The Emergency Landing at Lajes

So vibrations from the engine power caused an immense amount of chafing to occur. I know what that's like. Let me tell. Oh man,. You the middle age the chafing just goes through the roof. Eventually this created a three inch crack I know you know what that's like. No not p The three inch crack, you don't have to tell me You have a three inch crack I do You always had a three inch Very cute tiny little butt with a three inch crack. I've always Th inches. That's all you got all this. It's all you need. It's all you need This is an IiHart podcast Guaranteed human This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. I'm going to be honest with you. I am online way more than I probably should be. And between me and everyone else at my house, we've got a zillion screens going on at any given moment. So when my internet slows down, it is a full crisis. 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That's faticsfest dot com Hey, I'm Ed Helms and this is SnaFoo, a show about history's greatest screw ups, or rather a show in which I journey with my wonderful guests through a distinct tale of human hubris, and or buffoonery from the past, examining what these stories say about us as human beings. Today, We'll be flying high above the Atlantic Ocean with the harrowing tale of Air Transat Flight two hundred thirty six and will be joined by an award winning actor. You know him as the lovable protagonist of such hit shows as parks and Rereation Party down and of course, severance. and the not quite so lovable antagonist though insanely hilarious antagonist of step Brothers. He was recently announced as one of Time's one hundred most influential people of twenty twenty five And he may just be the world's biggest REM fan Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, mister Adam Scott. Hello Adam. So glad you're here Thank you for having me. Yeah. Thank you for that introduction. I like all rightight when you said the REM thing. I realized behind me is a photo of REM up on my wall which is you're really playing the part Good Lord. I'm so excited to be here Well, right on, I'm glad to have you. Remind me the podcast that you do about REM. We Scott Yeah, Scott Ocerman and I had a podcast called Are you Talking REM R M Um that was morphed from The original podcast, which was you talk and you too to me And so we kind of went from band to band for a while. but yeah, REM was a big deal for me as I was growing up and it still is. Where did you grow up I grew up in Santaruz, California. in the Bay Area. Yeah. upp in the redwoods. Up in the Redwoods. Okay, this is not to try to like outcool you a little bit because obvly Santa Cruz is like coolest place to grow up. but I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia Right down the road from Athens, Georgia. When I was a little kid The older kids that were like driving me to school in carpools had the REM bootleg tapes from fraternity parties at Wow, the University of Georgia So I was listening to REM before was even cool, man. That I'm OG. That's pretty great. If you could get your hands on those bootlegs now That You might pay me twelve dollars for them. That's exactly right. I would up it to fourteen dollars, maybe. You've been doing so much cool work. We're gonna to get into this snafu here in a second, but I've known you a very, very long time. I don't even remember when or how we first crossed paths, but I rem just thinking of you always as one of my compatriots in the comedy space. but you've been just absolutely crushing dramatic roles now for years. Thanks. Obviously severance, but then of course, big little lies before that, you were just totally stealing scenes in that. And I'm curious if that was a sort of conscious migration towards drama or if if it's just sort of a product of of maturity and growing up. Where did that come from? And do you miss comedy or do you have a preference either way Yeah, well, thanks for saying all that. first of all,' really nice. I think that Yeah, it was a conscious thing because when Parks and Reck ended in twenty fourteen, I believe I did want to try and because I always thought, you know, when I was starting out and stuff, I thought of myself as a serious actor. I think we all maybe at one point or when we were starting kind of thought of ourselves that way. I never defally did. I always thought I was an idiot and like maybe maybe I can make money at this. That's an attribute because it took me years to realize that I was an idiot and I was maybe better at that. But as Parks and R was going on. I was lucky to be a part of this show and the kind of comedy community since like step brrothers and party down in Parks. I really love the whole kind of comedy world. But I also wanted to kind of differentiate a little bit and was finding it challenging to do so. And so when ended, yeah, I made a conscious choice to You know, really chase big little eyes and go audition and really try to be a part of that Very cool. It was fantastic. Another little dramatic tidbit from your past. was you starred in Jordan Peel's Twilight Zone reboot episode Nightmare at thirty thousand feet, which that's right is extremely relevant to today. In that one, you're on a plane listening to a podcast from the future. Predicting the flight's disappearance U suchuch an awesome premise. I won't spoil anything, but but that was fabulous. Today, we are talking about a very real nightmare at thirty thousand feet. Air Transat, That is the actual name of do you know this airline? I can't wait to hear what this is. Okay. So Air Transat is actually a major passenger carrier. It's a Canadian airline And it still exists I think as Americans, it's not on our radar. And it's also to me a very awkward name for an airline. It's clearly a it's