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#video #Air Crash Investigation - Season 26 - Episode 03: Peril over Pakistan (Airblue Flight 202) #drama2026 #movie2026 #hotmovie
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00:02The plane came flying out of the bottom of the cloud at 4,000 feet per minute.
00:06Pull up! Pull up!
00:07Nuremberg Air Service Flight 108 breaks apart while the pilots attempt to land at Dusseldorf Airport in Germany.
00:17All passengers and crew are killed.
00:21Because of the size of the accident site, we use the grid to identify the positions of every part of
00:29the wreckage.
00:31Investigators reconstruct the plane to determine what happened.
00:36There must be a thousand pieces in here.
00:41Over here!
00:42They uncover evidence of a one-in-a-million failure that should not have brought the plane down.
00:47The pilots had no chance to control the aircraft in a proper way.
00:54I think under these circumstances, there was nothing they could have done.
01:00BD, BD!
01:04Pull up!
01:071-0, Pry-Mhazza, you're a person in here, for the flight plan.
01:104-0, Pry-Mhazza, you're a person in here.
01:171-0, Pry-Mhazza, you're a person in here.
01:41of the day in the cockpit is 36 year old captain ralph borstorff how's the weather looking and 28
01:50year old first officer sybil hailman they each have 2500 flying hours should be clear sailing
01:59both of them would be fairly typical what you would see at commuter operations
02:04people starting their careers and getting ready to move up the weather forecast predicts calm skies
02:11with only a slim chance of thunderstorms near their destination might get a bit rough on landing
02:17because of some turbulence and a chance thunderstorm but it's unlikely just 10 sounds good
02:26a 10 chance of thundershowers it's 10 chance you want to know about it but it's not something
02:31you're going to put too much thought into before flight 108 can depart snow and ice that accumulated
02:39overnight are removed
02:44this flight was a full flight had 19 passengers on board all of those being business people
02:50it's a 40-minute flight from hanover to dusseldorf a major business hub on the rhine river
02:58we started the route in 1987 about six months before this flight and we had very weak train
03:05connections between the east and western parts of germany so from the very very beginning we had full
03:12airplanes flight 108 leaves hanover at 7 15 a.m 15 minutes behind schedule flaps
03:29retracted the pilots are flying a fairchild swear engine metroliner three it's a powerful turboprop
03:36plane designed for short commuter flights the metro three airliner is a perfect scaled down airliner it
03:44holds 19 people fast fuel efficiently all the creature comforts of a bigger airline
03:49from the very beginning i was impressed by the airplane it was extremely well designed it was
03:57flexible it was fast they could pressurization so everything a pilot likes the airplane had
04:08it takes 10 minutes for flight 108 to reach its cruising altitude of 14 000 feet
04:16it will stay at that altitude for only 15 minutes
04:23well no rest for the wicked without the descent checklist will you regional flying is generally
04:31an hour and a half or less um leading to increased workload for the time that you are in the
04:36air
04:39check the radar the captain notices some weather on the radar thunderstorm could be rolling in after
04:48all maybe doesn't look particularly bad i'll check the atis
04:56just a little north airport 80s continuously broadcasts updated weather conditions at the
05:01destination airport gusting 24 visibility 10 sky condition broken clouds at 1500 feet
05:11nothing but a thunderstorm we should be fine okay we'll continue with the approach
05:20their expectation was that the weather was getting better and any thunder showers hadn't really materialized
05:26good morning this is your captain speaking we have begun our descent into dusseldorf please ensure your seatbelts
05:33are fastened should be landing in about 15 minutes
05:4430 miles from the airport dusseldorf good morning requesting to send a 3000 nfd 108
05:52first officer hailman contacts the dusseldorf approach controller for landing instructions
05:58nfd 108 good morning to you you are cleared to 3000 feet and currently number three to land
06:06copy to send to 3000 number three to land
06:10when atc gives us a indication of where we are on the order for landing it helps us set up
06:15it helps
06:15us get ready it helps us know when you're going to start putting flaps and gear down
06:19three minutes later
06:24localizer live flight 108 lines up with the runway's center line
06:36establish on the localizer
06:40the first officer checks on the weather
06:45looks like a thunderstorm has moved right in front of us
06:50might be trouble
06:55thunderstorms have to be treated with respect i mean they can produce hail they can produce
06:58down drafts tailwinds overpowering what the airplane is capable of doing
07:04the captain decides to maneuver around the storm
07:14the problem was it's a big thunderstorm in the approach sector of dusseldorf they shouldn't fly
07:21through thunderstorms
07:24in the dusseldorf control center
