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Human Factors, Aircraft Accidents Adam Howey Human Factors, Aircraft Accidents Adam Howey

Sioux City

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Transcript Start

00:00

Adam Sam Sioux City. Yeah, just be clear. This isn't a podcast about the township of Sioux City, right? It's probably the best name to call it. There would have been a couple of titles we could have had such as United Airlines 232. Okay could have called it CRM. But, for me, from, from studying this years ago, when someone says to me Sioux City, it just means one thing to me.

00:28

And that's the crash of United Airlines 232 at Sioux City. So we're gonna just talk about one flight and one accident. Yeah, I guess this was kind of the first aviation accident where they attributed CRM, as an example of the gold standard of CRM and how it can work.

00:45

Effectively, even though over a third of the passengers were, sadly killed successful accident with the loss of life. So it's a bad accident but it's a successful one, but I think it's worthy of a whole podcast, rather than accident. Rather than just tagged onto the end of a CRM topic.

01:04

Definitely, because it's a stayed in my mind. Yeah, throughout my career, definitely. It was used as an example of good CRM. I guess, a disclaimer to anybody who's might be listening that we'll probably talk about loss of life. Yeah. What about the history? We talk about. How do you want to just for anybody that hasn't heard of the accident or yeah, doesn't know the background.

01:27

We should probably just bring in everything. There's plenty of stuff out there on Sioux City. Yeah, there is, I think there's a couple of reasons for that one, with it being held up as a success to the news media, we're present at the site of the crash in advance. It's actually a live video of the crashes.

01:44

Yes, it's created a kind of. Well, there's two plays even, there's a couple of films, plenty of documentaries. Yeah, and a whole book, not an aviation book. So I'll try some basic facts and see when I run out, say go 1989 and it's united airlines, you still exist and have existed with that name for a very long time.

02:07

Since the 20s, I think flight 232 Denver Colorado to Chicago, which is their home base one, those flights through their hub, but Chicago, so it was going on to somewhere else. Philadelphia, right? That's right. That's the one. Yeah. The accident started to unfold an hour and a bit into the flight in the cruise over Iowa which is a big open flat land,

02:35

plain stunning area of the United States through the central corridor of the United States that normally a lot of bad big thunderstorms blow through yep not on that day and it's a McDonald. Douglas DC 10 aircraft which you don't see anymore. No. Al Haynes. The captain described it as an old man's aeroplane because it was very easy to fly.

02:57

Apparently, that's how he described it. But how would you like it? The late Al Haynes here? Any died about a year ago? Yeah, I like him. Yeah, one likes him. Right. And it'll probably become clear like in the podcast when we touch on the CRM side of things, as to why we like him so much, right?

03:14

He's obviously used CRM or cockpit leadership and resource management as they used to call it CLR. I used it to really good effect. But you know, the DC10 and what significant about it with this accident is, it's a, it's a three engine aeroplane with the. Number two engine, being mounted to the yeah, to the rear of the tailplane.

03:35

So with some of these aeroplanes I'm guessing that when the engines weren't as powerful as they are now, they needed extra thrust to empower these wide body aircraft. And so they only need a three obviously the seven four had four engines. Yeah, so there's a tri-star as well and I always used to get the two confused for the DC.

03:55

10 has this tail. Yeah, and then, as if somebody's just stuck in the middle. Yeah. Sort of hangs halfway down the fin. Yeah, the tri-star has it. So a built into the fuselage so it can't see the engine, the ducked. Yes. Agreed. So the DC10 the engine just sort of stuck on in the middle of the fin, kind of more that I see.

04:17

We're going to talk about. It's wide body. This aircraft was and not full but 2090. So you need the passage of 284 to 84 passengers. I've been yeah, about 11 crews. That's probably where I've got. Yeah, I think I'm looking at it. I think in, you could probably squeeze a few more and maybe 300 passenger 300.

04:38

Yeah, it's in a two, five, two seating configuration. So, two on the outside, five in the middle, I didn't know that. If I was travelling long haul on that, I wouldn't like to be in the middle of five. That would be nice if you got two not if you're in the two-er, if you slide.

04:51

But in the middle of a row five this single traveller would be it. Wasn't that inflation? No. What else can we say about it? So these wide body big jets that the first one really be in the seven four seven. They were the first generation of aircraft to not have cables that connected, the flight controls to the flying surfaces.

05:11

Yeah there's no physical connection, Al Haynes, you started flying in 56. Yeah, to him, that was concerning when he first went on to the aircraft. Yeah, there's nothing physically connected. Sorry that. Yeah. There's nothing physically, almost connected between his yo. Yeah. And the aileron, the rudder and the elevator.

05:29

Yeah, what there is, is high pressure hydraulic lines, just like car breaks. Yeah. Or even your bike, your new bicycles got hydraulic brakes, right? So what happens if you lose that hydraulic fluid, then that system doesn't work anymore. So in order for that to not be a possibility, they have to on all these big jets you always hear three.

05:50

There's this three systems as that's always there. Seems to be the number for redundancy so there's three hydraulic systems. So if one goes you've still got two worst case of two goes. You can still fly the plane on one. That's the idea. Yeah. And I believe it was one in a billion chance.

06:07

Absolutely. That you would lose all three say impossible. Yeah. So that is what we're going to get on to. They lose all three hydraulic systems. So, the DC10, they're the graph that had a lift down to a space downstairs for the crew to, like, prepare meals. And these kind things, in fact, the number one as we would call it the cabin manager, the lead flight attendant Jan Brown.

06:30

Yeah, she in the early days of the DC 10 it had convection ovens downstairs, right? And she would bake a whole cake with ingredients really on the flight, okay? Take all the ingredients bake, the cake downstairs. And bring it up for the crew on quiet, flights, nice. This is, this is a generation of aircraft that a different to what we're used to.

06:49

Yeah. Yeah, that demonstrates. Yeah. Yeah. Say the captain our hands. Yeah. He's been flying. It quite a long time. Yeah. And he confesses that he was enjoying his life as a first officer for a long time flying across the Pacific to Hawaii. Yeah, it's been in 10 days on the beach, coming home, but at some point he decided he need to be a captain.

07:09

He went over to the B727, I think okay then came back to the DC 10, okay? To continue as a captain and he had a lot of time. So who else was in the flight there? So well when the flight took off there was only three in the flight deck by the end of it, there was four.

07:24

So in the flight deck, it starts the first officer was Bill Records. Yeah, and the flight engineer as they used to have in those days, was Dudley Dvorak. So let's describe that. Say else that on the left and the captain. See as you look forward and Bill is in the right seat.

07:40

He's the first officer /co pilot and they're calling the flight engineer. This second of second officer as well. He sat just behind the first office sort of to his side besides down at the panel instruments here. So this is an aircraft that still needed flight engineer due to the increasing complexity of these aircraft.

07:56

And at that time, technology hadn't caught up. So that there was no electronic systems that we'd have. Now that we tell you what's going on, there's just too many dials to fit in front of the pilots and to many switches the engineer fly engine. Also just monitor those dials basically, and there wouldn't be anything like we have now.

08:14

Like ecam that no, it would ping up. It would have to be spotted essentially by the and we have like 10 screens 10 pages on one screen, hydraulic page, electric page, fuel page. They wouldn't have that technology. So they're all steam driven as they call it gauges like old-fashioned dials.

08:34

Yeah. So the first officer had a lot of flight time 15. 20,000 hours, something like that? Yeah, a lot more. I think this seems something like 30,000 hours for the captain a lot. I know he's got a set about 7,000 other DC 10. Yeah, yeah, a real life, it's quite a lot.

08:49

I mean, that's how many I've got. I think he started flying in the 50s. So, this would be like 30 years later, 25 years later, and the engineer had a lot of time as well. However, on this aircraft, the first officer had not long been on the aircraft, right?

09:05

You don't need, just done his flight release to line, kind of flight and the engineer. He only had like 30 hours on on their aircraft. He just got off the 727, but a similar type of aircraft and we'll talk about Denny Fitch's experience, I guess in a minute. Yeah.

09:21

So you talked about the DC10 the flight. Yeah. All the normal stuff. So, basically, briefly she took about what happened? to get them into the situation. They got into. So that that number two engine, we talked about, there was mounted on the tail plane. It was actually a fan disc in that engine completely.

09:39

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Explosion

Well exploded. Essentially, it completely shattered, burst out of the side of the engine cowlink, okay? And all the sort of metal parts, cause massive damage to the tail, plane of the aircraft and that one in a billion chance, it actually, those parts of debris, severed, all three of the hydraulic lines.

10:00

So, say, essentially all the hydraulic fluid, just poured out of the back of the aeroplane , lovely. And then the flight crew were left with absolutely, no, no flight controls, no elevator, no flaps, no later ones, no rudder. Just breaking down that, that fraction of a second. Yeah, event the engineering of jet engine is insane.

10:22

You can hang like, 10, double decker buses, off, one blade, or something Rolls-Royce. Say then the disc in the middle, that holds all those blades together and a latent fault from when it was manufactured that disk in that titanium, and I've got into making titanium, and I still don't really understand it right, okay.

10:41

But it's it's a weird material, but join the manufacturer of that disk, there was a deficiency in it. Okay. And that disk had been flying for a long time, maybe, 30, 40,000, hours, or something, 12,000 cycles and then on this particular moment in the cruise, it decides that it's had enough, it cracks open causes a catastrophic failure of that disk the blades shoot out from the side, they take out the accessory gearbox and that explodes and that debris actually then it was about.

11:14

Yeah. Okay. The point being. Why it chose to give up at that moment when they're just making a slight right turn at 37,000 feet? I don't know. But that might be as Al says their first piece of look that it occurred at that moment not at takeoff or some other phase of flight or on a different day.

11:32

Yeah the tail was quite damaged. Yeah the explosion stay loud that workers on the ground in a factory here. It really also here something like a helicopter, spinning around landing in the field and months later. They'll they actually find all these bits and it was I gets a rewards the crops.

11:52

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, everyone in the cabin thinks a bomb has gone off. Yeah. Or there's a decompression, I read that a lot. Yeah, a few passages thought it was a bomb. Senior camera. Thought it was a decompression, like, a hole inside of the aeroplane. Yeah, she was remembering the Aloha accident out in Hawaii where there was big hole in the aircraft.

12:12

So she said she just grabbed on to something and the DC10, there's nothing wrong with the aircraft but it had history record and there was a few decompressions where flight attendants have been sucked out the aircraft. Yeah, Al captain now the first officer bill and second officer Dudley were obviously just trying to figure out what happened.

12:33

Al and Bill realising that their flight control their control. You just wasn't doing anything aircraft starts making a right bank, right turn and they can't just I mean I can't even imagine you just not being you know, having flown for so long. Now, have you had an engine failure huh I need a simulator.

12:51

So yeah, nothing in real life but I but I kind of imagine having the engine failure but just not having control of the aeroplane. I can't, you know what? Feeling to put input into your flight controls and they're not work. If we're gonna talk about CRM's role in in all this, let's break down those next few seconds.

13:10

And maybe what our training in 2021 might lead us to do and what our experience. How you react say, massive explosion In all seriousness. It's about an hour and a quarter or something, or an hour and a half into the flight. I mean that's the most chilled time top of climb certainly with the checks that way.

13:30

Yeah. A bit of time before you get to Chicago, Al Haynes is nursing a coffee right, which he spills all over himself for the remainder of the flight. Okay, the first often the engine having a conversation about fishing Als annoyed because he likes baseball, right? These kind of things.

13:48

So, extremely low workload low, stimulus, passengers probably asleep, even though it's the day cabin crew done the service. Yeah, chilled. Massive explosion. So huge surge of adrenaline. Yeah, startle and surprise we call it. No electronic engine system, but you've got Dudley, you is able to tell you what he's seeing.

14:10

Dudley essentially is the ECAM, EICAS, like, he's probably a really good one. Yeah, so in the next 14, seconds Dudley and Al using a physical checklist perform the engine to shut down procedure. Our course for it, the captain totally the fly engineer reads it. I'll first action is to retard the thrust lever.

14:33

It won't go back. It's to cut the fuel off, it won't go back. It always did in the simulator, but he's starting to realise, maybe, there's some damage and so they pull the fire handle and whether it's quintessent or not. At that time, the engine shuts down. And so, a lot of the high vibration, I think, and the noise may be disappears and I I read on that as well.

14:54

That was one of the first bits of CRM is that there's actually quite a lot of input from Dudley on that. He was the kind of instigator of how best to shut that engine down, but it was kind of hours leadership that allowed deadly to give there. And we'll come on way more into this about the captain's authority and okay.

15:10

All right, so change if we unpack that moment then, go on. What what do you mean? So I I read it was along the lines of hours. So struggling to figure out how to shut it down, right? And it was, it was like especially won't get back yet. Yeah, exactly.

15:24

But it was deadly suggestion from his experience as to think about another way. It was essentially Dudley's input. That this is a different, you know, generation because we will be able to have a conversation with the ecam. Oh yeah, that's interesting. But it's also at that time there was a lot of this.

15:40

The captain is the authority, he or she obviously knows best. But obviously, these guys have been trained in CRM. Here is a small example, but it's the first one of many, where deadly obviously feels he can concentrate and so not challenge out, but offer a suggestion to how that he might not have thought of that, that's how I read it anyway.

15:58

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CRM History

Yeah. Okay, that's interesting. So, I hadn't picked up on that. Say let's pause there, because, yeah, I don't want to go too much into CRM until well let's let's talk briefly about history CRM, crew resource management comes under the human factors, part of aviation. It's a non-technical discipline but it's training.

16:16

It's a way you can score and assess pilots. It's the way you can select pilots and it's a combination of their cognitive skills and they're interpersonal skills, if you like trying to make them objective and usually the titles are things like communication decision, making leadership teamwork situational awareness. These are their the breakdown of the skills and topics and things in CRM and it's pilots and it's cabin, crew and aviation led the way, I'd say aircraft used to crash because the wing fell off or the engine fell off or pilot error.

16:52

Yeah, and once manufacturing and maintenance and aircraft design and systems got better, and we wanted to reduce accident rates more as aviation especially was picking up and more and more people were flying pilot error became the dominant reason why aircraft were crashing. Yeah, and it's sad that to this day, the news will still say it was pilot era or some mum will say pilot error.

17:15

When all the way back in 1980, we were starting to unpack that term now. So we don't just say pilot error. We now break that down to what do you mean by that? Say, we've got humans flying aircraft, which is amazing because of what the human brain can can achieve versus just a computerised thing.

17:33

But humans to er is to human to make an error is a human thing. So it's okay. If you make a mistake, you're expected to and CRM starts to unpack tools and skills. And, and techniques, and and training for you to overcome pilot error. Yeah. So there'd been some accidents including fuel starvation, and I'm not thinking of the everglades and thinking of some idea this.

18:01

So I, so from my research, I found two sort of main aircraft accidents, which accelerated the our own process one of which was so it was US airlines 173, which I think is what you're talking about where they run out of fuel because they're trying to diagnose, a landing gear problem and a light bulb essentially.

18:17

Yeah. They all got kind of sucked into that problem. Yeah. But nobody was keeping an eye on the bigger picture which was that they're running a fuel and then the other one was the KLM Tenerife North. Okay. Where the first officer, possibly, arguably new. That there was another aircraft on the runway but didn't know how to challenge.

18:37

Yeah, the captain. Who was a very very senior almost possibly chief pilot level. Yeah, captain. And he just didn't know how to approach it. So CRM, the idea of bringing CRM in after those two accidents, but kind of before that as well, but those two accidents, sort of emphasise, the need for it was to, as well as all those skills you talked about leadership, communication, etc.

18:58

But also to try and shallow the authority gradient in the flight deck, as much as possible. And I believe that in about 1980 this is when the idea was introduced. Although there's a really good book which has written a really long time ago by a belak and an RAF pilot.

19:16

Yeah, I remember, yeah, he doesn't use the term CRM at all. It's called the human pilot (The Naked Pilot) something like that. Yeah, yeah. I've got, I'm just not on my bookshelf here. I've got it with loads of bookmarks in it and he explored what the human is contributing in the the mistakes that they're making and the things they're achieving when there's accidents.

19:38

And so this idea was out there, of course, quite early. It just took a long time. To really, I'm learning NASA and a lot more involved in the development aviation than I realised. So they they started to put it out there to the commercial industry and united perhaps as a legacy what you would call that big airline Lexi.

19:56

Hello, they took it on immediately and they called it CLR and the effect is that Al Haynes that had nine years of CLR of CRM training. By the time, this accident had occurred but he'd started flying in 55 56. So, that's, that's really interesting because it might have been the first time that we can see CRM really paying off, but certainly the crew were the ones saying that, that's what saved the day.

20:23

One early way to describe CRM was using the shell model. So it's how you see yourself as part of the bigger system. Yeah. So it's not just you. And the other pilots is you and the environment you and the hardware, you and the checklists and includes air traffic, control carbin crew.

20:43

And that's a always 100% apart of CRM, which is it's not just a flight deck thing. It's always cabin crew. In fact, the training is mandatory that you do it with cabin crew and also air traffic control, who played a big part in this. Yeah. Yeah. And the success of this, we're going back to that moment.

21:00

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Flight Controls

Yep, where there's a giant explosion, there's some Startle and surprise, al drops his coffee, they realised. It must be an engine and Dudley is able to help them shut down. Within 14 seconds, I read it quickly. Yeah, it's quite quickly, which is not a race. No, but that problem seemingly is solved immediately.

21:20

Yeah. And you failure. No, big deal. Not very nice of the passengers. Yeah. And then what happens. So then they realise the plane is starting to bank over to the right and they can't control it. Yeah their control yoke is not working, there's not working and that at that moment Dudley's having a look at his sort of instruments and he sees that all three hydraulics are empty, all the fluid and also hydraulic systems empty.

21:46

So we've got these hydraulic lines full of fluid and we have a gauge telling you how much fluid is in the reservoir and that's going down a zero. And he can't quite believe it because he's never seen that before or trained for that because it's one in a bill.

21:59

He communicates that to Al and Bill who would wrestling with the controls and successfully. And and the plane is starting to bank and bank, and back, more and more into a steeper. Always to the right, always the right and break that down for a second, then see the pilot and you've run your drill your trainings kicked in.

22:20

Yeah, I don't if it was a hand over control, but as you say, the first officer has the control. The aircraft. Yeah. So Al and Dudley are consumed in the shutting down the engine. They look back. And I think the first officer grabs the attention of the captain and says I need help here.

22:39

Yeah or something. And that's when I'll potentially for the first time realises, they're in a descending bank or they're starting to bank. Yeah. And also that the control yoke is fully back. Yeah, and fully to the left. So the opposite of what they're doing and he also points out that your yoke because I've flown a Boeing for a couple of years, but the yoke, you know, it does come right into your fay belly.

23:06

Yeah, that's how far it goes back. Yeah, it's right there. Yeah, you know, you can't mistake where it is and it's to the left is the opposite way. Yeah, owl says something. Then I've got this, which we would say, I have to try. I have control. So in modern day, I think all fleet share FNC or ANC navigate, navigate communicate way of instantly prioritising your workload, or your tasks, the first one fly or Aviate.

23:35

So what that means, make sure the aircraft's flight path is safe. Just speed the bank. And we look at like FMA's and it tells us what auto what automatically have now, the autopilot drops out, but just before all the fluid leaves, the aircraft the autopilot tries to stop the effect that the explosion has had on the aircraft, okay, so it moves the stabiliser a bit, then the autopilot drops out in the first officer, he puts the nose up or down, it makes movement and they do actually control it just for a few seconds until the fluid is leaves.

24:11

And then it's then it's set. Okay, where it is? Yeah, which will become important. When we talk about what the aircraft starts to do next, those is funny that in those few seconds, the horizontal stabilisers have run in a certain direction and then set that. So it happens to be set.

24:27

I think reasonably neutral the, you can read like, what the degrees are so the other pilot drops out. So I'd say, although does quite well because somebody else is flying the aircraft, it would seem and he's able to then go into narrower beam of situational awareness with Dudley to shut the engine down and the first officer is able to speak up as well as Dudley is already done and say something's going wrong here and get ours attention house back from what he's doing.

24:56

Yeah, I guess this is the territory which I still have a fear that it will happen to me, one day where something's happening and I don't know what it is. Yeah. Yeah. And basically the feeling of what have I done wrong? Yeah. Yeah. They're gonna, I've laughter, I've died.

25:12

They're gonna be like, why didn't he do this? Yeah. So Als looking at this thinking, I've got 30,000 hours of flying and never once in any case, has the aircraft been going down to the right when I'm pulling up and going to the left. Yeah. And I think that has a potential to send your brain into a terrible loop of data and inaction.

25:35

Yeah. Confusion like yeah a million things and that's why other people in the flight that can be helpful then. Well, that's why I think I think ultimately that helped him because if he's seen something like this before, it's hard. You know, I don't worry I now has handled. Okay.

