- 2 weeks ago
Air Crash Investigation Series S22E04 Double Trouble
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00:00An emergency above the French Alps strikes Transair Cargo Flight 671.
00:10There was an enormous bang and the aircraft almost inverted.
00:15Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
00:18The crew needs to land, but are flying blind.
00:22Cargo 671, we have no radar contact.
00:25They stood a very real chance of hitting a mountain.
00:28Then they discover something even more horrifying.
00:34I saw nothing in the number four engine position. The wing was clean.
00:40Assuming the worst, the first officer leaves a clue for investigators.
00:45I took the photograph because I wasn't sure what would happen next.
00:50If somebody might find the camera, they'd see the truth.
00:54Mayday! Mayday!
00:58Pull! Up!
00:59Up!
01:01We're getting one, two.
01:02We're having you. I'm trying to come back tonight.
01:03I don't want you to go.
01:04We have to go.
01:05I'm trying to go.
01:07Transair Flight 671 is preparing for takeoff at Luxembourg Airport.
01:24The forecast says we'll get some weather in an hour.
01:29As we cross over the Alps. Typical.
01:33Captain Ingemar Berglund is a highly experienced Swedish pilot
01:38who has been flying Boeing 707 aircraft for over a decade.
01:41The captain had been a military pilot and then he'd been on air transport flying for most of his working life.
01:50His experience was pretty vast in Africa and in Europe. He knew the roots and he was a very good pilot.
01:55Kabul 671, you are cleared for takeoff. Runway 24.
02:02671, cleared for takeoff. Roger.
02:06First Officer Martin Emery is an accomplished British pilot who has worked as an instructor and an air traffic controller.
02:13Ready to go.
02:20The first officer had about 10,000 hours, about half of which was on the Boeing 707.
02:26So he was very experienced too.
02:30V1.
02:32170.
02:34Rotate.
02:35The Boeing 707 is a long range aircraft powered by four Pratt and Whitney engines.
02:45It was a very basic aeroplane, very strong, very reliable and could carry 40 or 50 tonnes of freight.
02:54Assisting the pilots is flight engineer Terry Boone.
02:59The Boeing 707 didn't have much in the way of automated systems, but this meant that there was a whole panel sideways in the flight deck in which the flight engineer had to operate every system manually.
03:17He was probably one of the most experienced Boeing 707 flight engineers in the world.
03:23Today's flight is a seven hour journey from Luxembourg to Kano, Nigeria.
03:34Feels a little heavy today.
03:36Do you see what's loaded back there?
03:39It's all oil weather equipment.
03:41Yeah, not the light kind.
03:44Flight 671 is operated by the newly formed Nigerian company Transair Limited.
03:49Their client, Carbo Air Cargo.
03:55Transair had only been formed a few weeks before this incident.
03:59It was purely for the oil industry to transport a lot of equipment down to Nigeria for the oil works.
04:06This was an extra special flight in that it was carrying equipment that would have helped Nigeria in their modernising.
04:12Carbo 671 levels off at 29,000 feet.
04:23The flight plan indicated with the weight of the aircraft we should stay at a slightly lower than normal flight level for the first part of the flight until we burned off fuel and then we could gain a higher flight level.
04:35How are the guys in the back?
04:38Good, he made his coffee.
04:40Also on board are a cargo supervisor and a maintenance engineer.
04:45I like them more every day.
04:47So the five of them were knowledgeable about the 707, they were knowledgeable about this sort of ad hoc air cargo work.
04:56Although they hadn't met until a fortnight previously, I think they worked well together as a team.
05:04Over the Alps, the weather deteriorates.
05:10Pretty much ground level up to about 33,000 feet was in cloud and the cloud was rough and turbulent.
05:17We've engaged our five-point seat harness rather than just the four-point harnesses that we normally keep on to a top of climb and then moved our seats forward to be really guarding the controls in this turbulent air. It was getting quite rough.
05:39Asked if we can go to 33.
05:42Cabo 671, request flight level 330.
