I work in the towing and Recovery industry. We've recovered a number of aircraft stuck like this. We use airbags to lift, and timbers to set the landing gear upon. Then we winch the aircraft back to the taxiway with a heavy truck wrecker.

For reference. Wheel load of a normal Truck with maximum load is usually 5 tons. Most times 5 tons is shared with two wheels. (and axle load of 10 tons and 4 wheels) Some vehicles , like mobile cranes can have a wheel load of up to 7 tons. Then the speed is usually limited to 50km/h to reduce dynamic load on the road. A 737NG, like the one Mentour fly would have a average wheel load of about 14 tons with full load. I say average. Because the main gear takes more load then the front gear on a 737. A A321 have a average maximum wheel load of 15.6 tons. This is about the level that the runway can handle. No runways (as what i seen) is tarmac. Its a thin layer of tarmac on top of reinforced concrete. The concrete is really very thick. It usually start at 30-40cm for smaller airport and can be as thick as 70cm for larger airports. The taxiway can be a bit thinner. The reason why they need to be that thick have to do with dynamic load. While sitting still or taxing slowly there is hardly any dynamic load. The full load is the same as the dynamic load. But when running on the runway at 200+km/h the dynamic load is much higher (don´t have a number). So the runway needs to be thicker than the taxiway. Of cause the dynamic load at landing is also very high. Now the wheels are big and bouncy for exactly this reason. Now the maximum average wheel load of a dreamliner is over 25,4 tons. That is a LOT higher than both a 737 and A320. You might think, that that number just goes up the larger the plain gets.. well then you be wrong. A 777-300ER wound be 25.1tons A 747-8 would be 24,8 tons A A380 would be 26 tons So they all end up around the 25 ton mark for the larger aircraft, and about 15 tons for the medium size once. And this also generally match up well with runways. Runways made for heavy aircraft, need to handle 25 ton wheels, and are there for thicker, while runways just needing to handle medium size aircraft can be thinner. An exception to this is the 757 that load of under 13 tons per wheel. Fun fact. Airport vehicles regularly break rules for normal road going trucks. And Airport tug can easily have a wheel load of 15 tons, that makes it so heavy it would damage the road surface of most normal roads.

A colleague of mine ran into an B737 with a bagage truck and met no repercussions, the second time he did the same thing he actually got fired from SAS ground handling. If companies where repressiv on employees damaging aircraft you'd end up with damages not being reported and that would potentially be really dangerous. Myself managed 12 years at the apron without any mishap driving almost every vehicle there is on a major airport.

This video has me thinking back to the early 90's when I was working the ramp at the Ontario Airport in Southern California, towing a Braniff 727 from its remote overnight parking area to it's gate, driving along a taxiway when the mechanic in the cockpit informed me over the headset that I had on that was plugged into the aircraft, that we were being told by the tower to immediately exit the taxiway, I replied where am I supposed to go, he replied that they want us to go onto the shoulder off of the taxiway so that an American airlines jet that is coming will be able to get passed us with a passenger who is having a heart attack. I very nervously started taking the 727 off of the taxiway, something that I had never been directed to do before and I knew that there was a possibility that we could get stuck or possibly damage the aircraft. I kept driving off watching behind me, watching the nose wheel as it drove off of the taxiway, so far so good at least it wasn't sinking in, then also keeping an eye on the main gear as I had to straddle a taxiway light with the main gear as I was exiting off of the taxiway and then watching the right wing dropping down towards the ground with the unevenness of the shoulder, fortunately not hitting the ground, until we were fully off of the taxiway and holding there until the American airlines MD80 went screaming by very fast to get to it's gate and then slowly getting the aircraft back onto the taxiway having again to straddle a taxiway light with the main gear to get back on the taxiway and continue on to its gate. It was definitely an adrenaline rush and thankfully everything went fine, I have no idea what happened with the passenger, hopefully everything worked out fine for the person having the heart attack, with the pilot's obviously doing their best to get the passenger immediate medical attention.

My Dad was a career Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) mechanic for two major, global airlines. Taxi work was required to be able to test certain systems. I remember him talking about his practice on 757s...he had to high speed taxi and then brake...and the nose started to rise (empty, lots of power)...so they then showed WHY they taxied 757s with the yokes pushed FORWARD... I still remember him telling me the story...now over 30 years later...one of the most animated stories about his work.

