Air Crash Investigation/Mayday: Air Disaster

AIR DISASTERS RECONSTRUCTION AND DRAMATIZATION.


Mayday (also known as Air Emergency in the United States, and Air Crash Investigation in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world) is a documentation television program produced by Cineflix in Canada. It is aired on Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel. This documentary investigates many air crashes in modern history after the introduction of the black box flight recorders. It reveals events that led up to each disaster, the causes of the accidents and the measures recommended in the report by the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) or the investigating Commission to prevent a similar incident happening again. It features re-enactments, interviews, testimony, computer-generated imagery, and in some episodes, CVR or Cockpit Voice Recordings to reconstruct the sequence of events to the audiences.

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Season 1

American Airlines flight 1420 - Overrun at Little Rock.
United Airlines flight 811 - Explosive decompression.
Air Transat flight 236 - An A330 became a glider when ran out of fuel due to a leak.
Swiss Air flight 111 - In-flight fire, subsequent instrument failure.
Aeroperu flight 603 - Crashed due to maintenance error.
Alaska Airlines flight 261- T-tail stabilizer malfunction.

Season 2

British Airways flight 5390 - explosive decompression.
Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight 529 - metal fatigue on its engine.
Air France flight 8969 - An Airbus A300 hijacked in Algeria.
Bashkirian Airlines flight 2937 and DHL flight 611 - Mid-air collision.
American Airlines flight 965 - crashed into a mountain in Columbia.
Avianca flight 052 - Boeing 707 ran out of fuel crashed over New York.

Season 3

Aloha Airlines flight 243 - A Boeing 737 explosive decompression.

DHL shootdown in Iraq - An A300-60F cargo plane looses control after a missile hits on the planes left wing tip.
Japan Airlines flight 123 - explosive decompression and lost of hydraulics.
Fed EX flight 705 - a suicide hijacked attempt.
Iran Air flight 655 - mistakenly identified as a hostile aircraft.
Philippine Airlines flight 434 - a bomb exploded on board.
Bristow 56C - a Helicopter struck by lighting and looses control.
Egypt Air flight 990 - a Boeing 767 plunges down towards the sea.
Aeroflot flight 593 - an Airbus A310 crashed when a 15 year old accidentally disconnected the planes autopilot.
Ethiopian Airlines flight 961 - a Boeing 767 hijacked and ran out of fuel in mid-air and crashed in the comoros islands.

Season 4

Air France flight 358 - an A340 overshots the runway.
British Airways flight 009 - a Boeing 747 lost power on its 4 engines.
Air Canada flight 797 - an inflight fire on a DC-9.
Korean Air flight 801 - a B747-3B5 crashed in Guam.
Hidden Danger - 3 Boeing 737 incidents. (United flight 585, US air flight 427, Eastwinds 517)
China Airlines flight 006 - a Boeing 747SP plunges towards the Pacific Ocean.
Aeromexico flight 498 - a DC-9 collides with a small plane in California.
USAF CT-43 - a specialized B737 crashed into a hill in Dubrovnick, Croatia.
Flash Airlines flight 604 - a desperate dive of a B737 and crashed into the rad sea.
Helios Airways flight 522 - pilot incapaticipation due to gradual decompression.

special episodes

Ripped Apart - explosives decompression.

Fatal Fixed - Maintenance and failures.

Who's Flying the Plane? - behavior of a pilot and failures of instruments.

scary commercials

K fee advertisements

K-fee television advertisements imitate prank flash animations (also known as screamers) intending to scare the viewer. One such TV ad is known as "K-fee Auto".

The commercial begins with a relaxing scene of a white car driving down a grassy hillside to soothing music. When the car passes behind a large tree, the camera follows. The camera then pans off the tree, but the car is gone. A zombie with a frightening scream then suddenly pops into the scene, scaring the viewer. The commercial fades to black, showing the slogan: "So wach warst du noch nie." (translated "You've never been so awake") and, after some time, shows the product. In the English version of the ad, the slogan reads "Ever been so wide awake?". These adverts are heavily criticised for their content and many feel that the advert is very uncommercial and upsetting, though it's shocking visual is built to energize the viewers and keep them alert. On some occasions, a warning message is displayed before the advert plays, informing any young children, individuals who are easily scared and people with heart conditions or autism to not view the footage. When this is not shown, it leaves any individual to be decieved.

The K-fee website (also in German) presents this and its other similar TV ads.

On the internet, an alternate ending shows, instead of the product and the slogan, the text: "Now...Go Change Your Shorts And Get Back To Work!" in a different font/size.

Other k fee ads:

In the normal ads, only the zombie and gargoyle are used. In all of the commercials, the same scream is used.

Commercials featuring the gargoyle:

• Beach - This depicts two lovers on a beach about to kiss, and just as they do, the gargoyle jumps up screaming from the bottom of the screen, blocking the view.

