Aeroméxico Flight 498 Crashes In California After Mid-Air Collision | Mayday | Wonder

paper was light gold in medieval times [Music] oh no tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong [Music] east of los angeles a calm holiday weekend is shattered by a devastating explosion i turned and saw my house totally on fire all the houses behind me were all on fire fiery wreckage is strewn for blocks investigators must discover why this airliner crashed and find a way to stop it from ever happening again so los angeles international airport lax is one of the busiest in the world it's used by forty million passengers each year more than fifteen hundred planes take off and land every day [Applause] it's august the 31st 1986 labor day weekend [Music] today a junior air traffic controller walter white will be handling some of that traffic white isn't yet a fully fledged controller he has to put in more time before he gets his final certification hey carl how's it going hey slow slow slow it was a long weekend and it was a beautiful day in los angeles it's absolutely clear outside which we call chamber of commerce type day you wanna take a break have a cigarette i could sit in for you that was my normal assigned shift and walter came in and asked me if i wanted a break want to go smoke a cigarette and i said sure all right traffic was light it wasn't very busy uh it was sunday morning well certainly any controller is looking to get seasoning if you will three months four months that's a pretty new controller angel's approach good morning i mean it wasn't my turn for a break walter wanted to work the sector as i remember correctly he wanted to work it for some proficiency time he hadn't worked in a while at 60 can you see the runway two five left a roger alley approach thank you reduce speed to two zero zero then descend and maintain six thousand two zero six thousand zero you have a nice day [Music] several hundred kilometers to the south passengers are boarding an aero mexico dc-9 [Music] dr donald wong and his sons are returning from a highly successful fishing trip [Music] jason i think we should put it up in the kitchen they caught an enormous sailfish your mom would love it which they plan to display at home labor day weekend was the last weekend before school was to start donald decided that it would be fun to take the boys fishing down in mexico to go deep sea fishing which he'd only done one other time in his life this would be a like father-son bonding weekend and it was also the first time that they had traveled without me [Music] just east of la the suburban city of cerritos wakes up slowly in the 1970s this bustling community had been one of the fastest growing in los angeles county my husband had been working out of town all week and he was coming home for the weekend and that sunday morning i decided let's just stay home and not go to church i'm gonna go out and get your favorite things for a good breakfast javier go and take a shower and i left to go to the grocery store in the home was alex he was 14 his twin sister angelica she was asleep he was asleep still and javier that was my 16 year old and my husband as estrada leaves on her errand aero mexico flight 498 is just 20 minutes from la [Music] captain antonio valdez prom is acting as co-pilot as they approach the city [Music] first officer jose valencia is piloting this leg of their journey ready when you wake up about 22 kilometers south of lax sits the torrance airport operating in the mammoth shadow of lax torrance serves private planes and amateur pilots it's one of several small airports that operate near la a region that has over 6 000 weekend flyers [Music] if you're set at the end of a busy summer william cramer his daughter caroline and wife kathleen are finally taking to the skies piper 4891 good morning piper 4891 this is torence tower you're clear for takeoff from runway 5. they're heading to big bear lake rolling tower about 200 kilometers northeast a meticulous man william cramer is an executive for an engineering company six years ago at the age of 47 kramer bought his first airplane a stylish and swift piper cherokee [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] wings west 5225 los angeles approach depart sealed beach heading 3-2-0 expect a visual approach runway two five left report airport in sight thanks walter white's job as a rivals controller is to make sure incoming planes keep well clear of each other he's directing them to land on one of two runways we'll approach runway two five left thank you [Music] southeast of lax the crew of aeromexico flight 498 is still a few minutes from their first contact with walter white but in the skies above los angeles a deadly series of events is about to unfold dozens of people who have never met will be bound together forever in a tragedy that will affect everyone who flies [Music] august the 31st 1986 labor day weekend all clear for takeoff just south of los angeles william cramer and his family are finally on their way for a long-awaited holiday okay just an hour to go we're in big bear lake the reporting visibility of 14 miles today pretty good as the torrance airport recedes behind him kramer begins climbing to 3 000 meters on his way north east to big bear lake [Music] several kilometres away a half-full dc-9 from mexico is approaching los angeles international airport [Music] less