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00:00An MD-11 speeds towards a runway in Japan.
00:04Yeehaw! Ride them cowboy!
00:07Clearly it was a wild ride on approach.
00:09A challenging landing becomes a disaster.
00:12There's a crash on 34 left and there's fire.
00:14A catastrophe caught on tape.
00:16It was security camera video of the crash sequence.
00:19But even more shocking.
00:21He hits a runway hard enough to bounce.
00:24It's not the first time this has happened.
00:27The industry thought that the problem had been dealt with.
00:31We're missing something here.
00:33People were surprised when Narita happened.
00:36Investigators need to figure out why this deadly problem has struck again.
00:40Fire!
00:45Made it, made it.
00:58Newark International Airport, USA
01:08FedEx Flight 14 is on final approach to Newark International Airport.
01:14Be advised, surface winds 250 degrees at 5 knots.
01:18The Boeing MD-11 is a stretch version of the DC-10, ideal for hauling cargo.
01:25Flight 14 is seconds from the Newark runway.
01:28A landing that will have major repercussions for years to come.
01:35The flight down to about 50 feet off the ground was perfectly normal.
01:42Now the plane is dropping too quickly.
01:48It hits hard and bounces.
01:52Catastrophe strikes as the right wing hits the ground.
01:59Amazingly, no one is killed.
02:03We were elated very early on to find out that the people on board the aircraft escaped with very, very minor injuries.
02:13A violent crash at one of the busiest airports in the United States could easily have led to a fatal tragedy.
02:19It demands a full investigation.
02:24The NTSB's Bob Benson leads the team.
02:28A design quirk of the MD-11 immediately grabs his attention.
02:32To save on fuel, engineers gave the jet an unusually small tail that reduces drag.
02:39During the investigation, it became apparent to us that the MD-11 had design features, if you will,
02:47that made it somewhat more difficult to land.
02:53The plane's small tail surface makes the MD-11 tend to pitch up.
02:58The solution is to fly faster, to increase airflow over the tail.
03:03The MD-11 lands faster than any other airliner on Earth.
03:07To lift the tail and push the nose down, it needs to come in at more than 175 miles an hour.
03:13Only a fighter jet hits the ground faster.
03:18On short final, at high approach speeds, vents are somewhat compressed,
03:23so good reaction time, good reflexes are important.
03:28Benson eventually concludes that pilot error is to blame for the fiery crash at Newark.
03:34The wings were rocking a little bit more than they should have, and he bounced the first landing.
03:40The pilots then push the nose down, making the second impact even worse.
03:44This was a very, very hard touchdown the second time around, destroying the landing gear on that side of the aircraft.
03:50So it was a very quick combination of minor errors that kind of snowballed into an accident.
04:00In his final report on the crash at Newark, Benson calls for better pilot training.
04:06The result? An improved technique for recovering from bounced landings.
04:10MD-11 pilots learn how to use their throttles to bring the plane back to the ground gently.
04:16Add a little power to maintain a landing attitude, and add a little bit of power,
04:20and then just gently let the thing come back down to the runway.
04:25The airline industry moves on from the Newark crash, confident that an important lesson has been learned.
04:33Almost 12 years later.
04:36Nippon Cargo 37, runway 34, left clear to land.
04:40The MD-11 is still a popular workhorse for flying cargo.
04:45FedEx relies on the plane to haul millions of tons of freight in and out of crucial hubs,
04:51like Tokyo's Narita Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world.
04:56Flying cargo went from being kind of on the lower rungs of the aviation professional ladder, if you will,
05:03to being at the top, because it was dependable, it was good, it paid the same,
05:08plus the other benefits of, well, there's pressure always to be as efficient as possible.
05:14The freight seldom complains itself.
05:16Narita Tower, FedEx 80, 13 miles for 34 left.
05:2054-year-old Kevin Moseley is the captain on FedEx Flight 80.
05:25His first officer is 49-year-old Anthony Pino.
05:29The two veteran pilots are second-in-line pilots in the fleet,
05:32and the two veteran pilots are second-in-line pilots in the fleet.
