Flight Crash Lesson Learned

From C-Check to Tragedy, Flight 261 Crash Lesson Learned 

The Tragic Legacy of Alaska Airlines Flight 261: A Lesson in Aviation Safety

On January 31, 2000, a catastrophic event shook the aviation industry to its core. Alaska Airlines Flight 261, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, crashed into the Pacific Ocean, claiming the lives of all 88 individuals on board. The flight, which was en route from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to Seattle, Washington, with a planned stop in San Francisco, faced a harrowing mechanical failure that led to an irreversible tragedy.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) conducted an extensive investigation, revealing that the accident was primarily due to a failure in the horizontal stabilizer trim system's jackscrew assembly. This failure was attributed to insufficient lubrication maintenance practices by Alaska Airlines. The thread wear on the jackscrew assembly was severe enough to cause a loss of pitch control, leading to the aircraft's fatal descent.

This incident has become a pivotal case study in aviation safety, highlighting the critical importance of rigorous maintenance and inspection protocols. Jeff Guzzetti, who led the NTSB Systems Group during the investigation, noted the significance of the event, stating that it was "a maintenance accident...more pure than any others". His insights underscore the necessity for meticulous attention to every aspect of aircraft maintenance.

In the aftermath of the crash, the aviation industry took several steps to prevent such incidents from recurring. One of the key outcomes was the enhancement of training programs for pilots and crew members, emphasizing the need for effective communication and prompt recognition of potential issues. The FAA also updated its regulations, mandating more frequent and thorough inspections of the jackscrew assembly on MD-83 aircraft and similar models.

The lessons learned from Alaska Airlines Flight 261 have had a lasting impact, serving as a sobering reminder of the responsibilities that come with the maintenance and operation of commercial aircraft. The echoes of this tragedy continue to influence safety protocols, ensuring that the lives lost are not in vain but serve as a catalyst for continual improvement in aviation safety standards.

For those interested in delving deeper into the technical analysis and the comprehensive findings of the NTSB, further information can be found in detailed reports and analyses. The legacy of Flight 261 is a testament to the relentless pursuit of safety in the skies, and it remains a cornerstone in the narrative of aviation history.

The specific maintenance failures that led to the tragic crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 can be traced back to the aircraft's horizontal stabilizer trim system. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation revealed that the jackscrew assembly, a critical component of this system, suffered from extreme wear due to inadequate lubrication. This wear ultimately caused the acme nut threads within the assembly to fail, resulting in a loss of pitch control that the pilots could not recover from.

The maintenance oversight was not a sudden occurrence but rather the result of extended intervals between lubrication, which was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). 

This extension allowed the deterioration of the jackscrew assembly to progress undetected to a point of catastrophic failure.

Furthermore, the NTSB report indicated that the maintenance deficiencies began during a C-check at Alaska Airlines' heavy maintenance facility in Oakland, California. The C-check is a comprehensive examination of the aircraft, and any lapses during this process can have severe consequences. In the case of Flight 261, it was noted that the maintenance accident was "more pure than any others," highlighting the direct correlation between the maintenance performed and the accident.

The aftermath of the crash led to significant changes in maintenance protocols and FAA regulations, ensuring more frequent and thorough inspections to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. The legacy of Flight 261 serves as a stark reminder of the importance of diligent maintenance and the dire consequences of its neglect.

When Pilots STOP TRUSTING the Aircraft

- The 13th of February 2018 was a beautiful day in San Francisco on the west coast of the United States.

 

The visibility was well over 10 miles, hardly any clouds and only light winds, a perfect day for flying, in other words.

This was exactly what Captain Christopher Behnam thought as he was heading out towards San Francisco Airport in the morning.

He was a tall, distinguished 57-year-old captain with proud Iranian heritage who had,

just like me, dreamed about becoming an airline pilot ever since he was a little boy.

Through hard work and dedication, he had then managed to achieve this goal and work his way up through the United Airlines organization

to the point where he was finally a commander and a check airman on the mighty Boeing 777.

At the time of this flight he had amassed just over 13,600 hours of total time and had,

during his career, flown almost all of the large Boeings including the 737, 747, 757, 767 and now the Boeing 777,

which he was actually reasonably new on at this point with only 360 hours flown on it.

He was in a particularly good mood this morning since he was flying over to Honolulu, Hawaii, which was one of his absolute favorite destinations

and a route that he'd flown loads of times over his career and was therefore very comfortable with.

As he entered the crew room, he soon met up with his colleague, First Officer Paul Ayers, which he had actually never flown with before this flight.

Paul was 60 years old and also very experienced. He had just over 11,300 hours in total

of which around 10,000 had been flown on the 777. But this was only going to be his second flight

from San Francisco to Honolulu since he was normally based in Washington, DC. The two pilots found it really easy

to talk to each other and they soon started looking through their pre-flight briefing material and the weather looked great for the entire flight

with only some cloudy weather expected over Honolulu at the end of the flight but everything was well within planning requirements.

