- 3 hours ago
Air Crash Investigation S26E06 Deadly Cover Up
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00:00Just 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 caught the engines, but the speed is increasing.
00:14Having erroneous airspeed indications now puts into your brain,
00:17am I climbing, am I not climbing?
00:20They seek assistance from the ground.
00:22Can you tell us our altitude, please?
00:24You're a 9,700 feet according to my radar.
00:27But nothing makes sense.
00:28We're in the water. Pull up!
00:33All 70 people on board are killed.
00:38Investigators compare the cockpit voice recording...
00:40We will maintain 10,000 feet.
00:4310,000 feet.
00:44...with the flight data recorder...
00:46Captain doesn't realize how close they are to the water.
00:48...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.
01:23It's nearing 1 a.m. at Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, Peru.
01:32Thick clouds blanket the sky as Aero Peru 603 taxis to the runway.
01:41The weather in Lima, Peru is a very, very stable environment, especially at this time of the year.
01:48The captain is 58-year-old Eric Schreiber.
01:52He's highly experienced, having logged almost 22,000 flight hours.
01:56Aero Peru 603, authorized to Santiago, initial level 29,000 feet, and afterwards on course, transponder 5603.
02:0942-year-old first officer David Fernandez has flown nearly 8,000 hours.
02:16Correct, Lima Tower.
02:17He will be the pilot flying the aircraft tonight.
02:21Roger.
02:23He's doing double duty by also operating the radio.
02:29Lima Tower, Aero Peru 603, runway 15, ready for takeoff.
02:37Aero Peru 603, wind calm, clear for takeoff, runway 15.
02:45There are 61 passengers and 7 flight attendants on board.
02:59Take off at 41 minutes past midnight on the dot.
03:05What precision?
03:06Like the Suez.
03:08Let's go.
03:18The crew is extremely professional.
03:20They accomplished their checklists and procedures as what would be expected.
03:23And they were basically an on-time machine.
03:43Flight 603 will fly out to the Pacific Ocean before heading south to Santiago.
03:50The aircraft is a four-year-old Boeing 757-200.
03:56The Boeing 757 is a long, narrow-bodied aircraft, twin engine.
04:01It's simple in its design, simple in its instrumentation, and just an overall comfortable airplane to fly.
04:10The passengers settle in for the three-and-a-half-hour flight.
04:18In the cockpit, the first officer spots a potential problem.
04:25The ultimate is a stop.
04:30Windshear.
04:31Windshear.
04:33Windshear.
04:36Windshear.
04:40The windshear is an alert that we're entering into an environment of undesirable winds.
04:46They could be highly critical in the safety of the aircraft.
04:50Those type of winds are just very uncommon in that area.
04:53And we're not forecasted at night at all.
04:57Windshear.
04:57Flight 603 climbs into the thick clouds above Lima.
05:02The pilots lose sight of the ground.
05:06The speed.
05:08They now discover another instrument isn't working.
05:12Yeah, right.
05:14Flying in the clouds at night, without knowing how fast they're going or their height above the ground,
05:21the pilots face a potentially dangerous situation.
05:26Am I climbing, am I not climbing, am I near mountainous terrain, which is very close to the coastal line
05:32of Peru?
05:35Tower Aero Peru 603.
05:36Flight 603 updates the tower controller.
05:40Aero Peru 603, tower, go ahead.
05:42We have no altimeter and no airspeed.
05:46Declaring an emergency.
05:51When a pilot declares an emergency with air traffic control, the controller is going to give that aircraft priority handling.
05:59Roger, change frequency to 119.7 for further instruction from radar control.
06:05Switching to 119.7.
06:11Before contacting radar control, the captain takes over from the first officer.
06:17Okay, I have control.
06:19The captain may decide to take over the flying role and tell the first officer to talk on the radio
06:26and work procedures.
06:27Lima 603, we request vectors for ILS runway 15.
06:32The pilots request directions for a return to the airport.
06:36Roger, we suggest a right turn heading 330.
06:40It was a good call to ask air traffic control, give us vectors.
06:44We're so busy up here dealing with everything else.
06:46You can certainly help us out if you tell us which direction to turn and guide us back towards the
06:51airport.
06:52Turn right heading 330.
06:56A heading of 330 will take the plane north to a position where it can then make the turn back
07:02to Lima.
07:04But two and a half minutes later...
07:07Aero Peru 603, you're showing level 9200.
07:11What is your heading now?
07:14The radar controller notices that flight 603 hasn't turned back towards the airport.
