Niugini Boeing 737 Footage Reveals More on Sea Crash
‘We’re too low! We’re too low!’: Terrifying cockpit footage captures Boeing 737 ploughing into the sea 1,500ft from a runway as pilot error is blamed for the crash into the sea off Chuuk runway
Terrifying cockpit footage has emerged of the moment a Boeing 737-800 ploughed into the Pacific Ocean after its frantic copilot yelled ‘we’re too low!’.
The air crash investigation video was released yesterday after the Air Niugini jet ditched 1,500ft from a runway in Chuuk, Micronesia, last September.
One male passenger died and another nine were injured in the crash in which 34 passengers managed to scramble to safety from the Chuuk Lagoon off Weno island. The investigation in Papua New Guinea has found the pilots ignored numerous ‘pull up’ warning lights and alarms as it came in to land.
The report said the pilots had regularly ignored warnings from the aircraft on previous occasions when they landed at the airport. But on this occasion, a storm meant that they could not see the runway and their cavalier attitude caused the disaster.
Despite heaping blame on them for the fatal crash, neither the Papua New Guinean captain nor the Australian co-pilot was named in the report.
Moments before the footage cuts out, the co-pilot shrieks at the captain, ‘Too low! We’re too low! We’re too low!’
AIC report
A Papua New Guinea Accident Investigation Commission (AIC) report into the September 28 crash found the captain and co-pilot ignored numerous automated warnings while approaching the runway.
The report stated: ‘The crew were fixated on the task of landing the aircraft and did not notice the visual PULL UP caution alert at the bottom of their PFD.
‘Therefore, they (the crew) did not take any positive action to arrest the high rate of descent and avoid landing in the lagoon.
In fact, neither of the pilots were aware of the rapidly unfolding unsafe situation.
‘The investigation found that the crew had received similar aural alerts on previous approaches in visual conditions where the aircraft was safely landed.
This would have contributed to the perception that the alerts during the accident approach were nuisance alerts, and therefore disregarded them.’
It said the pair missed ‘pull up’ warning lights and continued the landing attempt at Chuuk International Airport, even after bad weather made them lose sight of the runway.
‘Both pilots were fixated on cues associated with control inputs for the landing approach, and subsequently were not situationally aware,’ AIC chief commissioner Hubert Namani said.
A transcript revealed the dramatic final seconds in the cockpit before the crash.
Footage reveals
The official footage reveals a glideslope view, altimeter, simulated view, as well as the cockpit angle as the drama unfolds.
After the crash, with the plane half-submerged in the lagoon, 12 crew members and 34 passengers scrambled off the aircraft into the water.
They were picked up by a flotilla of small boats operated by locals and US Navy divers who happened to be in the area. The report said the man who died was not wearing a seat-belt and suffered blunt trauma injuries to his head, which probably killed him minutes after the crash.
It said Air Niugini had agreed to a number of changes, including increased training for crews flying to Chuuk and tighter restrictions on landing requirements at the airport.
The Boeing 737-800 is not to be confused with the Boeing 737 MAX 8 which has been grounded around the world over safety fears.
The 737-800 is the third generation of the Boeing series, while the MAX 8 is the latest and fourth generation and presents different technologies.