Deadliest Journeys - Amazonian's Hotheads

[Music] [Music] so no no no no no no no no no somewhere over colombia a high above the amazonian rainforest near the borders with brazil a dc-3 an old prop plane is caught in a violent tropical storm captain raul is trying to get above the clouds san jose come in we're entering your airspace no visibility and no reply on the radio and no question flight 3037 is in trouble to stabilize the twin-engined aircraft raul tries to bypass the worst of the storm [Music] but amidst the turbulence and without radio contact he seems unable to get back on the right flight path his co-pilot maria also appears to be lost in the rear the passengers are growing increasingly uneasy but colombians are fatalistic and above all fervent catholics flying is risky and it does scare me but i trust in god and the man who's flying this aircraft fortunately the ancient dc-3 has a guardian angel tito the mechanic he checks every suspect noise and on these old dc-3s the mechanical problems are frequent and sometimes fatal foreign on flights like these the greatest danger is not the storm or mechanical faults it's the jungle two thousand meters below the amazon jungle a green hell an impenetrable jungle twice the size of texas and the pilot's greatest fear below there is no space for emergency landings any breakdown will mean the plane will crash and then its curtains several dozen planes have disappeared into the jungle swallowed up by the vegetation they are rarely if ever found again it's one of the most powerless air routes in the world [Music] jumping off point is villa vicencio the destination is any one of the number of indian villages scattered throughout the jungle and cut off from civilization intervention or the skill of captain raul means the plane has succeeded in steering clear of the storm the passengers will arrive as scheduled at alcari clara a small indian village the runway or what passes for one is in view [Music] here there is no control tower everything is done the old-fashioned way as it was back in the 1920s and 30s [Music] intuition judgment and experience [Music] the landing zone is slippery and pitted with holes it's also way too short pilots need to be able to land virtually right at the start of the runway i reduced the speed as much as i could i landed right at the start of the runway so the wheels friction would help me bring the plane to a halt it slid a bit but it wasn't too deep [Music] about 100 people live in akarikwara the plane's arrival it stops here only once or twice a month as a major event without the dc3 the village would be completely isolated and getting enough food would become a problem [Music] there are alternatives like the river but it would be a lot more complicated how long would it take to come by river at least three or four days the village is a two-week walk to mito the nearest town on the border with brazil it's not much of a place barely 20 houses there's a church and a boarding school which takes in the indian children from the jungle alfredo camargo is a headmaster and has taught here for eight years he's a little depressed today over the years his various attempts to boost the village economy have all ended in failure last year this tractor was purchased but it's been sitting here rotting away for more than a year the indians have the same lifestyle as their ancestors hunting fishing and growing local produce as well as the supplies that have been flown in on the plane like rice sugar and pasta there's enough and we've even traded some of it with the indians in return for their bananas and yuccas and pineapples then we give them soap salt matches candles things like that out here it's a total barter system captain roll never spends more than 15 minutes on the ground just long enough to unload he wants to steer clear of the crowds of children who get in the way of taking off but mostly he wants to avoid flying at night see the kids don't realize the danger they run around playing on the landing strip [Music] like [Music] the return flight to vila vicenzio for two hours the plane will overfly the jungle again the passengers aren't comfortable if they were to crash their chances of survival are slim even if they did survive the wild animals and conditions they would face another danger the [ __ ] [Applause] the guerrillas of the revolutionary armed forces of colombia it's believed their forces number about ten thousand making a living from holding prisoners for ransomware [Music] but since the election of president uribe the army has succeeded in liberating prisoners such as this man who was kept in a hole in the ground for years after the two-hour flight villa vicenzio lies below the town is in the foothills of the andean cordillera [Music] [Music] [Music] uh dc3s like the one flown by captain raul are the stuff of legend there are still about a 100 that fly regularly they were first built more than 70 years ago and have survived war and old age more or less [Music] it only began when we started taking passengers how old is this aircraft i think it was updated in 1962 according to this panel in truth there's no date written anywhere and as surprising as it may sound captain raul doesn't know the plane's exact age 30 is still operational here in vila vicencios the world's capital of these ancient dc-3s one of the few planes capable of dealing with the conditions of flying in the amazon jungle [Music] however accidents do occur a monument at the entrance to the