Have I said before that I think that we think that talking about plane crashes would just make our deaths in one TOO ironic? So this is saving our lives. Let's talk about the horror of the short trip that was Japan Airlines Flight 123 - A fully filled, gigantic plane with over 500 people- that lost control 12 minutes into the flight, then they wobbled around in the sky for THIRTY MINUTES before crashing. Learn more about this horrible tragedy with us!
Have I said before that I think that we think that talking about plane crashes would just make our deaths in one TOO ironic? So this is saving our lives. Let's talk about the horror of the short trip that was Japan Airlines Flight 123 - A fully filled, gigantic plane with over 500 people- that lost control 12 minutes into the flight, then they wobbled around in the sky for THIRTY MINUTES before crashing.
Learn more about this horrible tragedy with us!
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: Happy whatever day. This is Taylor. How are you doing? Doing well
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA097.
>> Farz: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you.
>> Taylor: Ask what you can do for you.
>> Farz: Boom. We are back. Happy whatever day. This is Taylor. How are you?
>> Taylor: Good.
>> Farz: How are you doing? Doing well. You shared a very fun historical story. It's interesting. I feel like our. As we're getting into our groove with these things is becoming more and more predictable. What we end up talking about, like, I can almost even without knowing anything about the topic again, I can. I think you probably could guess what I'm going to talk about. Do you think you can guess?
>> Taylor: It going to be any hint besides.
>> Farz: That knowing what I like to talk about.
>> Taylor: As recline other podcasts.
>> Farz: How's the book, by the way?
>> Taylor: Good.
>> Farz: Anything? Any fun, fun things ever or things that have been illuminated for you there?
>> Taylor: No, I gotta pick it up again and finish it. It's almost due.
>> Farz: Yep, yep. No, we are not sponsored by Ezra Klein, but I will go to the grave. Ezra Klein fanboying him.
Doom to Fail brings you history's most notorious disasters and failures weekly
No, my topic is gonna have to do with another air disaster. Ooh, there's just so many of them and they're all. It's so interesting, like, how these small, stupid little things build up and result in something horrific. The problem is that you don't know that. Oh, wait, you know what? Why don't you introduce us?
>> Taylor: Oh, I forgot. Hello. Welcome to Doom to Fail. I'm Taylor. Joined by fards, we bring you history's most notorious disasters and failures and interesting stories twice a week. And we have covered many an air disaster because it's fascinating and scary.
>> Farz: And it's because, like, you don't know what you don't know until it happens. And, you know, you're like, oh, yeah, we should do that from now on. And it's like, well, a thousand people are dead. Like, you know, Right.
>> Taylor: So. Oh, also, we've, like, barely been doing it.
>> Farz: Maybe it's because I watch and read.
>> Taylor: I mean, I mean, flying. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, flying's, like, very, very new for humans. It's pretty incredible we've done so far.
>> Farz: You know, it's absolutely incredible. Absolutely. So, yeah, I'm gonna cover another plane disaster. And mostly it's just like, it gave me, like, insight into, like, the superstructure of, like, aircrafts. And so much more scary because then you can, like, think about what's behind the walls that you see in a plane that's.
>> Taylor: Oh, God.
>> Farz: Like, there's so Much that you're not seeing that could be going wrong, but nobody sees. So I'm going to cover a really bad one. It's Japan Airlines Flight 123, which went down on August 12, 1985, killing 520 passengers and crew.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: It was huge. It was. Imagine that, 520 people on a plane. I think like maybe the. A380 can carry that capacity. Like, yeah, I know a lot of people. There were actually four survivors in this one, which is crazy.
>> Taylor: Whoa.
>> Farz: So we're going to talk about the plane, the flight, the investigation and what's happened since. So the plane, the plane we're going to talk about is the Boeing 747 SR variant. There's a ton of variants of individual plane types. Like you hear about the 747. There's a 747, 100, the 200, the 300, the 747, 8. There's like they create all kinds of variants. These planes. The SR in the 747 here, do you know which one this is the. It's a bubble one, right? You know that, right? Okay.
>> Taylor: Does it have a second floor?
>> Farz: Yeah, it has a second floor. Yep. Exactly. The SR in this case.
