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60 Minutes - Season 58 - Episode 26: Inside the Tower; Unmanned; Wonder of the World
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00:05last year's collision of a passenger jet and army helicopter in Washington DC killed 67 people for
00:13the first time you will hear from an air traffic controller who worked inside the tower was there
00:19pressure to get more planes in and out and what we discovered about continuing problems at that
00:25airport why do we always have to wait until people die to take action forget everything you think you
00:37know about warfare the traditional front line in Ukraine has expanded to a 10 mile wide swath
00:44where anyone spotted by a drone can be hunted down tonight lessons from Ukraine's kill zone
00:54necessity is the mother of invention excellent Scott that's really good nothing could prepare
01:03us for the majesty of the largest cave passage on earth skyscrapers would fit in here a 747 could
01:13fly through maybe most remarkable all of this was discovered only recently and there aren't a lot of
01:21places on earth that you can discover for the very first time no you have to look pretty hard for
01:26them I'm Leslie Stahl I'm Bill Whitaker I'm Anderson Cooper I'm Sharon Alfonsi I'm John Wertheim I'm
01:35Cecilia Vega I'm Scott Pelley those stories and in our last minute a final four legend has a game plan
01:44for America coach Mike Krzyzewski tonight on 60 Minutes
01:56it was a week of chaos at airports across the country gridlock in Washington left TSA workers
02:04without pay triggering four-hour security lines in some of the nation's busiest airports last Sunday a commercial
02:11jet crashed into a fire truck while landing on a runway at New York's LaGuardia Airport dozens were
02:18injured and two pilots were killed authorities are investigating but the air traffic controller on duty
02:24said they were dealing with an earlier emergency and soon after the accident said I messed up it is a
02:32chilling reminder of just how thin our aviation system is stretched last year American Airlines flight
02:395342 and an army helicopter collided over the Potomac River near DC the deadliest aviation disaster in
02:48almost a quarter century tonight you will hear from an air traffic controller who was inside the tower the
02:55day of that collision she tells us why controllers at Washington's busiest airport have been warning of
03:02danger for years it is a story of a system pushed to the breaking point and the shattered families left
03:09to
03:09pick up the pieces in southern Maryland seven widows whose husbands were on flight 5342 agreed to share
03:17their story together for the first time the men all work buddies met up with friends in Kansas for a
03:24week
03:24of duck hunting the women shared these photos with us and the excitement their husbands felt leading up to
03:30the trip Alex got home from work he was like before you say anything it's already paid for I was
03:36like when
03:37do you leave there was no asking any more questions he was so excited to go like it literally looked
03:42like
03:42Christmas morning in his face so Kayla Huffman's husband Alex posed with the crew and their trophies
03:49Bridget Johnson was married to Steve for 19 years Kylie Pitcher's husband Jesse owned a plumbing company
03:56Ashley Stovall's husband Mikey was a steam fitter so was Charlie Heather McDaniel's husband I met Charlie
04:03on the softball field and he basically from that day always said you know I knew I was going to
04:08marry
04:08that girl because you were that good of a softball player well that yes I gave him a run for
04:13his money
04:13when the hunting and fun was over the men headed to the airport Sarah Boyd's husband John checked in
04:20from the plane John had texted me when he first boarded and said boarded bourbon in hand and then
04:27right before they landed he said about to land this bird Jill Claggett was tucked into bed with her young
04:33daughters waiting for her husband Tommy when the phone rang and then I kind of slid out of the bed
04:39not
04:40to wake them up and I turned on the TV and I remember just seeing the explosion fire command
04:49the accident happened in the river families raced to the airport as divers searched the icy Potomac
04:56by morning they were told the rescue mission was over I literally screamed what am I going to do
05:02it got to the point where like his friends were calling me like five in the morning and
05:07they were like is he okay is he okay said no he's dead he's gone and it's no longer a
05:13rescue
05:13it's a recovery which means there's no survivors none as the wreckage was pulled from the river
05:20federal investigators began a year-long forensic autopsy of the collision video shows the American
05:27Airlines jet seen here on the right of your screen pulled up just before it and the army helicopter
05:33collided there were obvious cracks in the system there were obvious holes Emily Hanoka says she