When the pre-flight check was completed, they ordered the fuel and then they walked over to the cabin crew to brief them about the flight.

The flight time was expected to be around four hours and 40 minutes with only some occasional turbulence and with 364 passengers planned.

Once everyone had asked their questions and were ready, the whole crew then walked together out to the gate where their shiny 777 was waiting for them.

It was an amazing-looking machine which had been bought new by United 23 years earlier and was now basking in the sunlight

with all sorts of catering and fueling going on around it. Now the Boeing 777 is an absolutely amazing aircraft

and if you've ever had the chance to look at one up close, there's one thing that I guarantee you will stand out,

its two gigantic engines. These engines are going to play a very central role

in this story so before we continue, I want to explain a little bit more about them.

The Pratt & Whitney 4077 engines have a fan diameter of 112 inches

or 2.8 meters, meaning that the outer diameter of the fan cowling is almost as wide

as the body of the Boeing 737 that I fly. These enormous engines are a big reason why the airliner

has become as popular as it is because generally, the larger the engine fan diameter is,

the more efficient the whole engine is. And why is that then? Well, what drives an aircraft forward is essentially

the reaction force created by sucking air in through the front of the engines and then accelerating it backwards.

If we want to increase that force we either have to accelerate the same amount of air a lot or accelerate a larger amount of air a little bit.

As jet engine technology has become more mature, it has become clear that the second option is way more fuel efficient

so that's why we constantly see bigger and bigger engines being created as the bigger fans will increase the bypass ratio,

meaning the amount of air that flows past the engine core and therefore, the total air mass accelerated.

But making engines bigger also has some drawbacks. As the engines get bigger so does all of the involved components

which means a significantly higher weight. And at a certain point, that weight increase

will outweigh the performance increase by the bigger fan, meaning that the engine has then reached its maximum size.

In order to counteract this, the engine manufacturers are always working on new designs that will allow the components

to become lighter and therefore enable the engines to become even bigger. In the case of the PW-4000 series engines,

one of the strategies used to achieve this was to hollow out the titanium alloy fan blades

and therefore create empty chambers inside of them. Obviously this reduced the weight substantially

in the 101-centimeters-long individual fan blades but it also introduced a problem.

Since these blades would be subjected to incredible forces during their lifespan, there needed to be a way to inspect them on regular intervals

to make sure that there were no fatigue cracks appearing. Now, if the blade is solid, this is relatively easy

but if there are hollow chambers within them, it becomes substantially more complicated to do.

Pratty & Whitney obviously were aware of this and had been working on different ways of doing these inspections

since the engines were introduced back in 1984. Initially, they used ultrasound and X-ray technology

but in 2005, they came up with a new solution called Thermal Acoustic Imaging or TAI.

The way that worked was by using sound energy to create vibrations inside the fan blade material

and if there was a crack present, the surfaces inside of that crack would then start rubbing up

against each other creating a heat signal which could be detected using a thermal sensor.

This was a brilliant idea and relatively simple compared to other techniques so Pratt & Whitney quickly rolled it out wide

and after that, only if there was a positive indication on TAI would the blade be sent for further non-destructive testing using other technologies.

But since TAI was considered a new and emerging technology, there initially were no defined training

and certification regimen for the inspectors who were going to use it and there were a lot of fan blades who needed to be inspected.

The blades who were fitted to the aircraft in this story had gone through TAI inspections in both 2010 and 2015

and the inspectors had noticed something looking a bit odd on one of the blades but had written it off as an issue

with the overlaying paint layer on that blade. Now you might ask what's the point of this check

if discrepancies are written off without further investigations and that's a valid point but it all becomes a little bit more clear

when you think back on that lack of training that I mentioned earlier. You see on similar inspections using other technologies

the required minimum training was 40 classroom hours followed by 1,200 hours of practical training.

But the inspectors who was handling the inspections of these involved fan blades had only received a total of 40 hours of practical training.

That's it. There had been more training offered but unfortunately, the involved inspector had not been able

to attend that training since he was working through a huge inspection backlog at the time.

And there were also other factors like the fact that the inspections were taking place in a room where a lot of sunshine regularly came in

which could create ghost images on the thermal scans, making the evaluations even harder to interpret.

And together all of these factors had allowed a fan blade, number 11 on this number two engine on the aircraft,

to develop a tiny little crack inside the hollow space near the root of the blade.

This crack was completely impossible to see with the naked eye but kept growing bigger and bigger for each cycle that the engine operated.

Anyway, when the pilots had left their bags in the cockpit the captain looked through the technical logbook and saw that the aircraft was completely clean

with no recent technical issues logged. After that it was time to start the pre-flight inspection which in United Airlines

is always done by the first officer. So he went outside and started his normal

clockwise inspection where he checked that all of the probe covers were removed, that there were no leaks, indications of bird strikes

or any other damages to any of the components and he spent quite a long time checking each engine

to make sure that the giant fan blades had no damages on them. You see even tiny damages can cause vibrations

and loss of thrust so this is something that we pilots always pay attention to.