05:47671, roger, climb to flight level 330.
05:53Climb 330, 671.
05:57The requested climb was to go up another 4,000.
06:03The requested climb was to go up another 4,000.
06:09One hour into the flight, just as the plane reaches 33,000 feet.
06:23There was an enormous bang, followed almost immediately by another one, and the aircraft absolutely rolled to the right.
06:39The captain uses all his strength to level the plane.
06:46Had the captain not reacted as quickly as he did, the aircraft could have rolled over, in fact inverted.
06:54Engine fire!
06:56Engine fire!
06:58Engines three and four show signs of fire.
07:04While the flight engineer deals with the engine alarms,
07:10the first officer checks on the engines.
07:12I saw nothing in the number four engine position.
07:19Number four engine has left the wing.
07:26Mayday, mayday, mayday, cover 671.
07:28With reduced engine power and an unbalanced configuration, the flight drops out of the sky in an uncontrolled descent.
07:37The descent rate was horrific. I think I saw 8,000 or 9,000 feet per minute.
07:44It's diving quickly towards the French Alps through heavy cloud.
07:48They need to get out of the mountains and they can't see outside because of the thick cloud.
07:57They need the air traffic controller to give them a direction in which to head for a safe haven, for a safe airport.
08:07Mayday, mayday, mayday. Request descent for radar landing.
08:10The ground service can follow your track over the ground you're heading, heighten the speed from our transponder.
08:19And they can point you to the nearest available runway.
08:22But air traffic control has bad news.
08:30Cabo 671, we have no radar contact. Say your position, please, sir.
08:35They can no longer see flight 671 on the radar.
08:38With nobody able to give them a direction to steer, they stood a very real chance of hitting a mountain.
08:48The plane's radar transponder has failed.
08:59I was considering which direction we could go to avoid the mountains.
09:03It was very scary.
09:04The situation is dire enough that the first officer records the damage to the wing.
09:18I wasn't sure what would happen next.
09:22I believe that if anything ended, like the flight before we were ready, somebody might find the camera, and then they'd see the truth.
09:32Flight 671 is in an uncontrolled descent over the French Alps.
09:43With thick cloud and no transponder for the controller to guide them, the crew is flying blind.
09:49Mayday, mayday, mayday. Request descent for radar landing.
09:52The flight engineer attempts to get the transponder working again. He suspects there is a power issue.
10:01The reason the air traffic control lost the radar initially was probably because the electrics powering the radar failed when engine number four fell off.
10:12The flight engineer redirects the power to engine one.
10:21We've selected the essential power selector for engine number one, which had an operative electrical generator.
10:27It works. Request descent radar landing.
10:33Roger. Turn left heading south to Marseille.
10:37The controller directs flight 671 to Marseille airport, 75 miles away.
10:43You turn left 180.
10:45OK.
10:53There was immense relief as they descended out of the cloud and finally could see the mountains around them.
11:00But relief is short-lived after the first officer gives the right wing a further inspection.
11:10We've lost both engines on the right wing.
11:12What?
11:14With a five-point harness, you are slightly restricted.
11:17But I did manage to look right over my right shoulder and both the engines were off the wing.
11:22The wing was clean, which was a really big shock.
11:26We've lost both engines.
11:28Both engines?
11:30Just about the worst thing that can happen in an airliner is to have an engine depart from the aircraft.
11:37The only thing worse than that would be to have two engines depart from your aircraft.
11:43With only the two left engines functioning, control of the plane is compromised.
11:50When you've lost both engines from the right wing and still have a lot of thrust from the engines on the left wing, it upsets that balance and causes the airplane to turn and to roll very powerfully to the right.
12:03Getting the airplane to turn left is a huge ask under these circumstances.
12:09You turn 180?
12:10Yeah.
12:11I'm trying.
12:15Flying the disabled plane is testing the captain's strength.
12:19The Boeing 707 has all manual flying controls. It's very heavy to fly when everything's working well. When you've lost two engines on one side, it's virtually at the limit of physical capability for the captain.