05:39saw those holes during her time as an air traffic controller at Ronald Reagan Washington National
05:45Airport commonly known by its airport code DCA her shift in the control tower ended a few hours before
05:52the fatal crash she is speaking for the first time about the stress conditions that she believes set
05:59the stage for tragedy so you had frontline controllers ringing that bell for years and years saying
06:06this is not safe this cannot continue please change this and that didn't happen for more than a decade
06:13air traffic controllers warned the federal aviation administration that the tempo of passenger jets
06:19and beehive of army police and hospital helicopters near DCA was a recipe for disaster
06:26the ntsb confirms between 2021 and 2024 85 near mid-air collisions between helicopters and commercial
06:35aircraft at DCA were reported to the faa and 60 minutes has obtained documents that revealed just
06:42one day before last year's fatal crash two separate passenger jets had to take sudden action
06:49to avoid colliding with army helicopters the warning signs are all there controllers forms
06:55local safety councils and every time that a controller made these safety reports another
07:02controller was compiling data to back up the recommendation and many recommendations were
07:07made and they never went too far DCA is unique it's owned by the federal government and the number of
07:15daily flights is ultimately determined by congress since 2000 lawmakers added at least 50 flights to the
07:23already congested airport and approved another 10 in 2024 some hours are overloaded to the point where
07:31it's over the capacity that the airport can handle was there pressure to get more planes in and out
07:37yeah there was definitely a pressure if you do not move planes you will gridlock the airport
07:43DCA moves 25 million passengers a year 10 million more than its intended capacity
07:50its location near the heart of DC makes it popular but also problematic restricted airspace near the
07:58airport shields the white house the u.s capitol and other government buildings for years funneling
08:04planes and helicopters into the same narrow corridor over the potomac and hanoka showed us on her map of
08:11the airspace why the tarmac is just as tricky there are only three short runways at DCA and none are
08:18parallel
08:19and so if a plane's coming in because these runways intersect everything is connected everything is
08:28connected there is no independent operation not DCA DCA's main runway runway one is the busiest in the
08:36country with over 800 flights a day roughly one every minute to make it work hanoka says air traffic
08:44controllers often relied on what they called a squeeze play a squeeze play is when everything
08:50is dependent on an aircraft rolling an aircraft slowing and you know it's going to be a very close
08:55operation so they're really just ones going up and ones going in at the same time and that is a
09:01really
09:02common operation two airplanes on one runway within seconds of each other is that normal at other
09:09airports no so you'll get um new controllers come in so they've transferred from other facilities and
09:15they'll look at the operation and say absolutely not and they'll withdraw from training and that
09:20when i was there it was about 50 percent 50 percent about half of the people that walked in the
09:25building to train would say absolutely not a year after the crash nearly one-third of the controller
09:31positions in the DCA tower are unfilled it was surprising walking into that work environment
09:38how close aircraft were it's just kind of accepted there yeah this is what has to happen in order to
09:46make this airspace work and it did work it worked until it didn't in january the ntsb determined the
09:53mid-air collision of flight 5342 and the blackhawk helicopter was preventable in its 388
10:01page report investigators didn't identify a single cause of the accident rather they called out
10:08systemic failures including ignored warning signs about risks and a helicopter route that was designed
10:14so poorly that in some parts of the sky it allowed for just 75 feet of vertical separation between
10:21helicopters and passenger jets i flew these routes hundreds of times during his 20 years in the army
10:29tim lily flew blackhawk helicopters often down the potomac river near dca the night of the crash
10:36investigators say the blackhawk crew was relying on what's called visual separation literally just
10:43looking out the window to avoid nearby passenger jets to apply visual separation the pilot has to
10:51positively identify the other aircraft and say that's the plane you're talking that's the plane and he has to
10:56maintain constant surveillance on that aircraft which is impossible under these conditions impossible
11:02he says because the crew was likely wearing night vision goggles which lily says limit what a pilot can