Buddha - This depicts a woman meditating near a buddha statue, when the gargoyle jumps up screaming. His face is so close to the camera that it is out of focus.

• Golf - A man is shown golfing from far away, when the gargoyle appears upside-down and screams.

• Beach 2 - This shows a relaxing scene of a boardwalk near a beach, when the gargoyle appears upside-down and screams.

Commercials featuring the zombie:

• Fishing - This shows a man fishing, and not long afterwards the zombie appears, curiously not looking directly into the camera as he screams.

Yoga - This shows a person practicing yoga on a cliff, when the zombie seemingly appears out of nowhere, screaming. His face is obscured by the dark.

Meadow - A view over a field is shown, a car is driving down the hill, the car disappears, and the camera stops moving at a certain point. Not long after, the zombie shows up from the left side of the screen and screams.

Surfing - This is a far away view of a man going to the ocean to go surfing. Then the zombie appears from the right side of the screen and screams. This also seems to use the same footage of the zombie that's used in K-Fee Auto.

Disaster in Lima, Peru

"flying blind"

CG render of Flight 603 reflected in the water just below and before it ditched

Aeroperú Flight 603

On October 2, 1996, shortly after take off just past midnight, the Boeing 757 airliner crew discovered that their basic flight Instruments were behaving erratically and reported reiciving contradictory serial emergency messages from the onboard computer, such as rudder ratio, overspeed, underspeed and flying too low. The crew declared an emergency and requested an immediate return to the airport. Faced with the lack of reliable basic flight instruments, constantly receiving contradictory warnings from the aircraft's flight computer (some of which were valid and some of which were not), and continuously believing that they were at a safe altitude, pilot Eric Schreiber and copilot David Fernández decided to cautiously begin the descent for the approach to the airport. Since the flight was at night over water, no visual references could be made to convey to the pilots their true altitude or aid the pilots in the descent. Also, as a consequence of the pilot's inability to precisely monitor the aircraft's airspeed or vertical speed they experienced multiple stalls resulting in rapid loss of altitude with no corresponding change on the altimeter. While the altimeter indicated an altitude of approximately 9,700 feet, the aircraft's true altitude was in fact much lower. It struck the water approximately twenty-five minutes after emergency declaration. All nine crew members and sixty-one passengers died.

The peruvian accident investigator, Guido Fernández, was the uncle of the co-pilot, David Fernández, but, despite originally holding some reservations about the potential conflict of interest, the National Transportation Safety Board appointed investigator - Richard Rodriguez - determined that he could properly investigate the accident. The US Navy provided equipment to locate the wreckage of the Boeing 757. The later investigation of the accident revealed that a piece of masking tape accidentally left over the static ports (on the bottom side of the fuselage) after cleaning the aircraft led to the crash. Employee Eleuterio Chacaliaza left the tape on by accident.

The static ports are critical to the operation of virtually all of those flight instruments that provide basic aerodynamic data such as airspeed, altitude and vertical speed, not only to the pilots but also to the aircraft's computers, which provide additional functions such as warnings when flight characteristics approach dangerous levels. The blockage of all of the static ports is one of the few common-failure modes resulting in total failure of multiple basic flight instruments and as such is regarded as one of the most serious faults that can occur within the avionics systems.

The design of the aircraft did not incorporate a system of maintenance covers for the static ports. Such covers are commonly employed in aviation for blocking access to critical components when the aircraft is not in operation and are generally a bright color and carry flags (which may have "remove before flight" markings). Instead, the design of the aircraft and the relevant maintenance procedure called for the use of adhesive tape to cover the ports.

As a result of the blocked static ports the basic flight instruments relayed false airspeed, altitude and vertical speed data. Because the failure was not in any of the instruments but rather in a common supporting system, thereby defeating redundancy, the altimeter also relayed the false altitude information to the Air Traffic Controller, who was attempting to provide the pilots with basic flight data. This led to extreme confusion in the cockpit as the pilots were provided with some data (altitude) which seemed to correlate correctly with instrument data (altimeter) while the other data provided by ATC (approximate airspeed) did not agree. Although the pilots were quite cognizant of the possibility that all of the flight instruments were providing inaccurate data, the correlation between the altitude data given by ATC and that on the altimeter likely further compounded the confusion. Also contributing to their difficulty were the numerous cockpit alarms that the computer system generated, which conflicted both with each other and with the instruments. This lack of situational awareness can be seen in the CVR transcript. The fact that the flight took place at night and over water thus not giving the pilots any visual references was also a major factor.

At first, the investigation put the responsibility for the accident on the flight deck crew.

