I'm Greg Feith, former NTSB Air Safety Investigator.

I'm here today to answer your questions from the internet.

This is Aviation Accident Support.

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ILLDeaL_Q asks, Got my window seat.

Anybody know where the safest spot is

to sit on an airplane?

The best place to sit is where you can access an exit:

over the wings or close proximity

to either the forward exit or the rear exit.

Count the seats between the exit in front of you

and the exits behind you,

because airplane crashes, unfortunately, don't occur

where the airplane is upright.

It could be upside-down,

it could be at night, it could be on fire.

You may not be able to stand up. You may have to crawl.

Knowing your position in relation

to the closest exit is your best bet.

Quora asks, What do pilots say to the passengers

of a plane when it is crashing?

Is it like in the movies, or is it completely different?

One of the statements that you may hear is,

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a situation.

We have a problem with the engine. It's under control.

Don't worry about it. We're gonna divert.

That's a benign situation.

In a catastrophic,

or at least a more dire or urgent situation,

you may not hear from the flight crew at all.

If anything, you may hear, Brace for impact

because impact with the ground is imminent,

but you're not gonna hear a long discussion

from the flight crew because their priority is to try

and prevent the accident.

Monkishine asks, I am amazed that a flock

of birds can bring a plane down.

How can this be?

The size of the bird is what really matters.

There have been a number of events

that have taken place over the years,

the most recent one in history,

that a movie was made out of,

called A Miracle on the Hudson,

involving Captain Sully Sullenberger

and First Officer Jeff Skiles.

The airplane had just taken off out of LaGuardia Airport.

They were climbing out,

and they ran through a flock of geese at about 3,000 feet.

Unfortunately, those geese were sucked into the engine.

With engines, they are built to withstand bird strikes

to a certain extent, but when you look at a 20-pound goose,

that's like throwing a bowling ball

into the front end of an airplane

at two or 300 miles an hour.

The airplane then turned into a giant glider.

The flight crew had to make a decision

and put the airplane down in the water.

There are other elements of bird strikes.

One of the bird strike accidents

that I investigated several years ago involved an aircraft

that was going into Sioux Falls, South Dakota at night,

and the pilots had forgotten one item on a checklist:

windshield heat.

Now, the windows on an airplane,

because it's pressurized, are very thick.

Because it flies at high altitude

and the window gets cold-soaked,

we heat the windshields to temper the glass

so that if something does strike it, it will not shatter.

But that one missed item on a checklist

put this flight crew in peril.

This is a picture from inside the cockpit

of a bird that was struck.

It was a two-pound duck,

came through an inch-and-a-half piece of glass.

The remnants then struck the captain, almost killed him.

The first officer had enough presence of mind,

got on the flight controls

and actually successfully landed the airplane.

I investigated a small general aviation accident

where a very large bird, 22 pounds,

actually came through the windscreen and struck both pilots,

a flight instructor and a student, killed both of them.

We build aircraft to mitigate these kinds of dangers,

but you can't build a bird-proof aircraft.

Nw18Graphics asks, During which flight stages

do most aviation accidents occur?

Takeoff and landing.

We rarely have in-flight events at cruise altitude.

Everything is working properly,

the airplane's typically on autopilot.

Takeoff, you're heavy, low, and slow,

so those are the most critical time,

you're putting the most strain on engines.

And then, of course, landing.

Even though you're lighter, you're approaching the ground,

and so if there's any kind of weather event, wind shear,

downdrafts, your margin of safety is decreased.

If we're so close to the ground

and we're not going that fast, are we going to survive

or do we have a better chance of survival?

Yes, but you also have a better chance

of survival even in flight.

If you look at an airplane that was built

in the 1940s or 1950s or '60s,

today, the airplanes are so much better

as far as their structure.

They have certain collapse zones.

They have certain structures that break

to absorb the energy.

Seats are better on airplanes.

They can withstand higher G-loads than those accidents

that occurred with older airplanes.

Basic Baka: Which accident investigation reports had

the biggest impact on the industry,

or were the most controversial when they came out?

The one that is probably the most controversial

is Malaysian Air MH370,

the airplane that disappeared over the South Indian Ocean.