07:27nfd 108 please switch to tower control frequency one one eight decimal three zero
07:33the approach controller hands over flight 108 to the tower
07:38nfd 108 confirm switch to tower control frequency one one eight decimal three zero bye
07:49moments later flight 108 disappears from radar
08:00seven miles northeast of dusseldorf airport a maintenance worker at a sewage treatment plant
08:06hears the sound of an approaching airplane
08:11flight 108 breaks out of the clouds in a steep dive 500 400 300 pull up
08:23the plane pulls up just in time
08:28the plane came flying out of the bottom of the cloud at 4 000 feet per minute the g-force
08:32it would
08:32have taken to overcome that to pull the airplane nose back up uh it was violent
08:37the sound of the engines recedes into the distance
08:42that flight would have been sheer terror
08:45sheer terror for the people in the back sheer terror up front you know you went from having
08:48a visual reference to thinking you're good to all of a sudden you're back in the cloud again
08:53a minute later the plane returns this time flight 108 spirals out of control
09:02and breaks up no no no it's a horrifying sight i can't imagine what the person watching that would be
09:10thinking two minutes before dawn flight 108 slams into an open field on the banks of the ruhr river
09:26the wreckage is scattered over a wide area
09:31first responders make their way to the crash site
09:35all 19 passengers and both pilots are dead the metro liner itself is broken into thousands of pieces
09:46you're seeing that parts are distributed throughout the area you'll start collecting all the parts
09:53mapping where they are and trying to put this puzzle back together again
10:04the
10:05investigators from germany's air accident investigation unit or f us
10:10begin mapping the wreckage of flight 108 to determine what caused the accident
10:16the first step was to identify the positions of every part of the wreckage and because of the size
10:25of the accident site we use the grid and we were able to get the information where every piece was
10:35at the accident site much of the plane along with its black boxes are badly damaged
10:43the recorders in this aircraft aren't the new digital type recorders which record 300 400 parameters
10:51this was the old foil style recorders you had altitude airspeed you had heading some information at g
10:59loads you didn't have the data we have today by a long shot
11:03the black boxes and the debris are sent to a warehouse where investigators begin their analysis
11:12once the parts are recovered taken to a facility you can then clean where the fractures where the separations
11:19are you can look at where a part broke apart
11:26the wings the engines the tail sections separated from the aircraft
11:33investigators try to confirm witness statements that the plane broke up before it crashed
11:41this piece looks compressed like it came from a high energy impact
11:48but this piece is intact
11:52what that indicates is this intact piece of wreckage did not go to the accident site with the rest of
11:59the
11:59airplane for sure an inflate breakup the team is now convinced that flight 108 broke up before hitting
12:09the ground the ground the question is what led to that is there any evidence of a pre-existing failure
12:15that would have led to the accident
12:19hey can you uh bring that piece over to the table
12:23did a design flaw or some kind of failure create a fatigue crack causing the wings to break off before
12:31impact
12:33even though the airplane is fairly new you don't rule out anything was there a flaw in manufacturing was
12:40there a full drilled where it shouldn't have been drilled was there some other issue that would cause a crack
12:45to start growing very early in aircraft's life well this doesn't look like a fatigue crack at all
12:54it can only mean one thing overload fracture
13:04overload fractures can occur because the airplanes exceeded speed limits uh flight control inputs are
13:11severe uh severe turbulence can cause overload and sometimes you have a combination of all three coming
13:18together hey can you get the lights what pushed this plane past its structural limits investigators examined
13:27the plane's flight path for clues
13:34nothing unusual here
13:38the flight path from departure in route to arrival for landing seemed normal
13:46what happened to this part the end of the flight
13:53oh look at that they discovered that the pilots flew an erratic flight path before the plane crashed
14:02that would certainly cause a structural overload agreed the crew was on approach and now suddenly goes
14:13through some very tight maneuvers and you piece that together put the wreckage you found and where it was found
14:21and that gives you a much better idea of what led to the accident
14:27investigators speak to the controller who oversaw the approach of flight 108 to determine what
14:33what might have caused the unusual flight path tell me about the night of the crash
14:39uh there was thunderstorm activity from about 7 40 until just after 8 a.m
14:49did your other flights run into any trouble they reported moderate icing and turbulence but
