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00:01Airfield in sight, runway in sight.
00:04Two pilots within a few feet of making a safe landing
00:10crash short of the runway in Colombia.
00:19Our number one priority was the passengers and getting everyone to safety.
00:23The 737 broke apart upon hitting the ground.
00:34Investigators search for a possible cause, but find no useful evidence.
00:40And we still can't explain why.
00:43It's not until they scrutinize the entire chain of events that they finally catch a break.
00:48That's it.
00:49What?
00:50Climb, Captain!
00:53A steamer.
00:54One-two-one, base.
00:55B1-2-2-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-2-3-2-2-2-4-3-2-1-2-1-2-1-3-1-2-2-1-2-3-2-2-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1-3-2-3-1-2-2-1-1-2-1-2-1-2-3-2-1-2-2-2-3-2-2-2-3-1-2-4-1-2-4-2-2-1-3-4-2-1-2-2-2-2-1-2-4-1-3-1-4-2-2-3-2-2-3-2-1-2-2.
01:15Just after midnight, Airy's flight 8250 is carrying a plane load of tourists and locals from Bogota to the small Colombian island of San Andres, an ocean playground in the Caribbean Sea.
01:30So much for grabbing dinner on the ground.
01:32Yeah, it's going to be a late night.
01:34Captain Wilson Gutierrez is a veteran pilot with almost 20 years of flying experience.
01:40At least we're finally up in the air.
01:42First officer Camilo Piñeros has flown for Airy's for three years, with a full year on the airline's new Boeing 737s.
01:55Looks like there's some weather ahead of us.
01:59Let's keep an eye on it.
02:04There are signs of a thunderstorm in the distance.
02:12For the next hour and 30 minutes, the 737 will fly northwest to San Andres at a cruising altitude of 36,000 feet.
02:27Passengers are restless after an unexpected four-hour delay getting off the ground.
02:32Flight attendant Adriana Cardenas-Medina is working hard to settle passengers, many heading to the small island for a holiday.
02:51The flight was running late because it was coming from Cali, and it was late due to poor weather.
02:57They said it was running two hours behind, but it actually ended up being twice that.
03:07Just over 40 minutes into the flight, the captain sees the storm clouds ahead are building.
03:14Airlines operate 24 hours a day.
03:16So pilots fly in all kinds of conditions, both daylight, dark, good weather, bad weather.
03:22As a professional pilot, you deal with these environmental challenges constantly.
03:33Prior to beginning our descent into San Andres, we began to experience some light turbulence.
03:42Ladies and gentlemen, please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts.
03:52It was raining, there was lightning, a lot of lightning, and the turbulence started to intensify.
04:07Now past the halfway point of the trip, the captain is increasingly concerned with the possibility of heavy storms gathering over their destination.
04:16Closer to San Andres, the already bumpy ride is getting worse and worse for the passengers.
04:33Normally, you go through a patch and then it stops.
04:37In this instance, there was lightning bolt after lightning bolt, and the plane shook hard and the turbulence would not stop.
04:43It was very strong, very strong, and it was not finished.
04:49Check it out, Camilo. It's building all around the island.
04:53This bad weather would be in San Andres.
04:55Less than 20 minutes away from the airport, the weather on the ground appears to be changing rapidly.
05:02Get a report from San Andres for me.
05:04Okay, I'll ask.
05:05The San Andres air traffic controller is also keeping a close eye on changes to the weather.
05:13San Andres, good morning.
05:15AIDA's 8250.
05:16Go ahead.
05:17We want to know how the weather is at the airport, please.
05:20Okay, AIDA's 8250.
05:22Wind calm, visibility more than 10 kilometers, the scattered clouds at 1,500 feet.
05:27There's some bad weather near the airfield, but right now there's no rain.
05:32Despite the turbulent weather along the way, conditions in San Andres seem to be much better.
05:39Presented to 50, descend 3,000 feet.
05:42Clear for approach runway 06.
05:45Roger. Continue descending to 3,000.
05:47In the cabin, passengers are growing concerned by the intensity of the storm.
