Fatal Air Disasters That Changed Aviation Forever | Season 7 - MEGA MARATHON | Mayday: Air Disaster

[Music] october the 26th 1988 near dusseldorf [Music] for weeks german police have been following a group of suspected terrorists around the ancient town of noyce [Music] today they'll make their move [Music] yes bigger bigger [Music] in the trunk of their car police make an unusual discovery police raid apartments used by the two men they find a number of blank passports and a small arsenal of weapons when police closely examined the radio recovered from their car they find it's wired with explosives those devices used a combination of an improvised barometric device and a a timer a short delay timer all these devices were in fact supposed to go onto an aircraft a barometric timer is set off by changes in altitude it's triggered when it reaches a certain height [Music] since that guarantees a plane will be in the air when the bomb goes off it's a favorite device for those targeting passenger jets the two men arrested in germany work for a well-known terrorist organization the popular front for the liberation of palestine leader of the pfl pgc ahmed jabril made a speech in libya in 1986 and one of the things he said was that until there's peace in the middle east there would be no safety for anyone traveling on an american or an israeli airliner hafez dalca muni is shipping weapons to syria and lebanon is a notorious bomb maker responsible for bringing down at least one passenger jet it's just a couple of months until the busy christmas travel season with the two men under arrest german police have made commercial aviation a little safer [Music] two months later pan am flight 103 is on its way from london to new york the jet has just taken off from heathrow airport there are 259 people on board [Music] most of the passengers are american charles mckee actually works for the u.s government khalid jafar lives in detroit and is returning home from a trip to lebanon and germany the first part of the trip to the united states takes the plane northwest up over scotland the so-called daventry departure is one of six preset routes the jets follow on their way out of heathrow lockerby is one of several small towns the plane will pass over tucked away in the scottish lowlands residents are barely aware that they live below a busy aerial highway pan am calls this 747 clipper maid of the seas as it levels off at 31 000 feet the crew gets in touch with air traffic control good evening scottish clipper 103. we are level at 3-1-0 103 you are identified captain james macquarie is 55 years old like many passengers on this pre-holiday flight he's heading home five miles below the people of lockerbie prepare for christmas michael gordon is chatting with a friend when a strange rumbling noise fills his house hang on there's something odd outside here the weather that night was a bit wild there was a fairly strong westerly wind i could hear it hitting the window in front of me from my window i can see lockerbie because my house sits up in the hill and i heard this noise which was above the noise of the wind and the noise sounded like thunder and now now you get louder and louder and i could hear the noise then got to the stage of being similar to a jet fighter and at that time we had a lot of military aircraft passing through the area however i saw dark objects stacked things falling from the sky against the lights of lockerbie i could see these black objects coming down and then from my right quite high in my right i could see a long thin black object which had a fire in the upper surface coming in and it was making its way towards lockable [Music] when it hit it was the most horrendous explosion and i could hear the tiles and the roof of my house lifting [Music] hello hello when the explosion took place the telephone line stopped functioning lockerbie is burning enormous flames reach into the night sky michael gordon races to the neighborhood that is hardest hit the street was in fire the lawns were on fire and houses were on fire and it was difficult to go without finding my trousers burning and my my shoes burning you had to jump about quite a bit because everything was on fire but i remember at that point finding an airline ticket and it was perfectly intact there's no damage by fire or fuel or contamination of any sort and the airline ticket said london heathrow to gfk somehow pan am flight 103 has fallen from the sky and smashed into lockerbie scotland [Music] in the daylight the full horror of the crash of pan am flight 103 is obvious [Music] several houses on the ground have simply vanished vaporized when the plane smashed into them an enormous crater is torn through the southern edge of the town [Music] fifteen hundred tons of rock and earth have been blasted out of the ground eleven people from lockerbie are dead along with all 259 people who were on board as far as i know i've lost my brother-in-law my sister-in-law and their house is just the 30-foot crater in the ruins of their homes they search for the bodies of the aircraft's passengers such a catastrophe so sudden so great a shock for a quiet town [Music] it looked like a scene out of hell this whole road was a place i didn't know why it was and then we rushed outside and just all this debris coming down air crash investigators have arrived in lockerbie within hours of the crash [Music] mick charles is the lead inspector for the british air accidents investigation branch the aaib one of the first sites we went to was the site of the crater that was uh still smelling very much of aviation fuel for a start and scattered all around where were bits of debris and in some cases human tissue as well charles quickly gathers his team to begin looking for clues it was all heaving it was happening there were loads of people and it was to some extent chaos you'll be organized into groups headed by an aaib inspector does anyone have any questions