25:48

And that could have been like more authoritative, but because he'd never seen that he was as clueless as everybody else. So, I think he sort of testaments that in that video. I know we both watched about the presentation. She doesn't NASA. Yeah, where he says. So also here in a minute, we'll talk about how Denny Fitch got into the cockpit, but he says between the four of them, they had a hundred and three years of flying experience, but none of them had seen this before.

26:11

Hence, so why should he watch it? Why should I know best? Why should I make the decisions? Why don't we throw out there to the group? Okay, and so yes, it possibly not having seen this before. Actually helped the contribution from everybody. A nice way to manage something like this would be to always prioritise aviate navigate communicate and then after that, you would go into ECAM EICAS or checklists.

26:37

And then later on you go into some analytical decision. Making using some tools but they're like stuck on the F. They're from the a they're still on the fly that aviate. Yeah. They can't. They can't do it. Yeah, yeah. Bear that in mind. As we talk about all the other problems that they had to overcome decisions that had to be made, while they never really solved, the a, well, not for a long time, did they solve the flying part?

27:01

Yeah. And they never quite got it right? But they, you know, because it was impossible, but they did eventually spend a bit of time and how guess you can onto this, like, how I'll manage to stop the say something. I'll confess that I recognise a, an Airbus pilot. I'm not as aware of is static stability.

27:22

Yeah, you know so if our aircraft loses an engine, it shouldn't ever enter a spiral dive and we're not really used to that but this DC10 is starting to bank over to the right? And descend, Ultimately, I think what an aircraft will do then is increase that spiralling descent into it, flips on its back and they're pulling up into the left, of course, nothing's happening.

27:42

So just to stay the obvious, there's no hydraulic fluid in the aircraft so they have no control over the elevator, the stabiliser, the rudder, or the ailerons, all the flaps, or other things that will come onto, say the control stick. The yoke is totally useless, but 30,000 hours of flying are telling you just do everything you can to pull up into the left.

28:05

So they can sort of keep doing that but the aircraft is to send into the right? So after hardly any time they have to do something otherwise it's always going to get out control here. So what does he do? So he uses the one tool. He's got left, really, which is his thrust on the number one.

28:23

And number three engine, which again is kind of luck that they lost a number two engine, got even thrust, you know, even distribution of trust. So he put the thrust up on the right hand engine and reduced thrust on the left-hand engine that increase in thrust on the right, managed to bring the wing back up towards level flight and actually recover them out of that, how that right-hand turn.

28:47

So I reckon if you haven't done that within a few seconds, I don't think I'm exaggerating too much. Yeah, I don't think he had long because they got up to 38 degrees angle of bank, which is quite a lot. Yes. So what would we normally do? Like normal, like even a turn never more than 25 degrees .

29:04

If you pull that passenger notice that's just notice that's a big turn and that altitude as well. You wouldn't do anything close to that 38 degrees. So again towards a steep turn and then it might be unrecoverable. So he manages to pick the wing up using asymmetric thrust yet.

29:22

So there's everything under control And not really, they get it back up out of that turn, but then I'm not sure how further long down the line, but they suffer from like a few go ahead as well. I think that comes a bit later, right. So in terms of the aviate but navigate communicate, you've got to break it down into roll.

29:41

Yeah, yeah. So they've got the roll under control but not necessarily the pitch, Does that they're still descending. There's descending. Imagine that. I mean your brain must be screaming at you like you're going down. Yeah. Yeah. And at the moment you haven't figured out how to stop that happening.

29:56

Well it's you're gonna hit the ground there at 37,000 feet. Yeah. Just a matter of time. Well that was this might be a nice time to bring in Denny Fitch because that was his first thought when he entered the cockpit was I'm gonna die today when I when he saw what happened.

30:10

So, so okay, so should we bring in Denny Fitch? I say, Denny is a good time for Denny. Yeah, no. I think so he said they've, they've got some of the aviate under control navigation, isn't too much of a problem because else not as concerned about finding an airport yet.

30:30

Yeah. Throughout most of the flight he states we're gonna be in a field and he thinks that's gonna be a great outcome basis. As long as they're not going those first. Yeah, there's no weather one year after the accident on the anniversary, they visited Sioux City and it was heavy thunderstorms.

30:48

Yeah. So that day was ten miles vis or more scatered at four and a half, you know, almost just the perfect. Perfect day. Yeah, so navigation, the terrain isn't so much of an issue. Like Al says, they went over the Rockies and they went over the ocean and they went over Manhattan.

31:04

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Communication

Yeah. Communication, some communication starts before. Then he comes in yes. The flight engineer makes to appear to passengers quite calm that they're going to have lost an engine. They're going to continue to Chicago, take a bit longer because there'll be a lural student slower speed, but the cabin crew started to become aware that this isn't?

31:23

This is kind of bad. Yeah, but they haven't visited the flight deck. No, at that time. Communication starts with the company. Yes. Yeah, I think that's the first thing. The first person as you contact. Yeah. So maybe we were a bit premature on on Denny Fitch. So yeah, the contact company so they obviously have got some sort of stability.

31:43

The aircraft is flying. Okay with this asymmetrics through us. So I think it Dudley, if I engineer contacts the company to say, hey we've got three. I said this is another example of using your resources. You've got, you know, a company line here. Yeah, a team of engineers with manuals and computers in front of them, who might be able to help you.

32:02

So, hey, we've got three hydraulic empty hydraulic systems. What do we do for this? And the hours? I remember I'll say in the in they were coming back saying what you've lost their number three, like no, we've lost all three. What one and two or you know they couldn't believe all three are gone but there was no procedure.

32:22

No, no. So I'll just talk about how we got really pissed off with the engineers. They call SAM, I can't still figure out why they call them SAM because it's almost a referring to a person called, Sam something area maintenance. Oh, okay. Okay. But they're in San Francisco. So maybe that's scary San Francisco area maintenance.

32:42

Yeah, well done, so say all the companies I've worked for we call it maintrol but there's always somebody on the end of a radio. He's an engineer and now they have this computerised database and they kind of had that in the 89, they also had lots of engineers and yeah, they're just not in the air, they're in a different, the environment eating biscuits and yeah, probably not wanting a call from an aircraft, you know, probably getting it all the time.

33:08

Oh, we've lost you know some in minor or not taking this aircraft unless the toilet gets fixed or I don't know if I'll write it. Yeah and then here is something they're not used to which is somebody talking to them saying save us. Basically says what's the trick and how we just help, which circuit breaker we pull to make it all okay.

33:29

Okay. Yeah, yeah, they can't even comprehend the situation. Yeah, let alone help them at that point and there's a lot of time to I think Dudley speaks to them trying to tell them what's going on. But what it does do at some point, I think maybe later on, although the engineers can't help them, the engineers are able to mobilise lots of other.

33:52

Yeah, people who will become much later on, you know, really useful. Yeah, that's it. The company are now aware. And yeah, and that spreads like wildfire, like yeah, around companies services, you know, everybody becomes aware that this is, yeah, there's an aircraft in the, a major problem. Well, let's talk about communication then to air traffic control.

34:12

So we haven't talked about that. They're talking to Minneapolis area controller. Yeah. And they established that Sioux City Airport is reasonably close by, and eventually they get transferred to Sioux City and Sioux City is in today's population. It's less than a hundred thousand I think. Okay. So that's the size of the the city and it's got four states around it.

34:34

So calling Sioux Land just seems like the most amazing place. Yeah. People maybe we should go that one dollar thinking about it. I guess at the airport was a world war two air base. Yep. The air national guard who and we get this wrong kind of like a voluntary but I think they get paid like standby air force.

34:53

Yep. Our base there or some of them are base there and it has some commercial flights but it's not big enough to take widebody like DC 10s. Yeah I think the longest runway is a three thousand two yeah. Two thousand seven hundred stays the longest. That was the wrong way.

35:09

That they were intending that kind of established with air traffic control that they can't go there, but you can hear. And the air traffic control can hear how can confused. That's not the right word that there's something is seriously wrong because the captain isn't being a hundred percent articulate and coherent.

35:27

He's busy while busy while he's trying to tell them. We've got no steering but he does establish that with them really quickly that we can't steer the aircraft, we've lost all hydraulics that there. I think he says at one point we might end up in a field. They're pretty aware there's something really?

35:42

Yes, I I read a bit into this then if you did as well but I'll like credited. A lot of the this good outcome to the guy that he spoke to control a guy called Kevin Buckman. Yeah. Who he joked had like moved to he used to work in like Chicago departures or something and he wanted a quieter life so he moved to like Minneapolis area control, okay, but he said that basically Kevin Buckman was so calm.

36:07

So helpful and All also said that the DME wasn't working right? 80c was so useful in giving them airports distances to go directions headings options. But also what air traffic control did was they organised a load of stuff on the ground. And without I don't think the flight crew ever declared in sort of any sort of really coherent ways to the scale of the emergency, but ATC took it upon themselves to upgrade it.

36:36

And I forget the levels, but they upgraded it to sort of a higher level, which basically meant all the local population, like, get get people to the hospitals. Yeah. Get like and ambulance stuff on standby. It's funny because we use the term mayday to declare an emergency. Yeah, or pan to declare an urgent situation.

36:56

All never says made a noises, we declare an emergency and he makes a big point in that NASA's talk about saying how important is to controllers, I think have a different scale of alertness. They by the time the succeed controllers were away. I have a big tower and radar control.

37:14

They assigned one person just to united, two, three, two, N1819U They reg of the of the aircraft. So there's one gentleman, which might be the one you're referring to who sees them throughout. And there's another one sat next to him. He now controls everybody else because his international guard, a sevens, and a 10 aircraft that are out, and about doing a bit of flying, right?

37:38

It tells them get back first, they have to get back together, way. Yeah, and land, and get out the way, and he's telling them they've got a live ammunition, I think, and tells him to like, yes, he down here son. So, they have a level two, which is that there's an aircraft in distress , but bear in mind on that day, they had, like three mayday already that morning.

38:02

Oh really, they weren't that excited when they first had a phone call. Okay, you can hear the Minneapolis controller, rings. You see and say I've got emergency for you, okay? There's oh yeah, right. And basically, the international guard pilots were told. If anything goes wrong, you get a little light in your flight deck.

38:18

The clarinet emergency right? Okay, they were like just getting emergency is all the time. Okay, okay, later on these two controllers that actually there the guy handling, the aircraft told the other guy that his duties were X Y and said that included the level of alertness and the controller declares they were on level two.

38:38

Level three is an aircraft has crashed. That's right. So he took it upon himself but he had a debate within his mind and slightly with the other guy that he was gonna get told off for this and that they were doing the wrong thing because still in the air at this point.

38:50

Yeah. He decided I'm gonna upgrade its level three which is aircraft. Is already crashed. Yeah. So that triggered a lot really, really good events. And it kind of goes back to Al being very honest with himself. Yeah. And the controllers. Yeah, that we're gonna crash. Yeah. We just don't know.

39:09

Yeah. It could be in a field. Could be. Yeah I think it's gonna be but I'm gonna try and make Sioux City. Yeah we're gonna crash and even later on. He says the joke, the amazing joke, he makes it. You want to, you want me to land on a runway?

39:22

Like you want to be specific? Yeah, I'm just heading for the effort here and he's like, we're definitely in the field of the other. So that was really good because it must have helped push it to level three. So as you'll know from our speech he says some amazing things were happening that day.

39:38

So not just weather and where the engine gave out the fact that the time that they accident occurred was shift, change time of the hospital. Yeah. So all their hospitals in the area. One shift was there and the other shift was arriving. So they kept everybody almost staffed. Yeah.

39:55

All the clinics were leaving work and so they were free to go to the hospitals and the one day of the month, the international guard were all at Sioux City. So hundreds of international guard trained personnel. Yeah. So, when they hit level three on that on that button or whatever they do.

40:15

Yeah. And that phone call. They mobilised all of these people. And this is all before the aircraft landed. So this, they were so prepared for this crash. Yeah, essentially that that definitely factor but you could as you alluded to, you could point all that back to CRM and how and the crew declaring putting their hands up are saying, I don't, I don't know else.

40:37

Sharing with everyone. This is a 10 out of 10 in terms of how bad this is. Yeah, yeah. We're gonna crash. Yeah, yeah, Denny like you say walks in later. Yeah. Why that point is thinks he's gonna crash. He's gonna die. He's gonna go die today. Alright, this is first.

40:50

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Disaster Plan

Now, there's a gentleman just to honour him. I wish I could remember his name. He lived in Sioux City who was an advocate for a disaster plan for the area. Yeah, so see city sits on a river. It was used to a lot of flooding. There's a lot of chemical plants in the area because there's so much farming in in the surrounding counties and he wanted a disaster plan and he advocated it for years.

41:14

A disaster plan being that everybody involved the hospitals, emergency services, the communities, all had an interwork in relationship. If, if something happened, would you have guessed it that only 18 months ish before in 1987, they decided to practise that a 747 had crashed at Sioux City. And there was a hundred survivors.

41:40

Yeah, I that's menta;, with the international guard. All the fire engineers all the house petals. That's crazy to imagine and they learn a lot from that practise run. Yeah, ultimately will have definitely saved lives in there in the sort of do you imagine Sioux City is like I think today it's like 80 or 90,000 population.

42:00

That's not a big place and they've got themselves ready. If the important thing here to remember is that aircraft fly between places and then you'll have a buildup of traffic flying across the Atlantic or across the Pacific and taking on similar routes because great circle tracks. So aircraft converging into Chicago, converging into into New York City had very, very few commercial flights.

42:30

Yeah, but it's that right under this very busy flight path. So somebody had the presence of mind to think. Yeah, we're very small, but there's a lot of aircrafts out there above us who might have trouble who might come down here and crash, yep. Like these tiny tiny airfields in Alaska or tiny islands in the middle of the oceans and, and so on.

42:51

Yeah, to think outside the box, almost like, look, we're just a sleepy town, but to get everything. Get the momentum and get everybody organised to be prepared for something like this has obviously saved a lot of lives on that day, and it's just incredible to think that's what happened.

43:09

Just so, they push it to level three. Yep. And all these things start to mobilise, but I'll still sat in the air troubleshooting. Yep. The aircraft with the rest of the crew. Another good example of this is probably testament to the senior cabin crew really. So she gets called in at this point.

43:26

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Jan Brown Senior

This is if this is after they've kind of spoke to us all manages to say to us. Essentially prepare for an emergency landing these, she would have had her own CRM training etc. Etc. And what I found interesting was that she she could sense what was going on in the cockpit.

43:44

This wasn't just a an emergency. This was like a crisis, she she described it. Yeah. So she recognised how busy the, the three of them were and she just left the flight there because she could have said, oh, where are we going, right? How long are we gonna have?

43:58

But she just knew that they hadn't got the capacity to kind of do that. She just sends the scale of the problem and went and used her initiative. Took it upon herself to go and manage the cabin and prepare the cabin based on those words of emergency line. So I thought that was a nice.

44:12

Well, communication, it doesn't necessarily need more the better. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So we walked in and thought. Yeah. You know, I mean, did I'll even get to turn around? Probably not. Oh yeah. All I, all I read was that he just said, prepare the cabin for the emergency landing.

44:27

Yeah, so you know, five or six words and she got she gleaned everything she needed to know from that and from what was going on. And from the non communication that was that was going on. So I read a bit about her and I try not to talk about too much, but I I love Cabin Crew because I work so closely with them but they're different job role towards and but we work alongside and you get all different types of cabin, crew and the cabin manager whatsoever, the senior, the number one, and one, the cabin manager, the cabin crew member the flight attendant who's in charge has a big impact on the conduct of the flight and often the it's not all about the captain but the captain the cabin manager can set the tone.

45:13

Yeah, for the day and Jan, Brown is the ultimate professional. I mean, she wore trousers. She says, just because she knew if there was a fire that they offer more protection then wearing a skirt, the more I learn about the more you realise that she's the right, the right calving crew for the, for the job day.

45:35

I've obviously had, you know, incidents and currencies when you've had different types of cabin crew. Yeah. And, you know, don't you whether how much attention they need and how much you can rely on them? And yeah, definitely she points out that. I'll she was gonna go and said so they were on the flight and they'd done a layover somewhere, the cabin crew and the flight group got on that, often happens, whereby the cabin crew and the flight crew are interchanging between sectors and on a big aircraft, you know?

46:08

There could be I don't know on an A380 was there like 15 crews and more? Yeah. More than that. More close to 2023. Yeah. One of those phrases that sticks in my mind from my first ever CRM training was just a throwaway comment from one of the trainers, which was, oh, I always walk up the back steps when I get to the aircraft by which he meant.

46:27

If you've gone to an aircraft on the tarmac an their is front steps and back steps, you're never going to get to the back of the aircraft unless you make the effort to, Jan brown said that she was going to go and brief or talk to Al introduce yourself. But he came out into the gallon, she really appreciated that and said that the service might be better off earlier on because it could be turbulence later on this kind of thing.

46:47

He had already build those relationships, a team work there, positive work, and Jan, obviously, respected professionalism. I would imagine from everything I've read about her and that's what she got when she met the flight crew. So that's then set the tone for for later on when she's walked in and realised.

47:06

Okay, I've got the message now, I'll leave just quickly then normally the crew would get together and brief. She chooses not to do that, because she doesn't want to upset the passengers too much. So she briefs them a couple at a time. The crew are still making jokes to each other and they're trying to put on a brave face as the situation becomes more and desperate Jan, and Jans realising that she's having trouble making eye contact with the passengers, but she's still maintaining professionalism and she makes PAs.

47:36

I mean to be cabin crew and to not fully understand what's going on, because you wouldn't be able to must induce a lot of fear in you. Yeah. Especially at that time in aviation when she might have known people, or yeah, before in their airline, who died in accidents, were not uncommon and the kind of 70s 80s, you know, later on.

47:58

She's making, you know, she's briefing. The passengers on planned, emergency landings inside theirs. And you can hear the PAs and they're amazing. Yeah, we're talking a bit more about her in a second. Do you want to talk about then how Denny are right? Well, yes, it's kind of this point where Denny Fitchh, who is a training captain with United Airlines and he's been on a course, I think, somewhere in Denver, and is now positioning home to Chicago as a passenger.

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Denny Fitch

48:24

He obviously senses that something's wrong bang, the explosion the bank, they're kind of fear in their cabin, Crews eyes etc. So he knows something because, and from his experience, you know, somebody's wrong. And I'd, I'm just guessing. I think he's a bit of a geek. Yeah. He's like what I mean is I think he's really motivated.

48:43

Yeah. And he's a brand new training. Captain. Did you know that? Yeah, I knew he'd not been trying to come very long a month or two. Yeah. DC10 which only just had his command not long before that but that's ultimately like better in a way interest. As he knows he will of been

48:59

Have been fresh out of the books like and that's what I think in game back to the FO and the engineer is there's always that. Okay. Someone with loads of experience, that's really good but all the only had 30 hours or the flight engineer only had this amount of time but that does mean that the type rating and the training is absolutely fresh.

49:17

Yeah. You're only able to really guess but you shouldn't necessarily assume that the more experienced the better. But what I would like to think about Denny is exactly what you said, which is he's a brand new training captain and he's eager, and he's got his head in the book, probably his lack of experience as a training captain and on the DC10, or as a captain, is made up for, by his knowledge.

49:39

Probably. Right. His executives, a bit geeky. And he's, I mean, we're assuming he's geeky but he's probably. Yeah, he's probably meant to say. Yeah, he's keen, he's keen. Yeah, he's to help. Well, they films and, you know, you can see the pilots I think, is the only one with colour in his hair, haven't I?

49:56

No, I think the FO, but the other three, maybe a bit greyer, right? Yeah. And he's got like, brown hair. He's like the youngster, but he's the most senior rank if you like, is training. Captain. Yeah. Anyway, so, so he offers assistance. So he actually just want to because I didn't I found this out.

50:12

So cabin crew not Jan and he he grabs her arm, right? And they haven't exchanged. The cabin crew says, now it's gonna be all right, it's just number two, but we've lost all three. We go, he says something back. Like and well, why are we turns? This isn't exactly right.

50:28

But you can read it and she says yeah it's all three hydraulics and he says no it's not all three hydraulics. She has the luckily she says no it is all three hydraulics and he starts his mind, he lets it go and he apparently stares for a second into space thinking.

50:43

No, so that's not right. So what does she actually mean? Yeah. And that's when he says to listen, tell them there's a check on a week. On a training. Captain on the aircraft. Yeah. Jan Jan might not have gone and told them, you know, like because there was lots of other pilots on board.

50:59

Yeah, there was retired pilots but there was also other United, another United pilot say because sometimes and Jan wouldn't have fully understood. I wish you wouldn't study serious but not so sometimes you know you don't want no, too many people like offering to help. Well, this is where I, this is where I think, where we, we should match Denny's keenness.