05:36The two veteran pilots are second-in-line pilots in the fleet,
05:39and the two veteran pilots are second-in-line pilots in the fleet.
05:43The two veteran pilots are second-in-line to land at Narita.
05:48FedEx 80, Narita Tower on runway 34 left, continue approach.
05:52FedEx 80, roger.
05:54Within that last 200 miles or so before you're going to land,
05:58a pilot would start thinking about what the conditions are,
06:01recheck the weather, start paying attention to what was happening to other traffic.
06:08After an overnight flight from Guangzhou, China,
06:11the crew is less than 10 minutes from touching down on Narita's main runway.
06:16Today, First Officer Pino is flying the plane,
06:20while the captain monitors the instruments.
06:23All right, let's begin the before landing checklist.
06:25Got it.
06:26Landing lights on.
06:29FedEx 80, surface wind is 320 at 28 knots.
06:33320 at 28 knots.
06:36Seven minutes from landing, the controller gives the crew an update
06:39about the wind conditions on the runway.
06:42OK, copy that.
06:44The pilots are in the midst of their approach,
06:46a crucial time in any flight.
06:49The crew must perform dozens of steps to lose altitude
06:53and drop about 400 miles an hour of airspeed before they touch down.
06:57It's a very busy time in the cockpit.
07:01The pilot's got a zillion things going through his head.
07:04His eyeballs are all over the place,
07:08making sure that the proposed landing is going fine.
07:11On this flight, the pilots have an additional challenge to contend with,
07:15powerful winds.
07:17Any thoughts on landing speed?
07:19Let's add 10 knots, make it 164 knots.
07:23They need to come in faster than usual to combat the gusty conditions.
07:28If you have gusts, then you have to figure out that it will affect
07:32and change the lift characteristics of the airplane
07:35as well as the speed of the airplane.
07:39Landing gear.
07:41Gear down.
07:46Foregrain.
07:48500.
07:51Oh, yeah.
07:53Cleared to land, 34 left.
07:56Stable.
08:03You're really working if you're the pilot flying
08:06on a really gusty, windy day.
08:12The plane is dropping 13 feet per second.
08:18It will be on the ground in less than five seconds.
08:26Without warning, the MD-11 is upside down in flames.
08:34There's a crash on 34 left, and there's fire.
08:37Fire crews race to the runway,
08:39where a massive blaze has engulfed the cockpit of FedEx Flight 18.
08:47It's the biggest air disaster the Tokyo airport has ever seen.
08:52Air traffic controllers must now redirect incoming flights
08:55away from the burning debris.
09:01It takes almost half an hour for firefighters
09:04to douse the flames surrounding the cockpit.
09:07By the time rescuers get inside, it's too late for the pilots.
09:13Two people are dead.
09:16The plane is on fire.
09:17Two people are dead, and another MD-11
09:19lies burning at the side of a runway.
09:24The first thing I noticed when I arrived at the accident site
09:27was that the pieces of the aircraft were scattered across a wide area.
09:34This is the first fatal accident in Narita Airport's 31-year history.
09:42Masaru Chiba, of the Japan Airlines,
09:45Masaru Chiba, of the Japan Transport Safety Board,
09:49takes charge of the investigation.
09:56When we saw the accident site,
09:57more than half the aircraft had been completely burned.
10:01So I was at a loss at first to decide
10:03where we should start the investigation.
10:07The aviation world needs to know
10:09why this MD-11 landing went so wrong.
10:12Have the lessons from Newark been forgotten?
10:17Or is this an entirely new problem?
10:25Two people are dead,
10:26and the remains of an MD-11 cargo plane
10:28lie smoldering at Narita Airport.
10:31Investigators examine the runway,
10:33searching for clues that might reveal
10:35how this landing went so wrong.
10:38I was trying to figure out where the plane first touched down.
10:42There were very clear traces from the tires.
10:45Therefore, the initial contact with the ground
10:47was the place where there were clear tire marks.
10:51Look at all this rubber.
10:52This is where they first touched down.