06:00This shouldn't last long.
06:09We told them that we were in an intense weather system and that we would be out of it shortly, but we never actually got out of it.
06:17It would be that much better than it was, but we were going to let it be out of it.
06:26The air station is moving to the airport.
06:27The air station is moving to the airport directly.
06:32Okay, Roger. Thank you.
06:34Gear down.
06:38The air station is moving to the steering wheel.
06:41A little what?
06:42Drizzle.
06:42Yeah.
06:43Okay, give them the announcement.
06:47Cabin, clear to their stations for landing.
06:49Please raise your table.
06:54As the storm continues to build, Ares 8250 is about to begin its final approach.
07:05Okay, flaps five.
07:11Wet runway, three on the auto brake.
07:13Let's leave it on two.
07:13The crew configures the plane for landing.
07:20The weather in San Andres is changing fast.
07:24Ares 8250, there's now heavy rain at the airfield and visibility reduced to five kilometers.
07:31Visibility down to five kilometers.
07:34Oh, man.
07:35When you see particularly weather that's deteriorating,
07:38it causes you to be a little bit more cautious because the trend is not going in a positive direction.
07:44The rain became even more intense, the turbulence more intense, and the thunder was more frequent.
07:53In deteriorating conditions and just seven miles from landing,
08:01the captain confirms the procedure in the event they have to abort the landing at the last minute.
08:06In case we miss the approach, we go right, correct?
08:12Yes, correct, sir.
08:14As you get closer to your destination and you start getting the latest weather,
08:19the thing that you're thinking about is, okay, how are we going to position the airplane to land in these conditions?
08:25And if we don't land, what are we going to do next?
08:29Only minutes away from landing, the pilots run through their final checks.
08:35Landing checklist.
08:38Speed brakes.
08:40Armed.
08:41Landing gear.
08:42Down.
08:43Flaps.
08:4430.
08:46Checklist complete.
08:47We were about five minutes from landing.
08:52I started to see lights in the ocean from the island.
08:58But less than two and a half minutes from touchdown, visibility has reduced dramatically.
09:05President, 250, do you have the runway in sight?
09:09Negative.
09:10Not yet.
09:13Seconds later.
09:14Airfield in sight, runway in sight.
09:19It is 8250.
09:21The clouds over San Andres lift.
09:32In sight landing.
09:33Check, we're all set for landing.
09:35500.
09:36500 feet from the ground, the crew spots the runway.
09:41The captain lines up his plane.
09:44Air 3250 winds at 60 degrees at 15 knots.
09:50Then the wind picks up.
09:5315 knots, head on.
09:59In case of wind shear, we use maximum thrust for a go-around.
10:02Don't touch flaps or gear.
10:04Agreed, yes, sir.
10:06Caught in a sudden deluge, visibility decreases again.
10:10Look out, captain.
10:17The first officer now realizes they are too low to make a safe landing.
10:24Can you make it?
10:25Sir.
10:27Come on.
10:29Fly, captain!
10:31The captain pulls back on his control column.
10:36But it's too late.
10:37We felt a hard and sudden crash.
10:53At 1.47 a.m., Ares 8250 slams into the ground, with 131 passengers and crew on board.
11:01There's been an accident.
11:11Ares 8250 has crashed just short of touchdown in San Andres and broken into three pieces.
11:17Inside the front section of the airplane, flight attendant Adriana Cárdenas-Medina has survived the horrific crash.
11:33Are you okay?
11:34Are you okay?
11:34Bruised and battered, passengers near the front start lining up towards the aircraft's main door and the emergency slide.
11:57But now a new problem.
12:02The main exit door is jammed.
12:09My co-worker and I tried to open the door, but it would not open.
12:13A passenger helped us to open it.
12:14The flight attendants work as quickly as possible to get all 125 passengers off the plane.
12:30Our number one priority was the passengers and getting everyone to safety.
12:34So we were all focused on that.
12:36In the aftermath of the recovery, one passenger is dead after being hit in the chest by a tray table.
12:49A second passenger, who was severely injured on impact, dies in hospital two weeks later.
