The Worst Crash That Never Happened

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This documentary provides an in-depth look at close-calls at US airports, where a collision was only narrowly avoided.

Written by Leon Herres and Norbert Vorstädt

Images via Getty, AP Newsroom
Map source by MapTiler / OpenStreetMap Contributors via Geolayers 3

[StefanoBorini]

As a pilot, I can tell you that while this confusion may seem unbelievable, I can guarantee that brains are really, really weird. I once mistook for the runway a field that was _90_ degrees away from it. A runway I landed over _hundreds_ of times, and the reason is that it was just as green as the other runway, and I was looking frantically at the airspeed indicator due to wind. Fortunately I realised immediately and I felt as if one part of the brain slapped the other in its damn brainface and shook it out of it, then proceeded to align with the correct runway. That event still resonates to this day. Flying is hard, and brains are easily tricked, and you will feel like an idiot afterwards.

[metro]

"Where's this guy going? He's on the taxiway!" could easily be something said in Flight Sim multiplayer. It's crazy how these two small sentences saved so many people's lives and probably avoided a second Tenerife disaster.

[addallignwynters]

The way the controllers voice shakes when he apologizes and thanks the fedex pilot for their professionalism has me in tears

[kreture]

What astonishes me everytime I hear the radio exchanges for incidents like this is how calm everybody always is.

[realmackle]

Imagine having this happen to you during takeoff and never knowing it happened. What goes on behind the scenes of flights is truly mind boggling.

[joshallen]

It's wild how the one pilot's decision to say "Where's this guy going? He's on the taxiway" made the difference. That one dude (and ATC) speaking up or not speaking up seemed to make all the difference.

I mean, there will be generations of people to come that won't even know that the only reason they're here is because that pilot noticed something was wrong and spoke up.

[aristarchinski]

As a pilot in training, a southwest pilot being told that a 767 is on a 3 mile final and then just sitting there taking their sweet time is ridiculous, they must have had some kind of technical problems because usually they don’t even stop moving when taxiing out onto the runway to takeoff

[yazzy]

As a pilot I can tell you, confirmation bias is almost impossible to escape. Mind plays more tricks than you think.

[clay_rl]

Its insane how well trained these pilots and air traffic control are to avoid some of these. all of them seemed inevitable that a crash would happen

[doster]

Air traffic controller
*almost watches 4 planes get utterly annihilated*

Also air traffic controller: “yeah I saw that”

[jakemakes]

Considering that there are something like 45, 000 flights PER DAY in the US, its honestly insane that there are so few incidents. The odds of a passenger plane crash today are 1 in 11, 000, 000. You're probably safer on a jet than in your bed.

[WojtaDaCat]

well... something similair just happened today on january 2. 2024, a Japanese Airlines plane with over 300 passangers collided with a Japanese Coast Guard plane, all the passangers and crew made it out, but the Coast Guard pilots weren't so lucky, may they rest in Peace 🕊❤

[xAvi-PR]

There’s roughly 1, 000 ppl who were in SFO and don’t realize their lives were seconds away from being very different. I hope that pilot got some type of recognition for speaking up.

[MM-wnge]

As a cabin crew, I really appreciate how you illustrate each scenarios. Hopefully passengers will understand that there's really called "air traffic" in able for us to land safely.

[rathivemind]

20:33 A somewhat personal connect I have to the MH17 flight disaster is that I was actually almost on that flight myself. It was connecting flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur my father and I were taking on our way home to Australia. My dad had originally planned for us to take that flight on the Thursday but we decided to stay longer with family until the Friday. The flight we took was the exact same save for the day - same route, same airport, same time, same everything. My ticket even said MH17.
Funnily enough though, due to my already existing flight anxiety as a kid, my dad had frantically blocked me from seeing any news coverage of it not only for the next few days until our other flight from Kuala Lumpur home but at all... Which means I found out when I went to school the next week and one of my friends rushed up to me and told me "OH MY GOD I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD". Bit of a dark way to find out I was very very lucky.

[Pk-ntqs]

Imagine beeing a passenger in one of those planes, and after the flight they tell you, that you nearly died. This has to be horrifying.

[frzt]

The quality of these videos is so high; it's honestly incredible. It's also incredible how quickly the tower and the planes can communicate to prevent incidents from happening. That said, they should never have had a chance of happening, ever.

[sourdoughbread__]

I was actually on Air Canada 759, Seat 22A which was a window seat. I remember at the time wanting to get home badly since before then I was in China on vacation and I hated it, and I hated the fact we had to transfer through Toronto to get back to San Francisco. The whole flight from Toronto to San Francisco wasn't terrible, but I scared a little after flying over a thunderstorm over Minnesota or Wisconsin (I don't remember which one it was). The moment before the near collision I was just waiting for the force of the landing gear tread along the pavement just to remind me that we were actually gonna make it home, but when the plane dove upwards, me and my mom next to me were completely shocked and were all sorts of confused why we didn't just land. The plane still landed with no accidents (thankfully) and I got off the plane wondering what happened. To my surprise, I saw the incident made it onto my local news one morning and I've never really forgot the incident ever since, especially since I was 13 at the time and I never had such a close encounter to death ever. To this day I still have my yellowing and decaying, but still legible Air Canada Flight 759 ticket hanging in a picture frame on my wall, a pretty morbid trophy compared to the other ridiculous things hanging on my wall.

[AccidentallyOnPurpose]

Thank god that other pilot spoke up quickly, and he was taken seriously. You know it's serious when a callsign isn't even said.

Also, with the second near miss I can't imagine being the controller telling to cancel takeoff clearance, hoping the plane is going slow enough to stop.

[commanderarto]

This video is the first thing that came to mind after Hanieda Collision. You weren't wrong.