The reason why I totally love this channel is not only because you explain everything in a way my mom would understand, but also because your English is really easy to understand for non-native speakers. I also truly enjoy Kelsey's channel but sometimes I have to slow him down a bit to understand everything 😂

Have a great Christmas Mentour, thanks for all your brilliant videos in 2020, has helped us all get through a shitty year! 🍻

My son is an aviation mechanic with American Airlines. He just went through his run-taxi check ride two weeks ago on both the 737 and 777. He said he was somewhat scared that this might happen to him...lol! It didn't. He did just fine.

It happens from time to time. A friend, now retired, told me about doing the same thing and he was a very experienced Captain. Live and learn.

I love that you covered this. I'm actually a ramp agent at YVR and I was on shift when this happened yesterday!! Amazing and quick job covering this. Also just want to say keep up the good work I'm a student pilot my self near the end of my ppl. I've learned a lot, and I can differently say mentor pilot is a very suitable name!

The airline industry sounds so rational. On jobs in Australia I’ve seen people fired for honest mistakes, being blamed by supervisors for their mistakes lies and cover ups, & no changes made except blame.

Navigation has three distinct phases. 1: Find the general vicinity of the Destination. 2: Find the actual runway and align with it for landing. 3: Move safely on the ground to the parking spot. This last phase can sometimes be the most challenging task, especially on complex airports in poor visibility or night-time conditions.

There's a video I'm rather fond of here on KZfaq called "Who Destroyed Three Mile Island?" It spends a bit more than half its run time going over all the boneheaded decisions that the operators made...before going back over them and giving the context as to _why_ they made those decisions, and pointing out that the question "Who destroyed Three Mile Island?" is the wrong question to ask, and advocating for no-blame post-mortems of any failures. There are reasons that aviation and nuclear power are two of the safest industries in the world.

I saw a documentation sometime last year about the Airbus factory in Hamburg-Finkenwerder. They actually have "Taxi Pilots", that's engineers who have been trained to taxi aircraft. So basically, they are certified to drive the thing, but not to fly it.

You raise such an important point. My background is in manufacturing of security equipment. We had an occasion once where we had massive unexpected failures of our product. I shut down shipping, which I did not technically have the authority to do, and notified upper management. Long story short, we discovered an unknown component change by one of our suppliers. We immediately notified our distributors and recalled the the effected products. Once we figured out the cause, we communicated that info to our distributors and affected end-users. As a result, we did not lose a single customer. I was told repeatedly by them that the fact that we reacted so quickly and openly, that they still had faith in us and would continue to be customers, Though a number of them did say, "Unless it happens again!". Which it didn't. In other words, openness and honesty will buy any organization a lot of good will.....

What is noteworthy for me is that at the stage of investigation that the airline industry for the most part is a "just" atmosphere rather than placing blame first. The basis is that mistakes can happen unless the investigation reveals a motive that is not acceptable. Very good

I miss seeing his dogs lounging in the videos!

love the commentary abt the “just culture” in aviation i’ve recently kind of discovered this aspect of aviation and it’s made me much more curious abt it all ! super cool thx 4 sharing !

Since I am an open book, a sponge or whatever metaphor you choose, I am always in the learning process. I’ll probably never really learn to fly but I watch everything on KZfaq....especially Mentour. Thanks for your highly instructive topics and delivery.

Thanks @mentourpilot I really enjoy all your effort that goes into the research and clear details that goes into these. Working in aviation is a passion and I can tell you definitely have it!! Merry Christmas to you and your family.

At first I thought “MUD” was some kind of abbreviation.

First time taxying a light aircraft I was like an Etch A Sketch. How hard could it be to follow a yellow line? Quite hard, apparently.

Just read this: "A Delta flight out of New York City, US was halted after a Florida couple travelling with a Great Dane puppy fled the aircraft with the pet using an emergency slide. The incident involving Antonio Murdock and Brianna Greco occurred on Monday (Tuesday NZT) as the jet was leaving for a flight from LaGuardia Airport to Atlanta, said the spokesperson, Morgan Durrant. Witnesses reported seeing a panicky Murdock force open the front cabin door and jump out using the emergency chute leading to the runway. He was quickly followed by Greco with the puppy in tow."