airport pays tribute to the high cost in lives of aviation in these parts in 20 years over 200 pilots and passengers have perished a very heavy price paid for the result of rains dirt landing strips and in particular to mechanical breakdowns the aircraft are due to permanently retire soon half the aircraft are always on the ground undergoing repairs such as flight 1149 owned by the sedelka airline it should have taken off this morning but the port engine wouldn't start up [Music] it's not a serious problem according to jose one of the plane's two mechanics then we'll do a quick test flight and then everything should be fine [Music] jose seems confident yet he was on board the same plane 18 months ago when it had to make an emergency landing in this paddy field a few kilometers from vila vicencio the dc-3 is the only one that has two on-board mechanics the left engine had a problem with its cylinder and then it just stopped we had cargo and 15 passengers on board we opened the emergency accident throughout all the cargo then the other engine shut down and the captain decided to try and landing it here in the paddy field we landed okay but the propellers were destroyed and the undercarriage ripped off today the same left engine is playing up again the fault is located after a short period it appears to be the in the u.s to pump the pump they take the entire engine off the plane [Music] here in colombia we're quicker we fix it right there and then there doesn't seem to be much concern in the airline's offices either flight 1149's pilot is captain fajardo seems like the flight is late yes a little bit does it happen often no it's just a bit of routine maintenance just a slight adjustment in the engine nothing serious [Music] but the repairs are taking longer than expected and the passengers appear distinctly uneasy they say the planes are very safe but when you see it like that it's scary five hours later and after much hesitation the flight is finally cancelled there's always a problem there's always something wrong two weeks ago on a sedelka plane there was an accident and the propeller broke people were stranded in the middle of the amazon for a week we wanted to charter that plane broke down what was wrong with it again that was the propeller the propeller wasn't powerful enough to take off and they had to cancel that flight and today we've been here since seven in the morning it's midday now and they've just announced there's a problem and we won't be able to fly sadelka isn't smiling either the engine has a serious problem it needs to be dismounted and taken to the workshop 200 metres away it's not just the pump it's probably something else it might take a day to fix it but if it turns out to be more serious it could take as long as one or two weeks the storms certainly won't help matters either there's a power cut but that won't stop our two geniuses however in colombia the light from a mobile is enough to repair a plane's engine by the storm means raul and maria won't be working either [Music] woof [Music] captain raul is paid far less than a regular airline pilot yet he still has heavy responsibilities [Music] he has to organize the flights and find the passengers buenos there's no real flight schedule with departure times as such on a given day we need to get enough cargo passengers and when it's full off we go it's only at the last moment that we know with that we're actually flying or where we're flying to we get one hour's notice at the most to load the plane raul relies on this man pablo is a shipping agent and he's the one who brokers all the air transport into the amazon jungle there's about 120 kilos for me too and there's 450 kilos from velau that's going to miraflores that's 120 kilos plus passengers despite the unpredictable weather the captain has decided to fly the pouring rain may have penetrated the petrol tanks something that could cause the engines to shut down in mid-flight we check by taking a sample to make sure we don't need to drain the tanks so as to get the rain water out [Music] the petrol is clean though so it's a green light [Music] after that the plane is loaded this is when the captain and the shipping agent wrestle over the payload to make more money pablo tries to lie about the weight but raul is keeping an eye on him the plane can carry no more than one and a half tons any more the captain will simply refuse to take off [Music] it's dangerous the slightest problem and the plane will just fall out of the sky that's why we have to watch the weight of the cargo because if something breaks down then we'll have enough time to keep flying and to be able to jettison any superfluous loads so we can complete [Music] vegetables beds dogs chickens tv sets in colombia dc3s look more like rural buses anything is transported even cocaine and the police check to make sure there's none on board with fuel kept to a minimum each extra kilo counts too much fuel and the plane will be too heavy to take off not enough and it could mean a crash in the jungle 140. is that enough no no no no no well just about there's just enough to get there judging the exact amount of fuel is a constant worry for the captain how much more do we need captain uh we put 20 in here and 20 at the back that's 150 plus 20 that's 170. [Music] know [Music] it's a small town in the middle of the colombian jungle the landing strip the main thoroughfare until recently however mira flores was notorious for being a drugs capital under the control