10:56The marks reveal where the plane first slammed onto the runway.
11:02The second contact was with the nose gear,
11:05and we found pieces of the front wheel
11:07near the area where it hit.
11:10They also show the plane hit the runway more than once.
11:14And this is where they finally came down.
11:18Extremely hard, by the looks of it.
11:26The third area that the plane touched down
11:28had a lot of spilled fuel,
11:30and a big portion of the aircraft's remains.
11:34So we concluded that there were three contact zones
11:37where the aircraft hit the ground.
11:40Investigators catch an early break.
11:43Though it's extremely rare for a plane crash
11:45to be caught on video,
11:47it's happened here.
11:52An airport surveillance camera
11:54confirms Chiba's theory about the violent landing.
11:59Flight 80 bounced twice
12:02before finally slamming into the runway
12:04and flipping over in flames.
12:14I also saw the pictures from the surveillance cameras.
12:17I was convinced that the aircraft hit three times.
12:22I've never seen such a terrible accident before.
12:28The similarities between this accident
12:30and the crash of Flight 14 in New York
12:32are very disturbing.
12:34Investigators face immediate pressure
12:36to figure out exactly who or what is to blame this time.
12:40It had been ten years
12:42since the last accident involving an MD-11.
12:45And when Narita occurred,
12:47it was clear that the problem
12:49of these types of MD-11 accidents
12:51had not been solved.
12:56Investigators interview the tower controllers
12:58to learn more about the moments
13:00leading up to the crash.
13:03They hear that pilots landing ahead of Flight 80
13:05reported very turbulent conditions
13:07on approach to the runway.
13:20The accident happened right after a cold front had passed,
13:23so it was very windy.
13:26The pilot of the previous flight
13:28actually reported they experienced wind shear
13:30during their flight.
13:34Wind shear is the term pilots use
13:36to describe dangerously shifting winds.
13:39That's a really rapid change in direction
13:41or velocity of wind,
13:43and it can really affect the flying characteristics
13:45of the airplane.
13:47Strong wind shear can push a plane violently up or down,
13:50causing it to lose lift.
13:53Near a runway, it can be fatal.
13:56In 1985, Delta Air Lines Flight 191
13:58hit wind shear while landing
14:00at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.
14:03137 people were killed in the crash.
14:10After that accident,
14:12airports installed Doppler radar,
14:14which can detect wind shear on runways
14:16and warn pilots when landing might be dangerous.
14:21Controllers at Narita were relying on that technology.
14:24as FedEx Flight 80 came in for its landing.
14:27Runway 34 left, wind shear on final.
14:30It's going to be a bumpy one.
14:32All over it.
14:35The controller tells investigators
14:37he warned the FedEx crew to be on guard for wind shear.
14:40What investigators need now
14:42is more detailed wind analysis
14:44from sensors around the airport.
14:46But collecting the data will take some time.
14:49They'll have to wait to find out
14:51just how dangerous the wind conditions were
14:53during Flight 80's fatal landing.
15:02Meanwhile, a recovery team
15:04has made a major breakthrough.
15:06They've pulled the black boxes
15:08from the scorched wreckage.
15:10The data on the recorders
15:12could explain what happened
15:14in the last few moments of the MD-11 landing.
15:17Unless that data has been destroyed by fire.
15:20These are a lot more damaged than I thought they'd be.
15:23I hope they can get something out of these.
15:27It was heavily damaged.
15:29It was exposed to extremely high heat.
15:34Let's get them packing.
15:41We wanted to be absolutely sure
15:43we would get the data.
15:45So we assigned an investigator
15:47to take the recorders to the United States.
15:50The black boxes are on the next flight
15:52to Washington DC
15:54where NTSB experts will try to recover
15:56the critical data.
16:01While investigators wait for news from Washington,
16:04they consider another possibility.
16:06That Flight 80 was thrown off balance
16:08by the load it was carrying.
16:14What if...
16:17the cargo shifted at the last minute?
16:21There are several things that can affect
16:23a cargo aircraft during take-off or landings.