51:20

Let's say, we're gonna assume he died about eight years ago. So, unfortunately we can't, we can't ask him but there's plenty of interviews where he seems quite enthusiastic to this day. Yeah. And match that with how he behaves. Yeah. So he takes time to think about whether he offers his services.

51:35

Yeah. And he's in civilian clothes. Yeah. And other pilots. Actually I think there was a different airline pilot who they also offered their offered help and how he behaves when he's in the fight deck. Yeah, I think like, is it? Yeah, pick up on. Yeah, definitely. So I I got that as well.

51:55

So his offer of help is passed out but by the cabin crew, all again is good leadership CRM. Skills says, yeah, and none of history have seen this before. So training, captain, check airmen on board yet. Let's have some extra experience up here. So as if still not figured it out, no, this guy was basically flying.

52:15

He's got the the fly part of the priorities, right? He's got the wing up and they can't control the altitude. Yes. So they are they are descending towards the ground. They are gonna hit the ground. Also, through all this time. Al and the first officer Bill Bill are flying the aircraft with the yoke.

52:33

Yeah. Or trying to, they're moving the yoke? Yeah. And the whole time. Yeah. Probably. A lot of force on the yoke as well between them and say they're using both arms, the forearms, the pair of them and there you having to manipulate the trolls. Yeah. Okay. It has got to a convenient point where AL thinks, yeah, I would like, I'd like something like a bit of help here.

52:58

Yeah. Yeah. So that's fortuitous. It's interesting. Like I think about today cockpit dot lock door. If someone was offering help in every depends up but it would be billion. It's very close. Would you let somebody into the flight date nowadays to help you? You know, it's interesting on the CVR that all is getting really pissed off with the door.

53:14

Yeah. Or is it deadly or both of them because see, Jan keeps knocking on the door and it's locked, right? And I don't think it's a reinforced door perhaps that we have now, but they're just annoyed that it's kind of like a. So, the last thing you want a high workload situation, is the distraction of that.

53:31

So the same thing is occurring. Basically, they say yes and he arrives and he's knocking for a while, I think? Yeah. Then he comes in the flight deck, so he comes in. He said he quickly establishes, that this is very serious and he establishes what the problem is. And I his words were, you know, I thought this is it.

53:51

This is it. I'm gonna die today. Like there is no way out of this. That's insane. Let's talk about situational awareness. So, we like to project our situational awareness ahead of any event on this flight today. I'll need, there may be turbulence two hours into the flight, something like that or on this flight today.

54:11

We're flying to your such and such an airport. You know, we're thinking ahead to the problems that might come or we're inventing problems in our mind. What if I have a engine failure now but a lot of the time, the problem that arrives you haven't thought of because there's no way to know that the hydraulics are about to fail or the electrical systems about to have a problem.

54:31

When you have an event let's call it. That pushes your SA back to to where you are. You try and rebuild your SA to a point where you're starting to think ahead. Yeah. So he first had to just pick the wing up and he did it without thinking by applying thrust.

54:48

He's now not solving the problem, but his SA starting to rebuild and then then Denny Fitch comes in the flight deck. Yep. And his SA just on. It's been sat in the first class cabin. Yeah. And then he walks in and he suddenly realises it's bad and he's got to build up his situational awareness.

55:07

Yeah, and the crew need to share situational awareness with each other. Yeah, we call it the mental model. Yeah, so we're in a DC 10. We've got this much fuel, the flaps are out the flaps. Are you the real basics? You've got a problem. This is the problem is the flight engineer or the ECAM.

55:26

So you can lying to us as we misunderstood the problem then you've got the wider system. Have we shared the situation awareness with the air traffic control whoever else, the cabin crew for example. Yeah. So that's a point to make that. Then he comes in his situation where it's different and they manage to build his up.

55:44

Yeah. And to a point but allow him to have his own thoughts. Yeah, exactly. That's really crucial. He's they're not leading him is to you know fully as to where it is. That giving him the space to kind of figure out for himself. Yeah. And yeah I'm going on a little bit here.

56:02

Again ahead maybe slightly of where you want to go. But you mentioned a little while ago about his his manner in the flight decks. Yeah. How important that was. And I, that's something I really liked on to. I don't know what in particular you found. I think the first thing he says, is he calls Al captain?

56:20

Yes, I was gonna say that exact point. Yeah. Can't say he says, captain would you like me to take your thrust levers? Yeah. So I think that's, we were talking about CRM and communication. That's such a powerful statement, because just that one word, captain means so many things to me, I'm here to help you.

56:37

I'm here to help you you're in charge. I might outrank you as a training captain, but you are very much in charge of me. I am a resource for you to use. Let's establish who work the authority. What the great, you know, who's in charge here? And can I captain, can I take the thrust levers for you and Denny shares with him?

56:56

That he knows some of the spoilers are drifting up. Yeah, say kind of shares a bit of, I'm not I'm in on it, I've been working on this already. I've been thinking about this and I'm not an idiot and established just that gradient is very polite and inviting engaging and our reciprocates.

57:13

Because at some points, Als asking everybody like what can we do? What can what's? Yeah. And now there is a point where they put the flaps out. I'm just jumping ahead, they have a little discussion which is good about, hey, should we put the flaps out? And then I'll sort of like thinks I'm stupid am I.

57:33

We haven't got any hydraulics, of course. Yeah. But it's able for him to in his brain push past. Like okay we're starting to solve the problem, we haven't. Yeah, if you're a training captain in a sim and it's the 20th time, you've run that check to see a captain, like, try and put flaps out when he has got no hydraulic.

57:51

Fluid looks stupid. But when you are, it's like an elephant sat on your brain. Yeah, when you're in a situation that and what's going on in your brain is screaming, what's happening? What's happening and it can't break through so by making that mistake but verbalizing it and sort of, you know, self or facing.

58:08

He's saying how he doesn't say this. But he's saying how stupid am I trying to put the flaps out when I've got hydraulics? Yeah, everyone is able to get in on that and be like, okay. Yeah, I'm getting this and yeah. Yeah, why stupid? Okay yeah. What can we okay?

58:20

So that happens at some point as well. And that's an example of our being very level gradient. Yeah. Flight deck showing that he doesn't know what's going on. He's and but he wants to know what's going on. They talk about the gear as well. Are we gonna land with the gear up or down?

58:35

He throws it out as what we would call an open question to everybody, and they elect to put the gear down to hopefully, absorption, the impact. They also discuss. How they're gonna get the gear down, because there's a couple of different options. Yeah, without hydraulics for lowering the gear and he says, in there, in the talks of the NASA guys, this CVR there's so much kind of showed you that.

59:00

Should we try that? What do you think about that? But that to you and me is like is brilliant. Kind of open question using all your resources throwing. So they've got you sometime. They're not thinking about the gear, just before impact, or just before landing. Yep. They are thinking ahead thinking ahead.

59:16

Yeah. And they're realising that in terms of decision making they don't have any checklist for this. Yeah, they don't do this every day. This is an analytical decision, they need so they're bouncing ideas off each other. Now, almost any airline in the world, uses decision making tools for analytical decision making, so a problem that you've not dealt with before you not routinely deal with, or you don't know how to deal with you.

59:41

Use decision, making tools, they didn't have those then, but they're using an open style, they're all involved in. And for these little problems as they think ahead and the gear is a an example of that because they think how, if we do this just kind of clever trick of using a certain way to get the gear down, there might be hydraulic fluid.

01:00:01

That would bleed into the ailerons or something along those lines. Yeah, now back to keen, Denny Fitch, right? He's so keen that he's actually thought about this situation before today. Right? What? A miracle you've got somebody on board, he's such a geek that he's thought to himself. What would I do if I lost all three hydraulic systems?

01:00:25

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Japan Airlines 123

Yeah. And I believe the reason for that was a terrible accident of a 747 in Japan. Japan airlines one, two three, right. Okay. It was a seven four seven and a similar call sign. Yeah, I know it was what that's the call sign and it was 10 years before and there is this horrible picture of a 747 that somebody took flying with no fin whatsoever, right?

01:00:53

So imagine you've got the horizontal stabiliser at the back but no fin of no vertical and it's similar cause which is that the air 747s were kind of like still new big big aircraft to pilots at that time and you can easily tail strike, big aircraft and someone had done a tail strike in their Hong Kong at Kai Tak and to repair the tail and the bulkhead the engineers had not done it properly.

01:01:17

Boeing said that the way they did it. The aircraft should last should last about 12,000 cycles of pressurization before it failed and about 12,000 cycles later, which is quite a few years later, they had a explosive decompression on that bulkhead where they'd repair the the tail. The bulkhead that took out the whole fin and understandably, then that took out three hydraulic systems, so Japan airlines one, two, three had the same problem 10 years earlier.

01:01:49

And by some miracle, they kept it flying for quite a long time. And they didn't have a lot of the look that these guys had the weather wasn't as good. It was a night flight. Japan is just just mountains. Basically. Yeah. And they also had a deep pressurization, so imagine that they've got to do emergency descent with no flight controls.

01:02:12

So they're becoming hypoxic in the end, they crashed into a mountain and the air national guard in Japan had a base and had been not the international DM air force. Anyway, they have a base there. They listened to the the radio chatter and they got all their search from rescue stuff, ready.

01:02:32

And unfortunately, the Japanese government said, and you're not allowed to go and rescue. These people off this mountain, so nobody got to them until the next morning. Like maybe 12 hours later and local said that they could hear people on the mountain screaming in pain all night and eventually died off.

01:02:49

So nobody knows how many survived the actual crash, right? So Denny had to think about flying aircraft without any hydraulic systems, okay? I didn't know that there is in the flight thing. Yeah, yeah, it's unreal, isn't it? Like again a chance to practise so the aircraft Sam you said was doing a phugoids.

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Phugoid

01:03:09

Yeah. You're not gonna ask me to explain that. I saw. I'll do it for you back in their lecture theirs. Yes. Someone would make a paper aeroplane and throw it and distract the lecture. And yeah, you had a quite big deep lecture there. Yeah. If you make a really good paper, aeroplane they sometimes fly, and then start to head towards the ground, and then fly back up and fly down.

01:03:36

And if you watch those world record ones, I think they do that. They go into a phugoid. So if you going is just basically the motion of going up as a down and then up and down and up. And so the aircraft was starting a descent and then starting a gentle climb, starting a descent.

01:03:52

Now, what I learnt was the average was a dissent So the aircraft was descending meself. If you think about it, there nearly 40,000 feet about 40 minutes later, they've got to the ground. So they're in this food grade and and any aircraft will enter a phugoid. It will try and seek the speed that it's trimmed for.

01:04:12

So where the horizontal stabiliser was last set? Yeah, which was 200, well there at Mark 8 3 and something like 260 knots to the aircraft was trying to seek that. So as it starts to descend it picks up speed and then that induces a climb line because it goes starts getting too fast, and then it stays down to 60.

01:04:34

But then it gets too slow. Yeah. Then it puts the nose down again and yes. Right. And then later on all says, doesn't he, when they put the gear down and they're in denser air, it would have been a trim speed of about 215 knots. The aircraft was seeking, and then a bit lower later on, because they also don't feel, which maybe will come on to you.

01:04:54

So, a phugoid, they learnt after this accident that if you want to null out a few good, you do what might be counterintuitive, which is as you are going up and thinking, we're going to stall. Yeah, you need to take power off there. This will stop the news rising because it under slung wing engines, they're creating a pitch up moment.

01:05:17

Yeah. And then it will start the nose coming down. And as the news, if you're in a downward part of the phugoid, you do the opposite, which is you put power on even though the aircraft's accelerating. Yeah. And okay. So so they're in a in a phugoid.

01:05:32

Yeah. And there's will hold none to the yolks In response to Denny saying what can I do for your captain is else as you can do the thrust thrusters and they thought about Dudley doing it. But they thought he's busy, he's doing well on these guys. Yeah. Okay. And what I clean is that what Denny starts to do is mimic what the pilots are doing with the yoke.

01:05:57

Okay. So he's like the autopilot. He sees he's listening to the ATC. Yeah. Although he didn't have a headset on I think I understand. So he misses a lot of. So he's a bit out, the loop there. He's probably can't see out the window either cuz he's interesting. Yeah, yeah.

01:06:15

There was a point I was gonna make. So in terms of situational awareness, communication is important and I don't think any had a headset on no. But he basically sees what the pilots want to do and he tries to mimic, that was roughly. Yeah, it's your best account. Yeah, the whole flight and the whole accident, the pilots never let of the yoke.

01:06:36

Yeah. And at some point they thought they had a bit of elevator control. Yeah. But as far as the investigators concerned there was nothing and now makes the point of saying that even today if they did it again, he doesn't think he could let go of the yoke. Yeah, imagine this you're in an aircraft and the you might as well just take the yoke.

01:06:55

Imagine driving a car that's still and every whatever you do the steering wheel. It doesn't do anything. Yeah, so you might as well just forget it. It's like unreliable airspeed where if Alston 30,000 years of staring at the instruments and then you've got a toy. So don't look at the instruments because they're lying to you.

01:07:09

Yeah, he's got to tell himself. The yoke is useless. whatever. So they try and fly at the whole, the whole time. Yeah, which must reduce their capacity, massively, because of the physical exertion. Yeah, I do believe the first officer uses his knees at some point because I haven't been in a burn yet.

01:07:27

There is a lot of if you have trim run away and things like this, you know, it's real physical activity. Okay. So what what we getting on to you now then well I say this is where my research gets patching out up until the landing. So they're obviously working towards landing at Sioux City, the planes making, right turns, and they're essentially looping around to the right because by the way it's the right part of the tail is destroyed.

01:07:52

Yeah. So yet the drag on that side, that's causing the right bank. So they're hoping that they're gonna roll out of one of these. Right turns. Essentially lined up with the wrong way, at sea city. Yeah. That's the plan. They're just working incredibly. Well, as a team, you know, and everyone on the ground is now grounded.

01:08:07

Yeah, cabin crew are and they still continue to problem. Solve eventually they give up talking to Sam. Yep. The the, the engineers the engineers have alerted everybody to the point where the union have in a meeting with yes executives. Yeah, in Chicago. So they were like oh that's all going be honestly the place I've seen out the hangar and let's you see and I'll says they were in Sioux City before he got to his hospital award.

01:08:35

Yeah basically. So they don't feel well, they can't dump all of their fuel. No. Unfortunately, because you don't want really any fuel if you need. You're gonna crash because it has an automatic cut off which you think is probably a good idea normally and they do make one left turn, which is avoiding a weather buildup.

01:08:55

Yeah, so that's pretty cool. But I've seen remember, like, I'll remember that or none of them remember making the left turn, but the trace, they yeah. He's surrounded by trace. So they show. They're looking ahead of the aircraft. Looking at a threat of the weather. They realise that it would, you know, potentially, you know, destabilise the aircraft.

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Landing

01:09:13

on that day. It could have been a totally different story. Yeah, okay. Now the amazing unthinkable thing here is that some point they end up just three degree glide path Sioux city, so that's again a better look, probably as well as skilled they. But they're not, they're not actually lined up on the wrong way.

01:09:31

They thought they were gonna line up onto Sioux City's. Got a couple of crossing roadways. Yeah, and I've looked on Google Maps, right? And it's terrifying. It's a few years later, it's terrifying, how close the city is to the airport. Yeah. And even verify, even our said at some point to a traffic control keep us away just keeps away from the city right?

01:09:49

No matter what because he yeah he's expecting a crash landing air traffic control at this point are managing to think outside the box offer them. So they've got they're telling them which major highway and the state highways they even shut off a highway, didn't they? Yeah. Right. As an option.

01:10:04

State troopers shut off. Yeah. I whichever interstate it was and so they could land on that. Yeah. They even send emergency vehicles off down other highways. Yeah, because they assume the aircraft is not gonna make the airfield. Yeah, someone needs to say, I found it. Yes, where the crashes.

01:10:20

Yeah. So all this incredible in in advance of them arriving at the airport. Yeah. So what what's quite famous about? This is the footage because unfortunately if you want to tell everyone that you're going to crash him 40 minutes, the most excited people in the world are going to be the news media.

01:10:38

Yeah, yeah. So they all get to see city but that's why I have these video records although the most famous one is actually a home video but okay of the crash I'm trying not to jump ahead too quickly but I was going to talk about the last few hundred feet.

01:10:53

What do you think? Yeah, I think so. Yeah because the we've established the CRM was working well and and they just continued basically until they got lined up on the wrong way. It wasn't the wrong way. They were expecting to is actually this huge wrong way. Whereby coincidence, all the emergency services were the fire trucks were already parked, so they all had to move actually like last minute on out of their way essentially.

01:11:14

So they were lining up on this disused runway. But that was the best they could do. Yeah. So runway two twos. World War two concrete. They're in since the since Pearl Harbor basically and like you say all the trucks and these A7 and A10 aircraft had like kind of taxied out the way that way.

01:11:34

So something along those lines. Yeah. And they had two minutes to get off the other way. Yeah. The other way but I did learn there at the far end. Yes. Of the runway. Yeah so yeah. Let's talk about last couple hundred feet there so it's all going reasonably. Well I think they're fast.

01:11:48

I don't know. They're fact they got no flaps. They got no way to lay down since. I guess, they're super fast and they're ready to send is high but it's it's going. Okay. So the way I plan for non-normal landing is so I want to think ahead and there's always like little things we need to do.

01:12:07

Say we're gonna have to lower the gear in a different way. We're gonna have to flare in a different way. If we go around we can't get the gear up so many pilots use and I think on approach bucket so you draw a bucket, which is like a vertical down approach, horizontal line, oh they didn't have this capacity and time and workload to think ahead.

01:12:30

But if we were to do that for them let's just think about just how other bad situation they're in. Despite the fact that they okay you've had best look possible to control the aircraft and you've had a training captain come up to handy with thresholds and all these amazing things have happened.

01:12:50

The cabin crew managed, prepare the aircraft but we haven't even got to the potential of an approach in a landion. Yeah. Right. The gear gravity extension, great, they can do that. What about flaps and slice? Yes, there's no flaps. No slats. So they're what we would naturally use to slow ourselves down.

01:13:09

I think normally they'd land about 130 knots. But but for a flapless or a slightless land in. Yeah. Probably it's going to be 180. 190 not anyway. Yeah. This is what I wanted to bring up. How long is runway, 22? It's not very long. 6000 feet.

01:13:26

I think it's 2,200 metres at 2000 closures to 2000. Metres, it has me is right. Say we fly a little at the moment 320 series. Yeah. What is 2000? Metres mean to you guys metres would be like, medium auto break, kind of not shortest. We fly to, but short enough to want to, well, anything less than 2000 metres.

01:13:47

We have just like a bit of red flag. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. That seems really sure the DC widebody DC 10. Yeah, I also wanted to look up the altitude and temperature, but I think it was pretty hot. And I think some of these states in this in America are pretty high up as well.

01:14:05

The lie IO. Yeah, this is a wide body with 300 people on and this was way a lot. Yeah 2000 metres is not longer but but I'll think in, I can't believe we've made a flat piece of runway. Basically. Yeah, I was sort of in the mindset that they would make a control crash into a field.

01:14:22

Yeah. And I don't know if there's any more I can add but somehow they roll out when I say somehow, you know this wasn't just look you're low. No they they planned it. They were working with the controller and to get themselves into this position. Yeah. And eventually they see the runway?

01:14:42

Yeah, and I think when you read the CVR, that's when you realise, I was like oh my god yes might not be quite as bad as I think but we're definitely going off the end of the runway. Yeah, so he probably thinks 2000 meters. Oh, that's just glorious. Yeah, but it's 2000.

01:14:57

Metres is really sure and they're about the right altitude as well. Yeah, but there was one last orbit they did which wasn't picked up on radar, but it's on those diagrams, you can see? Yeah, okay. I think they did on purpose because there are too high. Okay. Yeah. Makes sense and they lost the runway and then they seen it again and that's when they realised they lined up on two two, I think.

01:15:17

Yeah. Okay. I'll say controller says, you clear the land runway. Also reciprocal of three. Three. And no, it was supposed to be three. Three, I think essentially. Yeah, I can't remember and and he says, oh well we're kind of lined up on this one now and the controls are.

01:15:33

Oh runway two two. No point is control and that's not the one. It goes to too. Yeah. Okay. We got a lot of ermergency. Vehicles on that runway but we can get them off. No problem. Don't worry about it. He's so accommodating. Yeah, so he obviously realises what the situate how diverse situation is and that they can't steer the aircraft and say yeah all the emergency services had less than two minutes to get off the runway and get out the way and then lined up with two two, .

01:16:00

Yeah. Okay. So they have no flaps and slats out so the flying pretty fast. I think about 120 knots, I think, right? It's like 100 knots fast. So what they planning. How, they're gonna break Sam? I don't know. Actually, they've got a plan. I did it. Yeah, they plan they just know.