12:55When you think of boarding an aircraft, you imagine leaving it in the same manner.
13:08Not forcibly or in pain, fear, frustration.
13:13It's something you can never imagine happening.
13:15The crash and destruction of Flight 8250 is quickly becoming a major international news story.
13:27A plane crash this morning in Colombia.
13:31The 737 broke apart upon hitting the ground.
13:34The Colombian aeronautical authority needs to find out what brought down one of the most widely used passenger planes on Earth.
13:48Investigator Julian Echeverry is one of the first investigators on the scene.
13:54Huh.
13:55Broken into three pieces.
13:57He was definitely lined up for a landing.
14:07From the orientation of the wreckage, investigators can tell that Flight 8250 was lined up perfectly with the runway at San Andres.
14:15When we first looked at the debris, we observed that the initial impact was approximately 40 meters from the start of runway 06.
14:31It was a low-angle impact at a relatively high speed.
14:39Very quickly, both the flight data and cockpit voice recorders are recovered.
14:44Excellent work.
14:47Let's hope they provide some answers.
14:49But until the recordings can be analyzed, investigators will need to rely on the wreckage at the crash site to explain the cause of the accident.
15:01The team studies the debris trail that extends 160 feet from the runway's threshold.
15:07Landing gear extended.
15:12Snapped off.
15:14Lined up and configured, but somehow they hit the ground hard meters from the runway.
15:28Investigators can't understand why the jet got so close to the runway, but ended up short.
15:33While wreckage crews transport the debris to a nearby facility for analysis, investigators wonder what role the severe weather played in the accident.
15:46The team studies meteorological reports from the night of the crash.
16:06The meteorological condition during the accident was one of the things we considered in this investigation.
16:16Based on the first information that we received, turn that up, would you?
16:24A lightning bolt struck the airplane and caused the tragedy that we're all aware of.
16:33Echeverry and his team know that accidents caused by lightning are virtually unheard of.
16:45Lightning strikes, although they're very spectacular and can visually impair you just with that bright flash, they really don't pose a great threat to the airplane during landing.
16:58Investigators need to know if there was lightning near the 737 as it approached San Andres.
17:07There was video evidence from a closed-circuit television camera which recorded the final moments prior to the accident.
17:14There was a big flash in the video which led us to think that the aircraft could have been struck by lightning.
17:32The team studies the static wicks from the accident plane.
17:42Static wicks are located on the trailing edges of airplane wings and help discharge any build-up of static energy.
17:50If the plane was struck by lightning, they should be melted or burned.
17:55But they are not.
17:58Investigators can find no signs of a direct lightning hit on the aircraft's surfaces.
18:05During the inspection of the debris, which was carefully performed, we found no traces of interaction with lightning.
18:14They're clean.
18:16But Echeverry still has a lot of unanswered questions about the weather at the time of the accident.
18:22The conditions in which the aircraft interacted with the terrain before arriving at runway 06
18:36raised the possibility of an encounter with windshear in that last minute.
18:45Windshear is a phenomenon in which the wind's direction or speed changes extremely abruptly.
18:52Could intense winds at the base of the runway have played a role in the crash?
19:07We need to look at windshear.
19:09The team learns that just two minutes before the crash, as the storm built, winds near the runway were gusting.
19:24Digging further into the flight data...
19:26So, lots of headwind.
19:34But almost no downdraft.
19:37Investigator Julian Echeverry discovers the powerful winds were hitting the plane head-on, not from above.
19:47Not enough to slam them to the ground.
19:49During the landing, there was an increase in wind speed, but in this case, it was a horizontal increase.
20:00There was no trace in the flight data of a vertical change of wind that would have caused the aircraft to lose altitude.
20:07All investigators uncover is a moderate headwind at the time of the crash, a discovery that leads nowhere.
20:24So, we'll rule out weather for now.
20:26The fact that it was not windshear made us focus on operational aspects that may have led to this accident.
20:38The fact that it was not windshear made us focus on operational aspects that may have led to this accident.
20:38What about the aircraft itself?
