QF72 | Hero pilot Kevin Sullivan's quick thinking saves 315 people | Sunday Night

It's just after lunch aboard Qantas Flight 72 from Singapore to Perth, so would you like a ride? Qantas flight attendant Fuzzy Maieva is busy serving passengers in the cabin. If I can make your flight a lot easier, I'm your man and I thought about it. It was going to be another great day in the cabin. How is everything? Very good. Captain Kevin Sullivan had just climbed back into his seat after a break when the plane's auto

pilot

suddenly disengaged. Auto

pilot

one seems to have disengaged and then we started getting stall warnings and then we started going over speed warnings the plane started falling falling violently to

night

for the first time the never before told story of the worst qantas crash Bane my head went through the closet ceiling how a plane went crazy injuring 100 passengers and crew you I died six or seven times on the operating table.

I'm lucky to be here alive and destroying once happy lives. It got to the point where I tried to take my own life. The

hero

pilot who fought against his own plane to save the passengers and crew from it. automation is there to keep you safe, it's actually trying to kill us and how the lessons of Qantas flight 72 have not been heeded. We all deeply mourned the loss of life when two planes crashed six months apart killing all 346

people

. on board when you see what is happening with the 737 Max accidents are the same, they were in no man's land, they did not know what was happening and their instinctive reaction to back away and avoid the ground hitting them was not enough to save them.

The day Kevin Sullivan no longer flies, what happened that day in the skies over the Indian Ocean affected him deeply. I could have hidden it but I think it's braver to be honest with yourself and honestly say yes, I'm affected. I do not shirk my responsibility as a commercial pilot and captain. It got to the point where it was better to stop growing up in California. Kevin always dreamed of being a pilot and in his early twenties he was a top fighter pilot in the US Navy as an F-14 pilot in the Cold War I flew from aircraft carriers the landing area moves At

night

you can't see the landing area until you're in it.

We were essentially at war. We trained and flew at that level of extreme readiness. Then the opportunity arose to fly Mirage Jets as part of an exchange program with the Royal Australian Air Force. a low level speed machine I have been very fast at over 600 knots 1200 kilometers per hour the young American loved Australia and Those Jets ended up settling here after you Kevin, thanks, how did you organize this? What do you think so, it's pretty special? The Mirage three is there, we call it the French lady, what the Australians did and I do it very well, you can.

Don't stay in the seat, you need a degree just to spend 35 years on the track of life and Kevin Sullivan's love for his French lady has no theme, it's like getting into a Formula One car, you don't have much space, becomes part. Not a bad place for you guys, not a bad place to hone your skills, there's no automation in this, you need to know how to fly it by hand. I tell them Kevin eventually went on to work with Qantas, flying their largest airliners. How is everything? In October 2008, he has had decades of experience as a commercial pilot, but it is his time as a best weapon that will prove crucial.

We are approaching the northwest coast of Australia. We could see it through the windshield and the ocean was calm and blue in this clear blue. day at the controls of a Qantas Airbus Captain Kevin Sullivan is about to be tested in the most dramatic way possible. The autopilot appears to have disengaged at the first sign of trouble. The autopilot disengaged and then we started getting stall warnings. It sounds like a loss. it means the plane will stop flying it will start descending and then we start getting speeding warnings at the same time which is impossible it doesn't make sense to me because speeding means you are at your maximum limit and stall means you are at its minimum speed limit, what the hell and then the plane started moving and initially it was a dip and then it started to descend, descending aggressively and violently, it generated enough force that we had to brace ourselves against the glare of the Shield instrument to stop. basically hitting the roof even with our seat belts secured.

I was accelerating towards the Indian Ocean and certainly my windshields were full of the Indian Ocean. Qf 72 is in a death dive and refuses to let Kevin take control. This is my broad understanding, so planes flying along the sensors is giving some kind of information to the computer system that the plane is pointing up, so it tries to overcorrect and then obviously points you down. , that's a fair summary, yeah, it sort of says sorry, Kev. I'm protecting you, so I won't let you stop me like the HAL 9000 you meet in 2001's Space Odyssey, where Dave asks him to open house doors.