12:39You want to dump fuel? Yes, dump fuel.
12:49To keep flight 671 in the air, the crew decides to reduce its load.
12:53This aircraft was carrying a very heavy fuel load and it was imperative to reduce that fuel load.
13:00But it requires a precise calculation. They need to leave themselves enough fuel to reach Marseille and land safely.
13:07112 tons is the maximum safe weight at which they can land. If they're any heavier than that and hit the ground hard, they would be sliding along the runway on their belly, shedding fuel and burning.
13:20This is not a position you want to be in.
13:23The process is time consuming.
13:25As flight 671 completes its left turn towards Marseille, Captain Bergland reduces power in the two left engines.
13:42They had to reduce the power on the left engines to give themselves a chance of staying upright and going in the direction they wanted to go in.
13:50Reducing airspeed means an increase in the angle of descent.
13:55Unfortunately, this of course meant they then descended more rapidly.
14:02They have to land soon and they have to land somewhere very nearby.
14:07Airspeed isn't the crew's only concern.
14:10Progress the weather.
14:12Give me the weather for Marseille, 671.
14:15I really needed the weather at Marseille to make a plan for an approach to land either direct or a circuit or whatever we could do.
14:24But air traffic control isn't responding.
14:27Request weather.
14:29Mayday, mayday, mayday, 671.
14:32Request weather.
14:34It was quite a tough call to actually get the instant weather at that moment at Marseille Airport that we needed right now.
14:46Making matters worse, the fuel dump is not going as expected.
14:52Fuel tank number one isn't discharging.
14:57It became evident to the flight engineer that the number one fuel tank wasn't emptying.
15:07This would cause a lateral imbalance across the aeroplane, which is not a good thing.
15:11We've got limited manoeuvring.
15:13You're stopping?
15:18Yeah.
15:20The flight engineer discovers that a circuit breaker has popped.
15:29By pushing the circuit breaker back in, he was able to reactivate the number one fuel pump and get the fuel jettisoning from all four tanks simultaneously.
15:47Flight 671 is 30 miles from the runway in Marseille.
15:52Mayday, mayday, mayday.
15:54Yes, I understand.
15:55Yes, I understand.
15:59It's raining on the airfield.
16:01Two octaves, staticumulus, 500 feet.
16:04Three octaves, cumulus, 1600 feet.
16:07Three octaves, cumulus, 2000 feet.
16:09No, no, no.
16:12Thunder clouds and the risk of turbulence will make a difficult landing harder.
16:17We were pushed to even get there with the height available.
16:20With thunderstorm activity, it was really a no-go.
16:23Cabot 671, what is our distance to the runway?
16:2922 miles per landing, sir.
16:32We had no plan B at that point.
16:35That was a nasty moment.
16:37What we wanted was a runway, and we wanted it quickly.
16:40Hey, you see the airfield?
16:50I don't see it.
16:51Flight 671 is in a rapid descent with limited manoeuvrability, less than 9,000 feet above southern France, when the crew finally gets a break.
17:06I looked through just cloud underneath us, and I glimpsed some ribbon black tarmac.
17:13It was a runway.
17:18Cabot 671, we have an airfield ahead.
17:20What is our airfield?
17:21This is a military airfield until 12 o'clock for six miles.
17:26Can we land that?
17:28No.
17:29It's too short.
17:30Too short.
17:31How long is the runway on this military airfield?
17:3313,000 feet.
17:34Clear.
17:35Okay.
17:36The runway at Istra is long.
17:41It is France's flight test centre, and it was also a space shuttle alternate learning ground.
17:47It's probably the biggest airport in Europe.
17:50Military airfield, Mayday, traffic 671.
17:53The first officer makes contact with air traffic control at Istra Airport.
17:58671, this is Istra.
18:00You are cleared for arrival.
18:02Runway 33.
18:03We're just overhead.
18:04What's the wind?
18:05The wind is 330, 10 knots, gusting 1 to 4 knots.