>> Taylor: Have you seen Snakes on a Plane?
>> Farz: Oh, yeah, of course.
>> Taylor: Is that like, like that?
>> Farz: I haven't. The movie came out when I was like 18. I don't think. I don't recall, but.
>> Taylor: Oh my God. Continue.
Japan Airlines requested this plane because there were several things going on
>> Farz: So the SR&747SR stood for short range. This variant was specifically built for Japan. Japan Airlines requested this plane because there were several things that are going on. It's also like ties in a world history which is really fun. So they needed an ultra high capacity, very short range hauler. And the reason was that apparently in the 70s and 80s, Japan's economy was like the best. It was the biggest. Like it was the King Koopa. I don't know how you describe it, but interestingly enough, I think that was.
>> Taylor: The, the joke that like everything was made in Japan.
>> Farz: Well, yeah, I mean now it's everything in China, but like. Yeah, same kind of concept, but like exactly. That was, that was the time period. So it was. Yeah. Anybody who's like into cars would know that like the 70s and 80s were the worst era of American cars. And Japan was like, oh, we can totally take this market over. And they did. But because the economy was booming, there was a lot of travel happening, but also was happening at a weird time when Japan hadn't really figured out high speed rail shot Ezra Klein again, right.
>> Taylor: I was going to say that like I know, I know a way to get there that doesn't involve going there.
>> Farz: There you go. And so as a result that they're like, we need to be able to transfer all these people, make us the new variant of the 747. Some changes that Boeing made for the short range version was the fuel capacity was reduced like a quarter of a standard 747. Pasture capacity was increased nearly by double with the top deck hump extending way past the normal variant. And all the seats were economy like it was. So they were like hacking them in there.
>> Taylor: I really want, I really want to raise my hand because I have a question. How do I raise my hand? So I would like a plane that's capable of doing anything that just goes short reaches.
>> Farz: Yes, that's what they build them.
>> Taylor: But I mean like I don't want it to be just like specifically short range. I feel like that that makes me nervous. Does should that make me nervous?
>> Farz: So there's a reason why you got to make a specific kind of plane for that specific kind of use, which I'm going to get into here.
One of the most important considerations when designing a 747 is pressurization
>> Taylor: Okay, cool.
>> Farz: The most important consideration, the. There's so many here. Well, one of the most important considerations has to do with pressurization and pressurization cycles. So think about it this way. A typical 747, like the 747100 that we're all used to, that's a transatlantic plane, right? It takes off in a land, it goes through one pressure cycle a day. Maybe, maybe it'll go through one and a half because maybe it'll turn around in the same day 24 hour cycle. But that's a consideration. With a short range hauler, you're not going through one pressurization a day. The thing is doing this route 5, 7, 8, 10 times a day, every single time is a pressurization cycle. So it goes into the engineering of the entire plane to ensure that it can withstand pressurization over and over and over again.
>> Taylor: Oh, is that something that can like age a plane?
>> Farz: We're gonna find out.
>> Taylor: S****.
>> Farz: But that's to your point, a lot goes into this, right? So like for example, the fact that they were going short range means they let need less fuel because you can't land with like a ton of fuel, which made it lighter, which means you need to reduce the components, the structural components of the landing gear. It is a huge undertaking. It's not just like a one and done thing. So in this case the plane we're discussing was delivered to Japan Air by Boeing in 1974. And by the day of this event in 1985, it had undergone about 19,000 pressurization cycles. Up and down, up and down.
>> Taylor: Okay.
>> Farz: Do you know what pressurization is, by the way?
>> Taylor: I imagine it's like, what makes you be able to breathe in the plane?
>> Farz: Yeah. It's literally that it's changing the internal atmospheric pressure so that you don't die on a plane.
>> Taylor: Right. Which is why, like, you have to have an air mask if you aren't going. If there aren't any.
>> Farz: Yep. It's called hypoxia. And we're going to discuss it here in a second, which is a little bit of a leading thing.
12 minutes after takeoff, plane underwent rapid decompression
But. So the flight itself, the day of the event, the plane was doing its usual route from Tokyo airport to Osaka. That's what it was. Just back and forth, back and forth, five, seven times a day.
>> Taylor: And that's not very far.