of cocaine traffickers and of the farc please don't get off the plane and if you do get off make sure you don't film the captain doesn't want us to film because these days miraflores is under the control of the army who are sensitive about security the military everywhere once upon a time here there used to be 12 13 and maybe even 14 flights every day now there's only two [Music] one reason there are so few flights is that over the past 10 years or so its inhabitants have slowly abandoned the village we filmed the miraflores back when cocaine ruled supreme [Music] it had become an eldorado and a golden age for the dc-3 a plane landed every 50 minutes loaded down with supplies and with fortune hunters watch out watch the runway for horses or cars people yeah take care because the approach is delicate the runway has not been cleared i'm going to have to step on the gas again [Music] [Music] four thousand people lived here in this town which had sprung up from nowhere there was a huge amount of drugs money floating around people from all over colombia flocked here to make their fortunes it was colombia's wild west transforming the muddy streets into brothels and other dives here in miraflores there's a bit of violence a bit of drug trafficking there's a guerrilla war there's police murder and prostitution [Music] and there are huge fields of coca plants all around the town it's the local speciality and this is an illicit cocaine lab there are still hundreds more like this one scattered throughout the jungle the farmers use them to produce base cocaine known as pasta which they then sell to the drug traffickers the substance is then shipped by boat or plane to more sophisticated laboratories to be refined and then smuggled into europe or the united states hey luis have these leaves already been mashed no we're about to do that next we collect the leaves and then we mix them with the lime then they marinate in this container for about 40 minutes later we had ammonia to separate the coca and whiten it otherwise you could filter it through this cloth what's left is the base what we call the pasta this is about 150 grams we got about a kilo a hectare i don't have that much of a profit [Music] just enough to live off and maybe buy some christmas presents the military was sent in and a pictureless war erupted it's a bit like vietnam here sometimes in miraflores the cocaine lords ran everything openly challenging the authority of the government and the state also wanted to weaken the farc who had made cocaine their main source of revenue the army intervened in a ruthless wide-scale series of offensives including commando raids in the centre of town right among the civilians the war ended with the destruction of the secret labs tons of cocaine went up in smoke traffickers were killed or arrested and the farc gorillas driven back into the jungle few dc3s flying or out any longer especially when they miss the landing strip like this one at the repair hangar in vila vicencio the mechanics have taken just one night to repair the engine of sedelka flight 1149 there's still the tricky job of fixing it back onto the wing and to make sure it runs smoothly you have to wonder about an engine that's in this state it works though thank god yeah gave me quite a headache though captain fajardo will take the plane up for a test flight he's been flying dc3s for seven years and knows this plane well he's the one who crash-landed in the paddy field a year and a half earlier he meticulously checks everything before takeoff those [Music] the mechanic keeps an eye on the engine so far so good on board everything seems fine and the crew is happy [Music] everyone's been concentrating on the port engine [Music] when suddenly [Music] it's the starboard engine that stops and then restarts inside the plane there's a slight panic but the dc3 can fly perfectly well even with just one engine the captain decides to land quickly however onto this makeshift airstrip foreign no i'm just checking the fuel pressure that's okay it's a bit low but we can fix that and the dc-3 is soon airborne again [Music] despite the imminent risk of another breakdown the comforting drone of the engines soon sends everyone off to sleep [Music] even the pilot [Music] in villa vicenzio the storm has finally ended captain raul and his crew are carefully preparing their next flight and the captain is uneasy you will have to land on one of the most dangerous landing strips in colombia and he's never been there before everything has to be worked out the approach speed and the precise place where the wheels must touch down uh what if you get it wrong quite simple will crash or spin off the runway which is right next to a ravine is it big [Music] the ravine at the end of the runway is deep about 80 meters and the icing on the cake is that on this flight he'll be transporting 1 800 liters of highly combustible fuel the fuel attendant isn't pleased about us filming fearing a spark from our equipment might set fire to everything okay go ahead and film but it is dangerous uh with this hot weather anything could start a fire and there'd be no way to put it out we'd all get barbecued along with a plane [Music] okay [Music] [Music] oh it's always nerve-racking especially the landings when i see we're running out of airstrip and the brakes are on full and we start to slide left and right just keeps going though and there's nothing we can do about it [Music] as a precaution tito the onboard mechanic has removed