01:16:17

They haven't got any braking and I think reverses are always hydraulic. Yeah. Actually just as well say they wouldn't have any of those so they've got to get it on this runway. So the point I wanted to make was Al's mental model has gone from landing in a field somewhere to landing on airfield but they've got an airfield with the national gaurd.

01:16:37

Yeah they've got all their fire services at the airfield and they've already got all the fire and rescue services from around Sioux City. The adjacent highways been closed they've got that to land on they've got fire services about to go and look for them off the airfield but crashing an aircraft in the middle of Iowa versus an airfield is definitely too totally different outcomes.

01:17:00

Absolutely. So they've managed to crash their aircraft in the best possible place. It's like being ran over by an ambulance, here's life. You're gonna get run over by anything and there's nothing you can do about it. What would the best things to happen? Be so they give and everybody on the ground, the most best possible amount of time and information.

01:17:18

Yeah, there is this beautiful picture of where they touch down and I can't believe they basically touched down on the in the trash effectively. Yes. Incredible. Yeah, but they're starting a downward just before 200 feet. Yeah. And a slight right? Yeah, right turn and a downward phugoid which Denny tries to sort of start but it's just too late at that point this.

01:17:44

Yeah, you know, I think they've put Denny in the right hand seat so that you can strap in Denny's in Dudley seat. Now Denny's in the flight engineer. That's right. Yeah. And Dudley yeah, the observer jumpseat. Yeah. So they're all in the flight deck still but they then he would have been face to the prospect of crashing.

01:18:01

But wouldn't stood on instead of in the middle of flight that a yeah. Okay. So they unfortunately start this figured and I think Al wants him to close the thresholds but Denny's like trying to flare by adding power to power up to try and pitch the nose up to kind of flare.

01:18:18

And there is two schools of thought that Denny either put the wrong thrust. Lever up slightly earlier or not, not or not symmetrically. Yeah, which is why the start, they start even more of a right bank or one of the engine spoilt up quicker than the other, right? So they started with four degrees of bank but they touched down with 20 degrees of bank.

01:18:40

Yeah. Which is a lot. Yeah, of bank. Plus they're accelerating downhill and the thrust. Levers are up. One thing else is in in hindsight is they learnt that you only need gentle changes to thrust levers to control the aircraft using asymmetric power. Whereas most of the flight they were using big, big changes.

01:18:57

Yeah. So as he touched down one of the engines or both the engines for full power? Yeah. The to concrete is 18. A 12 inches, deep leading world or two and the whole is like 18 inches deep. Where the right main gear? Yeah. So they they impacted the ground at about 80.

01:19:17

Was it 1800 feet a minute? Rate of descent? That's right. Yeah, so very point that we fly three degree approach about six or seven hundred feet minute. And in the flare we probably touched down about 300 feet a minute. So, they impacted the ground at 1800 feet of minutes.

01:19:32

So, like six times the normal rate of decent for a say, normal landing. If you watch the footage from all these news media, and this home video and the pictures and so on of the aircraft it looks under control. And in fact, I think everybody thought oh this is gonna be alright.

01:19:48

Yeah and but as it goes out of view, it goes out of view. Because on that the person filming with that, home recorder is on the tower and the tower can't see the threshold of tutu because the international guard have built hangers in the way and it's the issues.

01:20:03

Runway. That's why you kind of lose sight of it. All the media were parked up to get the best shots, but they're for the other runway. Yeah, yeah. So you get this idea that's quite under control, but as it goes out, of sight is where it all goes wrong.

01:20:15

It's slightly wrong. Yeah. And or as also says there, look ran out at that moment. Yeah. CVR records. They think also they can't remember somebody saying God. Yeah. Is the last word just before it? Yeah, it touches down. It's not the right phrase. Yeah. So I just critically say what I my interpretation of what I think happened.

01:20:36

Yeah. Yeah. They're not in control the aircraft anymore so yeah it might not be of worth. I was talking about too much but the touchdown right bank, the right wing, mostly then snaps off. Yeah. And the tail, the effect of the left engine and the left wing, they think then brings the aircraft back up.

01:20:57

So people watching it crash all these people that waiting for them we have to watch it. Crash say that it was incredible is, you know, it was like a ball. Yeah, bounce bounce bounce. You didn't just smash into pieces there but that starts a fire when the right wing and but some of the right-wing separates, the tail comes off with that engine stuck on it, then the effect of the left wing still be an attached.

01:21:24

The engine, perhaps is the reason that the wing lifts up it doesn't cartwheel, which is what the news says that it does. It actually goes up and knows down. So, imagine basically, as the way I'll describes it, they left, the radome left marks, so the radio and be in the very pointiest nose part.

01:21:46

Yeah. On the tarmac, bounce bounce that then shears, the flight deck off. Yeah, and then the aircraft goes on, it's back into a cornfield and I don't think I'll talk about. For example, the book I read like describes in, in great detail. Some of this sensations and the experiences of what happened.

01:22:08

But I think they grow corn on airfields and long grass deliberately. Don't they say that if you have a crash especially on light airfields, that you end up in there in cornfields it'll show you down quite quickly. Yeah, exactly. Which is what which is what happened in the passengers describe hearing this noise that was did and it's all the cool because these big pieces of corn.

01:22:27

Yeah, these big plants, one really annoyed farmer. Like yeah, I tell you, one thing they do talk about is instantly inhaling the smell of a fresh summer's day and the cornfield when the aircraft broke apart. Yeah. So the flight deck is separated and then you've got two other sections.

01:22:46

You've also got a rear section with passengers and not just the tail, which is somewhere else. There's a rear section. Okay? So there's a big fireball. A lot of passengers died due to smoking inhalation. Yeah, everybody in the flight deck, survived the four of the they didn't find them for a long time.

01:23:03

They that was the last part to be found by the rescue services because it was kind of buried in the dirt and in the core and people ignored it apparently because they thought that no one could survive because it was flattened. Yeah. And they didn't know what it was.

01:23:14

Half an hour or 35 minutes. Five minutes. Yeah till they found them and they were wrapped in the wires. The plan is lots and lots of cables that connected, the aircraft to all those hydraulic servos and so on. And that they kind of wrapped around the flight deck. Yeah.

01:23:29

And they're all squashed. Yeah, and they're all alive. And then the air national guard are, there said they had the jaws of life and they had big machinery. And to dismantle this, this flight decking and get the pilots out. Meanwhile the various experiences the passengers one business I think he's in business class but a businessman just got got his bag and walked off and went to the bar in the terminal.

01:23:57

Wow. Yeah of course there's like the very extreme other end experiences passages. So there's how many survivors have more than half so 112 died and 184 survived. Yeah, so it's hard to talk about because it's such a successful crash, they saved? Yeah, all those lives but then they lost a lot of lives as well.

01:24:21

I think that's it. And it's sad to sad because 112 died. A lot of which were children because it was children fly for a sense day, which we didn't mention earlier. But there's a lot of children on that and unaccompanied children as well. Yeah, which as well just is and they cooperation and their, from the passengers, apparently was amazing.

01:24:42

So there was, I think there's a lot of fear in the cabin, but they relocated a lot of passengers to, you know, emergency exits and made sure that there was always an adult with a child. And there was various stories of passengers, who rescued children, who weren't their own children in the most famous one, which was a gentleman.

01:25:00

He went back in for a baby and found it in the overhead locker. Yeah, but I think it's regarded as such a successful crash in that if it wasn't for the effective CRM of the crew. And the way they handled it, in the way it was handled on the ground, then it would have been 296 dead.

01:25:20

I would think for sure, you know, effectively rather than saying, 112 died 184 survived when they shouldn't have probably. And that's, I think that's why it's regarded as, as a successful crash. It was that point where CRM had been around for a while and we were able to hold it up as a yeah, example of great CRM.

01:25:38

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DHL Baghdad

Yeah, there was a Baghdad DHL aircraft that had a triple hydraulic failure in 2003, right? Do you remember that one? Not really? It doesn't have a flight number because they their vision of Iraq was like March 2003, this is November. Okay. And the act DHL had won a contract to fly.

01:25:59

I do kind of mail apparently. Yeah, into the main airport in Baghdad and a terrorist group who were annoyed that the Iraqi army had surrendered. Basically had like stolen some service to MSIles and they fired a service missile. After this a 300 took off from Baghdad. It was doing a max rate climb but it hit the left wing.

01:26:22

The missile hit the levelling, can you believe this? No doubt. Yeah, there was a triple hydraulic failure and there's a 300 as a flight engineer as well. So there's only three crew on board. It's a cargo aircraft obviously and these guys whilst the wing was on fire and also we're still being fired at not.

01:26:42

They knew about that. And the wingspar was the real wingspar was burning. They managed to fly with asymmetric thrust and land. They came around to Baghdad airport and realised that they were too high and did another circuit, right? But also the flight engineer was having to like do some thinking outside of the SAPs he was having to pump fuel in weird ways right?

01:27:09

Because one of the fuel tanks was on fire. Yeah. Yeah. And they landed with a triple hydraulic failure. Came off the end of the runway and were evacuating. When they were told they're in a minefield and they shouldn't take a step. While their aircraft was on fire, but they came away safely.

01:27:29

And there isn't much information about it in comparison to sea city because I think although it's a commercial aircraft for the commercial crew, it was working for the military. Right, okay. But there's plenty to read about and it's another example of amazing work by the crew and they had an award from the flight safety foundation, which they got to recognise their efforts.

01:27:51

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Ending

But I can't help but thinking that they would have had in their mind that the fact that somebody's done this successfully. Yeah, this has been done before. Yeah, in the aftermath, he took about the CRM. So the NTSB credited, the CRM that United Airlines introduced the early 1980s as well.

01:28:13

Really valuable to the success of the outcome. And the FAA actually made CRM mandatory for all airlines after society because of how effective it was. I thought, I thought I was interesting. Yeah, I mean this is so much talk about but we've covered a lot of the yeah, that we've managed to.

01:28:32

I wanted to generally talk to you about it, to see how you felt about it because we, we learnt about it. When we were about 18, 19. This certainly one of the most impactful things I've ever learnt in aviation. Okay? For sure anyone listening, if you want to find out a bit more, you can read.

01:28:49

As Adam said, you can read loads about it, but I told you to watch. He just so YouTube. Al Hays. Talking NASA Langley. Yeah. He's it's about an hour and 15 minute video but it's just you just hang off every word. He says he talks about the day. And yeah it's it's fascinating.

01:29:06

If if you are at an early stage of you flying career, I had you to learn about CRM because that was a real turning point for me. Having watched Topgun when I was about seven or something, wanted to be a pilot. It wasn't until I was like 10 years later that someone explains to me, that it's not about heroics.

01:29:27

Yeah. And it's not about you as a as a god, as a pilot. It's actually about this idea that you're all gonna make mistakes and we're gonna work together and we've actually codified it in this discipline of CRM. And I worked as a CRM instructor and that one of the most enjoyable roles that I had especially working with pilots and cabin crew simultaneously.

01:29:49

Yeah, and we always look at accidents to learn, but I just say as we've said before most of our training and you can correct me from wrong, Sam, most of our assessment and training is non-technical. Yeah. So, of all the things that will get scored on at the end of a simulator.

01:30:06

Most of them CRM, as in what? 90% 80% of them. Yeah, absolutely. And in my mind, it's always going to be that accident that you sorry that that event that you just can't figure out how you're gonna get out of. The only way to get out of. It is CRM.

01:30:22

I mean, when we did selection to join our airline, they kind of gave you an impossible task yet, to fly a 747 most people hadn't flamed before. Yeah manually shortflight high speed a workload and this and then there's some kind of horrible situation and the only way out of it was CRM was to, it wasn't why being an amazing pilot and holding the exact altitude and flying amazing rate.

01:30:44

One turns and yeah this kind of thing. It was your mastery of your own and non-technical skills and those of the people that you work with and so they even use it as selection tool. Yeah. Yeah, So then we'll have to do that in CRM or just parts of CRM as a individual podcasts.

01:31:04

Yeah. Agreed. But this is a good introduction as to where it came from. And what one of the first accidents that really propelled it into the forefront of people's minds in aviation, say to like all crews that have gone before as well. Done, today's on United two, three, two.

01:31:22

Yeah, because we've learnt so much from you. Yeah, it's amazing. All right. Yes. Bye.

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Airline Pilot Technical Theory, Human Factors, Aircraft Accidents Adam Howey Airline Pilot Technical Theory, Human Factors, Aircraft Accidents Adam Howey

Oxygen

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Transcript Start

00:04

Adam Sam oxygen important. Yeah, oxygen. Very important to us in. An aeroplane, why is it important to us? Well, because we take the most precious cargo known to, man, take it up into the stratosphere and although there's a lot of risks associated with flying at 500 miles an hour in the stratsphere one of the biggest hazards to us is the environment itself.

00:31

So 35,000 feet. Well, the passengers are innocently sipping, their gin and tonic actually outside. It's minus 56 degrees. And the partial pressure of oxygen is extremely low. Yeah, so, I mean, what's your favourite attitude? Yes, 35 37. Maybe. Yeah. This is a point to be made there, which is it?

00:56

We could be between. Yeah, 34 and 40. Let's say, yeah, there's a big big difference between your time of useful consciousness. Like effects of a decompression. Just between a few thousand feet there. Yeah. It's almost like exponential, isn't it when you get up to those higher? Yeah. Because shoots are they, the partial pressure and the pressure is, it's reasonably linear.

01:18

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Physiology

As you go up, it's haemoglobin that is has the exponential change. So the haemoglobin the red blood cells that carry the oxygen around the body. They're 98% saturated at sea level. When you get to 10,000 feet, they're still 90% saturated. But by the time you get to 20,000 feet, they're only 60% saturated, right?

01:40

Just like an exponential decrease in the ability of the body to get the oxygen into the haemoglobin and anything you can really compare it. To being up with those, altitudes would be like climbing Mount, Everest people, you know, not everything's about 30,000 feet high and we never been saying everyone that goes to the top level is to generally use oxygen and because you just couldn't survive.

02:02

Yeah, he told me some people. Climb it without auction. Well, yeah, I think they do, but I think that takes them a long time because I think they do it and their climate is and they take things very slowly getting up to the top and base camp is like 20,000 feet or something.

02:17

So they have to acclimatise there, you climb there and then it's quite a slow climb, but I guess they're not. Then trying to fly an aeroplane at the top three or climb around, just doing kind of hopefully, simple ish tasks. Yeah. So space, you're saying they've got but they've got physical, they need the oxygen for physical activity, whereas we would like to say, we use it in our brain, our brain.

02:38

Yeah, the brain is like, really hungry organ. So, use a lot of oxygen. I say that's interesting because if anybody ever had the chance to experience the effects of hypoxia safely and, you know, volunteer to do so it's kind of would be really useful for your career so I mean how high is Kilimanjaro.

02:57

I think its about 20,000 and you can like kindly gently walk up. I think people can get up to something like that oxygen and stuff. Yeah, I mean you could hire a hyperbaric chamber or something because there's a list of common symptoms of hypoxia. But what is unique to you is that the order that they occur in.

03:17

So they occur in a different order to every for every individual, but they will always occur in that order to you. So, you know, there could be some use in getting hypoxia course. And then recognising what your first? Yeah, but yeah, they're physiology of of oxygen, obviously, without oxygen.

03:33

Eventually we die and hypoxia is lack of oxygen. There's different types of hypoxia. You know, there's toxic hypoxia which you can get from drinking alcohol for examp course, the gin and tonic I was talking about earlier, the passengers are already slightly ever. So slightly hypoxic. Yep, at the cabin altitude that we're operating at with an alcohol will affect the haemoglobin's.

03:56

Ability to saturation of oxygens, take up oxygen smokers carbon monoxide, the red blood cells prefer carbon monoxide. So they inhibit the take-up of oxygen you know and if you've got a faulty boiler in your house you know that could be like fatal to people if they're if it's got a serious carbon monoxide leak.

04:16

So that's called toxic hypoxia. But I think what we talk about today is hypoxic hypoxia which is just the lack of the oxygen or the pressure of the oxygen in the air around. You Interestingly, I remembered like when we were flying light aircraft. There was always a carbon monoxide detector on.

04:34

Yeah. In front of you on the firewall. And then I suddenly thought, why don't we have that, you know, aircraft but obviously we're not bleeding. We're not sat right next to the piston engine bleeding, the heat air like in a car. So heat exchanger situation. So maybe but then we don't have any kind of like toxicity.

04:50

You would think a multi-million pound aircraft. You think like one of those tiny little carbon monoxide sensors that cost probably like a pound? Maybe we could take one in? Yeah. Maybe I'll just take one in my flight bag So, yeah. So, okay. So we're kind of touched there on you mentioned cabin altitude so okay, so aeroplanes flying through the stratosphere, 36, 37,000 feet, there's not enough oxygen there for us.

05:15

If we were outside the aeroplane, right? So, our aircraft are pressurised to a, what we call a cabin altitude. So what, what is a, how does that work? What does what? What's a cabin altitude? Yes, it's not sea level pressure inside one, why not? Because I think it's a compromise between the safe enjoyable altitude of 8,000 feet typically and then how strong you need your aircraft structure to be.

05:45

Yeah. So there's a differential pressure between the pressure on the outside of the aircraft, the altitude that you're flying at and the cabin altitude is on the inside. And so there's a structural limit which is usually about eight or nine PSI and we have an instrument in the flight deck that just is, is what their differential pressure is right now.

06:05

And so the aircraft designed to that structural limit And so that means that the air inside the cabin is 8,000 feet. It's like you're at the top of an 8,000 foot mountain Although the aircraft is physically in the crews at 35,000 feet but there's a point where you've got a, you've got to go from sea level to 8,000 feet.

06:26

Yeah. And say the aircraft has these really clever computers. That makes the art of pressurising and depression areas in the aircraft like totally automatic. Yep. But I mean what would they have done before automatic systems like that? Going back a little bit. There would manually have to pressurise, cabins.

06:43

And even before that, then they just wouldn't have been that option. You just had to fly around it sort of lower altitude. Yes, there are lots of aircraft there, around, pressurised, military, aircraft and but there's general aviation aircraft there on pressurised, and so, whatever. The air pressure is wherever the altitude is outside the aircraft.

07:00

That's the altitude inside the aircraft to state this and so you probably only going to go up to 8,000 feet. Maximum some of these little aircraft, they like DC3 and stuff, you know, used to have to hop over the Alps with passengers in unpressurised. So you'd have to get, you have to find, maybe a lower bit of the Alps, and, but it's gonna be have to be like 10 or 12,000 feet, I guess, which is fine for most people and 8,000 feet.

07:25

If you just sat there drinking Gin and Tonic, you probably wouldn't notice much, but if you ever done any exercise, well no, not really, but I did fly with the Captain once who liked to do some light press-ups in the back of the flight deck. Okay? And so yeah, so if you're a passenger sitting, you're not really physically exerting yourself or mentally existing yourself.

07:45

Then 8,000 feet is fine. But yeah, as soon as you start to exert yourself, particularly physically, it does have an effect. You notice, I notice sometimes cabin crew mode, they've sort of feel a little bit and well, not on well, but just and it's generally because they're up and they're moving and they're working on the lifting and carrying to trolleys, and they're physically existing themselves.

08:05

Yeah. At the top of an 8,000 foot mountain in effect. Yes. So that's gonna be really noticeable to them. Yeah. Because there's ones with step counters. Like cabin crew know that they do, like miles of walking on a fly. Yeah. But like you say they're lifting and walking at 8,000 foot.

08:20

Yeah. It's the cardiovascular system in the heart. That feels the effects of hypoxia first, although the symptoms might be from the nervous system. You know, it's like your eyes and what else is the nervous system things? Are that things that list on the symptom first? Actually your heart say.

08:36

It's all right, if you're sat there but yeah, if you're gonna do some press ups. So you probably won't do as many as you do on the ground. Because once you start asking the heart to pump everything around, just being an 8,000 feet, where saturation of the haemoglobin is 90% rather than 98%.

08:50

You'll actually start to notice that. So what's the most common emergency non normal situation that we have or any pilot? Oh, yeah, medical emergency. Yeah. So any problems that about that you may or may not know about. If I take you up to 8,000 feet cabin altitude you'll soon find out about them, amplifies them, doesn't it?

09:09

Yeah. They're all exaggerated. I mean often have a medical emergency. You might divert. Okay, good. It's all worked out. Well, we've got there person off and then you know in the post flight review, find out that passenger was 98. They had one lung that lung remaining had pneumonia in it and you think.

09:28

Well they're not going to cope very well. Yeah, 8,000 feet. Exactly. And yeah cardiovasc any cardiovascular problems that you might have especially since they're the first that's the first system. Perhaps to be as effective by hypoxia are going to show up and pilots have, you know, strict, screening and cardiovascular system.

