55and what they found revealed some critical failings

26:59at American Airlines.

27:01As it turned out, the reason the engine

27:03wouldn't start on the ground at the beginning of the flight

27:05was that a filter inside the engine

27:08had disintegrated and blocked airflow

27:10to a key part of the engine.

27:12This should have been picked up

27:13by American Airlines maintenance procedures,

27:16but these procedures were found

27:18to be lacking by investigators.

27:20To make matters worse,

27:21the ground crew misidentified

27:23the air turbine starter valve, or ATSV,

27:26as being the reason the engine wouldn't start,

27:29rather than a problem with this filter on top of this.

27:32They used an unapproved method to start the engine

27:34which led to the fire it experienced

27:36directly after takeoff.

27:38So we have maintenance and oversight problems

27:40at American Airlines as well as ground crew

27:43who were carrying out unapproved procedures,

27:46but from a human factors perspective.

27:48The biggest lessons which can be learned here

27:50are to do with how the pilots responded

27:53to the engine fire.

27:55When it happened, the final report into this incident

27:57recommended that airlines review their pilot training

28:00on task allocation and workload management

28:03during emergencies

28:04to ensure that when pilots are running

28:06emergency checklists,

28:08they should not engage in non-essential tasks

28:11in this case, like calling the flight attendants

28:14and talking to air traffic control

28:16if the first officer had continued

28:18with his engine fire checklist.

28:21Uninterrupted, it's very likely

28:23that the plane would have returned to St. Louis

28:25on the first attempt with minimal issues.

28:28One pilot cited in the report asked rhetorically,

28:31what is the easiest way to prepare yourself

28:33to deal with events that are unfamiliar to you?

28:36Events where there are no established procedures

28:39based on my flying experience

28:40and aviation safety background.

28:43I firmly believe that the answer

28:45is rigorous adherence to standard operating procedures

28:48and cockpit discipline on each and every flight.

28:51When you do this, you're preparing yourself

28:53for the unexpected.

28:55The pilots of Flight 1400

28:56were not prepared for the unexpected,

28:59and they did their jobs in a system

29:01which threw poor oversight

29:03of its maintenance procedures

29:04threw the unexpected at them.

29:06In this case, the passengers of Flight 1400

29:09were lucky that they remained live test subjects

29:12in this very risky experiment.

29:15If you enjoyed this video,

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29:23Thanks for watching,

29:24and see you for the next video.

Catching fire SECONDS after takeoff! American Flight 1400 - this plane hit what__ american 1572

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