than 2 000 metres below them teresa estrada is driving home with the groceries for a holiday breakfast her husband and three children are waiting just a few blocks away [Music] that's it holiday's over [Music] it's not a busy morning and one by one arrivals controller walter white guides his planes in safely airport at 11 47 am he gets his first call from aero mexico flight 498. los angeles approach good morning this is aeronexco 498 aeromexico 498 los angeles approach two five left final approach course aeromexico flight 498 is now officially inside what's known as the terminal control area or tca sometimes referred to as the bird cage the tca is a complex piece of three-dimensional airspace around the airport it's restricted airspace that's normally found around heavily congested airports or hub airports where the traffic density is extremely high and you need to control the access into and out of that air space aero mexico 498 traffic ten o'clock one mile northbound altitude unknown roger 498 aeromexico 498 reduce speed to one nine or zero then descend and maintain six thousand as the aero mexico plane descends william kramer and his family continue climbing i hope it's like this when we get to big bear we should be able to see the ocean by now take a look at the map and and look around the 405 and see if you can see any any kind of landmarks that we can use oh what am i looking for [Music] walter white is keeping his eye on the aero mexico jet when his attention is abruptly drawn to another plane that's just appeared on his radar it's not one he's expecting uh one approach romeo was on a flight from fullerton cruising altitude is 4500 we'd like following the pilot of a small grumman tiger asks white to help guide him through the crowded terminal control area pilots are supposed to contact lax approach before they enter the controlled airspace this pilot could be in the path of incoming traffic but before white can deal with the private plane he gets a call from the aeromexico dc-9 uh what speed do you want uh we're reducing to uh two nine or zero no no nine or zero okay you can hold what you have sir white decides to give the aero mexico jet the runway closest to their gate changing plan sir stand by roger 498 with the dc-9 on hold white turns to the intruder grumman's 6-6 romeo squawk 4-5-2-4 remain clear the tca white tells the pilot of the grumman to use a unique radio channel but he seems confused four five what were the other two numbers four five two four proven six six romeo are you at four thousand five hundred now negative we're at three thousand four hundred and climbing okay you are right in the middle of the tca sir roman six six romeo i suggest in future you look at your tca chart you just had an aircraft pass right off your left above you it's five thousand and we run a lot of jets right through there at thirty five hundred well what do you suggest i do now [Music] as the crew of aero mexico flight 498 continue to close in on the air mission landing lights their dc-9 is rocked by a violent shutters altimeter bugs what was that aeromexico 498 los angeles approach first officer valencia tries desperately to control their dive los angeles approach [Music] [Music] i saw a huge explosion just the red vibrant colors of a fire just huge explosion like the way a bomb might hit the ground white is getting no response from the aero mexico jet air mexico 498 los angeles approach and now he can't find it on his radar screen sitting there talking with the two departure controllers and uh not really thinking i hear walter say something like i think i lost one hero mexico 498 los angeles approach that immediately got everybody's attention so he looked at the radars and could hear him calling air mexico 498 called him several times on the radio where was aeromexico at this point we weren't absolutely sure what had happened white calls to an incoming jet for help american 333 heavy i want you to take a look around 11 o'clock i just lost contact with a dc-9 let me know if you see anything down there please uh eleven o'clock uh five miles what altitude uh he was last assigned six he's no longer on my radar scope american 333 heavy okay uh i see a um very large smoke screen off on the left side of the aircraft about 11 o'clock [Music] i went down the street to go to my house and i saw a woman's head that her body had been cut in a diagonal and she was just laying there there was nothing but debris and fires sporadically all over the place and i could see the fire in the whole neighborhood nearby an engine from a local fire station had been on a training exercise led by fire captain larry hamilton all of a sudden one of the firemen tapped me on the shoulder and said there's a big column of smoke you know off to our left so i picked up the mic and made a guess at the address responding to a large fire north of 91 north of terminator i came back and i said well we've got a report of an airliner down so i upgraded the response to basically triple what i initially asked for i'm calling for a third alarm [Music] as we approached i realized that in addition to the aircraft parts of the street there were people body parts which changed the complexion of the whole thing get in here set up a perimeter hello hello can anybody hear me at los angeles approach walter white deeply shaken by the crash is relieved of duty [Applause] i remember