Hey at least the crew was was alive to be heavily criticized…

In memory of the birds who lost their lives in this accident.

Fortunately, there were no fatalities. Though the criticisms of the crew for their decision to abort after V1 are legitimate, and they made some errors in judgment, I can definitely understand why they chose to do that they did... It must be extremely difficult to determine in a split second whether or not the aircraft is actually capable of taking off. If it weren't and they hadn't tried to abort, the results might have been even more catastrophic than they already were.

I flew a Boeing 707 variant with a flight engineer (FE). The procedure during a full-stop landing or an aborted takeoff was to raise the reverse levers to the first detent. At that point, the engineer would tell the pilot which reversers he or she could use: "full reverse" or "inboards only" or "outboards only" or "no reverse." The idea that they didn't try to use any reverse thrust and didn't follow that procedure or something similar, based on the knowledge that one engine was inoperative (but not knowing which one), is bizarre. The FE can tell you which engine is out.

I found this channel 2 days ago and been in wormhole ever since. I actually found this channel from playing MSFS 2020...

I remember this jet. I worked with these guys and talked to them now and then. Kalitta and Atlas parked next to our jets (they were too big for TA aircraft). Kalitta at that time had some really badly maintained aircraft (or rather, they were junky from the start, so one could say the crew chiefs were pulling miracles to keep them air worthy. Atlas to an extent also back then, but they were clearly superior. By now, theyre both in a place where they order brand new planes. I think thats the case with Kalitta too) The rumors on the flight line were that the jet had issues with sticking TRs, as well as other issues that reduced trust in the aircraft, particularly in its ability to get airborne. But, they lived and kept on flying. Sometimes I think its a miracle how this company got off the ground!

Had the pilot chosen to use the longer runway, the aircraft would have had enough room to brake and stop before the runway threshold... 660 meters of additional paved runway was enough to make the difference between saving an aircraft and.... sending it for scrap.

I love the way that the NTSB ( or whoever investigates these crashes) comes in and assesses the blame, spend sometimes years figuring out what happened. These pilots have seconds to make a decision. Could they have made different choices maybe Just what would have happened if they had got airborne and crashed into the heart of the city?

RIP to the birds. I love it when you guys use that epic song at the end!

Great, except that geese are not kestrels (which is a rather small species of hawk.) This may be a simulator limitation.

In memory of the 2 birds who lost their lives.

I want to know why your thumbnail shows a Burning Plane when in fact the plane did not burn like the thumbnail shows?

Glad they all survived. I wish your thumbnail was not false and would provide a true picture of the incident. Its misleading.

This is the greatest channel on this topic

06:11 Holy crap! Did you see the size of those geese? They must have been 12 feet long! You sure they didn't hit a couple of pterodactyls instead?

This channel is really good at reenactments 👍🏾

Aren't controllers aware of the aircraft and runways? One would think a cargo plane, taking off on a shorter runway, would be met with commands from the control tower to "stop!"

Would much rather take the criticism or even lose my job. Being dead gives you no chances to fix your mistakes. Even a heavily experienced pilot knew that his chances of survival were much higher on the ground even being past V1. Don't blame him at all.

Brussels airport, BELGIUM. We're not all Americans here.😂

Very nice video and analysis

I worked for Kallita out SE Michigan In the late 90's and i will have to say it was the worse company i ever worked for!!!

I got a kick out of how many times those poor birds met their demise.

Again loving the video, but somehow I cant get passed the birds flying backwards with 150 knots ;) Keep up the good work!

I wonder why the crew decided to use the shorter runway despite the plane is at its heaviest at takeoff. Then aborting the takeoff beyond V1 and not using the reverser wasnt helpful. All odds were thrown onto the same pile.

No fatalites and NO FIRE....

RiP to the birds lost......

Why did they chose a different runway that was 700 meters shorter than the one initially proposed by the ATC???

NO reverse thrust. Sheesh! 🤦🏻‍♂ (Thanks for the retelling TFC. 👍🏻)

Another great video! But I'll turn the volume down on the next one! Beautiful birds, but I think the poor things died. At least, in this video, they were ingested 5 or 6 times, which is usually fatal...

I love your videos :)

At @4:00 the wheels of the push car are moving forward while the push car is going in reverse. 😊

It’s easy for us as well as the crash investigators to sit on our butts and criticize the pilots. Much harder when barreling down the runway when the bird strike occurred. Yes I know they are trained pilots but they had literally seconds to make the decision and I don’t know if I would have done anything different. Once you are in the air, always chance of being in worse situation. I’m not a pilot in any sense but these guys were humans doing what they thought best in order to live. They lived, so good ending as far as I’m concerned.