One of the reasons that I think &MH370 has had

such an impact is the fact that it's a mystery.

There's 2,000 feet of silt on the bottom

of the ocean floor there.

If the airplane settled into that 2,000 feet of silt,

you will never see that aircraft because it's so deep.

And in fact, the geography is like the Rocky Mountains.

If it crashed into one of the crevasses

in that mountainous terrain,

it may look like the terrain,

so any side-scan sonar

or any other technology may miss the aircraft.

One other controversial accident is TWA 800.

That was the aircraft

that blew up off the coast of New York.

There are a lot of conspiracy theorists out there

that still think that that airplane was shot down

rather than having a mechanical malfunction

in the center fuel tank

that ended up leading to an explosion.

Kate Neuens asks, Where is Malaysia Airlines flight 370?

Where did it go? Will it ever be found?

These are questions that keep me up at night.

Where is Malaysia Airlines?

It's in the middle of the South Indian Ocean on the bottom.

Where did it go?

22,000 feet deep on the bottom of the South Indian Ocean.

Will it ever be found? Possibly.

These are the questions that keep a lot

of people up at night because it's the mystery.

This was an intentional act. This was not an accident.

The airplane flew for seven hours.

It ended up in a place where it shouldn't have ended up,

and the only way it could have gotten there is by a pilot

or pilots who navigated the airplane

to the South Indian Ocean.

People have said, Well, there was an in-flight fire.

Well, there's no evidence to suggest that,

and, two, if there was an in-flight fire,

the airplane wouldn't have been able to fly for seven hours.

Was there some sort of nefarious act

where somebody got into the electronics bay

and did something with all the navigation stuff,

and, of course, the airplane is sitting

on an island somewhere, covered by jungle?

No. You can't bury or hide a Boeing 777 very easily.

There are a lot of other conspiracy theories.

The most likely event was an intentional act.

GodisGood4U_ asks,

Why do planes not have parachutes by now?

Because it would cost weight.

You couldn't build a parachute big enough

to bring a 747 down.

And as far as passengers being issued a parachute,

one, you'd have to train them.

Two, you'd never get out of an airplane.

When would you use it?

Given the fact that accidents happen during landing

and takeoff, you're already close to the ground.

A parachute wouldn't be of any value to you.

AndrewDixon8 asked the question,

Can planes fly/land during thunderstorms?

Yes, airplanes can land in thunderstorms, to an extent.

Pilots don't intentionally fly in thunderstorms.

Occasionally they will inadvertently

encounter a thunderstorm.

One of the accidents that I investigated,

American Airlines 1420 at Little Rock, Arkansas,

the pilots did, unfortunately, make a bad decision

to try and fly into thunderstorm activity,

landing the airplane at night.

In this particular picture,

the black line represents the initial flight path

of the aircraft.

You can see the red over the top part of the airport.

In aviation, we say, Red is dead.

The aircraft started to hydroplane

and, unfortunately, struck a very stout structure

that ripped the airplane open

and, unfortunately, resulted in 12 fatalities.

We want to know what was going on with the flight crew,

so we used the flight data recorder

and the cockpit voice recorder

to really put the big picture together for investigators.

The captain made this comment to the first officer

as they were trying to find the airport:

I hate droning around visually, at night, in weather

without having some clue where I am.

That comment in and of itself requires the pilots to abandon

what they were doing because it's only gonna get worse.

And, unfortunately, in this particular accident,

it got worse.

Almostglo3d asks, Denzel Washington saying,

'I was drunk' on 'Flight' was diabolical.

It was storyline, it was compelling. It was a parody.

On the morning of the accident-

I was drunk.

Yes, Denzel Washington was a spectacular pilot.

He was able, even in a drunk state,

to roll the airplane inverted and save the day,

but in real life, that would never happen.

While are issues that we see today in commercial

and in private aviation regarding substance abuse,

the system itself will trapline those pilots

or crew members that have access to the flight controls.

Those pilots would never see the cockpit

and never put that airplane into the same position

that Denzel Washington did.

So the best place to enjoy that kind

of storyline is at the movies.