07:23Heading 205, we're heading away from the shore.
07:27Affirmative.
07:29We will maintain 10,000 feet.
07:32I said it, 10,000 feet.
07:33The captain decides to fly further out to sea before returning to Lima.
07:39They 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.
07:50In the cabin, passengers are unaware of what's happening in the cockpit.
08:00Safely away from shore.
08:02According to the radar, you're crossing radial 230 from Lima.
08:08Distance west, southwest is 37 miles.
08:11Flight 603 finally starts turning north to begin the approach to Lima
08:16and needs to begin its descent to the airport.
08:20I'll try to descend with the power cut.
08:29He was going to descend at idle thrust, which is a good way to descend.
08:34It's nice and steady in a 757 and keeps the airspeed under good control.
08:45I cut the engines, but the speed is increasing.
08:49Even with power to the engines cut, the airspeed indicators show that the plane is accelerating.
08:57Can you tell us the speed, please?
09:00I have 320.
09:02We have 350.
09:05They'll need to use a different strategy to descend.
09:11Getting to the lower altitude, hopefully getting into some clearer areas to see the coastal line,
09:17could give them more comfort for a safe landing.
09:20Take the speed brakes out.
09:24That is another great way of slowing the aircraft and getting better control of the airspeed.
09:33But deploying the speed brakes has the opposite effect.
09:40Over speed.
09:41A new warning tells them they're flying far too fast.
09:46The airplane's above its maximum allowable airspeed.
09:49It's in danger of breaking apart if they don't do something right now.
09:58But I have the speed brakes out and all the power is cut.
10:01This can be right.
10:04What 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.
10:27Are they going too fast or too slow?
10:30The pilots must decide which alarm to react to.
10:42The captain decides to increase the speed by pitching the nose down, silencing the stall warning.
10:53But they're not out of danger yet.
10:58With conflicting warnings and no reliable airspeed or altitude readings, the pilots of Flight 603 urgently need help.
11:08Is there any plane that can take off to rescue us?
11:11Yes. We're coordinating immediately.
11:15At this point, it was a totally out-of-the-box thought by the first officer to ask for this
11:23type of assistance,
11:24which would have given them a visual reference right next to them with altitude, airspeed, also communications,
11:32and we have somebody alongside of us holding our hand to the airport.
11:37The plane is now 50 miles from Lima's airport.
11:42Aero Peru 603, you are heading 270, 10,000 feet.
11:48While they wait for a rescue plane, the captain attempts to join the approach path to the runway.
11:54I'll try to intercept the ILS and then descend.
11:58Lima, Aero Peru 603, we will try to intercept the ILS.
12:03Roger, Aero Peru 603.
12:05They think they're flying at a nice, safe altitude.
12:07And they think that they pretty much have airspeed under control.
12:11They probably thought they were in a pretty darn good position.
12:17Soon after, the radar controller provides an update on the escort flight.
12:22Aero Peru 603.
12:24There is a 707 about to take off.
12:27It's starting to move now.
12:33It seems to be flying well.
12:37Can you tell us our altitude, please?
12:39You're at 9,700 feet, according to my radar.
12:43Terrain.
12:44Too low.
12:45Terrain.
12:48Too low.
12:49Terrain.
12:50Terrain.
12:519,700 feet, but we're getting a terrain warning.
12:54Pull up.
12:55Pull up if he's telling you to pull up.
12:58Terrain.
12:58We're hitting the water.
12:59Pull up.
13:08We're rolling over.
13:21We're rolling over.
13:22We're rolling over.
13:43The accident occurred at night, and the wave conditions were very high, so the first few
13:49ships that went out to look for the wreckage really struggled to find it.
13:54Heavy fog also hampers recovery efforts.
14:13By the end of the first day, the bodies of only 13 of the 70 people on board are recovered.
14:20There are no signs of survivors.
14:26Those who haven't been found are believed to be inside the fuselage on the seabed.
14:44It's up to air crash investigators from Peru's Accident Investigation Board to find out why a plane, last observed flying
14:53nearly 10,000 feet above the sea, suddenly crashed into it.
15:02We have the military radar.
15:05We have the military radar.
15:27Altitude and position of the accident flight.
15:30So, after taking off, they follow the approved flight plan over the ocean, and then they start heading north.
15:42The flight climbs to 13,000 feet, and then it starts to descend, and now, in the last seven minutes,
15:52the flight has a series of erratic climbs and descents before it crashes.
15:58It appears they lost control.
