Barrel roll in a 747

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[TheHistoryGuyChannel]

Some people have asked about the landing gear, and how the plane still landed safely. The gear was ripped from the mountings, not the plane. The mountings hold the retracted gear in the bays. The gear tore through the bay doors and essentially came down on its own, but was still attached to the plane. "Torn from the mountings" is the terminology used in the NTSB report.

[alstruck]

And that cured all passengers ever complaining about the coffee service, ever again!

[Odin]

They're having their struggles now, but there was a time when Boeing built tanks with wings.

[FloppaAppreciationSociet-dszf]

There was also an Evergreen 747-100 freighter that went supersonic during an uncontrolled dive in 1991. The pilots managed to stabilize the aircraft, and made a successful emergency landing in Minnesota. These things were built like tanks.

[largeadam]

Wow. What a beast, to have survived such intense structural demands. Boeing was an engineering company, back then.

[ztoob]

The autopilot couldn't control the aircraft because the aircraft had not been properly retrimmed for the loss of one engine. The autopilot had no rudder control, which is THE control to compensate for asymmetrical thrust. Instead of retrimming and then descending to 30, 000 feet to attempt an engine restart, the Captain just directed the flight engineer to restart the failed engine. (Add to the errors that the FE didn't perform the restart attempt per the checklist.)

The captain sat there watching the autopilot struggle to use ailerons and spoilers to keep the airplane on course when he should have been stomping on the rudder. The control yoke was all the way left, yet the plane was banking right. Apply rudder to the good side please, sir (it's called "step on the good engine" in twin-engine training). Only luck rescued his butt.

[tobinprowant]

Just in case anybody is curious. This entire potential catastrophe was caused by. Simple pilot error. But the captain and crew did manage to land the plane safely and save all passengers. The plane itself was structurally damaged in a way that no plane had ever been damaged and landed

[IntrospectorGeneral]

Back in the days when accountants didn't dictate engineering priorities for aircraft design.

[jameswolf]

I left my heart in San Francisco and my lunch on the plane.

[pooryorick]

I saw that plane at SFO. I happened to be taking a flight out that day. It was chewed up. The horizontal stabilizer was almost gone. It's a miracle they landed that thing.

[ristube]

Their former quality “is history that should be remembered!”

For those that don’t remember, until recently, Boeing used to be synonymous with the best engineering possible.

[LongPeter]

I've descended 20, 000' in just over a minute in a Kingair 200. Even on a clear day, with an expert pilot fully in control, it was… invigorating.

[PhysicalEntity]

I can't even imagine the sheer terror those people must have been feeling

[jamesTBurke]

One of the last planes to still have the same build quality of a b-17

[ShionWinkler]

This was 100% the captain's fault, he ignored flying the plane to troubleshoot the engine, this lead the autopilot to bring the plane to a near stall. When he turned the autopilot off he failed to see the plane was near a stall and kept the pitch too high, resulting in a full on stall. He then ignored the instruments, which made him fail to recover the stall. Not until they broke through the clouds and he saw the horizon, did he manage to correct and recover the aircraft.

[joelcarson]

How many of those on board never, ever, under circumstances, boarded another airplane again? One of them would have certainly been me if I had been a passenger. That which does not kill me makes me stay the hell away from it for the rest of my life. I learn quickly.

[palirvin]

The 747 airframe, one of the greatest ever. A true Beast in aviation history.

[Ed_Stuckey]

A search for _707 barrel roll tex johnson_ will take you to an interesting tale about the introduction to the public of Boeing's 707 in 1955.

[ducknorris]

Our flight got diverted to Nashville because weather had closed Atlanta airport. A short time later the pilot announced Atlanta was now open and we wouldn’t go to Nashville after all. Getting close to Atlanta we hit the worst turbulence I have ever experienced with people screaming and being weightless in your seat. The passengers started chanting Nashville Nashville Nashville, lol

[DraftedByTheMan]

The China Airlines incident in 1985, involving a Boeing 747, was caused by a series of events that ultimately led to the pilots losing control of the aircraft. Here's a summary of what happened:

1. The flight was en route from Taipei to Los Angeles when it encountered clear air turbulence (CAT) while cruising at 41, 000 feet.
2. The No. 4 engine lost power, and the flight engineer began troubleshooting the problem.
3. As the aircraft's speed decreased, the captain disengaged the autopilot, and the plane rolled sharply to the right.
4. The captain became preoccupied with the engine malfunction and failed to monitor the flight instruments properly, leading to a loss of control.
5. Contributing to the accident was the captain's over-reliance on the autopilot after the engine failure.

Thankfully, the crew was able to regain control of the aircraft and make an emergency landing in San Francisco, with only a few serious injuries reported.