>> Farz: 260 miles. It actually was only 10 to 15 minutes of climbing, 30 minutes of cruising, and then 15 minutes of descent and landing. It was a quick, quick flight.
>> Taylor: I like those flights.
>> Farz: Yeah. 12 minutes after takeoff, for some reason, which we'll discuss later, the plane underwent rapid decompression. And like we're talking about here, obviously decompression is really bad. It means that there's something within the structure of the plane that is cracked, leaked, ripped off. That means the plane can no longer manage what's called an environmental control system, which is the ability to pressurize the internals so that you can breathe at 30,000ft, which you shouldn't be able to.
>> Taylor: That's. That's the part that I hadn't thought about, because it sounds so awful, but, like, why would you need to have to do that? Like, what would be the case where you would have to use your air mask and like, of course it would be because you. Pressurized. Why? Pressurized? There's a hole in it.
>> Farz: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. At first, the ceiling, like the top part of the plane towards the back of the plane, just caved in completely. And it became kind of clear shortly thereafter that whatever was going on in the tail of the plane also knocked out the hydraulic lines. And we're going to learn later on, because a photo from the ground was taken, that it would. That the vertical stabilizer, which is the big fin that sticks straight up at the back of the plane, wasn't there anymore. Whatever happened took out that whole structure of the plane. Got it. So this is Basically a death sentence.
>> Taylor: Right. But you're still, like, alive.
>> Farz: You're still alive. When I was. When I was like, watching, like, Mayday and all these air disaster shows, like, the one thing that just keeps getting like, drilled into my mind is the absolute singular worst thing that can happen on a plane is the hydraulic mechanisms going out. Because when the hydraulic mechanisms go out, the captain and nobody in the. In the cockpit has any control over the flight controls of the plane. Like, you are just at the whim of the wind and your aerodynamics. That's it. It's terrifying. Yeah. So I wrote here, like, they can't rely. Go ahead. Sorry.
>> Taylor: Oh, and like, that also is, I think the reason that, like, planes can't just, like, fall out of the sky because they're going really fast and they're flying and they're. So you can't just, like, stop that. So it's going to like, slowly hover and go down and then you die because you can control it. Right.
>> Farz: Which is basically what we're going to get into. Yeah. Actually, it's interesting because there's only ever been one successful crash, I guess, of a plane that had its hydraulic line separated. It's like the 1980s or early 90s, I think, and somewhere over Sioux City, Iowa, that this happened. And if you watch the videos of it, it's like, holy, that was successful. The thing just barrel rolls and bursts into flame. But only 112 people died. So, like, that was considered successful.
>> Taylor: I even can't believe that in this hideous year that we're living in, that plane landed upside down. Everybody lived.
>> Farz: Yeah, it was nuts. It was not. So. So that one was really interesting because. So they had all their hydraulic. Hydraulic lines severed. I forgot what the cause of that was, but you still have your engines. And so what the captains in that case were doing was they have two engines on either, one engine on either side. And so they would just like apply thrust to 1, reduce thrust in the other, and then like, that'll slowly turn it one direction and then increase thrust, then reduce it to lower. They were trying to do it that way, but you can't do that with any specificity. So the thing just like, sort of came down and they just like dropped all the way.
>> Taylor: Very lucky.
>> Farz: So observers from the ground, in the case of this plane, Japan Air, 1, 2, 3, they notice that this thing, it's over Tokyo. Like, it's in a highly dense populated area. Also, it was still climbing when this ended up happening. So people could see it. What they noticed was the Thing would just pitch up and down and oscillate from side to side. Like it was just like a drunken plane. Like it just didn't know what it was doing. It would basically start pitching its nose up. And then it would get to the point when the air speed wasn't enough to sustain flight. And so just the nose would drop because of just, like basic physics. And then it would increase air speed as it's like, plummeting to the earth. But then it would catch the airspeed again, would catch the wings, and it would go up again. Like it was just as not. It sounded like it was a nightmare for anybody on that plane.
>> Taylor: So also, like, I'm looking at pictures. Like, the tail fin is so huge.
>> Farz: It's huge on a 747. They're stupid huge.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: And the whole thing was gone. And there's a picture. There's a grainy black and white picture of this. If you see. Yeah, you can see like, there's nothing there.