21:00Investigators now wonder if an engine malfunction led to the crash of Ares Flight 8250.
21:06Blades are bent in the opposite direction of the rotation.
21:10That tells investigator Julian Echeverry that the engines were working when they hit the ground.
21:17Let's move on.
21:22Measurements of the flap settings show they were in the correct position for landing.
21:29Okay, flaps five.
21:30Wet runway, three on the auto brake.
21:37Let's leave it on two.
21:41Flaps?
21:43Right where they should be.
21:45In fact, investigators find nothing to indicate a mechanical cause for the crash of Ares 8250.
21:52We observed the flight control surfaces.
22:01We observed the flap configuration, the cockpit switches.
22:06Engines, rudder, control surfaces.
22:09You name it, they all check out.
22:11There weren't any system malfunctions, or engine or GPS problems, that would have caused the aircraft to land before the start of the runway.
22:23Lieutenant Colonel Evers Sabogal from the Colombian Air Force joins the investigative team.
22:36The conditions that they had, conditions of extremely bad weather, a particularly dark night.
22:43They had a lot of lightning all around them, and they were feeling pressure to land.
22:48Were they prepared to land in these stormy conditions?
22:51Investigators now need to find out if the storm took the pilots by surprise.
22:57If it did, that might have led them to make errors in their approach.
23:07The critical part is what's the weather going to be when we get there.
23:12It's less critical of what it is right now.
23:14So as you get very close to the airport, that's when you want to make sure that you have a good understanding of the weather that you're about to deal with in the final approach segment of the flight.
23:26Can I show you this?
23:29The team already knows the weather was changing quickly just before the crash.
23:35But they need to determine if the air traffic controller kept them up to date.
23:38I updated them regularly once a while in my airspace.
23:44San Andreas, good morning.
23:46AIDA City 250.
23:47Go ahead.
23:48We want to know how the weather is at the airport, please.
23:50Okay, AIDA City 250.
23:52Wind calm, visibility more than 10 kilometers, scattered clouds at 1,500 feet.
23:58There's some bad weather near the airfield, but right now there's no rain.
24:03Every time the weather changed, Steven a bit, I told him.
24:06Gear down.
24:10AIDA City 250, there's a little drizzle over the runway.
24:13A little what?
24:14Drizzle.
24:16Minutes later, it turned into a full-blown storm.
24:20AIDA City 250, there's now heavy rain at the airfield and visibility reduced to five kilometers.
24:26Did they seem concerned about the weather?
24:29No, they didn't sound overly concerned.
24:31I was very careful to tell them everything.
24:36The controllers are very good about reading up changing weather conditions, particularly wind and visibility,
24:43which is the two most critical factors as they get very close to the airport.
24:47But the decision to land or not to land rests with the captain.
24:52And he or she is responsible to make the decision whether the conditions are safe to land or not.
24:58AIDA City 250, do you have the runway in sight?
25:02Negative.
25:02Not yet.
25:11Airfield in sight, runway in sight.
25:14AIDA City 250.
25:15And this is appropriate because it's really only the pilots that can see the exact conditions that the airplane is in
25:27and the visibility they have to be able to be able to see the runway and land safely on it.
25:36Look out, Captain!
25:43Investigators now have the flight data from Airee's Flight 8250.
25:47The digital flight data recorder records hundreds or thousands of different parameters.
25:56And it tells you everything that the airplane's doing, whether the landing gears up or down, the altitude, airspeed, and numerous other functions of the systems within the airplane.
26:07The team is looking for clues that might indicate how the pilots handled the plane in the thunderstorm.
26:15Here, 45 minutes before reaching the airport, they switch to vertical speed mode.
26:21That's a questionable choice.
26:22The investigators noticed that the pilots selected an autopilot mode called vertical speed.
26:31In vertical speed mode, the crew must manually select their rate of descent.
26:41This mode requires a lot of work because you have to be constantly calculating your altitude versus your distance.
26:52The Boeing procedures are typically to utilize automation, use the autopilot during approaches, particularly in bad weather.
