Episode 29 - The 2019 TOGA switch Amazon Air First Officer panic and a Texas bay death dive

Plane Crash Diaries

We’re going to cover an example of what happens at low altitude when pilots activate the Take Off/Go Around or TOGA switch by mistake. When there’s turbulence and a lack of situational awareness, this can be deadly as you’ll hear. A number of aircraft recently have crashed because of pilots inadvertently activating this switch and I’m going to explain how this can happen if you’re not paying attention – and if the crew are prone to panic. One of the incidents involved a cargo flight – and Herman who’s an avid listener suggested I do a few cargo plane crashes for a number of reasons. While there are no passengers involved, or very few, sometimes the cargo itself is the danger, and in the case we’ll hear this episode, it is believed that was a failure to check the stated credentials of a commercial pilot could have exacerbated the situation that led to the crash involving a Boeing 767 flown by Amazon’s Prime Air. It never made it in on February 23rd 2019, the Boeing 767-375ER crashed on approach into Trinity Bay near Houston, killing two crew members and a pilot hitching a lift in the jump seat. It’s also the first crash involving a 767-375ER Cargo plane. As you’re going to hear, flight crew training issues at Atlas Air and across the U.S. commercial aviation industry have been implicated in this accident.