Rumors abounded that the crash was caused by sabotage because the Peruvian mafia supposedly wanted one of the passengers (a prisoner who was being extradited to argentina) dead. These rumors were never confirmed.

blind landing

CG render of 747-3B5 HL7468
Korean Air Flight 801

"Blind Landing"

The korean air Boeing 747-3B5 airliner flew on a route Seoul, South Korea to Guam. It carried 2 pilots, 1 flight engineer, 14 flight attendants, and 237 passengers, a total of 254 people on board. Of the 3 passengers were children between the ages 2 and 12 and 3 were 24 months old or younger.

The flight, headed by Captain Park Yong-chul and First Officer Song Kyo-Ho, was uneventful until shortly after 1:00 a.m. on August 6, as the jet was preparing to land. There was heavy rain at Guam so visibility was significantly reduced and the crew was attempting an instrument landing. However, air traffic control in Guam advised the crew that the glideslope Instrument Landing System (ILS) in runway 6L was out of service. Nevertheless, air traffic control cleared Flight 801 to land in runway 6L at around 1:40a.m. The crew noticed that the plane was descending very steeply, and noted several times that the airport "is not in sight". At 1:42, the aircraft crashed into Nimitz Hill, about 3 miles (5 km) short of the runway, at an altitude of 660 feet (201 m). Of the people on board, 223 people, including 209 passengers and 14 crew members (3 flight crew and 11 cabin crew) were killed at the crash site. Of the 31 occupants found alive by rescue crews, 2 passengers died en-route to the hospital and 3 other passengers died within 30 days. One of the two passengers that died en-route to the hospital, a female, sustained multiple internal injuries and had no burns and no soot in her airway, leading autopsy to classify her death as not of any one cause. Upon discovery she was alive and treated by rescuers. 23 passengers and 3 flight attendants survived the crash with serious injuries. Of the survivors, 7 passengers and 1 flight attendant were in first class, 1 flight attendant was in the prestige class section, 7 passengers were in the forward economy class section, and 9 passengers and 1 flight attendant were in the aft economy section. 13 of the surviving passengers and 2 of the surviving flight attendants were seated in the right side of the airplane, and 6 of the 13 passengers were seated over the right wing. The rescue effort was hampered by the weather, terrain, and other problems. Emergency vehicles could not approach due to a fuel pipeline destroyed by the crash and blocking the narrow road. There was confusion over the administration of the effort; the crash occurred on land owned by the US Navy but civil authorities initially claimed authority. The hull had disintegrated, and jet fuel in the wing tanks had sparked a fire which was still burning eight hours after impact. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigation report stated that the Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW) system had been deliberately modified and would not detect the plane that close to the runway. The captain failed to brief his non-precision approach and prematurely descended to decision height. Contributing to the accident were the captain's fatigue, Korean Air's lack of flight crew training, as well as the intentional inhibition of the Guam ILS. The crew had been using an outdated flight map, which stated that the Minimum Safe Altitude for a landing plane was 1,770 feet (540 m) as opposed to 2,150 feet (656 m). Flight 801 had been maintaining 1,870 feet (570 m) when it was waiting to land.

Out of Control

The worst single air crash in the history of aviation.
Japan Airlines flight 123
(registration tail number JA8119)

this photograph was taken 15 months from its accident.

CGI image shows the tail and the rear bulkhead is gone.

Japan Airlines flight 123 incident (august 15, 1985) Boeing 747-SR46

The flight took off from Tokyo International Airport in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan at 6:12 p.m. About 12 minutes after takeoff, as the aircraft reached cruising altitude over Sagami Bay, the rear pressure bulkhead failed, causing an explosive decompression at the rear of the fuselage which tore the vertical stabilizer from the aircraft and severed the lines of all four of the aircraft's hydraulic systems. A photograph (shown) taken from the ground some time later showed that the vertical stabilizer was missing. The pilots, including Captain Masami Takahama, first officer Yutaka Sasaki, and flight engineer Hiroshi Fukuda, set their transponder to broadcast a distress signal to air traffic control in Tokyo, who directed the aircraft to descend and gave it heading vectors for an emergency landing. Continued control problems required them to first request vectors back to Haneda, then to Yokota (a U.S. military air base), then back to Haneda again as the aircraft wandered uncontrollably. With the loss of all control surfaces, the aircraft began to oscillate up and down in what is known as a phugoid cycle, a flight mode typical of accidents that disables an aircraft's controls. After descending to 13,500 feet (4100 m), the pilots reported that the aircraft was uncontrollable. It flew over the Izu Peninsula, headed for the Pacific Ocean, then turned back toward the shore and descended to below 7,000 feet (2100 m) before the pilots managed to return to a climb. The aircraft reached an altitude of 13,000 feet (4000 m) before entering a wild descent into the mountains and disappearing from radar at 6:56 p.m. and 6,800 feet (2100 m). During the oscillations that preceded the crash, the pilots managed a small measure of control by using engine thrust. The final moments of the plane occurred when it hit a mountain as a result of this loss of control, flipped, and landed on its back.