16:04It becomes just a rollercoaster ride of altitudes, because they don't have control.
16:15What could have caused the pilots to lose control?
16:20When you start putting an investigation together, you start putting the what-ifs on the table.
16:26What if this failed?
16:27What if that failed?
16:28What if this went wrong?
16:29What if the crew made a mistake?
16:32Pre-take-off seems okay.
16:34Investigators scrutinize the communications between air traffic control and the pilots.
16:39Look at this.
16:40The crew reported problems with airspeed and altitude readings only two and a half minutes into the flight.
16:46Tower, aero-peru 603.
16:48Aero-peru 603, tower, go ahead.
16:51We have no altimeters and no airspeed.
16:59Faulty air data.
17:02Sounds like an issue with the pitostatic system.
17:07The pitostatic system uses tubes and sensors mounted on the plane, which measure air pressure to calculate airspeed and altitude.
17:18Wasn't there a recent crash involving the pitostatic system?
17:21Yeah.
17:23Birken Air, flight 301.
17:27Only eight months earlier, another Boeing 757 crashed soon after taking off from Puerto Plata.
17:34In the Dominican Republic, the cause was a blocked pitot tube.
17:40Some investigators were wondering if we had a similar situation to what we had in Birken Air.
17:45It wasn't entirely the same, but it still involved blockage or covering parts of the pitostatic system.
17:53Well, maybe that's what happened here.
18:05Nearly two weeks since aero-peru flight 603 crashed into the ocean, a US Navy ship helps the Peruvian Navy
18:14to track the pings from the Boeing 757's two black boxes.
18:18The wreckage is finally located at a depth of 680 feet.
18:27Using remotely operated vehicles, investigators finally get their first view of the wreckage site.
18:36The wreckage site was very concentrated. The plane was intact when it hit the water.
18:48The fact that all the major pieces of the airplane are in one concentrated area really gives the investigators a
18:56much clearer picture of how the airplane came down.
18:59So they either came down in a flat spin or it came down nose first, which is a very unusual
19:05accident.
19:09The black boxes are also located.
19:14It's very, very critical to get both recorders.
19:18First, you want to know how the airplane was behaving.
19:20And then secondly, what was going on in the cockpit between the crew members of the airplane.
19:28They are packed in seawater and sent to Washington, where the NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board, will process their
19:36invaluable data.
19:44That's it, keep moving that way.
19:48The team also searches for evidence of some kind of blockage of the pitot tubes and static ports.
19:55There, keep going.
19:58They focus on a section of the left fuselage where the static ports are located.
20:03Okay, now moving.
20:08That's it.
20:11The static ports were blocked.
20:14They can see that the ports are covered.
20:21When we saw that those static ports were covered, it was case closed.
20:26Drop the curtains.
20:28We knew exactly what happened in this accident.
20:31How did such a critical device, which determines airspeed and altitude, get covered up and blocked?
20:40Make sure you tag everything.
20:43Investigators survey the recovered wreckage of Aero Peru Flight 603 to find out what is covering the static ports.
20:54Look at that.
20:58Looks like silver tape.
21:00Same color as the fuselage.
21:08Lars.
21:29Why were the ports covered with tape?
21:32And by whom?
21:38It wasn't our job to assign blame or liability, but we wanted to understand the procedure to make sure that
21:44important step of removing the tape would never get overlooked again.
21:52So, let's check the last bug entry.
21:55Okay.
21:56Investigators check maintenance records to understand why the ports were taped over.
22:04Interesting.
22:05Hey.
22:07Bird strike.
22:10During the plane's last landing before the accident, the right engine was struck by birds.
22:19They replaced the turbine blades, the hydraulic pump was repaired, and they polished the lower front of the 757.
22:28Exactly where the static ports are located.
22:31Did maintenance personnel follow the correct procedures for polishing the 757?
22:37When you're performing work on the airplane, such as polishing or washing it, it's important not to get any debris
22:43into the ports, because when you take off, temperatures go down, they may freeze in place, which could cause severe
22:52instrument problems to the airplane.
22:54According to the maintenance manual, they're supposed to cover the static ports.
22:57So, whoever polished the plane covered the static ports with tape and didn't remove it.
23:05So, why wasn't the tape removed after the area was polished?
23:11If you look at the maintenance process on an airplane, and cleaning or polishing an airplane is maintenance, there's multiple
23:19steps, multiple people, and multiple looks.
23:22The whole purpose of that is to make sure that nothing is missed.
23:29Were the static ports inspected as part of Flight 603's line check?