The plane depressurized and then rolled uncontrollably for over 32 minutes
So the pilots eventually tried to control the movements of the plane by doing what I mentioned with that other flight, which was using the engine thrust. Later on, we'll also learn that they didn't realize. I mean, they didn't know what was happening. And they didn't know that their cabin had depressurized. So they didn't have their oxygen masks on at any point in the middle of all this. And like, through the voice, Cockroach voice, query. These guys sound drunk, like they didn't know what was going on. Also, we're dealing with this insane situation that nobody had lived through before.
>> Taylor: How could they not know it was depressurized? Was that alarm off somehow? Shouldn't that be?
>> Farz: So what happened is that the plane would drop to certain levels and then it would cause the alarm to go on and off. The other thing was that there's a mountain range that's off to the side of Tokyo. Eventually, when they go over that mountain range, the air there is thinner at lower altitudes. And so the pressure gauges on internals of the plane weren't reading that.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God.
>> Farz: So this is where we get to that piece. The plane would basically go in this weird looping fashion. Up, down, side, side, just roll. It was literally just at the whim of the air. That's all it was doing. And it was on track with the pathway of Mount Takamagahara. It's a lot of A's, but I promise I spelled that right because I reread it four times, and that sounds.
>> Taylor: Way easier than trying to Speak in French.
>> Farz: So yeah, fair, fair. And what it was trying to do is trying to control its altitude to try and get back to an airport. I assumed that there was like a sense of like there is one part where the captain is heard saying something about like all hope is lost or something. Like it was very like they realize that this is a really uncontrollable situation. The plane ends up clipping one of the wings, ends up clipping about 1700ft a ridge on the mountain. The thing rolls over, explodes and this whole thing that these pastures experienced was over 32 minutes. Over 32 minutes of uncontrollable up down, side, side. Yeah, it was, it was. Sounds really, really bad.
>> Taylor: What a nightmare.
>> Farz: So the US Air Force was tracking all this in real time and actually spotted the wreckage first and phoned it into the Japanese authorities. Japan's Air Force spotted the wreckage that night but reported that there were no survivors. So no attempt was made to try and get to them that night. Instead what they did was they got to the town in the foothills and set up a base camp essentially.
>> Taylor: And it's probably like a really small town.
>> Farz: It's a very small town. Yeah, yeah. Later on it would be determined that more people had actually survived this flight than the four I mentioned earlier. But they had died of exposure to the elements and like the frigid temperatures up there.
>> Taylor: So I forgot that you said four people lift this.
>> Farz: Yeah, it was an off duty flight attendant, a mother, her 8 year old daughter and a 12 year old girl whose parents and sister had died in the crash as well. Wow. Yeah.
Investigators dug into the most crucial component in the back for pressurization
So let's get to what happened. Investigators started, started looking at the rear of the plane. Given that due to the cockpit voice recorders it was clear that the tail controls weren't doing anything and they weren't active. And also that photo came out that we talked about earlier showing the rear stabilizer was missing. So they dug into the most crucial component in the back for pressurization, a thing called an aft pressure bulkhead. And it's like part of the thing is kind of creepy to me because it's like a huge functional thing that's behind, behind you in every plane. And you never see it because it's always hidden, but it's like the most critical part of like the structure of the plane. The way to think about, about it is basically past the part that you can see of the plane. There's a huge dome like structure that is made of alloy or some sort of a composite material. And the point of it is to create a pressurized seal between the pasture cabin and the unpressurized tail section. That's the idea. Keep everything in. It actually expands. It's meant to, like, flex a little bit. Because when the thing gets pressurized, it gets pressurized to 8 psi, and it pushes it like a plug into place at the back of the plane.
>> Taylor: So. Okay, can you maybe do that one more time? So, like, what is back there? So there's like a space behind, like, where the flight attendants are, where there's, like, the press. The thing, like, lives in there.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: And like an unpressurized spot.
>> Farz: Yep. Yeah.
>> Taylor: And like, part of the way it works because, like, is this similar to how, like, the screws on a plane aren't very tight because the part they need to be able to pressurize.