I just have to say I really really like how explain, slow, clear, any one can learn from you, also how you act just so humble is what makes great to a person. God bless you

It USED to be Air Crapada. Service with a snarl. Where they aren't happy until you're not happy. What is truly amazing is how they have improved and have become the carrier of choice. I will still choose Wastejet where possible. 42 yrs of abuse are hard to just 'get over'.

I wanted to point out that Vancouver Airport is located on the aptly named Sea Island. The runways are barely 4 metres above sea level and there had been about 70 mm (3 inches) of rain in the previous week. While the runways themselves are on hard packed ground and hundreds of rock pilings, the grassed area obviously is not. Bottom line is that we probably wouldn't have heard if that same 787 had left the runway in other circumstances but on December 20th the runways at YVR were surrounded by a sea of mud. The plane didn't stand a chance once the wheels hit the grass.

Can you have a segment on the lady passenger who opened the emergency door and slid out with her dog as the plane was being pushed from the gate? It happened today or yesterday at Laguardia.

I live in Victoria BC, which is near Vancouver, and this incident has not made the local news that I watch. I guess not everyone is an aviation enthusiast. As an instrument rated private pilot, I love all your videos. Not sure if you've done a video on this, but I would like to see something on checklists. You frequently refer to memory items, and I wonder how many things you have to memorize and how do you refresh your memory.

I agree with Anastacia. That new intro really captures the different moods regarding incidents.

I enjoy these reports. Next please, the incident in New York where a man opened an escape hatch and slid down the chute with his partner and dog.

Your videos tell me alot about the airplanes and their functions, since I could have never been a pilot because of my vision this is good enough for me.

I once hand signaled (big no-no, I don't know what I was thinking!) a short 737 to gate after I manually triggered the emergency stop on the automatic gate arrival thingy (can't remember the correct name of it, it's been years) because I miss interpeted the "must stop" paintings of the tarmac because of loose shocks (couldn't see the the correct markings). As I knew the margin between gate hardware and the engine on a short 737 is really low, thats why I was worried and why I pushed it. When the plane stopped short, and I had time to realize my mistake, I was affraid to be accountable for the delay, so I hand signaled it to gate, but overshot by 0.5 to 1-meters or so, once again because of shocks not on their correct location. I royally messed up, but in the end it was ok. Had to write an incident report because of it, and nothing came from it, other than "Thank you for explaining". I kept my job. "No blame if you explain" was the rule at that company.

Omg the new intro is hilarious!!!!

Love you you and Captain joe are my inspiration and boost to me becoming a pilot ❤️🙏🏼🤲🏽😇😊😁

To help artists is a really wonderful idea. Typically, artists have to submit their work to a gallery and pay them to consider it (about $50 USD), they may reject it without specifying why, if they accept it they will typically take 50% of the sale price. But before any of this happens the artist must pay for materials and framing so if nothing sells you've spent a year working and thousands of dollars in materials to take it all home with you. It's a very tough world for artists.

I really like the new design, intro, overlays and music score of your new videos !

Air Canada can never get a break when it comes to repositioning their aircraft.

"This is human..." It's not actually being human that allows us to make mistakes, but it's being temporarily _mortal._

I know multiple people who, in a training environment, have been involved in wrong-surface landings (airport with parallel runways). I know zero people who have done it twice. Just culture, or "compliance" policy as the FAA sometimes calls it, works.

Those orange tow straps are called, "Kevlar Slings" or "Kevlar tow straps".

Thanks a lot Mentour, sharing all this news and information to us. Last part of the year and hopefully next year going to be greater than this, God bless everyone, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Mentour, if you can make another video with your friend Kesley from 74Gear talking about plan for next year or goal for aviation, it would be perfect. See ya

Just noticed that the red and green cushions are laid out like aircraft navigation lights 🛩

As others may have commented... it could have been slippery/poor visibility as we (40km from YVR) had 5cm of snow last night and I know both the METARs and TAF for YVR were reporting/calling for snow yesterday.

Great video, thanks Mentour. Have a fantastic holiday season.

Thanks for this video. I travel a lot on YYZ-YVR sector..Good thing is this did not happen during take off/landing or normal taxing routine.

Great video once a Petter. Thanks for the videos throughout the year. Have a great Christmas and let's all hope for a better 2021. Take care, Jeff

Captain Petter a Happy to you and all your family! Keep well!

It's kind of funny how we get a plane out of the mud the same way that we would pull a vehicle out of the mud. You put something down for the tires to roll on and then just pull it on out.

