When Pilots Fail: The Most Shocking Plane Incidents Caught on Camera

More people are flying than ever, and cameras and phones are all part of the trip, capturing unbelievable moments of danger.

The plane.

For the first time, we unpacked the science of what's really going on in these caught on camera crises.

Grace for Impact, Grace for.

Impact, revealing in forensic detail how and why flights turned deadly.

He was literally clinging to the air to stay ab.

Unraveling secret stories from cockpit error to engine failure.

We just had an announcements We've got on emergency landing.

From freak weather to meltdown on the runwaysh discover the surprising truth behind planes gone viral. With more aircraft in the sky than ever before, pressure on pilots has never been higher. Do you want to dispatch the emergency vehicles? They need to get us safely where we want to go, when we want to get there. But every time we take to the air, there's a risk that the pilot may make an error.

Oh my god, it's gonna stand Come on, buddy.

A sudden lack of concentration.

It's like time slowed down.

A miscalculation or a wrong command at thirty five thousand feet can end in disaster.

He was literally clinging to the air to stay airborn.

But sometimes a cool head can be all a pilot needs to save the day.

I wouldn't be sitting here today if it wasn't for his ringers.

And turn a potential tragedy into triumph. November one, twenty eleven, lot for Like to zero sixteen approaches Warsaw, Poland after an eight hour flight from Newark, New Jersey, on board two hundred and thirty one people.

This flight was the same as any other flight.

For the passengers. The initial descent seems normal, but pilot Captain Varona and Polish air traffic Control realize they have a problem.

Things started getting a little unusual and there was a lot of activity with the flight attendants going back and forth to the cockpit area, you know, stopping against sam ray.

The Polish Air Force scrambles to F sixteen fighters to shadow the flight, but they can only confirm what the crew already know. This Boeing seven sixty seven is coming in with no landing gear.

I looked out the window and I saw F sixteen circling our plane.

Yeah, this just is not a normal occurrence.

There were people who were screaming at certain areas of the plane and just you know, wanting answers, while't even know what was happening.

What's happening is the seven sixty seven is circling Warsaw to burn off excess fuel ready for an emergency landing.

And as we were circling around, they didn't tell us.

We didn't know why we were making this emergency in the landing. We didn't know what the actual reason was.

To minimize the risk of an explosion. Captain Rohner wants his fuel tanks running on empty wheels or no wheels. This plane's coming down.

We're getting closer and closer to the runway. I see the plane lowering, lowering, lowering.

No one has ever tried to land a seven sixty seven without wheels.

Grace for impact, Grace for impact. I was never so fearful in my life.

The prospect of death being moments away is a darting prospect.

The aircraft finally screeches to a halt, but the danger is far from over.

Of course, everybody roared with the applause, you know, everybody was celebrating, and literally we had the flight attendant scream.

Get off this plane now, and made everybody get up and we're hysterical and in fear that this plane was going to blow up. There was smoke.

Coming into the plane from the engine that was on fire.

It smelled the smoke and it smelled like burning fuel.

Those slide rafts came out and everybody is literally in a mad dish to get off the plane.

The evacuation takes just ninety seconds. Amazingly, not one of the two hundred and twenty passengers or eleven crew are injured. The problem begins as the plane leaves Newark. Just after takeoff. Captain Varner pulls up the wheels. Immediately, cockpit alarms indicate a fault with the hydraulic system powering the undercarriage.

This lot Polish Airlines aircraft had a hydraulic problem. It wasn't affecting the flight, but it affected the way in which the undercarriage of the aeroplane the airplane's wheels could be lowered.

Fortunately, modern aircraft have an electrical backup if the undercarriage hydraulics fail. Captain Varner flies on to Poland, assuming he can use the standby system. When he comes into land in Warsaw after a flight of almost eight hours, he's making his final approach to Warsaw Airport, knowing full well he has no hydraulic system to lower the landing gear. It's time to employ the electrical failsafe backup. The only problem with the backup is that you can't test it

As the aircraft approached Warsaw, then the flight crew obviously needed to lower the undercarriage before landing.