09:47

Yeah. And probably for that reason. I guess it's kind of a bit like pregnancy and limits on how many weeks you can be pregnant and then yeah, I find them. I don't think it's because like you're so close to giving birth that like they couldn't cope with birth on a flight.

10:02

Although it I deal, it's more to do with this kind of stresses and strains on the body of being late in the pregnancy process. Yeah. Extra oxygen and physical exertion and you know, your heart is demanding more. So I think that's more why they have the limits. So I'm pregnant when they're flying rather than the fact that they're so close to to their due date.

10:21

It's it's all these things that being 8,000, feet in effect, cabin altitude is going to do to the human body that it wouldn't do at sea level. So it's a bit stupid thing to say, right? But you know, I'm always saying that the best thing about the job and the worst or the worst thing about the job is whoever you're working with say they maybe makes or breaks the job more often or nice.

10:45

The best thing about the job, the person that you sat next to you for eight hours and they're like a total stranger and you might never even see them again, you know, depending on the airline but you end up having quite deep conversations. So you wouldn't have necessarily with somebody.

11:01

You just met. Yeah. Do you wonder if slightly it's because we're slightly drunk like slightly. Hypothetically sort of like slip into you know more. Yeah. Maybe easier why it's funny say that because yeah being hypoxic or slightly hypoxic is similar to the effects of being drunk, you know. And so yeah maybe you know every knows that when they have a drink in the pub this started to become a little bit more loose lips and yeah, maybe maybe there's maybe you've got something in there.

11:29

Maybe you want something, I don't know. But we should be used to it because we're doing it all the time. So you think our physiology would sort of a climatize not literally to it. So, let's talk about when things go wrong. Then. Yeah, so we've got this pressurised aircraft, but what if your cabin attitude starts to climb?

11:47

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Cabin Pressurisation

So very briefly, the cabin pressurisation system. It sucks air. In from the outside pressurises, it pumps it into the cabin. And then the most aircraft have, what's called like an outflow valve, which opens cracks open a tiny bit to just allow a little bit of air to seep out and it just keeps the not closed cylinder.

12:04

No, it's not completely closed. It's kind of almost flows through and keeps the cabin altitude at a constant or climbing or descending depending on on what you're doing. So obviously like old aeroplanes they have other like little areas where air can see power as well. So it's with door seals or cargo door seals or anything really you know, weak spots, basically, where air can leak out.

12:27

So this there's probably two or three reasons why carbon altitude your cabin pressurization system might fail and the cabin al's stupid. Start to rise it could be sort of slowly compression like a small leak but actually the system can't keep up with holding that cabin pressure. It could be some sort of explosive decompression like has been accidents before well like a, you know, a doors blown off or a hole in there.

12:52

A big hole in the aeroplane is caused like a rapid decompression or it could be a failure of the pressurisation system itself failing. So let's split it up like that then say this slow decompressions and rapid decompressions slowly compressions then yeah the pressurisation system fails. Yeah. And it's a complicated system because you using bleed air from the engines to two separate systems normally and then forcing air through this cylinder.

13:19

And then the outflow valve at the back quite easy to spot on an aircraft. And it'll always be open on the ground. Yeah. Because on the ground, you always want the to be no, differential pressure, otherwise you wouldn't be able to open the doors. Yeah. So, the aircraft quite cleverly knows when it's on the ground.

13:35

It must be fully open and it must quickly dump any pressure that it's got left inside. But I did once have a cabin crew. Very rightfully and cleverly who had been fly. I will point out that there was a hole opening in an aircraft. I think it was ours and should point at the alpha valve, which is a giant hole in the area.

13:56

Yeah. Quite right over to like point out something if she thought it was unusual but you can see them at the back, right? Of the aircraft seem to always be there on all aircraft types. Yeah. And they're sort of things that you want closed in a ditching situation, I guess.

14:09

But anyway, so it's a complicated pressurisation system. You could have a failure of that system. I've on a functional check flight, took an empty aircraft up to cruise and depressurized it as part of the check and we put our extra mass on and we see what happens to the cabin oxygen system is on, but you also check the leak rate of the aircraft that.

14:32

It's an acceptable level. Yeah. But the older, the aircraft, the more little leaks you'll have somewhere in the aircraft. So, there's the outflow valve and there's just generally little leaks around. So if your pressurisation system fails the outflow valve, a hopefully will close as quickly as it can to seal you in as much pressure.

14:52

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Sams Experience of Slow Depressurisation

Yes, you can. Yeah, but the aircraft's going to leak out from all sorts of places, and you would assume a new aircraft would have the least amount of leaks basically. Yeah. So I actually had this for real once, so those bleeds air systems that you talk about that, that bring the air in from the outside.

15:07

So, both of those failed are on our aircraft. So we were climbing about 25,000 feet, outside cabin pressure inside. Probably at that stage, would have been about six or seven thousand feet and climbing up towards 8,000. And yeah, so we had no new air coming into the aircraft. So the outlaw valve closed and basically, then, yeah, the cabin altitude started to rise.

15:31

Even though we started to descend basically through the leaks, you know. And I recall, looking at it at one point and the cabin altitude was climbing about a thousand feet a minute. So from 7,000 we knew we had about three minutes for it would get above 10,000 feet and start setting off alarms in the flight deck.

15:52

So are we did a not I wouldn't call emergency descent within a fairly rapid descent from 25,000 feet and we just got down to below 10,000 feet as the cabin altitude was about 9,800, something like that, where we equalised basically and it just just avoided setting, the setting the warning off.

16:11

So, what I was the cause of all this, as this was a, this was actually a dual bleed failure. So there's a bleed system on each engine and by pure bad luck, both of them failed, one, just after takeoff, and we were sort of dealing with that fault as we were climbing up when the second one failed at 25,000 feet.

16:31

And I guess, although that sounds like really unlucky. What was happening was your aircraft was putting a lot of demand on the one remaining. Exactly. Then cause that to fail. Yeah, exactly. So you got down to 10,000. Why 10,000? That's that's the kind of accepted altitude that there you know, there's breathable and you got useful consciousness but also that's what the aircraft sort of trigger is for setting off the alarms to tell you that you're going to put 10,000 feet cabin altitude.

17:05

I think it's actually 9,800. I think it is actually I think this is really annoying. So why remember is it was it was it was the actual cabin altitude was flashing like 9,700 or whatever it was. So it was given me it was given us the advisory that it's you know you're getting very close here basically.

17:22

But yeah I think I think it's 9880 or something like that is where the warning actually goes off. The 10,000 is higher than the 8,000 were normally used to find out. Say vulnerable people with health conditions or elkly people might not do that well at 10,000 but they're probably survive while you sort out the problem.

17:38

Yeah, but let's let's think about this. So you needed to do not an emergency, you decided, you try and beat the cabin out to you now. So, trying to get down them before it went above 10,000. Exactly. But what you know, what can you just send to 3,000? Well, because of where it was.

17:54

So as this is an old airline, I used to work for, we were in Malaga in the south of Spain. So not the worst for terrain, but there's some fairly big old hills around Malaga and Granada. So our MSA, our minimum safe altitude was actually above 10,000 feet from where we are, so we could start off our descent quite quickly, but then we needed to get our charts out and just figure out exactly where we are in exact get to somewhere that we knew was safe to go below 10,000.

18:20

Okay? So we wouldn't hit the mountain. That would be terrible. Shame to have, you know, saved everybody from hypoxia and death, but then, ploughed into a mountain. Oh, yeah. But I mean, why that is one of the reasons to climb the aircraft. Like we said about getting everything else.

18:34

A yeah, trains always in the way, isn't it? And whether and traffic and so on because you just stop, you making a quick to send what about a cabin crew, what happened with them? So not huge amount they called us first actually. So as we were starting the descent, they obviously noticed.

18:49

Hey, you were supposed to be climbing back towards Manchester now. Why are we descending back towards the ground? As I think they called us first and we briefly just explained what the issue was. However, they had no indication in the cabin that there was a problem with the oxygen because the cabin oxygen masks don't drop down to actually 14,000 feet cabin altitude.

19:14

So actually, we never got anywhere near that. We never triggered the masks in the cabin. They were only aware of a descent basically say, call us. That's interesting. Let's come back to that, then cabin crews procedures because they're very involved in emergency descents, they're part of the procedure so you had a slow decompression.

19:32

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Rapid Decompression

Yeah, exactly. You said that there was such things a decompression. Yeah, there's some quite like you leaded to you, dramatic accidents, which began with rapid decompressions. The one I can think of is where there's that 737 with the whole top of the aircraft missing that was like in Hawaii, wasn't it?

19:50

Aloha? Yeah. Yeah. I mean that was just crazy. Yeah, Aloha 1988. Unfortunately. Well, the crew did really well the but one person died, which is one of the cabin crew. She was stood up when the decompression happened and was it metal fatigue? I think and then weeks, oh yeah, a whole of some size opened up in the aircraft and then the cabin crew along with probably lots of debris got sucked towards that hole.

20:14

And then makes the whole bigger impact of that actually made the whole bigger. Exactly. Yeah, following that cabin crew were trained and just generally became where if you hear a loud bang that you dropped to the floor and hold on to something. Yeah, even in that Sioux City podcast, we did.

20:29

That's what one of the crew did when the engine failed was instinctively just hit the floor because it's that was cabin. Crew that died in that accident, but this the picture of that aircraft is amazing. The Aloha. Yeah, you've got the captain who got partially sucked out of their aircraft British airways 1990 out of Gatwick, I think.

20:49

Yeah, Gatwick and they diverted, in Southampton, I think. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. So it's amazing story behind that but they basically not put the right bolts in the windscreen and say that that blew out and so they had explosive decompression right in front of the captain. Yeah, he was half sucked out and would definitely look at that another time.

21:07

Yeah. That's probably a good accident to look at in the whole podcast. Really. There's even I think a Qantas flight where the oxygen cylinder that provides emergency oxygen to the flight deck, blew up and close and explosive decompression. Well the coke can analogy is imagine a can of coke that you shake up.

21:23

So I know you may really violently. Yeah. You want to drink. Yeah, yeah, open this. Yeah, that coke can is basically one, aeroplane is flying through the air. It's like highly pressurised and the different pressure pressure between the pressure inside that coke can versus outside. Yeah. In normal, air is like huge.

21:40

So you were to pop a hole in that coat. Can I either open the lids or just stabber? What used to do in school, stab a compass in it? Or you did? What about those Americans on videos now that like, bite into it or something? I don't know the drink.

21:54

Yeah, maybe you should. Yeah, but as soon as you like, pop a hole in that, everything's just gonna fire out of it because it's trying to equalise the pressure. Basically it is a good analogy because yeah. Yeah thin aluminium. She basically diffused. Like, yeah, but the physiological effects then of being instantaneously taken from 8,000 feet cabin attitude to the outside because how long is it gonna take like seconds?

22:20

Yeah, there's a face to the gradual decompression. We're talking about in one or two seconds or something. This amazing change in air pressure. So what are the physiological effects? Well, there's one way I could put it which is what a train. It wasn't said to you and me on our MCC course, right?

22:38

I think he said something going lines of it's like having two red, hot poker sticking your eye, two red hot poker stuck up your nose and one red. Hot poker stuck like somewhere else where you wouldn't really want it. Yeah, and that's how he described his experience of when he had an explosive decompression.

22:55

So he's saying to pain the pain from those orifices. Yeah. Yeah. You know is that intense? Because the space, your body is full of gas. Yeah. So it just wants to leak out is once. Yeah. So if you've been holding in politely, something. Yeah, this coming straight out. Yeah.

23:10

And unfortunately, gas is gonna leak out through what did you say? Your eyes and your ears? He said eyes. No, but he said the pain from like your eyes, right? Okay, I guess this. So, how was that gonna do if you're trying to fly? Yeah, crazy. It's gonna be crazy, isn't it?

23:23

It's gonna be insane. I mean, the crew often tell you like some really unhealthy job and you don't know what they're really into and they'll point out their water bottles that you've taken from sea level. And then you've had a drink and close the lid. Go up to 8,000 feet and will expand.

23:40

And then as you start to descend all like contract and say, what must be happening? Just gently sector after sector to your organs and stuff. Like, I know it's probably not great for you but it seems to be, alright. But if you have an explosive decompression then you know, that's, that's pretty.

23:56

You know, what about didn't you take your girlfriend to the dentist and oh, it's explained aerodontalgia. Don't tell you yeah yes. So she always used to get pain in her teeth when she used to fly. And I think it was the dentist that when she explained it, the dentist like, oh yeah, that's aerodontalgia.

24:17

And basically where she'd had a filling and there's a tiny little sort of gap. Underneath the filling, whatever she went flying in an aeroplane that air that was trapped in. That tooth was still look kind of sea level pressure. And so like the fizzy coke kind of allergy. So really high pressure air inside her tooth.

24:38

Yeah. Basically, wanting trying to escape and get out and nasty. Yeah. She just used to get really bad pain in their teeth. Yeah. So you can see like some of the effects of the rapid decompression are going to be. I mean, we have dangerous part of our dangerous, goods lists of things we can and can't accept on the aircraft, obviously, certain pressurised things we can't put on the aircraft like you know all like Ross from friends on that episode he's nicked all the shampoo from his hotel and then when he gets back home it's all exploded in his major shampoo explosion in his suitcase and he's annoyed.

25:10

And that happens or like crisp bag. So is explode in the flight there which causes high minor alarm and you know how a lot of pilots have a little piece of paper which they write like the flight number on and their time of arrival and useful information. Why I don't do that.

25:26

People will think I'm a bit weird because I'm like, the only person who doesn't stick like this piece of paper to the instrument panel. But I always think like, even in the MSA on there great. But as soon as you have an explosive decompression that's going, it's got the first thing, our window.

25:39

Like also you get you know when you come you do a little bit of plane spotting, you see, in aircraft coming into land and you have that low pressure area above the wing and you get this beautiful instantaneous fog that appears. Yeah. And disappears due to the pressure difference.

25:55

Well, I believe same in the flight debt or in the aircraft. When you ever rapid decompression, you can have this sudden fog. Okay, appear. And even the instruments can have frost appear on them. Yeah, so I don't know what you reckon the first few seconds of an explosive. Yeah, these just crazy.

26:10

It must be crazy. It a us and say you've got memory items to apply in that moment. Yeah. And you've got what's the time of usual, consciousness, at 40,000 feet lights, but 10 seconds. 12 seconds? Something yeah. So you've got 12 or 10 seconds to put your mask on.

26:26

Yeah. Otherwise it's game over. You'll still be conscious but the chance of you doing the right thing. Yeah, you become like so. So drunk that you just can function, basically. That's the it's kind of the effect that hypoxia that quickly. So that's like that only thing anybody ever needs to remember about oxygen.

26:42

I don't care about anything else. The only thing any pilot needs to remember is that right next year, you've got this flight deck oxygen system available to you and you can just done your mask at any time and you'll be protected. Yes, the rest of the cabin might be in chaos and the passengers need to get their oxygen.

27:00

You're gonna have to descend the aircraft, but that can all happen in a slow calm time. If you don't have your oxygen mask on this game over, it's like the only thing you need to remember. But you can always to take off, can't you? Yeah. So if you ever put it on you know, what's the saying you if there's any doubt there is no doubt if you think that there might be some kind of decompression situation happening, maybe you've noticed something with your colleague or you just lost SA, yeah, just put your mask on, right, you probably never seen anybody do it, but I'm just saying, somehow get that ingrained in your mind that no one's gonna tell you off for doing that.

27:36

It's a slight tangent, but yeah, pilot incapacitation, if your colleague becomes incapacitated, even though it might not be obvious or there's nothing telling you as a depressurization or something through the oxygen. You one of my first thoughts would be do I need to be on oxygen? Is it is the first thing on the checklist consideration?

27:54

I don't think so. And I oh it's a really good point but it's something I don't think is on the checklist. Yeah. Because you don't know why they've become. You know, what exactly it could be like a loosely related to hypoxia like toxic hypoxia could be a fumes event.

28:08

It's not affected you miracly, you know. Yeah. Different people have the effects of hypoxia happen in different order for different people and also different ages and so on. So if you're the lucky one that gets to spot their colleague having incapacitation then yeah, she definitely think of the mask and you can always take it off is what I'm saying.

28:26

So you might decide, okay, we're actually safe and, you know, say definitely not pressurisation. So take a mask off. Yeah, yeah, time of useful consciousness. There's tables. It's going to vary person to person and so on, but you just need to be aware that exponential decrease, and the altitudes that we operate airliners are it's incredibly low, the time of useful consciousness.

28:46

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Kalitta 66

So, right sound. So I'm going to play you some piece of audio. We're just going to listen to it. Okay, talk about after. Yeah. I don't know anything about this. Okay. Right. Okay. Somebody read different sounds. Interesting

“Kalitta 66, Cleveland out here.

29:20

There, he's declaring an emergency with his flight control. Yes, sir. He said affirmative on that, right? Kalitta 66 Roger, what? Your intentions request vectors ypsilanti .

29:46

There is looking for vectors. All right Kalitta. 66 understanding the emergency. You want to vector to Cincinnati. Is that correct? Which is inflammatory. Beautiful landing, Kalitta 66. Are able. Are you able to maintain altitude? What what assistance can I give you other net? Vector and able to control altitude.

30:16

Unable to the control airspeed, unable to control altitude,unable to control heading.

30:31

Everything. A-OK. Okay. Kalitta, understand. You're not able to control the aircraft. Is that correct? That is correct. Kalitta 66. Are you able to able to land an airport airport that is closer to your position? Pittsburgh approximately now, southwest your position, Cleveland about eight miles, northwest your position.

31:03

Prefer aircraft destination airports and aircrafts is no damage to any more of the aircraft. So always ever so slowly with regaining. control. And if

31:45

Whoa, Kalitta 66 is able to send and maintain flood level. 260, they have to play two zero, let a 66. Are you still requesting a vector for a Ypsilanti? To the right of Kalitta 66 area. Precipitation 11 o'clock and one five miles extends, approximately threesome reflect Looks like and Roger 11,000 + 66 quoted 60, six.

32:54

Roger say, say intentions. Definitely anything plus 66 Roger Clear Delia Salini via direct maintain improve contact.” So would you make that? That's amazing. I've never heard that before, and that's incredible. So, what was happening? Well, obviously, it was hypoxia and but I've never, when, when did you get to that?

33:49

And well, I kind of had an idea that we were talking about oxygen, that maybe that's why you you'd played it, but I've never heard or seen hypoxia in action, really? Yeah, I just sounded drunk basically. It's like a drunk guy. Yeah. What's your favourite line? Everything say oh okay yeah I know apart from like the funny control heading altitude and what's interesting is that the the second pilot came back towards the end there so you could assume that he was maybe like unconscious possibly or just completely out of it.

34:25

Unable to key the mic to like press the microphone or whatever. Yeah. But then they both come back towards the end and they just sound like normal. So let's let's talk about what happened briefly say and it's a little charter company Kalitta and the flight is clear, six six and it's 2008 and it's a learjet 25.

34:46

The aircraft is gradually slowly depressurised not rapid decompression. So slow decompression, the pilots have become hypoxia and one of them is talking on air traffic control is saying that they've got problem with their flight controls in the face of other aircraft trying to relay and saying he says he's got a problem with his flight controls after a while.

35:07

One of the air traffic controllers works out that they think he's hypoxic yeah and so they managed to convince him to descend. Yeah. And as they descend into air with a higher pressure of oxygen, the effects of hypoxia on seemingly, both of them but one of them first just instantaneously wear off.

35:26

Yeah, I think one of the things that contributed to saving them is the or pilot was disconnected. And so they were able to sort of just tell him to do descendants. He's kind of went for it. Yeah, like a lot of accidents. Thanks. Unfortunately, to a serious accident with loss of life, many more people are able to, you know, have their lives safe because what we learn, and this is a good example of that.

35:47

Because it was the same aircraft Lear, jet 25, suddenly and accidentally 1999. And where the pilots were hypoxic in the aircraft crashed is actually with the famous US open champion Payne Stewart on board and from that the air traffic control, had some kind of training or awareness about hypoxic pilots and picking up the symptoms.

36:06

So the two air drive control. Is there the one you can hear which is Marvin. Marvin. McCombs and Stephanie Bevans were got awarded for their for saving. The saving serious accident by recognising hypoxia here but what an awesome, you know. That's right. But yeah party really powerful example that like said I've never heard that before is.

36:28

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Emergency Descent

Yeah, it does incredible. So talk to me about emergency descent, what, what's the outline of them? Yes, and emergency descent. So, this is going to be following one of these rapid decompressions that we've been talking about. Does it have to be? Yeah. After, can you mention any time I guess?

36:48

Well, yeah, I guess so. Yeah, it's no reason why you couldn't, but it would typically be it be if the cabinet is above his plan or is uncontrolled or uncontrollable. Yeah. So some useful consciousness, we talked about very small. So first action, protects yourself, get your oxygen mask on.

