- 5 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:01Just minutes after taking off from Lima...
00:03We declare an emergency.
00:05The pilots of Aero Peru Flight 603 get mixed messages from their plane.
00:11I cut the engines, but the speed is increasing.
00:15Having erroneous airspeed indications now puts into your brain,
00:18am I climbing, am I not climbing?
00:20They seek assistance from the ground.
00:23Can you tell us our altitude, please?
00:24You're at 9,700 feet according to my radar.
00:27But nothing makes sense.
00:29We're in the water. Pull up!
00:34All 70 people on board are killed.
00:38Investigators compare the cockpit voice recording...
00:41We will maintain 10,000 feet.
00:43Set it.
00:4410,000 feet.
00:45...with the flight data recorder...
00:47Captain doesn't realize how close they are to the water.
00:49...and suspect a single faulty sensor prevented the crew from averting disaster.
00:54It violates the laws of physics.
00:56Airplanes just don't do that.
00:59D-day, D-day!
01:04Up!
01:23it's nearing 1 a.m. at jorge chavez international airport in lima peru
01:33thick clouds blanket the sky as aero peru 603 taxis to the runway
01:42the weather in lima peru is very very stable environment especially this time of the year
01:48the captain is 58 year old eric schreiber he's highly experienced having logged almost 22 000
01:56flight hours aero peru 603 authorized to santiago initial level 29 000 feet and afterwards on course
02:05transponder 5603 42 year old first officer david fernandez has flown nearly 8 000 hours
02:18he will be the pilot flying the aircraft tonight roger
02:24he's doing double duty by also operating the radio
02:30lima tower aero peru 603 runway 15 ready for takeoff
02:38aero peru 603 wind calm clear for takeoff runway 15
02:46there are 61 passengers and seven flight attendants on board
03:00takeoff at 41 minutes past midnight on the dots what precision
03:06like the suiz let's go
03:19the crew is extremely professional they accomplished their checklists and procedures
03:23as what would be expected and they were basically an on-time machine
03:44flight 603 will fly out to the pacific ocean before heading south to santiago
03:51the aircraft is a four-year-old boeing 757 200 the boeing 757 is a long narrow-bodied aircraft
04:00twin engine it's simple in its design simple instrumentation and just an overall comfortable
04:07airplane to fly
04:11the passengers
04:12the passengers settle in for the three and a half hour flight
04:19in the cockpit
04:21the first officer spots a potential problem
04:25the ultimate is a stop
04:31wind shear wind shear wind shear
04:34wind shear the pilots also get a wind shear warning
04:39this is new the wind shear is an alert that we're entering into an environment of undesirable
04:46winds that could be highly critical in the safety of the aircraft
04:50those type of winds are just very uncommon in that area and we're not forecasted at night at all
04:57we're flying 603 climbs into the thick clouds above lima the pilots lose sight of the ground
05:07the speed
05:09they now discover another instrument isn't working
05:13yeah right flying in the clouds at night without knowing how fast they're going
05:20or their height above the ground the pilots face a potentially dangerous situation
05:26am i climbing am i not climbing am i near mountainous terrain which is very close
05:31to the coastal line of peru
05:35tower aero peru 603
05:37flight 603 updates the tower controller
05:41aero peru 603 tower go ahead
05:43we have no altimeter and no airspeed declaring an emergency
05:52when a pilot declares an emergency with air traffic control the controller is going to give that
05:57aircraft priority handling roger change frequency to 119.7 for further instruction from radar control
06:05switching to 119.7
06:12before contacting radar control the captain takes over from the first officer
06:17okay i have control the captain may decide to take over the flying role and tell the first officer to
06:25talk on the radio and work procedures lima 603 we request vectors for is runway 15
06:33the pilots request directions for a return to the airport roger we suggest a right turn heading 330
06:41it was a good call to ask air traffic control give us vectors
06:44we're so busy up here dealing with everything else you can certainly help us out if you tell
06:49us which direction to turn and guide us back towards the airport turn right heading 330
06:56a heading of 330 will take the plane north to a position where it can then make the turn back
07:03to lima
07:05but two and a half minutes later aero peru 603 you're showing level 9200
07:12what is your heading now the radar controller notices that flight 603 hasn't turned back towards the airport
07:24heading 205 we're heading away from the shore affirmative
07:30we will maintain 10 000 feet said 10 000 feet the captain decides to fly further out to sea before
07:38returning to lima they go out over the ocean which is one of the best decisions to possibly do
07:44they don't now have to worry about other aircraft in the andes mountains
07:51in the cabin passengers are unaware of what's happening in the cockpit
08:00safely away from shore according to the radar you're crossing radial 230 from lima distance west
08:09southwest is 37 miles flight 603 finally starts turning north to begin the approach to lima and needs
08:18to begin its descent to the airport i'll try to descend with the power cut
08:30he was going to descend at idle thrust which is a good way to descend it's nice and steady in
08:35a 757
08:37and keeps the airspeed under good control
08:46i cut the engines but the speed is increasing
08:50even with power to the engines cut the airspeed indicators show that the plane is accelerating
08:58can you tell us the speed please i have 320. we have 350.
