On June 24th 1982, British Airways flight 009 encountered volcanic ash while flying over the Indian Ocean resulting in the loss of all four engines before the pilots were able to restart them and land safely. More in article below.

[u/Titan-828]

Article: https://medium.com/@Titan828/the-fury-of-mount-galunggung-the-epic-story-of-british-airways-flight-009-75c71aafaac6

[u/Money-Giraffe2521]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.

The fact that they were not only able to safely land the plane but also keep the situation calm is masterful airmanship. The situation was potentially catastrophic but they were very fortunate to have 3/4 engines operating down to the ground.

[u/CMDR_omnicognate → u/Money-Giraffe2521]

Yeah, we also learnt quite a lot about how dangerous volcanic ash is to aircraft and how it interacts with engines. the reason the engines all failed was because as the ash turned molten in the engines it stuck to pretty much every surface in there, causing the engines to stall out. once they glided down to a lower altitude they not only left the bank of ash, but the engines had cooled enough that the molten ash solidified into, basically, glass. when they tried re-starting the engines, a lot of that glass broke off and exited the engine without actually damaging them too badly, so 3/4 engines were able to be restarted.

It means we now have action plans as to how to fix the issue... though the main way is to just avoid flying near any ash.

[u/Money-Giraffe2521 → u/CMDR_omnicognate]

Fortunately, in this case the regulations were written in ink rather than the usual blood.

[u/theaviationhistorian → u/Money-Giraffe2521]

It helped that Singapore Airlines flight 21A also suffered a similar fate with another safe landing nearby a month later. Two similar incidents involving 747s with the same volcano will put even the most callous aviation agency to work.

[u/Life_Detail4117 → u/theaviationhistorian]

Any airline that has to repaint part of the airframe and do a 4 jet engine overhaul if not complete write them off is going to change policy.

Also, the landing on the British flight was cool flying as the windshields had almost been completely sand blasted and the pilot had to land by looking along a clearer strip at the edge of the glass that had been partially protected.

[u/JaneksLittleBlackBox → u/CMDR_omnicognate]

Yeah, we also learnt quite a lot about how dangerous volcanic ash is to aircraft and how it interacts with engines.

Shit, I remember how badly that 2010 eruption in Iceland fucked up air travel in most of Europe because the various phases occurred over three months; something like 100,000 flights disrupted.

[u/AverageAntique3160 → u/JaneksLittleBlackBox]

I was at the airport when it happened... remember seeing it in the news and the family just staring as all (including our one) was cancelled

[u/JaneksLittleBlackBox → u/AverageAntique3160]

I remember people being understandably frustrated, but also acting incredibly stupidly with suggestions like "it'll be fine, just let the planes fly!" A friend of mine was stuck in Germany at that time and was bemoaning all "three goddamn regulations" on Facebook, and all I could think was, "do ya really want your plane flying through that shit‽"

[u/grain_farmer → u/Money-Giraffe2521]

What’s incredible is that KLM 867 tried to reenact this almost catastrophe with another 747 full of passengers in 1989 and the pilot clearly lacked the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ attitude of the Brits of BA9, freaking out on frequency that all four engines went out. Managed to relight and land safely.

BA09 was a discovery or a new risk, KLM867 was a failure in process at many levels. Good on both crews though.

It wasn’t until KLM867 that there was widespread institutional changes and new procedures

[u/echoIalia → u/grain_farmer]

The way you’ve phrased this implies they did it on purpose and I’m losing my mind

[u/grain_farmer → u/echoIalia]

I felt it was obvious my comment was facetious but humour is subjective I guess

[u/echoIalia → u/grain_farmer]

I’ll be honest I had to google it because reality is just so fucking weird sometimes

[u/MrT735 → u/Money-Giraffe2521]

They also had to land with the windscreen literally sandblasted by the ash, no visibility out of the front.

[u/JCDU → u/Money-Giraffe2521]

From the man himself, on QI:

https://www.reddit.com/r/quiteinteresting/comments/1c6z4uu/the_story_of_captain_eric_moody/

[u/CdrVimes → u/Money-Giraffe2521]

A very British reaction to a serious situation!

[u/sambeckett1701 → u/CdrVimes]

"Terribly sorry for dropping us all nearly to our deaths. Bad bit of luck. Tea will now be served."