37:09

And then the next action is really are about descending. The aircraft into richer air, oxygen richer air. So starting a descent and helping to speed that descent along with maybe some extra drag speed breaks or possibly landing gear depending on limitations speeding up. If all of, it's not such a big structural damage.

37:33

So just basically getting the aircraft down as quickly as possible. However, there are it's not just as simple. As, as you said earlier, this end is 3,000 feet. There's all sorts of things to consider as well as controlling the emergency descent and everything it's going on. Within the aeroplane, you've got to be aware of what's outside the aeroplane and where you're descending to and where what sort of airspace you're over who, what other aircraft might be around what?

37:58

Terrain might be around. Yeah, so we always sort of thing, fly navigate communicate. So they're first actions of the emergency descent our memory items and the very first action almost, I want to say it should be an instinct. Now, memory item to put your mask on. Yeah. And then compose yourself to start the emergency descent, which is a two crew thing.

38:17

Then you've got navigation, there's gonna be weather terrain other aircraft and communicate to air traffic control that you're doing this descent through all of their layers of airspace. Yeah. And what kind of rate descent might? We I think probably like if everything and your favour could probably go up to 6,000 feet, a minute, maybe.

38:34

Yeah. Yeah. This is a lot, which is a nice rate, but occasion to where I exceed 5000 feet per minute in a normal set. Yeah, yeah, maybe more. Yeah, so you look there, I mean, I must say necessarily get more, but yeah. Yeah that's capable easily capable of dinner, six thousand feet per minute.

38:51

Six a minute from 36,000 feet. It would take you six minutes to get to sea level basically. Okay. So maybe sort of four or five minutes to get to flight level 100. So it took about masks, then you talk about cabin oxygen systems earlier on. Yeah. That they're very different to what the flight deck have.

39:08

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Emergency Oxygen Systems

Yes. How does their cabin oxygen emergency? Oxygen supply work. Yeah, so the cabin oxygen masks the drop down from from overhead. They are depending on aircraft type, would be triggered at a different point but on our aircraft it's about 14,000 feet but they're not pure oxygen. They're like, it's like a chemical chemical reaction.

39:29

Basically, which are oxygen into their oxide. You, when you pull the mass towards you, it's our first thing in there. Safety video that starts looking for the pin out, which starts these two solid chemicals. Combining in one of the byproducts is oxygen. Yeah, which is what you want. The other one is heat.

39:47

Yeah. So I think it gets quite hot. Yeah. I've heard that, but importantly, what you are saying is that those masks will fall down of their own accord. That system is independent. If the cabin attitude goes above, 14,000 feet on most fleets, right. We can manually put them down. Or if you do a really hard landing, a couple of them might fall down.

40:09

Yeah, because they are, you know, they're just sort of ledged there. Yeah. Ready to drop? Yeah. And but they should drop automatically when they're cabin altitude is, you know, let's say, 14,000 feet or above what the cabin crew gonna do, when, although sudden the mass drop. So when the mass drop that should be the first sign to them that something's wrong with the oxygen system, just so if they aren't feeling the aircraft descending at that point then there's a possibility of the flight crew and not aware of a problem so they would probably want to protect themselves.

40:42

First of all get themselves onto some oxygen and then contact the flight crew to see what's going on. Basically did have to give the flight crew a little bit of the chance to get their own oxygen on and start a descent. Typically probably a mint, 30 seconds, a minute or so, maybe a little bit more, but if they're not, if they're noticing that the aircraft's, not descending after 90 seconds or so, I think they would then begin on to contact them.

41:03

Yeah. Say be laid down in their manual, specifically. And it's actually mandated by your aviation agency. Probably worldwide that they have to be part of this procedure. So if they see the mask come down, they have the same masks as there, passengers. It's the same one that they do in the demo.

41:18

We pull, they pull them towards as they have them in the toilets in the galley, with the little bag. Yeah. Because this is a chemical reaction, it just starts producing oxygen. So, if you're not breathing it, it just fills up in the little bag. That's the whole late thing and then they're going to be part of our procedure.

41:34

IE, they're going to come and check that we are alive or aware of the situation, excuse me. If we haven't started a descent and probably made a PA saying everybody get on oxygen. Yeah. Okay so in the flight deck, very different system which we've talked to a little bit about.

41:52

Yeah, but that's oxygen supplied under positive pressure. So when you breathe in, that's when the oxygen is supplied to you. Yeah. Just rewinding slightly the cabin system. How long does that last? They recommend 15 minutes don't they? Yeah, the minimum of 12 is it over 12 but sure, yeah.

42:10

Typically that's what's the difference on long haul, you might not be able to get down quite so fast, depending on where you are, if they're placing the world where the mountains are. So, the train is so high. That you might actually be intermediate levels for a long time, escape routes and drift down procedures and things.

42:27

Yes, I guess. It's not sure how long a whole thing. It's if you're in Europe, if it's a. Yeah. Exactly. But yes, Central Asia and Greenland there isn't anywhere for you to be able to get to 10,000 feet within 12, or 15 minutes. Yes. You have to have a cabin system that can supply oxygen to passengers.

42:45

While you first probably get down to like 20,000 feet. Fly. Some complicated route called oxygen escape route. There's laid out in a chart down a valley to eventually get to the closest place where you can then descend down to 10,000 feet before the cabin oxygen system runs out. So sorry.

43:04

Going back to the flight there oxygen system, that's totally different. Yeah, and depending on what setting you have on your on your mask because it's designed to provide positive supply of oxygen either a hundred percent or mixed. Yeah. And depending on what you said, like depends how long it lasts and how many people are in the flight deck.

43:23

And so on. Because we also use it like we've already said in fumes and smoke situations. Yes, not just for decompressions and don't forget you. Preflight, checks are pretty important. Remember in British Airways 09 is that the we've already done in a podcast, the Jakarta we're all engines failed.

43:41

Yeah. So they start filling up with kind of sulphur smoke. So, decide oxygen on the first off to play his mask on, on the hose wasn't even connecting. Yeah, that's right. So, they decided to do a descent to get, some outside air breathable air, which coincidentally happened to save them.

43:59

But anyway, just one more oxygen system, a therapeutic oxygen. What's a most airlines will carry all? That's probably will carry some therapeutic oxygen and so that's to be used for inflight contingencies, you know, somebody falls alien flight. I think people can pre-order it as well possibly. If you've got a medical condition you can have it pre-ordered through your doctor that you're gonna use the onboard therapeutic oxygen to help you through the flight.

44:23

Yeah, therapy, say it as the title suggests I guess it's for medical. Yeah. Reasons either exist in or you know, things that can't fly but can be used in decompressions. Yeah. How would you use that if you? Because it's portable basically. So they can use it to move about.

44:41

So it just be the oxygen cylinder with a mask attached to it. And so, once they've maybe got over the initial rapid decompression, whatever that might have been, where they've jumped onto a one of the passenger oxygen masks. They can actually, they always talk about how they would like, sort of monkey, swing.

44:57

Yeah, between mass to mass to mask. It's really so they got to the galley and we're able to put on a portable oxygen bottle and because they're not nicking the passenger ones. No should be a spare one in each row. I think this is a row of three four four masks, right?

45:11

Yeah for infants and children stuff. Yeah camera. We've got to come in potentially in a D pressurised, aircraft to check. We're okay. And so they would do that on the therapeutic oxygen. They can change the flow rate and then last a while, and you've always got a load of those bottles on board, which part of the MEL?

45:27

Yeah, this is something like cabin crew number of cabin crew. Plus you something oxygen bottles. So yeah, quite a lot. So fit your own mask for helping somebody else advice. Yeah, because, you know, you're useless to anybody and you never they're never gonna get their oxygen. Say going back to protect yourself.

45:48

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Helios Airways 522

First. Yeah, always put your mask on. I think we're leading towards an obvious accident 2005. 2005, August 2005, helios five. To two is what we're gonna talk about. And so many lessons learnt from these accidents. Look at that collider. And and and say, by studying these accidents, they shouldn't have happened.

46:10

We can prevent them from happening again. Definitely a lot lent from this one. So this what the second for Boeing 737. We're going from Larnanca in Cyprus. Yes. To Athens. I think it's gonna get a Prague. Yeah, both stopping in after Athens. Not the longest flights. Then, no, the crucity a couple of hours, the aircraft had some previous pressurisation problems, which they've been looked at by the engineers, but somehow whether intentionally or by mistake, I don't have it.

46:41

My nose here, he'd left it in manual mode. That was my understanding, so rather than this, automatic pressurisation system had been left in the manual mode which means that the pilots would have been required to control the pressurisation themselves. So just to be clear the aircraft that was its own pressurisation, but if you've got it, if you've got a switch set to manual, you're telling the aircraft don't.

47:04

I will control the outflow of valve valve. Yeah. So the automatic aircraft won't pressurise at all or won't changes settings. It's all. So it had em. It had a history of potential, pressurization problems and door seals. So how common is a door seal issue? Yeah that does that happens quite a lot you quite often, get I find cabin crew will call and say, oh, it's a whistling noise by the door and you go out and yeah, sure enough.

47:30

It's sounds like a seal gone. Possibly on the door, a little bit doors, get open and close all the time and then there's all crap on the floor and the cleaners are coming in and out. And yeah, they are really well designed doors and on Boeings, aren't they all plug doors?

47:45

Yeah. Go in and then plug, but not on air bus but there is a rubber seal, basically, at some point, like, you would expect to seal the door. And if there's something caught in there or the seals, the t-rated, differential pressure is quite high. So you certainly get this horrible high pressure squealing where the air is leaving, but that's okay.

48:04

Because as we said, it's not a closed cylinder but it's something that needs to looking at. So it definitely had some of these issues if not other issues with the pressurisation system. Yeah. And say there was a British engineer stationed in Cyprus, nice custody job for him. Aircraft comes in, does a check on it, you know, daily nightly sort of check and looks at any problems.

48:24

So while the aircraft have been sat there overnight, he's ran some kind of authorised procedure by the book, probably to pressurise the aircraft on the ground and then go and look for leaks in the way that Boeing of exactly told him to do that. Now whether or not he didn't follow the last line of the procedure.

48:42

If you like, I don't know, I never got to the bottom of but I think it's established that that engineer did leave the switch in manual. Yeah, you would assume the procedure the last line of procedure was set it back to auto but okay so the engineers left it there in manual and then these two flight crew have take it from Larnaca to Athens.

49:02

Yeah. So I think the cockpit setup in a bowing is that both pilots for your PF or PM have certain systems overhead panels. And switches are your responsibility and on that day, okay? It happened to be the FO who would have gone through the pressurisation panel, but it's like a rotary switch.

49:22

Yes. Like I'm trying to describe. This is not a button. No, it's like a cooker, right? On a cooker. Right, right. Okay. Say it probably have like auto two and manual, you know, it was in manual. So I don't know how many times did the FF seen in manual?

49:37

Yeah one probably never. But how easy would it be to spy? Don't think it would be. That's really interesting human factors problem. I mean in an air bus, you have this lights off philosophy, which is really clever which is if the overhead panel is set up. You know, a normal configuration then this just no lights.

49:56

No lights. Yeah. But if you've left one of them off by mistake, then you'll see it straight away because it's suddenly a bright light on. But this wasn't the case here. So expecting a human to repeat the same action for however, many thousand flights they'll do in their career and even though 999 times out a thousand that switch will be where it should be in auto, your brain is going to get is, doesn't want to check it because it's like, why would I, you know, it's not your conscious mind.

50:27

Your unconscious mind is trying to save energy and I don't want to check that switch. Yeah, so in on one hand you might it might stand out in my life because you, like, hold on. That's which is definitely in the wrong position because I've seen it 999 times in the right position, but my point being that also, if you don't have the rigour of looking.

50:45

And what's the saying like looking and really like checking what? You're looking at the output basically. Yeah. So they took off with the aircraft pressurisation system manual. So what happens next? So they start to climb basically and the cabin altitude was basically the same as the outside altitude and passing 12,000 feet.

51:08

So must be slightly different on the Boeing. They got the first alarm went off saying problematic, cabin, altitudes at 12,000 feet. This is the first and probably the most unbelievable like Swiss cheese element to. It was that that alarm was absolutely identical to another alarm which is a takeoff warning, config alarm and the crew just assumed that it was a spurious.

51:32

That's what an alarm. They might have heard a few times before, possibly in the simulator or as even one they would do every day, like to check. Yeah. Possibly, they'll have heard it. A lot and bearing, it's actually like a horn. Yeah, the exact noise at that horn is for two separate.

51:48

Totally separate things other things. But you would assume, I guess, the design of the aircraft thought. Well, if it goes over 12,000 feet, it's not a takeoff. Config. Yeah, the mind doesn't really work. like that. So they assumed because they heard it before as a takeoff warning conflict, that it was a spurious, takeoff warning, config and just saying that's going off at 12,000 feet.

52:08

So what have we learnt about oxygen? Yeah. So already possibly. They are slightly least potentially in the early stages of very early stages and they're climbing at. What? In 2000? Feet a minute. Yes, it's getting worse. So, yes, they, they kept climbing and then they eventually spoke to engineering, and it was actually, the engineer that had done the overnight work on the aircraft that they spoke to in how they how they call engineer.

52:33

So they'd be calling me on, like, what we call box two like VHF channel two. Because busy that all the time. Like, talk with range. Yeah. Talk to call the engineers. No help you out. If you go a little problem and I guess if you've got satphone, you can do that anywhere in the world.

52:47

So they call the engineer who actually on the copy voice recorder. He actually asked them to check the cabin, pressure mode, whether it was in manual, but the report sort of said, that hypoxia had already set in and the captain, basically disregarded that question and asked about something else because what it was the avionics computers also sit in the pressurised aircraft and if the computers are in air which is unpressurized, the density, air is obviously much lower and so you need these massive fans constantly calling these really old computers basically in the avionics bay and they were the first things to sound the alarm, which is like they had an avionics heating problem.

53:32

Yeah. Because they're not getting enough air to call them down. So the captain was on the radio to the engineer saying I've got an avionics cooling problem. Yeah. And where am I CBs for the avionics cooling. Okay. And the engineer really cleverly, realised, that he may be confused and that's why I was advocating for him to check his cabin pressure and there's another little nuance here, which is you know, like the riga of small detail of how you should apply procedures.

54:04

So in our aircraft, if we have a master caution you should cancel the alarm and then you go about okay, what's the master caution? And yeah, and dealing with it and doing that all very systematically, but the very first thing you cancel it because as the way I understand it is, then if another failure occurs, the master caution will light up again and you'll be alerted that there is another failure.

54:27

Yeah, so the CVR for this accident is only 30 minutes of the of the flights. It doesn't go this far back but there's a possibility that when they got the avionics cooling caution, if it wasn't cancelled properly, then when they got a caution for the masks cabin masks, they wouldn't have seen it because I was hiding behind the caution, that was there.

54:51

Yeah. Well, and so just how, you know, a small discipline of things that the aircraft designers built in, you have to follow otherwise you open up more and more holes in the cheese. If you like, yeah, for these accidents to get three. So he's got Avionics cooling. He thinks and there is criticism in the actual report.

55:11

The non technical skills of the pilots there, which is really difficult for me to. Yeah, you know, criticise it's hard, we don't know when they became hypoxic, but there is that point isn't the way. You think you've diagnosed a problem? But you've got this has on the backyard or this uncomfortable, feeling that I've misdiagnosed a problem, and that should be a red flag to be like, let's go back to basics.

55:34

And, you know, is this an avionics cooling thing? There's one alarm, but it's not coinciding with this. But, meanwhile, what's going on in the cabin? Yeah. So the masks dropped in the cabin, cabin crew, passengers all using their chemical generated oxygen masks, but obviously, the aircraft still climbing. So I don't know why.

55:52

The cabin crew wouldn't have approached the flight deck earlier. Yeah, I don't think it was one of their procedures, no, one of their procedures but sadly for those poor passengers, their oxygen is going to run out in 15 minutes which is obviously what happened. Then they start breathing just outside air which is by now, almost cruising altitude probably 30th.

56:13

You know, they have seconds of useful consciousness and probably minutes of actual consciousness before everybody just passed out, basically, because you've got this tragic situation. Imagine if it was in a well, it is in lot, entries. And they call it like the ghost plane and stuff, but just before, it's really all over.

56:31

You've got this tragedy of. If you look behind the flight deck, door, a cabin full of all of the passengers promptly, put on their extra mass and been told to sit down and put their oxygen masks on by the crew, and they're breathing oxygen from this amazing chemical generated system.

56:45

And on the other side of the flight deck, door, you've got a total missed diagnosis of what's going on and pilots here, quickly become hypoxic and then lose consciousness. So the pilots in the flight, deck loose conscious the aircraft's climbing. It really high rate was cleared to climb to its cruise altitude.

57:02

Unfortunately. Yeah, 37,000 feet, I think and in the back patiently waiting is the cabin crew and the passengers for the pilots to do something. So it reaches its cruise altitude. And then the pilot string capacity is. So there's a loss of comms situation with air traffic, control and air drive.

57:24

You know, loss of comms is like reasonably common. I've even had it in that part of the world of had, you know, a few lots of cons. It's not always, you know, some massive tragedy, but the air traffic controls, don't follow the absolute correct procedure when the aircraft transits from the next ATC.

57:42

Based into Greek airspace, you know, the controllers are saying, here's my blip and you're now in control of this radar blip on the screen. It doesn't tell. Well, tells them, I'm having difficulty contacting them, but doesn't initiate a loss of comms procedure handover, which might have changed the situation.

57:59

But merely they climate thousand feet level off and continue on their navigation towards towards Athens and then the Greeks realise something's up and say what do they do next? It's point of which they send the military fighter jets up to intercept them. I've never been incepted but like they get pretty close.

58:21

I think these fighter jets. Well, I'm sure I read in the report they got so close. That the the fighter pilot could see into the flight deck. I mean, that's incredible for travelling like 500 miles an hour, how close you got but you could see the pilot slumped as the controls through the flight deck.

58:37

You could see all the cabin masks deployed. Yeah, as well. Yeah, you know, they are they love it. They can intercept like incredibly close and they are looking for hijack situations. So again, if you like looking really carefully but yeah, as I understand it, you can see their eyes, like, that's how place they are.

58:54

Yeah. So what's happening? I mean, basically brain damage is setting in there, say hi. These guys have been unconscious that now essentially dead already. Pretty much. Yeah. And the aircraft's flying along happily towards Athens and it gets to Athens and then goes into the missed approach. Hold. Yeah. So it doesn't descend ever is 37,000.

59:14

Feet doing exactly what the MCP pilots put in climb 37. Stay in nav mode and it just goes into the hole over here. Yeah you know KEA hold. Yeah. Yes I think it's an island. Is it to the south of Athens with a VOR on it. And there is and the you know, you've got this f16 following the aircraft, you remember what happens next?

59:33

So I think that at some point, one of the cabin crew is actually still conscious so one would assume he's been on therapeutic oxygen which lasts a lot longer. He actually gains access to the flight there. He eventually must realise something's wrong here. Like you know, this has gone on too long and actually gets emergency access into the flight deck finds the pilots slum to the controls tries to put their oxygen mask on to no avail.

01:00:00

But by this time times running out because basically the fuels running out. Yeah. So he takes the captain out of his seat. Yeah. And we don't know, but possibly applied oxygen to the captain. Yeah. How obviously, as well as probably the first officer as well. And eventually is seen by the F-16 pilot.

01:00:18

Yeah. At the controls and he could see that it's cabin. Crew, wearing a cabin crew vest but this guy isn't just any cabin crew, no. Didn't he have some sort of pilot's licence? Yes. Commercial parties licence yeah from the UK, right? So this is great, right? But the next thing that happens, two minutes after to not see the left engine flames out due to fuel starvation, and then four minutes later the right engine to dual engine failure, and some cabin crew of CPL is at the controls.

01:00:50

And probably this guy is hypoxic, yeah, because why he wasn't in the flight deck earlier? Yeah, when nobody's sure. But potentially, he was hypoxic and managed to kind of convince himself to get on therapeutic and started to revive himself, possibly certainly, it's hard to know exactly what happened but he tried to make four made a call on the radio.

01:01:14

And you know, what would he be able to do then if he, you know, say before before he ran out of fuel, you know, directly he could land it. I think he'd have a better than even chance. Probably, if it was no issue. I think a fully serviceable with the radio craft with a radio with some fighter jet help.

01:01:33

Yeah. I think story it would have been yeah. He'd like the total opposite but he transmitted a mayday on the VHF one frequency, which was like he is, you know, you have a few hundred miles back so nobody heard it. So I think he probably was hypoxic this gentleman his fiance, was cabin crew and she was on board too.

01:01:57

Now, the F16 pilot, there's an interview with him which is makes difficult to watch because he he's very upset reliving. This guy had to escort this aircraft as it ran out of fuel and just ascended towards the ground and totally helpless. I mean, this horrible and you can watch the head up display on the internet and you don't really get see anything, but you can hear the distress in there, F-16 pilot, it's voice.

