- 6 months ago
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00:01Three different planes experience the same devastating situation.
00:06What the hell?
00:08Engines detaching mid-air.
00:11Looks like we've lost number one.
00:13We're in emergency.
00:15They didn't even know the engine was actually gone.
00:18Each case has vastly different consequences.
00:21Nothing. The draw keepers must be cut.
00:24We're losing hydraulic land system three. No, three and four.
00:30Three separate crews must use all their skills to get their passengers to the ground safely.
00:39Mayday, mayday.
00:45Army 1-0, 3-0, 3-0, 5-0, 5-0, 1-2-0, 1-2-0, 1-2-0, 1-2-0, 1-2-0, 1-2-0.
01:00On a clear Friday afternoon, the crew of American Airlines Flight 191...
01:14Rudders set.
01:15...prepares for take-off.
01:17Spoilers armed.
01:19...from Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
01:21Any updates on the weather?
01:23Captain Walter Lux is a seasoned pilot with 22,000 flying hours.
01:28Surface wind, 20 degrees at 22 knots. Nothing but blue skies.
01:32He and First Officer James Dillard are piloting a DC-10.
01:36Its three-engine configuration makes it one of the most recognizable jets on the runway.
01:42The 258 passengers settle in for the flight to Los Angeles.
01:55D1, rotate.
02:03Damn. There's the turbulence. Not too rough.
02:06Did you see that?
02:15I've lost power to my side.
02:17The captain's instrument panel has gone dark.
02:19Looks like we've lost number one.
02:21Power in the left engine has gone.
02:26You have to keep going. You have to climb out.
02:29And if there's something wrong with the airplane, even if the problems are critical,
02:33your best hope is to keep going, to climb, contact ATC, and come around and land somehow, somewhere.
02:43Look at this. Look at this.
02:45Right away, the air traffic controller spots trouble.
02:49Equipment. I need equipment. He blew an engine.
02:52We're banking. Go right. Go right.
02:54The plane is just 325 feet from the ground, but it's banking sharply to the left.
02:59I can't hold it.
03:01What's going on?
03:02The pilots can't achieve the altitude they need, and they bank even further.
03:07I'm losing it.
03:09Go right. Go right. Come on. Come on.
03:11300 feet. We're losing altitude.
03:19Witnesses on the ground can clearly see Flight 191 flying on its side.
03:28We're still turning.
03:29Level, baby. Level.
03:30Freeze, freeze, freeze, freeze.
03:32There he goes.
03:33The DC-10 slams into a hangar at the edge of the airport.
03:48The plane's loaded fuel tanks spark a terrifying inferno.
03:5131 seconds after takeoff, almost nothing is left of Flight 191.
04:02All 271 people on board are dead.
04:08Two workers inside the hangar are also killed.
04:11It's the worst aviation disaster in U.S. history.
04:24A lot of people saw this happen.
04:27Let's see what they can tell us.
04:29Let's see what they can tell us.
04:32The NTSB, America's National Transportation Safety Board, is called in to investigate what went wrong.
04:39They start with the controller, who witnessed the shocking incident.
04:44Look at this. Look at this.
04:46The air traffic controller reveals that Flight 191's left engine did more than fail.
04:53The engine fell off the plane just after they lifted off.
04:57If you were sitting on the left-hand side of the airplane, what you would have seen was the number one engine on the left side rotated up and flipped back and disappeared behind you.
05:07Did you see that?
05:10These engines are actually designed to go back up over the wing in case of failure so that they will miss the tail as they go by and not cause damage to the tail section.
05:20Investigators scour the wreckage for clues about when the engines separated.
05:26Well, my first priorities would be to look at the actual separation.
05:30Where is it that this engine broke?
05:31This is definitely part of the pylon.
05:37I've never seen one brake like that.
05:40The pylons are mounted under the wings.
05:42Each one is strong enough to suspend an engine weighing 11,700 pounds.
05:47The pylon is designed very well strength-wise.
05:51It could take a lot of load.
05:53Much more load than you would normally see in the course of the airplane life.
05:58The pylon gets its strength from two internal bulkheads, one forward and one rear.
06:05The bulkheads also provide secure points of attachment, ensuring that the engines are firmly fixed to the wings.
06:12It's almost inconceivable that one of the strongest parts of the aircraft, with its fail-safe design, could break apart.
