747 Cargo Plane Crashes Seconds After Takeoff | Mayday Series 16 Episode 10

foreign at one of the busiest airfields on Earth okay he's clear let's get going a 747 cargo plane is transporting a load of military equipment [Music] within seconds things go horribly wrong stalled I remember thinking he's lost all his engines the accident is caught on camera holy cow there it is leading investigators to what seems like an obvious conclusion we really thought that we had the cause of the accident but later we found out there was more to the story it takes one piece of overlooked evidence to tell investigators they were wrong [Music] [Music] background Airfield in northeastern Afghanistan it's a hive of activity bedroom ground I said 9-5 Alpha Quebec rented a taxi the crew of National Airlines flight 102 is on the last leg of a grueling shift Aires is billowing out of here yeah it sure is their flying Cargo in a converted Boeing 747 and are parked on the tarmac waiting to depart please tell the flight attendant I'm ready for my lobster dinner I think she's In First Class handing out caviar at the moment joking and humor among air Crews is probably more prevalent in times of stress when you get into these offline uh unusual situations the crew members are all-American Captain Brad Hassler is heading home to his pregnant wife beside him his first officer Jamie Brokaw augment Captain Jeremy lipker is in the jump seat shit's back there I haven't seen him I hope he's in the back yeah he's back there in a cabin behind the cockpit is load Master Michael sheets along with two technicians and an augment first officer with the additional Pilots the plane can be flown long distances Non-Stop the crew members are all civilians on contract for the U.S Department of Defense the United States military and its allies built more than 50 bases across Afghanistan during the war there Bagram was by far the biggest it's got gyms and seven dining facilities of enormous sizes it's got stores it had a Burger King at its peak more than 40 000 people lived here now after 12 years of fighting the military is scaling back their operation troops weapons and heavy machinery are all on the move every day air traffic control handles several hundred flights coming in and out of the airport today National Airlines flight 102 is just one piece of a hugely complex puzzle the flight plan has taken it from Chateau Rue France to Camp Bastian Afghanistan where the crew loaded up 207 000 pounds of cargo they were supposed to take it straight to Dubai but were re-routed via Bagram the crew has been waiting more than an hour to depart for Quebec I have your clearance advise when ready to copy yeah let's do it finally they get clearance to go ready to copy 9-5 Alpha Quebec 9-5 Alpha Quebec taxi to Runway three controllers need to keep a sharp eye on the crowded taxiway that the 747 freighter shares with other military aircraft [Music] Quebec give way to the C-17 [Music] let them go first Roger we'll let him go first a C-17 military cargo plane moves to the runway ahead of them although the military effort is winding down in Afghanistan this is not the kind of place a civilian wants to linger back room is still a favorite Target of the Taliban it's a dangerous place I mean it's not JFK airport it's JFK Airport surrounded by terrorists for the crew of flight 102. every delay means more risk okay he's clear let's get going following the C-17 for 9-5 Alpha Quebec [Music] before takeoff checklist Flats 10 10 checked you're certainly thinking what do I do if somebody started firing at us on the ground well that's a great deal of mental pressure the C-17 a hat has cleared the runway how are we looking on that Wing everything look clear everything's great we all happy with that yeah I'm good they must now wait for takeoff clearance they've been on duty for more than 20 straight hours once in Dubai they'll get a rest break we earned it as far as I'm concerned man without minimum rest I'd be dead tomorrow they have to agree with that sentiment it's a real stress situation they were rightfully ready for their day to be over finally at 3 25 PM they're cleared for takeoff 95 Alpha Quebec Runway three full length Runway three is verified prepare for departure the first officer is at the controls for this final leg they are scheduled to arrive in Dubai in two and a half hours when you've been in a long delay situation when you finally get the clearance to go it's a great relief at that same moment military journalist Stephen hartov is on the basis Perimeter Road returning from a day's work taking photographs for a magazine all episodes of ice Pilots watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscription required download daily now we decided we were going to go get something to eat and I saw off to the left of the truck a white and purple 747 I remember thinking this is a beautiful airplane because it looked brand new B1 rotate positive climb [Music] Gear Up Gear Up he pulled away from us and started to rotate and in this case there was something immediately not right The Climb is unusually steep what's going on with that aircraft it was almost stuttering in the air and I immediately said to Chris what's going on with that aircraft is he taking fire keep on that get the nose down try it the plane is suddenly uncontrollable the nose won't drop my airplane in a matter of seconds the crew is in emergency