an abreve for transattlantic. Sure Tranat. Transat. I don't know, Air Transat. It doesn't work for me. They need to rebrand. Yeah. So this is still in existence. It is. Oh wow, okay Do you remember Pan A Airlines? Yeah. That's a cool abbreviation. Its so cool. Pan AM. I like or TransAM, of course, that's a classic. TransM is the best abbreviation of all time. There it is. But anyway, Air Transat two hundred thirty six. three hundred six people were on board when it lost all engine power over the Atlantic. Yeah. That's a big plane. It's a big plane Before we dive in Ham Scott Are you Chill flyer or a nervous flyer? How would you characterize your flying disposition I I kind of go through stages for a while, I was a very jumpy flyer and had Big, big issue every time I got on a plane I feel like have you ever gone through that phase of being? I never have. I mean, I've had you've always been a pretty chill flyer. Yeah, and I think I grew up flying a bunch. I have had little bouts of claustrophobia at times on planes, but like that's to me a separate thing. Yeah The flying hat doesn't bother me I think that this was more like in my twenties. I just started thinking We could just drop out of the sky at any second and I wouldn't know it's coming. likeike it could just happen. Yeah. I'm going be on this thing for six hours and at any moment it could all And ye, but that's just destructive thinking. And eventually I just got used to it and And also, I think having kids And You know, you have if it gets bumpy, you have to make sure ye you're not you got to be the grown upp one hundred percent. And there is a really great Instagram account with airline pilots talking about turbulence and what it actually is, what it means. I like that What's happening and that there's absolutely no danger in turbulence. Turbulence is what's supposed to happen. All right. And so I just sort of repeat that. We were on a flight recently to Montana and when you're going over mountains, it's always a little bumpy And it was maybe the bumpiest h'd ever flight I'd ever been on and my kids were pretty freaked out, but I had to pretend like I was not freaked out at all and I was. Now that you mentioned it, the one time that I or not I've been nervous on planes, but like probably the most nervous I got on a plane was also in the Rocky Mountains coming into Turride airport, which is like on a mesa and there's like a quick face right before the runway and totally I remember it was so bumpy coming into the runway and the thing that really threw me is like I'm I'm actually fine with like and down turbuline. But at some point the plane started kind of going like this. Oh yeah. Like the nose of the plane was turning. I was like, wait a minute. Now we're not even pointed at the runway. What is going on? It starts feeling like a ride at at Magic Mountain or something when it starts making those other kind of modulations. Exactly, yeah. like we shouldnt be on we shouldn't be pivoting Exactly Up and down, I get, but likeit no, this is weird. Especially when you're about to land and you start going you know the wind starts blowing you in a different direction. Y unnervous. That's exactly what it was. just c anyway, those side gusts, they get you. Okay, so this will either be reassuring or triggering for you. Okay I h it I hope it's the former. But let's dive right in. So we're going all the way back to august two thousand one. Where were you in August of two thousand one? Do you remember? August two thousand one, I was up in Berkeley, California doing a production of Romeo and Juliette. Cool Cowhakes is what they call it. It's an outdoor theater up in Arinda, which is right outside of Berkeley. It's a really beautiful place.. Yeah, that's what I was doing. That's very, very cool. And Pling Romeo, by the way. Yeah. Oh, nailing it. Awesome. I love it I was just, I was in New York City drifting from voice overver audition to voice over audition. I think that was and the occasional commercial audition. That was were you doing stand upp comedy Okay, stand up. stand up. Yeah. Was you CBA? A yet or was that a little early? Right? Yes, right around then it was sort of emerging. It it had landed, I think Yeah, around ninety nine is when it really Okay still a little kind of underground and then by two thousand one it was starting to be a thing. and yeah, I was taking classes there. G. I was definitely doing UCB at that time. now that I think cool That must have been so fun that hold. It was very special. Yeah. Yeah. That just sounds so fun. Be in New York at the dawn of UCB and doing standup. that sounds so much more romantic and cool than doing Romeo and Juliet in Northern California to me. Wait a minute Wait a minute. two things one thing you said is true. It was wonderful to be in New York during that time and I cherish those days. But also There is nothing more romantic and badass than playing Romeo. in a product. I mean, that is your be your professionally acting None of it ye, yeah. Like at that time, I was like lucky to get ten bucks for some dumb corporate gig. They both sound cool and fun All right, we begin our journey north of the border on august fifteenth, two thousand one at the Toronto Pearson Airport in Canada. Air TransZat at Canadian Airlines, ran a routine inspection on one of their Airbus A three hundred thirty models. And mechanics took note of a teensy, tiny little maintenance problem. The hydraulic lines and the right engine required a replacement. Now, this particular A three hundred thirty airbus wasn't all that old. It had just been made built in nineteen ninety nine But it had already accumulated over ten thousand flying hours, which as Malcolm Gladwell told us, makes that plane an expert And something are you put ten thousand hours into anything Besides