Mdizi_16 asks,

What happens if a window on a plane cracks?

Does everybody die?

If you're at low altitude,

the aircraft will depressurize,

but it won't be a catastrophic explosion or decompression.

If you're at high altitude, 35,000 feet,

there will be a lot of debris,

and, unfortunately, we've had people

that were sucked out of the aircraft.

That change in pressure is what causes the vacuum

or things to then get sucked out of the aircraft

'til the pressure equalizes.

If you're strapped in, you will survive.

Nuggetpalooza asks, Is anyone familiar enough

with the Sully case that knows if the NTSB was out

to get Sullenberger in real life

as they appear in the movie?

The movie, in my opinion,

10 minutes of fact, 90 minutes of fiction.

Human-piloted simulation showed

that you could make it back to the airport.

No, they don't.

The NTSB was not out to get Sullenberger

or any other pilot.

The NTSB in its normal interview process always asks,

Tell us your story. Tell us what happened.

Let's look at the procedures you followed.

Why did you make these decisions?

Unfortunately for the movie, it wasn't compelling enough.

Sometimes facts are boring.

Fearlessflyer1 asks,

The probability of being killed in an airplane accident

is one in...

It's actually one in 11 million.

Aviation is the safest form of transportation,

bar none, around the world.

Your chances of getting struck by lightning are greater.

Definitely your chances of getting killed

in an automobiles accident are greater.

We have more train accidents, bus accidents,

pedestrian accidents.

You have a higher probability of getting hurt

or killed riding your bicycle

or crossing the street than being involved

in a fatal airplane accident.

Mindofrob asks,

What if 'Snakes on a Plane' really happened?

If they really happened, put your feet up on the seat

and don't piss off the snake.

MeanOokami asks, Do you have any tips

or advice for someone who has aerophobia?

Yes, relax.

One of the things that we say in aviation is,

Time to spare, go by air.

You have to have patience.

Because if you don't have patience,

your anxiety level increases.

The biggest and best thing I think

that passengers can do is familiarize yourself

with the noises.

When the airplane takes off,

you hear all this clunking sound.

That's the landing gear being retracted.

If you look out the window, you see parts of the wing move.

Those are the flaps.

Those are designed to not only increase lift

during slow speeds, like the takeoff,

but also increase drag for landing.

If you go into turbulence, don't think about,

Oh, my gosh, the wings are gonna break off,

which they won't, think about the fun part of it,

that, yes, it feels like a roller coaster,

the bottom fell out.

I've sat with people who,

I mean, they're white-knuckled on the seat.

I explain all the noises.

I try to educate them to the basics of aviation.

And once they understand that,

it doesn't make 'em feel so bad.

B4wekiss asks, 4:00 AM thoughts.

First off, what are you doing up at 4:00 AM?

Wouldn't all planes landing be controlled crashes?

You could look at it that way.

Yes, you are controlling that weight.

You are controlling the energy

with the thrust of the engines

and, of course, the controls that pilots have.

The good thing is the airplane isn't damaged

and you get to taxi to the terminal.

JIGGY_JIGGZ_ asks,

Any of y'all remember ValuJet Flight 592?

I remember it because I was the investigator in charge,

and I used this particular accident in a lot

of the safety presentations I do worldwide.

There was a radio call shortly after departure by the pilot.

[Controller] [indistinct] 592, connect Miami Center 13245.

[Pilot] [indistinct] I need to return to Miami.

[Controller] What kind of problem are you having?

[Pilot] Smoke in the cockpit, smoke in the cabin.

They had smoke in the cockpit, smoke in the cabin.

That right there gave us an indication

that we had possibly an in-flight fire.

In the meantime, we were looking at the aircraft

in the Florida Everglades.

We were really gonna depend on the flight data recorder

and the cockpit voice recorder.

One question by one investigator changed the entire

course of the investigation in 30 seconds.

What are oxygen canisters?

In aviation, we typically use oxygen bottles.

They're typically painted green.

This is the remnants of what we started to find

of these 144 oxygen canisters.

We knew that they had been exposed to fire.

This final picture is the key.