But everything looked completely normal so he finished his walk around and then returned to the cockpit

for the rest of the pre-flight. At this point there were no indications of the kind of mayhem that would soon follow

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Thank you, Incogni. Now let's continue the story. As the pilots arrived to the aircraft,

they had also been met up by another colleague First Officer Ed Gagarin who wanted to ask if he could hitch

a ride with them back to Honolulu. He had just finished an earlier shift and was eager to get back home

for his rest days but he had also seen that the flight was almost fully booked so he asked if there was any chance

that he could join the pilots in the cockpit. Captain Behnam greeted him happily and joked

that if he was going to sit up front, he might also have to do some work and they both laughed,

not knowing just how true this would actually turn out to be. Now Ed also mentioned

that he had just completed his line training and that's a fact that will soon come to play a very important role in this story.

In any case, whilst First Officer Paul was out doing his walk around, Captain Behnam continued setting up the aircraft for departure so when Paul got back

into the cockpit, they could immediately start briefing and preparing for their departure.

At this point, Captain Behnam also asked if Paul had any preferences on who should act as pilot flying for the leg

and Paul answered that he would love to do that since he wanted to get some experience on this route.

So that's what they decided to do and soon the lead purser popped her head into the cockpit and advised them

that all passengers had been boarded and that the crew was ready to go. This meant that there were now 363 passengers

and 15 crew members on board the aircraft. The pilots completed their last few checklists

as well as their briefing for departure from Runway 28 Left and soon after that, First Officer Paul requested pushback

from stand 80, they started their engines and then taxied out towards the runway holding point.

All checks were completed in a normal way with no anomalies noted, so at time 09:38 Pacific standard time

after a grueling 38-minute taxi, First Officer Paul finally moved the thrust levers forward for takeoff

and the giant Boeing 777 started accelerating down the runway. The takeoff and initial climb

were completely uneventful and once the gear and flaps were retracted the flights soon received their clearance

to join their oceanic route towards Honolulu which is actually one of the longest uninterrupted overwater routes in the world.

There are other routes who are longer but they all have alternate airports on islands along the way

whilst the stretch between San Francisco and Honolulu is just over water.

The aircraft climbed in steps up towards its final cruise altitude of flight level 380 or 38,000 feet

and once up there, the crew started completing their paperwork and then chit-chatted a bit between themselves about their previous experience

and plans that they had for the week ahead. The first three hours and 30 minutes of the flight continued in the same standard way

with only position reports, fuel checks and ACARS messages sent regarding weather and wind

and Captain Behnam chuckled about the fact that he had flown to Honolulu countless times in his career so far

but he had never seen a solid covering cloud layer stretching from 2,000 to 33,000 feet over the islands

as they were now planning to see. Soon they entered an area of light to moderate turbulence

and therefore asked Honolulu control if they could descend 2,000 feet down to flight level 360 in order to try to get out of it.

This was approved and First Officer Paul dialed it in on the mode control panel and let the autopilot initiate a cruise descent

the same way as he had done thousands of times before. They were now about 200 nautical miles northeast of Honolulu

with around 40 minutes of the flight still remaining when the crack in the number 11 fan blade

had reached a point of no return. Within a millisecond, the giant fan blade separated

in a clean cut about three and a half centimeters above its root. It shot outwards with an incredible force

and almost immediately impacted the adjoining blade which also shattered and went inwards into the engine core raising even more havoc in there.

The number 11 fan blade then started moving forward inside of the protective barrel and when it hit the edges

it created multiple high energy shock waves which ultimately exceeded the certified specifications

of the forward inner barrel as well as the cowling. This meant that those parts soon failed

and were then immediately ripped off the engine. This is known as a fan blade out or FBO event

and it's something that the engines are tested to be able to sustain during certification.

The protective barrel directly surrounding the blades are constructed from incredibly durable kevlar

but the forward barrel and the aerodynamic engine cowling is not.

It later turned out that parts of the engine inlet used during certification testing had been made out of aluminium

which had a greater ability to yield than deform than the carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer

that was the part that was ultimately used in production. That was found to be one of the reasons

for the quick destruction of the forward parts while the kevlar casing actually stayed reasonably intact.

But when those forward sections of the engine disappeared, parts of the fan blade which were still spiraling forward managed

to escape the encasement and shot straight into the side of the aircraft.

But through an incredible act of luck, they impacted the body exactly at the place where a stringer,

a structure apart of the body, was located just below one of the passenger windows.