11:09see help people out with this at home because i think we've all watched enough movies where you see
11:13somebody put on night vision goggles and they can see everything but that's not the case especially
11:18under these conditions that's not the case so when you have a lot of bright lights like you do in
11:24you know
11:24the washington dc area everything gets washed out through the goggles aircare one washington star
11:29initial automator 2-9-0 the ntsb built this simulation to show what those blackhawk pilots saw or rather
11:37what they couldn't see that green circle indicates the pilot's view wearing night vision goggles
11:44that purple circle is the american airlines jet they were supposed to be looking out for
11:49you can see how it's hard to distinguish between an airliner and ground lights night vision goggles
11:55also limit peripheral vision so the crew on a training mission didn't see flight 5342 until it
12:03was too late the proper way to fly that is constantly scanning always moving your head side to side
12:10because your field of view is limited with goggles but why is that kind of training happening in this
12:15airspace where it's so busy the military would say this is where our mission is this is where we need
12:21to train and to some degree i agree with that but those training environments they should be nowhere near
12:28commercial airliners tim lily is now advocating for changes to make the sky safer his son sam shared his
12:36love of aviation and in the cruelest twist of fate was the first officer on american airlines flight
12:4253 42 one of the 67 killed in the crash and i never thought to warn him about the helicopters
12:51because i just didn't realize um how far the safety margins had slipped since i had flown those routes
12:59this was a system that failed the people on the aircraft on the helicopter in the air traffic control
13:08tower jennifer homendy is the chairwoman of the ntsb after a year-long investigation the agency
13:16suggested 50 safety recommendations to prevent similar accidents if everybody knows those close
13:22calls are dangerous then why didn't anybody step in and say we have to lighten the load here the air
13:28traffic control tower the entire time was saying we have a real safety problem here and nobody was
13:35listening it was like somebody was asleep at the switch or didn't want to act it is a bureaucratic
13:42nightmare immediately after the accident the faa moved some helicopter routes away from dca
13:49and ended the use of visual separation earlier this month it expanded that ban to busy airports
13:56across the country in a statement to 60 minutes transportation secretary sean duffy said
14:02he's helped secure more than 12 billion dollars to quote aggressively overhaul our air traffic control
14:09system but the problems at dca continue since the crash 60 minutes has learned at least four times
14:17aircraft and helicopters have gotten too close triggering safety reports it is unconscionable
14:24that we are having to be here right now some of the families of flight 5342 are now fixtures on
14:30capitol hill advocating for aircraft surveillance technology that might have saved their loved ones
14:36jennifer homendy says if the faa and lawmakers don't move quickly on safety legislation they are
14:43clearing the path for another disaster i imagine most of them fly in and out of dca they do so
14:50what
14:50would you say if they were listening i'd say why do we always have to wait until people die to
14:58take action
15:06now holly williams on assignment for 60 minutes when america went to war with iran last month the u.s
15:15military faced an enemy using mass-produced drones to deadly effect the same weapons have been used for
15:23years in ukraine some of them supplied by iran to russia unmanned and remotely controlled drones have
15:30transformed the ukrainian battlefield they're estimated to inflict around 80 percent of combat casualties
15:38on both sides the technology is nothing short of revolutionary and it's evolving rapidly as we
15:46discovered to adapt to the new era the u.s military is learning lessons from ukraine
16:01forget everything you think you know about warfare
16:09the traditional front line in ukraine has expanded to a roughly 10 mile wide strip
16:14called the kill zone
16:19anyone who sets foot there can be spotted by a drone operator and hunted down
16:29this was a narrow escape for some ukrainian soldiers
16:35they call these frankenstein tanks retrofitted with cages and mesh to deflect drone strikes
16:44netting covers roads close to the front designed to catch them before they hit their target
16:52to evade interference from electronic jammers both militaries launch drones attached to miles
16:59long spools of fiber optic wire leaving behind a digital spider's web
17:06but the drones are not just in the air continuously innovating yes beside a frozen lake ukraine's security