18:12We'll make a left-hand pattern from the west.
18:17Yeah.
18:18The French military air traffic controller was one of my gang.
18:23I thought he was great.
18:24Can we turn left to land?
18:26Yes.
18:27As they start their turn, the crew lowers the plane's flaps in preparation for landing.
18:34The wheels were down and locked, and the flaps were coming down so Captain Berglund could have more roll control.
18:39But when the flaps are extended, disaster strikes.
18:43Check.
18:44There was another big explosion, which tried to roll us right again.
18:50Turn.
18:51Turn left.
18:52Turn left to land.
18:53Turn left.
18:54I'm trying.
18:55Turn left to land.
18:56Left turn.
18:57Yeah.
18:58Oh, we missed the runway.
18:59They're unable to line up for landing.
19:006-7-1.
19:01We have fire on board.
19:02I confirm.
19:03Fire on board.
19:04I'm trying.
19:05Left to land.
19:06Left turn.
19:07Yeah.
19:08Oh, we missed the runway.
19:09They're unable to line up for landing.
19:146-7-1, we have fire on board.
19:27I confirm.
19:28Fire on board.
19:29I could hear the fire, but I didn't say anything.
19:34We need another runway.
19:36Take runway 1-5.
19:38Wind is 320, 10 knots, cleared direct.
19:44After failing to make a hard left for a landing on runway 3-3, the crew attempt to circle back and land on the runway's opposite end, known as 1-5.
19:55The captain doesn't have the strength to make the turn on his own.
19:59But the first officer has an idea.
20:02I said, I'll take the power.
20:04And Captain Bergland said to me, be careful.
20:07I said, I will.
20:08I promise.
20:09The first officer adjusts the throttles to help steer the plane to the runway.
20:14And bringing back number 1, advancing number 2, it actually turned the airplane left and he could fly it going towards the runway, which was a miracle.
20:21It truly was.
20:23It's a race against time to get the plane on the ground before the wing is incinerated.
20:30Good descent.
20:34You are on axis.
20:36Flight 671 is flying 50 knots faster than normal landing speed.
20:49Captain did a perfect landing, kept it just left of the center line, and we were safely on the ground at a great speed, but we were on the ground.
20:57If they don't brake soon, they will overshoot the runway.
21:02Without hydraulics, they have only the plane's emergency brake to reduce speed.
21:07There was no anti-skid protection.
21:09That would have meant that the tires would start scuffing and bursting, which would then reduce their ability to slow down.
21:18Stopping was the only thing that mattered.
21:20You want both thrust reverses?
21:22The flight engineer wanted to use reverse thrust on the two left engines because that was the only way he could see of slowing down.
21:29No, cut the engines.
21:31The first officer didn't want him to do that because that would pull the airplane off to the left of the runway.
21:36I've just left engine two.
21:38As a compromise, they used reverse thrust on the inboard left engine, the number two engine, which did help reduce their galloping speed, but pulled the airplane off the runway to the left.
21:52The aircraft did come to a halt in the mud.
22:05We're on fire. Evacuate. Evacuate.
22:07I realized that we were on fire and it was burning and belching smoke and flame.
22:11We needed to get down, get out and get away.
22:14With two missing engines, a wing on fire and no brakes, Flight 671 has landed in Yistre, France, with its cargo and crew safe.
22:29To actually have two of the four engines fall off the wing, virtually unheard of in the history of aviation.
22:37The heroic escape from death makes headlines around the world.
22:40As French investigators arrive, they're faced with an important question.
22:45What caused two engines to fall off a plane?
22:49Losing two engines is a huge thing.
22:52So the investigators had quite a big task to establish what had happened and more importantly, why and how to prevent it happening again.
23:00The damaged 707 is moved to a hangar to be examined by the BEA, France's Air Investigation Authority.
23:16The level of damage on this aircraft was very close to looking like a total structural failure.
23:22I've got something.
23:33Investigators make an early discovery about the fire on board the plane.