This meant that the blade fragment didn't puncture the cabin which could have been catastrophic

for the passenger sitting next to it and even worse, would have caused an immediate depressurization

of the aircraft. Luckily, that didn't happen but in the cockpit, none of the pilots had any idea

of what had just crippled their aircraft. They only heard an enormous explosion

and then it felt like the aircraft had literally hit a brick wall. The deceleration was so severe

that Captain Behnam and First Officer Ayers almost slammed their heads into their glare shield

and within one and a half second the aircraft had lurched into a 45-degree right bank whilst also yawing sharply

in the same direction. This was incredibly disorienting as it all happened very fast

and literally came from nowhere and there was no prior warning. One second they were flying along nicely

and in the next, their aircraft was literally snap rolling over its right wing and shaking like it was about to break up.

Captain Behnam being the training captain that he was, immediately realized the gravity of the situation

and called out, "I have controls!" He grabbed the control wheel as the autopilot and autothrottle both disengaged

and then glanced down onto his engine displays to confirm what he thought must be a catastrophic engine failure.

When he did that he saw to his amazement that the engine instruments both showed completely normal values.

So he called out, "What happened?" To get some help identifying the failure and First Officer Paul Ayers just responded, "I don't know.

The engine instruments are normal." In the corner of his eye, Captain Behnam

now also saw how the airspeed who just a few seconds ago had been steadily at Mach 0.83 had started slowing down rapidly

and he knew that he now had very little time to react. Whatever this was, it was coming from the right side

as the aircraft was both yawing and rolling that way so he instinctively pushed left rudder

and gently gave maximum ailerons towards the left. All he could think about

was trying to keep the blue side up on his primary flight display whilst also pushing the left thrust lever all the way forward

to get as much thrust as he possibly could to slow down the deceleration. At this altitude, it's very important

to not move the controls too fast as that can cause Mach shock waves to form and the fact that the aircraft

was already banking 45 degrees meant that they were already experiencing higher than normal g-forces,

something that also increases the aircraft's stall speed. Ed the 1st officer on the jump seat now called out,

"Maybe we've had an in-flight collision." Now that would definitely explain the explosion,

extreme vibrations and sudden loss of controls that they were now experiencing but they were at 36,000 feet

and had seen nothing on their TCAS. There just shouldn't be anyone else at that altitude.

You see above 18,000 feet in the US, all airspace is controlled with mandatory transponder use

so if there would have been anyone else up there, they should have seen it.

Anyway with full deflection on both rudder and aileron, the stricken 777 now started slowly rolling back

towards wings level again but with the airspeed still decreasing.

All of this, except for the strange engine indications were typical for a severe engine failure

and captain Behnam knew that if this was the case the aircraft would not be able to maintain its altitude for much longer.

A twin engine jet can, depending on type and weight, normally keep an altitude around 21,000 to 24,000 feet

on one engine but never 36,000. This meant that he needed to start descending immediately

otherwise the aircraft would soon stall and he could potentially completely lose control.

On top of all of this, they were now shaking so badly that the pilots had problems focusing their eyes enough

to see their instruments in front of them and to reach for specific controls and meanwhile this was happening,

a sickening sound of twisting metal could be heard from behind them, a sound similar to what you would hear

in a sinking submarine as the pressure starts crushing it. 35 seconds after the start of this nightmare

the engine instruments for the right-hand engine suddenly started blanking one by one.

What had actually happened was that the entire EEC, a computer in charge of reporting values to the engine instruments had been ripped away

when the engine cowling separated. So what the pilots had been looking at was just the last reported values

from the engine before the failure had occurred which had stuck in the screen's memory due to a lack of other inputs.

This finally confirmed to the crew that they were indeed dealing with some kind of severe damage to the right hand engine

and Captain Behnam therefore asked First Officer Paul to please start executing the engine severe damage checklist

from the ECL, their electronic checklist. In other aircraft, like the Boeing 737 that I fly,

this type of failure includes something known as memory items, meaning items that has to be done from memory

without reference to a checklist. But in the 777, this instead had to be done

from their internal electronic checklist in their EICAS. But the problem now was that the aircraft was shaking

so badly that the first officer simply couldn't reach to use the EICAS at all and this is where experience once again comes in.

You see both pilots had been operating with memory items in previous aircraft which meant that they now could just go through them from memory.

So Paul started reading out, "Autothrottle, confirm off."

"Off." "Engine thrust lever, confirm close." "Close."

"Engine start lever, confirm cut off?" "Cut off." All three pilots made sure that they didn't rush these steps

because previous accidents had taught them that it's very easy to misidentify a failure like this

and end up shutting down the wrong engine. Once these items had been completed the vibrations subsided slightly

but were still very bad so they all agreed to add one more point to the checklist

to pull the engine fire switch. This step would completely isolate the right engine and shut off

all of its fuel, oil and hydraulics. So they looked at each other,

"Number two fire handle, confirm pull?" "Confirmed." And they pulled it.

Once this step was done, the vibrations finally reduced from about 15 on a scale from one to 10

down to about seven still really bad, terrifying for the passengers but now at least manageable.