As he nears the airport, Captain Vrohner engages the backup system and nothing happens.

They tried lowering it with the standard system and that didn't work. They tried to lower with what's called the alternate system. That didn't work as well.

Vrona is high and dry over Warsaw with no hydraulics, no electrical backup, and no wheels. Flight zero sixteen is in trouble, deep trouble.

So the crew told the air traffic control and circled.

The fail safe system has failed.

It's one of those days where it's a hard day at the office, but you're trained for it.

With no undercarriage and the lives of two hundred and thirty one people at stake, Vroner has no option but to land the plane with no wheels. In a normal landing, he'd lift the nose slightly to reduce the rate of descent, landing on the back wheels first before engaging reverse thrust and applying the wheel brakes. With no wheels and no brakes, Broner's best chance is to touch down resting on the two engines and the rear part of the fuselage as

Eventually, they had decided that they had to do a gear up landing, so no undercarriage legs coming down.

This will hopefully ensure it lands relatively smoothly on the engine casings instead of slamming down on the nose or tail, causing the plane to cartwheel and explode.

For a pilot, it's not really something you want to do.

I wouldn't like to have to do a bonny landing.

I wouldn't.

I'd very much not like to be a passenger. During one.

One hundred and seventy nine tons of Boeing seven sixty seven is about to hit the runway at one hundred and eighty miles an hour with minimal directional control and no brakes. Emergency services spray foam on the runway in a desperate attempt to stop Flight zero sixteen turning into a fireball.

It would feel dreadful, The noise would be frightening. The mere fact that you know exactly what's happening that's going to be absolutely awful.

So why didn't this aircraft catch fire when it's smashed down on its enngine? Up to eighty percent of the material used in a modern aircraft is aluminium. It's both light and strong. Crucially, unlike steel, aluminium doesn't produce many sparks during friction, and the remaining fuel on this boeing

Essentially, the undercarriage didn't come down when they were required to on approach. What they hadn't detected was the fact that a circuit breaker, which is like a fuse that had popped now wider pop nobody knows.

Accident investigators discovered that the supply of electricity powering the backup landing gear had cut out.

That had been switched off, and they didn't know that, and that's why the standby system for lowering the wheels wasn't working. There was nothing wrong with it, it was just switched off.

Someone had accidentally knocked the switch and this went unnoticed. A simple incident, but one that nearly led to a fatal disaster. Six days after pulling off his spectacular landing, Captain Varner was awarded the Order of Polonia Restitutor, one of Poland's highest decorations, and acclaimed a national hero.

He knocked it out of the park.

Captain Rona is a hero and I will be forever indebted to him because I wouldn't be sitting here today talking to you if it wasn't for his greatness.

Despite increasing levels of aircraft reliability, pilots still require a great deal of training, skill, and crucially calmness under pressure to captain a commercial aircraft. In the US, the Federal Aviation Authority stipulates you must clock up at least fifteen hundred hours in the air. But the man at the controls of this light aircraft still has a long way to go. Twelve thousand feet above Wisconsin, three skydivers are seconds away from their sixth and final jump of the day.

They're flying and they're getting ready to go ahead and get out. So I was actually the first one out the door, and I climbed all the way out to the outside of the strut, and I hang on out there while everybody else is climbing out of the airplane getting ready to jump.

I felt just jold, and.

I knew that the airplanes had collided, so I.

Just let go.

This is one jump the skydivers will never forget.

I was getting ready to climb out of a plan to get to the Native.

And then it just exploded.

The w seared off our pilot, and the cheese queens yelled.

For us to go.

So I jumped out and trying to get as far away from the debree as possible. Dorm was exploded in and it was really really hot, and there were cleans and three everywhere.

Incredibly, all eleven people on board the planes lived to tell the tale.

