The INSANE Story of Aeroflot Nord flight 821!

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What are the most outrageous things you could accuse a pilot or even an airline of doing? Whatever you choose, I can almost guarantee that it will appear in this story at some point. It is a horrifying account of how every possible safety barrier can be breached if training, CRM, maintenance and general common sense are not used. Stay tuned.
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Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode.

Sources

Aircraft Used:
Boeing 737: Take Command!: IXEG 737 Classic

Airbus A319 by Toliss:

Thanks to GreatFlyer Aviation on YouTube for use of footage:

EU Airlines Blacklist

AVL - Arkhangelsk Airlines: Perry Hoppe

Antonov-24 (RA-46667): Unknown

Aeroflot Logo:

Antonov An-26: Unknown

Antonov An-24: Dmitriy Pichugin

Tupolev TU-134: Piergiuliano Chesi

Tupolev Tu-154: Aktug Ates

Arkhangelsk Airlines: Arkhangelsk Airlines

Antonov 2: ANTONOV COMPANY

CHAPTERS
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00:00 - Intro
00:29 - Aeroflot NORD
03:02 - The crew
06:58 - The aircraft
12:33 - Arriving to work
15:36 - Flight gets underway
18:37 - Cruise
21:11 - Descent
23:26 - Approaching Perm
26:14 - Confusion
28:35 - Left or right?
32:11 - Thrust issues
34:02 - Pressure
37:19 - Do everything yourself!
39:55 - Doomed
47:34 - Under the influence?

[chuckbatson]

Whenever I fly as a passenger, I hope the flight doesn't become a future Mentour Pilot episode.

[Lordrocky]

I would love to see a Mentour episode on April fools where he dramatically reads the story of a flight where everything went exactly as it should have.

[gpjczmq]

Hejsan. As a native speaker of Russian, I have just listened to the conversation between the ATC and Flight 821. Oh, man, you can distinctly hear, when the first officer is talking, and when the captain pitches in. Because he just can’t piece the two words together. And moreover, up until the very end the ceptain seems to be totally oblivious to what’s going on. He just mutters the same old “Going down to 600. Flight 821” without any sign of worry. Only 10 seconds after the last such “confirmation” you can hear someone cursing and screaming - and then Flight 821 became silent (on the ATC frequency). It’s so-so sad :(

[scottwright]

This was one of the most painful reviews I've listened to! From the beginning the failure of the crew to follow any basic standard procedures felt like I was sitting in a classroom with the teacher scratching their nails on a chalkboard! Just so unbelievable how this crew performed.

[JonosBtheMC]

Aeroflot: 100 years, 11, 653 fatalities (Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives, May 2023). The only organisation with more aircraft fatalities is the Royal Air Force; their pilots have the excuse of occasionally being under fire.

[picahudsoniaunflocked]

26:12 The Captain didn't prioritize tea in that moment; he prioritized exerting power over "his crew person" in that moment. Which I think makes it worse.

[atsirdsart]

Oh my god, what incompetence. That poor first officer. It always baffles me when we see pilots with such a massive ego, when the industry tends to encourage the opposite. RIP, and thank you for a lovely coverage of a horrific accident as per usual.

[leovolont]

I learned how to fly when I was just a teenager, and I am 70 now but still remember how I had to drill myself over and over again about the Attitude Indicator, realizing at the time that the BIG MISTAKE that could be made would be in trying to Control to Correct the HORIZON instead of controlling to MATCH the Plane to the Horizon indication... the difference between Life and Death. My Instructor did put me through some HOOD Time for Instrument Flight, and, yeah, all my homework paid off and my Instructor was pleased. But, yes, that is one Instrument where Intuition can be exactly Wrong, that is, the very opposite of CORRECT.

[paperman]

The pilot asked for a tea from the cabin crew member just so he could try to show them "he's the boss" and they're below him. He was probably thinking "how dare they tell me how to fly this plane" when they reminded the pilot to turn the seatbelt light on so he had to show he's the big boss by requesting they serve him some tea. Clearly a superiority complex thing going on. I doubt he actually fancied a cuppa at that time.

[andy-ally]

I listened to CVR once again after watching this report. And I can assure you that you would have been 1000x times more horrified if you understood Russian. You mentioned about captain being intoxicated only at the end of the video, but from the voice tone of captain and consecutive actions and communication it sounded that all this situation happened exactly because of the attitude the pilot had due to being drunk. It can clearly heard from the expression of captain that he was annoyed not only by some unexpected flight plan or aircraft behavior but he was not very happy about just doing regular tasks. This sentence was his final approach briefing. "When we will be on that f **king marker...we will need to do that f**king gear down and other sh*t"..And when it all started he just felt he is not in condition and mood to do anything so he told FO to handle literally everything.

[Nipy]

This series is truly a gem on YouTube. So well executed, narrated and so informative.

[original_katalex]

I live in the Perm region and I remember the night of the accident. The flight crash put railway communication to a hold. My family at the time lived in a house nearby railroad from Perm to Yekaterinburg. Only the river divided our house from railroad. And we became accustomed to the noises of railroad, even during the night. And that night we could'nt sleep at all. The silence was very unnerving as the sign, that something terrible has happened. At the morning we learned of the accident

[nathaniela]

"It doesn't matter who is right, it's what is right that is important." - Mentour Pilot

[JG-zstr]

The real horror is how many flights have been very similar to this one but just barely managed to avoid disaster.

[superweedenjoyer]

Good lord...an absolute cacophony of insanity in the cockpit. I can't imagine how terrifying this was for the passengers.

[brianshickey]

You are hands down THE BEST aviation channel I’ve ever seen. Everything has been thought of and presented brilliantly. The visuals are remarkable, as is your explanation. If I ever hear your voice as captain on one of my flights, I’ll get the cabin to give you a slow clap, standing ovation.

[littletrebleclef]

There wasn't even a Swiss cheese model here it was just a big hole in the ground, and the entire system fell into it. Great video, as always, Petter and team! Happy your hockey team won!

[diggermolly]

I have been watching these videos for a few weeks now and I have to say as a former army pilot and safety officer, these are some of the best safety training vids you can watch. Great explanations and detail regarding what occurred and what was recommended to fix it. As a former accident investigator, these videos are priceless in their content and conclusion emphasis. Great job, thank you for what you are doing for aviation.

[sarahmoyle]

I have just discovered your videos! I went on my first Orion flight age 5 in 1979. From that moment I wanted to be an Air Hostess. I was sat with my dad. I learned years later my mum sat rows and rows away because she had a fear of flying. (Her first flight was in the 1960s to Spain. I’ve only learned recently how lucky my family were going abroad back then)
I applied to fly for Britannia in the 1994 when I was 20…then found out I was pregnant.
For years I’ve dreamed of plane crashes where I live (I also live a few streets away from Blackpool airport Uk) I think this was my dream of being a flight attendant being dashed.
Your mini documentaries are awesome! They don’t put me off flying. No pilot (unless very unstable) wants to have an accident. I appreciate your videos and find them super interesting. Thank you 🙏

[ZRosserMcIntosh]

I aboslutely love these videos. My father was a US Navy pilot and has continued flying small airplanes for 40 years now and has long encouraged me to get my pilot's license but watching these are really reigniting that fire! Thank you!!!