>> Farz: That's that. Yeah, same concept. Yep. Yep. Yeah, it's. It looks like an umbrella that's been opened and is on its side, and it's, like, just plugged into the back of the plane, and it's huge.
>> Taylor: Okay.
>> Farz: Which is a problem. They are crazy difficult to replace. You have to deconstruct the plane and, like, saw off the tail section to get this thing out. Because it's like a huge structural component within the plane. And in situations where they need repairs, there's, like, obviously pretty strict protocols in terms of what you should do and how you should repair it. In 1978, four years after that plane had been delivered and seven years before this event had happened. During a landing, a pilot was super aggressive with what's called the flare of the plane, which is like that nose up approach to landing, and scraped the h*** out of the bottom of the plane. It was a tail strike, a bad one. Apparently. A lot of people actually were injured in this because he really did some damage to this plane. The. That tail strike seven years earlier had cracked that pressure bulkhead in the back of the plane. And the airline knew about it, so they called Boeing and Boeing. Technicians came in and were like, well, we're gonna fix it. They repaired it and that was it. That's what they thought happened. Trying to think of how to explain this the way it makes sense. So in this situation, the tail strike had caused cracks in the bulkhead. So if you're looking at the umbrella, there's, like, grooves and cracks in it. Right. And to fix it, the technicians were to place another metal form over that crack, and they were supposed to run two rows containing three rivets each across the entire length of it to fasten it to the air pressure. Bulkhead. That was the way you're supposed to do it. Instead, they cut a metal splice plate in half and then did the same number of rivets, but for two pieces instead of one. And what they found is that that essentially means that each rivet has to hold twice the amount of pressure that a single rivet has to hold it. Actually, when I was reading this, reminded me exactly of that Kansas City Hyatt disaster.
>> Taylor: That too, because people like it was holding the second one where it shouldn't have been holding the second one. It should have been supported by the ceiling or whatever. Yeah, it was holding each other.
>> Farz: Yeah. If it's. It was. In that case, it was supposed to be one thing all the way down, but. But what they did was they did, they fixed the bottom one to the top one. And so then it was like two pressure points instead of one. And that was exactly what happened here. The FAA would investigate this later on and determine that the failure point for this after the repairs they did was after 11,000 pressure cycles. By the time this had happened, they were just over 12,300. So they got pretty far with it for what it was. But again, it wasn't meant to fail. After 12, 300 was supposed to fail the end life cycle of the entire plane, which was decades, or I mean a decade, a decade, decade away. It's like it was way wrong, essentially.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: When the bulkhead reached that failure point with that 8 psi pressure blowing through, cracked wide open and shot back, ripping off the entire tail section of the plane, that's what knocked out the hydraulics, that's what knocked out the stabilizer. All of it basically doomed the entire plane. And that's kind of where it ended. It was a, it was found to be a fault of Japan Airline. It was found to be a fault of Boeing technicians. There'll be obviously a ton of lawsuits involved. Two employees for Japan Airlines actually committed suicide, even though there was no like criminal liability whatsoever. But a maintenance manager, an airline engineer who had certified the plane's airworthiness, both felt so such shame that they killed themselves over this. And it happened again. It happened again in China like a couple of years after this. The exact same thing. There was a, there was a, there was a tail strike to the, to the, that affected the, their aft air, sorry, the aft pressure bulkhead. And back then in China, for like years while this plane was being used, people could smoke in the, in the planes. And so they lost rear stabilizers, hydraulics, plane crash. Everybody dies. They go, look at this Thing, and they see there's. There's nicotine stains in it. Like, where the h*** is nicotine stain come from? Like, oh, my God, this thing's been cracked for, like, 15 years. And.
>> Taylor: Oh, no.
Women are way more prone to surviving in situations where there are extreme requirements
>> Farz: Would, like, eventually find its way out through the crack and stain it so that. Yeah, they knew it was busted. It was unbelievable.
>> Taylor: So, first of all, I can't believe you seals walk on planes. That is insane. It and sounds awesome, but I think.
>> Farz: You'D find it gross after a while.
>> Taylor: Yeah, maybe. I mean, it'd be gross if I was, like, not smoking, you know, I mean, I'm sure that, like, whatever. So what about the people who lived? Like, what.