acting, is there some skill that you have, some secret hobby that you're other than like watching television? I don't think so. How about listening to REM. You're. probablyrob. You're an RM expert. sure, I'm an expert. But have you done ten thousand hours of banjo, do you think? Probably, but so so scattered over thirty, forty years that it's doesn't really count. I feel like that ten thousand hours has to occur in a relatively contained amount of time for expertise to emerge But when Malcolm Gladwell came out with the ten thousand hours thing, it really felt like that just felt like it made sense, right? Remember when that was introduced, it was like, oh yeah, of course. I think subsequent research has called it out as being kind of ludicrously arbitrary, but it does have a n nice ring to it. It does It certainly does. And it has to be at least partially true When applied to the beatles, it makes perfect sense. Exactly. So our Airbus A three hundred thirty, as expertly attuned as she was to cloud hopping, she needed a little tune up And a few days later, on august seventeenth, Air Transat decided to replace the engine altogether. only the spare engine that would normally be used wasn't readily available. So what do you do when your spare engine isn't ready? you upgrade to the Rolls Royce of Loner engines, which was literally a Rolls Royce engine Sorry, a loner engine just doesn't have a reassuring ring to it. That's my terminology. It's just the engine that they need that they needed to it was their engine They would then replace. And it was Rolls Royce, so yeah, we can ye, I can trust which by the way, I love, a lot of people, I think, don't realize that Rolls Royce is a huge player in aviation and they make jet engines in addition to like these these ludicrously expensive cars that are all dri by butlers. Yeah, I just I think thats that's like that makes Rolls Royce very cool to me in a weird way And it's butlers that actually put those engines together. It's an all butler crew. It's just crazy associ Rolls Royce with Butlers for something like G Cpon. Yeahpon and all that stuff Sonanatics Fest NYC returns to the Javbit Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. S stars like LeBron James, Tom Brady, Aaron Judge, John Cena, Jalin Brunson, Serena Williams, and hundreds more, featuring more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. Eclusive merch, rare collectibles, Sonatics games with two million dollars in prizes, a full tailgate zone, and New York City's largest Indoor FIFA World Cup final watchatch party. Sonanatics Fest is the world's number one sports fan festival tickets now at faneticspest. com. That's feticspest dot com The World Cup is underway and it has been incredible. On our podcast, The Away End with Annieel Alar Kon and John Green, we're talking about the games that have delighted us, the teams that have inspired us, what we're loving and whats surprised us, all to the lens of being massive fans of the world's most beautiful game Daniel, this tournament has been magical so far. The expanded field of Teams has created some incredible matchups that have already made this World Cup one to remember. and now things get even more exciting with the intensity of the knockout rounds as the field is whittled down to one World Cup champion on july nineteenth. When you say like that, I get a pain in my heart that the tournament is over. But there's a lot of soccer yet to go. and if the first few games of the round thirty two are any indication, anything is possible in the lead up to the final We've got it covered from an ultra' perspective here on the away end. So listen to the And with Daniel Eicon and John Greene on the IiHart Radio apppp, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Mgisha Tet and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever. for all of us I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain as opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. makeake it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skylland Drive, How to Live Forever on the iHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Declaration which is full of these beautifully rendered you know, sentences and paragraphs about enlightenment ideals. does also have this darker history to it Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution Why is it important that Americans know about it Well, if we don't understand, The full context in which our nation was founded We won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself I'm Rebecca Nagl, Gohin, Taadon, Jekca Yetli, gay laa, citizen of Cherokee Nation. Are you guys big chef fans? Hell yeah. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be how we got to this present moment Listen to First America, on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts All of Air Transit's A three hundred thirty s were built in a newer updated configuration. This replacement engine that they borrowed older, not fully updated, still living in the past. So it was supposed to be brought up to modern specs, but the shop didn't have the right parts. so instead they shipped it off with a note that basically said, please install new parts when you get a chance boy. Okay, so now air Tansit's mechanics get their hands on it and they did what any responsible adult would do. They opened the Airbus Illustrated parts catalog. Oh God. Not not exactly Skymall In this case, upgrading was obviously necessary. Can we just step back for a second because This reminds me of something of like one of my little cultural annoyances, which is like why we have to constantly upgrade everything? Like why why do we need this new iPhone software, which all it does is like make things look a little different and ruin my muscle memory? I totally agree. Then