23:35It was a crazy night.
23:38Investigators interview the line mechanic to determine if the static ports were inspected after the work was done.
23:44The line chief usually does it, but he was sick.
23:51So, I did it.
24:02So, I guess you didn't see the tape then.
24:09Aluminum tape's pretty common.
24:11And if you take it and just spread it over those ports, it blends in perfectly.
24:16And it makes it very easy for somebody to miss it.
24:22Was he adequately trained?
24:24I would say the answer to that is no.
24:28Did you see either pilot do a pre-flight check?
24:32Yes.
24:33The captain.
24:37Did you know if he checked them?
24:41Couldn't tell you.
24:44If I had a new person on my crew, I would tell them to watch the captain, see what he's
24:49doing.
24:50And it becomes routine for mechanics to watch what the flight crew does.
24:55Okay.
24:56Thank you for your time.
24:59There's at least one, if not two, line checks that are done by supervisors of the line maintenance.
25:05And then one of the crew members would do a walk around, as they're obligated to do always.
25:11So, there are several levels where things should have been detected but weren't in this flight.
25:22So, both the line mechanic and the pilot missed it.
25:28Investigators now know that despite all the safety checks that were meant to be performed,
25:33no one spotted the silver tape covering the static ports.
25:37So, we know what caused the faultier speeds and altitudes.
25:40But faultier data alone doesn't cause a plane to crash.
25:44So, what did?
25:54Investigators turn to the cockpit voice recorder from Aero Peru Flight 603.
25:59There you go. Thank you.
26:00To determine how the pilots dealt with faulty airspeed and altitude data.
26:05Pick it up from the takeoff.
26:27The plane is barely off the ground when the pilots identify the first problem.
26:33The altimeters are stuck.
26:35The captain's altimeter, the first officer's altimeter, the standby altimeter.
26:41All three sources were different and they were all wrong.
26:48Keep V2 plus 10.
26:50V2 plus 10.
26:51It's quickly followed by a second issue.
26:54The speed.
26:56The airspeed is also stuck.
26:59Yeah, right.
27:00Hold on.
27:05They were only at 200 feet above the ground and they already knew that there were problems with altitude and
27:10airspeed.
27:12In three different places in the cockpit, they're seeing unreliable airspeed and altitude.
27:19According to the FDR, they're still climbing.
27:22Let's see how they handle that faulty data.
27:26What's going on?
27:28We're not climbing.
27:30I'm climbing.
27:32Investigators hear the captain continue to rely on the faulty data on his altimeter.
27:37Climb, climb, climb.
27:39I am climbing.
27:41Despite what the first officer tells him.
27:44The captain is looking at his altimeter and saying what he sees right in front of him.
27:50It's very hard to ignore this false data.
27:53The airspeed and altitude readings are like a magnet drawing your eye and attention again and again.
27:59Climb, climb.
28:00I am climbing.
28:01So in this initial moments of the climb, it seems like the first officer was more in touch with what
28:07the airplane was really doing.
28:09What else do the pilots do to handle the situation?
28:12Keep playing.
28:14Let's go to basic instruments.
28:17But within a minute, the captain stops focusing on the faulty instruments.
28:23He decides to use the pitch and power procedure.
28:25That's good.
28:27Very quickly on, the captain says basic instruments.
28:30I believe he means the pitch and power procedure.
28:37The pitch and power procedure requires reducing the pitch angle of the aircraft to two degrees nose up and the
28:44throttles to 55%.
28:46This should result in level flight.
28:50By flying with set pitch and power and ignoring the unreliable airspeed and altitude gives the crew time to sort
28:59out what's going on and think through what might be causing the unreliable indications.
29:05Then they declare the emergency.
29:07Pick it up after that.
29:08Let's see if they did the procedure properly.
29:15Switching to 1, 19.7.
29:19Auto throttle has disconnected.
29:21Auto throttle has disconnected.
29:23But instead of checking his attitude indicator and engine gauges.
29:28Let's see.
29:28Read that.
29:30The captain focuses on the crew alerting screen, which is displaying more alerts.
29:37Rudder ratio and max speed trim.
29:39The rudder ratio and max speed trim warnings were just the result of the unreliable airspeed and altitude indications in
29:47the cockpit.
29:48They shouldn't have been the primary focus of the crew.
29:52They're getting distracted by false alerts.
29:55They ignore the pitching power procedure.
29:59We're flying without speed.
30:01Soon after.
30:02Speed is zero.
30:05All airspeed indicators at zero.