the sooner we start the better more than a thousand police officers and 600 members of the military pour into lockerbie you always have this this sense of wanting to get to grips with what it is it was quite clear that whatever it was was colossal [Music] any debris that's found is put into clear plastic bags and left to be collected later dark bags are used to store human remains it's just days before christmas but the holiday spirit has been shattered at the start of the investigation what we were doing was finding out which bits of the aeroplane were where actually finding all the airplanes the sheer scale of the disaster is difficult to comprehend chris the raf have offered us a helicopter can we use it absolutely with so much wreckage being found investigators need to get a bird's-eye view and locate the largest fields of debris the maps of that area were a very short supply and we ran out of them very quickly so we had to use black and white photocopies initially investigators bring local police officer michael gordon with them to help in the search the intention was for me to be able to identify geographical landmarks and identify parts of the aircraft they soon get a better sense of their enormous task when we were in the helicopter we could see that the wreckage came out on in a cone shape emanating from lockerbie and the the cone shape got wider and wider further from lockerbie the principal feature that i was looking for was to try to establish some pattern of of the wreckage which showed which would basically help me direct the ground investigators they're shocked by what they find pieces of the plane are scattered over an area larger than all of london [Music] more than 2 000 square kilometers it quickly becomes clear that pan am 103 was coming apart long before it hit the ground normally you're seeing a fairly contained accident site in lockerbie it was nothing like that because initially the police had identified half a dozen discrete sites a 747 is made up of more than 6 million parts in the mangled remains of the jet investigators need to find the one that will tell them what happened the plane's cockpit is eerie proof that pan am flight 103 broke apart in midair severed from the rest of the plane it's four kilometers east of the city when looking at the cockpit i was looking at the roof of it and the windows were intact the actual nose part had cracked open but it was as if it had been chopped off just after the cabin and you could walk around the back and look into the cabin section from the back inside the cockpit investigators note the positions of various switches and controls they find the autopilot is on and the oxygen masks are still stowed this is a fairly standard procedure which we would do in any such investigation the end result was that there was nothing at all untoward found in the cockpit it was everything was consistent with cruising flight soon investigators discover why the damage to lockerbie was so devastating the main wreckage which fell on the town of lockerbie was the wing which is basically both the left and right wing complete with a structure in the middle investigators estimate that the plane was loaded down with 90 000 kilograms of fuel 150 tons descending essentially vertically at up to about 500 knots speed and there's an awful lot of energy in that that's what created the crater to find the cause of the crash however investigators will have to look elsewhere [Music] they need to examine wreckage found south of lockerbie these pieces would have come off at the beginning of the disaster [Music] while the painstaking work of collecting evidence continues investigators comb through maintenance records those records raise concerns with the plane's age clipper made of the seas was the 15th 747 ever built by boeing this was one of the older boeing 747s it was built in so it was 18 years old and had got something like 75 000 flying hours perhaps some critical part of the plane had given way as it flew over locally the two obvious possibilities were that it was a straightforward structural failure or it was possibly the result of sabotage mccharles tom thurman fbi good to meet you tom i was expecting you while the investigators are searching for possible answers in the history of the plane the second possibility sabotage is also being pursued we were there to provide technical expertise to the scottish investigators into explosives and explosive damage and that the telltale sign that it could be a bomb just three and a half years before lockerbie a bomb had brought down an air india jet just off the irish coast in that case the plane and vital clues sunk deep to the bottom of the sea but the wreckage of the pan am flight litters the scottish lowlands if it was a bomb there's a chance that important evidence can be found what kind of logistical effort is it going to take to find everything and i mean everything and bring it back to a location to be able to look at it and come to some conclusion with the fragments that we found on the ground we were picking those up we were looking for blast damage on these pieces of of metal until we found something that said it was a bomb physical evidence it was an accident we were very mindful of the fact that there was plenty of reports in the media about it being a terrorist act it's a question of what evidence you find and and which direction to take the investigation [Music] in the first 24 hours four separate groups have claimed responsibility for bombing the jets dick marquez is an expert on international terrorism working for the american fbi a number of organizations either claimed credit for or were given credit including groups from iran and palestinian groups and one irish group also claimed responsibility for it six months earlier the u.s navy shot down an iranian passenger jet 290 people were killed the american government claims it was an accident but iran has vowed revenge [Music] other