It’s the only form of mindless-social media that I find extremely enriching. The other day I came across a story that sounded so crazy that I had to stop what I was doing to verify the facts, and I was still in disbelief!
Call me oblivious for first hearing about this 26 years after it happened (hey, I was 3 at the time), but on June 10, 1990, British Airways Flight 5390 made history for the books. In the freak accident, the pilot was entirely sucked out of the cockpit window while the plane was at 17,000 feet!
1. The pilot who got stuck outside the aircraft at 17,000 ft
This is one of the most fascinating flying stories of all time. I am going to explain this incident by combining, editing and modifying the text from various online sources. I will also be using the screenshots from National Geographic’s “Air Crash Investigation.”
British Airways Flight 5390 left Birmingham Airport at 7.20am on a fine morning in 1990, heading for Malaga in Spain. At the controls were Captain Tim Lancaster, 42, and his co-pilot, 39-year-old Alastair Atchison, both experienced flyers, and their take-off was routine.
Co-pilot Atchison handled a routine take-off, and relinquished control to Lancaster as the plane established itself in its climb. Both pilots subsequently released their shoulder harnesses, while Lancaster loosened his lap belt as well.
About 15 minutes into the flight, the cabin crew had begun to prepare for meal service. The plane had climbed to 17,300 feet (5,270 m) over Didcot, Oxfordshire. Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and the fuselage quickly filled with condensation. The left windscreen, on the captain’s side of the cockpit, had separated from the forward fuselage. Lancaster was jerked out of his seat by the rushing air and forced head first out of the cockpit, his knees snagging onto the flight controls. This left him with his whole upper torso out of the aircraft, and only his legs inside. The door to the flight deck was blown out onto the radio and navigation console, blocking the throttle control which caused the plane to continue gaining speed as they descended, while papers and other debris in the passenger cabin began blowing towards the cockpit.
On the flight deck at the time, flight attendant Nigel Ogden quickly latched his hands onto the captain’s belt. Susan Price and another flight attendant began to reassure passengers, secure loose objects, and take up emergency positions. Meanwhile, Lancaster was being battered and frozen in the 550+ KMH wind, and was losing consciousness due to the thin air.+
Atchison began an emergency descent, re-engaged the temporarily disabled autopilot, and broadcast a distress call. Due to rushing air on the flight deck, he was unable to hear the response from air traffic control. The difficulty in establishing two-way communication led to a delay in British Airways being informed of the emergency and consequently delayed the implementation of the British Airways Emergency Procedure Information Centre plan.
Ogden, still latched onto Lancaster, had begun to suffer from frostbite, bruising and exhaustion. He was relieved by the remaining two flight attendants. By this time Lancaster had already shifted an additional six to eight inches out the window. From the flight deck, the flight and cabin crew were able to view his head and torso through the left direct vision window. Lancaster’s face was continuously hitting the direct vision window; when cabin crew saw this and noticed that Lancaster’s eyes were opened but not blinking despite the force against the window, they assumed that Lancaster was dead. Atchison ordered the cabin crew to not release Lancaster’s body despite the assumption of his death because he knew that releasing the body might cause it to fly into the left engine and cause an engine fire or failure which would cause further problems for Atchison in an already highly stressful environment.
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Atchison eventually received clearance from air traffic control to land at Southampton, while the flight attendants managed in extreme conditions to free Lancaster’s ankles from the flight controls and hold on to him for the remainder of the flight. By 07:55 the aircraft had landed safely on Runway 02 at Southampton. Passengers immediately disembarked from the front and rear stairs, and emergency crews retrieved Lancaster.
The captains body had suffered tremendous physical trauma, getting sucked out of the cockpit and getting pinned down by 600 kmph winds on the cockpit window at -17 degree Celsius. He would have also suffered oxygen deprevition for more than 22 minutes.
Despite the trauma captain Lancaster suffered, there is a small twist to his story. He somehow survived this horrific ordeal with two bone fractures, bruising ,shock frostbite and a broken finger.
There were no casualties on this flight.