Worked on a few of those in YYZ years ago. Interesting challenge so you don't hurt the plane's gear!

Petter/Mentour, Thank you for this video and all your great videos. Thank you for your professionalism! God bless Paul (in MA USA)

Thanks for the informative Video, Merry Xmas

Good to see your port and starboard cushions are lit.

I've learnt things from this video as I always do. I didn't know about engineers parking up planes.

What’s up with the fairy sleepy background music 😂

Another interesting and topical article. I get that people think music adds something. Your detail is easier to follow with the music faded down, just a little. To be honest maybe that is why I enjoyed your presentations so much. I look forward to the next one.

Air Canada has the highest standards in the world when it comes to air safety, someone on the ground crew was in training and underestimate the power and size of what they were dealing with. Sometimes shit happens to good people. Hold Fast.!

I got called out to take photos, years ago , when a 737 backed off of the asphalt and sunk in the soft soil. Really lets you know how heavy they really are.

Things you don't want to hear in a cockpit, oops.... Another great video! Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year.

Oooh... the new background music. - it's so "new age". Brings back memories from long ago!

As an aircraft mechanic I have taxied a 737 many times. Great fun. We have had a few accidents over the years. The only thing that makes me nervous is when we do high power runs, running the power up to take off power with the parking brake set. That thing wants to go!!!

Microsoft Still haven’t fixed that bug yet.... the damn thing can’t turn on ground!

Thanks for the videos. Hope you and your family have a merry Christmas and a happy safe new year

Merry Christmas Mentour Pilot , always a good thing to be clear with the facts

That background music is so calming!

“A plane this big doesn’t exactly stop on a dime.” I grew up not far from there. At high tide our back yard was decidedly soggy. Even my little putt putt would have a hard time.

Best Christmas To You! Already looking for the next vid :)

back in the 80's i was on a plane in houston being pushed back from the gate and the tug operator pushed it off of the tarmac into the mud. flight immediately cancelled. it was the worst possible time of year for that to happen, the sunday after thanksgiving. all flights full, wasn't able to get on another flight and had to book a hotel room at my expense (airline refused to cover it, as it wasn't their fault). worse, the flight attendants said it wasn't the first time. hard to stomach that multiple incidents like that could occur at a major airport. smh

Hey, great vidéo as always, the content is very interesting and I love the way you are telling it. However, in this particular video, I found that there is a background noise/track running and it is kind of disturbing at certain points (because it is on the same pitch)... I personally think those are superb for storytelling, however, it makes it difficult to focus when you are explaining the reasons behind this particular incident (as well as it would make it difficult to focus on technical stuff). I hope that you are doing fine, as well as your family and the ones you love. Have a wonderful Christmas

I remember a 747 accidentally mistaking the Pueblo Colorado Airport for The Colorado Springs Colorado Airport and landing said 747 in Pueblo Colorado. Landing a 747 in Pueblo is a bit tricky. Taking off from Pueblo with a 747 was physically IMPOSSIBLE. There is not enough runway and the tarmac was so thin that the plane's landing gear sank through the asphalt. The wings were removed the fuselage was dismantled and the plane was trucked up I-25, then west on US Hwy. 50 and then off a service road and into the back end of Ft. Carson US Army Base where it could either be used as spare parts or reassembled and then flown back to Boeing.

12:21 ‘’it can happen to me, it can happen to you, it can happen to anyone (eventually)’’ It s a line from the song ‘’it can happen’’ written and performed by Yes . Good reference Mr Mentour

I'm always amazed that those tiny tugs can tow such a large aircraft at all; let alone when it's stuck in the mud. It just looks like the little toy should be spinning it's wheels. I mean, I know aircraft are made as lightweight as possible with aluminum and efficient structural design. Still, it was always surprising at how easily I could lift the nose wheel and position a Cessna 100 series by myself (when I was a student starting to learn the weight and balance calculations, I asked my instructor how important is this really since I'm only flying "the little ones". He walked me out to the line, told me to push down on the tail of a 152 to lift the nose wheel and spin it 45 degrees. That was a real, hands-on eye opener). But still, a 60 Ton aircraft has some enormous inertia which comes into play both starting the movement, changing it's direction, and stopping it. An extremely low friction coefficient on 60 tons is still a lot to overcome in a controlled way. I get the same feeling of disbelief seeing what look like toy tugboats maneuvering an aircraft carrier or cruise ship. Cool stuff every direction ya look. Salute to the brilliant folks who design all of these things.