I just watched this on fold in front of my face, and it was like slowed down.

Ten bodies skydiving through the air, all going in different directions. It's absolutely a miracle.

That no one was hurt for kills.

So what caused this spectacular mid air collision.

Well, the two aircraft were information because the jumpers wanted to jump simultaneously and close together and probably link up in the air before they deployed the shoots.

When flying in formation, the lead plane should maintain a constant speed to keep the formation tight. The trail plane must hold its position relative to the lead plane, remaining within one hundred feet of the plane up front at all times. It's vital good visibility is maintained. The trail pilot must react to even the slightest adjustments in speed or altitude of the plane in front.

As soon as they see us lead, they leave. So that's generally how it works.

Does not.

As the skydivers ready to jump, suddenly they find themselves pinned between the two aircraft. It's only sixteen seconds since the first jumpers climbed out.

When you fly in formation, then you generally have the least experienced pilot as the lead, and the more experienced pilot will follow you off to one side and slightly below.

The lead aircraft is responsible for lookout, to make sure they don't bump into other aeroplanes, for navigation all the rest. And this guy, he has no other responsibility except to keep the other guy in sight to stay with him. That didn't happen.

What did happen was that the trail plane got in front of the lead plane, which was now above and behind. The pilots lost sight of each other, with dramatic consequences. Inexperience led the two planes onto a catastrophic collision.

Cause our pilot in the chase plane it was his first time whind that position in a formation.

In this particular situation, everything is reversed. We end up with the more experienced pilot flying in front, and he ends up on top of the other airplane rather than behind to the side and below.

In the Cessna one eighty series aeroplanes, these both were they've got high wings. When you're like that, you can't neither can see the other.

See and avoid is the rule in this situation. If you don't see, you can't avoid. And I think it's as simple as that.

This guy, who should have been following and keeping inside the lead aircraft at all times, lost sight of him, didn't know where he was. And the drill at that point is to break off and get clear and then established level flight, look around and then find out where he is and then rejoined safely. Okay, that's the drill. But no, he lost sight of him and thinks, oh, what's going on here?

So on top of having the most inexperienced pilot leading the formation, the Cessna design with the overwing restricting vision caused the trail pilot to lose sight of the lead But why in this catalog of errors wasn't either pilot able to take evasive action sooner.

One of the problems with amid air collision is the fact that there's no relative movement to the aeroplane. The airplane looks the same angle out of the window as you approach the collision.

According to the FAA, while looking for other planes in a largely featureless sky, pilots may suffer from a phenomenon called eyemiopia. When our eyes scan blank sky, there is little to focus on. Our focal length remains short. We're not likely to see another airplane closing in, even if it's in plane sight, and by then it's often too late.

So all you have is a dot that gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And our eyes are built to detect movement, but there's no relative movement in this case. Actually, it can be very difficult to see an aeroplane that you're going to collide with.

Well, I never saw the other airplane comings cordus. What I felt was I felt the other airplane hit us, and I just decided time to go.

So I let go.

We skydive because we want action, we want things to happen.

Well, that was about of action.

Miraculously, everyone survives and without serious injury. Almost as incredibly, no one is struck by falling debris from the exploding planes.

They were damned lucky that somebody didn't either directly get hit by wreckage or didn't get their parachutes snagged in some way while they were trying to get clear of the damaged aeroplanes. The wing that detached, and then the aeroplane tumbling through the sky, the remainder of the airplane to through the sky.

We're falling than the debris, but once the opener, parachute is actually going to be quite opposite, and the degree is going to be calling faster than us. So I wanted to make sure I had it as a pair of airspace as possible to pull my parents deeply and make it back to the ground.

The potential for having your parachute wrecked or your parachute rigging snagged in something. And the pilot of the terminally damaged aeroplane managed to extricate himself and use his emergency chute and he landed safely. Ah, that's a nightmarish to have.