Less than five months after the accident Lancaster was working again. He later retired from British Airways when he reached the company’s mandatory retirement age of 55 at the time. In 2005 Lancaster was reported flying for EasyJet.
Actual photo of the Windshield
By flying alone, battling 600+KMPH of winds at -17 degree Celsius and oxygen deprivation, Co-Pilot Alastair Atchison’s achievement in saving this plane is truly outstanding.
First Officer Alastair Stuart Atchison and cabin crew member Susan Gibbins were awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air award in recognition of their extraordinary flying under extreme conditions.
Accident investigators later discovered that when the windscreen had been refitted to the plane the night before, the wrong bolts had been used to secure it; they were little more than half a millimeter too small, and had failed under intense air pressure. Surprisingly the old bolts were also incorrect ones; the engineer, working under pressure and without reference to manuals, had simply replaced the old bolts with new ones on a like-for-like basis.
As a result of the incident, windscreens on British Airways planes are now secured by bolts on the inside of the plane, rather than the outside, putting them under even less pressure.
It is highly recommended that you watch the documentary “Aircrash Investigation : Ripped out of the cockpit“
2. Ghost Plane!
Situation
A Helios Airways Boeing 737 is circling the city of Athens for more than two hours in a holding pattern. There is no communications from the plane even after multiple attempts. The Greek air force sends two of its fighter jets to investigate the situation. One of them is in a shooting position behind the 737 while the other one is trying to visually access the situation. The fighter pilot can see passengers on their seats but none of them are moving or reacting to the presence of a fighter jet. There is one non responsive person on the pilots seats slumped over the controls.
Then the fighter pilot radios that there is one person moving in the cockpit! But this person is not communicating with the fighter pilot.
Sounds like a movie?
This true story is as suspenseful as a good thriller movie. I strongly suggest that you watch this episode of Air Crash Investigation. It is highly dramatized and made nearly like a movie itself.
3. AirCraft roof ripped off
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Aloha Airlines Flight 243 was a scheduled Aloha Airlines flight between Hilo andHonolulu in Hawaii. On April 28, 1988, a Boeing 737-297 serving the flight suffered extensive damage after an explosive decompression in flight. Earlier, in the first incident, we saw the captain enduring a huge physical stress, in this case, the passengers are sitting on an airplane seat with no roof.
I suggest you to watch “Air Crash Investigation: Hanging by a thread”:
Per Page on youtube.com:
The flight departed Hilo at 13:25 HST on 28 April 1988 with six crew members and 89 passengers, bound for Honolulu. No unusual occurrences were noticed during the pre-departure inspection of the aircraft. The aircraft had previously completed 3 round-trip flights from Honolulu to Hilo, Maui, and Kauai that day, all uneventful. Meteorological conditions were checked but no advisories for weather phenomenon occurred along the air route, per Airman’s meteorological information (AIRMET) or significant meteorological information (SIGMET). The captain was 44-year-old Robert Schornstheimer. He was an experienced pilot with 8,500 flight hours; 6,700 of those were in Boeing 737s. The first officer was 36-year-old Madeline “Mimi” Tompkins. She also had significant experience flying 737s, having logged 3,500 of her total 8,000 flight hours in them.
No unusual occurrences were reported during the take-off and ascent. Around 13:48, as the aircraft reached its normal flight altitude of 24,000 feet (7,300 m) about 23 nautical miles (43 km) south-southeast of Kahului, Maui, a small section on the left side of the roof ruptured with a “whooshing” sound. The captain felt the aircraft roll left and right, and the controls went loose. The first officer noticed pieces of grey insulation floating over the cabin. The door to the cockpit was gone so the captain could look behind him and see blue sky. The resulting explosive decompression tore off a large section of the roof, consisting of the entire top half of the aircraft skin extending from just behind the cockpit to the fore-wing area.