14:56everyone else landed without incident okay no go-arounds no missed approaches no okay no
15:06uh but about six miles out a 737 got hit by lightning
15:16so we just experienced a lightning strike at 3 000 feet six miles final no immediate issues
15:24lufthansa 1354 dusseldorf approach roger let me know if you require further assistance
15:30typically when we're concerned about thunderstorms in the airport vicinity
15:34it's not much about the lightning it's more about the winds and the wind shears that can be powerful
15:38enough to push the airplane into the ground since airplanes are made of aluminium which conducts
15:44electricity most lightning strikes flow over the skin of the fuselage and safely exit through the tail
15:51i remember one occurrence of flying the aircraft got hit by lightning there was a sudden flash outside
15:57the fuselage you could hear it and the airplane kept on going and there was no associated damage to
16:06the aircraft and we continued on did you report the lightning strike to flight 108 yes nfd 108 the
16:14preceding landing experienced a lightning strike about six miles final dieseldorf approach we copy and are
16:22looking outside nfd 108
16:26for flight crews it is not abnormal to deal with thunderstorms and to deal with the probability
16:32of some lightning this flight was very very usual okay thank you for your time if it wasn't the weather
16:42that caused the pilots to push the plane past its structural limit what did
16:51will flight 108's black boxes provide clues as to why the plane broke up mid-flight
17:00it's not looking good how so
17:07flight data recording and the cockpit voice recording both stopped two minutes before the plane crashed
17:13at the exact same time that the plane started flying erratically a total power failure
17:22the cdr and fdr get their power from two separate sources so the fact that both these recorders
17:29stopped at the same time indicates whatever happened affected both electrical systems not just the one
17:36the metro liner's electrical system is powered by two generators in the event of a power failure
17:43two batteries act as a backup system
17:48but if it was a total power failure that means the backup system filled as well
17:55how's that even possible
17:58from the perspective and the explanations coming from the manufacturer the possibility of a total
18:04electrical loss was very low but during the course of the investigation we understood
18:10more and more that it could be that the flight crews had a total electrical loss
18:17investigators consider the effects of a total power failure
18:21they would have lost most of their instruments well except their vertical speed indicator the altitude
18:28and the third attitude indicator
18:32our metro liners have been installed with a third independent uh artificial horizon it used bleed air
18:42coming from the engine and as long as the engine was running the artificial horizon was working as well
18:48totally independent from electricity the standby non-electrical artificial horizon could have been used by the crew
18:56to help keep the aircraft level and straight
19:03and then the complexity of this accident gets into why didn't the crew effectively use that standby
19:10but even with limited instruments who's to say they could have even seen them
19:14oh good point the lights that illuminated the instruments may not have been working
19:19huh
19:22you need those instruments and if you can't see them then you don't know if you're up or down
19:25you're flying blind at this point
19:39to confirm the unlikely finding of a total electrical failure the team examines light bulbs from flight 108's instrument panel
19:50if the light bulb was on when the plane hit the ground the hot and pliable filament inside would be
19:56stretched
19:58but if the light was off the cold brittle filament
20:03would break upon impact
20:07all these filaments are broken
20:11the outcome was that we found no bulb which was under electrical power during the impact of the aircraft
20:23investigators now have conclusive evidence of a sudden total power failure
20:31but what could have caused it
20:34the controller did tell us that another plane got struck by lightning
20:40maybe this one did too
20:43a lightning strike outside of the aircraft could lead to a problem with the electrical system
20:49inside of the aircraft if the electrical field of a lightning strike is very very high
20:56could be induced into the aircraft
21:01investigators search for evidence of lightning striking the fuselage of flight 108
21:10there must be a thousand pieces in here
21:14it's a painstaking process lightning could have struck anywhere
21:19lightning marks on the skin would look like a circle you'll see the paint burned you may see some
21:26localized melting of the metal in that particular area
21:35over here
21:40what do you got
21:42i found it
21:45huh once you've found a piece of metal the lightning strike
21:48it's like okay where does it go on the airplane what's in the proximity of this is it
21:54next to the electronics is it next to hydraulics where is this lightning strike occurring
22:01the only way to determine where the mystery piece comes from is to reconstruct sections of the airplane