30:11Investigators hear the pilots turning their attention back to the erroneous airspeed and altitude readings.
30:18The tape on the static ports meant that the airspeed and altitude were always wrong.
30:25And they were always changing as the airplane climbed and descended.
30:30We will maintain 10,000 feet.
30:3310,000 feet.
30:35But at no point did they disregard the unreliable airspeed and altitude.
30:40They looked at them constantly.
30:4312,000 feet.
30:44The crew never switched their mindset to just using pitch and power.
30:50They climbed for several more minutes.
30:54But if they were climbing, how did the crew end up hitting the ocean?
30:59They can't keep climbing forever.
31:02We have problems reading our instruments.
31:04Investigators continue listening to the cockpit voice recorder of Aero Peru Flight 603
31:10to determine how the crew carried out the return to Lima with faulty instrument data.
31:15Set the approach, please.
31:17I did.
31:18I did.
31:18Then let's go.
31:22The captain, he knew he had to to get down to Lima Airport.
31:26I'll try to descend with the power cut.
31:28And the way to do that was to reduce the power.
31:33No sooner do the pilots cut the power than they face another problem.
31:38The speed is increasing.
31:41Why is the speed so high?
31:44Is it the real speed?
31:45That's what worries me.
31:46I don't think so.
31:49They think they're speeding up.
31:52And they can only be slowing down.
31:58The pilots don't know whether to believe the faulty airspeed indicator
32:03that's showing they're going too fast
32:05after having pulled their thrust levers back to idle.
32:10That'd be totally confusing for the captain.
32:12He'd be saying, this can't be happening.
32:14It's impossible.
32:15It violates the laws of physics of aircraft.
32:19But the captain's thought process is overtaken by what happens next.
32:24Over speed.
32:28The faulty airspeed data is now triggering the over speed warning.
32:33An over speed warning gets your attention very quickly.
32:37And you want to react to it.
32:40But this is the time when he should have been questioning
32:43whether that was correct.
32:46The first officer makes a split second decision.
32:50Take the speed brakes out.
32:55And now
32:57with the power cut and the speed brakes out
33:01slows the plane down to the point of stalling.
33:05The erroneous over speed data leads the pilots to reduce their speed
33:09speed, which puts their plane into a stall.
33:23The crew instinctively lowered the nose and increased their actual airspeed.
33:29Those are the steps that will keep you from stalling the airplane.
33:35Responding to the stall warning was the right move.
33:39But after that,
33:43they head further out to sea instead of towards Lima.
33:48Why would they do that?
33:53Shortly after the stall warning ends,
33:58a new warning tells them they are dangerously close to terrain.
34:03The captain doesn't realize how close they are to the water.
34:07On the 757,
34:09a radio altimeter measures the plane's altitude when below 2,500 feet
34:14and sounds the ground proximity warning when the plane drops too close to the terrain.
34:19The ground proximity warning system is separate from the pitostatic system.
34:24It was telling them the truth.
34:26Too low terrain.
34:28Too low terrain.
34:30And now we've induced a terrifying alert of,
34:34I'm about to hit a mountain.
34:36The pilots thought they were near a mountain
34:39when they were actually approaching the surface of the ocean.
34:43Too low terrain.
34:46Let's go left.
34:47Too low terrain.
34:56Radar shows you're turning left.
34:58You're heading to the west.
35:00Observative.
35:01We're heading 250.
35:03We're heading out to sea because we have a low terrain warning.
35:07Too low terrain.
35:10He knew that the water, the ocean, is to the left.
35:14And that's going to be my safe environment.
35:17Sink rate.
35:18Sink rate.
35:20No sooner do they deal with the terrain warning
35:23than the pilots are confronted by an alert
35:25telling them they are descending too rapidly.
35:28Sink rate.
35:30Sink rate.
35:30Let's climb.
35:31Let's go up.
35:33Too low terrain.
35:37Now, going up was the right call.
35:39They were descending at 3,000 feet per minute.
35:42They climbed to 4,000 feet and they stayed there for
35:46approximately one minute.
35:53So what led to the final plunge into the sea?
35:57Let's go back to Lima.
35:58I'll try to intercept the ILS and then descend.
36:02After 25 harrowing minutes, the captain initiates a turn back to Lima.
36:08Lima, Aero Peru 6-0-3.
36:10We will try to intercept the ILS.
36:13Can you tell us our altitude?
36:15Is our altitude 9,700 feet?
36:18Roger.
36:19Aero Peru 6-0-3.