First officer Madeline “Mimi” Tompkins was flying the plane at the time of the incident. After discovering the damage, the captain took over and steered the plane to the closest airport, on Maui island. Thirteen minutes later, the crew performed an emergency landing on Kahului Airport’s Runway 2. Upon landing, the crew deployed the aircraft’s emergency evacuation slides and evacuated passengers from the aircraft quickly. Tompkins assisted passengers down the evacuation all, 65 people were reported injured, eight seriously. At the time, Maui had no plan for a disaster of this type. The injured were taken to the hospital by the tour vans from Akamai Tours (now defunct) driven by office personnel and mechanics, since the island only had a couple of ambulances. Air traffic control radioed Akamai and requested as many of their 15-passenger vans as they could spare to go to the airport (three miles away) to transport the injured. Two of the Akamai drivers were former medics and established a triage on the runway. The aircraft was a write-off.
58 year old Flight Attendant Clarabelle Lansing was the only fatality; she was swept overboard while standing near the fifth row seats. Despite an extensive search her body was never found. She was a veteran flight attendant of 37 years at the time of the accident.
Real photo of the plane
Source: Wikipedia Aloha Airlines Flight 243
4. Strange Lights around the plane + all four engines fail
British Airways Flight 9, was a scheduled flight from London Heathrow to Auckland, with stops in Bombay, Madras, Kuala Lumpur, Perth, and Melbourne. It is a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet with 263 people on board.
The plane was flying above Indian ocean near Java at night. After few hours, strange bright lights started appearing all around the aircraft. Despite the weather radar showing clear skies, the crew switched on engine anti-ice and the passenger seat belt signs as a precaution.
I strongly suggest to watch this dramatized documentary ” Aircrash Investigation: Falling from the sky” here –> youtube.com.
This incident is better watched than read. Even a book was written about this incident named All Four Engines Have Failed: The True and Triumphant Story of Flight BA 009 and the Jakarta Incident: Betty Tootell
But if you choose to read then continue (otherwise skip to the next incident):
As the flight progressed, smoke began to accumulate in the passenger cabin of the aircraft; it was first assumed to be cigarette smoke. However, it soon began to grow thicker and had an ominous odour of sulphur. Passengers who had a view out the aircraft windows noted that the engines were unusually bright, with light shining forward through the fan blades and producing a stroboscopic effect.
At approximately 13:42 UTC (20:42 Jakarta time), the number four Rolls-Royce RB211 engine began surging and soon flamed out. The flight crew immediately performed the engine shutdown drill, quickly cutting off fuel supply and arming the fire extinguishers. Less than a minute later, at 13:43 UTC (20:43 Jakarta time), engine two surged and flamed out. Within seconds, and almost simultaneously, engines one and three flamed out, prompting the flight engineer to exclaim, “I don’t believe it — all four engines have failed!”
Without engine thrust, a 747-200 has a glide ratio of approximately 15:1, meaning it can glide forward 15 kilometres for every kilometre it drops. The flight crew quickly determined that the aircraft was capable of gliding for 23 minutes and covering 91 nautical miles (169 km) from its flight level of 37,000 feet (11,000 m). At 13:44 UTC (20:44 Jakarta time), Greaves declared an emergency to the local air traffic control authority, stating that all four engines had failed. However, Jakarta Area Control misunderstood the message, interpreting the call as meaning that only engine number four had shut down. It was only after a nearby Garuda Indonesia flight relayed the message to Air Traffic Control that it was correctly understood. Despite the crew “squawking” the emergency transponder setting of 7700, the 747 could not be located by Air Traffic Control on their radar screens.
Many passengers, fearing for their lives, wrote notes to relatives. One such passenger was Charles Capewell, who scrawled “Ma. In trouble. Plane going down. Will do best for boys. We love you. Sorry. Pa XXX” on the cover of his ticket wallet.
Owing to the high Indonesian mountains on the south coast of the island of Java, an altitude of at least 11,500 feet (3,500 m) was required to cross the coast safely. The crew decided that if the aircraft was unable to maintain altitude by the time they reached 12,000 feet (3,700 m) they would turn back out to sea and attempt to ditch into the Indian Ocean. The crew began engine restart drills, despite being well outside the recommended maximum engine in-flight start envelope altitude of 28,000 feet (8,500 m). The restart attempts failed.