17:15service took us to see one of their most treasured weapons i mean it looks a bit like a fishing
17:21boat scout
17:21that's an outboard motor yeah yeah it's a sea drone developed in ukraine called sea baby
17:30we're protecting this operator's identity because he's a target for russian assassination what's the
17:36payload on this it can really take 2 000 kilograms 2 000 kilos of explosives is that enough to take
17:44out a russian warship yes produced for around 300 000 ukrainian sea drones have destroyed warships that cost
17:53tens of millions ukraine says it's used them to sink or disable 11 russian vessels which one is more
18:01useful a warship or a sea drone like the sea baby i think it's really hard to destroy these drones
18:09because they are smaller that's why to have like 10 ships like this is much better than one big one
18:16wow to be clear you're saying you'd rather have 10 sea drones than a warship yeah necessity is the
18:24mother of invention olexander commission started out the war as the ceo of ukraine's railways
18:32he was so good at his job helping millions of ukrainians to evacuate that president vladimir zelensky
18:38recruited him to become the architect of ukraine's drone program cheap fast efficient
18:46commission told us he helped boost ukraine's production from 2 000 drones a year to 4 million
18:54for the outnumbered ukrainians the inexpensive new technology has allowed them to level the battlefield
19:01it's a data driven war we speak numbers it's a numbers game what do you mean by a numbers game
19:09we have to count everything we have to count number of drones we use efficiency of each of them cost
19:18to
19:18kill for every russian and what is the cost of killing every russian you would be surprised but the
19:24cost of killing every russian is less than one thousand dollars now that's why they send so many people to
19:31die on
19:32the front line they don't count them they don't value them would you want to be in vladimir putin's
19:38shoes right now no
19:42strategically he lost he wanted us to become weaker became much stronger
19:4910 retired u.s generals told us they agree that russia isn't winning the war despite its
19:56territorial gains some caution that ukraine isn't winning either
20:05but with the help of drones has managed to draw russia into a stalemate
20:11this is like a kind of obstacle course for drones ukraine's military has set up drone training
20:17academies to teach the new technology patience and practice yes i mean practice makes perfect am i
20:23right and the rapid shifts in tactics that come with it this ground drone mounted with a 50 caliber
20:31machine gun recently held off a russian attack single-handedly for 45 days straight
20:38in january three russian soldiers surrendered to a similar robotic drone our main idea we can send
20:46the robot and to not risk with a human life so the fast it's a human life is the most
20:52important
20:53ukraine says it makes more than 95 percent of its own military drones harnessing talent from some unusual
21:01places roman tukachenko is a former brewery engineer who founded a company
21:07called 10 corps and developed these remote controlled armored evacuation drones to transport wounded
21:14soldiers they gave us a demonstration at a military training ground and claimed the drones have saved
21:21hundreds of lives how do you figure out what your next design needs to be we are working with the
21:28end users end users that means the soldiers who are on the front line yeah the soldiers said we need
21:34a drone to do evacuations and you built it yep that's that's how it works in ukraine and we are
21:40designing
21:41for soldiers the same drone base can be adapted to mount a 40 millimeter grenade launcher controlled
21:49from a bunker which could be hundreds of miles away when it comes to drones how quickly is the technology
21:56technology changing innovation cycle is roughly one week it means from the point you send a drone to
22:04the front line get the feedback change something and get the new version it could be as short as one
22:12a week are the russians also innovating yes definitely we have to admit it who has the edge
22:20at this point i would say that's equilibrium equilibrium in a drone arms race and both sides will take any
22:29help they can get air logics makes aerial surveillance drones for the ukrainian military
22:36their production spread across more than 20 sites to minimize risk because they've already been bombed twice
22:43by russia it's a dangerous business but the company recently secured over a million dollars from an
22:50american investment fund that specializes in ukrainian drone technology it's run by two former u.s marines
23:00william mcnulty who has a background in humanitarian work and lenore karafa who built a career in finance
23:07after leaving the military they told us their investors are wealthy individuals who support ukraine
23:14i worked at one or two jobs after the military that were more about the money than anything else
