A Crash That Made Boeing Change Their System| Mayday: Air Disaster

Summary

Key Points

• On February 25, 2009, Turkish Airlines Flight 1951, a Boeing 737-800, crashed short of the runway at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, killing nine people. 1:29
• Investigators quickly found the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder in good condition, revealing that the plane suddenly dropped from the sky during its final approach. 5:31
• The investigation uncovered that the captain's radio altimeter was faulty, consistently displaying a reading of -8 feet, which incorrectly indicated the plane was on the ground. 14:56
• The crew was also executing a challenging "slam dunk" approach at Amsterdam, which increased their workload and led to an unstable approach where checklists were still being completed below 1000 feet. 22:25
• This erroneous altimeter data was fed to the auto throttle system, causing it to prematurely engage "flare mode" and reduce engine power to idle while the aircraft was still thousands of feet in the air. 23:31
• Turkish Airlines had a documented history of radio altimeter malfunctions on this specific aircraft and its fleet, including prior instances of premature flare mode that other crews had successfully managed. 27:33
• Despite multiple warnings on their flight displays, none of the three pilots in the cockpit (including a safety pilot for a training flight) noticed the dangerously dropping airspeed until it was too late to recover. 36:36
• The accident highlighted broader concerns about the complexity of modern aircraft automation, the interface between pilots and technology, and the critical importance of basic flying skills when automation fails. 39:37
• The crash was ultimately attributed to a convergence of circumstances: the faulty altimeter, the auto throttle's incorrect response, the challenging approach, and the crew's failure to monitor critical flight parameters and manually intervene. 42:43