01:02:28

Interestingly, they the cabin crew, that was at the controls is a bit of a hero because it's proven that he disconnected the autopilot, or used heading and turned away from Athens or built-up area. And as the aircraft like sadly descended towards some hills, he was making positive inputs to the controls of the whole time, right?

01:02:55

Up toimpact. And looking like he and to sort of do a control crash, but the aircraft in a dual engine failure, the 737 goes into like a manual backup made. So the controls are extremely heavy. This guy's hypoxic, you know, and it's the aircraft crashed in such a way that it was totally destroyed apart from the tail section, which has the helios god of on the tail, which sort of stood out, everything else was totally destroyed, destroyed on impact, really, sad and difficult accident.

01:03:27

It's obviously captures a lot of people's attention and is plenty of documentaries, but so much was learnt from it. So,, some mandated that cabin crew procedures have to be that. If there is the cabin, any signs of decompression or the cabin, oxygen system is activating the masks fall down.

01:03:45

The cabin crew, have to go into the flight deck. If they don't, if they're not sure that the flight crew are dealing with it. Yeah, which obviously would have saved this Boeing. How to redesign, I think even retrofit some of their cabin altitude warning systems, so that there's less.

01:04:01

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Ending

So there's no chance of confusion about what alarm was going off. And, did you know that in Sweden? Just a few years later taking off out of Stockholm at Bremen, there was an RJ, Avro RJ, jet that took off and part of that. I think de-ice in procedures whether you turn the packs off, right?

01:04:22

So these pilots took off with the packs off and the aircraft never pressurised. And so essentially a slow decompression as they climbed. And again, the cabin oxygen system, activated independently in the mass came down and everyone put their oxygen masks on. But this time, thanks to the lessons learnt here.

01:04:42

The cabin crew went into the flight deck and you know what they were doing, they would troubleshoot in the exact same thing. They were troubleshooting avionics overheat and had no idea about the cabin, pressurization problem, because for some reason, no alarm went off. But luckily, because the cabin crew came in and the flight crew probably looked behind them and got to see, you know, the oxygen masks and so on, they started emergency.

01:05:04

And and and thankfully like, however, many lives were saved because that, yeah, it's funny that in some of these accidents, you know, like the shell model. You know, the pilots have some information and the cabin crew and the cabin has other parts of information. The system actually had a complete picture of what was going on but it didn't all arrive at the pilots in the helios crash for them.

01:05:26

Say, you know, able to do anything about it. Just say, yeah, I mean hypoxia, the first effects of, by the way 1862, some heroes decided to take a balloon up to 29,000 feet, right? And reported strange symptoms, including loss of vision, loss of hearing and paralysis of arms and somehow in all that they were like, get a balloon down, you know.

01:05:51

Okay. Tell tell the story. I was like 150 years ago, the first like experience of hypoxia. Yeah, so there's one thing to remember which is that you've got oxygen available to you, put your mask on and then deal with the rest after the rest after. Yeah, that's it. That's it.

01:06:11

Get all right. Yes. Bye.

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Human Factors Adam Howey Human Factors Adam Howey

Sleep and Fatigue

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Intro

00:00

Adam Sam sleep and fatigue. Yeah. Are you feeling well rested. I've never been so well, rested. This is not the right time due to. The pandemic I have never been more rested and probably less able to tell you about the effects of sleep and fatigue. Yeah, I'm well rested. And I've not fatigued, because we're barely working.

00:23

Exactly. Yeah. But it's not always just the flying I suppose. There's lots of factors that can contribute to sort of fatigue in like a sleep in your, in your normal life. Why is it such a big issue for for pilots? This kind of fatigue sort of things it falls in under their human factors or human performance and actually is taught to pilots in the CRM class.

00:50

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Why Sleep and Fatigue

Usually or the you know that theme of things. Not the technical side and in ATPL oh yes in the human performance exam. Yep. Because that's the the crux of it for me is we want humans to fly the aircraft. We want humans in all parts of our society to perform jobs that we don't want to be automated, you know, for creativity for a process of thinking that we haven't mastered yet with automated systems to get the best out of a human.

01:22

You've got to recognise that, there's human factors. Yeah. Okay. Aviation is at the forefront of trying to objectify and study human performance because it's critical to the operation. Yeah. And we're in a high risk industry. So if we let things slip, then the risks are high. So there's chance of of death.

01:44

So not just overlooking the human element and trying to be scientific about. It is really important and of course, and I think studies of sleeper behind as a as a society. We still don't just feels like we don't know as much about sleep, considering it's a third of our life and other medical degree aspects like diet and so on.

02:09

Yeah, when you're gonna get humans to do unnatural things, like fly a plane and travel great distances that were not evolved to do, or go to the moon or fly around in space. Suddenly, you have to quickly start to understand what the effects are going to have on on the humans and sleep is going to be a big part of that.

02:31

So it's really important, you know, to put it simply at what point is the human. If you were drunk you we wouldn't be wanting. You wouldn't get on a plane if as you were on the airbridge there you see in the pilot swiging in there? Yeah a bottle of whisky and handing.

02:47

It to the first officer. Yeah. But actually you let your cognitive levels of alertness and reaction times and things like this can quite quickly become the same as if you were drunk. Yeah. And three fatigue and tiredness. Yeah. And yeah, the passengers might not be aware. That, that, that could be a factor.

03:09

Yeah, I yeah. I read a lot about that. About how it's comparable to to being drunk essentially, if you're if you're fatigued and sleep and, fatigue can affect anybody, it's not just pilots. It can affect anybody obviously, but it has more of a profound effect on pilots because of the unnatural hours that we work, and the way in which we work, so it's critical to pilots.

03:33

Yeah performance. Yeah. It's also under attack by. Yeah, by the job itself. Exactly exactly. So I read the ICAO definition which said, which which, I think summarises quite nicely. So it says, fatigue is the physiological state of reduced, mental, or physical performance capability, resulting from sleep loss, wakefulness circadian, phase, or workload.

03:55

So I think, three out of those four things can affect anybody. So sleep loss, wakefulness or workload. Everybody has stuff going on in their lives so has a bad night's sleep. But I think maybe the circadian phase is the one that affects us the most as pilots because most people who work in a nine to five job their circadian phase and that's located rhythm which I'm sure will come out to talk about is standard and doesn't really fluctuate much but whereas for us, that's that, that's the big for this will be changes occur, especially in long haul travel.

04:27

But in, you know, getting up early in the morning finishing like, yeah, etc, etc, is that. So as you say, it's sort of detrimental to us it's where it's attacking us as well. Yeah, for me, this is where, and I've only appreciated this in this sense like recently, which is it's, it's one of my skill sets as a professional being able to rest, being able to get rest to not be fatigued, to sleep before duty.

04:53

Not let there be cumulative effects, that's actually a skill and maybe you're just better at it when you're younger more resilient and then your life is simpler when you're younger as well. And when you have all these things competing against you being able to be rested and sleep at that point, are you a professional?

05:14

Are you gonna take it upon yourself to put the priority of your next shift or your previous? You know, shifts effects on you first rather than your social if you family life or absolutely. And I think it's really hard to do as well. I think, you know, you're right, it requires real professionalism to actually look after yourself in that way.

05:34

Because I'd be the first to admit that there's been times where I've gone to work, where I've felt tired and yeah, not as well, rested. As I would have liked to have been, but health, you're supposed to pilot. You're supposed to be the one who takes responsibility for your own.

05:47

Yeah. Fit to fly. Yeah, absolutely. And some things can be easier. So, you might have pressures where? Okay, if I call in sick, I'm gonna be in some kind of sickness stage, or disciplinary, or something, okay? So those pressures might stop. You calling in sick for all sorts of things, including the entire and so on.

06:07

But particularly with being fatigued or tired, what I thought was in our society today, you'll rewarded. So you standard conversation is, oh, how you doing? I'm so busy. This is with anybody not applying so busy. I'm so tired. That's the expected thing to say. It's like the data business.

06:28

Yeah, you wouldn't say Adam how you doing? And then I get, I'm really well rested. Thanks like yeah it's just not cool. Basically the ego wants to say I'm really busy and I'm really tired. Yeah. So my point being that to admit that you're too tired to work, kind of flies in the face of ass societal norms.

06:49

So you've got to man up, excuse the phrase and say to the and your copilot. I'm not fit to fly because I'm too tired and it's kind of yeah. In the face of your ego. You know, we're an in society. We're supposed to be tired, especially working grinding. Yeah, exactly.

07:05

And say, it's almost like, saying you've got a deficiency? Yes, say I'm too. I'm see, I can't do. I'm too tired to try. Yeah, yeah. But there's so many factors of why you might be fatigued or, or just tired that day. That you could never compare one person to the other.

07:20

Sure. Yeah. Even if they tried their best to be rested, that it might not have happened. And do you think you've ever been fatigued at work? Yeah. For sure. Yeah. There's one specific example. I think it was a time when we were learning more about fatigue which is why I might have like learn about it.

07:38

Basically, I was on a Sharm El-Sheikh which from the UK is really long, two sector day anyway and I done a lot of deep night flying as well. So it's a perfect step for it. And I've been re-based and I was commuting. Well, I wasn't, but in between shift patterns, I was commuting and I was staring at the wind vector on the ND on the Boeing 757 probably and I just couldn't figure out where it was coming from where the wind was coming from.

08:15

Because that's one of these things that you just instinctively glance at it and your brain would tell you the data that it's that you're interpreting. But I was unable to interpret it and for some reason that struck me immediately is that's just that's fatigue. That yeah, it's tiredness but there was another element to it.

08:34

There was a confusion and a fogginess. Yeah it wasn't like the entire. That's why I'm trying to tell you is like a cumulative thing over that summer season that that shift block. Yeah that's an important point, isn't it? It's there is a difference between being tired and being fatigued if you just have maybe one bad night's sleep yeah you might be tired but fatigue yeah it tends to be more cumulative over a long period.

08:58

Like you say with lots of things going on lots of bad night sleeps in a row working a lot. So maybe some stress and yeah back back to that sort of ICAO definition the physiological state of reduced mental performance, capability. That's kind of what you experienced on that. You couldn't mentally process, the the data that was exactly in front of you.

09:21

It wasn't like you were so tired. You were falling asleep. But you actually you were fatigued and, you know, couldn't process the the data in front of you says it's yeah. There is a difference between being tired and and being fatigued. I found out some information not about pilots unfortunately, but about the effect of fatigue on doctors, right?

09:44 

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Sleep in Society

One thing I found out was in America at least in the entire training of a doctor, they received only about two hours training on education on sleep, right? So there seems to be an underwhelming focus on sleep in terms of biological and medicine. Yeah like we said it's a third of your life but then looking at medicines response to sleep as well just look at this some of the shifts that doctors have to do.

10:17

Well, yeah, it's interesting like we're you know, there are a lot of comparisons between our industry and medicine. Both high both high risk industry. Yeah, exactly. So he gave them some, I'll ask you a question. So if you were about to have a doctor perform you, right? Would you ask them?

10:36

How much sleep have you had in the last 24 hours? Well, maybe after like, hearing what you're saying? Hey, maybe I would. Yeah, well, okay, say we can get into the the details of eight hours, seven hours, and so on, and that kind of thing and what people think they need, but let me tell you that.

10:54

Statistically, according to this study, if a doctors had six hours, sounds, alright or less. He's a hundred and seventy percent more likely to make a major error during, the surgery. Wow, okay. Now, some of these doctors and this is American again, the, you know, this sort of we call them, junior doctors, and they do these like 30 hour shifts.

11:17

I've never really got my head round know how it works, but on a 30-hour shift, they're 460% more likely to make a major diagnostic error. Which sounds obvious really? I mean, how I shift? Yeah, I mean, that's just crazy, right? I mean I would think that that would be the same for us.

11:36

Like if we were on a 30-hour duty, I would imagine that by my 29th hour, I might be, because I think they're sleeping, aren't they? But just as and when. Yeah, and they're not really getting any in the early days. It's not, it's not as they're being called constantly.

11:52

Exactly. It's the quality of the sleep. And yeah, that was one of the factors in there. Buffalo Accident, which we might come on to talk about a little bit. Later was actually where they were sleeping and the quality of the of the sleep which is which is important. They all goes into things that people are studying their ATPL or the different types of sleep.

12:09

Yeah. You know like the early sort of phase like the rapid eye movement and there's four phases deeply. And then on top of the four phases of sleep, you've got rapid eye movement. Usually which is the most fascinating and phase of maybe. Yeah. And the ATPL study has a lot on that those four phases and what they mean and so on we don't really have control over that practically speaking but you're supposed to get eight hours sleep, maybe seven.

12:37

Yeah, is what I've learnt? I reckon it's gone down over the years though. I think when things when life wasn't so stressful like 20 years ago, I seem to remember people saying like, oh, you should get nine hours a night and then like maybe 10 years ago, it was like eight everyone needs eight hours.

12:52

Now, I'm pretty sure like here, people say seven's probably enough for you know. Yeah. So this is the thing is kind of like a an epidemic of bad sleep, so many, so many things working against us. So this idea that we need less sleep. Yeah. And then we can survive unless sleep.

13:11

Yeah. Yet Alzheimer's diabetes. Cancer all linked to a lack of sleep. Over your lifetime. Yep. The world health organisation have specifically said that any nighttime shift work is now designated as a carcinogen, I.e. cancer causing factor. Wow, the fact that you're a nighttime shift worker. So famously Margaret Thatcher used to say, hey, she only had four hours sleep and unfortunately, she died of Alzheimer's, and Ronald Reagan at the same time, right?

13:47

But just looking more, subtly even to light down to this. Six hour thing, there is a major study that occurs twice a year with about a billion people, right? So that is daylight savings time. Yeah. Did you know that there's a 24% increase in heart attacks after the spring daylight savings time?

14:10

When you lose an hour sleep? Is that right? And then they reverse 24%, decrease in heart attacks and cardiovascular major problems. And the day after the, when you get an extra hour sleep, that's really interesting. So, anyway, there's endless statistics about the effect of sleep, but just what's fascinating to me is the if you get just less than seven hours, yeah, it has an effect on you.

14:35

There's a lot of studies on athletes, you know, who on it. Perform that they all learn a skill 20 to 30% better. If they've had a good night's sleep and that over a season, if those that were getting six hours sleep had 60% more injuries by those who didn't right?

14:52

Okay. There's a lot of stuff around athletes all sort of pointing towards the effect that it might have on a pilot. But remember we're also not in our own bed at night and we're not in a bed at the right time. So like you've said is it's up against us, just going on to that athletes point.

15:08

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Conditions for Sleep

It's diverging slightly, but I do remember about the cycling, the team sky society team, where they, they ship, like the cyclists own mattresses from home, like a year. They're going in the world that a march of the marginal gains like getting a place slightly better night sleep. Yeah, they're in there actually, well, kind of in their own bed, if that makes sense.

15:27

I fractured. It helps bring this back to aviation but just staying on that point about. Apparently, if we're in an unfamiliar place, trying to sleep half, basically half of our brain won't sleep properly. Won't go through this, the stages sleep, and it's an evolved mechanism. Like a threat detection.

15:47

Yeah, kind of? Yeah, it makes sense. And we're always in hotels, in a really places. Yeah. Yeah. The team sky thing, you're doing everything they can. But if you're not in your own bed at night that has a real effect, I feel like, on some people, I feel like a good night sleep, but then it's funny that we have familiar hotels.

16:02

Yeah. Maybe your brain accepts like, oh, you're back here again, but if you're in a new hotel, might be different or the rooms different. Yeah. Beds different. And and I can certainly relate to waking up a lot of times thinking, where am I, what's going on? Like, and it's pitch black and you like I might home, am I in hotel?

16:17

Where let's talk about that and is it pitch black? I mean what what conditions do we need really? As as as crew to make use of, you know, and to get sleep. Yes. So well yeah. They so the darkness helps, we might find ourselves sleeping at different times of the day.

16:35

So quite often, a lot of the hotels we stay and do have like blackout blinds, which make you feel like it's night and quite often if I have been on early shift and I go get to the hotel and have a look afternoon nap with all the with everything close that the way you do it then.

16:50

Well, yeah, occasionally yeah, but way, but the point is after an hour of an afternoon, if I wake up and it's pitch black it takes me a while to figure out what time of day is, is it the next morning, have I ever slept my alarm, right? Is it?

17:03

And it just take a little while to because your senses are saying it's night time. Yeah. Which is good. Then yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yes, it works. So they're called their Zeitgebers. Yeah, which are the German word for basically the, the clock, the, the way that your body learns, what time it is which apparently includes just looking at the clock, your brain like accepts and also it's that time.

17:24

I must be. I wonder if you change the time on the clock. Yeah. You might for your body, you could convince them. But yeah. Heat light and noise. Yeah. Have you ever had a hotel where that's not worked out for you? And yeah, occasionally like the noise noise can be a problem.

17:39

Well, that home and do you replicate the same standards? You know, I think, in our case the union sort of, says to the company, the hotel must have these standards for sure, the company agree with. Yeah. But what about at home? Surely. We need the same. Yeah, exactly. How blind?

17:55

Oh yeah, but air conditioning, exactly. Yeah, no. Yeah, one that sort of my backup, this sort of saves me, is an eye mask and earplugs, right? Okay, so I've got that. I can pretty much trick my body into sleep. Yeah. So, even if the neighbours got music on and yeah, the curtains aren't very good and that kind of thing.

18:15


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Circadian Rhythm

Well, I think that leads us on nicely to talk about the circadian rhythm of the body and how it is a kind of working working against this say, I did a little bit of research again in Latin as to what's circadian where it comes from say, circa is approximately and Dian is day.

18:33

So, approximately a day, it's the funny that you say that because it's island that it's not if you know that you're right. But if did you so this circadiam rhythm, if you were cut off from the real world, like in a trying to just think like down a mine shaft.

18:51

Yeah. You gone to a 25 hour cycle? Yeah, I did read something about that and then it said that actually it was disproven later on. They maybe wasn't so act, but I thought that was the reason why flying east is worse than flying west. There must be some element of truth to it.

19:05

But that's not the only reason why it's worse. Yeah. Okay, so carry on. So, yeah, so the circadian rhythm is your body's kind of natural 24-hour rhyth on. It has periods where it's very alert and awake periods, where it's completely like resting. And it's also like body temperature as well.

19:25

Again, you have really low temperature, that's when your body is kind of, it's least alertness, which usually, for most people occurs, around sort of four o'clock in the morning. Yeah, just about the time. That a pilots alarm clock is, is going off. Exactly the time. You don't want to be waking up.

19:41

So the point is getting back right to the start. The is the circadian rhythm is sort of as you described. It's kind of attacking are sleep and off fatigue, and our alertness, because it's working against us. A lot of the time. Not only would like, long call time zones. But also the time of day that we're, we're trying to wake ourselves up on an early shift, right in the right at the point where we should be in our deepest sleep.

20:04

Yeah. Essentially. And then I was reading about this, the melatonin, like the whole moon. There's naturally released at night to help you sleep essentially. Yeah. So we're trying to operate through the night or work early in the morning and there's like, even a hormone going into our body which is right?

20:21

Yeah. Against us to put us back to sleep sort of thing. So that cumulatively a lot of sort of abusing of the circadian rhythm essentially is, is a massive contributor. Yes to. So can we can we hack it and get around it? Or can we not, should we respect it?

20:39


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Rules and Regulation, Rosters and Commuting 

Or should we force through? Well, I think there's quite a lot of regulation in place to help us manage. It isn't there, sort of, you know, for example, the length of duty we can do or the amount of sectors we can do, for example, if our shift starts and this is all in our kind of regulations are operated spaniel if our shift starts in what we call, the WOCL, the window of circadian low.

21:03

So ie between sort of four and six o'clock in the morning, then we can, we have to do a shorter day. We're only allowed to related to how many hours we can do, which is less than if we were to say start at 8am or 9am. Yeah, so it's there's sort of regulation out there to help us manage it.

21:21

But ultimately, the onus is on us is pretty close to the regulations of it. I supposed to be in line with the health. Yeah, yeah. But they're a bit blunt. Yeah, and regulation is competitive, you know, if the FAA are saying that this is okay, then why should the European agency be tighter?

21:44

Like the end of the day then their restriction European aviation business. Yes. So regulation can be your backstop and save you and keep the industry safe. But you have to be aware that. It's also, it has to side to the scale where it is. It doesn't want to be over regulatory because no one would make any money.

22:05

Yeah. So like you say as a professional pilot, you've got to draw the line. But do you know anything about and fatigue risk management systems not really no. So I think they're mandated in all European airlines which just the idea is that you like a safety management system, collect data, monitor the rosters and their effect on health.

