February 11, 2006, 7:25 in the morning,
somewhere over the Java Sea, a plane was
flying on its desired path, steady,
smooth, normal. The pilots thought
everything was fine until they saw this.
A mountain cliff on the side of the
plane. It felt like a sudden shock
because on their route, there shouldn’t
be any mountains. When they looked for
errors in their instruments, the screen
said everything was fine. How did this
happen then? What kind of mystery was it
stepping into? This is the bizarre story
of Adam Airflight 782.
On the early morning of February 11th,
flight 782 was all set for its routine
2-hour ride from Jakarta to Macaser,
Indonesia. On board were 146 passengers
with six crew members. In the cockpit
sat a seasoned captain. He’d clocked
over 7,000 hours in the sky with almost
2,000 of those on the Boeing itself.
Beside him was the first officer who had
nearly 3,000 hours under his belt,
including 800 on the same aircraft. And
with them on board at 6:20 in the
morning, the flight took off normally.
Everything looked fine, and after a
successful takeoff, the autopilot took
over as usual. A few minutes passed that
way. Gradually, the plane was flying
over the sea. Suddenly, a warning light
appeared on the cockpit screen. I R S N
A V O N L Y it said meaning the plane
was using only its own internal system
for navigation without help from signals
on the ground. Now while flying over the
sea this was a pretty common practice so
the pilots ignored the warning but the
air traffic controllers on the ground
should have seen what was actually
happening all this time. The air traffic
controllers had a radar system that
could warn them if a plane moved more
than 10 mi away from its route. But that
day, the warning was set to 20 m by
mistake. As a result, the alert never
sounded, and the controller also did not
notice the slow drift because he was
busy with many planes. Only a young
flight attendant training in the cockpit
noticed something strange. She saw the
sun shining on the left side. Now, this
can happen only when the plane flies
south, not east, as the instrument said
on that plane.
She thought about telling the pilots but
did not speak up, thinking the pilots
might have noticed this minor detail. Or
maybe there was a change in the flight
plan. However, the pilots never did
notice. Instead, what the captain did
next will leave you speechless, and he
simply taped paper over the windshield
to block the sun’s glare. And all this
time, the plane kept moving farther and
farther away from where it was supposed
to be.
Nobody on the plane knew they were
already in danger because inside the
cockpit the pilots trusted their
instruments, but the new navigation
device and inertial reference unit or
IRU was consistently giving wrong
information. Think of it like a broken
compass that says it’s pointing to
north, but it’s actually pointing in the
wrong direction. At one point, the radar
screen suddenly blinked something
impossible. Two targets for flight 782.
One was the plane’s present location and
the other target point showed the
expected route for this aircraft. It
appeared as a square, not a circle, but
air traffic staff lacked training and
missed it. So, the pilot started calling
out, reaching way point guano, and
handed off smoothly to the next air
traffic controller. But unknown to them,
the plane was slipping off course at a
terrifying pace, 13 km every minute,
nearly 7 nautical miles. And at exactly
8:10, after a quick check-in with the
cabin crew, the pilots began their
descent from 33,000 ft. Still more than
a 100 m from Macaser, passengers felt
the plane dip, unaware it was crossing
up to 14 other flight paths. A deadly
dance risking collision in the skies.
But when the plane reached 28,000 ft,
the captain saw something, and it simply
took his breath away. There was a
mountain to the right and this was
impossible and their route should have
kept them clear of any terrain. Their
instruments insisted they were on
course, but the landscape below said
otherwise. The signal for Macaser, their
guiding light read inoperative. They
were supposed to be getting closer, but
the signal was dead. Then it occurred to
the pilots that something went terribly
wrong. But by this time, the plane was
over 300 km south of its intended path,
slicing across West Nusa Tangara Island.
Suddenly, the autopilot gave up as well,
so the captain had to take control
manually. Their instruments lied. Their
autopilot refused to fly, and suddenly
the oldest tool they trusted, the
magnetic compass, showed a heading of
230°
southwest. They could not believe their
eyes. The first officer tried to radio
their position using the flight
management system. 28° radial from the
Macaser’s signal 72 mi out, but this was
another false information coming from a
faulty system deep inside the plane.
Meanwhile, they were already out of
range of every control center, lost in
the vast sky. The ground controllers
searched frantically near the last known
point, but they got nothing. It means
the plane went to a radar black spot
where it was flying like a ghost with
dense remote forested islands far below.
If you don’t understand how deadly the
situation is, let me explain it to you.
In the vast sky where every direction
looks the same, the plane didn’t know
where to go. Even if it tries to fly in
any direction randomly, it might collide
with other planes. Or they might end up
flying in a direction no plane ever
takes over open ocean with no land in
sight. and before they can turn back,
the fuel could run out, leading to a
deadly crash into the sea. So either
way, it’s a dead end. In desperation,
the first officer reached out to other
planes. A Republic Express flight
responded, claiming to have seen Flight
782 on their collision avoidance system.