watching walter get up and walk out of the room by himself and you know something inside of me was just you know saying this is not right this is not right somebody's got to go with him tony he can't go out alone i could have been sitting there just as easy as him and i don't know if i'd have done anything different than he plume of did and black smoke and that's the aircrash site about three miles west of not far helicopter news crews are quickly on the scene there was a lot of fire in front of me and my house is just totally on fire and i saw my neighbor where are they i said to her rose where's my family what happened and she goes oh honey your family's in here they're over here we're looking for you and within myself all i could do is thank god that they were safe and sound [Music] she took me into her home and i saw alex alex [Music] what happened where's angelica where's angelica where's heavier where's papa i don't know mom i'm sorry and he started crying right away and said mom i'm sorry i'm the only one that came out alive and all i could do was hug him [Music] pieces of fuselage have torn through nearby homes setting them on fire the tail section of the jet has been catapulted more than a block from the crash site hello is there anybody in here as i surveyed the houses and the crash site around me it was a very surreal experience just to stand right there for probably four or five minutes before anybody else showed up and not see another living soul i have got wreckage all over the place there are no survivors just fatalities no i dealt with death i wanna one or two or three people in a residential fire but never a whole airliner full of people [Music] let's go to work guys [Applause] i don't think i ever saw a whole a whole human being gave him the job of finding body parts and wrapping them or covering them with yellow rescue blankets no matter where it was ever so small or whatever you know a hand or a torso or leg or whatever that became life to us it was treated with respect my memory of the incident is in a muted shade of brown it's not black and white it's not vivid color you know the grass isn't green the houses don't have paint it's all some muted brown shade and i'm told that that's my brain's way of taking something violent and horrible and softening it a little bit so i can live with it and deal with it oh boy the whole corner of this neighborhood has just been torn apart yellow sheets marks the bodies i count one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven bodies right now oh gosh this neighborhood has just been devastating sixteen houses have been damaged many of them completely destroyed at los angeles international airport mary wong is waiting for her husband and two young sons i went to the airport to pick them up um around noon and um waited in that area outside of customs and waited and waited and probably you know you're thinking customs might take a little while but about maybe 12 20 or 12 30 i started seeing a man walk around with a pack on his back with a green cross we were taken up to a lounge upstairs and on the elevator up i looked at the man and i said they're dead i just know they're gone [Music] in cerritos emergency workers are shocked by another grisly discovery in the playground of a local school they find the wreckage of a piper cherokee archer remarkably intact the plane's canopy is sliced off its three occupants are found still belted into their seats william cramer and his family are dead [Music] all the passengers and crew on aeromexico flight 498 are also dead [Music] in addition 15 people on the ground have been killed [Music] it's a horrifying situation two planes have crashed into a california neighborhood something's gone terribly wrong in the skies above one of the busiest airports in the world now investigators have to find out exactly what happened on the last day of august in 1986 a lazy labor day weekend is shattered by an enormous explosion [Music] two planes crash in la county destroying several houses [Music] it's a grisly scene bodies are scattered throughout a devastated neighborhood [Music] 82 people are dead 15 people on the ground have been killed another 67 have died in the tangled wreckage of the two planes involved [Music] investigators from the national transportation safety board arrived that night they include experts in human performance flight systems and air traffic control [Music] from the beginning investigators are focused on the fact that there are two planes on the ground it suggests a disturbing conclusion that this was a mid-air collision the idea that this had been a mid-air collision was already conveyed to us before we even launched out of hanger six back when we got to work they saw two wreckages coming down and that's the way it got conveyed to us with that idea in mind john white and his team must painstakingly examine the wreckage it's more of now documenting where the major pieces were and then looking at the pieces to see if you can determine how the aircraft what angle the aircraft may have come together at propeller marks on the tail of the dc-9 and paint from the piper cherokee reveal how the planes crashed it looks like the piper collided at the tail section of the dc-9 and the horizontal stabilizer came off and once that happened you could no longer control the pitch of the dc-9 the descending dc-9 and the climbing