Nothing by chance

We all knew that we are in big trouble. The control column starts to shake,
warning us that the airplane is about to stall... The flight controls became
heavier, the airplane decelerates until the forest stood still beneath us. A few
seconds later, that's what happens, the aircraft stalls and starts rolling from
side to side, the pilots are helpless, then it enters in a huge spiral dive and
plummets towards the earth!
45 minutes earlier
"Let's roll 'er out on the grass, you can pull on that outboard wing strut
down near the bottom...", says captain. It was the brand new A320 on its
maiden voyage with passengers. It was a shame that we have to roll it on
grass. This was just until we reach the runway, then the fun starts. A quick
engine run up here before takeoff. Controls all free and working properly, oil
pressure and temperature pointing as they should. We have lined up and set up
for an unbelievably short takeoff. The throttle moves now, under my left hand,
all the way forward, until the thrust reaches its limit, until the EGT pointer
covers the red arc on the display, until every single instrument agrees with
what we are to do next. Crackling blast tumbles behind me and a hard twisting
sound rocks through the cockpit. I released the brakes. There is no instant rush
of speed, no head forced against the headrest, just a gentle push at the back.
This huge piece of metal starts to hurtle down the runway. Needle lifts to cover
80 knots, to cover 130 knots and with the gentle push at the control column the
nosewheel lifts higher and higher into the pitch darkness of the night. There is
no one except me and airplane together lifting us to its heart. We were
airborne. Two massive Rolls-Royce jet engines power the airplane through the
sky. But something was deadly wrong, it appears that we have lost almost all
pitch control. I struggle to keep the nose up, but no effect. The nose starts to
drop like a rock, lower and lower...
We started to slowly level off. With a detailed analysis, we realized that
there is a problem with the so called THS (Trimmable horizontal stabilizer). It's
set at full nose trim down, which is good news because triming it up will help
the airplane to climb again. But that never happens, it stays on full nose trim
down. Then we heard this amazingly strong rumbling sound which spreads
through the aircraft like a virus. We decided to descend to lower flight level
where denser air will provide more lift. The whole airplane was shaking.
Suddenly, as it starts rumbling, it shuts down. The A320 is designed to fly with
only one engine, but now it's in danger from losing them both...
As we lost an engine, we started to slow down, we were now nearing our
stalling speed. We all knew that we are in big trouble. The control column starts
to shake, warning us that the airplane is about to stall... The flight controls
became heavier, the airplane decelerates until the forest stood still beneath us.
A few seconds later, that's what happens, the aircraft stalls and starts rolling
from side to side, the pilots are helpless, then it enters in a huge spiral dive and
plummets towards the earth!
That's the moment when my heart started to pitter-patter a little bit. My
intrigued eyes started to flick from one instrument to another and back again,
without knowing what's crippled our jet. The G forces suddenly became