>> Farz: How do they survive so? Well, there was no how. I mean, they just were lucky in their location on the plane, and they just happened to not die. Also, I did look up something about how, like, women for some reason, are way more prone to surviving in situations where, like, there's, like, a. Survival requirements. Oh, yeah, this is what it was saying. I asked Chad GBT this. Women have metabolic. Their. Their metabolic efficiency is way better than men, which slows starvation. They run 10 to 15, 10 to 12%. Oh, they have about 10 to 12% more body fat than men, which means that they can survive things longer.
>> Taylor: Maybe you learned that in the Donner party too, that, like, women survive those things a little bit better.
>> Farz: Estrin has protective effects on the cellular level. It enhances the immune function, reduces inflammation. Women have better cardiovascular. Dude. Like, it's like, yo. Yeah, like, this list keeps going on. Like, yeah, in case of famine, shipwreck, concentration camps, gulags, like, all of them have found that women outlive men in those situations.
>> Taylor: I mean, for what reason?
>> Farz: I mean, although it is strange because two of them are children. One was 8 and one was 12. So, like, I don't know if that applies uniformly. Although they're probably more resilient because they're young. So I don't. I don't know. I don't know why this.
>> Taylor: Totally.
>> Farz: They do know for sure because they did ask the people. They were like, yeah, I would, like, come in and out of consciousness, and I could hear a lot of screaming. And then every time I came back to consciousness, I'd hear less screaming. And so they. And so later on when they went up, they're like, yeah, if they'd gotten up there that night, they probably could have saved a lot more people. But, like, they were just, like, up there strapped to their chairs.
>> Taylor: Oh, you mean on the ground, they heard screaming. Ugh, I hate that. So in the plane, were they wearing their masks?
>> Farz: I don't know if they were wearing the masks. Yeah, I don't know.
>> Taylor: Wonder. I thought you meant on the plane. They would, like, go in and out of consciousness because you know how, like, if you are like drunk in a car crash, you are more likely to survive because your body can't react, you can't tense up. Yeah. So I wonder if you're, like, better off just being passed out during that than you are because you don't freaking live that 30 minutes of awful.
>> Farz: But yeah, I mean, yeah, in that case, I think getting hypoxia and not knowing what's going on is probably the best case scenario for you.
>> Taylor: 100%.
>> Farz: But yeah. Aft pressure bulkheads. Never knew I had to be scared of them, and now I do. So there you have it.
>> Taylor: Gosh, I wonder. Like, it's so interesting that we've gone like back and forth on like, huge planes, you know, like, with that, like that, like, Trump plane fiasco. Like, part of the issue is that there aren't airports that will take a plane that big anymore, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah, that was a huge deal with the A380. The A380 was supposed to be like the biggest plane in the world. And even airports that were built for 747s didn't have the facilities and capacities to like, handle a plane of that size and scale. And yeah, like, they.
>> Taylor: We like, thought the biggest plane was the answer and then we were like, oh, no, let's build trains.
>> Farz: Well, so that was actually part of the problem in this situation because they had tried to direct them to an airport that was closer to them, that didn't require them to do this weird loop situation to try and drop air speed when they didn't have any controls. They're like, we're not fully fueled 747. Like, I can't land in some rinky dink airport. Like, I need a. I need a real airport.
>> Taylor: Exactly.
>> Farz: So.
>> Taylor: Exactly. Yeah, I. Yeah, I'm imagining.
Have you ever seen a plane fly underneath your plane
So we have a tiny airport here. So there's always. And we have like, the military, so there's always planes around and stuff. And then, like, I'm always just so scared and like, I saw two planes, like, really close to each other in the sky. And I was just like, I don't want to be here for this.
>> Farz: Have you ever looked out and seen a plane fly underneath your plane?
>> Taylor: I've seen one, like, far away.
>> Farz: I. There was one time I must have just like, pure serendipity. I Looked down and I saw a plane fly underneath us. I was like, oh my God, it was like a bullet. Like my, like I barely registered what I was looking at right split second that it was there. Because when you're up there, you're like, oh, we're screws in.