Out of 524 passengers and crew members on board there are 520 fatalities

only 4 people survive on flight 123

Thirty-two minutes elapsed from the time of the accident to the time of the crash, long enough for some passengers to write farewells to their families. According to at least one TV documentary, some passengers, not having access to writing instruments, cut themselves and used their own blood to write farewell messages.

Photograph taken by a witness of the crippled 747. The location of the missing vertical stabilizer is circled.

"pranks"

"PRANKS"

THE FAMOUS "KIKIA"

"PUPIL-LESS FACE"

SCREAMERS

Many online pranks take the form of Adobe Flash movies in the spirit of a shock site, designed to scare the viewer; these are known as shock flashes, screamers (which vary in length and contain a scream within the movie near the end), or ambush flashes or sabotage flashes (flash movies that deceive the viewer into interacting or watching intently before scaring them). Although Flash is the most prevalent medium for shock animations, animated GIFs and videos are also used. Recently, screamers have also started to appear on the popular video-sharing network YouTube; many viewers are now deceived every minute and at least one out of five of these post either a threatening comment or a satisfactory comment regarding the shock (depending on the user's background).

After grabbing the user's attention, the flash is abruptly interrupted by an unexpected image, usually accompanied by a burst of sound, such as a scream or roar. The picture can range from a crude cartoon to an explicitly gruesome image, in which case the shock comes partially from the content of the picture. In most cases, the shock is caused by the combination of a sudden scream and a scary picture, which magnifies the fright for the viewer.

"Kikia" was the first prank flash to be widely spread and thus provide inspiration for other similar creations. It is an example of a flash prank which requires no input from the viewer, but instead depends on the viewer staying interested long enough for the screamer message to appear. It originated on Taiwan's Kimo webhosting service from a person with the online username "Netspooky." The flash begins with peaceful clips of a cartoon boy sitting on a lawn gazing at the sky, accompanied by Chinese text reading "Hasn't it been a long time... / Haven't looked at the sky closely..." The boy then begins walking down a city street lined with buildings, accompanied by more Chinese text reading "Walking on the street... / You see..." The first two scenes are accompanied by Utada Hikaru's Japanese song "First Love." Suddenly, the flash switches to a screenshot of the game Fatal Frame - a grayscale photograph of a ghost woman - and a piercing scream, ending with the single word "Kikia".

The "What's Wrong With This Picture?" screamer is one of the most widely known screamers, even being featured on America's Funniest Home Videos. It starts out as a simple picture of a room, usually with the site (not a part of the flash) encouraging the viewer to look closely. Then, after a half minute, a picture of a distorted, black and white, pupil-less face shows up on the screen, accompanied by a scream.

watch them on youtube.
kikia
whats wrong with this picture

"Cash of the Century"

Downloads:
"Crash of the century": part 1 , part 2
Tenerife disaster NGC seconds from disaster version: "collision on the runway"

"Tenerife Disaster" March 27,1977
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight-4805 call sign Rijn (Rhine River) and Pan American Flight-4805 call sign Clipper Victor

The aircraft collided with a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 747 on the runway while backtracking the runway for departure. After diverting from their original destination of Las Palmas due to a bomb threat, both aircraft parked on the congested ramp at Los Rodeos Airport. During the wait, the KLM aircraft's crew decided to refuel the aircraft. During the refuelling process, the airport at Las Palmas reopened, and the Pan American crew attempted to move toward the runway. The KLM aircraft was blocking their aircraft in, however, so the Pan Am crew was forced to wait until KLM had finished refuelling. After the refuelling was complete, the KLM aircraft was instructed to back-taxi on runway 30, turn at the end, and wait for departure. The Pan American crewwas instructed to follow KLM, but turn left off the runway on a taxiway before reaching the end of the runway. As the KLM aircraft turned to depart on runway 12, its Captain, Jakob van Zaanten immediately powered up for takeoff. The First Officer corrected him saying 'no, we don't have our air traffic control clearance yet.' The Captain responded with 'I know that, you call for it.' As the First Officer was copying the clearance, which told the crew what route to fly, but did not give permission to take off, the Captain again initiated takeoff. The Pan Am 747 crew was inching through the thick fog looking for their assigned runway turnoff, saw the shaking lights of the KLM aircraft approaching at near takeoff speed through the fog, and applied full power in an attempt to clear the runway. Just after rotation, the KLM aircraft struck the Pan American plane just behind the cockpit, climbed to a height of 100 feet, and crashed. With a total of 583 killed, this accident remains the deadliest accident in aviation history.

this picture has been taken in tenerife airport, a few minutes before the accident

Pan Am 1736 minutes after the collision

KLM 4805 wreckage