Using their EICAS and their electronic checklist was still very hard so instead Ed on the jump seat

pulled up his iPad and started running through the checklist verbally. Remember he was still fresh out of training

and he was therefore, really, really familiar with all of these checklists from his recent sim and this turned out to be a great help.

Now here it's probably a good idea to also look at how this crew were dividing their different roles.

Captain Behnam was still hand-flying the aircraft and even though he'd been able to slightly reduce the amount of aileron and rudder input

he was still using a lot and it took up most of his capacity to just keep the aircraft straight and reasonably level.

Because of that, he took full advantage of all available resources in the cockpit which included his jump-seating colleague, Ed, who was tasked

with helping First Officer Paul with everything that he needed including the checklists, performance calculations and overall monitoring.

Captain Behnam made it absolutely clear that he had very limited capacity to oversee the checklist handling

which he would normally do so he was concentrating on aviating and would continue to do so

for as long as it would take. By being very clear here and by delegating effectively

the crew was able to contain a catastrophic failure within a very quick time frame.

This serves as an excellent example of how crew resource management is supposed to work and also a great adherence

to the golden rule of aviation: aviate, navigate, communicate.

This meant that the next step was to navigate and communicate.

Captain Behnam asked Ed if he could call in the emergency to air traffic control and make them aware of the fact

that they were now descending. Ed immediately complied and called Mayday to Honolulu control telling them

that United Airlines Flight 1175 were suffering from some type of severe damage

and needed to proceed directly towards the airport whilst also descending. This was followed by a long pause by air traffic control.

It clearly took a while for the controller to really appreciate the gravity of what he had just heard.

He eventually came back with, "Say again?" Just to verify that this was actually happening. But he then quickly found his composure

and asked the crew for the number of souls on board as well as the fuel remaining. Those are standard questions needed

to prepare the emergency services for a possible worst-case scenario and is almost always asked in a situation like this

and Ed gave him that information but after he had done that, all three pilots just looked

at each other for a few seconds. It had just sunk in that there were over 350 people on board this flight,

whole families, possibly whole villages whose lives were likely affecting many thousands more.

They just had to get this aircraft safely down on the ground. Now, I normally advise against letting emotions get involved

when dealing with sudden and complicated emergencies because generally it's better to try and fall back onto trained procedures

and decision-making models as emotions have a way of increasing stress to levels where effective decision-making can become very difficult

but in this case it seems to have worked as a catalyst for the crew to maintain even higher focus.

The aircraft was now steadily descending and Captain Behnam asked his first officer to calculate the best speed

and altitude for a drift-down procedure. This is something that we use when we want to maximize our time at higher altitudes

and therefore, extend our range as much as possible. Whilst Paul was calculating the values,

they also quickly determined that the best airport for landing would be their destination, Honolulu,

but it was still around 200 nautical miles away and they had no idea how damaged their aircraft was or how long it would stay together.

This meant that they would need to drift it down gently to make sure they wouldn't make the damages worse and also

to maximize their chances of actually reaching the airport. Captain Behnam had already firewalled

the remaining left engine when the explosion occurred and that's something that we normally only do in extreme circumstances

like in a terrain-escape manoeuvre. If we do that, we only keep it firewalled for a limited amount of time to not overstress the engine

but Captain Behnam now felt that he needed all the thrust he could possibly get in order to keep the aircraft under control

so the engine was just left firewalled at full thrust. First Officer Paul soon determined

that the best speed and altitude for a drift down would be 230 knots and 23,000 feet.

By decelerating to that speed with maximum thrust set, this would keep the aircraft descending

with minimum possible vertical speed. But as Captain Behnam started decelerating the aircraft

and the speed started getting back towards 245 knots, the aircraft suddenly started shaking even more and soon the stick shaker also activated.

They were about to stall. Now that shouldn't have been happening at that speed but here it was happening anyway

and all pilots are taught that the only way to get out of an impending stall is to immediately lower the angle of attack.

Captain Behnam reacted instinctively and immediately lowered the nose but by doing so the vertical speed increased

to 3,000 to 4,000 feet per minute and if that descent rate were to be continued, the aircraft

would hit the water way before reaching Honolulu. So what was going on here?

Why was the aircraft stalling at such a high airspeed where the drift down tables were suggesting an even lower speed to fly?

Well, when those tables were made, they were calculated with single-engine performance but with the non-functioning engine still in one piece.

What this crew was now dealing with was a severely damaged engine, missing most of its aerodynamic fairings

that would guide the air smoothly past the cowling and then over the wing. What this meant was that the airflow

was now severely interrupted over the right wing which lowered the amount of lift that that wing could produce.

That was actually what had caused that rapid roll to the right as the explosion occurred and was now also causing the much higher stall speed

on that wing that they were now experiencing. But the pilots still had no idea about this.