23:19that is not my main motivation you didn't join the marines for the money
23:25what's your main motivation service patriotism democracy mission and ukraine takes all of those
23:33it takes all those boxes i fell in love with the ukrainians when i when they arrived how can you
23:39not
23:40and how can you not just come to help the people that are literally fighting for what
23:50nato was created for to stop russian aggression at a nato training exercise in estonia last year
23:59the alliance tested its vulnerability against drones around a thousand nato personnel were defeated in
24:08the drill by a group of drone operators some of them ukrainian is this a revolution in warfare it is
24:17no question in your life no question you know in every war like there is innovation from going from
24:23horses to tanks to machine guns and then tactics evolve in response to that and that is why it's just
24:29incredibly important for the u.s for our european allies to learn these lessons from ukraine there's
24:36a real risk that the u.s would lose its military supremacy if it doesn't adapt to modern conditions
24:42on the battlefield we're going to be going up against these same unmanned systems that russia
24:47is using against ukraine the u.s military told us it intends to hang on to its supremacy
24:55not by buying stockpiling or replicating ukraine's drones but by tapping into the same passion for
25:03innovation the ukrainians have at the wiesbaden garrison in germany cable channels you run through
25:11keep everything nice and flush the forge is one of dozens of drone innovation labs set up by the u
25:17.s
25:18military around the world props are good any service member with an idea or just an interest
25:25can request to spend time in one of the labs the legs slide out and you just add a space
25:31area it's
25:31adding a culture of innovation and that's new that's not something that we've really seen in
25:36the last 20 years is it possible that a soldier will walk into one of those innovation labs with an
25:41idea that could be a breakthrough in drone technology it's entirely possible the thing
25:47with drones and innovation is what i would describe as unlimited innovation potential if you can think
25:53of it you can make a drone do it expedited basic training captain ronan sefton was first deployed to
26:00germany with the army's second cavalry regiment not long after russia launched its invasion in 2022
26:07his job was to give basic training to over 8 000 ukrainian soldiers but he told us almost
26:16immediately the americans began learning from the ukrainians the first really poignant lesson for us
26:23was there needs to be more drones they need to be everywhere involved in the training to add to the
26:28realism so the ukrainian soldiers were giving that to you as feedback absolutely did you then talk to
26:33your commanding officers about it we went to every senior commander we could the thing that we wanted
26:38to communicate was this is important it's changing warfare and here's how we can actually implement it
26:43now we're already doing it we should scale this the message got through and now sefton's joined the
26:50army's ukraine lessons learned task force it has the job of translating experience from ukraine's scrappy
26:58fighting force to america's sprawling military he told us the new technology does not make the u.s
27:06military's traditional firepower obsolete but it needs to adapt urgently countering the drones developed
27:15by america's adversaries you still need howitzers you still need abrams but you have to figure out how to
27:22get the drones to work with the howitzers and abrams exactly and that's the challenge but also
27:27the goal to become ready for the next conflict we see it with the armed forces of ukraine they have
27:33learned these lessons through blood there will of course be additional lessons that we will learn
27:38perhaps through blood but it will only make us better at what we already are
27:44the day after that interview the united states went to war and the iranian drones began flying
27:57the first americans killed in the conflict were targeted with a drone
28:02the u.s military is now learning its lessons in blood just as ukraine did
28:14the next breakthrough in battlefield drones drones working together like a swarm of bees
28:20exactly pretty scary it is scary absolutely at 60minutesovertime.com
28:34imagine in the 21st century discovering a marvel on par with mount everest or the grand canyon
28:42it happened in 2009 with the revelation of the largest cave passage in the world it's in vietnam
28:51and they call it hang song dong mountain river cave an intrepid british explorer peter mcnab led the first
29:01team through this epic underworld of caverns the height of skyscrapers mcnab is to caving what armstrong
29:09is to the moon the first explorer recently we asked mcnab to show us this wonder of the world
