Airplanes Without Pilots

A Flight Aboard The A380 Turns Bad

The date was January 1st, 2020 at 08:40 AM when Captain Davis Bonhomme who was a Boeing 787 test pilot flying to Dubai to pick up a 787 to bring it back to the Boeing factory for some repairs boarded an Emirates A380. The flight was set to fly from New York John F. Kennedy International Airport to Dubai International Airport. The flight would not make it to Dubai but rather the middle of the ocean.

At 08:50 AM the A380 pushes back from the gate to taxi to runway 13L for takeoff.

At 08:59 AM Emirates flight EK203 took off from runway 13L.

After takeoff, everything seemed to be going fine. The flight made it halfway across the Atlantic ocean before the aircraft started violently banking left and right, pitching up and down. Since this was the inaugural commercial flight there was a pilot in the cabin. The pilot tried to disable autopilot and hand fly the aircraft but it would not disable. The aircraft had a fly by wire with a sidestick that would allow you to fly the aircraft by hand, but since it was fly by wire it could not override the autopilot. If the flight controls were a simple yolk then the yolk could override the autopilot. The aircraft stalled when the aircraft pitched up to steep causing the aircraft to lose all of its airspeed.

The airplane flew in this pattern for hours pretty much flying in circles. Eventually, the vertical stabilizer broke off causing the aircraft to spin and spiral down, rapidly losing altitude until it collided with the water.

The emergency locator transmitter (ELT) was set off after the aircraft first started pitching up and down. There was emergency rescue aircraft sent out to try and save the passengers by using the amphibious aircraft to get right next to the A380 when it hit the water. This ended up failing because the aircraft hit the water so violently and so hard causing the wings to snap off right when it hit the water, causing the aircraft to not help the aircraft stay afloat long enough to get everyone out of the aircraft. All 868 passengers aboard Emirates flight EK203 died in the crash.

The Emirates A380 with registration A6-EUJ under flight EK203 was the first and last commercial flight to fly with no pilot and only autopilot controlling the plane.