Despite the lack of time, Captain Moody made an announcement to the passengers that has been described as “a masterpiece of understatement“:
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.”
Without the engines noise, the planes was totally silent and the lights in the cabin went out!
As pressure within the cabin fell, oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling – an automatic emergency measure to make up for the lack of air.
Without the engines, most of electronic things will stop working including the public addressing system.
Lead Flight attendant came to the the cabin with a megaphone and announced:
“Can you hear me. There is a small problem with our public addressing system. Place your mask over your mouth and nose and breath normally”
On the flight deck, however, Greaves’s mask was broken; the delivery tube had detached from the rest of the mask. Moody swiftly decided to descend at 1,800 m per minute to an altitude where there was enough pressure in the outside atmosphere to breathe almost normally.
At 13,500 feet (4,100 m), the crew was approaching the altitude at which they would have to turn over the ocean and attempt a risky ditching. Although there were guidelines for the water landing procedure, no one had ever tried it in a Boeing 747, nor has anyone since. As they performed the engine restart procedure, engine number four finally started, and at 13:56 UTC (20:56 Jakarta time), Moody used its power to reduce the rate of descent. Shortly thereafter, engine three restarted, allowing him to climb slowly. Shortly after that, engines one and two successfully restarted as well. The crew subsequently requested and expedited an increase in altitude to clear the high mountains of Indonesia.
As the aircraft approached its target altitude, the strange lights on the windscreen returned. Moody throttled back; however, engine number two surged again and was shut down. The crew immediately descended and held 12,000 feet (3,700 m).
As Flight 9 approached Jakarta, the crew found it difficult to see anything through the windscreen, and made the approach almost entirely on instruments, despite reports of good visibility. The crew decided to fly the Instrument Landing System (ILS); however, the vertical guidance system was inoperative, so they were forced to fly with only the lateral guidance as the first officer monitored the airport’s Distance Measuring Equipment (DME). He then called out how high they should be at each DME step along the final approach to the runway, creating a virtual glide slope for them to follow. It was, in Moody’s words, “a bit like negotiating one’s way up a badger‘s arse.” Although the runway lights could be made out through a small strip of the windscreen, the landing lights on the aircraft seemed to be inoperable. After landing, the flight crew found it impossible to taxi, due to glare from apron floodlights which made the already sandblasted windscreen opaque.
They had landed the jumbo jet blind as their windscreen had nearly became opaque due to scratches caused by the strange lights!
The crew received various awards, including the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air and medals from the British Air Line Pilots Association. Following the accident, the crew and passengers formed the Galunggung Gliding Club as a means to keep in contact. G-BDXH’s engineless flight entered the Guinness Book of Recordsas the longest glide in a non-purpose-built aircraft (this record was later broken by Air Canada Flight 143 and Air Transat Flight 236).
One of the passengers, Betty Tootell, wrote a book about the accident, All Four Engines Have Failed. She managed to trace some 200 of the 247 passengers on the flight, and went on to marry a fellow passenger, James Ferguson, who had been seated in the row in front of her. She notes: “The 28th December 2006 marks the start of our 14th year of honeymoon, and on the 24th June 2007 many passengers and crew will no doubt gather to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our mid-air adventure.”
Post-flight investigation revealed that this flights problems had been caused by flying through a cloud of volcanic ash from the eruption of Mount Galunggung. Because the ash cloud was dry, it did not appear on the weather radar, which was designed to detect the moisture in clouds. The cloud sandblasted the windscreen and landing light covers and clogged the engines. As the ash entered the engines, it melted in the combustion chambers and adhered to the inside of the power-plant. As the engine cooled from inactivity, and as the aircraft descended out of the ash cloud, the molten ash solidified and enough of it broke off for air to again flow smoothly through the engine, allowing a successful restart. The engines had enough electrical power to restart because one generator and the on-board batteries were still operating; electrical power was required for ignition of the engines.
The strange lights were initially called St Elmo’s fire, but later it was found that the glow experienced was from the impact of ash particles on the leading edges of the aircraft, similar to that seen by operators of sandblasting equipment.