>> Taylor: I always forget like, like you were saying before, like how. Yeah, like that photo, like when you're like when I see planes like coming into Palm Springs or whatever. Like, you know, they're always like they're landing so I can like see that it's a plane. When a plane's at like full altitude, like you can barely see it. They're so high, you know. That's so interesting. I like, I do like when you drive past the airport at night and you can see all the planes in line. Isn't that cool?
>> Farz: Do you remember that place in LA next to lax? It was a bar. I can't remember what it was called, but it was like a plane themed bar at lax. Right outside. LAX is right past the Runway. You could just go there and like grab a drink and just like sit there and watch the planes take off. It was so fun.
>> Taylor: So cool. There's a little, there's a nice bar and restaurant at the, at our local airport. And it's really cute. You can like go. But then like the, the thing is that like Elvis and such used to like fly in from Palm Springs just to go to that restaurant.
>> Farz: That would be cool. To see Elvis's plane.
>> Taylor: Yeah. For like a little, A little drink. Cool. Well, that's very, very scary.
>> Farz: I'm trying to think if I've ever seen Air Force One flying. I don't think I ever have.
>> Taylor: I did find the pictures that I had from. Remember I told you I saw that? The spaceship getting a piggyback ride on the airplane. I saw those pictures. They were like really crappy because I took them from like my BlackBerry whenever that was. But it's cool. It like flew like low over Central park and like in the thing. That was fun.
>> Farz: Yeah. I think we saw the exact same event because I was in New York. I was flying in and out of New York sometime in like 2012, 11 something around there. And I remember I saw the. I saw that too. The piggyback plane on the 747 was like, that's crazy looking.
>> Taylor: That's crazy. That was cool.
>> Farz: But I'll bring more disasters because in the middle of like trying to research for this one, I ended up going down a rabbit hole of watching like 15 more air disaster shows on YouTube.
>> Taylor: I know, I just.
>> Farz: So it's. Yeah, it's. It's fascinating stuff.
>> Taylor: I know. Like, while you're talking, I was like, I watched like a thing and it being these, like, just like a. A dramatization of like the pilots being like, what is going on? What do we do? And you're like, I don't know.
The number of like flying cars stresses me out
And also, like, once again, talk about Star Wars. I talk about Star Wars. Oh, in the last episode, how we're watching, like, the original Star. Not the original ones. The number one, two, three, you know, everyone knows. And like, I just hate how the original ones.
>> Farz: You said it right the first time.
>> Taylor: No, no, but the original ones are 3 or 4, 5, 6. Watching 1, 2, 3.
>> Farz: You mean the ones that recently came out?
>> Taylor: Recently means like 25 years ago. Yes.
>> Farz: Oh, don't those. Yeah, those suck.
>> Taylor: No, I know they're terrible. I know, I know we know they're terrible, but we're watching them in order, like, whatever. So that. Those are the. Those are the ones, I mean, where they're terrible, obviously. And like yesterday we were like watching a part where they're like, Anakin and Padme were like, I love you so much. And I was like, has George Lucas ever had anyone tell him that they love him? Because this is so, like, unbelievably awful. But the number of like flying cars stresses me out. And then like, they're always in, like. Like everyone is like flying in a battleship. And I'm like, can we just like, sit down and have these conversations? Because this is like, so dangerous.
>> Farz: I was watching the LA riots on CNN just now, and they spray painted and set fire to a bunch of Waymos and I was like, sentient. Like, AI driven. Things are like, the only way we're gonna. We gotta be nice. These things. Like, we gotta be nice to.
>> Taylor: I would, I would set fire to a scooter. Let's give an opportunity.
>> Farz: I mean, like a bird. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. The problem isn't the scooter. The problem is the people that ride the scooters.
>> Taylor: Remember, I have people.
>> Farz: They'll be better.
>> Taylor: Yeah. I had that idea that, like, if for an app where you could just like tell people where scooters are and like, set them on fire. Because I hate them so much. I mean, they're not here. Obviously, we're very lucky. But like, man, they were just like garbage and like, covered in pee and like disgusting on the ground. People just like, pick it up and use it. I'm like, girl, I know when I.
>> Farz: See one that's like, I've seen them abandoned on the side of the highway. They're on a 110 before. I'm like, what were you doing? Like, how drunk and high were you that you ended up with a bird or a lime here?