you have to get used to just a tab being in a different position on the screen And you're right, your muscle memory just gets screwed up. and so it just makes it everything slow down. And it's like everything's begging you to upgrade it. Like you're getting messages on your phone, you're getting messages in your car, you're getting's like I expect my refrigerator to sit me down and be like, Hey, buddy, why are you holding me back? That's right. That's right. You gotta upgrade me. You're a refrigerator. Exactly relax. You keep things cold. But also not just the software, but the equipment itself, like we all feel Like if we don't upgrade our phone or whatever it is, then you're a step behind Yeah and it's Ridiculous. They're preying on our existential angst, Adam said. Eactly. That's not fair. Okay. Our technicians in this case followed the correct protocol, but what they did not follow was an important service bulletin, or SB, which is a set of directions from Rolls Royce about how to properly set up the hydraulic pumps and fuel lines. The computer terminals that they were using, I guess on the maintenance floor, they couldn't access these service bulletins for whatever reason And thus they had to rely on goodoodw advice from the maintenance engineering department. According to records, they were able to maneuver a fit on the fuel lines, which believe me, we will come back to that. And inspections commenced. A successful ground test was run and completed. Several thumbs up were exchanged, I assume, and our A three hundred thirty was sent off to join the fleet once again. So can I just ask a question? you may not know this. Is this just is this like day of like, oh shit, we need to replace this with the spare Rolls Royce engine? or is this like just getting it ready to Join the fleet and go. It wasn't immediately urgent. There was a problem with this engine and they were doing a sort of routine replacement of the engine. But it wasn't like they were like almost ready to go and then they were like, oh, we got to swap out an engine. R. It was like right, No, we're gonna to take this plane out of service for a minute and actually work on it. and then we'll put it back. It involved planning and procedures, got it The first flight with this new Rolls Royce engine, it went great. In fact, the Airbus A three hundred thirty logged about sixty four uneventful flight hours after this engine change Then came august twenty fourth, two thousand one. Late that evening in Toronto, thirteen crew members and two hundred and ninety three passengers boarded air Trans at flight two hundred thirty six bound for Lisbon. aboutbout to take a transatlantic trip that would go down in aviation history and become a ride none of them would soon forget. It's a long flight It is Toronto to Lisbon So it's like eight hours, seven hours. A standard flight. is this is You asked the question and queued me up. A standard flight from Toronto to Lisbon takes about seven hours. and for three hours and forty five minutes of that flight Ething was peachy keen. passassengers comfortably snoozed to snack or sipped on their complimentary tomato juices A about thirty nine thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean. boy Adam, what's your go to ight activity Are you reading magazines? Are you napping? Are you watching something on your phone All I do is drink tomato juice when I'm on flights. That's my that's it. I don't like doing anything else. It's weird. I've heard I've seen people tweet about that. They're like, Adam Scott's on my flight and he won't put down He's like to gall yeing at the flight attendants about getting more tomato juice. and they're like me my tomato juice. O of tomato juice, it's so weird. Like relax Adam Scott. On a plane, I like watching stuff. I like watching movies. I mean if I have have to do work and like read, then I'll do that. but That usually just makes me pass rightite out if I start reading. So I just like watching movies that that I bring myself How about you I I Usually we'll listen to podcasts or. I kind of daydream a lot on airplanes. Oh that's interesting. Like I just kind of let my mind wander. I love This is a strange thing. I love long flights. I just to me, it's like this weird Limbo. It's like you're you're not in the world. You're you're in this little weird and you get to kind of check out from things. That's why I like it when flights don't have Wiifi and it's getting more and more rare when you because I agree. I like a long flight. There's something cozy about it.. And there's something where you just get to lay down and and I like that you daydream. I feel like there's less and less boredom first of all, and there's less and less daydreaming now because we all have something to occupy our eyes in our mind at all times. hundred percent I think it's good to just take a moment and just Space out. I love boredom And and I require it of my children. They like my kids will come to me and be like, I'm so bored. And I always tell them Go and sit down get as bored as you can. Yeah. just get as bored as you possibly can. Like and I and I sort of force them to like try to be bored. and once they're trying to be bored, they instantly start thinking of like fun activities do. It's a good It's a fun little Jedi trick, but It's it's so smart. That's where you come up with your tastes That's where you kind of form what it is you like to do and what you like thinking about. And yeah, I think that's great. I'm a great parent. What can I say? That's just really commendable E. Thank you About three hours and forty six minutes into the flight And the pilot, forty eight year old Robert Pichet o. He's phrase Kabquis first officer there's also first officer twenty eight year old Dirk D Yeager. They noticed something odd. a