The Boeing 777 has no external cameras that can be accessed from the cockpit so whilst stabilizing the aircraft

at a slightly higher airspeed around 245 to 255 knots, Captain Behnam

now took another decision. He asked Ed, the jump-seating first officer, if he could go back through the cabin and have a look

at the state of the engine and then report back. Ed nodded and immediately started making his way back

towards the aircraft's midsection close to the wings and a few minutes later, he came back with a truly terrifying video on his mobile phone.

In it, the full scale of the damage could be clearly seen and also how the damaged fan was still wind-milling with the whole engine oscillating

from side to side due to the unusual aerodynamic forces that was now acting upon it.

There was no way of telling how long this engine would actually stay connected to the airframe or if the departing debris had damaged any other part

of the aircraft behind it as it disintegrated. With the airspeed now under control

and the stick shaker quiet, the descent rate had dropped to a more manageable 1,000 to 1,200 feet per minute

as the aircraft descended through roughly 33,000 feet. At this point, they entered a thick cloud layer which they had seen during

their pre-flight briefing which also meant that they would now lose all outside visual references

until they broke out of the clouds at around 2,000 feet, hopefully, close to the airport.

But what about what was happening behind them then? What about the cabin crew and passengers? Well this would have been

an absolutely terrifying experience for all of them. During the first 15 minutes of this emergency

the pilots were completely consumed by controlling the aircraft, securing the engine and finding a safe new flight envelope to maintain

and this meant that none of them had had any chance to make a PA to the passengers to reassure them and explain to them what was going on.

All passengers who were sitting on the right side of the aircraft close to the wings were able to clearly see the mangled engine

rocking forth and back outside their windows and this combined with the absolutely

extreme initial vibrations would have likely scared even me if I was on board.

As the situation got more and more under control, Captain Behnam asked the lead purser to come into the flight deck

to give her a briefing by himself and to project some calm onto the situation.

He was very transparent and explained that they had suffered severe damage to the right engine and possibly to even more parts of the aircraft that he couldn't see.

He also told her to start preparing the passengers for a possible ditching at sea.

He did this because he knew that the cabin crew procedure needed to do this could last as long as 25 minutes

which was more or less exactly the time he calculated that they had left airborne and he also informed her

that they would be calling, "Brace, brace, brace," about two minutes prior to landing.

Now Captain Behnam didn't actually think at this point that they would have to ditch but he didn't know just how

the aircraft would react when they started slowing it down for landing and extending flaps,

and on top of that, he knew that there would be no harm in having the cabin prepared for the worst case scenario.

Again, this is excellent thinking on behalf of the captain. It's always better to be safe than sorry and this way, the cabin crew would be busy with their drills

which would also keep them and the passengers occupied and prepare them mentally for an evacuation if that would be needed later on.

After this point, all communications with both air traffic control, the cabin crew and the passengers were delegated to Ed on the jump seat

so that the two pilots could focus solely on getting the aircraft safely down on the ground.

The flight attendants ended up doing an absolutely fantastic job, caring for the passengers and preparing the cabin

for the coming emergency landing whilst Ed kept updating them every 10 minutes or so about the progress.

Air traffic control also did a great job by not overburdening the pilots with questions and just giving them the info

and clearances that they asked for and kept all of the other traffic out of the way.

Now notice how all members of this situation worked like one big organism, utilizing each other's strength,

keeping each other updated without overburdening anyone with questions and non-essential information?

For any budding pilots or really anyone out there, this is a behavior that's really worth remembering.

I also want to point out here that this scenario would have felt very different from any training scenario that this crew

had ever encountered in the simulator. The simulators are not equipped to simulate the level of vibration

that they were now experiencing and on top of this, this engine failure behaved very differently from the way that it was normally simulated.

The changed aerodynamics from the mangled engine also impacted the way that the aircraft needed to be handled and several systems including the EECs, the fire loops

and all automatics had been removed by the explosion. But even though this was so different,

the hundreds of simulator hours that these pilots had accumulated together as well as the thousands of hours of actual flight experience

they shared had created something known as resilience. Resilience is where you can utilize

all of your previous knowledge and experience to tackle completely new situations that you might face.

Other great examples of resilience was the Miracle of the Hudson and Qantas Flight 32 both of which I have previously covered on this channel.

And this, by the way, is also exactly the kind of thing that I love to discuss with my Patreons on our monthly Zoom hangouts.

Please consider joining you too if you want to support me and my team and take part of the work that we do.

Anyway, First Officer Phil now also got into contact with the airline via SATCOM and briefed the operations officer about what was going on

so that the airline could start getting their crisis center ready. Meanwhile, Captain Behnam kept counting in his head.