Sorry, Dave, I can't let you do that. I pull back on the stick and say hey, how he stops moving his nose and it's like, I'm sorry, Kev, I can't let you do that, but there's no way this proud fighter pilot X is going to let a rogue computer beat him. he was in a near death position and I was going to fight to the death to make sure that didn't happen. Qantas Flight 72 from Singapore cruises comfortably at 37,000 feet in just over two hours the Airbus A330 will land in Perth. a routine flight some of the passengers on board are off duty Qantas staff returning from holiday including Bruce Southcott a flight services manager who was traveling with his wife Caroline the plane was flying flat and still man today I looked at the wine glass, let's add a wave, but up in the cockpit the plane's flight control system is going crazy the plane's computers tell Captain Kevin Sullivan that his plane is about to stall and suddenly the plane hurtles towards the Indian Ocean there was actually no first sign that it just happened like the hand of God had just pushed the plane down there was no oh let's go like a roller coaster it was like a bump Bruce is wearing his seatbelt security but Caroline just came back from the bathroom I remember getting hit in the head with the plane and I just went bang and before I could think about bang again and then the third hit my head went through the roof of the cabin after the third time it hit me on the head I was practically knocked out, an off-duty Qantas pilot, Peter Casey and his wife Diana, Qantas customer service manager, left their seats to greet the stewardess Fuzzy Maivia was down there, um, checking out the catering while he does it, the three of us are chatting.

I stuck my food in the oven. I was focused on him. stopwatch, you see, because I was hungry and then when I saw the exact time, it was 13 seconds and that's when I saw out of the corner of my eye that someone had just been shot and I just looked down and as if the plane disappeared from my feet I heard a slight change in the airflow of the plane and I thought, "Oh, this is interesting, next year, now we warm up, we went. I must have hit something. I must have hit the roof because they just knocked the three of us out." up on the ceiling, probably only for a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity.

Casey's daughters, Becky, 17, and Elise, 18, were at the front of the cabin. The first nosedive, my sister, grabbed the bottom of her chair and she looked at me while I was on top of the plane, you were actually pinned to the ceiling, yeah, I feel like an eternity she felt like a troll of her plane for a few minutes, we are basically fighting for our lives at this stage they had. to find out very

quick

ly what part of the plane was trying to kill them and how to stop it from doing so. If there's any other pilot who understands exactly what Captain Sullivan is up against, he's the other Sully.

Captain Chesley Sullenberger lost both engines in a bird strike. and he had to land his plane in New York's Hudson River Captain I would like you to be in it if I could I'm trying to take advantage I guess the anguish of that moment what it must have been like for the pilot well at first I would have It has been confusing, surprising Let there be a huge title factor and then one would immediately begin to act to regain control of the plane. Kevin Sullivan's next move is completely counterintuitive, instead of pulling back on the control stick, he releases it.

I have to choose. I hold on to it or let go and my military training for being out of control is to release the neutralized controls, it works, the plane is no longer falling from the sky, but now the passengers are being crushed to the ground, we hear an Almighty crash. coming from the cabin and those were the bodies of the

people

that were the galleys falling apart and it sounds like a 40 foot shipping container full of cutlery and glass being sent down a ramp into a brick wall and it collapsed while she was eating . and the fork in my arm got a little stuck when I went down the little things you remember when I came back down I hit the armrest yeah and then I realized all my bones were clicking in my back and I realized there was something terribly wrong so bad I couldn't move off the floor the staff kept asking me to go back to my chair and I couldn't get up at all I couldn't move my legs at all your legs weren't working no my ankle was broken so my ankle was like hanging off , finally another passenger came, picked me up and put me in my chair.

He hit the kitchen bench, that's what woke me up. All I could hear were the squishing sounds my knee makes. I don't know what the hell is going on, all I see is blood running over Peter and Diana's head, she's unconscious and you don't see the two girls she was taking care of, oh man, one of them who said that in her own seat the hit. She handed her to me and she was just crying and to me that's like she was mine, my own daughter, you know, anyone's. I mean, I just couldn't do anything and I felt so helpless because I couldn't move back in the Kevin Sullivan booth. he has pulled the plane out of its death dive, what the hell was that?

But he's still fighting for control. It is the main flight. Now we are in this revolver of faulty systems. In effect, this is a total collapse of the system. The plane is automatically starting to melt down. brakes not working power not working let's climb back to 37,000 feet. I'm still pretty coherent yeah my cage is a little shaken because we don't know what's going on and just two minutes later, don't do it. happens again I'm basically a passenger. I am an observer. Now the automation in there is supposed to keep me safe, not put me in danger, and I got really angry.