cherokee met at a 90 degree angle their combined speed was 450 kilometers an hour the impact tore off the airliner's tail section discovering how the planes collided is the first step the more important question to be answered is why to piece together the tragedy investigators examined the dc-9s flight data recorder it helps them pinpoint the exact location and altitude of aero mexico flight 498 the dc-9 was inside the terminal control area the controlled airspace of the los angeles airport it was right where it was supposed to be but the kramer's cherokee was also inside the tca with all of the jets taking off and landing at lax private planes must first get permission to enter this area piper 4891 all clear for takeoff torts william cramer was a newcomer to los angeles but investigators learned that he was well aware of the limits imposed by the tca he knew that it was restricted airspace and in the cockpit of kramer's cherokee the confirmation investigators find a map of the los angeles terminal control area [Music] investigators make another puzzling discovery they learn that the kramer's proposed flight plan took them from torrance to long beach then up to ontario and finally to big bear lake at a cruising altitude of 3000 metres that plan keeps him well out of the tca [Music] the fact of the matter is the cherokee flew into the tca and hit the dc-9 in restricted airspace without a clearance so how had kramer flown into danger and why hadn't he let anyone know on the ground in cerritos one possible answer emerges heart disease runs in kramer's family and the initial autopsy results show a major blockage [Music] are you all right bill yeah yeah i'm fine [Music] kramer may have suffered a heart attack on the flight leaving the plane without a pilot [Music] samples of william cramer's heart tissue are sent to the armed forces institute of pathology for testing if he suffered a heart attack it might explain why he didn't call in to la approach it's totally possible that he could have had the heart attack fell back pulled the airplane up and that's why he didn't try and avoid the dc-9 [Music] but no matter why kramer was flying and restricted airspace air traffic controller walter white should have been able to see him kramer's plane should have appeared on white's radar [Music] before being questioned by investigators white reviews the radio calls from that morning he needs to be sure of what he said and what he saw [Music] richard wentworth was one of the investigators who talked to white at any time did you see the pepper cherokee on your scope no no sir the piper's target was not displayed it is my belief that it was not on my radar scope he was positive that the aircraft was not there for him to see ntsb investigators aren't satisfied with white's memory while the radar data is being analyzed news arrives from the armed forces institute of pathology about william kramer's heart are you all right bill [Music] results from a detailed study of his body show that while he had advanced heart disease william kramer was not fighting a heart attack before the collision investigators must find another explanation for why the kramer's flight went into the los angeles terminal control area while he had submitted a flight plan small planes like kramer's cherokee don't have sophisticated instruments like most private pilots kramer was navigating by landmarks like freeways that meant keeping an eye both on the landscape below and the airspace around him [Music] and that's definitely the 405. where is it again [Music] john andrews is an aviation expert who testified about the circumstances of the cerritos disaster the pilot of the piper was navigating by visual landmarks possibly attempting to follow a parallel to a freeway and that he had become confused about which freeway he should have been following new to california perhaps bewildered by the tangle of freeways below him kramer may have flown into the terminal control area without knowing it [Music] there are no lines on the ground that says the tca starts here and at this altitude you have to look at a chart you have to interpret that investigators are now confident they can explain why kramer was inside the controlled airspace of the tca [Music] but when he finally gets a look at the air traffic control radar record richard wentworth is convinced that walter white should have been able to see the piper [Music] we were able to determine that the aircraft that collided with aeromexico was there to be seen so why hadn't white reacted to the kramer's plane if it was on his radar when walter white came to work that day the arrival station was being controlled by carl grundman hey carl how's it going hey grundman believes that long-standing radar problems were the reason white didn't see the kramer's plane i could sit in for you controllers have been complaining about the radars for a long time cheers buddy all right thanks a lot we had reported problems with the radar uh not picking up targets several times when radar signals strike a target they bounce back to the receiver but if buildings or mountains interrupt the radar the return signal can disappear [Music] you may lose one target you may lose two targets it may not be presented for one sweep did you see the papa cherokee on your scope no sir but that doesn't mean that the target isn't there a blind spot is only an instantaneous