If he could just continue descending with around 1,000 to 1,200 feet per minute with the distance and speed

that they now had, they should be able to reach the airport. By getting a direct routing

towards their final they had also saved around seven minutes of flight time which could become crucial if it turned out that they couldn't arrest

the descent rate down towards the end. So at this point, it was all about continuing to fly

and also start getting the aircraft ready for the landing. More and more non-normal checklists also started popping up

on their EICAS which the crew needed to take into account. Since they had been flying with max thrust set

on the still working left engine it had consumed much more fuel than expected which also meant that they were eating into their diversion fuel.

On top of this, this had also caused a fuel imbalance between the left and the right main tank since the left engine was only

using fuel from the left hand side. All of this was being dealt with by First Officers Paul

and Ed while Captain Behnam was completely focused on just keeping this stricken bird flying.

The two First Officers started cross feeding fuel from the right tank to the left engine as they passed around 10,000 feet descending

and at this point, Ed also fastened the shoulder harnesses on Captain Behnam's seatbelt

since he wasn't able to do this himself due to the sheer difficulty of the handling

that he was experiencing. After this, it was also time to start briefing the approach

so Ed took the weather for Honolulu which still was overcast but with, thankfully, good visibility and winds for landing.

Honolulu approach soon handed them over to the Honolulu tower frequency and when First Officer Paul called them up,

they were advised that they could expect radar vectors for an ILS approach into Runway 04 Right.

But that was no good. Both Captain Behnam and Ed on the jumpseat were familiar with the airport and knew

that Runway 04 Right was quite short and wouldn't be long enough for the high-speed single-engine approach

that they now had ahead of them. Runway 08 Left was long enough but unfortunately closed

for some type of work on that day. So Paul instead asked for vectors towards Runway 08 Right,

a long enough runway but unfortunately, without an ILS approach.

On that runway, there was only a non-precision GPS-based RNAV approach available, meaning that the crew would now soon have

to fly a manual single-engine non-precision approach in full instrument conditions accompanied

by some of the heaviest vibrations that they had ever experienced. Quite a challenge.

But Captain Behnam wasn't worrying too much about that yet. He was more focused on making the runway in the first place.

He asked Paul to tell air traffic control to give them vectors as close to land as possible since the waves might be smaller

on the leeside of the island and therefore more survivable in case they would have to attempt the ditching.

Now this is something that I think that a lot of people might not fully appreciate. You see, landing in water with an airliner of this size

would be an extremely challenging maneuver to successfully achieve. Landing on water in any situation

is hard but if you have a stretch of smooth water like Captain Sully had in The Miracle of the Hudson, it's still reasonably doable.

Trying to do so in the massive waves of the Pacific Ocean is a completely different ballgame

and Captain Behnam knew this so trying to overfly calmer waters was a really smart thing to do.

Now the tower controller initially tried to tell the pilots to level off at various altitudes but this was turned down by the crew.

They still needed full thrust on the left engine to maintain speed in a descent and did not want to end up

in another approach to stall situation by leveling off for no good reason.

Once the controller understood this he just left them alone with free range to intercept the RNAV approach at their own discretion.

And here again, the crew showed evidence of remarkable teamwork. Since the captain was solely focused on just handling

the massive shaking bird the two first officers together started setting up and briefing for the approach.

And all three pilots decided that Ed, from the jump seat, would be acting as kind of a precision approach radar

or PAR based on what he saw on the navigation display. This meant that he would be telling Captain Behnam

how to turn and descend kind of like, "Turn right onto heading 075 degrees,

now continue straight ahead, increase descent rate et cetera." He did this all to minimize the workload and to try

to stabilize the approach as much as possible. Now this is not taught anywhere but a great adaptation

to a situation and use of resources and yet another reason why it's a poor idea

to try to reduce the number of pilots in the cockpit. As they were intercepting the approach,

they kept the aircraft slightly high and fast on purpose to make sure that they would have enough energy

to make the runway even if something further would happen. Remember they were still not sure how the aircraft

would react when they started extending the flaps and gear or if it would be even possible

based on the damages that they had. When first officer Paul started briefing the missed approach procedure

Captain Behnam softly stopped him, "Paul, there will be no missed approach.

We are using full thrust on the left engine just to keep the speed in descent. If we get the flaps and gear out,

we will only have one chance to land this thing." Now if you think that he was being over-dramatic here, he wasn't.

He had previously sent Ed out to also check on the back of the aircraft as he felt like the aircraft wasn't handling properly

even with the damaged right engine in mind. When Ed came back from that second check,

he had said that the back of the aircraft was fishtailing left to right so violently that he had problems even focusing to see

the panicked faces of the passengers in the back. This had led the crew to expect that there might also be further damage

to the tail which they couldn't see and it was very hard to say just how long this aircraft would stay together.

They needed to land it as soon as possible. Now they had decided to try and land with 20 degrees

of flaps using a speed of 145 knots in the final provided they were able to decelerate that much

with the aircraft still flying. As they descended down the extended approach, they now gently started slowing down

which would also meant more and more rudder needed from the captain as the rudder becomes less and less aerodynamically efficient as the speed decreases.