fuel imbalance between the right and left engines. Now our pilots and crew were tootal professionals with ample amounts of airtime, including over a thousand combined hours of flying the actual A three hundred and thirty model. So they knew what they were doing. But as we tend to find here at SNAFu, sometimes that is Just not enough Yeah. The pilots initiated a new flight plan They would call call in audible here and reroute to Lagis airport. in Tercera Island in the Azores. Terera Island is a beautiful volcanic island in the North Atlantic, about nine hundred miles closer from Lisbon and it's a much, much easier spot to get to for flight . Wow. so wait, they're calling this audible because of the fuel imbalance? Yeah, esssentially, they're realizing that the fuel levels are not what they should be. They're not sensing an emergency yet, but they're sort of like we just need to make sure we're on a safe landing course here. Yeah. So we have a rendering of their flight paths here. so let's take a look at that and see what it looks s like Yeah. so you can see they say this is a considerably safer little spot to land on. Yeah, and it's just tad more than halfway to Lisbon. Have you ever been to the Azores No I would love to, have you? No. I've been to the Canary Islands, which is another one of those weird mid Atlantic bubbles of islands, but yeah, it seems like a really beautiful place. I would imagine it is. I mean, look at that. You're right smack in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Yeah Let's go sometime. you and me We're going. So you know what? Let's go tomorrow. Are we too old to just go on a backpacking trip through Europe And how would be c. That would be so fun. Although I would I would my patients would run Thin with the hostels Well, no what we would do, if you and I went backpacking across Europe is we'd go into like the severance subreddit and the hangover subreddit, and we'd be like, hey fans,ate Europe. We need places to stay. That's right We need really nice places to stay. Yeah, put us up. That would be really funny. We should do that. We need to do that and make a documentary. That seems like it would be very funy. great. So it's at this moment that one of the crew members enters the cockpit, like one of the flight attendants on some just unrelated business only to learn that they are not going to Lisbon any longer Not only that, Captain Pichet asks this crew member to then go back and inspect the wings for a fuel leak Oh no. Any guess on how you inspect a wing if you're like in the The fuselage of an airplane, how do you inspect a wing I just think of the thing in Temple of Doom where they let the fuel out and it just literally looks like liquid coming out of the wing You're exactly right. all you can do is just now it's in the middle of the night. keepeep in mind. this is a red eye. so all you can do is walk back and then shine a flashlight out the window of the plane and look at the wing. Now in the daylight, presumably you would be able to see fuel spraying out the back of an engine in the same way that in the Temple of Doom att night even with a flashlight virtually no chance of that. But also like, what if you're that guy sitting at the window and the flight attendant is just like, I just need to check the wing per Oh my God Okay. Yeah. so a little tense He or she goes to the window and shines a flashlight out to the wing. Yeah. And they They have to be a high powered flashlight too.. And probably not powerful enough. And they don't see anything Because you really probably can't see anything, even though as we'll soon learn, there was a lot happening on that wing. Oh boy. So with no physical evidence and no further alerts, both pilots misdiagnosed the issue as a sensor malfunction On the bright side, they had set off from Canada with almost fifty metric tons of fuel, which is F and a half tons more than is required on such a flight path, whichich is good. You want to pack some extra granola bars when you're going on a hike, right? one hundred percent. When you're hiking across Europe. Yeah. Yes So don't forget to pack extra granola bars, by the way when we go on our trip. And this is where our pilots made a bit of a tough call and like very likely the incorrect one. There's actually a protocol for a suspected fuel leak. even if you can't verify it. Now, they could have followed that But instead they felt confident that this was just a computer system error and there was no leak. And so they initiated the fuel imbalance procedure instead. And this fix wasn't exactly crazy. This is not this is something that happens. And since there was indeed an imbalance, but it was probably the worst they could have done. So in an effort to balance the weight of the aircraft, they start pumping fuel from the left wing over to the right, not realizing that a massive crack in the fuel line of the right engine was spitting out their fuel almost as quickly as they were pumping it over. So in essence, they were just dumping fuel into the Atlantic Ocean. It's like a classic case of just making the problem worse when you're trying to solve it. So they basically are doing what they did in Temple of Doom and just dumping their their fuel. Yeah God At this point, flight two hundred thirty six was down to seven tons of fuel, which is only six percent of the planes's. tootal fuel capacity. Oh no, but they're like over the middle of the Atlantic. So Pichet continues to fiddle with various engine settings and configurations to try to save fuel, and all of a sudden the right engine shuts down. It just flames out Because it's out of fuel. Yes God The pilots Okay this is when the pilots send a Mate a signal. thirteen minutes later The left engine also completely dies because it is out of fuel, also out of fuel. Can I ask