I thought it was the end. It really was so violent. I thought that you. We were going to die, I think being so young and not having experienced life outside of high school, you really don't know what to expect in the big wide world and I honestly thought that was the only thing I could hear, was the sounds of the Suena that we're going to die, but you just hope to God that it happens

quick

ly in death, yeah, and no um, I don't want to feel any pain, I was frozen like a block of ice, um, just waiting for it to happen one more time.

Kevin Sullivan's military training

saves

the plane from him. We have lost the automatic pitch adjustment, but he has no idea if or when it will happen again. Another setup three reset failure. Doesn't everyone respond to trauma differently? Kevin Sullivan makes a joke and chooses one lion from another. from your favorite movies flying with a lot of data stop sniffing glue first officer Peter Lipsett had been on a break when the plane went into a dive he is injured but makes it back to the cockpit there is a fight out there I think I just broke my Congratulations nose, buckle up, we're in trouble.

I made the assessment that we are in trouble and I have never used those terms in any situation before that in my extreme flying career. 72 how many 72 failures in the flight control computer and we have major injuries on board Kevin Sullivan is in the fight of his life. The captain of the fourth has twice managed to prevent his out-of-control plane from sinking in the Indian Ocean. He needs his 315 passengers and crew to get to the ground quickly before it happens again. the nearest airport, the RAF base at Learmonth on the northwest coast of Western Australia. I couldn't risk exposing myself and the passengers to a runaway plane for any longer than necessary and Lira Month was right next to our left wing and that's where we decided. to go in the cabin behind him more than 100 passengers are injured what is happening many have been knocked unconscious others have broken bones and bleeding wounds ladies and gentlemen this is the flight cabin all passengers to Boston seat belts immediately Caroline Southcott is in agony his back is broken and a single piece of skin keeps his foot attached to his leg, but he has no ot

hero

ption, you have to sit in your seat.

I was really worried that my bones were going to go through my spinal cord, so I had to hold on. on the armrests I think it must have been 45 50 minutes, it would have been easy because she said she could physically feel and hear her spine squeaking together like that, a very funny noise before that, I have never had so much death, it's just a matter of holding on princess , you have to do something here. Caroline now realizes that her nearly amputated left foot is facing backwards during all this pain, she looked at the ankle and said that's not right.

I'm not happy with that. she pulled the ankle forward she twisted it and put it back in place we said it I think there was no other option, it was vital to die in the back of the galley Peter and Diana are all seriously injured, Fuzzy is desperate to get to the two unaccompanied children that he is taking care of but his legsnot working I couldn't even move I wanted to do it I tried so hard to reach out and I knew I couldn't move Peter is bleeding profusely from a head injury Diana has suffered a serious injury to her back and the shoulder, but somehow she finds the strength to help the people around her, I tell you what Diana, man, she was amazing, it's like she reminded me of the Hulk, you know, you know, the adrenaline came out of her and she could lift anything, you know and she made it happen and I can listen.

Donna says okay if I said you're next we're almost there man here we go I just have to strap you in she was amazing I'm telling you right now man that lady deserves recognition for what she did , an amazing wife, you have there. She is very proud of her, very proud of Diana. Casey is one of the real heroes of this story, but you won't hear her talk about her. He is a slap in the face to Diana's extraordinary courage, but Qantas has refused to let Diana or any of her current staff be alone. interviewed for this program as a former employee, Fuzzy Maieva is not subject to such petty restrictions, how did she manage to become fuzzy?

If you allow me a reasonably large unit that comes off the floor in the seat, oh man, she just kind of just grabbed my pants, you know, and grabbed me and grabbed me, you know, and I felt like I was being dragged by, ya you know, for a six-foot-eight jock, you know, and then she just looked at me and just shook me. and she says we're going to be fine and she just gave me a kiss on the forehead and she said you're going to be fine in circumstances like this the pilot in the cockpit gives an order for people to sit down immediately well, that's what they have to do, but in this circumstance there were people who were not safe and she took it upon herself to break the protocol because it was necessary and I totally agree that it is necessary to take care of the people who needed to be ensured a final check with dozens of her passengers requiring medical attention urgent Kevin Sullivan now has to land his disabled Airbus A330 at that remote airfield in Leomonth okay, we're on visual approach manual thrust manual pitch adjustment he's now flying his plane completely by hand, but Kevin knows that at any moment the plane's computer I could try to regain control.

