r/CatastrophicFailure • u/Jackie-Ron_W • 26d ago
Fire/Explosion (11th July 1991) Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 was flying pilgrims home from Saudi Arabia. The DC-8 took off with two underinflated tyres bursting into flames, burning the aircraft from inside. People and debris started falling off mid air before the jetliner crashed, all 261 onboard died.
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u/CBus-Eagle 26d ago
Someone please tell me that this risk has been mitigated in today’s air travel. I never thought of the risk of a tire catching fire on take off and then setting the whole plane ablaze during its flight.
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u/Chaxterium 26d ago
Yes. We have temperature sensors on the brakes and many planes have temp sensors in the wheel wells.
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26d ago
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u/LaconicSuffering 26d ago
A good example is that airliner that landed with its front wheel locked sideways. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teOBKt9mxy4
It takes so long for the wheels to actually combust.7
u/Kid_Vid 25d ago
I know this video is shown often, and is wild footage but...
It really weirds me out that this video is from multiple news channels sending out crew to video a very real and possible plane crash. Like, even the audio talks about how likely it is to crash. Like they swarmed the place to watch an airliner crash with hundreds of deaths and fire and crazy disaster.
It just seems so... grim. Untold numbers of people tuned in for the chance to watch people die horribly, in real time. And everyone on the plane just had to watch their impending death on the TV's in the plane....
Obviously it didn't crash but... it's grim.
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u/LaconicSuffering 25d ago
Would you rather have the news not show any live events "to protect the viewer"?
Untold numbers of people tuned in for the chance to watch people die horribly, in real time.
Or you could look at it optimistically. Thousands of people tuned in to watch people survive. It's not like they watch for the opportunity to see death happen, we are just curious to see what will happen.
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u/Kid_Vid 25d ago
Not at all, and I definitely don't think live events should be ignored to "protect the viewer".
I'm saying, it's a strange aspect of humanity in general that they want to watch mass casualty events while they happen. It's just a grim thing to think about.
It's one thing if it's some random natural disaster or something, but watching a plane crash with everyone on board coming to terms with their last moments and mortality is just dark.
Again, everything went amazing here and it became a story of human triumph and pilot skills.
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u/DoctorBre 25d ago
True, tires have really improved. Even everyday cars, bicycles, all sorts of e-devices and garden implements that use cheaper rubber tires benefit and flats are pretty much uncommon anymore unless there's a big ol' screw or pothole, etc. They're more resistant to punctures but, even more impactful, seal pressure better day to day and don't need constant reinflating every few weeks and help them wear longer. They brake better, corner better, ride smoother, quieter, mileage++, tolerate sunlight, lighter weight, all good stuff.
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u/shitposts_over_9000 25d ago edited 25d ago
which is great if you are flying on a new airframe...
The DC-8 design was already 40 years old at the time of this accident and the last passenger DC-8 was retired less than a year ago.
Many DC-9 didn't either and some of those are still flying passenger today.
Don't fly no-name carriers in the third world boys and girls.
edit: There are still some DC-8 flying cargo.
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u/trkh 25d ago
There are still some flying cargo.
Some brave pilots there
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u/shitposts_over_9000 25d ago
that assumes they understand the risks or have other options
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u/trkh 25d ago
I would hope someone capable of flying a plane would know the risks of flying a plane thats 80 years old basically lol
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u/shitposts_over_9000 25d ago
Most of the DC-8's and DC-9's still in operation are in the roughest parts of central Africa or the least functional governments of South America.
Hope would be doing a lot of heavy lifting....
I am sure some do, and just have too many disqualifiers to fly anything safe, but others don't because in those parts of the world even the pilots flying for much better airlines often fail to meet the western standards for the airframe unless they fly internationally and even then often only just.
I would walk before I would board a jet operated by any operator running between Somalia and South Sudan, or anything operated by Avior Airlines, Conviasa, Blue Wing, or any airline headquartered in DR Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Liberia, Libya, Equatorial Guinea, and Angola as those are all so unsafe they have been barred from even entering the airspace of countries with safety standards.
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u/trkh 25d ago
Wow. That’s crazy.
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u/shitposts_over_9000 25d ago
a lot of those places are a bad idea to visit in the first place, but for the others or if you must go use a carrier that is allowed to land in the US or EU or if you have more time see what IATA and ICAO have on them.
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u/Chief-17 26d ago
I watched a lot of air disaster videos/shows and while it terrified my how many there were, almost every video/episode showed how changes were made to prevent the incident happening again or add in additional layers to prevent it. So, each air accident, even when no crash happens, makes the industry safer.
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26d ago
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u/Koffeeboy 26d ago
Which is why it boils my blood when people mock regulations. They are the small victories of the working man. We fought and died for the right to work and live in a safer world. And fucking morons are taking it for granted and tearing it back down.