mode if they can't get the nose down fast the plane will storm they're not very high above the ground therefore don't have very much time to try very many things for a moment the plane hangs in the air suspended and then the aircraft seemed to sort of careen in our Direction now you're looking at a big 747 coming at you installed and I remember thinking he's lost all his engines straight down and pancaked into the ground the explosion was enormous it was a mushroom cloud like a small atom bomb it was huge the entire base you know thundered under our feet the controller also watches helplessly as the aircraft comes down it is the worst civilian aviation accident ever at Bagram Airfield and I just pulled the camera out with the lens and just shot some pictures Instinct you know trigger instinct [Music] watching those people die was tough it's tough [Music] I still think about it [Music] sometimes I wake up thinking about it as a U.S cargo plane being shot down the safety of thousands of people now hinges on the answer today officials identified seven Americans killed Monday in the crash of a cargo plane in Afghanistan national Airlines flight 102 crashed at America's biggest Air Force Base in Afghanistan remarkably no one on the ground was hit but the entire flight crew is dead [Music] you think about these poor seven people who were there on a contract job in a never went off loss of life is tragic under any circumstance but when it's a fellow pilot it's it's it's really uh hard to deal with within hours the Taliban claims responsibility amid the Specter of a terrorist attack the NTSB is assigned to lead the U.S investigation although it wasn't ideal it's one of those things that we had a job to do and so let's go get it done Tim LeBaron heads up the team of five investigators this investigation was a lot different because we were flying into war zone when we first got there we were given bulletproof vests and Kevlar helmets to wear into the accident site as this is an American base the civilian NTSB will have to work closely with the military a military sweep of the crash site has already turned up the black boxes the U.S military had found the flight data recorder in the cockpit voice recorder before we arrived and had sent them back to the United States to the NTSB laboratory so we were very hopeful that we would get good information from those recorders that would help explain why the airplane had crashed care report for me but there's another surprising piece of news The Sweep has uncovered no evidence of a missile attack you sure the Taliban claim was purely opportunistic let's see what we have here okay with the most obvious explanation for the crash eliminated the team must now take a new look at the wreckage the damage to this aircraft was some of the most extensive fire damage I've had to work with in my career so we really didn't have much to work with 75 of the plane has been consumed by fire or destroyed by impact forces but the crucial tail section is still almost intact the tail Wings hold the plane's flight control surfaces including the all-important elevators which the pilots move up or down to control the plane's pitch and Pitch was a problem from the start of flight 102. we had that structure remaining so we did have something of value to look at with regards to a possible scenario for the accident they take a close look at the tail Wing mechanics we looked at the hydraulic actuators for the elevators I really couldn't find any problems with that so everything seems to check out no problem here I can get those guys get that nose down fight controls were working then something else must have made the plane uncontrollable every last scrap of evidence is collected including a number of unidentified Parts found on the runway more than a mile from the crash site anybody know what this is let's find out our team was in Afghanistan one time and one time only so it was very important for our team that we document what we could find what we could because we knew that we'd never be able to return and see the wreckage again let's get those photos to Boeing right away the pieces of wreckage will be sent to the United States where the manufacturer will have to identify them [Music] foreign with all the evidence now collected from the crash site investigators move their operations indoors our headquarters was in the basement of an old control tower okay let's clean this place up okay I'll set up there yeah there really was no workspace down there there were a bunch of computers there were signs that warned Asbestos and it was a pretty rough environment as they are settling into their temporary headquarters a video of the accident appears on the internet holy cow there it is shot from an unknown vehicle on the Perimeter Road it reveals a huge clue about the plane's erratic climb and fall [Music] looks like a problem with the cargo load the aircraft's movement in the video suggests it was carrying too much weight under the load through the plane off balance the weight is very important in a cargo accident more so than a passenger accident per se because passengers have assigned weights it's it's very standard there's much more room margin of error to work with passenger weights and baggage then when you're flying cargo a 747 freighter plane can carry just about any type of load it is the cargo company's responsibility to ensure that the