This is an exemplar oxygen generator.

There is a 32-caliber percussion cap,

and it starts an exothermic reaction.

When you ship these, you need to have a plastic cap

to prevent inadvertent firing.

None of these oxygen generators had that protective cap.

The fact that there was a 2-cent cap

that was not put on cost the lives of 110 people.

Quora asks,

What does a airplane crash investigator look for

apart from the black box?

As investigators, we're constantly looking

for the best available evidence,

physical evidence, that is the aircraft wreckage itself.

We're gonna examine the propeller.

We're gonna look at the engine,

we're gonna look for damage.

Was there an in-flight breakup?

Was there a structural failure?

We want to know if there was a fault in the computer

or the software that may have caused

or contributed to the accident.

A very famous issue that came up early on

with Airbus was the fact that the computers

on their Airbus airplanes would go to sleep in flight.

Airbus had to fix that problem.

We use meteorologists to study the environment

if there's a weather accident.

A lot of aircraft accidents now are being captured on video.

This Ring doorbell video shows the moment right

before impact of a general aviation aircraft,

a single-engine Mooney,

where the wings actually broke in flight.

Part of the tail section is missing.

This is the cockpit section of a Gulfstream business jet

that, unfortunately, crashed on takeoff.

There was a post-crash fire,

but there's still valuable evidence for investigators.

You can look at handle positions.

Here's the flap handle right here. Here's trim.

These are the control yokes.

That gives us an understanding of whether

or not they properly configured the airplane for takeoff.

One of the other tools that we use

as investigators is taking information

that we know into a simulator.

We try to recreate based on factual data.

Did the pilots have options?

Could they have recognized the situation with the aircraft

before it got out of control?

Blackwel110 asks,

What does the flight data recorder,

telemetry technical recordings, show?

It shows a lot.

It tells investigators what the airplane was doing:

pitch, roll, yaw, altitude.

It also gives us flight control positions

and things like that.

Some of that data is used to create a profile.

This is the flight profile of an aircraft that crashed,

that had just taken off.

What we found from the flight data recorder

is that the pilot didn't initiate the takeoff.

The airplane actually started to become airborne by itself,

and the key was right in this section.

We knew that the control position was different

than the actual altitude of the aircraft.

The pilot was actually pushing forward

because the nose was rising, and he could not control it.

Unfortunately, because of their low altitude,

they struck the ground before they were able to make it back

to the runway.

Cyclone_dave asks,

This isn't the first time a plane was brought down

deliberately by a pilot.

Among others are EgyptAir Flight 990

and SilkAir Flight 185.

There is a distinct difference

between an intentional act and an accident.

EgyptAir 990 was the 767 that crashed

off the coast of New York

because the first officer basically pushed the nose over

at a low altitude, the airplane went into the ocean.

SilkAir Flight 185 is an accident

that I represented the United States over in Indonesia on

because it was a 737 that, from 35,000 feet,

the pilot had an intent to kill himself

and the passengers and crew on that airplane

by rolling it inverted,

hitting the water at almost Mach 1 speed.

Fsdpodcast asks,

What role does pilot training play

in preventing accidents?

Pilots are trained not only to understand what's going on,

but if there is going to be some level of an accident

or serious incident, they're there to mitigate the damage

to the aircraft and increase the survivability

of crew and passengers.

These are screenshots of an animation created

for an accident that I investigated,

American Airlines MD-80.

The aircraft is off-center from the runway.

That's a critical issue.

The pilot should have abandoned the approach.

These other screenshots show

that the airplane landed sideways.

The pilots lost control, overran the runway,

and, unfortunately, struck obstructions at the end

of the runway, which resulted in 12 fatalities.

This is an aircraft accident involving

a small business-type jet.

You actually see the airplane has rolled 90 degrees.

That's because they deployed the thrust reversers in flight,

and they deployed asymmetrically,

which caused the aircraft to roll.

The pilots tried to do something

that wasn't in the flight manual,

and, unfortunately, it cost them their lives.

Masterv1h0ha asked the question,

Why are Boeing planes suddenly falling out of the sky?

They aren't falling out of the sky,

and there's nothing sudden about it.