a question in maybe you don't know this, if you have only one engine in a giant plan like this. Yeah. Can you negotiate your way through a trip like this? or is it also really dicey? This is an awesome question, and I wish I had a better answer for you, but the answer I have is that I know you can fly a jet on one engine. So like if one engine goes out You can still fly on one end, which is with the physics of that are insane to me because it seems like plane would just start spinning around, right Yeah But, but there are I guess trims and controls and ways to just sort of like keep you on track and and just using that one one one jet engine for power As we're about to find out, there are a cascading set of issues when an engine dies out. At this point, they're sixty five nautical miles away from Ljia's airport with no engines. Oh my Godd. This is wild. I heard some interviews with some passengers that were on this plane and one of them was talking about how it just went dead Quiet How Terrifying as that Like the thing the jet engines. die And so it just now you're just Like it's used the air It's all the noise when you're on a passenger jet, it's that it's what you have the noise canceling headphones for is to cut out that constantes Noise. It just goes silent. It's so creepy. Okay, so they have to drop altitude. They dippp to thirty thousand feet because there's so little oxygen up there and they're gonna to lose cabin pressure and all this. They'll have to don their oxygen masks. Have you ever had to do that on a plane? No, I haven't. haveave you? Yeah, me neither. thank God. The jet engines of an airplane are also the primary source of electrical and hydraulic power power on the plane. Imagine? Yeah sure. They're essentially like generators for all of your electricity on a plane. So when the engines go out, instantly all of the primary electric functions on the aircraft go out as well And it's starting to look like they're going to have to ditch the plane in the ocean with all three hundred and six people on board That's the That's the right word Hitch dark Yeah, it's the middle of the night Good God. Yeah Okay, so now we're coming to the gliding portion of our evening. And this is how this incident earned the name the Azur Glider incident Keep in mind, the A three hundred thirty Airbrus model is a wide bodied jet It ain't designed for gliding. No. But any airplane can glide somewhat. Of course the wings will give you some lift. D depending on wind and all of that probably as well, right? Well, yeah, and your air speed, you know, it was obviously going very fast at the time that the engines died. So it's got speed and then and then just the descent is going to give you additional speed. So that's right. You can you can glide these things, which is incredible. You're a passenger on this plane and the electricity goes out Your oxygen masks are dropped. You're getting word that you might have to ditch in the ocean. you're probably making preparations inside the cabin for a water landing. Like what's going through your head, Adam Scott? Are you good in a crisis? Are you gonna to be steady for people? A are you gonna lose your yet? Oh dude, I feel like that's the kind of thing that you never know until you are faced with situation like this. likeike you don't know what gear you're going to shift into until you kind of find yourself faced with circumstances like this. I mean, if I'm just going if I just think about this trip a few weeks ago when the plane was going, it was a small plane, it was going all over the place when we were coming into Montana And My daughter was upset. I could see my son trying to keep a brave face on, but scared shitless. I just had to maintain te confidence that everything was fine. Don't worry. but I was wavering, I was not sure. inside one hundred percent. This is this is good dadding right here. I'm proud of about him. That's awesome. That is dadding. So don't know I guess it depends on who I'm with. If I'm by myself, I'm freaking out and I'm trying to maybe I'm trying to contact my wife at this point. I'm not sure How about How do you feel in a situation? Oh, I'm so bad ass. I'm cool as a cucumber. No question You're going up and trying to take the controls of the. Totally I, uh Well, like you said, it's very hard to know and the dad thing is huge. L I do think that being having that responsibility to sort of like keep other people calm does sort of foist a whole different perspective onto someone in that situation. And I I've certainly been like dealt with bad injuries or things with kids and where it's like your calmness E so important, even when it's very hard and I've made it through some of those incidents U And so I don't know. I like to think I would be a steady sort of source of strength for for people around me, but I might just be screaming and bawling and like just going nuts, who knows? Well, I'm sure you're right that it's not just who you're with, like if you have your family with you, but also how the people around you are reacting That would probably have a lot to do with what part of the puzzle you fit into. It could either spin you up more or give you more sort of impetus to like try to calm. Yeah. That's right. Who knows? Yeah. Wh knowsild Good Lord. I think we would be great. I'm just say, I'm just gonna to go on record. You and I Yeah, I think you and I would be, dare I say heroic hundred percent. Okay We're going to have this on display when we backpack across Europe. We're going to encounter all kinds of emergencies and we're going to be heroic. It's just who we are, Adam. Two heroes. Yeah, Tw heroes. That's the name of the dock That's right Okay, back to that night in two thousand one, desespite misreading a major fuel leak as a minor censor issue, Captain Piche was