What Crash-Landing An Airplane After A Takeoff Engine Failure Is Like

Ever wonder what it's like to crash in an airplane when the engine loses power shortly after takeoff? Me neither, but that's exactly what happened to these two pilots, each of which had cameras rolling when that heart-thumping moment came.

We pilots train constantly for these emergencies in case we draw the short straw one day and here's what it's like to ride along with one aviator who followed his training to the letter, saving both his life and his airplane and another guy who I'm reluctant to even call a pilot.

By contrast - Same scenario below - Boneheaded pilot - Different outcome.

To non-pilots it might be difficult to detect anything wrong with either airplane's engine at first or to understand why one pilot landed safely and the other crashed, but generally speaking, when you lose power that low it is best to try and land as straight ahead as possible rather than turning back.

Things happen so fast and it might surprise you that the first pilot went from recognizing the problem to landing safely in only slightly over a minute! The other guy had the same amount of time and the benefit of an even more suitable field ahead of him, but his dismissive attitude after crashing is evidence enough as to why his plane found trees instead. Both men are lucky to be alive, but only one can say it was because of his skill.

Lastly, for those that are interested, I cut some footage from the beginning of both videos in the interest of time, but the first pilot can be seen verbally running through his safety checklist before takeoff, whereas the other guy seemed more intent on getting his camera angles set. On that alone, it's easy to see why each situation unfolded like it did.