5. Gimli Glider – Ran Out of Fuel
On July 23, 1983, Captain Robert Pearson, 48, and First Officer Maurice Quintal are at the controls of a brand new Air Canada’s Boeing 767.
At 41,000 feet (12 497 m) over Red Lake, Ontario, the cockpit warning system chimed four times and indicated a fuel pressure problem on the left side. Thinking the fuel pump had failed the pilots turned it off; the tanks are above the engines so gravity will take over and feed the engines. The computer said that there was still plenty of fuel, but this was based on the wrong calculations. A few moments later a second fuel pressure alarm sounded, and the pilots decided to divert to Winnipeg. Within seconds the left engine failed and preparations were made for a one-engine landing.
While they attempted to restart the engine and communicate with controllers in Winnipeg for an emergency landing, the warning system sounded again, this time with a long “bong”. The sound was the “all engines out” sound, an event that was never simulated during training. Seconds later the right side engine stopped and the 767 lost all power leaving the cockpit suddenly silent and allowing the cockpit voice recorder to easily pick out the words “Oh, f%$#!”.
The 767 is based on a “glass cockpit” concept in which mechanical instruments are replaced with display screen monitors. The jet engines also delivered electrical power to the aircraft, so most of the instrumentation suddenly went dead. One of the lost instruments was the vertical-rate indicator, which would let the pilots know how fast they were sinking and therefore how far they could glide.
The engines also supplied power to the hydraulic systems, without which a plane the size of the 767 could not be controlled.
However, Boeing actually planned for this possible failure and included a device known as a ram air turbine that automatically popped open on the side of the plane, using some of the plane’s residual velocity to spin a propeller-driven generator and provide enough power to the hydraulics to make it controllable.
RAM Air Turbine
With nothing in the emergency guide on flying the aircraft with both engines out, Pearson glided the plane at 220 knots (407 km/h), his best guess as to the optimum airspeed. Copilot Maurice Quintal began making calculations to see if they would reach Winnipeg. He used the altitude from one of the mechanical backup instruments, while the distance travelled was supplied by the air traffic controllers in Winnipeg, who measured the distance the plane’s echo moved on their radar screens. The controllers and Quintal both calculated that Flight 143 would not make Winnipeg, as the plane had lost 5,000 ft in 10 nautical miles (1.5 km in 19 km) giving a glide ratio of approximately 12:1.
Stationed at the former Royal Canadian Air Force Base, Quintal selected Gimli to be the attempted place of landing. Since his time in the service, Quintal did not know the Gimli airport had become a drag racing ground. Also not knowing one of its parallel runways was now being used for auto racing. To further complicate the situation, there were many cars, campers and families close to the former runway as it was “Family Day” for the Winnipeg Sports Car Club.
As they approached Quintal did a power-off “gravity drop” of the main landing gear, but the nose wheel, despite being built to open by swinging backwards with the force of the wind, would not lock. The ever-reducing speed of the plane also reduced the effectiveness of The “RAT” (Ram Air Turbine, a propeller driven hydraulic pump tucked under the belly of the 767. The RAT can supply just enough hydraulic pressure to move the control surfaces and enable a dead-stick landing) and the plane became increasingly difficult to control. As they grew nearer it became apparent that they were too high, and Pearson executed a manoeuvre known as a “forward slip” to increase their drag and reduce their altitude. This gave passengers on one side of the aircraft a view of the ground while passengers on the other side of the plane seen blue skies. With the reduction of speed and altitude the 767 silently leveled off and the main gear touched down. Pearson “stood on the brakes” the instant the plane touched the runway, blowing out several of the plane’s tires.
Two kids were cycling at the end of the runway. They looked back and saw a big jet approaching them. The terrified kids tried to outrun the plane.
The plane came to a stop at the end of the runway in a nose-down position due to the unlocked nose gear, only a few hundred feet from spectators of Family Day and the kids at the end of the runway.
None of the 61 passengers were hurt during the landing, the only injuries that resulted from the landing of Flight 143 came from passengers exiting the rear emergency slide, a near vertical angle because of the nose down position of the plane. A minor fire in the nose area was quickly put out by course workers, who rushed over with fire extinguishers.
