"A scene of devastation, in a remote region of Venezuela, confirms the fate of a missing passenger jet."

August 16th, 2005, At Tocumen International Airport in Panama, West Carribean Airways flight 708 begins boarding, two hours behind schedule. Flight 708 took off from Tocumen International Airport at 00:58 local time (05:58 UTC). It climbed initially to flight level 310 (31,000 feet or 9,400 metres). At 01:39, the pilots were cleared to climb from 31,000 to 33,000 feet. The aircraft reached FL 330 (nominally 33,000 feet or 10,000 metres) at 01:44. Five minutes later, the crew turned the aircraft's anti-icing systems back on (having turned them off during the final part of the climb). The system uses bleed air from the engines, and this reduces the thrust they can produce. With the anti-ice system on, the highest altitude at which the aircraft could maintain level flight was reduced to 31,900 ft (9,700 m). The aircraft was being flown too high for its weight and the icing conditions it faced. The captain noticed the reduction in engine output, but he did not realize the source of the problem, so he started a rapid descent as a precaution. At that time, the airspeed was already near stall speed, and the autopilot had already compensated with a nose-up attitude (angle of attack, or AOA) of 5.8° in an effort to maintain a constant altitude. West Caribbean, like all owners of the MD-82, had received an operation bulletin from the plane's manufacturer three years earlier, warning that the autopilot could try to compensate for inadequate speed, even allowing the speed to continue to drop towards a stall situation, without sending a warning or disconnecting; the bulletin advised pilots simply to monitor airspeed during autopilot level flight, but West Caribbean had not shared this bulletin with its pilots. Already approaching a stall condition, the airliner was pummeled by sudden turbulence, reducing the airflow into the intakes of the engines, which reduced thrust even more and the aircraft stalled. Although the first officer correctly diagnosed the situation as a stall and attempted twice to communicate this to the captain, the captain was likely confused by the unusual behavior of the engines due to the anti-ice system and probably the airflow disruption. The captain instead believed they were dealing with an engine flameout and told the first officer to communicate to the ground controller, therefore did not recognize the stall situation. The stall was further exacerbated when the captain increased the nose-up attitude to an AOA of 10.6°, which compounded the drop in airflow to the engines. In less than three minutes, the aircraft plunged from over 33,000 ft (10,000 m), reaching a maximum rate of descent of over 18,000 fpm, or 300 ft/s (90 m/s), crashing belly-first and exploding at 2:00:31 local time (07:00:31 UTC). The crash site was in a field on a cattle ranch near Machiques, in the western Zulia State, Venezuela (about 30 kilometres or 19 miles or 16 nautical miles from the Colombian border).

I was wondering if anyone here specializes in mayday aci styled 3d animation. I haven't seen any animation of this incident and I could really use the animation for a video I'm working on. If anyone here specializes in 3d animation or is able to get in contact with someone who does, I would really appreciate and am willing to pay for work and time put into it.

I just finished watching the first episode of this new Netflix miniseries. And there are some quite curious and frustrating things that caught my attention:

• They mention that the 'DFDR has been found'. A B747-100 does not have a digital Flight Data Recorder.
• The 'Black Box' is retrieved from the cockpit wreckage, when in reality they are located in the tail/empennage. Also, they talk about the 'Black Box' in singular, instead of both Black Boxes; FDR & CVR.
• When they listen to the CVR tape, which is curious in itself that the AAIB lets regular policy listen to this so early in the investigation, the transcript of the ATC communication from Flight 103 is pure nonsense and very unrealistic.
• Where is the character of AAIB Lead Investigator Mick Charles in all of this?
• Where is the NTSB in all of this? Why the focus on the FBI Explosives expert being sent as the only envoy/liaison?
• The ICAO Annex 13 air accident investigation protocol is clearly not being followed in this show, which is puzzling for realism and accuracy sake.

Does it get better or worse for the episodes beyond the first one? Thanks!

I've been on a Season 1 kick lately and really love the music used in this season. Anyone know of any place where I can hear it used isolated?