Both feet on the ground and to know that I'm going to see my son, and I'm going to see my family, and I get to continue to live, not to survive life, but live life. That was a very powerful experience that absolutely changed my life and changed my life for the better.

Mid Air collisions are extremely rare, and accidents at altitude account for only about ten percent of all aircraft disasters. Over two thirds of all airplane incidents occur during takeoff or landing, which makes these by far the most dangerous phases of flying. Twenty third July twenty sixteen, a Royal Air Moroc Boeing seven three seven is preparing for takeoff at Frankfurt Airport, Runway eighteen, destination Casablanca. It seems like a standard takeoff, but the plane has barely left the

In the case of the Air Moroc it looks as though the pilots were trying to get the aircraft into the air before it was ready to go.

As you take off down a runway, you set the engine power steal the aeroplane straight down the runway, and as the speed builds up, you need to lift the nose. This is called rotation. So one of the pilots will say this is the speed to rotate the aeroplane out and then you start to pull the control column or the stick towards the back. The nose lifts up and then the aeroplane should climb away.

At take off speed. The pilot pulls back the control column, lifting the aircraft's nose until it rises to an angle of about twelve degrees and the plane lifts up.

If you observe an aircraft taking off, it's almost seamless, so as the pilot rotates, the aircraft starts to lift off almost immediately. What happens in the case of that clip is that the aircraft rotates into the flying attitude, but it's sort of almost bouncing along very light, but it's not climbing away.

So it appears the crew on the Royal air Morock flight a rotating at too low a speed, lifting the nose of the plane too early, which could have caused the tail to hit the runway. Fortunately, they managed to control the pitch of the aircraft enough to avoid a tail strike before increasing their speed to achieve a successful takeoff.

The other possibility is that the correct thrust was not set. The aircraft does appear to be reluctant to fly, but eventually it does and after that it seemed to climb away quite normally, which might be an indication that they suddenly went oh, not enough power more and the aircraft accelerated and climbs away normally.

So, although it seems like pilot error is to blame, a Raal Airmerock statement claims the landing of a Turkish air flight just moments earlier caused the problem. They point out that the Frankfort tower advised the Morocc captain of the presence of wake turbulence over the runway. Wake turbulence is a disturbance in the atmosphere that forms behind an aircraft as it passes through the air. A wing tip vortex is the most dangerous component of this churning air.

So you've got high pressure air underneath, you've got low pressure air, which is the lift sucking, or two of them will act together to produce what we call lift. What happens to the wingtip when those the high pressure underneath meets the low pressure up dear starts to spin what's know as a vortex.

Wingtip vortices spread laterally away from the plane. Their strength determined primarily by the and air speed of the aircraft. During takeoff and landing, aircraft operate at a high angle of attack, which maximizes the formation of strong vortices. This makes wake turbulence most dangerous during takeoff and landing, when there's little altitude for recovery. If the onset of wake is occurring, immediate invasive action is vital.

And that's why there are minimum separation distances for times between aircraft arriving on the same flight path.

As a result of the alleged wake turbulence, air Morocs said that their captain performed a maneuver to accelerate in order to achieve speeds permitting a safe takeoff. However, an accident investigation said it wasn't possible to establish whether this was the cause and decided to refrain from initiating an investigation.

Certainly, the way that the aeroplane was flying doesn't necessarily look as if it was encountering awake turbance.

There was some explanation proffered about wake turbulence from the flight bef ire. No, I don't give that much credence at all.

Whatever the reason, and despite a very shaky start, the aircraft continued safely on to Casablanca. Although flying is safer than ever, flight deck confusion is by far the leading cause of commercial airline accidents, with close to eighty percent of all incidents caused by pilot error, and when it comes to light aircraft, the skill the limit. June thirtieth, twenty twelve, a group of family and friends are returning from a hiking trip in the aptly named frank Church

It's a four seater with four people in it. A lot of light aircraft, you can't have full passenger load and full fuel.