23:37These wires from the cable loom short circuited.
23:41That, plus a fuel leak from near the engine three area, caused the fire.
23:45Good work.
23:47When the engines came away from the wing, they tore with them electrical wiring.
23:56Some of that wiring still had power available.
24:00When the flaps were extended, leaking fuel made contact with live wires and ignited.
24:09Let's get this cleaned up.
24:10Get a better look at what tore the engine loose from the wing.
24:17Investigators are counting on the plane's flight data recorder to provide more information.
24:22OK.
24:23Let's see what it can tell us.
24:37Looks like engines three and four were producing thrust right up until here.
24:449, 10.50 a.m., one hour into the flight.
24:46The FDR data reveals that both engines stopped working almost concurrently.
24:53The flight data recorder basically showed the engines operating as normal when they left the aircraft.
25:07To understand why two perfectly functioning engines detached from the 707's wings,
25:12investigators need to find the missing engines.
25:16Here's the flight path.
25:18This is where they probably fell off.
25:29I'll send a search and recovery team out there.
25:3024 hours into the investigation, the engines of flight 671 are located on a mountainside near Seideron, France, 55 miles northeast of where the plane landed.
25:51Investigators found the engines about 800 meters apart.
25:57That's very close.
25:58Their locations also suggest the engines detached at almost the same time.
26:04While the team waits for the engines to be recovered, they turn to the crew for further insight.
26:10We were climbing to 43,000 feet to avoid some pretty bad turbulence.
26:16Suddenly there were loud sounds.
26:18I saw engine four was missing.
26:29You reported the engines missing at two different times. Is it possible you were mistaken?
26:38It's possible. The harness I was wearing kept me from getting a good look out the window at first.
26:42You said you were climbing to avoid turbulence. How bad was it?
26:47It was severe. I wouldn't want to go through that again.
26:50They had flown through extremely heavy turbulence of a level not normally encountered.
26:56So there were two cumulonimbus clouds here and here. And they went up past 33,000 feet.
27:08Investigators examined the weather conditions at the time of the incident.
27:12Looks like there was also a 90 knot jet stream over here.
27:24They discover that flight 671 flew through two weather conditions when they reached 33,000 feet.
27:30Those two conditions would have generated severe turbulence.
27:36But you'd think it could withstand the turbulence.
27:39Did two colliding weather conditions tear the engines off the 707?
27:44Let's see what the engines can tell us.
27:45Hey, boss.
28:00Close examination of the engines gives investigators an important new clue.
28:07You see this dent on engine four?
28:08It's shape and diameter match a dent on engine three.
28:13So does this white paint.
28:15You could tell from the shape of the damage and from transfer of white paint from one engine to the other engine that the number three had struck the number four engine and separated it.
28:32Investigators now need to find out what caused engine three to detach.
28:36Looks like a clean break of all four fittings.
28:44Each engine is attached to a pylon.
28:48The pylon is then bolted to the wing using four large fittings.
28:53During flight 671, all four fittings broke on engine three.
29:01Now three of the four fittings broke like this one.
29:03You can see from the surface they broke from stress.
29:09This mid spar fitting is different.
29:12There's some distortion here.
29:15It likely broke from a fatigue fracture.
29:17You could see some characteristics surface wise, coloration wise, that were consistent with the fatigue cracking.
29:31Over time, the inboard mid spar fitting on engine three was weakened because of a crack caused by metal fatigue.
29:38When it snapped off in severe turbulence, the other fittings broke too.
29:44As a metallurgist, I want to take a closer look at these things.
29:48Okay, let's see what we got.
29:59To establish a detailed history of flight 671's broken mid spar fitting, investigators use an electron microscope to examine it.
30:06I can see multiple arrest lines.
30:07With each take off and landing, the crack grows a little bit.
30:17And it leaves a mark.
30:19And each little stress cycle makes the crack a little bigger.
30:24These are likely from the flights the plane flew since Transair put it back in service a few weeks ago.
30:31What about before that?
