ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Thai Airways International Flight 114

Thai Airways International Flight 114 was a real-life event that happened on September 9, 2013. It was a plane that was flying from Indonesia to Thailand, but unfortunately, something went wrong.

You know how sometimes when you're playing with your toys, one of them might suddenly stop working? Well, planes are like big toys that can carry lots of people. And just like toys, sometimes they can stop working too.

On that day, when Flight 114 was flying in the sky, the pilots started to notice some strange things happening with the plane. They saw smoke coming out from one of the instruments that helps the plane to know how high it is above the ground. This confused them and they wanted to be safe, so they decided to turn the plane around and try to land back in Indonesia.

When the plane was going down to land, things got scarier. The pilots noticed that some of the wheels on the plane that help it to land weren't coming down properly. It's like when you're riding your bike and your training wheels start wobbling. You know it's going to be a little bit shaky. That's exactly what happened to the plane.

Because the wheels weren't working properly, the pilots had to make a difficult decision. They decided to land the plane without them. This means that instead of landing on the wheels, the plane was going to land on its belly, just like when you slide on your tummy down a grassy hill. But instead of a fun game, it was a very serious situation.

When the plane landed, it skidded on the runway and sparks were flying everywhere. The passengers inside were scared, but luckily, everyone managed to get out of the plane safely. The firefighters came quickly and put out the fire that started because of the sparks.

Now, even though it was a scary experience, it's important to know that accidents like these are very rare. Airplanes are designed to be very safe and have lots of backup systems to help the pilots if something goes wrong. The pilots are also very well-trained to handle emergencies like this.

After the accident, the airline and authorities looked into what happened and made sure to learn from it so that it wouldn't happen again. They found out that there was a problem with one of the systems in the plane that caused the smoke and issues with the landing gear.

So, even though it was a scary experience for the people on Flight 114, it taught us all how important it is to make sure that airplanes are working perfectly before they take off. And it also taught us how amazing pilots are at making quick decisions to keep everyone safe.