22:29

So you'd collect data through, you collect all the rosters and then pilots would submit fatigue forms to say, they felt really fatigued. All this data sort goes into a system plus systems that have come about through decades and decades of different research, NASA's always involved. The CAA lots of a lot of defence companies and stuff come up with mathematical and what they could bio mathematical models, where you put a roster into a computer and it already tells you that pilot will be fatigued on this day according to our statistics and so on including things like the drink driving cognitive line and if the pilot will exceed that on this duty and so on, it's okay.

23:17

Okay. So that can be used proactively. Yes. Say well, this roster, you're about to publish this roster but that's not good. It's not good. You need to amend it or change it. Yeah. So like a safety management system it's supposed to be proactive and, you know, intelligent, uses data.

23:31

So there are examples of where now airlines are allowed to operate outside of the the hours that you were staying earlier. Yeah, we call them the, you know, you can do this many hours. Yeah, this sectors. If they've got the data to show, actually, that's highest. Don't feel fatigued on this pattern or these these destinations, you know, in a row.

23:51

That kind of, yeah. Okay. Then they're allowed to actually operate outside of that, exactly, yeah. Yeah, that's yeah. So it's a scientific approach and it's a bespoke approach, you know, like somebody flying a small jet private jet company doing the same pattern in terms of the numbers and destinations might have a totally different experience to an airline operator.

24:13

Sure. And so they developed their own roster in patterns, stamped by the regulator by using data. And so, so that was big recent change. Wasn't there with the regulation about the first or long haul, right? Okay. eat to West. Okay. And commuting and I guess that might be as a result of some of that data is that not?

24:33

When in the UK we got the EASA, so regulations and they were yeah. If they, they started to integrate commuting, which will probably talk about with the Colgan, air crash maybe. Yeah. Which has an effect because it's alright, having all these regulations. But you don't regulate what the pilot does outside of when they report for duty.

24:51

We could be incredibly fatiguing or not depending on how they choose to. And and commuting is a strange thing in. Aviation that there's a lot of commuting compared to a normal job. Some incredible distances. Oh yeah. Absolutely. And with we know of commuters to the UK from. Yeah. America.

25:08

And North America Australia. Yeah. Yeah. South Africa far east everywhere. Yeah, can be a really healthy thing for there for their lifestyle. It does terrify me a bit. I've always been reasonably why I've always been very close to my base actually. Yeah. And but I guess you get used to it.

25:28

Yeah, but it's another layer into that added into that slit lack of sleep in that fatigue, you know? So we've already got things working against us like art on social hours are early starts. When you factor in time zones, and and jet lag and commuting. Yeah, time zones. And then flying back across a different time zone, maybe getting east to west, west to east.

25:49


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Sleep and Fatigue in Practice

You know, it really is a big factor and it will affect a pilot quite a. That's some people will be able to manage it better than others and the Swiss cheese thing there, isn't it? Yeah, on the wrong day, the wrong circumstances, conspire against you, you know, an engine failure on top of this on top of that and your commute and this it can all add up to an accident.

26:13

And unfortunately, when I was trying to look for accidents directly related to sleep and fatigue, as I think we said they never, they can never say for certain that, that was a contribute to fracture because often the crew might lose their lives or they might be inclined to lie.

26:29

Yeah, if I tried to look into remember that aircraft, it's a northwest northwestern and who flew over the destination and yeah, I like an hour. I do recall that and they so I think the one that I'm referring to is north west airlines, flight 188. However, it's not useful to talk about because the pilots did, I think they didn't really admit to, or they gave a version of events which people disputed, perhaps, didn't they go out over like the Pacific for like that they were gonna shoot them down.

26:57

They're about to scramble, right? But even a traffic control, didn't notice for a long time and luckily, they didn't have fuel starvation. There's possibly a smartphone, tablet distraction using a factor but the CVR only records. The last half an hour of the flight and they took an hour to get back to the airport.

27:16

I was supposed to fly to but right one of the theories as that's as far as I can say really, was that they were both asleep. Right. And that's why they've overflown the destination. And like you say though, it's difficult when looking for accidents to say that this, you know, you can never really say that.

27:31

The sole course, was was fatigue. Yeah. Because it's just really hard to prove, but on quite a lot of them, it, it's kind of been assumed that that was a contributing factor and you can kind of understand without our lifestyle, and when you look at some of the accidents, you can see based on the data that they have, how there's a reasonable chance that the pilots might.

27:52

Well, have been either very tired or fatigued. Yeah. And I guess it's just always going to be subjective. You can't really? Yeah. You can ask that pilot how tired is and then interestingly find this difficult phrase but basically you yourself are going to be the worst person to assess how fatigue you are.

28:11

Yes definitely. So I mean how would you play that with a colleague? Actually, I guess if I felt that my colleague was tired. Yeah, possibly fatigued. It might be worth mentioning beforehand but likewise, you know, like you say the eight is really hard to know it in yourself, you know, I'll be fine.

28:33

You know. Okay, I'm a bit high but I'm okay. The ultimate level of professionalism would be to take yourself off the flight. Yeah, but as another sort of professional side of it, you could mention it beforehand and say hello. If you see me starting to get things, okay. You know, that's a, that's a sign that I might be a bit tired, or especially when we do asshole pilots, when we do the odd night flight which we're not used to doing through the night working, we were used to early starts and late finishes but a complete through the nightflight.

29:01

That's that's the one way you might sort of pretty brief, you know. This is gonna be difficult for us both. But then this is so it's such a abroad subjects. So you're in my mind there you're talking about falling asleep and in the walk all, you know, in the night and that is like the aircraft puts you to bed.

29:19

This is low stimulus. Yeah, it's like three in the morning, there's no radio chat, this warmth in case you've gone to sleep. The crew probably taking rest that they don't want to buddy, maybe the other pilot is taking controlled rest and so you're being quiet. It's not wake them.

29:34

And as well, I think I learnt that in the states, you're not allowed to take control rest. Is that right? Maybe they mean in the sea. Yeah, I think that, I think that I say whenever I have flown through the night having just a conversation with your colleague is the best stimulus.

29:49

Yeah. For keeping you both sort of alerts. Well, for sure, like I remember you asking me because I in a previous airline did lots of deep night flying and this night. This is the wrong phrase night and day. One trying to say is you can be very, very, very tired.

30:04

Yeah. Well, very awake. And for me the very awake was always when I was having just great chat banter. Whatever was there? Yeah, yeah idea the one. Yeah and and I think they would be feel the same. You either beast in each other or you're draining each other. Yeah, yeah.

30:20

Yeah, even if it's like the captain showing you pictures of his house extenders you know anybody always collection of classic cars or whatever. It's at least it's some sort of stimulus, a cabin crease come in actually quite deep into the night and then kind of get you talking and yeah, that that's always good.

30:36

Yeah, it's always nice to have somebody. Just somebody to talk to really and just keep you and the effects of altitudes don't forget, like, everything we talk about. Always amplify everything, definitely. So, however, tired, you are however, unhealthy you are however, prone to the fatigue at that moment and that it's as soon as you get up there.

30:54

Yep. You're now and gonna feel it a lot more because of the cabin altitude. Yeah, as well for like this is going to be a fatiguing. Yeah, manageable yeah thing I mean when I did long haul, that was a big part of the operation was managing your energy over that.

31:13

I don't know 12-hour duty. Yeah, I need to be more alert here. Let's alert here, how can I manage my? Yeah, it let alone the fact that then you might when you might be falling asleep because of your, you down route or whatever. Yeah and I don't know how I did it basically but I was a lot younger, then it's an extra threat that needs managing, I guess the same actually against, you know, I was thinking as well.

31:37

It's like you got to sleep and then you're in a beautiful destination or the social aspect is really early and yeah, the effects of alcohol. Yeah, some people use that to go to sleep but it's well documented that that means that you all not achieve. The type of sleep that you should be getting but everybody out might be out drinking.

31:56

Yeah, you really need to sleep but hey everybody's going down to the local bar, to get you food and drink and there's a game on and we're all gonna have a great time. Everybody's a a year into the same environmental conditions maybe but then it's going to affect you differently.

32:10

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Apollo 11

Yeah, good example Apollo 11. Yeah so they got to the mean. Yeah. With all the drama as well of of making the land in yeah, which I'll try not to go into because I love it. Yeah. Then they went for a walk about on the mean. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

32:25

Yeah, yeah. Then they get back in the spaceship and checklist as go to sleep two hours, they were supposed to go to sleep then before like yeah. Yeah. So they were asked about it. Apparently, Neil got no sleep at all. Why would you yeah? I so the polo that landed capture had windows with bright sunlight coming in.

32:47

Yeah. All the lights in this cockpit weren't dimmable, right? They're on bright and Neil said specifically that the periscope that they used and had the earth shining happened to be shining in it and it was like a light bulb, the earth coming through that right buzzed the space on the floor, okay?

33:06

I can't quite picture it but and he had the best space, right? The best. Yeah. Space to lie in and he actually went in and out of sleep, he reckoned, right? They slept in their space suits was very dusty in the flight deck. What do you call it at? That time the spacecraft.

33:21

Yeah, but the space suits were too cold because they're designed to keep you cold on the moon. So yeah. How do you go to sleep on knowing that you're on the moon? Yeah, is and all those stimulus is bigger excited. Yeah, yeah exactly. Can look at the moon, you know and then like space to it.

33:37

I think you just give us a good idea for another podcast. I know it's not kind of ATP or related but we should maybe do an Apollo 11. I don't know from qualified to very much to going to. Hey, have a good example of yes. So in you know space would be a more extreme situation where you still need to sleep.

33:53

So how you're gonna do that? So people who live in space for a long time, obviously wouldn't do very well if, if they weren't getting regular sleep, so they must eventually be able to find, you know, regular sleeping patterns and so on. So yeah, I just feel like if you go on and on about the effects of sleep but what should we talk about?

34:14

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Colgan Flight 3407

Which we try and talk about a crash that that yeah, sleep and may have had an effect on. Yeah, I think that be a nice way to and then come back to probably one accident recently that. Yeah. Sort of never proven. But quite well of accepted that. One of the contributed factors was the fatigue of the flight crew was the cogener.

34:36

Yeah, Colgan flight 3407, which crashed on approach into Buffalo? New York, actually crashed on on top of a house on approach. It basically, it was a stall, so very briefly the background. It was a bombardier dash a Q400 from Newark. New Jersey to Buffalo New York and it was.

34:56

Yeah. The cause of the crash was narrowed dynamic store, the aircraft crashed on top of the house on final approach and killed everybody on board. Sadly 49 people on board and one person on the grounds. Yeah. In the house and the one liner NTSB kind of summary as to the cause of the crash was the pilots inappropriate response.

35:18

The story of the store warning, but obviously Swiss cheese. You know, there's always loads and loads and loads of contributing. Yeah, factors. And as we said, it can't really be proved but the disprove sorry, carrier? Yeah, you write, they have tried to disprove that. That was a, that was a factor, the fatigue.

35:39

But I think it's kind of widely accepted that, that was definitely a contributor. Yeah. It's very human to learn what the pilots were doing the day before. Yeah. And the CVR from before departure in Newark the comments made by the first officer. They're really damning to and it just makes you interesting think this is because they were, they were tired.

36:04

Yeah and she was having a chat with a captain while there was setting up the pre-departure stuff and I should really say word for word but it's it's horrible. It's how she's really tired. She shouldn't be at work. You know, one of the lines that like really resonated with me was she said, it's something like this one of those days where if you felt like this and you were at home right now, you wouldn't leave home.

36:29

But now I'm all the way here at work, you know. And then it's like, oh, we'll see how I feel when we get flying, you know, it's just like, but I can feel myself. Like having probably said that I passed like agreed. You know, I'm sat there at work.

36:43

I wish I was at home and I would never have left home if I felt like this. But I'm here now and that's what that's like the other side of our professionalism is like that we have pilots have a can do attitude. Like yeah I can I can do this, you know, I'm not I'm not gonna let people down.

36:58

I'm you know, even though the easy thing to do would just be to call it is what would happen if she called in then. Like, let's speculate. Yeah. Who no flights? Delayed. Yeah. Cost a lot of money for the airline people are like, how can you got to the cockpit?

37:10

And then decided to. Yeah, we shouldn't speculate. It may be documented, but people are quite sceptical about airlines responses to you calling in sick, repeatedly or calling in fatigue. If that is a thing, nobody likes calling it sick in any industry, you know. I even remember as a young still, like, working in a supermarket like you, it's just not in our nature.

37:33

It's just, you're letting people down or you feel like arrow medical stuff is different. Like if you've got a cold and she had a cold, she had a cold by looks at things. Yeah. And she asked her to send it was that bad because this was only at 19 that well, I mean, I don't know what their pressure difference was for them, but yeah, you know, that that doesn't read very well.

37:50

No, to be tired and cold. He also set up what she had been doing the day before before. She makes those comments on how she got to work. Yeah, so I think I read that. She was a computer from Seattle. Yes. Those of you that know like American geography.

38:05

That's the other side of the country. Yeah, we're not talking to small country. That's that's a five. Six hour flight it's across. I don't remember how many time zones but that's a decent commute. Yes, from sort of west coast to east coast and it taken her two flights. Yeah, get there.

38:21

One of which at least was just on a spare seat on a FedEx and I'm not sure about the sort of what the quality of the flight or you know, her where she was resting or where she was sat. Something about that, she was resting on the cargo like obviously to lie horizontally, okay, okay.

38:40

And another factor in this was what that came out of it was to the amount that the airline paid there, their regional established allies paid there, their flight crew, because this commuting option was a free option. Basically, for the first officer, she didn't have to pay, you know, a commercial ticket or a standby to yeah, ever, which might have sort of made a difference.

39:02

So, she was taking the option. That was the cheapest because she essentially wasn't paid very well. I heard she didn't $16,000 the year before. That was her annual salary and that's crazy. Like, apparently less than a waitress. Yeah, that's unbelievable for a professional pilot. Yeah. And so she was obviously trying to save money by getting this freebie flight, although it was kind of a bit disjointed and probably ended up taking longer.

39:27

She slept in a crew rest centre in between the two flights. Yeah. And then one of them was it. Here was had logged on and off to the roster in system a couple of times. That was, here's the caps. Sorry. Yeah, that's the carry on there. So he was commuting from Florida.

39:40

Yeah. Day before and which is probably the commute, but still commuting. But yeah, the detected sort of 3 am. Yeah. He'd logged on to a rostering system or computer system. So who knows where he was trying to rest or sleep? Yes. Hi. Focus. He was obviously broken if he was checking that at three o'clock in the morning so yeah, obviously like so we can't prove it but all the signs are there that both flight crew are probably.

40:08

Yeah. You know. Because because then the you said, it's because they stalled. Yeah. So briefly then what? So the aircraft stored. Yeah, I don't fully understand why. And because the ice in theory, I think was disproved right or there, you may know differently. No. But they stored, I'm not entirely sure.

40:28

Well, they, they had a store warning. Yep. Before they seemingly did anything abnormal as well. Say okay, but then Sam how did they react? So they reacted the opposite way to, which you should react to a in that they, they pull back on the, on the stick which is not dissimilar to what happened with the air France 447 and numerous of the flight.

40:52

So so it leads us on to a whole. Another kind of worms really in the training of pilots on store recovery because this happened a few times now where and I can kind of understand it. It must just the plane starting to drop lose energy and fall out the sky in a stall.

41:08

The instinct must be well I don't want to fall out so I need to pull back and pull up and which is completely the wrong city. It's easy to say. Yeah. What? What an idiot? Both you know what an idiot. Like it's like 101 of being a pilot. Yeah.

41:23

But what's more fascinating to me. Is how why does a human do something that they have been trained not to do that? If you ask them, they know not to do. Yeah. You know, that's an enemy. They're studying to that sort of stuff. We often talk about your need, your reaction to things.

41:45

Caging the chimp these kind of things, but they were quite low. Yeah. And generally aviation training in America, had always asked the students to recover with as little height loss as possible. Yeah. Which they said, might have been a factor in something that they wanted to change. Yeah. But yeah, they pulled back then, the severe plate, disconnected.

42:13

There was a stick shaker. They pulled back, they shouldn't done that. So then they started entering wingdrop stores. And then the aircraft did a stick pusher. Yeah. So say that's like the aircraft's own protection systems. Yeah, hang on. You don't want to be doing this and try to push the stick forward to unstall.

42:30

Yeah, the wing. But then kept in pull back over whether that was the same thought process. I don't even want to say the word thought the same pattern running through his mind, which is, why is this going down? I want it to go up, you know this? Yeah, and now it's now he's pushing itself.

42:46

Yeah. I don't know. Maybe more interestingly when you talk about like, actually because that's sort of like a muscle reaction but cognitively, they had a very short discussion about raising the flat, the raising the gear, and the first officer raised the flaps laps. Yeah. So that almost strikes me as yeah.

43:06

They were so tired. And even know what phase of flight they're in or something because it was kind of like a picture of those of this that's trying to do any confusion. I've added there or speculation. Let's talk. Just very quickly about to they're tired. We couldn't. We can't necessarily say we can't undo that they're in message at the aircraft store.

44:23

Can't do that. There are a few other things in the Swiss cheese. It could help. So sterile flight deck. Yeah, he didn't have yes. So, what's there use in a sterile flight day? So the idea is still flight deck is that no non-operational conversation versus allies have different levels, but mostly sort of flight level 100 below, 5 of 100 critical phases, physical parts of flight.

44:45

So that you're all your concentration or your capacity is focused on the operation. Yeah. And the SOPs rather than not good for staying awake, maybe. Yeah, no. Exactly. No. But there's a balance. Yeah, exam. If you're the rule is clear though. Yeah, if you're talking about something else, it's not operational.

45:01

Then that's taking some of your capacity away from. Yeah, from flying a monitoring aircraft. It's got like when you drive a car you know they tell you don't look just in front of the car. Like, try and look really far down the road as a child, as a car is going to pull out inside.

45:15

Yeah, you've got it's the brain doesn't want to do that. The brains like lazy wants to save calories basically. Yeah. But if you're in a sterile flight, you then, I think also need to use that time. And then think ahead, which is what if this happens, or what's he gonna do next?

45:30

What she gonna do next? Yeah. Okay, so there's that and brief in is good. Yep, although we brief go rounds before making landings, because that's a really good idea. Yep. I've never briefed a stall. I don't think like before an approach. No, no. But, you know, and in hindsight, like, you know, yeah.

45:48

If they'd briefly stall that day, they might have might have helped them. Yeah, the store recovery. Yeah. Really sad. And here in the CVR and and so on and there's a lot of talk about the captains training record and things like that, which is definitely should be talked about.

46:03

But it's a shame to talk about these people when they're not there to. But as I've talked about, as I've said, in previous podcasts, when we talked about events, Our industry is so forth. Thinking in that, we'll take all take a lot of things out of an accident and a lot of learning points.

46:16

And, you know, ultimately it will always change the future and assemblies are written in blood. So, yeah, I'm interesting all the time. There is fine it. All I'm saying is yeah, it will in the long term, it will probably save more lives in the future with. Oh yeah, sleep may may have been part of the the Swiss cheese in that accident.

46:36

And certainly that's how the industry reacted which is why it's kind of like infamous as being associated with sleep and fatigue. And then I tried to find some other accidents but I mean there's some crazy ones where they've missed entered zero, few weights, you know, gross growth areas and they've been on like these 24-hour duties and all right, well, if you just ask him for an accident, if you're on like a 24-hour duty.

46:57

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Ending

So really sobering in two ways for me, not just that crash. But also how how the effect of sleep and fatigue on your health. Yeah, long term makes me really value sleep definitely. Yeah. It's really important, isn't it? And those of you listening that are gonna go on to have commercial careers and, and fly.

47:20

Yeah, the message would be like, look, after yourself and be the ultimate professional. Look after your your own rest and well-being, don't be afraid to speak up. If you're get to know your fatigue policy, exactly say that you have the confidence to say I'm not going in. Yeah. Do you remember him when we were doing our first ever commercial flights and people that we trained with we're doing theirs and then I heard that a friend of ours, had his first ever line flights.

47:49

That's a big deal. Yeah. And he called in sick for it. Oh, really right? Okay. Yeah, I think if you remember he had been so anxious and nervous he just slept and slept right in sick and I remember like first laughing and then thinking, that's ridiculous. And then thinking, yeah, but that's really sensible in it.

48:08

That's like, yeah, that's brilliant. Looking back now. I think well, what I like yeah. What ballsy thing to do. Yeah. But your first flight, everyone's gonna be working really hard. You, the trainer. Yeah. Yeah. And now, he's gonna mess up his whole training schedule. He's on a probationary thing.

48:24

So I'm but he did that. That's pretty cool. But in terms of yeah, professional standards. That is like the ultimate. Yeah good. All right well yeah we're getting good night. Leave that. Yeah I get again get some rest now and thanks for listening. Alright, bye.

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