aircraft is not overweight I've heard it frequently in the cargo business about you call we hauling sometimes the crew knows in advance what they're going to be doing and sometimes it's all last minute some of the early questions were you know what was the cargo in the airplane was it full how heavy was the cargo by examining the cargo manifest investigators discover that the plane was carrying an unusual load armored vehicles called mraps or mine resistant ambush protected vehicles these massive heavily armored cars can sustain roadside bombs they even have bulletproof Wheels the crew had never flown these type of vehicles in this Charter in fact the airline had not carried these kind of vehicles that were loaded on the airplane the plane was carrying five M wraps weighing between 12 and 18 tons each vehicle was chained to a custom-built pallet and secured with straps to the plane's main deck the cargo in this particular case was very heavy it was the first time they'd ever flown five vehicles this heavy ready to put some numbers on Amazon go ahead the crew landed at back from air base with a full cargo load of 207 000 pounds then they refueled increasing the fuel load to 106 000 pounds zero fuel weight is two five nine two investigators calculate the precise weight being carried Max takeoff weight is 870 000 pounds we have 207 000 pounds of cargo Plus Fuel they learned that even with the heavy cargo and fuel load the plane was not overweight it was almost two hundred thousand pounds under the safe limit something else must have brought the 747 cargo plan even if the weight of the cargo was not responsible for the crash of flight 102. the balance of the load could be the problem if the aircraft is loaded from the outset out of balance then that affects the performance of the airplane bring up the schematics investigators map out the placement of the m-wraps in the hold to study the balance of the load fill it with our cargo 3M wraps weigh 18 tons each on the ends are smaller versions that weigh 12 tons apiece center of gravity with their vehicles in position looks like 30.4 percent after a few calculations they determined the balance of the load the airplane actually could carry the weight and as loaded was within the center of gravity it's a puzzling assessment but there's another possibility even if the load was balanced before takeoff it could have shifted as the plane was lifting off the focus now turns to the Loading procedures specifically worthy mraps properly secured standard cargo containers are locked into a hardware system built on tracks in the floor but oddly shaped oversized cargo like the mraps can't use these locks heavy nylon straps are secured to tie-down points around the hold what became critical to me was the process of calculating the number of straps necessary to restrain these these five vehicles the load Master on board the plane used a National Airlines manual to calculate how many straps were needed to secure the vehicles based on their cargo operations manual the numbers were determined to be 24 straps for the 28 000 pound Mac v's and 26 straps for the three forty thousand pound cougars and seeing his rationale for calculating those numbers all seemed to make sense to me despite the appearance of the dash cam video analysis has shown that the plane was not overweight it was properly balanced and the load was secured according to companies standards investigators need to find out what was going on inside the plane information from the black boxes will be crucial airplane flight data recorders record what the elevator and the ailerons and what the control pitches are doing and so we were very hopeful that we would get good information from those recorders that would help explain why the airplane had crashed [Music] well a call comes in from the ntsb's head office in Washington DC [Music] box data is in that's great but there's a problem really I got a call from our director John delisi and he informed me that unfortunately the flight data recorder and the concrete voice recorder had quit working shortly after takeoff things started to go wrong shortly after liftoff known as the point of rotation but this is precisely the moment when the Black boxes stopped recording having the FDR CVR after the point of rotation would have been very helpful if we had none of that information thank you we really had to revert back to Old methods of investigating so I call it old school methods investigators decide to contact eyewitnesses who might have seen the plane take off okay what else did you see on a base of this size there may be thousands of people who could provide potential Clues all right well thanks very much you need really to interview many different Witnesses and listen for the Common Thread that's the same through all of the witness statements so what did you see one witness reports an unusual sight a Runway sweeper is sure he saw puffs of smoke trailing behind the airplane after liftoff and it wasn't coming off the wings or out of the engines his testimony raises the possibility that A Fire Inside the plane may have caused the crash if a fire had started inside the cargo hole during liftoff there would be evidence of this on the pieces of wreckage from the interior of the plane the interesting thing was the tail portion the air pressure bulkhead which is white in its color did not have any evidence to support that we