This plane hit WHAT?? American 1572

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On November 12th, 1995, an American Airlines MD-83 carrying 78 passengers and crew is making its final approach to Bradley International airport in Connecticut. It’s running late, and the crew are eager to make it to the airport. The area is blanketed by torrential rain and turbulence, and the two pilots are struggling to keep the aircraft on course. The winds are so strong that the control tower had to be evacuated, and is now occupied by a lone supervisor who hasn’t manned a tower in years.

Fighting severe turbulence, the pilots struggle to see the runway through the rain. A small mistake they made minutes beforehand would now come back to haunt them, as they start to slip below their minimum descent altitude…

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Final Report:

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00:00 Intro
00:53 Blinkist Ad
02:08 Flight background
04:10 Departure and climbout
05:40 Initial Descent
08:39 Bradley's weather and turbulence
10:10 Weather update
12:39 A wrong setting
13:00 Approach chart
17:16 Descent to MDA
19:00 American Airlines Approach Procedures
19:50 Accident sequence
22:30 Aftermath and Investigation
24:06 A positive note

[GreenDotAviation]

Thanks to Blinkist for sponsoring this video!

[EthanTheEx]

After the plane hit trees I can imagine how relieving first officer saying repeatedly "You're gonna make it. You got it dude, you're gonna make it." The first officer took the heavy stress off the Captain and was a major factor in completing the flight on the runway.

[_powerrranger]

Gotta love The F/O's positive altitude and resilience- when they hit trouble he didn't back down - seriously inspitrational

[sethfroman]

The positive attitude and uplifting words from the F/O after clipping the trees was amazing to watch and listen too. Amazing the plane was able to be fixed.

[northmaineguy]

First I want to say excellent job! As someone who was there that night, I couldn't find a single error in your video. With that said, I was the "late guy" controller on duty in the radar room that night. The late guy took all of the positions and worked them until the mid-shift controller arrived. It was a terrible night with high winds, rain and crappy visibility -- aircraft had been going around and diverting all night. I gave the mid-shift controller the briefing, I signed out and went home. On the way, I thought to myself this is the type of night crashes happen -- and 20 minutes later American hit the trees. I went to see the aircraft the next day and it had tree limbs in the engines and landing gear and not one foot of the wing leading edge was undamaged. Parts of ILS antenna that they hit was still in the landing gear. How close they came...

[RedShift]

i love it when they save the craft and nobody dies. I legit celebrate and am so happy for the pilots.

[austinhobson]

Man that convo between the Captain and FO was heart wrenching, so glad they all made it.

[岡山大木]

Loved the support from the FO as the captain brought it in, it actually made me smile to hear such a supportive cockpit environment

[uzaiyaro]

It is rather refreshing to hear a captain say “watch me” and “sing out if you see anything.” That exactly what I would tell a first officer, no matter how new they are or experienced I might be. If nothing else, it’ll instil some confidence that they can speak up if they need to.

[EenGamertjeNL]

Accidents like these ending on a good note with everybody surviving always leaves me in good spirits!

[ET]

I like that when you read the transcript, you add in other cockpit sounds, e.g. 'dont sink' or 'terrain', etc. It helps get into the mindset of the flight crew a bit, especially when there's a lot of warnings going off at once. Sometimes you wonder 'why were they so confused/overwhelmed?', but when you hear everything else thats going on in the background it makes sense. Also, the way you do the subtitles makes it much clearer; putting the captain's on one side of the screen, the FO's on the other, and ATC at the top. It makes it easier to make sense of who's saying what.

[iitool]

Awesome video, it had me on the edge of my seat! Good to see videos that cover non-fatal accidents rather than the usual high profile accidents. Keep up the good work!

[GemmaLB]

I'm amazed they managed to bring that plane down on the runway, sure they messed up with the altimeters and the MDA but they did an amazing job. Even more amazing that the plane was repairable, it must have been a very strong aircraft!

[alarmactionukalarmactionuk]

Such a relief the crew recovered from the initial tree strike holding it together saving the lives of all the passengers.

[blyb]

Wow. I have thousands of hours in the MD-80 and can feel exactly what was going on. I have to check my heart rate after hitting the trees. Awesome airmanship saving the plane and passengers.

[bogwife]

these two's CRM is something else. they work so well together you'd think they were best friends "you got this dude." how many other crashes could have been avoided if every flight crew got along that well?

[choomxi]

That first officer is honestly the best hype man anyone could have.

[emo]

The way the FO talked to the captain while the CA was trying to land was incredible teamwork (and likely a bit of friendship). Almost guaranteed that those words helped to calm him and concentrate instead of panicking and rolling the plane.

[briankdey]

I love the "everyone lives" endings. I was shook when they went 40 on final flap at their slope.

[MyNathanking]

8:30: I love technical detail because I love learning how things work.