16:26One of the things that pilots always fear
16:28is shifting cargo.
16:31Flight 80 was carrying more than 50 tons of cargo.
16:34FedEx deliveries large and small.
16:40Loading cargo is an exact science.
16:43Distributing weight in a way
16:45that does not unbalance the aircraft.
16:47That's especially true
16:49in the already temperamental MD-11.
16:53The fasteners that hold the cargo in place
16:55have survived the fire.
16:58There's no evidence they failed.
17:00They look fine.
17:02Let's check out the others.
17:08As far as I could tell from the remains of the cargo,
17:11there was no evidence of the cargo shifting
17:13either to the front of the plane
17:15or to the back of the plane.
17:21But if the cargo didn't shift,
17:23what caused Flight 80 to crash on landing,
17:25killing two pilots?
17:29Masaru Chiba studies Doppler radar records
17:31of the wind speeds on Runway 34.
17:35Any sign of wind shift
17:38Any sign of wind shear
17:40in the moments before the crash
17:42could be the lead he's been waiting for.
17:44But it's another dead end.
17:47No wind shear on Runway 34 left
17:49when they were touching down.
17:52After examining data about the air currents
17:54before and after the accident,
17:56it seemed very unlikely
17:58that wind shear could have caused this accident.
18:04While investigators in Japan
18:06struggle for a solid lead,
18:09there's better news from Washington.
18:12NTSB technicians have recovered the sounds
18:14captured by Flight 80's
18:16damaged cockpit voice recorder.
18:18They expect to soon recover
18:20the flight data as well.
18:23Flight recorders are very robust instruments.
18:25They're designed to withstand
18:27an incredible amount of G-force
18:29and their heat.
18:32Ah, Mr. Misenchik.
18:34Welcome aboard.
18:36Nice to meet you.
18:38My name is Masaru Chiba.
18:40Because the plane is American-made,
18:42Paul Misenchik of the National Transportation Safety Board
18:45joins the team in Japan.
18:48We had the expertise that could contribute
18:50to the Japanese investigation
18:52as far as procedures,
18:54what type of regulations the crew was flying under,
18:57and we could do an awful lot of the
18:59follow-up investigative activities
19:01here in the United States,
19:03which is what we did.
19:05Okay, this way, please.
19:07Flight 80's cockpit recording
19:09is now in the hands of investigators.
19:11But will it tell them why the pilots
19:13couldn't get their plane safely on the ground?
19:17Let's hear the entire approach from...
19:23from first contact with Narita at 6.41.
19:29Narita Tower, FedEx 80.
19:3113 miles to 34 left.
19:34FedEx 80.
19:35Narita Tower on runway 34 left.
19:37Continue approach.
19:38FedEx 80, roger.
19:40All right, let's begin the before-landing checklist.
19:42Got it.
19:45So far, so good.
19:48The approach to Narita is textbook.
19:51Landing gear.
19:53Gear down.
19:55Winds are 320, maximum at 34 knots.
19:58Okay, stop for a second.
20:02Winds...
20:06320...
20:08maximum 34.
20:10It's right in their face.
20:13The recording reveals the crew
20:15was flying into a strong headwind,
20:17but it isn't dangerous enough
20:19to explain the crash.
20:21Okay, let's go on.
20:241,000.
20:26Yee-haw!
20:28Ride them, cowboy!
20:31Don't let the airplane fly you.
20:33You fly the airplane.
20:35And on a gusty, blustery day,
20:38that's in fact what you have to do.
20:41500.
20:43Despite the bumpy ride,
20:45the pilots don't seem very concerned.
20:49Clear to land, 34 left.
20:51Stable.
20:54Shee!
20:56Stable approach is one of the call-outs
20:59that more and more carriers have put into
21:01their operation specifications that you call out
21:04because generally that's a pretty well-understood thing.
21:07If you're stable, you can land.
21:11Shee!
21:15One minute from the runway, and they're choking.
21:18Seems like there's nothing wrong.
21:21From the recording,
21:23we can tell that they were really relaxed
21:26and teasing each other.