solid on one crucial thing He knew the plane's gliding ratio, which is fifteen to one. That means for every fifteen units forward, the aircraft was traveling, it was dropping one unit in altitude. So at thirty three thousand feet, that gave them a gliding range of roughly seventy five to one hundred miles Okay, wait, sorry, do we know how far they are from the landing strip on the island? They're under they're around seventy five miles Holy shit. Yeah So at this point, they glided seventy five miles For nineteen minutes U until at last they arere approaching their rerouted destination, the Lagis Air base. It's in sight. sort of because it's so dark at night and this is a this is a small island. So there's not like a ton of light around to kind of like help help them see what's happening. I find it very surprising that a massive airliner can glide for seventy five to one hundred miles. is that Do you find that reassuring a little bit? I find it reassuring and I find it fascinating that these things are built. It gives you a sense of how powerful these engines are, but it also gives you a sense of just how beautifully built these planes are, the physics and engineering of it, it's insane. Yeah, the physics of it are fascinating It's really, really wild. I would imagine it also has to do. And probably as they get lower there's more air for them to glide on. The air gets a little ling. less thin as they get lower. Is that I'm sure cor. I have no idea what I'm talking about. That's some cool attmospheric calculation you're doing. I like that. That's right. I like that I just did an atmospheric calculation. There you go. sounds great Fanaticspest NYC returns to the Jabbit Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. S stars like LeBron James, Tom Brady, Aron Judge, John Cena, Jaylin Brunson, Serena Williams, and hundreds more. feeaturing more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. Eclusive merch, rare collectibles, Sonatics games with two million dollars in prizes, A full tailgate zone, and New York City's largest indndoor FIFA World Cup final watchatch party. Fanatics Fest is the world's number one spports fan festival. Get your tickets now at fanaticsfest dot com dot That's fanaticsfest dot com d The World Cup is underway and it hass been incredible. O our podcast, The Aay End with Ananieele Alar Khon and John Green, we're talking about the games that have delighted us, the teams that have inspired us, what we're loving and what's surprised us all to the lens of being massive fans of the world's most beautiful game. Daniel, this tournament has been magical so far. The expanded field of teeams has created some incredible matchups that have already made this World Cup one to remember. and now things get even more exciting with the intensity of the knockout rounds as the field is whittled down to one World Cup champion on july nineteenth When you say like that, I get a pain in my heart that the tournament is over. But there's a lot of soccer yet to go. And if the first few games of the round of thirty two are any indication, anything is possible in the lead up to the final We've got it covered from an ultrra' perspective here on the A end So listen to the Aay end with Daniel Ekoon and John Greene on the iHart Radiopp, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Mgish Sa Tet and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you And then we can test what draw is the best for your brain as opposed to his brain Here are some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. makeake it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skylland Drive How to Live Forever on the iHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts The Declaration which is full of these beautifully rendered sentences and paragraphs about enlightenment ideals. does also have this darker history to it. Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution Why is it important that Americans know about it Well, if we don't understand The full context in which our nation was founded We won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself I'm Rebecca Nagel, Gohin, Daadon, Jekca Yetleli, gay laa, citizen of Cherokee Nation. Are you guys big chiefs fans? Hell yeah. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment. Listen to First America on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts Well, now, it's still really early in the morning or late at night, depending on how you're looking at it. So it's very, very dark. Piche and Dieager, they couldn't exactly see their surroundings very much, not to mention the fact that it's basically dark. They have some electric. This is very cool. There's another special piece of technology that was a bit of a rockstar that night. and that is what's called a RAM air turbine or rat So in case of emergency engine out scenarios and these do happen more often than you think, there is this rat. It is a small wind turbine that deploys, I think from the bottom of the jet usually, and it's basically a little propeller That is a power generator. And so the power of the wind is hitting this little turbine and it generates some extra hydraulic and electrical power when everything else has failed. It gives them just enough power to to have minimum hydraulics that they need Exactly and to power some of the instruments in the cockpit and so forth. So like that's wild. Yeah. and talk about, I mean you're marveling at the engineering of these things. There's so many things about airplanes that are just mind blowing. Yeah. So with help from the rat, do you also wish as I do that it was an actual rat deploys in emergencies, he has a little captain's hat on. I do wish that any really knows what he's doing Yeah. and he he just has a hamster wheel And's what's generating the