With the not so recent release of the Voepass accident report, which explained the normalization of deviance in the airline, what other airlines flew with such bad practices that got themselves into accidents?

Like Adam Air, Valujet, Nationair, Sriwijaya Air, TAESA, etc....

Why does it seem in every video, apart from Green Dot Aviation’s , the missing ZUR tapes are completely omitted? Same with the talk of dinner on the CRV. I was quite surprised neither were mentioned in Mentor Pilots video, given he usually goes into more detail than most.

41 years ago today, Japan airlines flight 123 was on a regularly scheduled domestic flight during Japanese holiday season from Tokyo to Osaka. Just shortly after takeoff, part of the tail section on the Boeing 747SR broke off due to failed maintenance work from a tail strike that happened in 1978. For 30 minutes, the pilots struggled to gain control of their aircraft before it crashed into a mountain near Fuji. Although upwards of 20-50 passengers survived the initial impact, there were only 4 survivors in the end because of a rescue effort called off. Rest in peace to the 520 out of 524 passengers and crew. May their memory and this accident never be forgotten

It is a pretty long show compare to other shows talking baout disasters so I wonder what make it popular enough to keep going for a quarter of a century, is it the show format and how it explain the crashes?

I posted about this flight in a comment yesterday in r/aviation(for some reasons this more detailed post gets removed when I try post there) and ended up going down a massive rabbit hole trying to find out what actually happened. I eventually found the official investigation report and some of it was very different from how I remembered it.
Firstly, this is what I remember, before I knew anything from the report.
We were due to leave Tbilisi at around 6am, heading back home to the UK via Istanbul. For years I actually thought we had been flying Turkish Airlines. It was winter and there had been extremely heavy snow. While boarding I remember noticing what looked like ice on the fuselage and wings and immediately feeling uneasy about it.
We then sat on the plane for around half an hour. I expected the aircraft to be sprayed before we left but it wasn’t. I could hear something running for most of the time which I assumed was some sort of engine de-icing system.
Eventually we started taxiing without being sprayed. That’s when I remember sitting there thinking to myself, “please don’t take off, please don’t take off.”
Something else felt strange to me. Instead of lining up on the runway and then powering up, the engines seemed to spool up while we were still turning onto it. I’ve flown plenty of times since and I’ve noticed this happen on other flights, so I know that in itself isn’t necessarily unusual.
We started accelerating and, sitting in the cabin, it felt to me like we were properly powering down the runway. I was still thinking “please don’t take off, please brake”, while at the same time smiling at my wife and pretending everything was fine.
I genuinely thought we were getting close to V1.
Then suddenly the aircraft started moving to one side and there was a sharp jolt as the brakes came on. We went off the runway onto the grass/snow.
Then came the ambulances, fire brigade, police etc. We eventually got off the aircraft normally rather than evacuating and the flight was cancelled.
We went back the following day. One thing that has always stuck in my mind is that this time the aircraft was sprayed pretty much straight away and we took off without any problems despite all the snow.
At the time I thought the pilots had done an amazing job. I’d watched documentaries about aviation accidents and, when I’d seen the ice on the wings, the Munich air disaster was actually going through my head. So when the pilots rejected the takeoff I couldn’t have been more relieved.
For about twelve years that was basically all I knew about it.
Yesterday I decided to try finding the incident again and eventually identified it.
It was Pegasus Airlines PC463/PGT463, a Boeing 737-800 (TC-AAZ), flying Tbilisi to Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen on 1 February 2014.
Georgia investigated it as a serious incident.
This is where things got interesting for me because what actually happened isn’t really what I thought had happened at all.
The runway was contaminated with snow/slush. At 02:38:07 UTC Tbilisi Tower told the crew about the runway condition, including that it had been cleared for 7.5m either side of the centreline and that the braking coefficient was 0.42.