21:28I think what happened was that the air currents were so rough
21:31that it felt like they were in a rodeo,
21:34riding an untamed horse like cowboys.
21:37Then, an automated voice from the altimeter
21:40gives investigators an important clue.
21:50Shee!
21:55That last part again, please.
21:5960, 40, 30, 20, 10.
22:07It should slow down.
22:0950, 40, 30, 20, 10.
22:15The pilot, in making an approach,
22:19he can judge his rate of descent
22:22by the cadence of those call-outs.
22:25Like normally, you'll have 100 feet, 50, 30,
22:30and as you get down to 10 feet,
22:32they'll even slow down a little bit more.
22:3420, 10.
22:36If it's calling them very quickly,
22:38you're sinking too rapidly.
22:40The recording tells investigators
22:42the plane's descent didn't slow down when it should have,
22:46but instead continued dropping at a rapid rate.
22:49It explains the hard landing,
22:52but not the crash.
22:54Another critical question remains.
22:57Why didn't the pilots slow their descent?
23:00Until they can answer that question,
23:02investigators will never know the full story
23:05behind the crash of FedEx Flight 80.
23:11While they prepare the FedEx 80 flight data for analysis,
23:15investigators in Tokyo follow a new lead.
23:18Let's see what these can tell us.
23:22A second security camera captured a series of photographs
23:26during the deadly touchdown.
23:28The camera was set to record four images per second.
23:32With luck, one of them might reveal
23:34why the landing went so wrong.
23:39When we looked at the photographs,
23:41we could tell very clearly how the aircraft came into the runway.
23:46The surveillance photos were more helpful and accurate
23:49than interviewing hundreds of witnesses.
23:5330 feet off the ground.
23:55Looks like he's straight and level.
23:59Stable.
24:02Stable.
24:0420 feet.
24:06And still stable.
24:09You want the airplane pointed down the runway when you touch down
24:13and you want the wings as level as you can have them.
24:16That's what you're looking to accomplish.
24:19Everything looks fine.
24:21But in a split second,
24:23he hits a runway, hard enough to bounce.
24:29The photos capture in detail what happened on runway 34L,
24:33but shed little light on why it happened.
24:38We're missing something here.
24:41They turn to the information from the flight data recorder.
24:45All right. What does the data tell us?
24:48They hope it will reveal what the pilots did
24:51during the final moments of the landing.
24:5540 feet.
24:5830 feet.
25:00Strange. He's practically level.
25:03He should be nose up here.
25:0530 feet from the ground,
25:07the pilots should pull the nose up a few degrees
25:10to slow the descent and help the plane float to the ground.
25:13It's called flaring the plane.
25:15Starting to pull back on the control column
25:19to start to flare the airplane,
25:21to start to arrest its descent
25:23so that you have one continual motion
25:26of power coming off of the airplane.
25:3025 feet from the ground,
25:32the pilots still hadn't done that.
25:35He starts to flare here,
25:37but it's only two seconds from touchdown.
25:40He's too late.
25:42The pilots finally start to flare at 20 feet.
25:45So late, they're still pulling up
25:47when they slam into the ground.
25:49That explains why they were dropping so fast.
25:54A proper landing is a landing
25:57A properly timed flare helps ensure a smooth landing.
26:01By delaying the flare,
26:03the pilots were descending much more quickly
26:06than they should have been.
26:11They began the flare at 20 feet.
26:14That's when things started going wrong.
26:19Two seconds from touchdown, he's already behind the game.
26:23Let's see how he got there.
26:25So it was a high sink rate,
26:27and we were wondering why a pilot would allow that to happen.
26:32In search of an answer,
26:34investigators scrutinize an earlier part of the flight,
26:37the last thousand feet of the landing.
26:42This is where things start to get hairy.
26:45Right up, left down,
26:49right up, left up.
26:52Yee-haw!
26:54Right up cowboy.
26:56They were working hard to adjust for the changing headwinds
27:01and rising and sinking of the airplane
27:04with the turbulence that was associated with that.
27:07Stable.