06:19Andy, what happened?
06:21I need to see the rest of the pylon.
06:26While experts recover the rest of the broken pylon, investigators cross-check the aircraft's maintenance records.
06:33They discover that the left engine was removed for servicing eight weeks prior to the crash.
06:43Any time that you have an airplane that's been into maintenance just before a crash, that raises all sorts of warning flags. All sorts.
06:51Let's go down to Tulsa and see what they did.
06:58If you have an investigation that involves maintenance, you don't go inside the hangar, you don't follow that trail, you're going to miss some issues.
07:05The team splits. One group follows the maintenance trail for clues. The other stays behind to piece together the broken pylon.
07:16See, that had to happen before the crash. I just don't know why.
07:23Close examination reveals a crack in the metal. It's a telltale sign that the pylon bulkhead was already damaged before the crash.
07:31You can see where it's spread. All along there.
07:40The crack runs along the top edge of the rear bulkhead.
07:44The cracks were consistent with a fatigue phenomenon from repeated loads. Each time the load occurs, you then have an extension of the crack.
07:54And there's another clue. A dent on the pylon bulkhead right where the crack seems to start.
08:03Looks like something hit the pylon.
08:05OK, I'll see what I can find.
08:08In Tulsa, investigators observe another DC-10 undergoing the same maintenance that was performed on Flight 191.
08:15Can you take me up and show me how the engines mounted?
08:21OK, bring her up!
08:23They discover that to save time, the airline modified a key maintenance procedure.
08:28Servicing an engine usually involves removing it from the pylon and leaving the pylon attached to the wing.
08:35It requires unfastening hundreds of connections.
08:37Procedures from the manufacturer were deemed to be too time-consuming and they could do it faster, better, cheaper.
08:46The quicker way involves taking out just three bolts.
08:50The engine can then be removed from the wing while still attached to the pylon.
08:53It was easier. The attach points from the pylon to the wing were accessible.
09:00The attach points from the engine to the pylon were much more difficult to take apart and put back together.
09:05Removing's not the issue. It's the attempt to reinstall.
09:08Whoa, stop!
09:09Is where the problem comes from.
09:11Left a bit. Now up!
09:14They were using the forklift and this forklift is not very manageable.
09:18It cannot be finely controlled as far as the altitude is concerned.
09:22Whoa! Stop! Stop!
09:27I think I know what happened.
09:29Take her down.
09:31The team is on the verge of discovering how a mysterious dent in an engine pylon set off a catastrophic chain of events.
09:39I can't hold it!
09:40Hold it!
09:47What do you got?
09:48NTSB investigators learned that a maintenance crew struggled to reattach the pylon into the mounting bracket, or clevis, of Flight 191 just weeks before the crash.
09:58And then it all came together.
10:01The clevis itself had produced this deformation that was on the fracture.
10:07The team concludes that the clevis on the doomed plane must have slammed into the pylon bulkhead as the engine was being reattached.
10:14The impact could have initiated the crack that led to the pylon failure.
10:19Each time the plane took off, the stress that the massive engine put on the pylon made the crack larger.
10:28The engine is not only imparting a thrust load, but it's also imparting a sideways load.
10:36So each time you have this load, it breaks a little bit more and more and more.
10:45The team now understands what caused the engine to tear off.
10:49But that doesn't explain why Captain Lux wasn't able to land.
10:52The plane was in bad shape, it had lost an engine, it had lost several critical systems, but it was still airworthy, it was still able to fly.
11:01In fact, you could lose a second engine shortly after it left off and you would still be able to power the aircraft around.
11:09Photos taken just before the crash provide investigators with a vital clue.
11:14Is that hydraulic fluid?
11:15Several of the DC-10's hydraulic lines run along the leading edge of the wing.
11:22Take a look at this.
11:24It's the area that was damaged the most when the engine broke off.
11:28We need to see those slats.
11:30American 191, thank you, taxi and hold, runway 32 right.
11:34Flaps and slats to 10.
11:36Deployed at takeoff, the slats increase the wing's surface area, which enables pilots to climb at lower speeds.
11:43Investigators discover that while all the slats on the right wing were extended, some slats on the left wing were not.
11:52You have one wing that is flying and the other wing that isn't.