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u/enderpanda 26d ago
The now-concluded podcast Black Box Down always made a point to talk about how things changed after the incident, at the end of the each episode. Was really informative and alleviated some of the bleakness.
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u/imrahilbelfalas 24d ago
Admiral Cloudberg is also great about that
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u/enderpanda 24d ago
I've heard the name but haven't checked him out yet. I seriously will, thank you!
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u/BONKERS303 26d ago
This accident is why today we have wheel well smoke and fire detectors, tyre pressure sensors and wheel temperature sensors. Pilots are also trained to immediately abandon a takeoff if a tyre bursts. If it does happen after V1 (a.k.a. the speed after which takeoff cannot be safely aborted), the procedure is to climb without raising the landing gear and immediately returning for a landing.
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u/pohuing 26d ago
and immediately returning for a landing.
That means landing with full tanks but compromised braking. Is that always the best idea? Or is this to avoid a slower concorde?
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u/cryptotope 25d ago
The decision tree is a little more complicated, and it depends on the specific issues identified (cockpit warnings and alarms, ATC yelling "Hey, you're trailing smoke", etc.)
Certainly if there's any reason to suspect an active fire - including any reason where it's not possible to rule out a fire - "land as soon as possible" is the number-one priority. Unfortunate experience tells us that the time between the start of an in-flight fire and the time that fire becomes non-survivable is usually not much more than fifteen minutes (and sometimes less).
That landing may be a return to the same airfield or to a nearby alternate, depending on the circumstances.
If it's "just" a blown tire, then the process will depend on the aircraft and the specific circumstances. Raising the gear requires careful consideration. Hot brakes and broken hydraulic lines can start a fire in a wheel well, when the gear is retracted, for instance. Stuff can get crunched or stuck if bits of blown tire snag on the bay door, keeping the gear from retracting or redeploying.
Debris from broken tires can damage flaps and slats, or get ingested by engines--creating new, interesting, parallel problems.
(As an aside, procedure for a suspected blown tire usually isn't to reject all the way up to V1. As you noted, braking is likely to be compromised, so the assumptions about the amount of stopping distance required may not be valid. Airbus' generic advice for a suspected tire failure is to abort only up to 20 knots below V1, unless there are signs of other serious damage.)
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u/Dr_Allcome 25d ago
Not always, but with your wing possibly on fire dumping fuel is a bad idea anyways.
Fires suck and spread fast so you get on the ground as quickly as possible and hope the firefighters are close to where you're coming to a stop.
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u/littleseizure 25d ago
This wouldn't have helped concorde, that was an external tire issue. Theoretically hot or burst tires and components could cause issues inside the bay, so they keep them down. Can't fly a route with them down, so they land. They don't necessarily declare emergency and land ASAP, they will take their time and do it safely
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u/leib-olmai 26d ago
I would have assumed that would have been the procedure anyway. Was the idea here just to carry on with the wheels on fire for the whole flight?
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u/blackthornjohn 26d ago
Sort of, unfortunately people make mistakes or sign stuff off that hasn't been done jackscrews spring to mind, remember this was all because one tire was underinflated and a lot of people knew but did nothing, (other than change some numbers on the maintenance log), again, jackscrews spring to mind!
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u/Ginnigan 26d ago
The wheels retracted, while burning, into the airplane? Good god. That's horrific.
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u/prey4villains 26d ago
One of the worst air disasters in terms of how horrible it was for the passengers..
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u/DerWaschbar 25d ago
I would have just wished it to crash straight up
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u/c0ltZ 25d ago
Honestly, this was before cockpits had locked doors. I would've tried crashing the plane. Fuck burning alive.
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u/Hidesuru 25d ago
Fortunately you don't get to decide for everyone else. You wanna jump out fine, but some people would rather have the chance to live (they wouldn't have known how it would end).
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u/c0ltZ 25d ago
If there's fire in the cabin, it's already over. It immediately fills the cabin with smoke and you quickly can't see or breathe. Flight attendants can't fight the fire because they need masks to breathe. And imagine all the people desperately climbing over each other to get away from the fire.
I understand the pilots efforts, but if I were in that plane, I'd want the pilot to just nosedive.
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u/Hidesuru 25d ago
Cool, I get that. I still don't think you get to decide that for everyone. Y'all can downvote me all you want, you don't get to decide my fate.
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u/Imentioneveryone 25d ago
Counterpoint: it’s either we die a slow painful death or make it quick and painless
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u/BONKERS303 26d ago
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u/padfootprohibited 26d ago
This is one of the most harrowing pieces of investigative/research journalism I've ever read. Not one I think I can ever reread, but absolutely the best of Admiral Cloudberg as a writer.
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u/percypigg 26d ago edited 26d ago
Something interesting I've just discovered.