27:13If you have a really strong headwind on the airplane
27:16blowing right down the runway toward the airplane,
27:20and that wind suddenly diminishes greatly,
27:23the airplane has a tendency to feel like it's falling out from under you.
27:27It's lost some of that airflow that's going over the wing.
27:31The MD-11 is heading for the runway at almost 200 miles an hour
27:35and dropping at 13 feet per second.
27:38Pino has his hands full
27:40trying to keep his plane properly positioned for landing.
27:43100.
27:49Just when they need power,
27:51the engines go to idle.
27:57At 50 feet, the situation gets much worse.
28:01The MD-11's autothrottles are designed to go to idle automatically at 50 feet.
28:06The system works well on calm days,
28:09but this time the decrease in power makes the plane drop even faster.
28:13When they had a high sink rate,
28:15they needed power right at 50 feet,
28:18and they didn't apply it.
28:21Because of the powerful winds,
28:23Pino should have added more thrust to keep the landing on track.
28:28Pino reacts less than a second too late.
28:31He pulls the nose up to begin his flare,
28:35but the plane is falling too fast.
28:40In windy, gusty conditions,
28:42it's incumbent on the pilot to guard his throttles
28:45and to override the autothrottles
28:48to make sure that he has the adequate power component
28:51to control his rate of descent to the runway.
28:56Just like in the Newark accident,
28:58Flight 80 hits the runway while dropping twice as fast as recommended.
29:07They both botched the flare.
29:10They both hit hard.
29:12Tsugi.
29:14If a pilot is late with his flare,
29:16just like Isaac Newton says,
29:18every reaction is a reaction.
29:20You're going to hit the runway and bounce back off the runway.
29:23This is what's happened in several of these MD-11s,
29:26where one wing would shear off
29:28and the other wing would fly up over the top
29:31and turn the airplane inverted.
29:36Investigators in Japan learn that both Moseley and Pino
29:39received the bounce recovery training
29:42that Benson recommended after the Newark accident.
29:47Looks like they had the proper training.
29:50So how did they get the landing so wrong?
29:54The fatal descent onto runway 34L remains a mystery.
30:04Investigators dig into the background
30:06of the two pilots who died on FedEx Flight 80.
30:09FedEx doesn't have a lot of people that are new to the flying business.
30:16They just don't make the cut.
30:20Before working for FedEx,
30:22Captain Moseley flew F-4s for the US Marines.
30:25Only the best pilots are even considered for the job.
30:29As a civilian pilot, he had flown more than 8,000 hours.
30:35But Captain Moseley had only recently returned to flying...
30:39Sick leave.
30:41..after an extended sick leave for a bad back.
30:46First Officer Pino...
30:49..was hardly a rookie.
30:51Anthony Pino was a veteran of the First Gulf War.
30:55He served with the US Air Force for 23 years,
30:58flying C-5 transports, one of the largest planes ever built.
31:03Nobody had anything bad to say about either of these pilots.
31:07They trained well. They never failed a proficiency check.
31:12But investigators do find one significant detail
31:16in First Officer Pino's record.
31:20He had to be recertified to land MD-11s
31:24on a simulator just six weeks before.
31:27Lots of hours.
31:31Not so many landings.
31:33We found out that he had, within the previous six months,
31:37very few actual landings.
31:40Lack of experience in landing has led to tragedy in the past.
31:45Just a month earlier, a Turkish Airlines 737
31:48was on approach to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.
31:52The pilot flying was an inexperienced trainee.
31:56He failed to recognise a critical change in throttle settings,
32:00brought on by a malfunctioning altimeter.
32:05The plane lost power and slammed into the ground.
32:10Killing nine of the 135 people aboard.
32:18At FedEx, Pino usually flew as the relief pilot,
32:22taking the controls only in the middle of long-haul flights.
32:26It's a role that calls for very few landings.
32:31The pilot who was flying this airplane
32:34only had about 73 landings in the last two and a half years,
32:38which averages out to about two and a half landings a month.
32:42Two and a half landings a month.
32:44That's not a lot of landing practice.