11:57The team determines that the engine tore away from the wing with enough force to rupture the hydraulic lines.
12:03The fluid keeping the slats extended on the left wing would have drained quickly.
12:06I can't hold it.
12:07Without fluid, some slats on the left wing retracted, causing that wing to lose lift.
12:13The plane began to roll left.
12:16I'm losing it.
12:18Without full slats, the plane had required a higher speed to avoid stalling.
12:22So why didn't the experienced pilots increase speed if they were about to stall?
12:34To find out, investigators recreate the takeoff in a simulator.
12:38There is a stall warning system that will advise the pilots when the airplane is about to stall. It's called a stick shaker.
12:50The stick shaker vibrates the control column to get the pilot's attention.
12:54If you get a stall warning, you obviously lower the nose and you apply full power and you fly it out of the stall.
13:01Investigators examine the DC-10 stall warning. They make an important discovery.
13:12All the alarms are powered by the left engine.
13:17Once the engine broke off, the stick shaker stall warning went dead.
13:22I've lost power to my side.
13:24We're banking. Go right! Go right!
13:27Without that warning, the pilots didn't know their plane was stalling.
13:32Instead, they followed procedures for an engine failure on takeoff.
13:36We're taught to pull back on the wheel and go back to the minimum safe flying speed to get away from the ground.
13:44Reducing speed is the opposite of what pilots need to do when a plane is about to stall.
13:53If they didn't know they were stalling, they didn't stand a chance.
13:56The pilots flew the plane exactly as they'd been trained to do, exactly as procedure demanded that they fly it.
14:03The NTSB concludes the pilots were not at fault.
14:09They do, however, fault American Airlines' maintenance practices.
14:12The Federal Aviation Administration is also singled out for not enforcing the installation of stick shakers on both columns and for not mandating that warning systems be powered by more than one engine.
14:27The DC-10's hydraulics are also redesigned, with special plugs to prevent slats and other control surfaces from retracting if the lines get cut.
14:37When pilots say lose an engine, when we lose engine power, this plane actually lost an engine.
14:44This kind of accident never happened again. This engine never fell off this kind of airplane again.
14:49Though the DC-10 never lost another engine, it takes only a few years for a different aircraft to face the same terrifying event.
15:01In Cold Bay, Alaska, Revolution Airlines Flight 8 is set for takeoff.
15:08Seattle, Washington.
15:11The route will take the plane over a wide area of the icy North Pacific.
15:15Captain James Gibson is a hardened bush pilot with more than 25 years experience.
15:26Set takeoff, thrust.
15:28Gibson's flight engineer
15:31Thrust set.
15:32is 45-year-old Alaskan Gerald Moose Lauren.
15:35His first officer is 39-year-old Gary Lindner.
15:46Generally, we flew that route once a week.
15:49On this particular day, we were scheduled for five hours of flying time.
15:53Gear up. Gear up.
15:56They're flying a Lockheed L-188 Electra, powered by four turboprop engines.
16:02Gibson completes the turn on a course bound for Seattle, when an unusual vibration resonates throughout the cockpit.
16:22You hear that, Gary?
16:24I do.
16:26I help.
16:28Moose, have a look, will you?
16:30Yeah, you bet.
16:33Flight attendant Wendy Kroon helps Lauren check the engines.
16:38And just as I looked out the window, the engine went.
16:42As the prop came off, I thought, oh crap.
16:45It's gonna kill me.
16:47It's gonna cut me in two.
16:48But it flew forward, and then it came back and slapped the engine.
16:52And then went underneath.
16:53A gash in the fuselage has caused an explosive decompression.
17:07The rapid change in air pressure and temperature creates heavy fog and starves the plane of oxygen.
17:13You end up getting lightheaded and you can actually pass out.
17:19The pilots must act quickly to have any chance of saving the plane.
17:23In the cockpit of Revolutions Flight 8, Captain Gibson and First Officer Lindner attempt to regain control of the aircraft.
17:36When the fog cleared, I saw off the window that we were in a right turn.
17:42The damaged plane has veered off course and is now flying northwest towards the Bering Sea.
17:48And so I naturally grabbed the yoke to try to level the wings.
17:53Jim!
17:55It felt like the yoke was in concrete.
17:58It just felt solid as a concrete block.
18:01Meanwhile, Wendy Kroon and Moose Lauren spring into action.