09:06they'll need to use a different strategy to descend
09:12getting to the lower altitude hopefully getting into some clearer areas to see the coastal line
09:18could give them more comfort for a safe landing take the speed brakes out
09:25that is another great way of slowing the aircraft and getting better control of the airspeed
09:34but deploying the speed brakes has the opposite effect
09:41over speed a new warning tells them they're flying far too fast
09:47the airplane's above its maximum allowable airspeed it's in danger of breaking apart if they don't do
09:52something right now
09:59but i have the speed brakes out and all the power is cut this can be right
10:05what more possibly can be confusing and going wrong right now
10:11seconds later they get a contradictory warning that the plane's flying far too slow
10:19the stick shaker indicates to pilots that if the airplane gets any slower it's going to be in a stall
10:25condition
10:28are they going too fast or too slow the pilots must decide which alarm to react to we're stalling
10:43the captain decides to increase the speed by pitching the nose down silencing the stall warning
10:54but they're not out of danger yet
10:58with conflicting warnings and no reliable airspeed or altitude readings
11:03the pilots of flight 603 urgently need help is there any plane that can take off to rescue us
11:15at this point it was a totally out of the box thought by the first officer to ask for
11:23this type of assistance which would have given them a visual reference right next to them with altitude
11:30airspeed also communications and we have somebody alongside of us holding our hand to the airport
11:38the plane is now 50 miles from lima's airport
11:43aero peru 603 you are heading 270 10 000 feet while they wait for a rescue plane the captain attempts
11:52to
11:52join the approach path to the runway
11:55i'll try to intercept the ils and then descend lima aero peru 603 we will try to intercept the ils
12:03roger aero peru 603 they think they're flying at a nice safe altitude and they think that they
12:09pretty much have airspeed under control they probably thought they were in a pretty darn good position
12:17soon after the radar controller provides an update on the escort flight
12:23peru peru 603 there is a 707 about to take off starting to move now
12:33it seems to be flying well
12:37can you tell us our altitude please you're a 9700 feet according to my radar terrain too low terrain
12:48too low terrain terrain 9700 feet but we're getting a terrain warning pull up pull up if
12:57it's telling you to pull up
13:09we're running over
13:10we're running over
13:2029 minutes after taking off flight 603 crashes into the pacific ocean 48 miles from lima peru
13:36within hours a navy aircraft discovers debris from flight 603
13:44the accident occurred at night and the wave conditions were very high
13:49so the first few ships that went out to look for the wreckage really struggled to find it
13:55a heavy fog also hampers recovery efforts
14:14by the end of the first day the bodies of only 13 of the 70 people on board are recovered
14:21there are no signs of survivors
14:27those who haven't been found are believed to be inside the fuselage on the seabed
14:45it's up to air crash investigators from peru's accident investigation board to find out why a plane
14:52last observed flying nearly 10 000 feet above the sea suddenly crashed into it
15:04we have the military radar with the underwater wreckage still beyond reach investigators get their
15:11first lead from the peruvian military
15:15any coastal nation will have military radar that's constantly scanning for any approaching
15:21aircraft so by querying the peruvian military radar we were able to get some data about the
15:28altitude and position of the accident flight
15:31so after taking off they follow the approved flight plan over the ocean and then they start heading north
15:38yeah they're headed back towards lima
15:43the flight climbs to 13 000 feet and then it starts to descend
15:49and now
15:52in the last seven minutes the flight has a series of erratic climbs and descents before it crashes
15:59it appears they lost control
16:06it becomes just a roller coaster ride of altitudes because they don't have control
16:16what could have caused the pilots to lose control
16:21when you start putting an investigation together you start putting the what-ifs on the table
16:27what if this failed what if that failed what if this went wrong what if the crew made a mistake
16:33pre-takeoff seems okay investigators scrutinize the communications between air traffic control and