32:47The first bounce throws the plane back in the air.
32:50He gets ten feet off the ground and brings his nose down.
32:57He hits the ground for the second time here.
33:03He continues to push his controls forward,
33:06pushing down the nose.
33:08He's making things worse here.
33:11Second bounce sends him 16 feet back in the air.
33:15And the third touchdown is lethal.
33:18Fire!
33:28OK, a rusty first officer and a captain with a bad back.
33:33There must be more to it than that.
33:36Go ahead.
33:38Investigators return to the cockpit voice recording
33:42and listen for other factors that might have come into play.
33:48They hear a critical clue,
33:50a remark made 45 minutes before the catastrophic landing.
34:02Keep an eye on me, would you?
34:04If I suddenly get really quiet, say something,
34:07especially if we're close to flare.
34:09It was clear from listening to the crew
34:12that they were tired during the approach.
34:14So they were tired after flying all night long.
34:17Let's find out just how tired they were.
34:20Research has shown that fatigue can decrease performance
34:24in ways similar to alcohol intoxication.
34:27Investigators learn that over the past ten days,
34:31four men flew 38.5 hours, travelled almost 11,000 miles
34:36and crossed eight time zones.
34:39Their week starts in Anchorage,
34:42a flight to Narita, then from Tokyo to Guangzhou, China,
34:47to Malaysia, then to the Philippines,
34:50back to Guangzhou,
34:52and the final leg, an overnight flight back to Narita.
34:56Because you've long-haul flown
34:59and now you're arriving somewhere at 8 o'clock in the morning
35:03and it feels like 8 o'clock at night to your body.
35:07So how much sleeping did they do between flights?
35:11We can usually build a timeline that gives us a better idea
35:15of how much sleep the pilot might have been able to obtain
35:19and what their schedule was like.
35:24Investigators learn what they can about the two pilots' activities
35:28in the days leading to the crash.
35:31They study their computer records,
35:34contact friends and family,
35:37and interview hotel employees about their comings and goings.
35:41The most important things that we want to know are
35:44when were the pilots awake, when were they working,
35:47when were they sleeping, and what other general kinds of activities
35:51were they engaged in?
35:53They even go through receipts and keycard information
35:56to make sure of when the pilots were most likely sleeping.
36:00Bramble discovers that in the past 24 hours,
36:03Captain Moseley had no more than 4 hours and 38 minutes of straight sleep.
36:08First Officer Pino likely had even less, just 3 hours and 17 minutes.
36:14You'd like to see pilots receiving about 8 hours of sleep
36:18in a consolidated fashion per night.
36:21That would allow them to be fully rested and perform optimally.
36:25Neither one got close to 8 hours straight.
36:28According to regulations,
36:30there was enough rest time built into their schedule,
36:33but airlines can't dictate how pilots use that time
36:37or force their pilots to sleep.
36:40That'll be good to get some real sleep. I am exhausted.
36:44Here we are, going to sleep like a baby.
36:47These people were not hitting on all cylinders.
36:50Yee-haw! Ride them cowboys.
36:53Their reaction times were a little slower.
36:58You'd expect to see lapses in performance and delays in response.
37:07It's a mental fatigue that sits in, and that's the insidious part.
37:12You know much faster when your body's tired
37:15than you do when your mind is tired.
37:1860, 40, 30...
37:20The difference between the time when Pino should have flared
37:23and when he actually did is minuscule.
37:26He was 0.7 seconds late.
37:28That fraction of a second cost two men their lives.
37:33Increased reaction time is a kind of performance deficit
37:36that is associated with fatigue,
37:38so that could explain the pilot's delayed flare.
37:42But bounced landings are common in commercial aviation
37:46and rarely cause a crash.
37:48In fact, the FedEx plane bounced during two of its previous 60 landings.
37:57Bouncing an aircraft is something that often happens.
38:00Bouncing is not rare.
38:02But even so, it doesn't usually cause a fiery crash.
38:07So what made this bounced landing so deadly?
38:10Though it looks like fatigue could well have been a factor,
38:13investigators suspect there's more to the story.