But it made the whole situation even
deadlier. Because what the Republic
Express saw wasn’t this flight. Their
system had locked onto another Boeing
737 hundreds of kilome away. So
basically, the pilots of flight 782 were
talking to a ghost plane, trying to
match clouds and mountains that didn’t
exist at all. So all they could do was
switching between maps and what they
could see outside to fly the plane. But
at this point, two more bad news joined
the party. One, the fuel was running
low. And two, descending through 16,000
ft, the first officer’s instruments died
completely. Speed, altitude, direction,
position all vanished. Now with only
tiny backup instruments left, the
captain held the controls tight. On the
other hand, the passengers did not
realize how bad the situation was, but
the captain’s mind was filled with a
terrible thought. He might have to land
the plane in the sea. He kept the plane
steady at 15,000 ft and looked through
the quick reference handbook, searching
for a connection between all the
problems, the autopilot turning off, the
blank screens, the broken navigation
instruments, and the radios that did not
work. He tried to fix it by putting the
compass heading into the flight
computer. The flight computer was
supposed to use this to correct the
faulty navigation system, IRU, but the
instrument still showed different
information. Plus, the checklist told
the pilots to type the direction they
wanted to go into a special keyboard
above them. But the pilots were so
panicked that they missed this important
step. Meanwhile, a warning light came on
indicating the right navigation unit had
failed and they needed to switch to the
left one. The captain flipped the
switch, but the compass and navigation
display still did not match. For a short
moment, the first officer’s instruments
started working again. They showed the
plane was near a radio beacon called
Macasser. This radio beacon is like a
lighthouse for airplanes, helping them
know their locations. But when the
pilots looked outside, they could not
see anything nearby. The reason they
were not close to that beacon at all.
The faulty instruments were simply
playing with them again. Instead, they
tried to call air traffic control
stations on Suluisi Island. But all of
those stations were more than 500 km
away. Too far for their radios to reach.
So again, it was like flying blind, lost
in the sky. Finally, the captain asked a
flight attendant quietly if anyone on
the plane was from Macaser, hoping one
of the passengers could recognize the
island below. But the flight attendant
refused. She was afraid that if
passengers heard this, they might panic.
So now, with less than 1 hour of fuel
left and no working navigation
instruments, the pilots had to find a
runway quickly. It was a race against
time, and they needed a runway long
enough for their plane to land safely.
But the island below was covered with
thick jungle and tall mountains.
Otherwise, the pilots have to land the
plane in the sea. And if rescue teams
did not know where to look, no one might
survive. So the captain made up his mind
and told the cabin crew to get ready for
a possible water landing. And just then
the first officer saw something, a
narrow strip of concrete on the side of
the island. His experienced eyes assured
that it was nothing but a runway. So the
captain lowered the engine power and
started descending. He handed control to
the first officer and told him to go
down to 20,500 ft and slow the plane to
220 knots. This was to check if the
runway was long enough to stop the
plane. Otherwise, the plane could fly
past it and crash into the forest. The
worst part was even after seeing the
runway, the captain could not figure out
exactly where they were. The captain
thought they were over Suloise Island,
but they were really over Sumba Island,
2 and 1/2 hours away from Sulaweezi.
But now the captain focused only on
landing safely. At 8:25 in the morning,
he told the senior cabin crew to prepare
the passengers for landing. He also made
an announcement saying there was a
problem with navigation and he did not
know exactly where they would land
either. And finally, at 8:29 in the
morning, flight 782’s wheels hit the
ground safely. The pilots didn’t know if
the runway could hold their big
aircraft. This airport was only meant
for smaller planes like the CRJ200.
Even worse, the pilots didn’t know the
radio number to talk to the control
tower or which airport maps to use. So
on the ground, the airport workers also
had no idea a big plane like this was
coming without permission. But anyway,
the place where they landed was
Tambalaka Airport on SA Island. At least
here, the repair workers fixed the plane
so it could fly back again to Jakarta,
but this time without any passengers.
Afterward, the National Transportation
Safety Committee took control of the
plane and the captain lost his job. But
the biggest question stayed. Why did the
plane system that tells where it is
suddenly stopped working right in the
middle of the flight? That remained a
mystery, a coverup. The investigation
only showed serious problems. Adam Air
didn’t keep their plane safe, and they
pushed pilots to fly planes that weren’t
even ready. A year later, another Adam
Air flight 574 crashed too, killing all
102 people on board. Naturally, the
airline known for lowcost flights was
banned forever. So, what do you think?
And was it just bad luck or the result
of low cost? Were there any corruption
and any high officials involved? Tell us
in the comments. Then like, share, and
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