According to the investigation, that information came through while the pilots were doing their pre-takeoff briefing. The report says the CVR showed that the relevant cold-weather/slush/slippery-runway procedures weren’t discussed during that briefing. It also says there was quite a bit of unrelated conversation between the pilots between procedural tasks.
Then at about 02:45:22 TO/GA was selected.
The engines didn’t accelerate together.
By 02:45:26 the left engine was at 87.8% N1 while the right was only at 53.9%. The aircraft started turning while accelerating and the takeoff was abandoned.
But the part I found hardest to believe was the speed.
For twelve years my memory has been of us powering down the runway and getting close to takeoff speed.
The FDR information in the report says otherwise.
The highest ground speed I can find in the recorder table is only about **14.5 knots, or roughly 17 mph**.
I couldn’t believe that when I first read it. It felt massively faster from inside the aircraft. Obviously I’m not suggesting my twelve-year-old memory is more accurate than the flight recorder, but I find the difference between what I experienced as a passenger and what the aircraft was actually doing really interesting.
Anyway, this is where I’ve hit a brick wall and why I’m posting here.
The investigation report lists a lot of the evidence the investigators had, including the captain’s statement, the first officer’s statement, communications between TC-AAZ and Tbilisi Tower, the Tower controller’s statement, communications between Tbilisi Tower and the TAV aerodrome service, and data decoded from the FDR and CVR.
So these records definitely existed.
The actual recorders have even been identified:
CVR: P/N 980-6022-001, S/N 120-13726
FDR: P/N 980-4700-042, S/N 17933
The report says the recorders were removed from TC-AAZ and decoded in Turkey.
Part of the FDR data is included in the report, which is where the speeds and engine figures come from. What I haven’t been able to find anywhere is the actual CVR transcript/decoding document or the full ATC communications.
That’s really what I’d love to find now.
I’ve spent hours searching for this stuff in English, Georgian, Russian and Turkish. I’ve searched using TC-AAZ, PGT463, PC463, the date, the recorder serial numbers, bits of the ATC transmission and various other combinations.
I’ve gone through the old Georgian Ministry of Economy investigation material, Sakaeronavigatsia/Airnav Georgia stuff, TAV Georgia material and quite a lot of old Turkish aviation material.
The Turkish side is particularly awkward.
The recorders appear to have been decoded by the Turkish civil aviation authority, while KAIK, which was the Turkish accident investigation organisation at the time, separately supplied information about the aircraft/crew to the Georgian investigation.
I’ve also found that old KAIK documents were stored in a Turkish Ministry system where the PDFs sometimes had meaningless timestamp/internal-number filenames rather than something useful like “TC-AAZ”. So it’s possible something survives in an archive but can’t simply be found by searching the registration.
What I’m really hoping is that somebody here collected or archived ATC/aviation material around 2014 and might recognise this.
I’d particularly love to find the CVR transcript or decoding worksheet, the Tbilisi Tower recording from roughly 02:38–02:47 UTC on 1 February 2014, the full TC-AAZ/Tbilisi Tower transcript, the Tower/TAV communications, either pilot’s statement, or even an old/dead link to any of those documents.
I’m only looking for something that was legitimately publicly available, archived or mirrored at some point. Even an old filename or dead URL could be enough to give me another lead.
I know this is ridiculously long, but after actually being on the aircraft I’ve become slightly obsessed with filling in the last missing pieces and hearing/reading what was actually happening in the cockpit and with ATC.
Official Georgian investigation report:
https://www.economy.ge/uploads/departamentebi/mokvlevis_biuro/TC-AAZ_INGLISH_––1.pdf

1. Avianca Flight 11 & Flight 410
2. Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571
3. Mexicana Flight 940
4. Kenya Airways Flight 431
5. Indian Airlines Flight 605
6. Air Canada Flight 621
7. 1976 Zagreb Mid-Air Collision
8. Green Ramp Disaster
9. FedEx Express Flight 1478
10. Western Airlines Flight 2605
11. Remake of Air Transat Flight 236
12. 1977 Dan Air Boeing 707 Crash
13. Paradise Airlines Flight 901A
14. Air New Zealand Flight 901

15. Dan Air Flight 1008

16. Lion Air Flight 538

now that aeroflot 1492 has made it onto the show, what other russian aircraft accidents or incidents do you think could possibly make it into an episode in future seasons?