The plane struggles to get lift and about three quarters of the way down the strip it's still not airborne. Rapidly running out of runway, the pilot is about to abort the takeoff when a gust of wind lifts the plane into the air.

This is the time where you just land the aeroplane back again, or you get a taxi home.

The plane may be airborne, but the pilot still can't get the Stinson to climb as expected.

He seemed to have a minute or two where he could have just landed it on the grass, But to.

Do that, the Stinson is now getting perilously close to the trees. But how did this seemingly simple take off end in disaster. To minimize the risk at high altitude, all pilots are required to use charts to calculate their density altitude before takeoff.

To work out what the engine performance will do. Aviators use a system known as density altitude. It's an equation where you bring together two factors, the temperature and the thickness of the air, or the thinness of the air at altitude.

Bruce Meadows Airfield is six three hundred and seventy feet above sea level and the outside air temperature is twenty seven degrees centigrade.

It was not only at high altitude that day the temperature was higher than it normally was.

Before takeoff, the pilot checked his performance charts and calculated that the density altitude was approximately nine two hundred feet.

And the certification of the aeroplane only allows it to take off from airports up to six thousand feet.

So even though the air strip is above the maximum takeoff height for this plane, the high temperature and much thinner air make it feel even higher.

As you go up in terms of altitude, then the air gets thinner. This has two separate effects. Firstly, the amount of lift that you can generate reduces for a fixed forward speed across the ground. And secondly, the engine actually takes less oxygen into the cylinder each time is cycled through, and that gives you less power, so you end up in a nasty situation where you have to fly faster and faster in order to generate enough lift and the engine power is reduced.

Lift is the force that holds an aircraft in the air. Most lift on an aircraft is generated by the wings. Airplane wings are shaped to make the air move faster over the top of the wing. When air moves faster, the pressure of the air decreases, so the pressure on the top is less than the pressure on the bottom. The difference in pressure creates a force on the wing that lifts the plane into the air despite a lack

As the aircraft takes off and flies at very low altitude, it flies in something called ground effect. This is like a cushion of air underneath from the wings being there, so the aircraft isn't really flying in free air. It's dependent on this cushion of air that it's flying along with.

At high altitude, ground effect can fall a pilot into believing his aircraft can fly, but although airborne, he can find himself without enough lift to climb to escape potential obstacles.

He was literally clinging to the air to stay airborne.

And then as it enters the air around the trees, then it doesn't have any of this ground effect and starts to sink back again. The pilot's obviously trying to steer around the trees, but the problem being that every time you steer the aeroplane, you're actually reducing the amount of lift that's available to keep the aeroplane up, and you're using some of the lift to turn you. So it was pretty much a one way course to the forest.

For all his bad planning, this pilot had one piece of luck coming down in the forest. Each impact slows the plane and reduces its energy, softening the final crash as it hits the ground. If they'd cleared the trees, there was little he could have done. Faced with low air speed and a rising terrain, A turn was out of the question, and the impact would probably have been far more severe.

It's a fairly typical light aircraft accident in terms of the pilot pressing on. Rather than rejecting the takeoff.

He should have realized that the aircraft's performance was simply not good enough to fly safely. He should have abandoned his takeoff.

Despite some injuries to the pilot, all four men were lucky to be able to walk away from this wreckage with their lives. One of the basics for pilots is knowing what your plane is capable of, whatever the weather. High tech cockpit equipment assists flight crews like never before, but there are still many things computers can't do. Over ninety nine percent of all landings a manual, and as

Oh my god, my god, Oh my god, my plane, my point is crushed.

Thirteenth of March twenty fourteen, eighteen year old Hannah Udran is one of one hundred and forty nine passengers on a US air flight from Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale.

Oh my god, the plane is on. Oh my gosh.

Using CCTV footage taken from Philadelphia International Airport in the distance, we can see Hannah's plane US Airways flight seventeen oh two preparing for takeoff. Hannah's plane has crashed on takeoff.

