120 mph plus or minus

Well, they flew the damn plane

This is undulating sandy limestone country,no substantial "rocks"

Its 104 knots

I love a good "grammar Knot-zi" ......I'll show myself out 🍺

Perfectly good 30 yr old plus airframe. Could very well be career ending but then again there pilots in the past that has done worse things and still managed to be employed. Thank God he’s still here, he could be a voice to pilots on what could happen in a matter of seconds.

Great point! You are right!

Yes, I questioned that, too, as the captain was manipulating the controls and usually it's the pilot monitoring that screams "fly the airplane!" into the ear of the pilot who's trying to concentrate on flying the plane!

"Fly airplane" is the cool headed response VS. the less professional "Aww $@!%, we're F@#$'ing going down..."

Or maybe he was saying what I was thinking when I crashed an L-19 Birddog (Cessna 305A): "bye, airplane." 🤣

I thought he was telling the copilot to take over while he dumped retardant, but probably too late.

That's gotta suck seeing a plane you were familiar with crash like this. Sorry man!

Can you answer a question? Were the retardant loads in Imperial or US gallons? I ask because the mass of 4,000 gallons of the former is near enough 25% greater.

@@GARDENER42 Interesting question. I assume the tanker has volume gauges on the flight deck to check her tanks and with Colson being an American operator the read-out will be in US gallons. If not they might depend on the read-out at the filling station for loading. If the equipment for filling was Australian the read-out may have been in liters as I believe the Australians have gone metric in most cases.Having previously used the imperial gallon, any conversion tables will be from liters to gallons, without indication of the "imperial" adjective - as that was the only gallon they were used to - opening the possibility of the aircraft being heavier than the pilots suspected and being more sluggish than they were expecting. On the other hand the ATSB report seems to be very comprehensive, and if either pilot reported a sluggishness in the aircraft the ATSB would without doubt have looked at the load factor, which I suspect will be SOP in any case.

@@roykliffen9674 Ah, didn't know Coulson was a US, rather than domestic Australian company. In that case, I'll presume they are indeed US gallons.

@@GARDENER42 4K US Gallons nominal. Doesn’t mean they actually had 4K on board initially, humans being humans and all. And Coulson is a Canadian company I believe.

We're gonna have to rework that saying now...

Yeah that is no shit there whew. So damn lucky

The hampster pouches are ruined, absolutely ruined smh, good thing the crew made it out. ❤

I also know nothing about flying. This video really gave me the sense of how close to disaster they have to fly for these missions. There’s not much room for error when you’re a couple of seconds away from the ground. It’s beyond me what it takes to pull that off again and again.

Agree. This channel is great for pilots and non-pilots alike.

Never push fine margins! 2 new members of the 'Lucky B.....d' club.. glad they survived.

and as i said in another comment - i hope this crew are not dismissed, mistakes good or bad will give other crews a much broader look into the problems faced - their knowledge is invaluable, at least from my perspective

@@ericshrive7506 2 new members of the *"Any One You Can Walk Away From Is A Good One" club!*

Unless you are the insurance company or the CEO they don't give a shit. I am talking about big corporate America in general. We are fighting with the insurance company over a life saving procedure my 40 year old wife needs. They don't like the fact it's across the country

😮😮

I don't think they stuck around in there for long...

Great point for @blanco lirio: visual + audible.

My conclusion, especially since they survived, Is they got over confident with the multiple drop runs and were testing how Low And Slow they could get each time because of their overconfidence in their expertise and the ground jumped up and bit them, the picture of the terrain with the glide path shows they we're putting the pickle in the barrel but you can't win all the time.

To crash a jet aircraft because you failed to remember engine spool-up lag from idle, is the most amazingly embarrassing way to lose an airframe. I don't like to speak ill of these pilots, but this is something that quite honestly, never should have happened.

@@iankemp2627 I find it quite bizarre that they should get so low and slow to be honest. A Turkish 737 did the same approaching Schiphol, Amsterdam too and crashed but a defective radio altimeter played a part there in reducing the throttles to idle incorrectly, over-riding the set airspeed (140 kts IIRC) on the MCP.

Isn't the mission technically to fly as low and slow as possible? That's how you get the most bang for your buck of retardant

@@ShaunHensley Not to the point of nearly stalling the aircraft into the ground ! The owners won't be very happy with that ! They were only a few knots above stall speed (a stall would have been worse still). It's not exactly tricky to avoid doing that. Even the autothrottle on a -300 series should be able to cope.

The country might be similar (rolling Australian hills) even though they are separated by a near enough 2000 miles. Other than that the situations were entirely different imo for the aircraft involved and the weather was problematic for the Cooma disaster. IIRC the Herc also didn't have a bird dog and turned into the smoke

@@zorbakaput8537 true, true. I was just thinking of the surprise rising terrain that looks flat.

Was ONE, in Hawaii, that actually landed the aircraft successfully. The ONLY Boeing aircraft that was ever successfully landed that was scrapped on the spot. Prayers for the 1 crew member who was lost, mid-flight.

Edited to spell Juan's name correctly... u before a...my apologies

Well said.

Heard another comment here pointing out that since the 737 wasn't designed for low and slow, but for high and fast, it's adding a particular risk to these kinds of operations. Do you have any thoughts on that? I'm just a layperson but it does raise an interesting point. I don't know if there's any other airliners or other similarly sized planes which are better for low and slow operations and would have better performance in situations like this.