16:39the pilots look at this the crew reported problems with airspeed and altitude readings only two and a
16:49two and a two and a two and a three tower go ahead we have no altimeters and no airspeed
17:00faulty air data
17:03sounds like an issue with the pitostatic system
17:08the pitostatic system uses tubes and sensors mounted on the plane which measure air pressure to
17:15calculate airspeed and altitude
17:19but wasn't there a recent crash involving the pitostatic system yeah
17:24virgin air flight 301
17:28only eight months earlier another boeing 757 crashed soon after taking off from puerto plata
17:35in the dominican republic the cause was a blocked pitot tube
17:41some investigators were wondering if we had a similar situation to what we had in bergen air
17:46wasn't entirely the same but it still involved
17:50blockage or covering parts of the pitostatic system
17:54well maybe that's what happened here
18:06nearly two weeks since aero peru flight 603 crashed into the ocean a u.s navy ship helps the peruvian
18:15navy to track the pings from the boeing 757's two black boxes the wreckage is finally located
18:22at a depth of 680 feet
18:28using remotely operated vehicles investigators finally get their first view of the wreckage site
18:37the records was very concentrated the plane was intact when it hit the water
18:49the fact that all the major pieces of the airplane are in one concentrated area really gives the
18:56investigators a much clearer picture of how the airplane came down so they either came down in a
19:02flat spin or it came down nose first which is a very unusual accident
19:10the black boxes are also located
19:15they're very very critical to get both recorders first you want to know how the airplane was behaving
19:21and then secondly what was going on in the cockpit between the crew members of the airplane
19:29they are packed in seawater and sent to washington where the ntsb
19:34the national transportation safety board will process their invaluable data
19:45that's it keep moving that way
19:49the team also searches for evidence of some kind of blockage of the pitot tubes and static ports
19:56there keep going
19:59they focus on a section of the left fuselage where the static ports are located
20:04okay now moving
20:10that's it the static ports were blocked
20:16they can see that the ports are covered
20:22when we saw that those static ports were covered it was case closed drop the curtains
20:28we knew exactly what happened in this accident how did such a critical device which determines air
20:36speed and altitude get covered up and blocked
20:42make sure you tag everything investigators survey the recovered wreckage of aero peru flight 603
20:50to find out what is covering the static ports
20:56look at that
21:00looks like silver tape same color as a fuselage
21:09wires
21:30why were the ports covered with tape and by whom
21:39it wasn't our job to assign blame or liability but we wanted to understand the procedure to make sure
21:46that important step of removing the tape would never get overlooked again
21:54so let's check the last bug entry okay
21:58investigators check maintenance records to understand why the ports were taped over
22:05interesting hey
22:08bird strike
22:12during the plane's last landing before the accident
22:16the right engine was struck by birds
22:20they replaced the turbine blades the hydraulic pump was repaired and they polished the lower front of the 757
22:29exactly where the static ports are located
22:32did maintenance personnel follow the correct procedures for polishing the 757
22:38when you're performing work on the airplane such as polishing and washing it it's important not to
22:44get any debris into the ports because when you take off temperatures go down they may freeze in place
22:51which could cause severe instrument problems to the airplane
22:56according to the maintenance manual they're supposed to cover the static ports
22:59so whoever polished the plane covered the static ports with tape and didn't remove it
23:07so why wasn't the tape removed after the area was polished
23:12if you look at the maintenance process on an airplane and cleaning and polishing an airplane
23:19is maintenance there's multiple steps multiple people and multiple looks the whole purpose of that is to make sure
23:27that nothing is missed were the static ports inspected as part of flight 603's line check
23:37it was a crazy night investigators interview the line mechanic to determine if the static ports were inspected
23:44after the work was done the line chief usually does it but he was sick so i did it