22:10at the time of this accident uh reconstructions were fairly typical mainly didn't have as much data as we
22:18now so reconstructing it made sense
22:30i think i've got it investigators match the piece of the plane to the left side of the fuselage
22:36forward of the wing this is where the lightning struck
22:41but could a lightning strike in front of the left wing actually cause a total electrical failure
22:49there are power system lines running right behind where the lightning struck
22:54can't be a coincidence
22:57is it possible that that lightning strike entered the electrical wires on the other side
23:03and therefore led to the loss of electrical power so that would have been the real focus
23:08the investigation at this point
23:16investigators examine what remains of flight 108's electrical wiring in search of evidence that
23:23the lightning strike jumped from the fuselage to the electrical system
23:29you would look for the insulation material the outsides and burned away
23:35is there melting inside the wires evans that somehow electrical energy got through the installation barrier
23:42into the wiring uh and then was starting actually melting the wires locally
23:49how odd those signs of arcing
23:57we checked the wiring we checked the electronic components available from the wreckage for some
24:03indication for electrical overload
24:13finding a lightning damage to the wiring not yet it's very possible once the lightning gets into the fuselage
24:21you may not see any direct impact in that area it flows into the aircraft and so even wiring as
24:30close by may appear to be unaffected but now this high energy has gotten into the airplane
24:36and the question is where does it go maybe i can find something in here
24:42after we found no evidence for damage in the wiring based on the lightning strike we had to do a
24:51deeper
24:52investigation within the investigation within the systems and that means we had to look for damages in the avionic components
25:02the team now focuses on even smaller components of the electrical system
25:08the diodes
25:10let's check this out
25:15a diode is an electrical component that allows current to flow in one direction only preventing reverse
25:23current flow that could damage circuits or create malfunctions
25:30if the diode is working properly there should be resistance to high current flow
25:35current flow in one direction and not the other
25:42only 50 ohms almost nothing now the reverse
25:55also 50 ohms
25:58but investigators discover low resistance to current flow in both directions it's shorted
26:11the outcome of our investigation of the diets was that all diodes um were open in both directions
26:18that means the diets were shorted the question now was why
26:25we decided to take these to a manufacturer and to ask them to do a deeper investigation
26:35results are in to better understand why the diodes shorted they examine test results provided by the manufacturer
26:43oh that's interesting looks like cracks in the center of the diode
26:55once you've seen that a diode has failed then you can do tests and research on a good diode to
27:01see
27:01how much energy you would take basically to fry that diode
27:06voltage tests are done to determine if the cracks in the diodes were the result of a lightning strike
27:12or something else
27:15a thousand volts
27:23a lightning bolt can carry hundreds of millions of volts more than enough energy to crack the diode
27:30it must have been lightning
27:33the damage of the diodes uh only can be produced by high voltage
27:41could it be possible that high voltage would be produced within the aircraft and the answer was
27:49you know it could be only produced by the lightning strike
27:56basically the lightning hit the aircraft flowed through the system it impacted the diodes which fried
28:04them cracked them took them offline and that shut down the electrical systems on the aircraft
28:12the odds of lightning taking out an entire electrical system are next to impossible and yet that's what happened
28:23but this doesn't explain why the crew flew into the thunderstorm in the first place
28:28okay
28:31the primary rule is if you see a thunderstorm no matter what its size you avoid it
28:39you go around you divert you hold you do whatever you can you do not want to fly through a
28:45thunderstorm
28:46the
28:53investigators examine nuremberg air services flight operations manual to understand why the pilots of
29:00flight 108 ended up in a thunderstorm i don't get it it clearly states flights in or near thunderstorm
29:07should be absolutely avoided so why didn't they do the sensible thing and go around the storm
29:14at that time they had several possibilities one possibility was just to prepare if they would fly
29:22through the thunderstorm what could happen what they have to do what they have to prepare another
29:27possibility could have been just to divert to another airport let's have a listen to what the pilots were saying
29:35about the storm
29:41check the radar
29:43the thunderstorm could be rolling in after all halfway through the flight the crew learns there's adverse weather ahead
29:51maybe
29:54doesn't look particularly bad