>> Taylor: So dangerous. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's terrible. I can't wait to hear more terrible stories of link rushes.
There's another one that I'm contemplating about air disaster
>> Farz: Yeah, there's another one that I'm contemplating, but I think I'm oversaturating our listeners with air disaster stuff, so maybe I'll take a breather for a bit.
>> Taylor: I mean it's just, it's so many people in one spot, you know, that makes it so dangerous.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: You're in the air, which is like safe. But like unless something goes wrong, like you're saying so stuff that like has like. I remember I was talking to Ben, my pilot friend. He's like, yeah, but every time you figure something out, then that's not a problem anymore. You're like, yeah, but there's like.
>> Farz: But you could be the one that you figure it out on.
>> Taylor: Exactly.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah. And I was going to do. In Berlin, there was a Radisson that had like the biggest freestanding fish tank in the world. It was in their lobby and it exploded and it had like that. Yeah, but the problem is like the investigation like wrapped and they were like. There was no. It was just. It was in Germany. So there was no transparency in terms of what was going on. And yeah, I couldn't really dig up a lot of good facts about that. It's called the Aqua Dome. If anybody's curious, it's a Radisson. And now, now it's a garden. Like now they. They kept the base of the. Because. Because elevator goes to the middle of it. So they kept the base of it and they just turn into a garden.
>> Taylor: I'm looking at the pictures of it after exploited. Yeah, I saw a picture. I saw something online that was like an under underwater hotel and I was like, absolutely not.
>> Farz: Yeah, no, we're good.
>> Taylor: I don't want to be in the reverse fish tank.
>> Farz: No, yeah, it's called a human tank at that point. Taylor.
>> Taylor: No, I get it. You're right.
>> Farz: Yeah. So if I can, if I can dig up more info, if anybody knows where I can dig up more info about that, I'll do that one. But I started researching was like, this is like be like a 10 minute episode. I can't do that. So anyhow, hope you all enjoyed it. If you all getting over the air disaster ones, let me know. Although there's like so many crazy ones that are worth talking about that, like, I don't know it. It's fascinating to me. So if y' all find it fasting, let, let me know. Otherwise I can pivot to things that are a little bit different, mix up a little bit.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Cool, that's exciting.
>> Farz: And our email again, dude pod@gmail.com. find us on the socials. Dude Pod. Taylor, do we have any mail?
>> Taylor: yes, sort of.
Nady, Nadine and I were chatting post Hands Across America again
Nady, Nadine and I were chatting post Hands Across America again and I think we talked about this before. I think maybe when just like so many times we've talked about how the infrastructure and like the money that you spend to keep a non profit open, sometimes you just like can't actually do good and how frustrating that is. So we're just like chatting about that because it's like one of those things where like, yeah, we'll raise some money, but we spent so much money to do this thing or you know, this person gets paid this much. But also people need to live and like, what is. It's a, it's a hard, it's a hard thing to figure out how to help everybody.
>> Farz: Not to shout out Ezra Klein yet again. There's parallels here, which is if you try to do everything and be everything to everyone, then you're nothing to everyone. Like, I mean, yeah, I don't know, I could call out, but anyhow, it's.
>> Taylor: Frustrating when you're like, oh, I want to give my money to something and what's it going to do?
My kids spent $20 to dunk me in a dunk tank for charity
Oh, but also speaking of charities, I did. My kids spent $20 to dunk me in a dunk tank on Saturday. And it was very fun.
>> Farz: What was the charity?
>> Taylor: Little Our Little League. So they're just like raising money to like, they have to like maintain the field and such. So they each got. For $10 each, they got five balls. They didn't do it, but the guy let them push the button together and I got dungeon. It was actually very nice because it was like, it's getting really hot. I think it's part of the reason why I'm so grumpy is that it's getting really hot. And I know it's going to. It happens every year, but I'm still grumpy about it.
>> Farz: That is a good dunk man operator because, yeah, you got to get dunked.
>> Taylor: You gotta. So that was fun.
>> Farz: Sweet. Cool. Anything else to share?
>> Taylor: Nope. I'm gonna drink the rest of this wine and try to stop being grumpy.
>> Farz: Do your best. We'll go ahead and cut things off with that. Thank you all. Thank you, Taylor.