had a fire on board the airplane before the impact there's no sign of any smoke residue they couldn't have been a fire on board investigators are at another and pass [Music] they still have no hard evidence about the final fatal moments of flight 102. when you go to an accident scene where everything appears to be burned up and there's not a lot left how in the world can you do an investigation one thing for sure is there's always evidence bring up the CVR stand by in a search for answers investigators turn to the cockpit voice recorder it cut out just three seconds after liftoff but it was recording during the cruise hour-long wait on the tarmac what the heck let's hear the whole two hours might be something there there's your trouble Brad what is it sounds like the first officer showing something to the captain what's your trouble Brad what is it one of the damn straps but pause there the CVR suggests the first officer found a broken strap inside the cargo hold s apparently did the truck move yeah just tighten up on the straps holy crap one of those things actually moved so we're hearing the crew talk about that the load had shifted also that a strap had broken uh definitely piqued our interest go again all the straps and backwards those things shouldn't budge an inch despite investigators earlier conclusion that the heavy load was properly secured and therefore could not shift the CVR recording indicates that the opposite was true so from that information we know that they had a load shift when they came in and landed and that was very important to us in our investigation all the straps are keeping them from moving backwards released what the hell you think is going to happen when you slam it on the runway slam on the brakes and don't use reverse well there ain't nothing you could have done about that I'm getting off this plane I'm scared they have no idea how serious this really is really the crew is not trained or equipped to actually be involved in knowing whether the restraints are proper for the load I hope instead of just replacing that strap he's beefing the strap up more yeah he's cinching them all down stop he would be load Master Michael sheets the load master in a cargo operation is the one that's responsible for the security of the load so everyone is depending upon them what's up dude you filled out of the strap away did you put a couple more on how far to move a couple inches yeah they just moved a couple inches because it's nylon you know those things are so heavy you'd think they probably wouldn't hardly move no matter what they always move everything moves so if those straps weren't fixed right then the back vehicle could have come to some takeoff that cargo shifts during rotation you'll wind up with a potential pitch problem did the mrap shift after takeoff to answer this question the team must find a way to piece together events in the cargo hold in the moments before the crash [Music] investigators need to prove that one of the heavy mine resistant ambush protected Vehicles shifted during the flight Clues might be hard to find in the minimal and Scattered remains of the aircraft [Music] but the one thing as investigators that we do is we go into a very chaotic environment and we bring order to it okay guys great let's put that down right incentive there so I gathered as much of the air pressure bulkhead structure as I could and believe we came up with at least 90 to 95 percent of it the AFT pressure bulkhead is an airtight wall it protects the cargo area from the non-pressurized tail section of the aircraft investigators sought out pieces of the liner that covers the cargo hold side of the bulkhead you definitely go with this guy here take a look at this I can guess what that is and you could read the words Goodyear what became obvious was that the tire from the AF mat V had impacted the half pressure bulkhead and left that tire impact on the liner bam looked as if that tire had pressed up like a rubber stamp on the air pressure bulkhead only one tire capable of doing that the mark matches the spare tire in the top right corner of the rear vehicle the vehicle itself was found tipped over in the wreckage damaged but not destroyed by fire [Music] the metal antenna box from the rear of the same mrap is damaged and provides another big clue look at that paint transfer the Box sits up high at the back of the mrap that looks like a direct hit the only place that we could think of where there was orange paint was the cockpit voice recorder in the flight data recorder to hit the flight recorders the mrap would have had to shift at least 12 feet could it have moved that far a few quick measurements show that the height of the paid transfer on the antenna box lines up neatly with the location of the orange recorders inside the plane antenna box set about 104 inches above floor level and where the CDR and FDR are located is 104 inches above the floor of the aircraft now you're starting to see a chain of events that this vehicle had to be moving in an outward Direction both black boxes stopped recording seconds after takeoff because a 12-ton mrap knocked them out but even if the heavy vehicle damaged the flight recorders [Music] would it have been able to somehow bring down a huge 747 investigators turned to the only wreckage left to examine the collection of unidentified Parts found on the runway these items were all recovered even