An Ordinary Takeoff Quickly Turns into a Near Catastrophe | Terror in Auckland

Find out how a series of errors almost caused a Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 to crash at Auckland Airport, New Zealand.

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This video has been recorded and edited in 4K resolution and 60FPS.

[sadiqjohnny]

I flew the older 747 -200 for 15 years and was an instructor, Chief Pilot and Check pilot on that type. We had 2 pilots and a Flight engineer as opposed to the captain and two copilots on this type (-400) My procedure for calculating the take off speeds was for all cockpit crew members to independently calculate tha take off speeds from our tables and then compare them. If, for any reason the aircraft was not accelerating fast enough (sometimes due to undetected windshear) the throttles were advanced to full power and care was taken to rotate to 10 degrees nose up to let the plane fly off. This made sure of not having a tail strike. If we did have a APU fire (never happened to me, but practiced many times on the sim) we fired the extinguishers and only would have to make an emergency landing if the fire warning remained on. A "fly by" near the control tower would have determined whether there was an APU fire still raging. The fuel dumping in the 747-200 (and presumably the -400) was at the wing tips --so tne danger of fire was minimal. This incident was a cockpit crew problem. These things can happen if you are not alert. Once, when taxiing out a 747 from JFK to Frankfurt with a full load, the Tower asked us to take another runway. I asked the copilot and flight engineer if that runway was acceptable to them. They said that it was ok. I told the Tower that we could not accept that runway as it was too short for us. This happened while taxiing at JFK--which some pilots called a madhouse. There was no time in a dark cockpit with stacatto radio instructions coming in to recheck all our speeds or runways. But I knew the runways from years of flying 707s, DC 10s, and 747s out of JFK and knew that we could not make it from that runway. How easily it would have been for an inexperienced captain to have blindly accepted the runway change--and a possible disaster. In imparting training my motto was : "A Good Pilot is a THINKING pilot."

[MrrNacho]

No way the amount of detail in this sim is crazy!
I work Airside at Auckland airport and i noticed where the buses are parked up in front of the 747, they even have the skybus (which is the bus operator company) opr office and lunch room with the actual sign in there wow.
And the Novotel outside of the Airport even. Thats crazy

[gilbertfranklin]

You have to give the old 747 credit - with all the errors, tail dragging, power too low, and crew not helping much, it still flew them back for a safe landing.

[JaneSmith]

I love it when these stories end safely with no lives lost.

[MrCrystalcranium]

The simulated view from in front of the 747 after takeoff with the runway getting smaller and smaller behind it is the most realistic thing I've ever seen in these videos. Unbelievable quality. I blame the First Officer about 80% for this almost tragedy. The remaining fault lies with the Captain, not just for the erroneous FMC entry, but for not fire-walling the throttles at any time during this event. Degraded runway performance...low airspeed and an almost stall...what was he doing, or not doing? Great great job on this one. I've seen other sims of this incident but they didn't go nearly into the information or simulation detail you did. Bravo!!!

[adriancoetzee]

I used to work on the 34th Floor of the Vero centre in Auckland. My desk window looked looked to to the airport area, and I saw this 747 circling, and I said to my colleague at the time that there must be an issue, as the plane was just flying around with no obvious departure of the Auckland airspace. I remember being very troubled by the sighting, but then got busy and thought about it no more. On the news that night it became apparent that this issue had occurred. I have flown SQ286 to Singapore many times from Auckland, and its departure time used to be around 14:30. Funny how we remember these things that many years later. Great Simulation.

[blazenicholls]

I distinctly remember this. I live in Auckland not far from the Auckland Airport. I saw it fly right overhead really low. It had a massive hole in the rear. An unbelievable sight that I've never forgotten. Amazing that it landed and didn't break up. Wish I had a phone/camera to take a photo but back then but we didn't all carry them around like today.

[alyabdullah]

Despite the mistakes made by the pilots and the reckless take-off, I'm sure everyone is comfortable and pleased that the plane returned safely and did not end in a fatal disaster.

[johnfisher]

It just defies belief that the first officer didn’t look at those V ref speeds and immediately say to himself, hang on, that doesn’t look right, what’s going on here?

[riverwildcat]

Another example of the lack of situational awareness that overcomes pilots who become numb to the real world sensations of flying. Over-dependence on the computers is not only dangerous, but turns people into robots; which I've seen and experienced.
When it was clear that the plane wasn't responding after the V1 "rotate" announcement, a real wrold-sensitive pilot would have pushed the throttles to full power. They never did use full engine power! They're damned lucky they didn't run out of runway and end up in a massive fireball of epic proportions. 😵😵‍💫

[MrPLC]

My father, a former L1011 senior captain, always told his crew...if you're getting into a stall, you instantly slam the throttles to the firewall, level off, and pray. THEN pull out the dam checklist.

[junaidtipu]

Thank goodness everyone survived. Fortunate day for everyone despite skidding no major fire or failure to land.
Once again an amazing editing.

[stevenchow]

A strikingly similar incident happened 6 years later. On 20 March 2009, A6-ERG, operating Emirates Flight 407 from Melbourne to Dubai, suffered a similar tail-strike during takeoff, and this was even closer to a catastrophe as the A340-500 hit the localizer antenna array. One of the pilots had also understated the aircraft's weight by 100 tons prior to takeoff, and neither the other pilot nor the flight management computer notice anything unusual. The Airbus fortunately landed safely without injury to the 275 people onboard, but was badly damaged and returned to service only in December that year after being repaired by the manufacturer. The aviation industry needs to learn from these incidents!

[AzovAzza]

Absolutely crazy to think that even the slightest oversight or error, could lead to such massively catastrophic results. Glad they landed safely but, damn!

[sylviekins]

This terrified me, and is a good lesson in checking and thinking critically- in my case in preventing medication errors in hospital with vulnerable children. Thank you for these amazing videos!

[WayneM]

So, all of this happens because a first officer is incapable of accurately copying down figures and the other two crew members didn't spot it. MARVELOUS! add to this a Captain who incorrectly handles a stall warning, and you have the perfect cockpit crew. However, despite the mistakes, they managed a safe landing and no one was killed or even injured, so credit due to them for that.

[grommy]

Outstanding sound design. TFC know how to tell a story with music and natural sound! Bravo!

[chijeukimbap]

What's interesting is that they should have noticed the mistake when there was a large discrepancy between the FMC and FO's calculated speeds. Then again maybe they've input the wrong weight values in the FMC too so the values maybe goofy too. Still at a certain TOW, experience will tell you that a certain weight range usually corresponds to a certain V-speed range. IMHO the Captain should have investigated further and cross-checked the values as he was already made aware of the weights from the loadsheet but given their circumstances (delay + pressure) I can see how they could miss this important detail. I'm just glad they safely climbed out and made it back down on the ground in one piece. It could've gotten worse really.

Just goes to show that there's no room for complacency in the industry even if you are experienced and I thank you for making this video for imparting an important and humbling reminder.

[l.faraday]

I would have liked to see some pictures of the damage this tail strike would have caused. I looked it up on google and the damage was tremendous!

[shopmobgm]

Great video as always, but this one seems a little unfinished.
Did the APU actually catch fire?
What was the extent of the damage resulting from the tale strike?
Did the flight crew, in particular the pilot receive additional type training as a direct result of the incident?