18:05My first thoughts were get the passengers to the back of the airplane.
18:09But the gash in the cabin floor tells her everyone must stay put.
18:14I had a really bad feeling.
18:16I stopped with one foot still in the air.
18:18Fear just ran through me.
18:21I'm looking straight down at my foot over a hole.
18:24Straight down to the ocean.
18:28In the cockpit.
18:29Don't let the pilots descend to a lower altitude where there's more oxygen.
18:36Everybody, calm down. Just a second.
18:41Gibson tries the autopilot.
18:44It's working.
18:46The pilots realize the cables controlling manual operations are jammed.
18:51But those for the autopilot seem to be functional.
18:55Wings level.
18:56Captain Gibson sets the autopilot to keep the plane flying a steady and descending course.
19:02Now, he needs to slow it down.
19:05Its high speed could tear the damaged plane to pieces.
19:09Whole power back to 2,000.
19:11Oh!
19:13Look!
19:15Nothing!
19:17When his hand moved those throttles back and the horsepower gauges didn't move,
19:21I, boy, I'll tell you what, I said, man, I wish I'd have called in sick.
19:26This is about as bad as it can get.
19:30The pilots can't reduce their speed.
19:33Let's see if we can get turned around.
19:37Gibson sets the autopilot to make a right turn back towards Cold Bay.
19:41Oh, my God!
19:44But the plane goes into a rapid rolling turn.
19:48The autopilot's lateral control must also be damaged.
19:52I scared the living crap out of all of us.
19:56Gibson has no way of steering his airplane.
20:00The crew and passengers are heading straight out to sea.
20:02The crew and passengers are heading straight out to sea.
20:06We're clearing emergency.
20:08Mayday, mayday.
20:10This is Reve Flight 8.
20:11Number four...
20:12Flight dispatcher Richard Huff receives the call at the Reve base in Anchorage.
20:15We've done nothing!
20:17Reve 8, understand.
20:18No flight control. Confirmed.
20:20No, no, no. Negative.
20:21We've got no manual control, but autopilot. Vertical control kind of working.
20:25Approaching 10,000 feet.
20:27Dropping at 10,000 feet.
20:29Okay, we got you.
20:31The autopilot brings the Electra down low enough for everyone to breathe comfortably.
20:36Thank God.
20:42It's now safe to remove your masks.
20:43Yet Gibson still can't move his column enough to turn back.
20:50And I thought, well, hell, maybe I can do that.
20:54So I reached up and I grabbed the yoke and I just, I moved it.
20:58Lintner moves his column just enough to turn the plane slightly.
21:03Now at least we knew that we could overpower or help the autopilot.
21:08So that meant that probably our control cables were not severed.
21:14The pilots combine their muscle to force the plane into a right bank towards Cold Bay.
21:20The wide turn will get the plane on course, but won't provide the precision needed to touch down.
21:26We can't land like this. No chance in hell.
21:30The older Electra is not equipped to land on autopilot.
21:34The landing has to be performed manually.
21:36But there's a bigger problem. The plane is still traveling too fast to land.
21:41The captain needs a longer runway.
21:44Private dispatch.
21:45Considered flight direct to Anchorage. Over.
21:49Richard Huff proposes something risky.
21:52Fly 440 miles northeast towards Anchorage airport, which has two long runways.
21:58This thing's a damn tank. We'll make it.
22:01Okay, dispatch. We are flying to Anchorage.
22:04The controls were just real stiff and all we knew was that as long as we tried to use the autopilot and manually helped that we could fly the airplane a little bit.
22:23It takes four hours for the crew of Flight 8 to get within sight of the runway.
22:32But they still don't have the manual control needed to touch down.
22:37Dispatch rebate. Hang on.
22:38I've got to get some controls back where I absolutely cannot land. Over.
22:4015 lives depend on the pilot's skill grappling with the unpredictable aircraft. Hours of wrestling with the damaged controls have taken their toll on the captain.
22:56Gary, I'm done. You've got to take it.
23:00As Lintner takes control, he notices something that changes the entire situation.
23:05I suddenly saw that the autopilot was off. It's turned off.
23:14There are two sets of flight control cables on the Electra. One set for the autopilot and one for manual control.
23:20They work independently of each other. Somehow, Lintner is hand-flying the plane without the help of the autopilot.