hazardous. From normal 1G to -2Gs which means the gravity is upside-down,

passengers are now double their weight and pushed to the ceiling! As we
struggle to stop the jet from crashing the G forces change direction! The
passengers pay the price, they are now pushed into their seats, feeling 5 times
their normal weight. Like a huge aluminium hawk, it swoops down and punches
through the clouds! The flight engineer tried to spool the engine up, but his
head is pinned to the pedestal and he cannot look back or advance the thrust
levers! The aircraft tremendously overspeeds, putting too much stress on the
fan blades and the engine which simply flames out and for the first time in
history, A320 loses both of its engines. We finally regain control. First there was
one surge of fear and at that point I felt the weight of my responsibility on my
shoulders, I as a crew member, if I don't do anything this crash could be fateful.
The whole airplane was quiet, you could feel the quietness. We are now at 5000
feet above the ground level and if we don't do anything to prevent this fall, the
A320 will crash in less than 2 minutes in a forest dead ahead of them. We tried
to relight the engines but there is no response. We have tried everything from
relighting the engines to squawking 7700, nothing we do seems to help. we
have started preparing for the worst - unground emergency! As we descend
through 1000 feet there is one last chance left to restart the engines, but this
time it works, an engine grumbles and comes back to life! Now we have much
more power on the left wing than the right which causes the airplane to skid.
Like a race car driver skidding through the turn, we somehow managed to stop
the jet from falling. We have tried over and over again to relight the other
engine but it won't start, it seems that this rumbling sound caused some
internal damage. Then we diverted to another airport which has longer runways
and better medical equipment. We have started preparing for the so called NDB
approach on runway 12. As we extend landing gear, flaps, slats the centar of
gravity has been changed and with THS problem its increasingly difficult to
establish certain vertical pitch. We have started our approach, but there is no
runway in sight. With a vicious airplane and being unable to make a go-around
we are committed to landing. Then we heard something that no pilot likes to
hear under these circumstances: -"Minimums, minimums!", the brain of A320
was telling us that we hit MDA (minimum descend altitude) which means if we
don't have a runway in sight we must go around.
I asked the captain:
- "What should we do?"
- "Well, certainly we cannot make a go around, do we have ground reference?",
he responded
- "Yes!"
- "We are proceeding on visual!"
All I could see through the angled windshield is the ground and silver blur
ahead of us, pretending to be a fog, where it should, I suppose, be the runway.
The river was wine beneath our wings. It poured deep purple from one side of
the valley to the other, and back again. The highway leaped across it once,
twice, twice more. We kept descending and descending..., it seems like forever.
At that point, nobody knew if we'll hit the runway or not, so the captain
grabbed the microphone and said to the passengers:
"Brace..., brace for impact!"
It was certain, with only 100 meters above ground and unable to make
basic maneuvers with a crippled jet, we are obviously crashing. Then some

flashing lights appeared on the windscreen. They were slightly to the right but
still ahead of us, when we realized that's the runway! As we tried to maintain
the altitude and align with the runway, disaster strikes again! At the worst
possible moment the engine overheats and a warning pops up right ahead of
us. We were looking at each other across the cockpit and thinking what to do
next. To shut down the engine? Let the engine to burn up? Is it going to
penetrate from the outside of the aircraft, is it going to come into the cabin?
Are we going to burn to death? Are we going to choke to death because of the
smoke? What's going to happen? What's causing it? What are we going to do
about it?
Nobody said a word in the cockpit, you could feel the vibration from the
peeved engine. The emergency escalates from bad to catastrophic. As we lined
up and closed in for a landing, the remaining engine engulfs in flames, it raves
loudly and becomes a fire ball going down the glide path near the runway.
There is no margin for error. The captain is out of engines, out of options! The
fire on board an aircraft is one of the most terrifying and almost always
disastrous things, in one word, it's a nightmare of every pilot. The fire on an
aircraft's aluminium skin is unbeatable, it's unpredictable, nearly always
calamitous and in an every segment perfect killer. Well, almost every segment,
it has one flaw, after an accident it's more than visible. You can see it, smell it,
feel it and that's a smokin' gun for the investigators. The fire was inevitable on
Nigeria Airways flight 2120 on July the 11th 1991. The smoke begins to seep
into the cabin just moments after takeoff. As the pilots tried to land flames
sweep through the entire cabin making the passengers impossible to breathe.
On the final approach, just 3 miles northwest of an airport, all that changes, as
the fire consume the whole airplane, it cuts through the vital components and it
breaks up in mid-air! All 261 passengers on board the airplane were,
unfortunately, killed. We are now in danger from having the same fate!
The crew is now comfronting the barrage of error messages from seemingly
unrelated systems.
It seems that we are failing in almost every conceivable way. There was no way
we could put this prodigious flying marvel safely to a complete stop. We tried to
sort the things out, but the warnings just kept coming and poping ahead like
the popcorns. We tried to disregard warnings and concentrat on our approach.
There is nothing in the world but me, airplane alive, and the runway threshold.
There were 2 master problems:
1. If we overshoot the runway we could hit the terrain which could rupture
the airplanes heavily loaded fuel tanks because of our reduced landing
capabilities (reduced amount of brake pressure applying on the tires, ailerons
not making the speed brake action, no thrust reverses...)
2. The problem is our speed, it decelerates and decelerates as we lost the
engines... If we slow down too much the airplane will stall again as it did before
and, believe me, you do not want that. One false step and it will send the
airplane into a terrifying plunge. Our options are severly limited now.
It's a precarious balancing act. This was a "long shoot". The controler spots the
fire and informs the fire department to be ready. The jet touches down very,
very rough it tears off a few pieces of landing gear struts and starts rolling
down the runway - very, very fast - blistering fast! This state of the art
technological marvel is gobbling up 80 meters per second of runway. My
experience was telling me that there is not enough runway, so I started to yell:

-"Brakes!"
-"I know!", he immediately responded
-"Brake harder! Brakes, full brakes Rich! Push them, press them, hit them,
bump 'em!"
-"My feet are flat to the floor!", Rich(captain) says
Finally, the airplane stops, with 120 meters desparity. But this was not the
end of the wild roller coaster ride! The fuel was leaking! This usually is not a
problem, but when flammable fuel drains near the 800C hot brakes it could
cause a fire. Now the question persists:
Should we evacuate? Is it safer for the passengers on the flammable soaked
runway?
It was all on the captain. The rescue team has arrived along with the fire trucks
which are securing the aircraft right now! There is still no response from the
captain. A flight attendant enters the cockpit and says: "Should we evacuate?".
The captain is quiet. We were looking at each other and nobody knew the
answer. Then the flight engineer stood up and said: "Screw everything,
evacuate now!", he knew when you initiate the evacuation you cannot stop it.
When you look at this mega gazlar standing on the runway, half teared off,
burned up and when you realize what those passengers have been put through,
it's a sight to behold! Fortunately, the flammable fuel did not ignite and once
again the pilots knowledge saves more than 150 people on board this aircraft!
If the engine is the heart of an aeroplane, the pilot is its soul!

NTSB (National transportation safety board) report after the accident:

The trimmable horizontal stabilizer is mounted on top of the 22 feet high
vertical stabilizer (known as a rudder - it controls the aircrafts yaw) in a T-tail
configuration. The THS has a span of about 55 feet and it splits in a left and
right outboard section. The leading edge of the THS can be raised for 13.5 and
lowered for 4. THS can be either moved electrically (by autopilot or the pilot's
input) or mechanically. The pilots use interconnected handwheels on each side
of centre pedestal to mechanically move trimmble horizontal stabilizer. It must
be mechanically linked to THS in case of any electrical interference, failures,
malfunctions or flight computers inoperatives. In case described above the
failure has accured in screwjack which drives the hydraulically pressurized
motors so it has been unable to move for a certain amount of time. The bird
strike has caused rumbling sound and surge (also known as compressor stall)
into the engine. As the crew flown through the cloud they were being unable to
see a bird coming from the opposite direction. The fuel leak was induced from a
bird damaging the fuel nozzles... The crew reacted extremely professionally
particularly in the event where the aircraft experienced an aerodynamic stall.
As far as the relighting of the engines is concerned they failed to do a key step
which led to unsuccessful engine restart - they should close the so called AIR
BLEED VALVE. The cabin of an airplane is gradually pressurized and
depressurized during takeoffs and landings. The air must be pumped into the
cabin to pressurized it and this is achieved by the engine. The aircrafts air
conditioning system takes the air from two places into the engine.

1. Place is called IP or intermediate pressure stage, it takes the air from

5th high pressure compressor stage and then it's send to precooler, which
cooles down the air, and it passes through air bleed valve, then pack flow
control valve, trim air valve and so on.
2. Place is HP or high pressure stage which takes the air from 9th high
pressure compressor stage to minimize the fuel penalty and it passes to the
same components as described above.
At low engine speed (engine idle) when the pressure and temperature of
the IP are too low the system bleeds air from HP stage. This principle
pressurizes the cabin through-out the flight. Now if you close air bleed valve the
engine uses all available air to restart. Whatever is left, however
improbable, it must be the cause! Despite the crews mishap they did
an amazing job and saved the lives of all 150 people which is the first
priority! Well done!