power. gener so the power. That's right. Oh, that would be amazing. I actually wish it was the heavy metal band Rat guy me too that they were on the plane and that they would just rock so hard that there was Right? Remember the hair metal b That' generating power, man. Exactly. Okay They just need to play out of the cellar Yeah and everyone would be rocking out so much they wouldn't even realize they're in danger. No No, not at all. The engineering to get the banned rat into the cargo hold of every airplane flight, that seems like a tricky proposition, but I'm sure we can figure it out. Challenging, but this is America. Not insurmountable Yeah. right. This is America. You're right. That's right. With the help of this RAM air turbine, the pilots managed to bring a few critical systems back online and fly the plane by hand they're still dropping really, really fast with limited control and zero thrust, right? Right. They just is getting closer and closer, which means There is no time for caution. This is it. They have one shot at this landing. None of this is normal. None of their trajectory and descent rate and all those things, none of it is like chill. So air traffic controllers at Leagis are actually flickering the runway lights on and off to help them see in the dark. whichich is insane. A three hundred thirty roaches Leagis airport at a very high speed and steep descent angle. Piche actually had to maintain a speed over one hundred and forty knots so that the RAM air turbine would continue to function, but he couldn't go above two hundred knots or the landing gear might not extend. Oh my God. As they get closer, Piche realized he may have been and this is another little tasty bit of irony, He may have been too good at gliding Because a normal approach is you would come into the airport at three thousand feet when you're about ten miles away from the runway, Piche had kept the plane up so high for so long that they were actually at thirteen thousand feet and now only eight miles away. So they're too high. They're too high. The Piche got some serious balls on this guy. He's a badass. Yeah. He decides to pull a three hundred and sixty degree turn so that he could drop several thousand feet all while Dieager is putting out the landing gear. That is a roll of the dice because you're dropping the whole time. With no thrust, you cannot go back up You've got no room to go back up. So he gets too low, then they're fucked. Right. But he makes this basically like a, you know, a circle And meanwhile, D Yeeager is dropping the landing gear. Now this is a wild thing. Uually it's a hydraulic system that is like fully electronic and everything and it just drops. But when you have no power, there are actually these levers or sort of like pull latches on the floor of the cockpit under a panel that you open up and you pull these latches up And that's it's you manually deploy the landing gear Wow and it pulls these cables and it releases the landing gear. The landing gear then falls from the plane from gravity not from the hydraulic pressure. So it's really why that's why he has to maintain a speed because if he's going too fast, it will get Yeah they get the landing gear out by hand in the what's called the freefall method of of landing gear deployment and down they're going two hundred knots, the plane makes contact with the runway and it hits H I bet. In fact, it hits so hard that the plane bounces And the landing gear and the tires burst from the impact. Oh God Somehow Piche brings it back down and the crew manages to keep the aircraft on the runway and bring it to a stop and holy We are Saved Are you surprised? P S This guy Mhm. This guy is a badass. That is Crazy Some questionable choices in the mix of the process, but no question this man has mad skills and a serious like pilot's disposition. Here's the casualty list. sixteen passengers sustained minor injuries. and most of those were from the evacuation of the plane. which usually what happens. Yeah. Yeahah, right. Which reportedly was completed in approximately ninety seconds. And that's incredible to me because when I think of like People delaning, it is such a just dumpster fire of elbows and anger and luggage pulling down and whatever. But I would also imagine that Being scared of a plane exploding might help you get off a plane quicker. Yeah I have a question for you. I always think about because just the other day people had to evacuate a Southwest flight or something and I saw the footage of them like bouncing down the slide that they deploy off the side of the plane. I missed that. And I know that they always say when you are evacuating a plane, do not grab your bags, notothing you just get off the plane. Would you have a tough time just leaving your stuff on the plane? I feel like I would grab my bag no matter what they said , that's I guess it depends how dire the situation. What's in your bag, Adam L Is it your haoin? bike? What's going on? You got it? Do we need to talk about this? Ed, takeake it easy You're don't want to question raises additional questions. I guess you're right. Never mind. Never mind, moving on. I think would I think I would be pretty okay leaving my bag. Okay Yeah. I mean, I like my AirPod Maxes and I love my laptop. I kind of would die without it. I don't love it, but I would be in trouble without it. but I leave be I don' think that makes me a better person than you, Adam, but maybe maybe a little. I was just kidding when I said all that about wanting to grab my bag. That wasn't real. I still think you're a good person. Oh, thank you, thank you. Okay, great. I still think you're a good person, no matter what. Remarkably, all three hundred and six people on board survived and the plane the plane itself was mostly intact. Piche and Diieeger were heroes