On a calm summer night, passengers boarded the plane that would take them from Kuala Lumpur to Perth. The atmosphere was relaxed, the weather was fine, there were no approaching thunderstorms, and the plane didn't have any technical issues. But by the time the plane was in the air southeast of Jakarta, Indonesia, the first officer was sending out a Mayday distress call. All four of their engines were on the plane.
had failed. It happened on June 24, 1982. British Airways Flight 9, also called Speedbird 9, performed its scheduled flight from London Heathrow to Auckland, with five stops on the way, in Bombay, Madras, Kuala Lumpur, Perth, and Melbourne. That day, the plane that had to fly this route was a Boeing 747 named the City of Edinburgh.
The plane had already made it to Kuala Lumpur on a vent folate. Most passengers were already on board the aircraft, since it left London and, having traveled through several time zones, were exhausted. But the cockpit crew took control of the plane in Kuala Lumpur, meaning they were alert and full of energy.
The crew consisted of Captain Eric Moody, Senior First Officer Roger Graves, and Senior Engineer Officer Barry Townley Freeman. There were 247 passengers and 100 tons of fuel on board the plane. That night, although moonless, was quite clear, and the flying conditions couldn't be better. All in all, the crew expected an uneventful 5-hour flight.
The plane reached the cruising altitude of 37,000 feet, and the captain descended the stairs to the first-class area to stretch his legs and use the toilet. But then, almost immediately, he was called back to the flight deck. While climbing the stairs, he spotted weird puffs of smoke rising from the vents at the floor level.
And even though at that time passengers were still allowed to smoke on board, this smoke had a very peculiar acrid smell and looked thicker than usual. When Moody entered the flight deck, he immediately spotted why his co-pilot had called for him. The windshields were ablaze with the most intense phenomenon of St. Elmo's fire the captain had ever seen in his life. Usually, St. Elmo's fire is a harmless discharge of static electricity on a metal surface, and planes, as well as ships, experience it on a regular basis. But that's where the problem lies.
As soon as the captain fastened his seatbelt, he looked at the weather radar, and it wasn't showing any thunderclouds at all. The weather was as clear as it was when they started their journey. When the crew switched on their landing lights, they also noticed there was a weird cloud surrounding the plane. The situation was becoming more and more confusing. Luckily, the first officer had already put on the seatbelt sign and the engine igniters.
It was about 8.40 p.m. Jakarta time. The flight went on, but the smoke started to accumulate in the airplane's passenger cabin.
And while at first it resembled cigarette smoke, with every passing minute it was getting thicker and acquired the ominous stench of sulfur. The temperature on board also began to rise. But that wasn't all. Suddenly, the passengers who could see the engines from their seats noticed that they were bright blue, and some bizarre light was shining through the fan blades.
By that time, the plane had been flying in a cloud of bright white light, and the temperature on board was soaring. The people were covered with sweat. The acrid smoke was getting into their eyes, nose, and throats.
It was 8.42 when Barry Townley Freeman shouted that engine number 4 had flamed out. Without losing time, the crew shut down the engine by arming the fire extinguishers and cutting off the fuel supply. But just a minute later, at 8.43, engine number 2 flamed out as well, followed by engines 1 and 3. The huge plane turned into a glider in a matter of minutes.
The captain estimated they could glide 15 miles for every mile they dropped. It meant that the plane was able to glide for only 23 minutes and cover the distance of 91 nautical miles. At 8.44 p.m., the first officer informed local air traffic control about their emergency. However, even though he had said everything correctly, Jakarta area control decided that only engine number 4 had failed.
They probably couldn't grasp the horror of the situation. Luckily, another nearby flight helped to clear up the misunderstanding. and convey the urgent message to air control.
The southern coast of Indonesian Java Island is covered with high mountains. That's why the altitude needed to cross the coast safely should be no less than 11,500 feet. feet. Unfortunately, it was clear that the plane was unable to fly that high, and the flight crew decided to try to land on the water of the Indian Ocean. An attempt to restart the engines failed.
That's when the captain made his legendary announcement to the passengers. Ladies and gentlemen, that's your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing all we can to get them going again.
I trust you are not in too much distress. Given the nightmarish situation, this announcement was later dubbed as a masterpiece of understatement. Unbelievably, the passengers of the flight, as well as the cabin crew, reacted to the captain's awful announcement in an unusual way.
Instead of panicking, screaming, and creating chaos on board, they turned eerily calm. Those who were sitting in the window seats could see that the engines were on fire, huge streams of flame trailing behind the plane. Mothers were hugging their children, husbands were squeezing their wives'hands.
Flight attendants were teaming solo passengers together so they could support each other in the seemingly last minutes of their lives. Many passengers were writing their last notes to relatives and loved ones. By that time, The cabin pressure dropped dramatically, there was a shortage of air, and the passengers hastily put on their oxygen masks.
However, not everything went so smoothly on the flight deck. There, Graves discovered that the delivery tube was detached from the rest of his mask, which meant that he couldn't breathe. This made the captain take drastic measures. He went into a nosedive to reach an altitude where people could breathe normally again. When the plane descended to 13,500 feet, it was time to make a turn and try to head toward the ocean.
The maneuver was extremely risky, since none of the flight crew members had ever tried a water landing in a Boeing 747. But then, a miracle happened. When the pilots tried to restart the engines again at 8.56 p.m., engine number 4 roared back to life. With its help, the captain managed to reduce the speed of their descent.
Even better, several minutes later, the three other engines started as well. However, as the plane started to climb towards its target altitude, the crew noticed St. Elmo's fire on their windshield again. Shortly after, engine number two shut down again. So the crew immediately descended to 12,000 feet and headed for the nearest airport. Little did they know.
their problems were far from over. As the plane was approaching Jakarta, the cockpit crew couldn't see anything through the windshield, even though the visibility outside was perfect. The landing equipment wasn't working, and the crew had to land the plane manually. They could see the runway lights through a tiny strip of window, but the aircraft's landing lights didn't work. Even so, the captain managed to perform a perfectly smooth landing.
Safely on the ground, passengers were applauding the pilots and hugging each other. other. No casualties, no bad injuries, happy ending. But why did the 263 people who were on board the plane that day nearly lose their lives? The investigation determined that the near tragedy happened because the plane flew into a cloud of volcanic ash left after the eruption of Mount Gulagong in 1982. The ash was dry, which is why no weather radars could detect it.
This ash cloud clogged the engines and sandblasted the windshield. On top of that, as the ash entered the combustion chambers, it melted and stuck to their insides, causing the shutdown of the engine. the engines. When the plane left the ash cloud and the engines cooled down without work, the molten ash became solid, broke off, and was blown free.
As a result, the pilots managed to restart them. The airspace over the over Mount Gulugong was temporarily closed after the accident, but opened again just a couple of days later. And it wasn't until 19 days later, when a Singapore Airlines 747 had to shut down three engines in the same area, that Indonesian authorities permanently closed the airspace and changed the plane routes to go around that area.
Captain Eric Moody was awarded the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air, And all the flight crew received medals from the British Airline Pilots Association. What impressed you the most about this story? Let me know down in the comments. If you learned something new today, then give this video a like and share it with a friend. But hey, don't go anywhere just yet!
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