A few months after this accident there was another one involving a Kalitta Air B747 at El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia. It would be great to have a video recreating this crash.

Even the most experienced pilots can make the wrong decisions.

In memory of the 2 birds that died 😅

I'm pretty sure I flew on Kalitta Air at least once during OEF-OIF.

What would have happened if the pilots decided to go through with the takeoff, given they have passed V1?

Two birds and a 747 were sacrificed in producing the events needed to create this video.

It's amazing how a tiny bird 🐦 can bring down a big bird 🛫

Damn those birds were THICC

Oh my, what giant geese you have.

sad to see the 747 leave it was my one of my favorite boeing plane ever i never got the chance to fly in one i really wish that i could sit in one

I'm generally in favor of overrunning the runway instead of plummeting to the ground 15 seconds after takeoff. Find out that you could have successfully taken off, rather than finding out that the plane is unable to fly after takeoff.

Okay, I'm not a pilot, so excuse if this is a silly question. Since I'm sure the instrumentation would have shown which engine was not functioning properly following the bang, why did the flight crew not just shut down the suspect engine, add thrust with the remaining 3 engines and continue the fly out? The 747 is rated to take off, fly, and land with only 3 functioning engines. Thanks.

Poor birds 🦅

"I would rate this disaster as a bad day at the office..."

At least they got out of it with their lives.

Thank goodness no fatalities

It's interesting that even experienced crews can make serious errors in judgment, likely because they don't fully understand their airplane. In February of 1989, United Airlines Captain David Cronin and First Officer Gregory Slader understood the nuances of asymmetrical thrust and signs of damage to flaps, and used only the inner flaps when landing their crippled 747 in Honolulu. Other crews died in similar circumstances despite having thousands of hours in a cockpit. Here in Brussels, we have a crew that did not remember that they could selectively choose thrust reverse on Engines 1 and 4 to help them stop the airplane. They also did not appear to understand that a 747-200 can take off on three engines. Further, it was carrying only 76 tonnes of cargo; its maximum payload is about 110-112 tonnes. Hence, assuming the fuel on board did not take 747-200 to maximum takeoff weight, the crew could have completed the takeoff with confidence, shutting down the #3 engine. Then the flight crew members could decide if they wanted to continue to Dubai or turn it around and land at Brussels. The crew members went through a briefing and checklists, and yet they didn't know the basic information they needed to operate safely. And after calculating that they needed a full runway length, they chose the shorter runway even though the longer one was available. I find this appalling.

Why no thrust reversers? Even if they only deployed them on engines 1 and 4 to avoid asymmetric reverse thrust it may have been enough to stop in time.

No human fatalities with a hull cracked open like that is pretty amazing, really. Like they say, airplanes can be replaced.

Wow. Great job of relating the events. The pilots didn't seem to know just how little or great the damage, and so, aborted the flight. Perhaps over cautious in not deploying speed brakes, and having chose the shorter runway, may also contributed . Tough calls, wrong choices. Sadly, it happens.

I can imagine a flock, or even a couple of geese causing a jet engine to have problems. However, a Kestrel is a very small bird, weighing only a couple of hundred grams. They are also solitary birds, they don't fly in flocks. I wonder how they determined it was a kestrel. I also remember that someone was sucked out of an aircraft and went through an engine. They did find some DNA to identify the person.

They were lucky that the fuel tanks were not ruptured and that leaking fuel was not ignited by the engines.

@TheFlightChannel are you planning to make a video on Japan Air Lines Flight 123? Or have you already made one and I just didn't find it?

Shoulda used those THRUST REVERSERS! They were correct not to take off, but why didn't they use their thrust reversers? That's the first thing I thought of.

Loved the animation of the birds going into the engine.

Saw it lying there whilst passing by with my car, could have been far worse.

At least there were no fatalities, however this was a bad time for Connie Kalitta and Kalitta Air. I believe they had 2 planes crash and the lost of his son Scott Kalitta in a horrific drag racing accident....

What really mystified me, and it didn't appear to be addressed or was not thought important was why the pilots switched from R25 to R19? Had everything happened but on R25, would the plane have had enough runway to stop? Great post, like all your others, Thanks!!!