36:21You're showing level at 9,700.
36:25Too low terrain.
36:26But when the terrain warning activates, investigators know the plane was below 2,500 feet.
36:34They both had the wrong altitude.
36:38Investigators discover the controller was also providing Flight 6-0-3 with incorrect altitude information.
36:47Assumption was the controllers can tell us our altitude, but the flaw in that is, is that that altitude is
36:53actually being sent to the controller from the aircraft itself.
36:57If the information on board the aircraft is incorrect, then the information that's being sent to the radar is also
37:03going to be incorrect.
37:07Investigators speak to the controller to understand why he relayed the faulty readings back to Flight 6-0-3.
37:14So it looks like you were providing the crew with altitude data.
37:18Yes, they said they didn't have any altimeters, so I told them what I was seeing on my radar screen.
37:25Were you using SSR in mode C?
37:27Yes, that's right.
37:29Your radar's altitude is coming from the plane's transponder.
37:35When the controller confirmed the altitudes for the pilots, I think it gave them a false sense of hope that
37:43at least one of our problems has been solved, the altitude problem, when in fact that was tragically incorrect.
37:54But even with the faulty altitude readings, could the pilots still have landed their planes safely?
38:08Pick it up during their final descent.
38:10To determine if the pilots had any other options to save their plane, investigators listened to the final moments of
38:17Aero Peru Flight 6-0-3.
38:21It seems to be flying well.
38:24Can you tell us our altitude?
38:26You're at 9,700 feet, according to my radar.
38:319,700 feet, but we're getting a terrain warning.
38:36The crew can't understand the conflicting information, but there was a way for the pilots to determine their actual altitude
38:46and save the plane.
38:48If they checked the radio altimeter, they would have realized how close they are to crush them.
38:52Too low, terrain.
38:53Too low, terrain.
38:55When the ground proximity warning system activated in the cockpit, the crew could have referred to the radio altimeter, and
39:02that would have given them the truth data about how high they were above the ground.
39:07Too low, terrain.
39:11Too low, terrain.
39:23We're hitting the water.
39:26When an aircraft has its wing touch the water in a bank attitude, the situation is hopeless.
39:36Pull up.
39:44The pilots try to get the plane back in the air, but the plane banks left and falls back towards
39:53the sea.
39:54We're running over!
39:59Marine, Marine.
40:01Ah!
40:09They really had no idea how low they were.
40:11And all those alarms fall so real just made matters worse.
40:26The situation in the cockpit was so confusing.
40:32It was hard for either crew member to understand which cautions and warnings were true and important.
40:38And there didn't seem to be a good balance between the two crew members in sorting that out.
40:45For investigators, there's one final unanswered question.
40:50Were the pilots properly prepared to handle an emergency like this?
40:55They examined the quick reference handbook, which provides guidance in emergency situations, as well as Aero Peru's training procedures.
41:07Well, there's nothing here.
41:09Anything in the training procedures?
41:11Not one single word on how to handle erroneous air data.
41:17The lack of training worked against them.
41:23A big takeaway from this accident was that flight crews need to be better trained to get to pitch and
41:29power in the event of unreliable airspeed and altitude.
41:37Investigators needed only two months to solve the mystery of Flight 603.
41:42They now know that blocked static ports created faulty air data readings.
41:53And those faulty readings created so much confusion in the cockpit.
41:58But I have the speed brace out.
42:00I know the power is cut.
42:01That can be right.
42:03That the overwhelmed crew was unable to separate the false alarms from the true ones.
42:12They really needed to develop a laser focus on just flying the airplane.
42:16But they never got there.
42:19The captain's failure to react to the ground proximity warnings in time.
42:24He's telling you to pull up.
42:27We're hitting the water.
42:28Pull up.
42:28Pull up.
42:29Pull up.
42:31Contributed to the death of 70 people.
42:50There's nothing highly technical about tape.
42:53But boy, did it start a chain of events.
42:59The investigation's report outlines a number of recommendations.
43:04But chief among them is for more training to ensure crews know how to deal with inaccurate air data.
43:12And implementing the use of eye-catching static port covers while a plane is being maintained.
43:19Remember, it's the simple things that cause problems.
43:25And we need to keep that in everybody's mind.
43:29Attention to detail.
43:30If you perform that detail, whatever it is, you're not going to get problems.
43:39This accident was one of the pillars of safety procedures.
43:48Our training changed.
43:50Our pre-flight procedures changed.
43:52Our attention to details changed.
43:55And it still lives to this day.
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