27:02For these pilots to have reverted to a manual system where they turn the autopilot off is against the Boeing recommendation.
27:15Investigators check the plane's rate of descent.
27:19Look at this.
27:21They were descending to the runway at 1,100 feet per minute.
27:23According to the manufacturer, the rate of descent shouldn't exceed 900 feet per minute.
27:33It's an important clue.
27:37If they are in excess of 1,000 feet per minute, then it is unstable approach.
27:44The team has now determined the plane was dropping too fast.
27:48And they have a theory as to why.
27:50They must have been trying to get a visual fix of the runway as soon as possible.
27:57By bringing the airplane down early, the hope is that you'll see the runway earlier.
28:02You'll be underneath the clouds and your visibility will be improved the lower you get.
28:09But that strategy didn't work for the crew of the Ares flight.
28:14The question is, why not?
28:16The investigators can now compare the approach the crew should have flown to the one they actually did fly.
28:26They should have stayed on the glide path.
28:27But instead, they come in too low the entire way.
28:34And they didn't even try to get back on the glide path.
28:38He played instead the entire time with the vertical speed.
28:42They didn't have an angle or a constant path.
28:45And that made it so that they were always below it.
28:48They were never on the right path for the type of approach that they made.
28:51Didn't they know they were coming in too low?
28:58Wouldn't the PAPI lights have told them that?
29:00PAPI lights, or Precision Approach Path Indicators, are color-coded lights along the side of the runway
29:09that tell pilots if they are too high or too low on their approach.
29:15The airport's PAPI lights were fully operational that night.
29:19Yet the plane still came in low.
29:21Why would a person operating an aircraft make that type of approach
29:30even when the visual aids are indicating the correct path to the runway?
29:35Mantenho una senda correcta para la pista.
29:40The team hopes the cockpit voice recorder can provide answers to all their unanswered questions.
29:47They focus on the final approach.
29:50Landing checklist.
29:51Speed brakes.
29:54Armed.
29:55Landing gear.
29:56Down.
29:57Flaps.
29:5830.
29:59Checklist complete.
30:01We're too low.
30:03Precision 8250, do you have the runway in sight?
30:06Negative.
30:09Not yet.
30:10Aero way in sight, runway in sight, ITIS 8250.
30:21In sight landing.
30:23Check, we're all set for landing.
30:24Stop.
30:25Stop.
30:25Did you catch that?
30:28Go back 30 seconds.
30:31Checklist complete.
30:33We're too low.
30:35For 30250, do you have the runway in sight?
30:38Stop.
30:39The captain realizes they're below the glide path, but there's no discussion about it.
30:44No go around.
30:47They just keep going.
30:50Why?
30:53Continue.
30:53On the final approach, the captain simply continues to fly, focused on trying to reach the runway.
31:0350 knots, head on.
31:05In case of wind shear, we use maximum thrust for a go-around.
31:08Don't touch flaps or gear.
31:10Agreed, yes, sir.
31:11Everything sounds okay?
31:17Look out, captain.
31:1840, 30, 20, climb, captain!
31:23The first officer knows something isn't right.
31:27But the captain doesn't respond.
31:29Why not?
31:33The investigation finally has a solid lead to follow.
31:37Investigators are baffled by the captain's actions on board flight 8250.
31:47They question him about what happened on the approach to San Andres.
31:53I didn't think anything went wrong until the crash.
31:56It was stormy.
31:57It must have been the lightning or the wind.
31:58They never questioned the type of approach that they made.
32:10They never doubted that their procedure was adequate.
32:13And they said it was probably the wind that caused their accident.
32:17But when the captain is asked about his use of the pappy lights,
32:27his answer provides the first big break in the investigation.
32:32I'm not sure what the pappy lights were showing.
32:34I was focused on the green lights at the threshold.
32:38Like I always do.
32:41Airfield in sight, runway in sight.
32:44I just 8250.
32:45In sight, landing.
32:53Check, we're all set for landing.
33:03They were concentrated on the green lights at the start of the runway.
33:08And they ignored the information of the pappy lights.
