Anybody who’s boarded a plane knows the feeling.
After you find your seat, put your stuff in the overhead locker, and sit down – your
mind now recovering from the hustle-and-bustle of getting to the airport and through security
to find your gate –apprehension starts to creep in.
You try to push it away, convince yourself that thousands of planes fly every single
day.
“Nothing will go wrong.
It’s just a routine flight.
Relax.”
And that’s right!
Your odds of being in some air catastrophe are 1 in 11 million!
But these things do happen, like the story of Orenair Flight 554.
So buckle up, it’s going to be a -- well you know how the saying goes…
The Russian airliner was departing from Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic and heading
to Moscow.
This was a routine 12-hour direct flight, full of happy, tanned Russian tourists who,
I imagine, had just had the time of their lives on a long-awaited sunny beach vacation
in escape of the cold February weather back home.
There were 351 passengers on board, along with 20 crewmembers.
At around 6pm local time, after the pilots had done all the necessary inspections and
checks, the huge Boeing-777 was ready for take-off.
It accelerated down the runway, the wheels left the ground, and the plane began its ascent.
Everything was going smoothly, people were either chatting, listening to music, or closing
their eyes to get some rest.
After all, they had a long flight ahead of them, might as well spend most of those 12
hours snoozing!
Well, turns out, the flight wasn’t quite as long as it should’ve been…
Just 15 minutes after their successful take-off, the pilots noticed that the plane stopped
climbing at 12,000 feet (3,700 m).
It just wouldn’t go any higher to the 31,000 feet (9,500 m) of altitude that it needed.
Before the cockpit even had time to notify air traffic control about the altitude issue,
a loud clap was heard throughout the cabin.
Then, the plane started to descend about 1,000 feet (300 m).
Passengers had heard the bang and felt the plane start to fall, but they didn’t really
know what was going on.
Most figured the jet was hitting a little turbulence.
(Those are the things we tell ourselves to shoo away the rising sense of panic, right?
“Nothing’s wrong.
It’s routine.
Relax…”)
They carried on with their quiet flight, but that didn’t last long.
A couple of minutes later, everyone was startled by the sound of metal screeching.
There was no denying it now: something was definitely wrong, and this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill
turbulence.
Everyone in the cabin got uneasy.
“What’s going on?”
“What was that sound?”
“Is everything ok?”
Not even a minute had gone by when thick black smoke started to puff out of the left wing.
That’s when it became clear: where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and that left engine
was in flames!
In the flight deck, the engine failure alarm was already going off, and the cabin was now
starting to fill up with smoke.
Captain Konstantin Parikozha and co-pilot Igor Kravtzov had to decide within seconds
on what they should do next.
In such dire situations, there are certain safety protocols that need to be followed
in order to keep everyone safe.
Pilots and crew don’t panic – they act.
So, first, the pilots contacted air traffic control, switched the flaming engine off,
and turned the plane around and headed back to Punta Cana for an emergency landing.
As for the cabin crew, they made sure to keep everyone calm and prevent panic from ensuing.
Now, the biggest problem in this situation (other than, ya know, the plane being on fire)
was that, since they’d only been in the air for 20 minutes or so, the Boeing-777 was
still full of fuel – and lots of it!
With 80 tons in the tanks, the huge jet had been filled up to make the 12-hour transatlantic
flight.
All of this means that the risks for the emergency landing were sky high.
The plane was too heavy, so the danger was that it would hit the ground too hard and
ignite that jet fuel.
But a skilled pilot can land a plane smoothly, even if it’s too heavy and, thus, harder
to glide down smoothly.
However, there’s another problem when it comes to landing overweight planes.
You see, the heavier a plane is, the faster it’s going when it touches the ground since
all that mass has more momentum.
So, it’ll require more braking, which leads to more friction and heat being created, likely
resulting in the landing gear catching on fire.
Put two and two together, and you quickly understand that fire plus a full tank of jet
fuel isn’t a good combination – this kind of emergency landing could end with the plane
exploding.
Plus, they already had a fire on the left engine!
And to make matters even worse (I know, I also thought it couldn’t get any more catastrophic),
even if they still managed to land without overheating the brakes or setting all that
fuel ablaze, they still ran the risk of overshooting the runway because the plane needed more distance
to come to a full stop with such a high speed and more weight.
So, as you can see, the odds of performing a safe landing were stacked against them.
Normally, if a plane with a full tank needs to make an emergency landing, it’ll circle
the airspace over the airport several times to burn enough fuel to reach a safe landing
weight.
This is called “fuel dumping” in the aviation sphere.
And it works well since planes use up more fuel at lower altitudes.
Even with one working engine, that would’ve been an option had the other turbine not been
on fire.
But the real sense of emergency came when the cabin started to fill with smoke.
That meant the passengers’ and crewmembers’ lives were at risk RIGHT NOW.
The pilots had no other choice: they needed to get this jet on the ground and fast, even
if it was severely overweight and the chances of success were slim to none.
The pilots had to act quickly, so that meant landing with their fuel tanks full.
The crew was mentally prepared for the worse, but they wouldn’t let all those passengers
recognize it.
They kept their professionalism and were prepared to do the best they could to land the plane
safely with everyone on board calm and unharmed.
The Boeing began to descend while the turbine was still on fire.
The captain and co-pilot turned the AC off as well as the ventilation to avoid overloading
the engine anymore than it already was.
Then came the landing.
They were, indeed, going too fast, they needed to brake more harshly, the brakes overheated,
and the wheels did catch on fire.
But the pilots were prepared for that because, like I said, that’s what happens when you
land an overweight jet, especially one of this size.
While landing, the engine fire had stopped for a moment.
But once the plane made a full stop, it started up again, this time even stronger.
But what happened next was a true miracle.
The plane managed to come to a full and smooth stop without running out of runway.
Immediately after that, the emergency evacuation started.
People were strictly instructed to leave their belongings because this plane could explode
at any minute.
One-by-one, all passengers and crewmembers got off the plane using the inflatable slides.
The runway had already been closed to prepare for the plane’s emergency landing (and probably
for the worst-case scenario).
Aircraft rescuers as well as fire fighters were already at the scene trying to put out
the fires.
Miraculously, all 351 passengers got off the plane safely without any injuries.
The crew then followed.
And right there on the spot, the plane’s crew was met with applause.
Not only did they manage to land the plane safely while all the odds were against them,
but they saved 371 lives professionally and efficiently.
After the landing, aircraft engineers carried out all the necessary inspections and found
out that the fire was caused by an engine failure on the 11-year-old plane.
But pilot error was not the cause here.
Captain Parikozha had done all the necessary safety inspections and examined the plane
himself before taking off, and it appeared that everything was working just fine.
The chances of a problem popping up like that and an engine failing during a flight are
extremely low, but it does happen.
Not long after the heroic landing, Captain Konstantin Parikozha and co-pilot Igor Kravtsov
were awarded The Order of Courage for handling the situation so skillfully and saving everyone’s
lives.
Some passengers involved have even admitted that they call February 10, 2016 their 2nd
birthday.
Yeah, I’d probably feel like I’d been given new life too!
So, Bright Siders, do you know any other stories about amazing pilot landings?
Please share them down in the comments!
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