30:33As the team continues examining the cracked mid spar fitting, they make an unusual finding.
30:40Looks like corrosion.
30:42The plane had to have been exposed to moisture over a long period of time.
30:46Looks like the previous owner had the plane in storage for 13 months prior to the incident.
30:59Where was it stored?
31:05In a field in England.
31:08Steel will corrode if it's in a salty atmosphere or a very moist atmosphere.
31:16This particular aircraft was stored at airfields which weren't far from the sea.
31:22That explains corrosion.
31:28What about those? Those little marks?
31:31Near the bottom of the fitting, they discover several tell-tale marks.
31:36Those are corrosion pit marks.
31:38Metal, after water, has gained access to that metal and caused corrosion to take place.
31:51And the pit can be the start of a long crack.
31:54And in this case, there were corrosion pits that grew into one crack and eventually fractured amid spar fitting.
32:03So when did these pit marks start to develop?
32:05Well, it's hard to pinpoint exactly.
32:07Given their distance from the arrest lines, it suggests that the pitting started even before the plane went into storage.
32:12The crack doesn't occur in storage.
32:15The crack doesn't occur in storage.
32:17Oxidation does.
32:19So that tells us the cracking occurred before storage.
32:24Well, probably years before storage.
32:28I'm sitting for a time bomb waiting to blow.
32:33So how did the maintenance team miss it?
32:38This just arrived from Transair. Maintenance records.
32:41Let's have a look.
32:43Investigators want to know if poor maintenance on Flight 671 contributed to the crash.
32:49You start to look at the age of the parts that fail and what was the maintenance requirements for those parts.
32:59And did they play a role in the accident?
33:03In the 1990s, Nigerian airlines like Transair gained a reputation for poor maintenance.
33:12For a while, Nigerian Airways were in fact banned from United Kingdom airspace.
33:17According to this, Transair didn't do a mid-spar maintenance check.
33:23Transair had only owned that airplane for a very small amount of time.
33:29So it's unlikely that they've performed any maintenance on it.
33:33So maybe Transair inherited the problem before it was owned by them.
33:40Looks like the previous owner did two maintenance checks.
33:42One on October 10, 1991, when the plane was in storage.
33:47And the other in May 1990, before it went into storage.
33:52The team learns that the plane passed two maintenance checks in a two-year period prior to the incident.
33:58If the metal fatigue started before the storage, the maintenance checks should have caught the problem.
34:05There were certain cracks that should have been picked up, which weren't.
34:10Then, one month into the investigation, another 707 loses an engine.
34:17The incident is similar to what happened to Flight 671.
34:21During take-off from Miami International Airport,
34:25the number three engine is torn off the wing and then hits engine four.
34:29With the Miami accident, the pilots managed to land the aircraft safely with no one being hurt.
34:37The NTSB investigates and discovers that a broken mid-spar fitting also caused the engine to fall off the wing.
34:46This was perhaps history repeating itself.
34:49Is that from the NTSB?
34:55Yep.
34:57French investigators review the NTSB's preliminary report,
35:01curious about the Miami plane's maintenance history.
35:04Maintenance on the 707 in Miami was performed 328 flights before the accident.
35:09Which is well within the 600 flight recommendation by the FAA.
35:11They discover that the plane had also passed maintenance checks and reported no fatigue cracking or corrosion.
35:21In both the Miami accident and the French accident,
35:27the mid-spar fitting had failed with a very similar way
35:32and had also been maintained as specified by the FAA and Boeing aircraft company.
35:39Perhaps they weren't maintaining properly.
35:43At the time, the mid-spar fittings were required to be inspected in a close visual examination.
35:53Basically, you gain access to the fitting, you wipe it off the best you can,
36:01and what you can see is what you examine.
36:04Was there a problem with the inspection process?
36:09Investigators interview a maintenance supervisor about how engine fittings are approved for flight.
36:15So, how do you inspect the fitting?
36:18You're supposed to carry out a close visual inspection for cracks on the exposed surfaces of the fitting.
