OV9

"Sole Survivor", a 1982 made-for-TV movie.

It features a plane crash where a pilot appears to survive, but is later revealed to have died in the cockpit.

I remember seeing this at the time and it put the willies up me

Reminded me of Unbreakable. Looks like he was still in the plane but alive after it crashed, not that he somehow got ejected from the wreckage.
Terrible situation. I think I read as well that someone jumped out of a second story window of a building to escape

It’s absolutely crazy. It’s even more crazy he didn’t get knocked out for a bit - he saw everyone around him die at the moment of impact whilst walking away himself. I can’t get my head around that. Hopefully he’s of strong mental fortitude.

New footage shows how the plane climbs sluggishly and then just sinks.

Speculation around dual-engine bird strikes - but there is no smoke visible. Fuel issue? Or just not enough airspeed / power / inappropriate flap setting.




I’ve also seen speculation that it could be like this incident - where a typo into the gizmo used to calculate take-off performance aspects removed 100tonnes from the actual weight of the plane (with flap and throttle settings and the rotation speed therefore significantly miscalculated).

Looks like the flaps weren't deployed (which they absolutely have to be for takeoff) which explains the lack of lift. Question is - why? Did the pilots think they were deployed and they weren't? Unlikely they'd forget as that's takeoff 101. Also the landing gear is down which is unusual.

Mentour pilot has done an initial video - No flaps set on a 787 should have alarms wailing in the cockpit on roll out. looks like it had take off thrust then just lost it.

scotta wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 4:21 pm Mentour pilot has done an initial video - No flaps set on a 787 should have alarms wailing in the cockpit on roll out. looks like it had take off thrust then just lost it.

Same conclusion from this guy - I've skipped the section where he explains exactly that, and moved to what he thinks actually occured.

I haven’t bothered watching many of these vids because they all seem to waffle on for 20mins with maybe a minute of decent information hidden somewhere within it.

The initial climb looked fine, surely miscalculations, wrong flap settings, struggling to gain speed mean a long lingering takeoff, and tings get easier once you’re well off the ground?

From my incredibly amateur view is just looks like it lost power for some reason and dropped. No smoke, no flames, no crazy manoeuvres. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see the how and why’s.

integrale_evo wrote: Sun Jun 15, 2025 8:59 am I haven’t bothered watching many of these vids because they all seem to waffle on for 20mins with…….

TL : DR

Like Harry I’ve not watched the videos, but do they mention how a load of in flight stuff wasn’t working on the previous flight leg? I’ve seen videos showing how entertainment systems etc were already non functional on the plane. Does it point towards simply power failing?

This one contains new info and is pretty good. So you probably shouldn’t watch it either.

Edit: although he’s clearly excited to bring this new evidence and emits a couple of giggles that don’t feel massively appropriate

Ghouls the lot of them, trading on death for views and ad revenue.

I had a look at some in cockpit take off videos on the 787 and the cockpit layout in general, and quite frankly his explanation of 'whoopsied the flaps when should have doopsied the landing gear' looked like bollocks just from that. The controls aren't even on the same part of the cockpit. (flaps on the 'transmission tunnel', landing gear up on the 'dash')

Pretty poor show to slander what can be assumed to be a competent flight crew - who can't defend themselves because they're fuckin' dead - because he was too lazy to google how the plane actually works.

The worst are the dumb lazy animations showing the plane nose diving into buildings. Disgusting lazy clickbait.

This is the best I've seen on the subject.

Cockpit voice recorder suggests engine cut-off switches were thrown….,

https://stocks.apple.com/A1i0AmZDuSxmkA0CckwOIKg

The weird part:

The cockpit voice recording captures one pilot asking the other why he "did the cut-off", to which the person replies that he didn't. The recording doesn't clarify who said what.

Which is a bit odd.

I was feeling better about this on the basis of it being pilot error not manufacturing defect, but now I see how easy those switches are to flick I'm not so much...

Surely they should be under a cover or better yet - not capable of being turned off during take off!

GG. wrote: Sat Jul 12, 2025 9:45 am I was feeling better about this on the basis of it being pilot error not manufacturing defect, but now I see how easy those switches are to flick I'm not so much...

Surely they should be under a cover or better yet - not capable of being turned off during take off!

Yeah that was my first thought but then my second thought was what if there’s genuinely an engine fire. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t and how much can you trust sensors to automate that whole thing.

The quotation is incorrect. There isn’t even anything to quote currently. Page 14, paragraph 5

https://aaib.gov.in/What's%20New%20Asse ... VT-ANB.pdf