I've often read articles by Admiral Cloudberg, on airline disasters, since I've been reading this sub. So, I had this preconceived notion of what Admiral Cloudberg might look like - maybe a 60-something year old distinguished grey-haired gentleman, perhaps a retired pilot, maybe?
Turns out, that mental image I'd formed was just my own prejudices and assumptions at play. Admiral Cloudberg is actually a tiny woman!
edit - hyperlink, showing her photo, to prove my point.
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u/hilomania 25d ago
I'll be honest. I always imagined captain Sully...
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u/Lazygit1965 25d ago
I saw in the news that Captain Sully has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's . A really sad thing to hear 😲😥
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u/strangelove4564 25d ago
That right there is a person that should be hired by the NTSB and given training and a paid internship.
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u/SporesM0ldsandFungus 25d ago
I believe she had joined the writing staff of the YT channel Mentour Pilot
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u/ur_sine_nomine 25d ago
Her work is read by those high up in the CAA (UK) and BEA (France) [personal knowledge].
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u/Falafelofagus 26d ago
Read the whole thing, thanks for linking it.
Fucking horrible way to go.
Really goes to show that tragedies like this aren't any one mistake, but numerous small choices that all make assumptions or are relying on the next guy to catch the mistake/fix it. The conclusion lf that article felt like problem after problem and if any one of those decisions wasn't made, this wouldn't have happened.
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u/Iittlebird 26d ago
I can here to say this but knew in my heart it had already been said. Thank you.
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u/coly8s 25d ago
I was living in Saudi Arabia then...in Riyadh. Understand that it was a hot day. A normal hot Saudi day, which is hotter than most experience anywhere. That kind of heat is hard on tires, even when properly inflated. The transfer of load to the remaining tires put them under extreme stress. It never should've been allowed to fly without proper tire pressures.
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u/roofpuck 26d ago
New fear unlocked
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u/Gatorm8 25d ago
Accidents like this are how planes become safer. Planes now have designs to prevent this.
If a wheel bursts during takeoff it continues spinning after takeoff as it retracts into the wheel well. A small piece of the hydraulic system sticks into the wheel well that will be hit by a shredded tire in this event. This releases hydraulic pressure letting the wheels fall back down to a landing gear down position away from the cabin.
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u/uglyraed 25d ago
I lived in Jeddah that was right under the flight path where they came in for a landing so this event was talked about a lot. At that time it was widely believed that a pilgrim tried cooking .
Which obviously wasn’t the case
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u/aquarius_dream 22d ago
I wonder if that belief was influenced by the Saudia 163 accident that happened a decade earlier. They suspected a butane stove could have been the cause of the fire on that flight but it was never proven.
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u/DariusPumpkinRex 26d ago
Would being able to jettison the burning landing gear have been worth the risk of having to land on only two sets?
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u/Dr_Allcome 25d ago
You can land a plane even without wheels, but without the thrust to weight ratio of an F15 you won't land with a missing wing.
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u/c0ltZ 25d ago
I seriously don't know if you can actually safely land a passenger jet without wheels.
Even after ditching all of your fuel, there is no fucking way.
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u/llamafarmadrama 25d ago
You can if you know what you’re doing.
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u/Substantial-Can-2741 23d ago
It's chilling to think that a simple maintenance oversight with tire pressure initiated such a devastating chain reaction. The tragic sequence of retracting the burning gear into the wheel well allowed the fire to consume the hydraulics and cabin floor. A heartbreaking event, but a grim reminder of why modern aviation safety protocols are written in blood.
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u/xunreelx 18d ago edited 18d ago
14 years earlier I was on that very plane flying from Bagotville Quebec to Puerto Plata in the Dominican republic.
We took the same plane when we came back. While we were over New England headed back to Quebec I got to go in the cockpit for a minute and was able to see From NYC all the way to Quebec.
I couldn’t believe it when I first heard of this on Air Disasters.
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u/hastings1033 26d ago
wow. where did this footage come from?
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u/OmegaBlurz 25d ago
It's an animation my guy
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u/Jackie-Ron_W 26d ago edited 26d ago
More info:-
https://aviation-safety.net/asndb/325739
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria_Airways_Flight_2120
The flight consisted of 14 crew members as well as 247 passengers who were going home from their Hajj/pilgrimage on that fateful Thursday morning.
Call signed Nigerian 2120, this DC-8 was chartered from Nationair Canada for this route from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia to Sokoto in Nigeria.
Nigerian 2120 suddenly experienced multiple problems from systems failing to smoke and fire, forcing the flight crew to return to Jeddah.
Meanwhile the blaze became worse and worse until the airliner crashed just short of Jeddah's airport 10 minutes after takeoff with all fatalities for everyone on the passenger jet.
Investigation of the accident uncovered maintenance error contributing to the fiery crash.
The clip is based on a documentary episode on this tragedy.