36:23And?
36:26Well, cracks can start on the inside of the fitting.
36:29So why is that a problem?
36:30Well, it's a problem, because you can't see inside unless you remove the engine and the pylon from the wing.
36:35It's a troubling discovery.
36:39The mid-spar fitting is normally installed.
36:42The mid-spar fitting cannot be seen from the access panel.
36:48The engine and pylon need to be removed to check for cracks on the inside of the fitting.
36:53Boeing did not require disassembly of the mid-spar fitting.
37:03Their risk assessment basically said it's not worth it on this old airframe.
37:09So there could be 707s out there with cracks in this fitting that no one could see?
37:13Yeah.
37:17As an investigator, you always have to wonder how many more engines are going to fall off of 707s.
37:32Listen to this.
37:34Investigators of Flight 671 do a deep dive into the history of the Boeing 707's mid-spar fitting.
37:40There have been reports of more than 35 cracked mid-spar fittings on the 707.
37:46These planes are at the end of their life cycle.
37:49The 707 in Miami had flown over 50,000 hours.
37:52The Transair 707 had flown more than 60,000 hours.
37:56This was an old fitting on an old airplane that had been designed a very long time ago.
38:02When they didn't know how these materials would age, the consequence of this and perhaps not the best maintenance or inspection
38:08meant that eventually this fitting just gave up.
38:12By 1992, most 707s were considered too old to fly passengers and were converted to freight transport.
38:23We need to make sure this doesn't happen again.
38:26Investigators conclude that a hidden fracture in the mid-spar fitting almost took the lives of the five men on Transair Flight 671.
38:35The fate of the plane is sealed when a maintenance inspection fails to catch the fatigue crack.
38:48Ask if we can go to 33.
38:51The 707 is pushed to its breaking point when two weather events collide.
38:57The in-flight turbulence was the last little bit that was necessary to cause fracture.
39:09Basically, it was the last straw that held this pylon together.
39:14The weakened mid-spar fitting finally breaks and both engines are lost.
39:25If not for the heroics of the crew, the plane would have crashed.
39:28The 707 is not an easy airplane to fly when everything is going well.
39:35It's a very difficult airplane to fly when things are going wrong.
39:39I've got limited maneuvering.
39:41Are you stopping?
39:43Yeah.
39:44Yeah.
39:45Captain Bergland's skill and stamina prove remarkable as he physically keeps the plane stable until landing.
39:54From the beginning of the incident to when they finally landed on the runway, 24 minutes.
39:59At 24 minutes that most pilots wouldn't have had all those things happen to him in an entire career.
40:05He was just one fantastic pilot.
40:08Carvel 671, we have no radar contact.
40:15Say your position, please, sir.
40:17Throughout the harrowing flight, Flight Engineer Boone troubleshoots and fixes key systems.
40:24The Flight Engineer looked at his panel and came up with the solution as to why the radar wasn't working.
40:31You turn left 180.
40:34Okay.
40:38Hey, you see the airfield?
40:42And First Officer Emery's quick thinking and intuition proved vital.
40:47Carvel 671, we have an airfield ahead. What is that airfield?
40:51It was an absolute genius decision to land at a military base with a long runway.
40:55It shows an awful lot about the spirit of pilots and survival that they somehow coalesce together.
41:08They all use their own individual skills.
41:09The BEA recommends that inspections of the current mid-spar fittings be modified to enable the detection of hidden cracks or be replaced by reinforced fittings.
41:24The FAA decided to mandate replacement of the mid-spar fittings with a new and improved mid-spar fitting which did not require inspections that were ineffective in the first place.
41:43In 1992, the crew of Transair Cargo 671 received the Hugh Gordon Burge Award for outstanding airmanship.
41:53This flight was a heroic achievement where the crew have recovered from a virtually impossible situation and they deserve the awards they got.
42:02So, a lot of luck, and a bit of teamwork, and a bit of shouting, and a bit of action, but a happy landing.
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