Curious video and especially thank you very much for enabling subtitles, it helps me a lot with English. Happy holidays and I wish you a great 2021.

I was briefly curious about what a M.U.D. was - but then I realized it was Vancouver, and you literally just meant the muddy airport haha

Liked this video as well. Can't wait to see the murals on the wall. Have a great Christmas & an awesome 2021.

Really well explained, thank you. Happy Christmas!

We made the 787 to be efficient, a wonderful aircraft but one thing we didnt make it for was four-wheeling. :D lol!!

Great video. Have a great Christmas mate from Australia. :-)

Loving the intro! Merry Christmas Mentour to you and your family 😊

Wish my Mother had believed in a Just Culture the time I accidentally drove the tractor through her brand new fence, and then accidentally hit the left side of the differential brake and drove it through another section of fence. She definitely did not listen to my explanation of how the cat jumped from the post onto me when I passed it. I was twelve and she made me pay for the fence.

BTW, love your new intro and music!

We can all learn quite a bit from how mistakes and incidents are handled in aviation. Having an open culture and a no blame policy for honest mistakes are fundamental to bring problems to light and having a better possibility to get better. The alternative is that people become nervous and rather hide mistakes than talk about them if they are afraid of repercussions.

Merry Christmas mentour i hope you and your family are doing good this pandemic

Thank You!! I like the way you explain things and how the Aviation Industry functions.

"Roads? We don't need roads!" (Back to the future) Seems like, they thought, they have a off-road plane, and can make a direct shortcut. As we say in Russia: "The cooler jeep you have - the longer way you'll have to walk for the tractor." 😀

Love your videos. A suggestion for one to cover was a few years back at Toronto's Pearson International, the crash of an Air France Airbus while landing in a severe rain storm with I believe wind shear and they hydro planed and went of the end of the runway and down a ravine that is off of the end of the runway and shortly later exploded in a fire ball visible from the major highways that run parallel to the airport... every one seeing this thought there were no survivors but every one got off with only some minor injuries... a true miracle...

Best of the holidays to you and yours.🌲🇨🇦

Merry Christmas MP. A factor in Vancouver is that it rains all winter and YVR is built on Sea Island just above sea level. So ground is like pea soup and mechs taking shortcuts off pavement does not work at all well. I think Ryan Air just bought some B737maxs so maybe you can give us first hand reports on those in 2021 if it's a better yr than 2020. Let's hope it's absolutely fantastic.

Great idea to showcase some aviation artwork - thanks for all the great videos!

I would imagine the technicians were only using one engine for this movement, two wouldnt be required, so your right, its more likely there was asymmetric thrust, maybe the nose gear hit something slippery on the taxiway, which wouldnt help

In the fall of 2018 I was a passenger in a jet that was taking off. It was probably going about 100 mph or faster when the pilot aborted the take off. After slowing to taxi speed he announced that he saw a light on one of the engines and decided to abort. I think he said he wanted to do some tests. In a short while he decided that the light was a false alarm and took off anyway, but I pointed my iPhone's camera at the engine for most of the flight, just in case. You know, "for the record." Perhaps someone can grant me some insight into what might have happened.

Hey there, like the video a lot, but the background music is a bit disturbing. At first I was wondering if my computer was hissing, but then I stopped the video it was gone. I think you could do without it :)

Loved the intro. Mentour you should watch an Argentinian movie called Whisky Romeo Zulu, is about an accident caused by culture problems in the company.

Good explanaation Petter.

I loved the video and the easy way to explain how to do things well and of course the fact of promoting art as general knowledge of aviation! greetings from Argentina

Maybe airports could add more shields to block the lights from being visible in every direction. That is, limit the visibility of lights to the directions that need to see them. That might decrease runway and taxiway excursions.

Hi Mentour. Big fan of your vids. Love your channel.

Reminds me so much of the beginning of the first "Airport" movie (1970).

Avianca Engineers used to start the engine and taxi aircraft on the ground under its own power when they were towing aircraft from the main terminal to Puente Aereo - the domestic operation

I've seen engineers moving aircraft around on Dubai Ultimate Airport series

Never expected "Brain Fart" from Petter. LMAO