24:04so i guess you didn't see the tape then
24:10aluminum tape is pretty common and if you take it and just spread it over those ports it blends in
24:17perfectly
24:18and it makes it very easy for somebody to miss it
24:23was he adequately trained i would say the answer to that is no
24:30did you see either pilot do a pre-flight check yes the captain
24:38do you know if he checked them
24:42i couldn't tell you
24:46if i had a new person on my crew i would tell them to watch the captain see what he's
24:51doing
24:52and it becomes routine for mechanics to watch what the flight crew does
24:58okay thank you for your time there's at least one if not two line checks that are done by
25:05supervisors of the line maintenance and then one of the crew members would do a walk around as they're
25:10obligated to do always so there are several levels where things should have been detected but weren't in
25:19in this flight
25:23so both the line mechanic and the pilot missed it
25:29investigators now know that despite all the safety checks that were meant to be performed
25:34no one spotted the silver tape covering the static ports
25:39so we know what caused the faultier speeds and altitudes
25:42but faultier data alone doesn't cause a plane to crash
25:46so what did
25:55investigators turned to the cockpit voice recorder from aero peru flight 603
26:01there you go thank you to determine how the pilots dealt with faulty airspeed and altitude data
26:07the plane is barely off the ground when the pilots identify the first problem
26:36the altimeters are stuck the captain's altimeter the first officer's altimeter the standby altimeter
26:43all three sources were different and they were all wrong
26:50keep v2 plus 10 v2 plus 10 it's quickly followed by a second issue
26:56the speed the airspeed is also stuck yeah right hold on
27:07they were only at 200 feet above the ground and they already knew that their problems with altitude
27:12and airspeed in three different places in the cockpit they're seeing unreliable airspeed and altitude
27:21according to the fdr they're still climbing let's see how they handle that faulty data
27:29what's going on we're not climbing i'm climbing
27:34investigators hear the captain continue to rely on the faulty data on his altimeter
27:40climb climb climb i am climbing
27:43despite what the first officer tells him the captain is looking at his altimeter and saying what
27:49he sees right in front of him it's very hard to ignore this false data the airspeed and altitude
27:57readings are like a magnet drawing your eye and attention again and again climb climb i am climbing
28:03so in this initial moments of the climb it seems like the first officer was more in touch with what
28:09the airplane was really doing what else do the pilots do to handle the situation keep playing
28:16let's go to basic instruments but within a minute the captain stops focusing on the faulty instruments
28:25he decides to use the pitching power procedure that's good very quickly on the captain says basic
28:32instruments i believe he means the pitch and power procedure
28:39the pitch and power procedure requires reducing the pitch angle of the aircraft to two degrees nose up
28:46and the throttles to 55 percent this should result in level flight by flying with set pitch and power
28:55and ignoring the unreliable airspeed and altitude gives the crew time to sort out what's going on and
29:03think through what might be causing the unreliable indications then they declare the emergency pick it
29:10up after that let's see if they did the procedure properly switching two one 19.7 auto throttle has
29:22is connected auto throttle has disconnected but instead of checking his attitude indicator and engine gauges
29:30let's see read that the captain focuses on the crew alerting screen which is displaying more alerts
29:39rudder ratio and max speed trim the rudder ratio and max speed trim warnings were just the result of
29:46the unreliable airspeed and altitude indications in the cockpit they shouldn't have been the primary focus of the crew
29:54they're getting distracted by false alerts they ignore the pitching power procedure
30:01we're flying without speed soon after speed is zero all airspeed indicators at zero
30:12investigators hear the pilots turning their attention back to the erroneous airspeed and altitude readings
30:20the tape on the static ports meant that the airspeed and altitude were always wrong and they were
30:27always changing as the airplane climbed and descended we will maintain 10 000 feet set it 10 000 feet
30:38but at no point did they disregard the unreliable airspeed and altitude they looked at them