Unfortunately, Boeing has had an issue

over the past 10 years

with their aircraft and aircraft accidents.

It started really with the 787

and the initial battery issues,

which caused in-flight fires.

There was also in the 737 MAX accidents,

both in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

That has really drawn the attention of the public.

Boeing does have issues

with quality control in their manufacturing process

and some design issues, but every manufacturer has issues.

Airbus, Embraer, it does not matter.

There have been Airbus accidents in the recent past,

they just haven't drawn the scrutiny

like the Boeing accidents.

Stevendiercks1: They should put GPS trackers

on airplanes so that they don't disappear

like Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Well, Steven, guess what? We do track airplanes.

We track 'em all over the world.

We've always used conventional radar.

As the radar signal is bounced off the airplane,

it's returned.

An air traffic controller can actually see it on a scope.

Now we have a new technology

called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast,

and it actually is providing information directly

from the airplane back to the air traffic controller

with a lot more specificity every second.

So we know speed, we know altitude.

We actually know the GPS position of the aircraft.

A lot of the commercial aircraft,

actually the engines are pumping down data

to the manufacturer, so that they have tracking data

for the airlines, so that they can understand the health

of the engine during a flight.

So we're tracking these airplanes all the time.

The biggest problem, especially with MH370,

is that there are black spots,

that is voids, in the coverage around the world.

We have over-the-horizon-looking radar,

typically 12 to 1,500 miles from the radar site,

but we don't have a radar site positioned

in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

MH370 really wakened the eyes of the aviation community

that we need better tracking worldwide so that we do get rid

of these voids or these blackout areas.

Prroteus asks,

How often can pilots actually prevent crashes

during dangerous, catastrophic events?

If it leads to a major crash,

it's probably because it was beyond the pilot's control.

One example, United Airlines 232,

Sioux City, Iowa, DC-10.

The fan section in the center section

of the aircraft failed, cut the hydraulic lines,

rendering the airplane incapacitated.

The pilots had to use differential power

on both the wing engines,

to not only help the airplane climb or descend,

but maintain control and steer the aircraft.

The Miracle on the Hudson accident,

involving an Airbus A320,

Captain Sullenberg and First Officer Jeff Skiles,

the pilots had to make split-second decisions based

on the best available evidence

and information that they had.

Sullenberg actually took control of the airplane.

He could feel the performance.

He knew that, really, his only viable option

was to land in the river.

That was seat-of-the-pants flying,

as it's called in aviation,

and they landed it with the least amount of damage.

They were all able to survive, evacuate the aircraft,

and they were able to be rescued.

_AJ73 asks, Korean Air Flight 801 missed final approach.

How bad?

Well, I actually represented the United States

in that investigation

because I was the investigator in charge.

The fact is they did not miss the final approach.

They actually crashed on final approach.

Unfortunately, it was six miles from the airport

because they hit a hill,

and that's because the flight crew didn't understand how

to fly a non-precision electronic approach.

Unfortunately, 250 plus people died in that accident,

but we did learn about spurious signals

affecting navigation systems on the airplane.

She's Fishy asks,

What happens if you don't use your cell phones

in airplane mode on a plane?

The signal coming off of your phones or your ipads

or even your computer can disrupt,

a lot of the times, the navigation system,

even the ground proximity warning systems on an airplane.

The wires on an airplane are insulated

from spurious signals, but you don't want to take a chance,

aircraft manufacturers don't want to take a chance,

and definitely the FAA and other certifying authorities

don't want to take a chance.

In the interest of aviation safety, turn off your phones.

Marlodjur asks,

Anyone else who isn't afraid of flying

ever just remember Aloha Airlines Flight 243

and just have a good think on that?

Unfortunately, it was a fatal accident

because it happened at altitude,

and we lost a flight attendant

when the top of the airplane separated

from the rest of the structure.

That accident will never happen again.

The reason for it

is because we have better inspection process.

That was an older 737 that had developed a crack.

The crack was missed during an inspection.

So those are all the great questions we have for today.

Thanks for watching Aviation Accident Support,

and fly safe. [upbeat music]