They extended one step of flaps then two and the aircraft was thankfully still behaving okay.

At time 12:34 Honolulu time, the huge 777 finally broke through the clouds and the pilots

could see the runway straight ahead. First Officer Paul reported this to the tower and were immediately cleared to land.

All emergency equipment was now standing by for them. 20 seconds later, they selected the landing gear down

and soon received three green lights indicating that it was all down and locked.

This was a huge relief for everyone as the aircraft was still maintaining its speed reasonably well even with this added drag.

When they passed 500 feet, First Officer Paul called out, "Brace, brace brace," over the PA

to make sure all passengers and crew were ready in the brace position for the landing and immediately after this flaps 20 was selected

now they were only seconds away from the landing. The giant 777 finally swooped in

over the threshold and was immediately followed by the emergency vehicles who were waiting for them.

Captain Behnam was now in a trance-like state and all he could focus on was getting this aircraft down gently

not to cause any further damage and to start breaking. He had to get this right.

At time 12:37:15, the main landing gear touched down so smoothly that some of the people on board

didn't even notice it. Captain Behnam immediately started to gently brake

and he later said that this was one of the best landings that he'd done in his entire career.

The aircraft slowed down to taxi speed and rolled gently out onto taxiway Romeo Gulf where it was brought to a complete stop.

First Officer Paul looked over towards Captain Behnam and said to him, "You can let go now, Captain."

Because he saw that his captain was still squeezing the controls and thrust levers as hard as he had been doing during the last 40 minutes.

Now it was time to do the next step since an emergency is not over just because the aircraft has landed.

The crew got into contact with the emergency services who were now assessing the aircraft from the outside and was soon told that apart from a small hydraulic leak,

there was nothing else requiring an immediate evacuation. The crew acknowledged this

and passed that information on to air traffic control who gave them a clearance to continue taxiing on their own power on to stand

and once they reached there, the shocked passengers and crew erupted in cheers as the engine was finally turned off

and that thought (chuckles) actually brings some tears to my eyes when I think about it.

Anyway, everyone then disembarked normally and were met by the emergency response team from United Airlines at the gate.

The pilots had exited the cockpit at that point to say goodbye to each one of the passengers. Some were crying, some were trying

to show a brave face but towards the end, a blonde little girl came up to the captain and told him with a smile,

"That was so cool, best roller coaster ride ever," before she exited together

with her presumably less impressed mother. Life is all about perspectives.

Now as soon as they had landed, the phones of the pilots all started lighting up with calls from the company

but they were well aware of the procedure they needed to follow. When something like this happened, first of all, they should always call their union hotline

to get the appropriate legal advice. It is really important not to say

the wrong things in this situation so as sad as it sounds this is what we all should do.

The cockpit voice recorder was also protected, something that would become crucial for the coming investigation

together with the flight data recorder and after having shut everything down correctly and made the appropriate tech log entries

the crew left the aircraft. Outside, the pilots followed the engineers and mechanics around to look at the damage

and they took some photos, some of which you can see here. Both pilots were initially grounded on full pay,

pending investigation which is standard protocol but they were soon back in the air again with only the finest comments from the airline.

The investigation showed that the catastrophic engine failure had been caused by the fatigue crack

that I explained about before and it shone a very harsh light on the TAI inspection procedure

where the inspectors had been seeing but not highlighting this crack several years earlier.

This led to several improvements on this procedure as well as an increased inspection interval of the fan blades of these particular engines

and the additive of a stronger engine containment structure.

Unfortunately though, this didn't stop a very similar accident from happening at a later point also including a United Boeing 777

which increased this scrutiny even further. And in a very funny twist,

the passengers on board that second aircraft was, after the incident, booked onto a new aircraft to complete the trip and that aircraft

was the very same aircraft that I've told you about in this story which had been returned to service after repairs.

It really is a very small world. Now the actions of these pilots have been used

as positive CRM stories for training both by United and other airlines after this thing happened

and Captain Christopher Behnam and First Officer Paul Ayers were on the 18th of July, 2019 awarded

the Superior Airmanship Award by the Airline Pilots Association for their skill and teamwork in this accident.

Now there is also another reason why I've chosen to make this video right now in my summer house in Sweden during vacation

and that is that on the 8th of August this year, 2024 Captain Christopher Behnam made his very last commercial flight before retirement.

He flew together with his family to London where his dream of becoming an airline pilot had originally started

and on behalf of my entire team, I would like to send our heartfelt congratulations

to Christopher for a career well-served as well as our best wishes for his retirement.

Very few pilots are ever put in the ultimate challenge of their skills and knowledge and you should be proud of the way

that you and your team handled it on this day. Captain Behnam has also written a book about this experience

and his life and it's a really great book. I will put a link to it in the description below where you can also find links

to my merch and my Patreon crew. Have an absolutely fantastic day wherever you are

and I'll see you next time or maybe in my next Patreon hangout, bye bye!