33:10Instead of landing in the touchdown zone, which is here,
33:17the captain says that he always lands here on the threshold.
33:22We noticed in his statement a recurring flight technique
33:30that involved pointing the nose of the aircraft
33:33at the runway for approaches and landings.
33:39The thinking of some pilots has been,
33:42I want on the runway as early as possible
33:44so that I can make sure that we get stopped
33:47if there's a problem with the brakes.
33:48So they deliberately land short of the touchdown zone.
33:53Possibly, that's what the pilot was doing the whole time,
33:58looking for the green lights and trying to make it.
34:02Investigators ask the captain why he performed the landing this way.
34:06That's my training.
34:08I was just doing what we've always done.
34:12We saw that the crew decided to make an approach
34:15using their own criteria,
34:17not the criteria recommended by the manufacturer.
34:27Investigators need to know what led the crew to do this.
34:30They dig into their background.
34:34Check this out.
34:37He's only been flying the 737 for eight months.
34:41Twelve years before that, he flew turboprops.
34:45The file reveals that Captain Gutiérrez recently switched
34:49from commanding Dash 8 turboprops
34:52to the much larger 737 jets.
34:56The discovery provides a new clue.
34:59That's it.
35:02What?
35:02He was flying like he was in a turboprop.
35:06Not a 737.
35:09The investigators found that the higher rate of descent
35:13that they flew in the 737
35:16was much more like the profile that you would expect
35:19in the turboprop that they had flown previously.
35:22In accumulating so much experience in the turboprops,
35:30you develop habits,
35:31and when one translates this to the cockpit of jets,
35:35one starts to battle with all the tools
35:37that make your trip secure.
35:39We've got to find out if these guys were properly trained
35:44to fly a 737.
35:49Ares started as a small regional airline
35:52flying turboprops around central Colombia.
35:55Then, in 2009, the year before the crash,
36:00Ares underwent a huge expansion,
36:02adding nine 737s to its fleet.
36:07Normally, the industry practice
36:09is to hire experienced 737 pilots
36:12to fly the new jets.
36:14But that's not what Ares did.
36:18Okay, thanks very much.
36:21They didn't hire any new pilots for the 737s.
36:25They just transitioned the turboprop pilots into them.
36:30That's a big leap.
36:33In turboprops, everything is much easier.
36:36It's a slower plane.
36:38It reacts faster.
36:39It raises up easily.
36:41A turboprop is very forgiving.
36:44A jet doesn't forgive.
36:47What did Ares do to safely transition their pilots
36:51onto the new 737s?
36:56The investigators take a closer look
36:59at the crew's training records.
37:01The captain switched over to a 737
37:04after only five weeks of training.
37:09The first officer only trained for two weeks.
37:11The team concludes the pilots
37:15didn't have enough training
37:17to properly prepare them to fly the 737.
37:20The most important thing about the transition
37:28is to undo those concepts that one has
37:30of flying turboprops
37:32and really just start over.
37:34Jets are planes that require a lot of anticipation.
37:37They require a lot of concentration.
37:40They require you to understand what a computer is doing.
37:50Investigators now conclude
37:51the captain likely reverted back
37:53to his turboprop habits
37:55while trying to land at the San Andres airport.
37:57So just as he would in a turboprop,
38:02he aims for the threshold.
38:03But he crashes short of that.
38:06And we still can't explain why.
38:18Investigators now know
38:20that the captain of Ares 82-50
38:22was purposely trying to land his airplane
38:24on the threshold of the runway.
38:28In sight landing.
38:29Check. We're all set for landing.
38:31The same way he used to land in a turboprop.
38:35500.
38:37Ares 82-50 winds at 60 degrees at 50 knots.
38:4150 knots at on.
38:42But that still doesn't explain
38:46why the crew crashed short of the runway.
38:49The last piece of the puzzle is elusive.
38:52The investigators listen
38:54to the cockpit recording once more,
38:56hoping to hear something they missed.
39:00Look out, captain.
39:04Can you make it?
39:08Climb, captain!