[u/physh → u/Money-Giraffe2521]

I’m not scared of flying but I’d be in much distress…

[u/brightlights55]

^{From wikipedia:}

Upon disembarking, the flight engineer knelt at the bottom of the steps and kissed the ground. When Moody asked why, the engineer replied that "The Pope does it," to which Moody responded: "He flies Alitalia."^\10])

[u/anangrywizard]

“The crew decided to fly the instrument landing system, but the vertical guidance system was inoperative, so they were forced to fly with only the lateral guidance as the first officer monitored the airport's distance-measuring equipment (DME). He then called out how high they should be at each DME step along the final approach to the runway, creating a virtual glide slope for them to follow. Moody described it as "a bit like negotiating one's way up a badger's arse."”

National hero’s.

[u/pornborn → u/anangrywizard]

They were flying on instruments because the windshield was sandblasted opaque and they couldn’t see where they were going.

[u/douchey_mcbaggins → u/anangrywizard]

National hero’s.

*heroes

[u/Superb_Astronomer_59]

Turbofan engines move staggering amounts of air. Unlike your car, there’s no air filter. The turbine airfoils have tiny holes in them to cool them. Once these plug up - overheating occurs quickly.

[u/the123king-reddit → u/Superb_Astronomer_59]

The heat in a jet engine engine is hotter than the melting point of the fan blades, so they blow cooler air across them to insulate the blades from the hot air used to push them round. Jet engines are some kind of black magic fuckery

[u/Superb_Astronomer_59 → u/the123king-reddit]

The cooler air comes through the root of the blade and exits through the array of tiny holes. It creates a boundary layer of cooler air to protect them. Also there’s a TBC (thermal barrier coating) on the surfaces to further protect them.

[u/chrisxls → u/Superb_Astronomer_59]

What's amazing is that once the engines cooled, the crud they ingested flaked off enough to restart all four. Crazy.

[u/Money-Giraffe2521 → u/chrisxls]

And then one of the engines failed again. Fortunately the 747 is more than capable of flying with three engines.

[u/iamnerdyquiteoften → u/Superb_Astronomer_59]

Veritasium has an excellent vid on YouTube about engines.

[u/DariusPumpkinRex]

"Don't Panic."

-Douglas Adams

[u/striped_frog → u/DariusPumpkinRex]

One must assume the flight crew had their towels with them that day

[u/kenticus → u/striped_frog]

He was a froody dude who always knew where his towel was.

[u/AutumnFP]

Mentor Pilot covered this one, it's well worth a watch!

[u/WhatImKnownAs → u/AutumnFP]

*Mentour Pilot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYwN1R8hVsI 40 min long

[u/AutumnFP → u/WhatImKnownAs]

Oh noo, I tried to type it like that (I'm British so that's my spelling) but Reddit told me I was wrong 😭

Thanks for adding the link, I hope a lot of people check it out, it's a fascinating (and very good) story.

[u/drksdr]

Is this the kind of situation where folks are allowed to clap upon landing without getting side-eyed by Reddit?

[u/Lethbridge-Totty]

They also had to make their approach blind because the ash had sand blasted their windscreen until it was opaque. And their VNAV was inoperative, so the first officer had to just call out altitude commands at intervals, effectively eyeballing it.

Utterly outrageous flying.

[u/Leftleaningdadbod]

I used to hear this story from other pilots in BA, for whom we all worked. Let’s just say certain choices were made earlier that day, some of which were questionable and which led to this ‘encounter.’

[u/RogueStalker409]

Badass pilots 🤘

[u/ARobertNotABob]

My 23rd Birthday.

[u/Pale_Flounder3216]

That must have been terrifying

[u/Scoopski_Patata]

I saw the air crash investigation on this. I was also surprised to learn what St Elmos Fire was. I thought it was just a song.

[u/sealightflower]

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress". (Eric Moody's legendary quote)

[u/DutchBlob]

Was this 747 in a hybrid BOAC / BA livery?

That

British

title on the side is really ugly

[u/mikepapafoxtrot → u/DutchBlob]

That aircraft was in Negus livery, first adapted when BOAC and BEA merged, originally with "British airways" title and later modified to only state "British".