Unqualified and Unlicensed In The Cockpit | The Terrible Flight Of AeroMexico Connect 2431

This is the story of aero mexico connect flight 2431 . On the 31st of july 2018 an embraer ERJ 190 was on the ground at Durango, flight 2431 was about to make the quick hop over to mexico city. That is if the plane would be able to get off of the ground, the weather at the time was bad. But before they could worry about the weather the captain got word that engine number one had a small fuel leak. The first officer was of the opinion that they should start the engine see how the leak fared with the engine running and then go ahead with the takeoff if everything looked good to the pilots. The engine was leaking fuel at a rate of about 33 drops per minute. The plan was to start the engines up and see if the fuel leak stopped if it didnt stop then the takeoff would be abandoned. As all of this was happening a trainee pilot was in the first officers seat and he was prepping the plane for departure. He listened into the ATIS information and then at the behest of the captain, the trainee pilot punched in data like the wind weights fuel quantities altimetric information and the lot into the FMS to set the plane. At this time they were still keeping an eye on the fuel situation to see if they would be able to takeoff, thankfully when the engines were brought up to idle power the leak went away. Now all that was left to do was to wait two minutes to see if the leak reappeared. As they waited they got their pushback and taxi clearance, they were to head to runway 03 and the winds today would be 12 knots from a heading of 070. As the plane taxied the captain told the pilot in the first officers seat that since it was raining and windy he needed to rotate the plane firmly and smoothly, you might be wondering why the captain was coaching a pilot so much, well that is because the pilot in the right hand seat was a trainee pilot with no real experience on jets. He ha da commercial pilots licence for fixed wing aircraft an h had flow planes like the King air B200, nothing like a jet, that being said he had taken some theoretical training on the embraer 170,175 190 and had some time on the e-jet simulator. As the crew worked through the before takeoff checklist the tower let the crew know that the wind was now gusting up to 20 knots on the departure runway. At this point CCTV cameras showed well nothing, the rain was so intense that the plane was hidden behind a sheet of water pouring down from the heavens and it looked like it would get worse before it got better. But in the cockpit they were getting instructions on what to do after they took off. Then the plane enters the runway they decided to stop the plane on the runway ramp the engines up to max power and then let go of the brakes so as to gain speed as quickly as possible to punch through the wind and rain. As the engines sucked in copious amounts of air and water the brakes strained to keep the E190 at the foot of the runway and then in a second the jet was off and picking up speed. The rookie first officer tried his best to keep the plane on the centreline despite the weather. They hit 80 knots and things look good. The V2 callout is then made and the rookie takes the jet into the air, the gear slowly lifts off of the runway and the captain calls positive rate. As the plane slowly started to lift off the gear was retracted. At this point they were two feet off of the ground. But something was off the plane was climbing but very very slowly, the E190 clawed its way to 11 feet in altitude and it was obvious to the rookie pilot that he had bitten off more than he could chew. Nothing in his training had prepared him for anything like this because he had none. So the captain calls my controls and takes over from the rookie. The captain managed to coax a couple more feet of altitude from the jet and once they hit 30 feet the plane started to descend. The cockpit now filled with windshear and altitude alarms as the plane strained to climb but failed to do so. The EGPWS alarm urged the pilots to not sink, but truth be told they were as much a passenger on this plane as anyone else. Flight 2431 came crashing back down on the runway. Since the gear had been retracted the engines took the full brunt of the impact. The engines were sheared off by the impact and the plane came to rest back on the runway. The jet had so much forward momentum that the plane would not be able to stop on the runway the plane then kept skidding for another 300 meters after the end of the runway and then came to a stop. I found some footage from inside the plane and id like to play that for you right now.