@@R2Bl3nd it’s not a matter of “design”, they are all designed to change their configuration (flaps and slats) for low and slow because it’s how they land! Hahaha! Flying low and slow is risky for ANY aircraft because altitude and airspeed generally equate to safety, mostly because it gives you more time to address any situations that might develop. I am by no means “expert”, but I’ve been around aviation my entire life and been in the wildland aviation arena for going on 8 years now. The Canadair CL line of “Scoopers” are the only built for purpose firefighting aircraft in the world, as far as I know. The Russians may have a version as well but I’m not certain. ALL other air tankers were built for other purposes, a mix of former airliners and military aircraft. This is absolutely NOT an issue because in just about every case they are operating well within their design envelopes, 737 being NO exception. Obviously they’ve been modified but each aircraft must pass a very strict inspection/test phase and must qualify (card as we say it) before they are allowed to be contracted. Similarly the crews go through extensive special training over multiple seasons before they are fully qualified. Most tanker pilots are highly “experienced” airmen who have had other careers before becoming aerial firefighters. The maintenance cycle is higher on certain critical parts of air tankers as well because of their high “cycle” (take off and landing frequency) rate, and because of additional requirements on the equipment, if that makes sense. For example engine igniters are changed on a much more rigorous schedule because they are turned on during every drop as a safety measure against possible engine flameout. Normal aircraft operating procedures don’t require such things. And I can tell you the crew chiefs and mechanics swarm over their aircraft the moment they stop upon returning to an airtanker base. EVERYONE on the flight line of a tanker base is CONSTANTLY looking over the aircraft for ANYTHING that might be amiss. If it looks stupid, chances are it IS stupid and should probably be reported immediately. Again these are just my experiences and observations, the crews than maintain and fly the birds know the deeper truths. And sometimes we won’t ever know the truth simply because of how the world works. Just as the wildland ground crews have learned very hard and costly lessons throughout the history of wildland firefighting so has the airtanker community. This time will be no different, lessons will be gleaned from the ashes and the community will be safer and stronger for it. Thankfully this time the price wasn’t paid in blood. It’s always a terrible thing when a tanker goes down. I know EVERY single time one leaves a base I’m on I say a little prayer for their safe return… because we just never know. It’s all part of the job. I hope that cleared some things up!

Lots of jetliners have been adapted to be firefighting tankers, incl. BAe 146, DC-9, DC-10 and even the B747, and many others.

Pilots should know their tools, which need not be idiot proof

I used to live in Marietta, Georgia where Lockheed made the C-5A. I would be driving down the road staring at this giant aircraft hanging in the sky, motionless. Of course it wasn't motionless, but it sure looked like it.

@@elderbob100 Both my parents worked at Lockheed; in the mid ‘80s, when the C-5B first flew, I was working at a publishing company in Sandy Springs. Being a bunch of nosy reporters, we all went out to watch when the plane was being flown (out of Dobbins, as I recall) for visiting military officials. I swear, you could actually see the shadow as it flew overhead. It was like the Death Star - hard to believe such a massive thing could fly.

Some smaller aircraft can actually fly backwards relative to the ground under full control, given a healthy enough airspeed from headwinds etc. Not sure what the minimums are for a 737, probably around 100-120? Suppose it depends on altitude above sea level, temperature, wind speed and direction, weight etc

@@TalkieToaster. Years ago I was a passenger in a friends Blanik glider during a Santana wind blowing against the ridge. He found a bowl that the wind was blowing directly into and turned into the wind while we backed up Mt Baldy. He had to nose down and increase airspeed to make sure he didn't get too close to the terrain. It was a sight to see.

@@TalkieToaster. can definitely fly backwards over ground in a lite wing / ultra lite ask me how I know 😂

You should never let N1 decay that low (except for landing maybe !). 'Jet engines' simply cannot spool up that quickly from such a low thrust setting.

I was wondering if the nose up and very slow airspeed coupled with the tail tagging the first ridge allowed the soft enough "landing" to allow the crew to survive.

@@billpennock8585 In a word, yes. Low and slow beats high and fast when it comes to crash landings.

👍

This is not the full report, just preliminary.

Yes, it had still its old registration: N619SW.

Seems like more drag was actually needed so the plane could keep a higher engine setting (more responsive) while keeping an acceptable air speed.

I would have thought that as soon as the captain realised he was close to stalling he would have retracted the flaps to remove as much drag as possible at the same time increasing thrust.

​Hi, ​@Ron Myers , I think that raising the flaps even a bit will reduce the lift of the wings and lead to a stall unless airspeed is increased. I suppose that landing speeds have a flap setting included, like the drag of the landing gear is factored in. The first time I learned about that was when a new private pilot had to make multiple approaches at a local airport. Each time she had to go around she would have to raise the flaps as she went back into the pattern. The flight data showed her doing this at consecutively lower airspeeds. This led to her stalling on the way up from her last attempt. I only fly Sims, but it was a major lesson to me. All three on board died. They were flying to visit her dad, who was in the hospital in my city. What I did not understand was why she planned her flight to land at our 2nd busiest commercial airport instead of one of the many smaller GA airports. The situation started off with her being asked to abandon her first approach because the faster landing airliners were backing up behind her. Then she was directed to a secondary runway. She was in over her head, with nobody else on board who knew how to fly who could have helped with checklists or watching airspeed. And she got handed off to another controller at the shift change which was in the middle of all of this. People talk about the sea being a cruel mistress. The sky is unforgiving.

Yeah. Low and slow is kind of a requirement for good drops. It's dangerous work.

The key to success is manage the risk, don't just take on risks.

any idea if the wreck is still there im assuming not, or where they took the tail etc. its actully an easy place to access from the beach track