29:58i'll check the adis the crew checks dusseldorf airport's weather service information bravo at 070
30:06but there's no indication of a thunderstorm once they got the adis their expectation bias
30:12was that the weather was getting better broken clouds at 1500 feet nothing but a thunderstorm we should be fine
30:21the captain considers the information and makes his decision okay we'll continue with the approach
30:32they just assume best case scenario and don't do a proper briefing as professional pilots we always
30:38brief each other based off the worst conditions you never know if that 10 probability of thunderstorms
30:42actually happens and if it does happen and it's too late you don't have time to brief it
30:51and if the one zero eight eleven minutes later the situation becomes more critical
30:57proceeding landing experience a lightning strike about six miles final
31:02if i were the crew and i were on approach and uh
31:05producing traffic in front of me were to get struck by lightning at that point i would initiate a missed
31:08approach go around and hold somewhere and figure out what we're going to do because the weather at
31:12that point is moving on to the approach path you need to take that pretty seriously but that's not what
31:17the pilots do dusseldorf approach we copy and are looking outside nfd 108
31:28hey did you hear what happened to walter last weekend yeah not surprised hold on they should be
31:36talking about deviating or go around here not someone's weekend they should have been deciding
31:41where they were going to go and what they were going to do instead of going down this rabbit hole
31:44they
31:44just thought the other person's comfortable with it and will continue going if they're comfortable
31:47i'm comfortable investigators continue listening to the cvr as the pilots prepare for landing
32:10you're left of the center line what you're left of the center line you need to turn right
32:16the captain started deviating to the left apparently without telling the first officer of his plan i don't
32:22want to go in there i'm trying to get around it we're too close to the runway you can't change
32:25course now sounds like the captain is trying to deviate around the storm and the first officer
32:32isn't on the same page it's a bad idea to try and re-intercept the approach when you're already
32:37stabilized it's just a bad idea you just do it go around okay i hear you
32:53again no discussion of their options there's some tension in the cockpit there's some issue between
33:01the captain and the first officer we don't know exactly what it was but clearly this was not
33:09conducive to the crew working together to determine what was the best course of action so now
33:17the captain turns the plane directly into the thunderstorm
33:24hold on tight here it comes
33:31so
33:33neither crew knew what the other one was doing they hadn't briefed for the weather they didn't
33:37have the plane set up for flying around in the vicinity of thunderstorms and they just kept going
33:49why wasn't this crew on the same page
33:56the understanding of the investigation team at that time was the communication between both pilots was
34:03not in a way as it should be
34:07what'd you find well investigators examine personnel records for insight into the pilots working relationship
34:19the captain had a total of two thousand four hundred and seventy three flight hours
34:25but only two hundred and seventy seven hours in the metro three that's not a lot of experience on type
34:33no it's not the foe had basically the same number of flight hours but over thirteen hundred hours in the
34:47metro
34:50investigators discover that the first officer had much more experience on the metro liner than the captain
34:59what the crew having such an imbalance in the time the first officer is going to feel like
35:03they could be the captain that they got passed over for the upgrade they have more experience on the
35:06routes they have more experience on the plane more experience with the airline even in this case
35:12she probably didn't trust his handling of the aircraft that's never good in a cockpit
35:20did the pilots imbalance in experience make it difficult for them to cope with a lightning strike
35:31so they start making their descent here
35:35investigators examine how the pilots of flight 108 flew the plane as they entered the thunderstorm
35:41and then a minute before they lose power they start ascending again why would that happen
35:49let's hear what happens here
36:00okay glide alive quarter flaps
36:10selected three minutes from the airport the captain begins configuring the aircraft for landing
36:16and half flaps
36:22half flaps please
36:24as they descend towards the runway the captain rushes his flap settings
36:30the plane is now climbing instead of descending
36:34the captain requested the next flap setting half flaps
36:38the airplane then ballooned up climbed an altitude 400 feet i'm not sure that was so good
36:46the captain trims the plane's nose down to counteract the increase in altitude in response to the 400
36:54foot climb the captain trims the airplane rather than just putting a few uh bits of electric trim in he
36:59holds the electric trim pitching the nose down quite substantially he then adds even more nose down trim