23:27And I turned to Jim and I said, hey, I've got control here.
23:31What?
23:32Man, immediately he grabbed the yoke and the two of us got on it. And with the two of us, hell, we have pretty good control.
23:37The pilots can now pitch the nose up and can accurately line up with the runway.
23:43As long as we have manual control over the airplane without the autopilot, we'll deal with the rest.
23:49But this doesn't solve all of their problems. The plane is still flying too fast to land safely.
23:56So Gibson tries shutting down one of the engines.
23:59Okay, Moose. Kill number two.
24:02You're ready to shut down engine number two.
24:06Their speed drops, but not enough.
24:12Our problem was that we were just going too fast.
24:16Gibson cannot slow down the speeding plane, but he must land the plane now.
24:21It's his only chance to save everyone on board.
24:25Let's do this.
24:27Reve flight eight is moments from touching down.
24:39Anchorage. Reve eight. Ready to land runway six right.
24:45Gear down. Gear down.
24:47But with two engines stuck on full throttle landing at 160 knots could cause a fatal crash.
24:55146 knots.
25:07The plane hits the ground 15 knots faster than it should.
25:10Gibson needs to act fast.
25:12Cut all engines. Emergency shut down engines one and three.
25:15It's a risky move. Cutting the engines slows the aircraft, but it also severs power to the hydraulic brakes and the steering.
25:24I mean, we're essentially passengers now. We've become passengers with front row seats.
25:30The plane hurtles forward at tremendous speed.
25:34All Gibson has left to try are the emergency brakes, and they don't have nearly as much stopping power as the main brakes.
25:45The emergency brakes burst into flames.
25:47Now we're going off the runway. We're definitely going off the runway.
25:54We're just looking straight into that ditch.
25:57Brace yourselves.
26:00The terrifying ordeal is finally over.
26:10Captain Gibson and his crew have landed a shattered plane and saved the lives of everyone on board.
26:28Sometimes pilots have to fly by the seat of their pants and they have to rely on their instincts.
26:35What is that really? It's experience in training.
26:37The exceptional airmanship of Flight 8's crew prevented tragedy on the runway.
26:42Now it's up to the NTSB and lead investigator Ron Schleid to find out what happened to bring Reve Flight 8 so close to disaster.
26:52They study the wrecked plane.
26:54The wreckage really didn't give us much of a clue because what we needed to look at was gone.
27:00The propeller and the gearbox it was attached to are both lost at sea.
27:07The team turns to the flight data recorder.
27:10But it too is of little use in determining why the engine tore off in mid-air.
27:15The flight recorder on this airplane was a very rudimentary recorder.
27:19It records by a stylus scraping a metal foil.
27:24And so it's not a very scientific thing compared to what we have today.
27:30But they still have to answer the crucial question.
27:34Why was Gibson's plane so hard to control?
27:39The loss of a propeller is not necessarily catastrophic.
27:42It's designed to fly with only half its engines.
27:46And still, with three engines intact, Gibson could barely manoeuvre the plane.
28:01NTSB investigators examined the gash where the propeller punctured the hull.
28:06Doesn't look like any cables are cut.
28:09It's only by taking a closer look at the tear from inside the cabin
28:14that they finally discover the source of the problem.
28:17That buckling of the floor from the explosive decompression jammed the flight controls
28:24where the cables ran through holes in the floor structure.
28:27The autopilot and manual control cables were both pinched by the collapsed floor.
28:33Jet!
28:35But because the autopilot uses hydraulics to move the cables,
28:39it can apply far more force on them than a human pilot.
28:42This is why the autopilot was able to control the plane ever so slightly.
28:47Hey! I've got some control here!
28:52What?
28:53But if the manual cables were jammed,
28:56why was the crew suddenly able to regain the control they needed to land the plane?
29:01A closer look at the pinched cables provides the answer.
29:07Looks like they sawed their way out of this mess.
29:12They kept pulling as hard as they could on the yoke, pushing and pulling, turning.
29:16Come on!
29:18Deep scars in the hull's joists reveal what happened.
29:22The pinched control cables gradually carved grooves.
29:26They were actually cutting right into the metal during the long flight before they landed.
29:31That gave the crew enough maneuverability to line up with the runway.
29:35Anchorage!