thing it's not a continuous thing i think i lost one there were also holes that were just because the radar was old it was just not as accurate as it might have been it was not state of the art equipment that's for darn sure there's an effect called flicker when a computer becomes overloaded the scope will flicker every now and then targets will drop out or can drop out we reviewed that data we had no evidence that there were any malfunctions of any systems in los angeles there is another possible explanation if the cherokee had appeared on the radar white still could have missed it investigators focus on the other plane in the sky that day the grumman tiger private planes are required to contact air traffic control if they are entering the terminal control area but the tiger was already deep into the tca before it radioed walter white [Music] uh what approach 6-6 romeo was on a flight from fullerton cruising altitude is four thousand five hundred we'd like following growing six six romeo are you at 4500 now negative we're at 3 400 and climbing okay you are right in the middle of the tca sir there was an aircraft that was east of the airport which he became involved in that was what they called a violator romeo i suggest in future you look at your tca chart you just had an aircraft the problem with the conversation between the controller and the pilot of the groom is that it went on too long why were you so mesmerized by the grumman i thought he posed a risk this occurred during a critical time at which the two aircraft to the south west of his display which was the arrow mexico and the cherokee were merging but even if the cherokee signal did appear on white's radar and even if he had seen it investigators discover that white still would not have had all the information he needed radar signals only show controllers that a plane is in range [Music] transponders on planes can broadcast other information including height and speed but at the site of the cherokee wreckage investigators discover the plane's transponder is a basic model it only sends out information on the plane's direction it provides no information about the plane's altitude so these controllers were pretty much used to seeing a little triangle which represented a vfr aircraft with no altitude readout traversing all over the place and unless they learned firsthand from the pilot they had a expectation that the aircraft would not intrude into that airspace grumman 66 romeo squad four investigators believe that white's divided attention perhaps made worse by an older radar system explains why air traffic control never warned the dc-9 of the danger posed by kramer's cherokee landmarks that we might be able to use as a visual but there's another mystery that hasn't been solved studying the radar records from the day ntsb investigators are startled by what they find neither the crew of the dc-9 nor the pilot of the smaller cherokee took any evasive action before the crash both pilots appear completely unaware of each other definitely the 404 why hadn't the pilots of either airplane reacted visibility was over 20 kilometers how could two planes collide in the clear blue sky [Music] to try to get a better sense of what was happening inside the aero mexico cockpit investigators listened to the airplane's cockpit voice recorder los angeles approach this is aeronautics the flight crew had put walter white on their overhead speakers the microphone for the cockpit voice recorder was right beside the speakers approached sealed beach heading 3-2-0 much of what the pilot said was drowned out by white's voice then descend and maintain six thousand altimeter bugs the radar information paints a puzzling picture [Applause] it indicates that for more than a minute the kramer's cherokee was there to be seen by the aero mexico crew and if the cramers had looked out of their right side window they would also have seen the aero mexico jet but neither plane altered its course neither plane took any action to avoid the deadly collision investigators believe that if william cramer was indeed lost and using the freeways as a guide he might never have seen the approaching dc-9 the window he would have been looking out of was the pilot's window but the dc-9 was coming from the other direction visual landmark this would have been a very unfortunate uh situation because the dc-9 was approaching from the far right side and in fact could not be could only be seen out the passenger's window which was on the right side of the aircraft for the crew of the dc-9 the very size of the much smaller cherokee could have prevented them from seeing the plane before it was too late in some cases when the small aircraft is closing very rapidly by the time the aircraft becomes large enough for you to easily see it it's almost too late to avoid the collision the faa generally is taken a sort of as a rule of thumb that you need about 12 seconds in order to see an aircraft decide that it's a threat and then execute an avoidance maneuver in the case of the collision at cerritos by the time the aircraft became large enough to see you were down very close to that 12 second limit in case after case submit our collisions we find out that the aircraft gave no indication that they saw each other until the time they actually collided the design of the cockpit windshield may also have contributed to the disaster it's possible