29:18but before we begin our trek we really have to show you a preview of where we're going
29:28simply glorious
29:31this was the moment sandong caught us in its grasp
29:38sunbeams cascading 120 stories from a break in the ceiling
29:44groundwater above us slipping through the light like rain
29:50and rock reflecting what seemed like the only sound in the world
29:59not many have stood in this space that transcends time
30:03it was a reward for our journey that began days before
30:12the only way to sundong is on foot a trek of a day and a half
30:18we had a party of 53 moving in groups mostly porters heaving camping and tv gear plus experts in safety
30:31and climbing
30:34there were 20 river crossings water flowing through limestone two of the essentials for building caves
30:44this is the slender center of vietnam the chu sun range between laos and the south china sea
30:53we were following the vietnam war's ho chi minh trail
30:59through a jungle where tigers are not unknown and leeches are plentiful
31:06oh there's another one leading us were explorers howard limbert whose work in vietnam over 30 years
31:14discovered 500 caves and peter mcnab whom limbert sent to be the first in sundong i find it an adventure
31:24going exploring and um not quite knowing what's around the corner and just sort of finding your way
31:31fruit and uh things reveal themselves like big chambers big passages or tight narrow bits beautiful
31:38formations and there aren't a lot of places on earth that you can discover for the very first time
31:43no you have to look pretty hard for them you have to look pretty hard for the entrance to sundong
31:50you'd hardly notice but for the writing on the wall proclaiming the miracle of ho khan
31:58in 1990 ho khan a villager discovered this entrance after he sheltered here from a storm he told us
32:09i was collecting wood i saw a sinkhole and i felt something strange
32:17the strange feeling was wind blowing out of the ground
32:24cavers know cavers know that's the breath of a tremendous cavern in 2000 the british cavers asked
32:32young ho khan to show them but it took eight years he'd lost it in the trackless jungle
32:41in 2008 i finally found it he told us in 2009 they started exploring
32:48that exploration began here we're just inside looking back toward the entrance above
32:58the first obstacle is a spectacular 30-story wall that our climbing team showed us how to descend
33:09darkness would be nearly total but we lit it so you can see
33:14peter mcnab was the first to do this in 2009 he and four others on his team were dropping into
33:23darkness
33:25there's an obvious big black hole where you're heading towards and you just sort of skirt around
33:31and look around and find this way is pretty good this way works quite often you get stopped can't get
33:36down here you just basically feel your way through the cave by trial and error you had no idea none
33:43whatsoever what was beyond the light on your helmet yep no we didn't at all every corner you went
33:48around was completely new completely exciting and it just kept getting better and better as you went
33:53into the cave it was absolutely spectacular spectacular like the entrance we just repelled down
34:01look at the two men halfway down holding lights at the very top is the entrance and the last daylight
34:10we
34:11would see for a while at the bottom of the climb we met the architect of sandong the brow tongue
34:21river
34:22its waters are acidic so it's really good at dissolving limestone well this is a pretty good setting for an
34:32interview yeah in camp we spoke to purdue university geologist daryl granger who came here in 2010 to
34:41figure out when the river started its project we found a nice package of sediment further in the cave and
34:49that dated to about two and a half million years ago that's when the river first found a tiny crack
34:57in the
34:58limestone ridge the width of a hair maybe right that's all it takes to make a cave the water started
35:04flowing through it dissolving it bigger and bigger and bigger we still have water going through it today
35:10so it's continuing to get bigger as we speak our exploration of the cave took three days and two nights
35:21the length is 5.6 miles it's 65 stories tall and the width of one and a half football fields
35:32the great pyramid of giza would fit easily a 747 could fly through the biggest passage and not scrape a
35:42wing
35:44sometimes the only way forward was the width of our shoulders but we noticed in the broadest caverns
35:55you often lose the sense of even being underground what reminds you is the isolation no cell phone no
36:05satellite we were cut off from the world roughly halfway there was a light ahead there are two skylights
36:17where the roof collapsed for us a break from total darkness and a chance to show you the scale geologists
36:27call these holes doe lines the word has european roots it means sinkhole or depression and this doe line