29:37Reave 8!
29:38Ready to land!
29:39Runway 6 right!
29:40Reave 8!
29:41Command to land!
29:42Runway 6 right!
29:43But it's Gibson's quick thinking that saved the day.
29:47Cut all engines!
29:48Revert your shutdown engines!
29:49One of three!
29:50I personally thought that was probably one of the smartest things that anybody ever did in the history of aviation.
29:58You've lost an engine.
30:00The only thing you have to rely on is literally your training as a pilot.
30:04And it makes all the difference in the world.
30:10Yet even the most skilled pilots may be powerless to stop rogue engines from causing devastation in a dense residential neighborhood.
30:20Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.
30:26An El Al cargo jet is fueled and ready to depart for Tel Aviv.
30:33El Al 1862.
30:34Good evening.
30:35Good evening, El Al 1862.
30:37Line up in sequence 01 left.
30:41Roger.
30:42The Boeing 747 is under the command of Yitzhak Fuchs.
30:46He earned his wings in the Israeli military.
30:49Gedalia Sofa is the flight engineer.
30:53Clear for takeoff 01 left.
30:54Roger.
30:55First officer Arnon Ohad will be handling the controls for this flight.
30:59On the roll.
31:01Roger.
31:02Engines are looking good.
31:03Climb power is set.
31:04For the first seven minutes of the flight, the plane climbs steadily over the Dutch capital.
31:08Freedom.
31:09Customer 15 politenas rounds.
31:11Jasmine1 left.
31:12Customer 15 flight.
31:15And they think that's us could clean those for the flight.
31:16Interview with plane С Surf carbon.
31:17Affornations in the Turkish Airlines.
31:18Now, the flight genetics are not far too far.
31:19Configuring the elements establish a ship of space.
31:20Cosmic surge of mission force as I am zigzagTS car.
31:21of the flight, the plane climbs steadily over the Dutch capital.
31:38What the hell?
31:41Without warning, the 747 rolls violently to the right.
31:45The crew has no idea why.
31:47I have control.
31:49You have control.
31:51Engines 3 and 4 are out.
31:59Both engines on the right wing have suddenly died.
32:02The captain tries to level the plane.
32:06We're losing hydraulics on system 3.
32:08No, 3 and 4.
32:10Critical flight controls begin to fail.
32:17Hell out, 1862.
32:19Mayday, mayday.
32:22We have an emergency.
32:24LL, 1862, do you wish to return to Schiphol?
32:27Affirmative.
32:28Mayday, mayday, mayday.
32:30We need to land.
32:30See if they can get us down on runway 27.
32:33Request runway 27 for landing.
32:35In that case, heading 360, heading 360, you only have seven miles to go from current position.
32:44Damn it.
32:46There's no way that we can slow down at this distance.
32:48Captain Fuchs decides to descend and turn over Amsterdam, so he can lose speed and altitude before coming in for an emergency landing at Schiphol Airport.
33:02Flaps two.
33:07Flaps two.
33:11Flaps two.
33:13All right, nice and easy.
33:24Easy.
33:28Easy.
33:29No, no, no, no.
33:30We're losing it.
33:31By going slower, he was having even more control problems than he already had.
33:37No, no, no, come on.
33:39Going down.
33:43Going down, 1862.
33:44Going down.
33:44I can't hold it.
33:45I can't hold it.
33:47Come on.
33:49El Al, 1862 has slammed into an 11-storey residential block.
34:02The building is engulfed in flames.
34:09It's not until dawn that the full extent of the crash becomes apparent.
34:13No one aboard has survived.
34:19Another 43 people on the ground are dead.
34:23It's the worst aviation disaster in the history of the Netherlands.
34:29The Dutch government assigns Pim van Santen to lead the crash investigation.
34:34How soon can I get my team in here?
34:41Jeez.
34:43There was a lot of pressure, both from the public, from the press, to come up with some
34:49findings as quickly as possible.
34:56Dig in, guys.
34:58We need those black boxes.
35:00City officials have ordered the crash debris to be taken to dump sites around Amsterdam.
35:07That's where NTSB's Bob Benzen joins the team.
35:13Hang on.
35:15That's an engine part.
35:16It goes over there.
35:19You'd be surprised how much building debris, pipes and things can actually look like airplane
35:24parts.