30:44constantly 12 000 feet the crew never switched their mindset to just using pitch and power
30:53they climb for several more minutes
30:56but if they were climbing how did the crew end up hitting the ocean
31:01they can't keep climbing forever
31:04we have problems reading our instruments
31:06investigators continue listening to the cockpit voice recorder of aero peru flight 603 to determine
31:13how the crew carried out the return to lima with faulty instrument data set the approach please
31:19i did i did then let's go
31:24the captain he knew he had to to get down to lima airport i'll try to descend with the power
31:30cut
31:31and the way to do that was to reduce the power
31:36no sooner do the pilots cut the power than they face another problem the speed is increasing
31:44why is the speed so high is it the real speed that's what worries me i don't think so
32:01the pilots don't know whether to believe the faulty airspeed indicator that's showing they're going too
32:07fast after having pulled their thrust levers back to idle that'd be totally confusing for the captain
32:15he'd be saying this can't be happening it's impossible it violates the laws of physics of aircraft
32:21but the captain's thought process is overtaken by what happens next overspeed
32:30the faulty airspeed data is now triggering the overspeed warning
32:35an overspeed warning gets your attention very quickly and you want to react to it but this is
32:44the time when he should have been questioning whether that was correct
32:49the first officer makes a split second decision take the speed brakes out
32:57and now with the power cut and the speed breaks out
33:04slows the plane down to the point of stalling
33:07the erroneous overspeed data leads the pilots to reduce their speed which puts their plane in
33:25into a stall
33:26the crew instinctively lowered the nose and increased their actual airspeed those are the steps that will
33:33keep you from stalling the airplane
33:37responding to the stall warning was the right move
33:41but after that
33:45they head further out to sea instead of towards lima
33:50why would they do that
33:56shortly after the stall warning ends
33:58too low terrain
34:00a new warning tells them they are dangerously close to terrain
34:05the captain doesn't realize how close they are to the water
34:10on the 757 a radio altimeter measures the plane's altitude when below 2500 feet
34:17and sounds the ground proximity warning when the plane drops too close to the terrain
34:22the ground proximity warning system is separate from the pitostatic system it was telling them the truth
34:29too low to rain too low terrain and now we've induced a terrifying alert of i'm about to hit a
34:37mountain
34:39the pilots thought they were near a mountain when they were actually approaching the surface of the ocean
34:44too low to rain
34:48let's go left
34:58radar shows you're turning left you're heading to the west
35:03we're heading 250 we're heading out to sea because we have a low terrain warning
35:09too low terrain
35:12he knew that the water the ocean is to the left and that's going to be my safe environment
35:23no sooner do they deal with the terrain warning
35:25than the pilots are confronted by an alert telling them they are descending too rapidly
35:31think right let's climb let's go up too low terrain
35:39now going up was the right call they were descending at 3 000 feet per minute
35:44they climbed to 4 000 feet and they stay there for
35:49approximately one minute
35:56so what led to the final plunge into the sea
36:00let's go back to lima i'll try to intercept the ils and then set
36:05after 25 harrowing minutes the captain initiates a turn back to lima
36:11lima aero peru 603 we will try to intercept the ils
36:16us can you tell us our altitude is our altitude
36:21roger aero peru 603 you're showing level at 9700
36:28but when the terrain warning activates investigators know the plane was below 2500 feet
36:36they both had the wrong altitude
36:41of the altitude
36:41investigators discover the controller was also providing flight 603 with incorrect altitude
36:47information
36:49assumption was the controllers can tell us our altitude
36:53but the flaw in that is is that that altitude is actually being sent to the controller from the
36:58aircraft itself if the information on board the aircraft is incorrect
37:03then the information that's being sent to the radar is also going to be incorrect
37:17so it looks like you were providing the crew with altitude data
37:20yes they said they didn't have any altimeters so i told them what i was seeing on my radar screen