Is it possible to put a mesh or anything to prevent the engine from ingesting hail, birds, foreign object etc? RIP birdies😢

I actually flew this aircraft particular aircraft for this company numerous times. It was a good jet that was destroyed by a series of errors by the crew. I'm not demonizing the crew, and I wasn't on board, but I did have some insight as to how things transpired. It was an unfortunate situation, but I'm grateful that no one was injured or killed.

Kestrals dressed as geese!

dam bto nice bird animation 10/10

Cannot count how often I stood and still standing there sometimes, watching for planes at the position the plane dived.

@TheFlightChannel admittedly, none of these are meant to be humorous, but by the 3rd time the ducks got cleaned up neater than by a Dyson, it was all 🤣🤣🤣

Wasn't it runway 19? At the end you mention number 20...

Didn’t realize Europe was a country 🤔🤦‍♀️… Brussels is in a country called Belgium 🇧🇪

Dear Flight Channel, I am a big fan of your videos. However, this time, as I live in Brussels and saw that accident (I have a photo of myself in front of the damaged 747) I would like to highlight some details. First, you should say Brussels, Belgium, not Brussels, Europe. If it was in Paris you would certainly have written Paris, France, right? Second, your arrow points to the wrong end of RW 25R. A7 is not where the arrow was. Third, the typical runway usage in EBBR is 25L for landings (only) and 25R for takeoffs (and landings, in particular of cargo flights as well as Schengen flights, given the shorter taxi distance to respective terminals). A second (less common but not rare) setting is with takeoffs from 07R and landings on 01. Takeoffs from RW 19 are extremely rare. In 30+ years as a relatively frequent flyer, I may have taken off from RW19 maybe 4 times. So, the Kalitta crew - for their own reasons - decided not to take off from the USUAL, 25R. Many thanks again for all the dozens and dozens of videos I've been watching with great interest.

#3 was one effective bird incinerator

Poor birds 😅

Please do pulkovo flight 612

It's crazy how the plane jumped to different parts of the runway during the take off, that's out of this world turbulence.

The cover image shows this wreckage in flames, but the aftermath photo shows no sign of fire. Was there a fire or not? If yes, it wasn't mentioned. If no, the cover image is deceptive. Love this channel!

I find it hilarious how the birds are moving backwards at 100 kph 0:03.

Sorry, but there was no fire whatsoever. Why do you show the aircraft in flames on the clickbait cover?

No icebergs needed just 2 geese. RIP Geese😔

All that's missing in video are feathers shooting out from the back of the engine...

Those poor birds 😢

Have 747 pilots/experts weighed in on whether the bird strike would have compromised a safe takeoff? No one died, thankfully, but the catastrophic loss of the aircraft, clearly due to the pilot's decision to abort after V1, seems like it could have been averted if the pilot had just taken off, circled the field and landed using its 3 good engines.

hi, i have a request for Avianca Colombia flight 11 and/or Pulkovo airlines 612

Could they have gotten airborn? Who knows for sure? The captains decision ensured that all 4 walked away from the crash. Stalling at 100 feet and they all would have perished and maybe more on the ground.

If they used Runway 19, why do we see 'Runway 20' as the runway value?

those are ducks, not European Kestrels. The Flight Channel was heavily criticised for it's lack of avarian accuracy.

The Kalitta family also has a really good NHRA Drag Racing team in both Top Fuel and Funny Car categories.

I would always choose for the longer runway if possible

The queen has fallen 💔

Even a rookie would know to deploy the reverse thrust!

Greetings from Brazil🇧🇷

Earliest I've ever been to one of these vids!

RIP 🙏

I dont understand why the plane broke into 3 pieces?

4:17: Why the apostrophe in "takeoff's"?

Pilot standing outside the wrecked aircraft before equipment arrives lighting a cigarette with the plane behind him: "Brakes worked good, but not that good..."

Which Plane game do you use to make your videos I rlly want to fly the 747-200 in that game

Why didn’t the captain use the thrust reversal to slow the plane. I don’t understand how they could be criticized for their actions. As for the plane, it was almost 30 years old.

Those 2 ducks were absolutely massive. Nearly the size of the engines. I didn't know ducks could get that huge.

Poor birdies

I always wonder what would happen if the Concorde pilots aborted the takeoff though they were beyond V1. I believe, many lives would be saved. Cause before airborned, pilots were notified they were on fire. The Concorde would overrun the runway, the plane would be totalled but because they were not at a height from the ground, most of the onboard would survive. A least, Concorde wouldn't crash on a building and kill the people were there.

Just imagine IF runways were a lot longer this wouldn't happen.....as if it's impossible to build longer runways, not!