Real photo
Within two days the aircraft was repaired and flown out of Gimli, after approximately one million dollars worth of repairs, Aircraft #604 the Boeing 767 known as “The Gimli Glider”, is to this day still in the Air Canada fleet.
Note: The mechanics sent from Winnipeg Airport to repair the aircraft, also ran out of fuel in their van on their way to Gimli.
Why this plane crashed?
At the time of the incident, Canada was converting to the metric system. As part of this process, the new 767s being acquired by Air Canada were the first to be calibrated for metric units (litres and kilograms) instead of customary units (gallons andpounds). All other aircraft were still operating with Imperial units (gallons and pounds). The pilots miscalculated the fuel required for the trip in pounds instead of kilograms.
Instead of 22,300 kg of fuel, they had 22,300 pounds on board — 10,100 kg, about half the amount required to reach their destination. This simple problem with the units had caused this crash.
Sources:- Gimli Community Web, Gimli Glider
If you would like to watch it, then search for “Air Crash Investigation: Gimli Glider”
6) Kids fly a commercial jet
Aeroflot Flight 593, an A310 was en route from Sheremetyevo International Airport to Hong Kong Kai Tak International Airport with 75 occupants aboard, of whom 63 were passengers. Most of the passengers were businessmen from Hong Kong and Taiwan who were looking for economic opportunities in Russia.
The relief pilot, Yaroslav Kudrinsky, was taking his two children on their first international flight, and they were brought to the cockpit while he was on duty. Aeroflot allowed families of pilots to travel at a discounted rate once per year. Five people were in the cockpit: Kudrinsky, copilot Igor Piskaryov, Kudrinsky’s son Eldar , his daughter Yana, and another pilot, V. Makarov, who was flying as a passenger.
With the autopilot active, Kudrinsky, against regulations, let the children sit at the controls. First his daughter Yana took the pilot’s left front seat. Kudrinsky adjusted the autopilot’s heading to give her the impression that she was turning the plane, though she actually had no control of the aircraft. Shortly thereafter Eldar occupied the pilot’s seat. Unlike his sister, Eldar applied enough force to the control column to contradict the autopilot for 30 seconds. This caused the flight computer to switch the plane’s ailerons to manual control while maintaining control over the other flight systems. A silent indicator light came on to alert the pilots to this partial disengagement. The pilots, who had previously flown Russian-designed planes which had audible warning signals, apparently failed to notice it.
The first to notice a problem was Eldar, who observed that the plane was banking right. Shortly after, the flight path indicator changed to show the new flight path of the aircraft as it turned. Since the turn was continuous, the resulting predicted flight path drawn on screen was a 180-degree turn. This indication is similar to the indications shown when in a holding pattern, where a 180-degree turn is intentional to remain in one place. This confused the pilots for nine seconds. During this confusion, the plane banked past a 45-degree angle (steeper than it was designed for). This increased the g-force on the pilots and crew, making it impossible for them to regain control. After the plane banked to 90 degrees, the remaining functions of the autopilot tried to correct its plummeting altitude by putting the plane in an almost vertical ascent, nearly stalling the plane. The co-pilot and Eldar managed to get the plane into a nosedive, which reduced the g-forces and enabled the captain to take the controls. Though he and his co-pilot did regain control and level out the wings, their altitude by then was too low to recover, and the plane crashed at high vertical speed, estimated at 70 m/s (14,000 ft/min). All 75 aboard were killed.
The aircraft crashed with its landing gear up, and all passengers had been prepared for an emergency, as they were strapped into their seats. No distress calls were made prior to the crash. Despite the struggles of both pilots to save the aircraft, it was later concluded that if they had just let go of the control column, the autopilot would have automatically taken action to prevent stalling, thus avoiding the accident.
The wreckage was located on a remote hillside approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of Mezhdurechensk, Kemerovo Oblast, Russia; the flight data recorders were found on the second day of searching.
If you would like to watch it, then search for “Air Crash Investigation: Kids in the cockpit”
Source: Aeroflot Flight 593
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