36:37formed because the roof over our heads the limestone is a little bit thinner here than it is in the
36:44rest of
36:45the cave then as the cave grew wider and wider and wider over millions of years it was unable to
36:53support
36:54the roof above it all caved in right here what's remarkable about it is that it allows light into this
37:03cave that would otherwise be utterly dark and it allowed the jungle to come inside the cave like
37:10everything else about the cave this doe line is enormous it's 450 feet above my head in other words
37:21about the height of a 45-story building we stopped here with howard limbert who's explored vietnam since
37:29the 90s when my producer nicole young suggested this story i turned her down i said nick it's a hole
37:36in the
37:37ground yeah what was i missing you're missing best adventure that happens in the world something no
37:43one's seen before that's the beauty of caves if you're climbing a mountain you can see where you're
37:47going but in a cave when you go in you don't know what it's going to do your father was
37:52a caver he was
37:53yeah so he was a caver in scotland peter mcnab the first in sundong has been caving since he was
38:01a boy
38:01you grew up in a cave not quite but within a mile of it mcnab is a construction manager in
38:10new zealand
38:10big projects like hospitals but you get the sense he does that to pay for this in all the caving
38:18that
38:19you've done what is the closest call you've ever had i've been stuck i've had rocks collapsed and i've
38:25been flooded in he was stuck a few years ago when he went head first into a crevice that cavers
38:32call
38:32a squeeze mcnab couldn't back out a partner found him and used a knife to rip away his coat to
38:42give
38:42him the spare half inch he needed did he pull you out by your feet uh pretty much yeah you
38:50are still
38:50exploring this region yes yes we come back every two years and um we've barely scratched the surface
38:57of the caves in this area there may be another biggest cave in the world that could well be
39:03truth is mcnab's first expedition in 2009 never reached the end of sundong beyond this underground lake
39:14he discovered a 30-story wall and ran out of time before he could scale it take in take in
39:23we climbed
39:25it on our trek and understood immediately why they call it the great wall of vietnam keep the line tight
39:35take in excellent take in on the lifeline it's a 300-foot climb on slick rock with no foothold anywhere
39:48take in excellent scott that's really good come right up to the corner
39:57it's challenging enough until you realize of course you're doing it in the dark
40:03and it's essentially raining the groundwater is coming from the roof so with everything wet
40:11you find yourself slipping back while climbing up
40:17but our team got us up and over drenched and a little exhausted
40:27well we saved the best for last we've made it all the way through nearly all the miles of the
40:33cave
40:34over three days and now we just have a little bit further to go in fact i can see the
40:39exit from here
40:41we could see it that light up there but we still had quite a climb to make
40:46we learned by the end of our trek that sundong may be even larger than we know hundreds of feet
40:55below
40:56that lake behind us the water is draining somewhere there could be more caverns beyond
41:05it's the work of millions of years likely to continue for millions more unimaginable time
41:16measured by a pendulum of light illuminating the splendor of one of the greatest marvels
41:23on or under the earth
41:35the last minute of 60 minutes is sponsored by united healthcare coverage you can count on for your whole
41:44life ahead as america celebrates the 250th anniversary of independence we wondered about a game plan for the
41:56country's future so hall of fame basketball coach mike triszewski drew one up for us to build a championship
42:05culture you need talent and character you then develop the values of that culture the best teams
42:13have the best values we had seven integrity do the right thing respect everyone is important
42:20courage the courage to say or do what needs to be said or done in that moment selfless service
42:28loyalty duty the dignity of work and trust values-based organizations stand the test of time
42:37our country has great talent and for 250 years we have proven that we stand unshaken by the tests of
42:48history moving into the future we must continue to teach celebrate and most importantly live the values
42:58that have made america the best country in the world i'm scott belley we'll be back next week with another
43:06edition of 60 minutes
43:12go to the ends of the earth we'll hit the heights reach for the stars star power i like it
43:19experience thought-provoking something that's undeniable and truly original reporting i'm in on
43:26a mess there's always something new under the sun on cbs sunday morning
43:31you
43:31you
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