the runway in the area near the point of rotation for the flight rotate at backroom Airfield the runway stretches for over two miles the parts were discovered at the spot where the aircraft lifted off one mile from the site of the crash it is uncertain what relevance if any they have where were these parts on the airplane did they come from the nose section did they come from the AFT section of the airplane what function did they serve on the airplane experts at Boeing have been able to identify them here we go hydraulic return tubing one of the parts a broken piece of tubing comes from hydraulic system number two bring up the hydraulic system schematic the 747 has four hydraulic lines that power the control systems of the aircraft hydraulic system Number Two Carries fluid along the deck floor and through the AFT pressure bulkhead at the back of the plane tube runs through here the number two hydraulic system operates one of the four airplane elevator panels the elevator panels control pitch from the tail of the aircraft if the rear vehicle shifted backwards through the bulkhead it could have hit the hydraulic tubing affecting control of the airplane okay let's play it investigators decide to take a closer look at the dash cam video [Music] play it again this time in slow motion upon close examination they noticed something odd please something's not right Advance a few frames or more a little more stop [Laughter] [Music] what's going on something's wonky with the landing gear large aircraft liked 747 they have a very complicated landing gear system to carry the loads that they carry they come down together and they go up together and it takes several hydraulic systems to make that happen the hydraulic systems that control landing gear also regulate various other parts of the plane including control surfaces that affect pitch using animation software the investigators create a match for the 747 with its five sets of landing gear now let's compare the model to the video these are down and this one here is up [Music] that shouldn't happen [Music] positive climb all National Airlines flight 102. one of the last commands recorded refers to the landing gear up Gear Up but after that exchange not all the gear retracted when I see a configuration of an airplane with part of the landing gear up part of it down I immediately think that they've had a hydraulic failure of of one or more of the hydraulic systems it looks like damage to one of the four hydraulic lines may have happened in the air which systems are out [Music] the nose and body landing gear didn't retract it must have been system one we were able to determine that the number one hydraulic system had been damaged at some point before the airplane hit the ground the discovery of the broken hydraulic line explains the eyewitness account of smoke as hydraulic fluid vaporizes behind the airplane it appears to look like smoke investigators think they have finally cracked the mystery [Music] the heavy armored vehicle came loose smashed through the back of the plane and took out the hydraulic lines making the plane uncontrollable after 11 days in Bagram the investigators are ready to head home all that's left to do is wrap up the case with a simulation test back in Washington we really thought that we had the cause of the accident but there was more to the story at NTSB headquarters in Washington DC glad to be back investigators are preparing to finalize the case all they have to do is to verify their theory that damaged Hydraulics made it impossible for the pilots to recover from the steep climb so once we got back the United States The Next Step was to do simulations reenact the accident scenario first they modeled the 747 with two broken hydraulic systems to test the cargo shift [Music] airplane Performance Group chairman Tim Birch oversees the simulations if I had one of these armored vehicles move back and there was a Associated center of gravity shift is airplane controllable okay what else do we know let's try the New Balance numbers let's take what we know up to a point and then start doing the what if scenarios with the simulation to see if we can put together a story that makes sense okay playing let's see what you do now but when they run the simulation of the rear vehicle coming loose something totally unexpected happens nose comes down and flies out of trouble let's shift even more weight back [Music] let's push the center of gravity even further let's try that [Music] even with two hydraulic systems broken and an mrap crashed into the back of the plane the simulations show that the aircraft can be controlled all right we're missing something the theory that seemed so solid in Afghanistan is now a bust so we started scratching our heads there was something more that we were missing most of the airplane wreckage Now lies buried near the crash site in Afghanistan thousands of miles away only selected Parts have been sent to the United States for analysis investigators must sift through photographs from the site to search for new evidence that might explain what caused the crash foreign I wonder so we needed to look further and the next thing behind the AFT pressure bulkhead the control pitch on the aircraft is the jack screw hey where'd that stabilizer jack screw end up the horizontal stabilizer is a large control surface that helps balance the plane in the air the Jack screw about six feet