39:12So from the point he gets a visual of the runway,
39:14the captain does nothing
39:16to correct his altitude
39:17right up to the crash.
39:19Not even when the first officer
39:20gives him warnings.
39:22So what's going on in his head?
39:25When the investigators
39:26looked at the flight profile
39:28and they realized that it
39:29ended up impacting the ground
39:32short of the runway
39:33without ever really arresting itself
39:37and trying to hop up to the runway
39:39or make power adjustments
39:42until the very last minute.
39:45The next question is
39:46what is this consistent with?
39:48This is a classic undershoot accident
39:51in just about every sense.
39:53It's a classic black hole illusion accident.
39:58The black hole illusion
39:59occurs on dark nights
40:01when there are no ground lights
40:03between an airplane
40:04and the runway threshold.
40:05The contrast between the lights
40:09and the total darkness
40:10creates an illusion
40:12that deceives pilots
40:13into thinking the runway
40:14is closer than it really is,
40:17causing them to put the plane down
40:18too early.
40:22This creates the visual illusion
40:24like in a black hole
40:25where you completely lose
40:27your depth perception.
40:28It was a night-time approach
40:34on an island
40:34with no noticeable difference
40:36between land and water
40:38and only the runway lights
40:44is referenced.
40:46When doing this manually
40:47and visually,
40:49the risk for entering
40:50a black hole illusion
40:52increases.
40:55You have rain causing
40:56poor visibility,
40:57some lights on the right,
40:59very few,
41:01the runway lights,
41:02that's about it.
41:05It's a black hole illusion.
41:07In case of wind shear,
41:09we use maximum thrust
41:10for a go-around.
41:11Don't touch flaps or gear.
41:13Agreed, yes, sir.
41:16In this case,
41:18the black hole effect
41:19was made worse
41:20by another effect
41:21that was generated
41:22by the lights of the aircraft
41:24with the rain.
41:25Why?
41:27Because when the lights
41:28of the plane go on,
41:29you start to see
41:30the rain falling.
41:32The wipers start up
41:33and they also distract you
41:35and the brain
41:36has to play with all that
41:38and be able to identify
41:39where the runway is.
41:42You take all the problems
41:44the Ares 8250 had
41:45and it still doesn't necessarily
41:47give you a plane crash.
41:48but throw a black hole
41:51in there
41:52and it makes sense.
41:55The black hole illusion
41:57is the final piece
41:58of the puzzle.
42:00That's why the crew
42:01was constantly
42:02below the flight path
42:03without being aware of it
42:04and they never made it
42:05to the runway.
42:09The Colombian Aeronautical Authority
42:11issues a series
42:12of recommendations
42:13including a revision
42:15of Ares Airlines
42:16procedures
42:17for visual landings.
42:22In this accident,
42:24there is no one reason.
42:26There are many reasons
42:27that brought them to this.
42:29The type of approach,
42:31the kind of training.
42:32I think one of the most
42:42important recommendations
42:43from this investigation
42:44was strengthening
42:45crew training,
42:47especially for those
42:48transitioning
42:49from turboprop to jet.
42:54For flight attendant
42:56Adriana Cárdenas-Medina,
42:58the memory of the doomed flight
43:00still haunts her.
43:01My life became a struggle.
43:05I was left with
43:06irreparable physical injuries
43:08and with psychological trauma,
43:10which I will probably
43:11never fully overcome.
43:14What I experienced
43:15was outside of the norm
43:16and was totally devastating.
43:22For investigators,
43:24the crash of Ares 8250
43:26is a cautionary tale
43:27about the dangers
43:28of an undertrained crew.
43:31The most important recommendation
43:39we gave
43:40was about ensuring
43:42and strengthening
43:43the crew training
43:44and following manufacturer's
43:47instructions
43:47so that they can prevent
43:49these types of accidents.
43:50violence.
43:58.
43:58Mark
43:59.
43:59.
43:59.
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44:04.
44:08.
44:09.
44:10.
44:10.
44:10.
44:10.
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44:14.
44:15.
44:15.
44:15.
44:15.
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