35:26It gets confusing.
35:28Within hours, witnesses provide a stunning lead.
35:31Just minutes before the crash, they saw what looked like two jet engines falling into Lake
35:38Goymir, a lake east of the airport.
35:40The entire investigation hinges on the recovery of not one, but two engines at the bottom of a lake.
35:58The search of the lake pays off.
36:09The team recovers the two missing engines from the right wing.
36:16Thorough examination leads investigators to discover an unusual streak of paint on the cowling of the inboard engine.
36:23Let's see if the lab can tell us where this came from.
36:33In the meantime, the team recovers the flight data recorder.
36:37It's badly damaged condition means it'll go to NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C. for analysis.
36:53Any luck?
36:55The cockpit voice recorder is never found.
36:57But there's a break in the case when the paint analysis results come in.
37:07The paint found on the engine came from the cone-shaped spinner at the front of another engine.
37:13Get everyone together.
37:15I think I know what happened.
37:17Van Santen believes there's only one possible scenario to explain the unusual finding.
37:21See?
37:24This is engine three.
37:27Paint transfer is right there.
37:32No way engine four could come forward.
37:35But if engine three came off first, it could fly back and the spinner would hit right here.
37:44In other words, engine three knocked engine four off the plane.
37:50What the hell?
38:02Pim Van Santen knows how engine four was knocked off the 747.
38:06Now he and his team have to determine why number three came off in the first place.
38:11They scrutinize the engine fitting.
38:15In particular, the crucial fuse pins which secure the pylon to the wing.
38:24A metallurgical scan leads to a stunning discovery.
38:28There's a four-millimeter crack on the inside of one of the fuse pins.
38:33If there's a micro crack in it, it weakens the entire structure and makes it easier to break.
38:43Once the fuse pin failed, the entire engine fitting would have broken apart.
38:48But there is still one more mystery to be solved.
38:56The damaged plane got within sight of the runway.
39:01No, no, no! Come on!
39:03Going down!
39:04But why couldn't it make it all the way there?
39:07The damaged tape from the flight data recorder has been repaired.
39:19Okay, let's get started.
39:21Pim Van Santen is now able to combine flight data...
39:23Engines are working fine at takeoff.
39:26...with the recordings captured from the tower.
39:29Zero, roger.
39:30Then, right here, the pylon fails.
39:38Engine three breaks away.
39:47Engine three moves sideways, tears off the leading edge, and damages hydraulic lines before hitting engine four.
39:55We're losing hydraulic on system three.
39:57No, three and four.
39:58With half the hydraulics inoperable, the massive jet becomes increasingly difficult to balance and control.
40:05Mayday, mayday. We have an emergency.
40:07They put out their flaps to slow down.
40:14Flaps don't go out on the right side.
40:17Much like American Airlines Flight 191, some of the plane's hydraulics are so badly damaged that the wing flaps can't extend as they should.
40:28When the speed drops, so does the wing.
40:32Easy.
40:33No, no, no, no.
40:35We're losing it.
40:38More lift on the left, less on the right, causing a roll to the right.
40:42And as the aircraft slowed down, this rolling tendency got harder and harder to counteract.
40:49Come on!
40:50Going down, AK-6, they're going down.
41:0243 dead because of one small part.
41:05Investigators conclude that the accident is the result of the faulty fuse pin.
41:10The Dutch-led team immediately calls on Boeing to redesign the critical engine fastener.
41:19Boeing had a massive redesign of the pylons.
41:22To its credit, the company knew they had a problem and they fixed it.
41:25The safety record of subsequent generations of aeroplanes says that problem has been solved.
41:35Three planes facing the nightmare of lost engines.
41:44Lives lost.
41:46Lives saved.
41:47But vital lessons learned from each investigation have made the skies safer.
41:57Good investigations of incidents and accidents that do happen cause changes in the industry for the good.
42:03And that, I think, is why the accident rate worldwide has just plummeted over the years.
42:09I'mồi.
42:09We're going down here.
42:12How goodby the accident breaks all together,
42:13we're going up,
42:14we're going to miracles and failures.
42:34We're going up, we're going down here.
42:34We're going down here.
42:35So far, I'm glad we had this.
42:35We're going up to foureta squad.
42:37We're going down here.
42:37There's going down here.
42:38We're going down here.
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