tall lowers and raises the edge of the stabilizer in response to the Pilot's commands [Music] the Jack screw found at the crash site was bent and severed right near its base the most likely explanation seemed to be that the damage occurred on impact but just to make sure it was sent to the US for testing what we were surprised to find out was that the Jack screw had actually been pushed aft and had broken loose from the airplane results show that the Jack screw was bent backwards the opposite of how it would have been in the crash so that raised the big question why what could have pushed it aft [Music] do we have a print out of this to find out what could have hit the Jack screw investigators consulted diagram of the airplane's AFT section they take some careful measurements and come up with a match [Music] yep straight hit I was able to determine that the bumper of the mat V lines up directly with the motor of the Jack screw in the area where it detached from the lower fuselage they input the new data the simulation now includes a broken Jack screw that makes the stabilizer free floating when Hammer up at the back two elevators down [Music] equals one uncontrollable plane investigators finally know that an mrap crashing into the Jack screw is what brought the airplane down but there's still one major mystery we're not done yet there's one more question how did that mrap come loose in back room the load Master had calculated the correct number of straps to use on each vehicle he based his calculations on the company's cargo operating manual how could the cargo have come loose if he followed the right procedure I immediately began contacting other cargo operators to understand what is supposed to be done to restrain free-floating cargo using straps when Executives from Boeing review the procedures they're less than impressed the manufacturers were quite shocked at how they were interpreting the requirements to get the maximum load capacity out of each strap it has to be tied down at a precise angle changing the angle changes the strap's capacity the airline hadn't spelled this out in its manual Boeing when you look at their manual they say that if you pull on a strap directly let's say that it's worth 3 500 pounds but if you go up on a 45 degree angle it's worth even less and if you pull on it a 90 degree angle it's worth zero National Airlines manual said regardless of angle each strap could be counted for five thousand pounds Boeing's own calculations found that National Airlines flight 102 took off with less than half the straps required on each vehicle at the most they could have carried one map view vehicle [Music] what's up dude investigators find no fault with flight loadmaster Michael sheets he had little training he wasn't certified without knowing it he'd based his calculations on a faulty manual my heart goes out to the loadmaster in this situation the data the manuals that he had to go by were incorrect so he was really in a a no-win situation but the cargo shift itself would not have brought down the plane [Music] the crash ultimately occurred because the sliding mrap damaged the horizontal stabilizer you take away the horizontal tail you're not going to be able to control this airplane in Pitch this was an uncontrollable event without the horizontal stabilizer the Pilot's inputs made the plane do the exact opposite of what they wanted a command to lower the nose suddenly caused the plane to pitch up there's a total disconnect between what you're doing as a pilot and what the airplane's doing it must have been terrifying I can't truthfully imagine it other than just sheer panic ntsb's final report finds that the probable cause of the accident was National Airlines inadequate procedures for restraining special cargo loads it concludes that the improper Restraint of the rear vehicle allowed it to move back hit the AFT pressure bulkhead knocked out the two hydraulic systems and the horizontal stabilizer making it impossible for the crew to regain control of the airplane one of the key recommendations is for mandatory certification of all cargo handling personnel a move that would standardize their procedures training and workloads I know that there are economics involved in using more certified people in but I certainly hope that they end up making loadmasters in these cargo operations certified just like anybody else so reflecting back on this investigation there were many hurdles we'd went into Afghanistan with a very very small team we had to go back to Old School methods but at the end we actually came out with safety recommendations that I believe are going to prevent an accident like this one from happening again I don't forget the tragedy but I also have a lot of Pride that I believe that we've been able to make a difference [Music]

Channel: Wonder

Views: 152,450

Keywords: Wonder, wonder channel, survivial videos, survival stories, i shouldn't be alive, wonder i shouldn't be alive, outdoor channel, extreme documentary, mayday season 16, mayday season 16 episode 1, mayday full episodes, maydair air disaster season 16, mayday full episodes online free, mayday full episodes 2023, mayday full episodes 2022, payne stewart plane, payne steward plane crash, plane crash documentary, plane crash footage, plane crash investigation

Id: i8LAk8ILwmk

Length: 42min 51sec (2571 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 16 2023