37:27were you using ssr in mode c yes that's right your radar's altitude is coming from the plane's transponder
37:38when the controller confirmed the altitudes for the pilots i think it gave them a false sense of hope
37:45that at least one of our problems has been solved the altitude problem when in fact that was tragically incorrect
37:57but even with the faulty altitude readings could the pilots still have landed their planes safely
38:11pick it up during their final descent to determine if the pilots had any other options to save their
38:17plane investigators listen to the final moments of aero peru flight 603
38:24it seems to be flying well can you tell us our altitude you're at 9700 feet according to my radar
38:359700 feet but we're getting a terrain warning
38:39the crew can't understand the conflicting information
38:44but there was a way for the pilots to determine their actual altitude and save the plane
38:50if they check the radio altimeter they would have realized how close they are to crushing
38:54too low terrain too low terrain when the ground proximity warning system activated in the cockpit
39:01the crew could have referred to the radio altimeter and that would have given them the truth data
39:07about how high they were above the ground too low terrain too low but they never check their radio
39:26altimeter we're hitting the water when an aircraft has its wing touch the water in a bank attitude
39:36the situation is hopeless the pilots try to get the plane back in the air
39:53but the plane banks left and falls back towards the sea
39:58we're running away
40:11they really had no idea how low they were and all those alarms fall so real just made matters worse
40:29the situation in the cockpit was so confusing
40:35it was hard for either crew member to understand which cautions and warnings were true and important
40:41and there didn't seem to be a good balance between the two crew members in sorting that out
40:48for investigators there's one final unanswered question
40:53were the pilots properly prepared to handle an emergency like this
40:58they examined the quick reference handbook which provides guidance in emergency situations
41:04as well as aero peruse training procedures
41:10well there's nothing here anything in the training procedures
41:14not one single word on how to handle erroneous air data
41:21the lack of training worked against them
41:26a big takeaway from this accident was that flight crews need to be better trained to get to pitch
41:32and power in the event of unreliable airspeed and altitude
41:40investigators needed only two months to solve the mystery of flight 603
41:46they now know that blocked static ports
41:49the ultimate is a stunt
41:51created faulty air data readings
41:55over speed and those faulty readings created so much confusion in the cockpit
42:01but i have the speed brakes out another power is cut that can be right
42:06that the overwhelmed crew was unable to separate the false alarms from the true ones
42:14they really needed to develop a laser focus on just flying the airplane
42:19but they never got there
42:22the captain's failure to react to the ground proximity warnings in time
42:27he's telling you to pull up
42:30we're hitting the water pull up pull up
42:34contributed to the death of 70 people
42:53there's nothing highly technical about tape but boy did it start a chain of events
43:02the investigation's report outlines a number of recommendations but chief among them is for more
43:09training to ensure crews know how to deal with inaccurate air data
43:15and implementing the use of eye-catching static port covers while a plane is being maintained
43:22remember it's the simple things that cause problems and we need to keep that in everybody's mind
43:31attention to detail if you perform that details whatever it is you're not going to get problems
43:43this accident was one of the pillars of safety procedures
43:51our training changed our pre-flight procedures changed our attention to details changed and it still lives to this day
44:30the articles that have been cleaned up we know at the lab to the new season
44:30these are going to be the same thing that's important but then we're going to study the same thing
44:31it's a win-loses team that's not a moment to take a while
44:31the fact that we're going to be the same for the fact that we make to be the same purpose
44:32the fact that we have to do that is to be the same for the same needs of humans
44:32our program we can't tell them to be the same for the same reasons
44:41we're going to make sure that we've been able to try it
Comments