When Pilots STOP TRUSTING the Aircraft! | Royal Air Maroc 780S

This video will tell you the crazy story of Royal Air Maroc flight 780S. A Boeing 737-800 which suffered several technical problems during a flight from Rabat to Paris which put the pilots in a very uncomfortable situation. I hope you will find the story interesting.

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Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode. Enjoy checking them out!

Sources
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Final Report:

Log Book: UNKNOWN

CHAPTERS
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00:00 - Intro
00:24 - Flight History
01:06 - Approach Categories
02:38 - Weather Conditions
03:12 - The Technical Logbook
04:16 - Key Systems For Pilots
06:42 - In For Maintenance
07:45 - Departure
09:49 - Problems Mounting
14:43 - Fuel Status
16:28 - Nav Aid Confusion
17:34 - Setting Up The CAT I Approach
18:30 - Misbehaving Autopilot
20:46 - Go Around
21:38 - Irs Fault
23:37 - Catalogue Of Faults
25:37 - Pfd’s Restored
27:22 - Raw Data Ils Approach
29:31 - Between Runways
32:51 - How It Ends
33:56 - Poor Practices
35:04 - Back To Marrakech
35:39 - Outcomes

Aircraft used: ZIBO Mod 737

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[jameswong]

Don't stop until you have every aviation accident covered. The content is gold.

[MALIKALMAOUT]

I was on board the plane. When we landed in Lyon, most passengers wanted to get out of the plane as they were too scared to continue to Paris. The screw were not willing to let them leave the plane but the passengers eventually got out and took the train. Only 35 minutes later we took off and made it safely to our destination. Of course no one told us that the situation was so serious and I happened to come across this video completely by chance and realise that I was a passenger on that flight 😅

[BobSentell]

I can empathize with the pilot. When you feel like the plane is falling apart around you and you have a window to put the thing on the ground safely, I'd probably do the same thing and just take the slap on the wrist for not following procedures. The fact he reverted to his native French is plenty of evidence how stressed this entire situation made him.

[DailyFrankPeter]

11:10 As an engineer, problems 'sorting themselves out' scare me just as much as problems which persist.

[moiraatkinson]

I cannot believe that poor Captain and First Officer had to fly the *same* plane back to Marrakech without any of the faults addressed! How their hearts must have sunk when the autopilot disconnected on their final approach. “Here we go again.” The report into the accident in my opinion, fails to recognise that hindsight is wonderful. It’s very easy to criticise the actions of the crew from the safety of the ground, with all the time in the world to think about the best course of action. At the end of the day, the Captain made decisions which got everyone safely on the ground, on the runway and with no (physical) damage to the aircraft. The plane’s mental state was in turmoil and I can just imagine the crew’s relief evaporating in an instant when they learned that they had to fly it again!

[davidanderson]

As a former military avionics technician, I am dismayed that the repeat, intermittent fault was allowed to persist for such a long time. When you keep changing the same black box (in this case, the ADIRU) and get the same intermittent fault you have to realize that black box is not the problem and that it has to be something else. Some years ago, we had an intermittent fault with the AN/ARN-84 TACAN system on a C-130H. In flight, the "OFF" flag would suddenly drop on both the pilot's and copilot's ADI even though the system was switched on, then anything from a few seconds later to minutes or even an hour later, the flag would lift. This would keep happening throughout the flight. No matter how long we ran the system on the ground, even after changing the Receiver-Transmitter unit (RT-1022) twice, we could never get it to repeat, but the pilots still reported the fault. Then we did a test during an engine ground run (for a different issue) and bingo - when the throttles were pushed beyond "Flight Idle" the TACAN flag started intermittently dropping and lifting. Long story short, it turned out that just ONE captive pin in the 56 pin socket on the RT-1022 mounting rack was loose. On the ground it would make enough contact to work, but in flight, with the engines running, the vibrations were sufficient for the pin to vibrate loose. We change that mounting rack, and the problem disappeared, never to return.
I would bet this fault ended up being found to have been caused by something like what I have written about here... an electrical connection issue.

[danielmosey]

Personally think the crew did well here. Let’s not forget that the first warning that came was not known to the crew. The captain genuinely believed keeping the aircraft in the air was far more of a danger than getting it on the ground.

[FlyingDoctor]

I’m with the captain on this one: I can see the runway, I have enough control to land, let’s get on the ground and sort this mess out on stand. Astonishing that they would AGAIN put the aircraft back into passenger service without fully resolving the issue. That made everyone on the next flight a maintenance test pilot, which I’m pretty sure they did NOT sign up for!

[skyborne]

This is such a relatable story. I hope the crew didn't get into too much trouble. The Captain was at the end of his rope, saw his chance to get that plane on the ground and took it. His actions were completely understandable.

[eamonnmorris]

It's hard to believe that after this nightmare (my stomach is in knots!) the same plane took off again with the same crew, and passengers, back to Paris and down to Marrakesh without having any clear fix!

[ApacheSmash]

I actually felt a sense of relief when the plane touched down. I've watched so many of your videos and many don't have good endings like this.

[juliennapoli]

I would like to congratulate the pilots who managed to land safely regardless of everything around.

[asdc]

Hats off to the pilots, I can only imagine being in such a situation! The ending really took me off guard, so because the issues couldn't be reproduced the plane was considered OK to fly back home with the same crew and a new group of passengers? That's really disappointing on RAM's end giving the pilots no chance to recover and allowing dozens of passengers to board an unreliable aircraft...

[AnNE-nnbx]

I’m Moroccan and I was on that plane too .. that was scary the only thing I regret Is taking the train instead of finish the flight .. I guess I didn’t want final destination movie vibes 😂😂

[chrishui]

The fact that the pilot flew it and encounter the same faults again then land it 2 times a day was quite impressive and crazy

[paulhutchins]

So, once on the ground maintenance could not correct the multiple faults and then made the same Captain fly the plane again with passengers! Wow, I bet he enjoyed that flight 😳

[Suburp]

How can ANYbody force this aircraft back in the air without tracing the actual fault? This is insane. Thanks for yet another fantastic video, Petter.

[alfredosolari]

I had no idea of the complexities of piloting a modern commercial airplane. They are absolutely bewildering. The pilots have my admiration.

[dennymambo]

It's episodes like this that make it really clear to someone outside aviation why they had an in flight engineers for as long as they did.

[markusdecimus]

Pilots are the heroes. The captain took the situation in hand, against the failed machine. And brought it all to safety. Risking his career. Bravo. A real pilot which is not based only on the computer, like many other operators are. Fly the plane, don t just operate it.