37:24the plane is in a nose-heavy position when the lightning strikes
37:30the plane is in a nose-heavy position when the lightning strikes
37:41so now the captain loses the ability to recover
37:45when the lightning strike happens he loses electrical power so he may have a lot more
37:51heavier flight controls than he was prepared for
37:55and when the lightning strikes the instrument lighting fails making the instruments impossible to read
38:03there's no emergency future in the metroliner manual uh that tells you what to do if all your batteries fall
38:08offline uh you're a test pilot and at that point you use your pod experience
38:12one of the things to do is for the non-flying pilot to get a flashlight to illuminate the standby
38:18instrument to help the flying pilot out the flashlights weren't found we don't know if they're
38:25on the aircraft or not the power failure cuts off their ability to see and to communicate with each other
38:31they couldn't hear each other we've lost electrical power
38:39you've got a crew that can't communicate because you've lost the intercom system
38:43you've got a headset on and the metro is a very noisy cockpit so you can't hear the other person
38:47and
38:47what they're saying to you if they couldn't see their instruments or hear one another could the pilots
38:53still fly their plane they have aileron and rudder controls which aren't electrical their engines are
39:01still running the runaway is about seven miles away they should have been able to use the controls
39:09they did have to land the plane they still had control over the ailerons over the rudder it was
39:16difficult but technically still flyable but without the ability to see their instruments they'd have no
39:21way of knowing where they were
39:27second later flight 108 is diving towards the ground
39:34the pilots had no chance to control the aircraft in a proper way because the light for the third
39:41artificial horizon was not there and they had no visual ground contact and i think under these
39:48circumstances it's nearly impossible to control the aircraft investigators finally understand how a
39:59lightning strike caused a fatal crash
40:09you're left at the center line what it starts with a poorly functioning crew
40:14you're left of the center line you need to turn right i don't want to go in there i'm trying
40:18to
40:18get around it we're too close to the runway you can't change course now okay i hear you instead
40:25of giving him the advice or the two crew mentality that we're not where we should be we shouldn't be
40:30here the first officer chose to go the other route which was shut down and only make the minimum
40:35calls which were deviation calls half flaps please
40:43the pilots decide to fly their nose heavy aircraft into a thunderstorm
40:52a powerful lightning strike we've lost electrical power causes a total power failure we have nothing
41:02and the disoriented crew where are we i can't tell loses control of the plane
41:12500 400 300 pull up pull up pull up
41:21after you've been struck by lightning you've got winds that are gusting all over the place starts to
41:25become a pretty violent situation pretty quick the combination of turbulence and the pilot's blind
41:32actions lasting more than a minute sends the plane into extreme turns and banks
41:40are we banking can't tell what's the airspeed don't worry about the speed just pull you think you can
41:45trust your senses but you can't you don't know if you're banking to the left you don't if you're
41:48banking to the right you can't tell if you've got a nose low or a nose high uh you can
41:53think you do
41:53you can think you trust it at the end of the day your gut instinct will be wrong the plane
41:58is so
42:00overloaded with the g-forces in these turns it broke up yeah
42:20you're looking at a g-load that literally ripped the engine pylon off the wing that literally broke
42:25the wings bar the strongest part of the airplane broke it like a toothpick that way exceeded what
42:30the aircraft manufacturer ever designed that airplane to go the main conclusion of the report
42:51by germany's air accident investigation unit is clear the crew flew into a thunderstorm even though
42:58they could have flown around it you have two fairly experienced pilots that they never ever should
43:05have been in that situation there were red flags throughout if anything can be learned from this one
43:10you got to speak up on a two-crew airplane you can't let the other person take you to the
43:14scene of the
43:14crash in their recommendations the fus reiterates the need for training and manuals that clearly describe
43:23how to operate in and near thunderstorms this is a very different crew than we see today who are well
43:32trained on copied resource management who work together as a crew and the systems change for the
43:38better and the airplanes are much better as for nuremberg air service the company soon replaced the
43:46remaining metrolinas in its fleet i made myself one of the last flight with the metroliner i had some tears
43:53in my eyes because i think it wasn't the aircraft's fault
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