Now we know that at this point, if something happens, we don't have the altitude to recover. I remember that when we landed everyone applauded. Kevin's work was excellent. I know what I think I would be under immense pressure if you allowed yourself even a brief moment to look at your arms and legs and think, Oh my God, I'm alive, no, I made another joke, uh, I did my impression of Arne reversing from True Lies, I said yes. a little bit of excitement, otherwise a boring day while we were shooting you're not even kidding, right? I'm serious, yes of course, because yes, that's okay, so that's my release, only now can Kevin Sullivan walk back through his plane to inspect the damage I call it the walk that changed my life um it's quite frontal the interior of the cabin was almost destroyed there are holes above the seats where the passengers' heads have pierced the plastic and there are a lot of them of course there were children The children had large bruises on their heads where some were bleeding and parents hold their children trying to comfort them as I walk by and the look of what you did to my son will never go away, there was almost a moment for you.

While you were doing that hike where you felt like your heart was breaking, that's right, yes, time out, so this is a critical part, but hmm, that's a valid question. I imagine it is one of the most significant moments of your life. I'm the boss. Well, I'm the one who has to show leadership and strength, but it's pretty difficult when emotional chunks are ripped out of you. As the plane moves forward, Qantas Flight 72 landed at the remote Learmonth airstrip on the northwest coast of Western Australia. Captain Kevin Sullivan brought down his plane safely, but with so many lives at stake, the emergency is far from over.

Local rescue teams swarm the plane. The Emergency Services call came on board and it was like chaos. The pain was unbearable. I think I almost fainted and the next minute a transformation stick was shoved in my mouth, you suck that big follow up. I imagine it was a great relief, yes, great foreign father in the terminal. Captain Sullivan grabs a megaphone and addresses the passengers who emerged from the Airbus unharmed. I made a comment about how the runway looked really good as we were leaving for landing and at that point everyone was applauding again. Kevin is relieved to be on land, but he now knows what was happening.

In the cabin, while fighting for control of the plane, more than 100 passengers were injured, some of them seriously, they were accelerated to the ceiling and with such force that their heads went through the plastic, it is not soft, the same big Asian plastic. , the most seriously injured are airlifted to Perth by the Royal Flying Medical Service, including Caroline's Southcott, the pain in my back was quite bad. I remember struggling to keep breathing because I thought that if I stopped breathing I would become unconscious and then no one would recover me. Initially you're

thinking

about what he's going to be like after the injury, how he's going to walk, if he's going to walk and all that, and then they take it to the next level and say you know what we're saying here is that. her survival is in doubt and that's when I said, oh that's when you go crazy, she was rushed into emergency surgery with a broken back, her life is slipping away you died six or seven times on the operating table.

I'm lucky to be able to walk and how. Could you describe the surgery Caroline went through in her graphic terms? Yes, they kept me down here and they put me because it's on the table so they can reach it as if your spine was in your back, as they realized, but the injury had to be It was directed from the front of the spine, like this that they had to do all that and then put everything back in place and sew it up, they put it on the table and they did their job and then they put it back, they put it back, but there's pain behind it.

Caroline's laugh on her body is a miracle of surgical architecture. They were able to replace my vertebrae with a cage and biological cement and my hip bone that I can even move. It's not 100 but it's better than it was. My God, then there is the mental anguish. Nowadays, Bruce and Caroline live almost as recluses on their property in Queensland, it is one of the few places where they feel safe. Becky refuses to fly and lives with the trauma every day. I can see how painful these memories are that you are still living with. It's still very real, very, how has this changed you?

Now I'm a pretty emotional ball. I saw psychologists and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. It's not fun when you're 17. They put me on medication until I got pregnant with my first child and that's when I had to stop and yeah, it's not fun when you're a teenager. Flight attendant Fuzzy Mayeva can no longer work due to her injuries. I had to replace both knees. Now I have two titanium ones. knees and broke a spoon on my spine. I have seven damaged discs, that's the pain I have every day and it triggers the nightmares and flashbacks that really used to be, it's really bad, I can't even sleep well at night, I toss and turn, um, and here they come the flashbacks, so to be able to get around that, um, I keep hitting the wall just to ground myself, geez, that's a huge thing for a person to have to deal with even now.