You're evacuating the plane.

Oh my god, seventeen We're going to dispatch the emergency vehicles.

Okay, all right, it seems to be everything's okay.

This is the first time I was ever flying alone. And we take off the runway and then all of a sudden, the plane skidd it and hit the ground very very roughly. We were all jerked in our seats. Of course, everyone on the plane is screaming and yelling and evacuate. No one's really sure what just happened. What's going on.

When the pilot aboarts take off, the front wheel gear crumples, causing the plane to crash.

Once we went in the air, it sort of sounded like like a tired path doing.

Some like loud noise had happened.

There's just screaming happening, and the pilots and consay things.

Everything happened, so fairst.

But wide does Hannah's plane nosedive on the tarmac mechanical failure or pilot error. Before leaving the gate, the copilot enters the data into the flight computer, which then calculates the speed and thrust needed for takeoff. But there's a problem. Flight seventeen oh two is cleared for takeoff on runway twenty seven L. The co pilot enters twenty seven R into the flight computer, and that runway is one thousand

My family is a bit of a jokester family. We kind of joke about everything. So the first thing I did was just send a video of me running from the plane, because I knew if I didn't have video proof, my parents wouldn't even believe me.

I got no queen.

Analysis from the National Transportation Safety Board shows that statistically, most airline accidents have survival rates of over eighty percent. Constant improvements in safety an aircraft. Technology plays a massive role, but sometimes luck has a part too. Amelia, Virginia, this aircraft is being flown by no ordinary pilot. In fact, this is no pilot. The man in this plane has never flown before in his life.

This dude's gonna, oh my god, come on, buddy, get it together.

After persuading the airport manager to let him taxi his new plane down the runway. He soon finds himself airborne with zero hours flight time.

So this poor guy who thought he was going to have a drive along the runway now realizes he's flying an aeroplane and wonders what to do about it.

There you go, there you go.

He may have managed somehow to get it off the ground, but it's becoming clear that he has absolutely no idea how to land it. Miraculously, this first time flyer manages to get down with his new and now battered plane and more importantly, himself in one piece.

Wow, he is lucky to be alive.

But how did this total novice manage to get airborne?

Really, it's very simple to make an aeroplane fly. You apply some thrust with the engine while he was taxing. You apply a little bit more thrust than the airplane starts to accelerate him. If it gets to beyond the point which is called V one. This is the point at which the aeroplane doesn't have enough space to stop before it reaches the end of the runway, then you might say, well, what I do? And if you pull

Oh my god, it's gonna star and die.

So we've got a situation here that this person who's found is now a pilot rather than a driver is in the air.

Come on, buddy, get it together now.

The yoke that he's holding is a little bit like a steering wheel.

If you turn it to.

The left, you actually actuate the ailerons at the end of the wings so that they will make the aircraft bank a little bit, and that makes the aircraft turn.

So you can drive it like a car.

You can steer the steering wheel and make it go around so you can see the runway beneath him and realize that you can actually go back. The big issue is how is he going to make it go down safely and stop on the runway.

To land a light aircraft, the pilot should stabilize the plane with the help of the control wheel before using it to line up the plane with the airstrip. Then, when the plane is just off the ground, the throttle is pushed in and the control wheel is pushed forward, which allows the plane to gently touch down back wheels first.

As we're approaching, we should be putting our flats out to make this flying machine have at a slow speed aircraft that we'll still have enough lift to cruise down that final approach. This guy is lucky to get the airplane back on the ground, but as they say in all the best movies, don't do this at hone.

Folks, Wow, he is lucky to be alive.

Every time we fly, we put our lives in the pilot's hands, but flight crew mistakes are rare and valuable lessons are learned every time. The odds of dying in a plane crash are around one in eleven million. You're much more likely to be struck by lightning or attacked by a shark. Since the first commercial flight in nineteen fourteen, airlines have improved safety beyond all recognition, and flying has simply never been safer.