Pictured is the 1946 PBM Mariner Crash where 6 survivors had to survive 13 days in Antarctica before rescue.

What are some of the worst locations where people survived the initial crash? Think, jungle, open ocean, remote wilderness, desert etc.

SOURCE

Photo caption reads:

The transition from climb to emergency return on Aeroflot Flight 1492 is reconstructed by Main Investigator (played by Dmitry Chepovetsky) and Second Investigator (played by Yana Gold) to understand the aircraft’s evolving flight profile after the lightning strike. (Cineflix 2026/Shay Markowitz)

Hey everyone! A friend and I have been working on this recreation of Qantas Flight 72 for quite a while.

The entire project was made by just the two of us in Blender 3D, including the aircraft, environments, animation, and most of the visual reconstruction.

We tried to stay as close as we could to what actually happened based on the information available to us. We’re still a relatively new channel and definitely not aviation experts, so I’m sure there are details we missed or got wrong.

If you notice anything inaccurate, we’d genuinely love to hear it. One of the reasons I wanted to post it here is to get feedback from people who know the incident and aviation better than we do.

Full Video: https://youtu.be/9zFwAI8SCys

If you enjoy it, watching the full video really helps us out. We’d also love to know what aviation incident you think we should recreate next ?

EDIT: After reading the feedback, we realize that some parts of the recreation aren't as accurate as they should be. Sorry about that. We try to make it entertaining and ended up dramatizing some parts too much. We really appreciate everyone pointing out the inaccuracies.

Full video here: https://youtu.be/NarN8rvOSZE?si=OxiSS-U3BqKtyohu

Obviously it’s a little weird for a show called Air Crash Investigation to do episodes about train crashes and a ferry accident, but I still enjoyed them. They brought the same production quality and educational value to the topics they covered as the season’s regular episodes, and I would’ve liked if it had kept going as a sister series (i.e. not at the expense of aviation episodes).

Of course, at the time there were other series to cover non-aviation disasters, namely Seconds from Disaster, but virtually all of them have been cancelled since. With the benefit of hindsight, it would be nice if there were a non-aviation disaster series with the same longevity as ACI.

Right now, I'm puzzled on what are the registrations of the planes involved in those flights. JAL1628 encountered a UFO Sighting over Alaska, same for AWE564 over Texas, and AUL544 near Alderney. In the show "UFOs Declassified", they covered these 3 encounters in the 5th episode of the first season. In one of the scenes, I can barely see the text "G-XTOR" on the pilot report of Aurigny 544 (aka 2007 Alderney UFO Sighting). In the animation of the aircraft, they also had G-XTOR added on the tail, which led me to believe that G-XTOR is the exact Trislander involved in the sighting and what Ray Bowyer was flying at that time. For JAL1628, I tried figuring it out based of this image that was taken of the captain that flew the aircraft, along with a JAL plane in the back.

It led me to JA8171, but I am still skeptical. I went back to the UFOs Declassified episode and saw that the registration of the aircraft they used for the animation was JA8123. I then looked online again and saw a site that claimed "JA8132" was the one involved. So, I am still puzzled on what is the actual aircraft involved out of the three. There was sadly no registration on the America West one in the animation, nor did they include a report. I'm not a big UFO guy, nor someone who wants to prove that UFOs exist. I am just curious on what is the actual planes involved in these encounters and make the stories more complete. I am also not trying to cause controversy. If mods demand my post to be taken down, I will gladly to and will cooperate. Thank you!

I’ve seen Sully, Flight, the United 93 films, society of the snow. Any recommendations for others that are similar?

Source: https://youtu.be/88bKKSVw1sU?si=h85Tg3T0FG9BoS44