I'm still having flashbacks and I'm still hitting the wall Matt, it got to a point, um, the severity of this, it got to the point where I tried to take my own life, um, I ended up in the ICU in a coma for a week and, uh, because I couldn't. I couldn't take it anymore, the pain was unbearable. I would also be medically retired and I thought, oh, what's going on? It was like I had been discarded. You know, some of QF 72's victims received six-figure payouts. but not confused as an employee Qantas offered him only 33,000 a settlement which he rejected for legal advice in the end this proud man was left with nothing confused do you feel like you received the right support? um like I said you know I got the supermarket talking to Qantas um it's a tough question I know yeah uh I can see that even now you're reluctant to criticize the airline that you loved but the reality is that for you, some of support, any support would have made a big difference, it would have helped.

To be honest, my family and I have many physical injuries, but the events of that day continue to haunt us. Three years ago he made the difficult decision to stop flying. Hold on to those images, those memories, uh, like they were yesterday and that's just it. What your brain does when you're in this type of traumatic near-death experience, your brain records it in high definition and it stays there, it doesn't go away. Qantas Flight 72 was cruising at 37,000 feet when the onboard computer suddenly shut down. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau blamed incorrect data for the emergency; it has been unable to explain how or why it happened.

It all sounds eerily similar to the recent Boeing Max crashes. In those two cases, the flight computers reacted to faulty data that the pilots could not recover. control of their planes and 346 people died, it is important to also remember that while humans are often the least predictable part of the security system, but by far the most resilient and adaptable, those who can rise to a challenge they have never seen before and in a short period of time, find a way to resolve even that crisis. Ley Sullenberger, the hero of the Hudson River landing, believes that replacing pilots' skills with greater automation is a fatal mistake.

What we have learned in aviation is that automation does not reduce errors, but changes them. Due to the nature of the mistakes that are made as we use more and more technology in cockpits, we must always ensure that humans have full control of the aircraft and its flight path, as former Elite fighter pilot Kevin Sullivan had the skills to get his the plane down safely, the passengers and crew of the qf 72 know they were incredibly lucky to have this guy save my life and, um, he would be a chance to be here and I'm really here , I'm here in person because of that. confused man, my Ava is now campaigning for Captain Sullivan and his flight crew to get the recognition they deserve.

I think they deserve the Qantas uh Diamond Chairman Award and also the Bella Cross. I think that's Australia's highest civil bribery award for Australians so if you're there please sign that petition so it will help get Kevin's man recognized and recognized and what they did, we owe it to Our Lives, period, yeah, everyone believes, do you think it should be recognized for that absolutely united? You definitely saved the lives of 350 people, yes, hero. Definitely, definitely, without a doubt, what would you say to him? Thank you, give him a big cup. Becky can't get on a plane to give her that hug, but Fuzzy Mayeva bravely put aside her fear of flying and flew from New Zealand to thank her hero. in person and I know you still think about the passengers, they are the most important thing to you, in fact, we have one of them here now to say hello to you a little, that's right, he's right over your left shoulder, mate, um, look. welcome thank you oh my brother oh my god he's been he's been dying to see you okay yeah confusing is this the first time you've lost yeah this is supposed to be um right I've been dying to meet you you're the reason I'm here if it wasn't for you Kevin we wouldn't be here and I'm serious and a lot of people would have said you know it's their job they get paid for it no this is very unique and that's why I got so passionate about trying to bring this um uh into the public arena to get the Qantas group in the Australian government to recognize you and recognize you because this is something unique, it's unheard of, you know, and that's why I'm so passionate and I will never give up I will never give up on you brother I will never give up and those calls for recognition that take away from what Kevin Sullivan achieved thatday have come to represent a line in the sand for pilots who refuse to cede more control of their planes to Captain Sullivan computers from one solid to another.

I congratulate you for building and leading your team well to face such an extreme crisis in qs72 while keeping your passengers and crew safe, and since you are a former US Navy aviator and naval fighter pilot brave Zulu Taisa lucci