(aeroplane engine roaring)
- I've flown about over 2000 commercial flights
and about 3 million miles, I often get asked
this question a lot,
Sam, what's your worst flight experience?
Or have you ever got really scared from flying?
There was one time I got really, really scared from flying.
There was a potential bomb on board
on the Siberian illusion 86 flight I flew in 2004.
It was such a scary chilling experience
that I'd like to share with you today.
(air whooshing)
So what's flying an L86 really like?
Take a look at this incredible video footage.
(plane engine roaring)
Incredible low takeoff,
incredible noisy.
(air plane engine roaring)
With a lots of vibration inside, especially the rare cabin.
(aeroplane cabin roaring)
You pave for the whole runway and you use
the whole runway for takeoff.
That's how to describe an L86 take off.
- (pilot murmuring)
(speaking in foreign language)
(aeroplane engine beeping)
It's actually the first wide body aeroplane
made Soviet Union design in the 1970s.
It's actually also the world's second four engine
wide body aeroplane just after the Boeing 747.
The illusion 86, is actually looks like an Airbus A340
with four engine just without the winglets.
So many people call them the Soviets Airbus
or the Soviet Aero bus.
So the design theory behind the L86
was to have the aeroplane capable operate out of any air few,
that lack of infrastructure lack of the air bridge,
so it has his own pulldown staircase to open,
so passenger can more from the front
and the rear staircase into the lower deck.
And then they store their baggage there
and then they can proceed to walk up upper deck
upstairs to sit down which is extremely spacious
without the centre bins.
(upbeat music)
So the design of the aeroplane seats
in the Soviet time was also very unique
different to the Western seat we've seen.
The fendosal is actually directly mounted on the sick back.
The aeroplane has for Kuznetsova Anki 86
low bypass turbofan engine.
Each of these engine are capable to generate 28,600 pounds
of thrust, which is well below 747
which is typically around 50,000 pounds of thrust.
So because of these low performance on these engines,
the aeroplane has a limited range
about 4000 to 5000 kilometre with a full payload
of 350 passenger.
Typically an L86 takeoff is extremely shallow on the cloud
and literally use up the whole runway to take off.
I have seen one take off
from Phuket, Thailand, the ticket was so late,
it rotated pass the piano keys and pass the runway marking
and it just got up literally at the end,
there is a beach and it kicks up a lot of sand
when it rotated and anyone's on the beach at that time
it will be very hazardous, it's so incredibly dangerous.
(air whooshing)
So in September 2004, I made my first visit to Russia.
(upbeat music)
My aim was to fly as many Soviet aeroplanes type as possible.
I had a very successful trip of that time,
I flown on the Siberia airline, like this one here, L86
in a very, very hybrid colour of the New covo Airlines colour
from Beijing, China, through Siberia,
Novosibirsk onto Moscow.
During the whole seven days trip, I flown on
the incredible types like it was L62, 11154B, 11154M,
YAK40, 11134, and of course the L86.
(upbeat music)
Flashback after a week of aviation trivia in Russia
on my last flight out of Russia, I was back on flying
the L86 out of Novosibirsk on a great trip in Russia,
in Moscow and lots of places and I was sitting
in the rare of this Siberia airline L86 windows sitting
in the left just like this.
And suddenly things happened.
So what happened was two very suspicious looking person
just went to the bathroom in the rare.
You know the bathroom in the L860 is in the rare,
it's a block of bathroom.
They came out of toilet and then they asked
flight attendant they want to leave the aeroplane,
they said they don't want to fly anymore.
So there were passengers sitting in a rare
and all hearing you know these two guys were in a request
to leave the plane they had an argument broke out
with a flight attendants in Russians
and then the passenger started gossiping
and then all you can hear in English word
they said bombs, bombs, bombs, so passenger were petrified.
They were worried about the planted
the bomb in the bathroom.
You know, at that point, a lot of passengers
are ready grabbing their staff and they are telling
the flight attendant they want to leave their aeroplane.
They don't want to fly anymore.
The tension was high after the two person wants to leave
the aeroplane because that week in Russia,
there was a school in southern Russia being siege
by a lots of rebels.
And there were 333 people got killed in that massacre
and 700 got injured.
So everybody was really fragile in their mind
and Russia was in a state of high alert.
You know, they could be easily and a bomb went off
in an aeroplane like this.
So we were very nervous.
So I was sitting here, anxiously waiting
with other passengers.
And suddenly I can see security forces,
even with sniffer dogs came on board.
They came on more searching.
And suddenly we were just told
to leave the aeroplane at once.
So we all stood up and leaving the aeroplane.
So all the passenger including myself,
we all go back to the terminal and everybody
have to come through to security again.
And then everybody got hand searched
and later, everybody got questions.
So after all the heavy security check and questioning,
we were just told to sit here in the terminal and wait,
we don't know what's going to happen.
We're anxious whenever the plane will get cancelled
or we come back to flying under day
or we go back to fly the same flight.
There were no video and pictures allow.
So after three hours of waiting in the terminal,
we ought to uncertainty, suddenly there was an announcement.
We were told the plane is ready
and go back to boarding and fly.
So we bought it back on our fly and took the same seats
on the same plane again, it wasn't easy.
All the people were not feeling easy.
There were quite a few people who couldn't manage,
they changed the plane.
They don't want to fly on the same aeroplane.
And those two very suspicious looking person
were never actually boarded back on the same plane,
they were not there.
So we finally took off at 5 a.m
out of Novosibirsk in Siberia.
(air plane engine roaring)
Looking out the window, oh my god,
it was so low to take off.
But it was so loud as well.
The whole Siberia probably can fill the noise
of the L86 take off.
That's how loud it was.
And during the flight, the plane in the back,
especially the tail section, it shook violently
because we were flying over a low troth,
a low water pressure system.
All over Siberia, we were cruising at 35,000 feet.
But it wasn't high enough,
the weather system was still above us.
You know, I really enjoy flying usually.
But there was never a moment like that flight.
I wanted to leave the aeroplane.
The whole plane was shaking and going up and down
through the turbulence for four hours.
It was terrible.
You know, there was never a moment I want to leave
the aeroplane so early like this one.
But I was rather glad after four hours,
we finally landed safely in Beijing,
and I got out of the plane.
Up into this date, I never actually found out
what exactly happened, there was never an explanation.
So that was my scariest flight experience,
I hope you enjoy watching it.
It was such a high tension moment and it wasn't allowed
to take pictures or videos.
However, I am glad that I survived that scary experience
at the end and I flown the L86 four more times in my life.
(air plane engine beeping)
- (talking in foreign language)
- [Sam] So sadly because this is such
an inefficient aeroplane with high fuel burn rates,
the L86 withdrew from service
from commercial fly around 2010.
There were only four example left,
now flying we Russian Air Force as an Air Command Post.
(aeroplane engine roaring)
(air whooshing)