that during part of the approach at least for one of the pilots the aircraft was actually behind the center post and unless the pilot moved his head back and forth to clear that airspace unless he had a reason to do that it's possible the aircraft was obscured during part of the time in which she might have had a chance of seeing the other aircraft ignition the disaster over cerritos revealed several tragic weaknesses in the air traffic control system one of the most glaring was that pilots could not be relied on to see and avoid each other they'd need new technology to keep a mid-air collision from happening again [Music] a small california neighborhood is rocked by a terrifying plane crash 82 people are killed when a private plane slams into a large passenger jet [Music] the devastation is enormous [Music] more than a dozen houses are damaged several leveled completely the ntsb report makes it clear that there are glaring problems across the air traffic system and these concerns must be addressed before inevitably there is another mid-air disaster the faa which regulates the airline industry in the united states acted swiftly to improve safety a new kind of transponder was required for smaller planes the kind that might have helped air traffic controllers recognize that the private aircraft posed a danger if you had an aircraft that flew under a controlled airspace you would have a transponder and you would be required to have altitude encoding or reporting that way it would be no mistake as to whether you had an intruder or not a new system called mode c intruder was also developed to warn air traffic controllers mode c intruder is an automated program that is now incorporated in all our major radar facilities that if an aircraft should inadvertently intrude the controller will now be given a visual and an oral alert thus giving him time to provide a timely warning to the pilot seatbelts even for the most diligent pilot the old strategy of see and avoid had serious limitations those limitations would be addressed with the most important innovation of all the major technological innovation that came out of the cerritos mid-air was the congressional mandate that all air carrier aircraft operating within the united states would be outfitted with tcas traffic collision and avoidance system john andrews worked on the team that developed tcas the tcas collision avoidance system which was under development quite possibly could have prevented this accident tcas gives the pilot a traffic advisory at 45 seconds before the potential collision hey maria everything okay back now and then at approximately 25 seconds or so before the potential collision a resolution advisory is given to actually tell the pilots to climb or descend to avoid the altitude of the other aircraft today commercial airlines around the world use tcas the pilot of the grumman tiger the so-called third pilot whose actions may have played a part in the crash was eventually charged for flying into controlled airspace in a careless and reckless manner for walter white the effect of the disaster over cerritos could not be overcome [Music] walter came back to the tracon and i think it was probably a month or so later [Music] and i can't give you exactly how long he stayed there but it wasn't very long and he just got up and said no no thank you [Music] uh and as far as i know he didn't talk to airplanes again within a year of the incident the old radars at lax were replaced in cerritos a memorial garden now marks the day of the disaster mary wong has since remarried but the pain of returning home that day will never go away there's nobody here the house is empty derek was already living in an apartment in san diego and here i was i was no longer a mother except to derek and i was no longer a wife and so it shattered my whole world days after the disaster mary wong met one of the few people who could fully understand her loss i went to the memorial service and it was very important to me to try to meet somebody else who had gone through this and i knew from reading stories that teresa had lost her husband and two children and so i saw someone there who i thought was theresa she says are you teresa estrada i said yes i am she says well my marriage my name is mary wong and she says i said i lost my husband and children also i i just wanted to grab her and hug her because she was feeling what i was feeling so we had an immediate connection and we've maintained our friendship over these 20 years everyone who flies today has been affected by the mid-air collision over cerritos the disaster led to historic improvements in aviation safety since the full adoption of the tcas system there has not been another mid-air collision in the united states [Music] you

Channel: Wonder

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Keywords: Wonder, wonder channel, survivial videos, survival stories, extreme documentary, mayday air crash investigation, mayday air disaster, air crash investigation, air crash investigation full episodes, air crash documentary, Aeroméxico Flight 498, aeromexico crash, aeromexico 498, aeromexico flight 498 crash animation, aeromexico flight 498 air crash investigation, aeromexico flight 498 crash, aeromexico flight 498 mayday, plane crashes into house

Id: zdnq7pPMDgQ

Length: 50min 28sec (3028 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021