the rear door one short circuit one spark a violent bump and everything could blow we leave the door open so that the fumes can dissipate we're carrying fuel so it's crucial the plane is well vented in the back and in the front to avoid a buildup of gas in any one area [Music] after an uneventful flight the runway comes into view fortunately visibility is excellent [Music] in colombia they're not the only pilots who risk their lives aguazola is a three-hour drive from vila vicencio this is the lanos or great plains region of colombia with huge herds of cattle and cowboys rice and cereals are also grown here the area is the country's bread basket shortly after five in the morning jose guitierrez a 46 year old pilot is about to take off brakes every day jose is a special kind of pilot well known locally he sometimes spots a car he recognizes down below and like a fighter ace flies perishly low to buzz the vehicle highly dangerous maneuver just to impress his friends in the car i think i have the most dangerous job in flying well even more than a yeah dc3 mean in the dc3 the takeoffs are dangerous because of the weight of the cargo and the power of the engines but once the pilot's up above 15 000 meters if there's a problem it has time to throw out the cargo if the engine stops we've got just 10 seconds to find somewhere to land and there's certainly no time to jet in there jose is a crop duster his job is to spray fertilizer or pesticides on the fields his chestnut is filled with his highly toxic chemicals each farmer concots his own mixture there are no controls the aim is simply to be effective today his task is to spray pesticides on these fields and before that he needs to find his bearings [Music] [Music] rice to make it worth his while jose's tanks are filled to the brim with pesticide [Music] there's so much the plane has difficulty leaving the ground [Music] the pilot has to steer between these two white flags to spray the right fields to prevent the wind from carrying the pesticides elsewhere jose flies as low as possible on average jose makes about a dozen flights a day 12 takeoffs and landings [Music] we have to keep on our toes the whole time danger can come from anywhere we're flying just a meter above the ground so we have no time to react or barely anyway we have to focus on the flags and the farmers and at the same time keep an eye on the instruments i have to remain aware of everything that's happening inside and outside the aircraft you have to make sure that there are no obstructions in the field you know someone walking across the flight path or cow or trees of course that might be in the field to do all of that you need to know what you're doing every time he stops to resupply is a race against time like a formula one pit stop each minute counts you can't stop for longer than two minutes time is of the essence each minute cost me 20 000 pesos right now i'm off at those prices he doesn't hang around but there's no routine in the skies just danger everywhere especially when there are power lines crossing the fields that's really scary and he often has little choice other than to fly below them sunrise you can barely see the power cables you need to be a bit crazy to do this job don't you not bit completely the list of crop duster pilots that have been killed as a long one jose has had some close calls 13 serious accidents i had two breakdowns in flight three accidents taking off and the rest while i've been working once when i was landing a wheel broke and the plane went head over heels i wasn't even wearing my belt when it was rolling over the fuselage cracks and so i could squeeze out of the gap i'd hit my head against [Music] they dragged me out [Music] that accident jose's worst was in this very plane 18 years ago he was young cocky back then and still a bachelor things have changed now he has a family he and his wife julia are the proud parents of an eight-year-old daughter and a newborn until at least his hand is as big as mine me a while though 20 years at least [Music] julia's happiness would be complete if her husband was not a pilot when we were going out and then started living together then i realized what i was dealing with before that i hadn't i'm always worried that i'll get a call one day to tell me the plane has crashed and something's happened to him you've never asked him to change jobs yes all the time but he just carries on flying to earn a living he needs to find something else to do but not being a pilot raising kids is much harder than flying airplanes airplanes don't control pilots whereas children do hey here partying is a tradition each sunday jose and his family enjoy a barbecue with their friends the music songs that is tribute to the cowboys of this region of colombia the flannels provide us with everything they give me work in agriculture and a way for the others to make a living too the music relaxes me it's so wonderful [Music] i'm always humming one of these songs i usually have one of the tunes in my head when i'm flying [Music] and his aerial antics will remain a feature for the foreseeable future [Music] the dc3s ii are likely to keep flying for some time to come foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Best Documentary

Views: 59,043

Keywords: documentary, roads, National Geographic, waterways, travel, dangerous roads, colombia, plane, adventure, danger

Id: 21YB5YqV0Io

Length: 52min 16sec (3136 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 08 2021