38:21Can you run them all together now?
38:24The investigative team combines the sequence of stills
38:27captured on the runway
38:29to create a revealing portrait of Flight 80's deadly landing.
38:33It leads Masaru Chiba to a stark realisation about the FedEx pilots.
38:39Looks like they ignored what they were taught about bounce recovery.
38:49In an MD-11 flight simulator,
38:51a senior FedEx pilot demonstrates the standard procedure
38:55for recovering from a bounce.
38:58Establish a 7.5 degree nose-up attitude and increase thrust.
39:05Are we ready?
39:08I think most pilots at that level are skilled enough
39:11to effectively handle the bounce.
39:25So, if it's that easy, why did they do the opposite?
39:31Flight data shows Pino did the opposite of what he was trained to do.
39:35Instead of lifting the nose up after the first bounce,
39:38he pushed his column forward,
39:40driving the nose of his plane into the ground.
39:44That mistake bounced the plane again, 16 feet into the air.
39:48That was one of the things that we really tried to wrap our minds around,
39:52was what would cause a pilot who had bounced
39:56to push the nose over back down toward the runway.
40:0012 seconds later, the plane is upside down and in flames.
40:13The MD-11 is a stretch version of the DC-10.
40:16Investigators wonder if the extra length could have been a factor in the crash.
40:21I wonder what the pilots could see from that cockpit.
40:25Investigators ask Boeing to create a simulation
40:28of what the pilots would have seen from the cockpit.
40:31Here's where they flare. They go back in the air right here.
40:36As the main landing gear bounces upward, the plane pivots,
40:40so the nose doesn't actually go up at all.
40:43For the pilots in the cockpit, it's a visual deception.
40:47They had no idea they had bounced.
40:50They had no idea they had bounced.
40:54Here's where they see the runway again.
40:57But it's too late.
41:02You've got a longer amount of airplane in front of the wheels,
41:06so you can get a false sense of where you are in relationship to the ground,
41:11because these jet aircraft land with the nose up.
41:17The discovery helps explain why Pino pushed his column forward.
41:21He likely believed his main landing gear was on the ground.
41:26You want to get that nose down as quickly as you can,
41:28because you want that airplane firmly planted on the ground.
41:33This approach went very quickly from what was a challenging
41:37but relatively normal approach to a disastrous situation
41:42in a very short span of time.
41:45There's really not one golden nugget that said,
41:49aha, this is what caused the accident.
41:51In most cases, it's a cumulative effect of a number of factors.
41:57Investigators now believe that a pilot suffering from fatigue
42:01and battling strong winds
42:04flared his plane a split second too late,
42:07bringing it to the runway too fast.
42:09The stretched design of the MD-11
42:11prevented the pilot from realizing he'd bounced the landing,
42:15leading him to the fatal mistake of pushing down the nose.
42:23This accident began with a very small error.
42:26The response to that led to another error,
42:29and the response to that worsened the situation.
42:34It was a snowball effect.
42:36The situation got worse and worse.
42:42In the wake of the accident,
42:43investigators make several key recommendations
42:46to prevent a similar catastrophe.
42:49They suggest that manufacturers install a light in the MD-11 cockpit
42:53to tell pilots if their wheels are on the ground.
42:58We learned that in long aircraft,
43:00it's very hard to know whether the plane is bouncing or not.
43:03So they installed a system
43:05to let the pilots know if the plane has bounced.
43:09They also recommend that pilots be ready
43:11to override their autothrottles
43:13to maintain speed throughout the approach.
43:16And if the throttles aren't doing what you want them to do
43:19or you want them to do something else,
43:21your hand is right there to apply whatever power you need.
43:25Most importantly, they recommend that pilots be trained
43:28to go around every time they bounce a landing.
43:31We've moved more and more toward a mindset of,
43:35look, let's go around and come back and do it another time.
43:40Let's don't take the chance.
43:43It is nonetheless tragic that it took the loss of an aircraft
43:47and, more importantly, the loss of a crew
43:50to arrive at that kind of conclusion.