threats had been made in the weeks before the crash the american embassy in helsinki received an anonymous warning that a bomb would soon be put on a pan am flight leaving from frankfurt officials eventually discounted the threat but a notice was posted in american embassies many of the passengers who boarded flight 103 had come from frankfurt on a connecting flight right excellent work everyone then on christmas eve just three days after the crash of the plane the investigation gets an enormous break everyone clear on what they need to do this evening terrific tom can i see you absolutely yeah you'd like to put your gloves on i think for this mick charles had a bag and had a piece of metal in the bag what is it we think it's a piece of luggage rail it helps guide the cargo containers into place inspectors in the field discovered items which they recognized as being not part of a normal failure sequence that you would expect if it had been a structural failure nick this has been very near an explosion that's what we thought as well [Music] small marks have been made on the metal craters that are the telltale signs of a bomb the hot gases of the combustion process of the explosion hits a piece of particular metal and it puts pits in it like you would take a blow torch take a blow torch and you have a piece of metal and you just barely touch the piece of metal it'll make a little hole down into the metal it's the first piece of wreckage from outside the town of lockerbie to show any signs of being damaged by fire where did you find it i'll take you out in the morning the scottish countryside is about to become the largest crime scene in the world it's christmas day 1988 but in lockerbie scotland people are still reeling from a devastating plane crash [Music] christmas is just going to be remembered for all the long reasons it's just it for everybody i'll never believe in god again for air crash investigators december the 25th is treated like any other day at work that was in my mind the most distinguishing characteristic of locally and although so it was over christmas you just you just stay there and you do what you have to do investigators converge on a farmer's field outside of the town over here we can't see you [Music] the weather had turned horrible foggy kind of misting rain you couldn't see 10 feet from it and there was debris literally all over the place another piece of the baggage compartment rail has been found it looks like the piece that you showed me last night about 20 inches is just gone and lo and behold that was the other piece of the skid rail that was literally sticking in the ground we made some photographs you know it was like it was a christmas present that that we could go out there to this farm and find the other piece of metal that had been blown off now we were not fascinated we were pumped piece also has pits and craters in it indications that it was close to an explosion the pieces of wreckage are part of the southern debris field and near the beginning of it the placement suggests they were some of the first parts to break off the plane we were very suspicious that it was a bomb which had caused this destruction but we were not prepared to say anything until we'd had those details confirmed by the forensic experts a british forensics lab has made the critical link traces of two chemicals used to make plastic explosive are found on the debris recovered near lockerbie on december the 28th just seven days after the crash investigators have their proof and announce it to the world it has been established that two parts of the metal luggage pallets framework show conclusive evidence of a detonating high explosive the crash of pan am flight 103 is now officially a crime our mandate with regard to locker b was find out who did it prove it uh because we what we wanted to do is bring someone to justice and make them answer for killing 270 people with terrorism now the official cause rumors start to fly speculation eventually focuses on two passengers charles mckee works for the u.s department of defense charles mcgee was returning from the middle east where he was working trying to free hostages that had been taken in the middle east during the mid 1980s the hostages mckee was trying to release were being held in lebanon in 1988 a civil war was tearing that country apart americans were seen as useful bargaining chips there was speculation in the media that charles mckee may have been targeted by terrorists because of the work he was doing mckee isn't the only passenger who captures the attention of the media khalid jafar was 20 years old and was returning home to the us after a trip to lebanon and germany perhaps a bomb was carried on board an aircraft by someone who may have had a middle eastern sounding name jafar was examined as a potential suspect the story makes it as far as the u.s congress but no proof can be found that jafar was involved or that mckee was the intended target we looked at every single passenger on the plane to see if in fact someone could have given them a bomb the evidence proved that not to be the case in lockerbie investigators from the aaib continue to sort through the tons of tangled metal we could i suppose in theory have just stopped but we thought we know it's a bomb we have all of the wreckage over land it's an ideal opportunity to recover it all and to understand it properly we knew it was a small bomb but we didn't understand the explosive processes investigators are particularly interested in the hull of the aircraft they move pieces of it to a military hangar just outside of town [Music] it was a five-acre shed in which was long enough that we could plan to lay the fuselage out as opened up like a clam shell using the bottom center line of the aircraft as our sort of core line the fuselage of an airplane is bolted to a series of frames and each frame is numbered based on how far it is from the front of the aircraft before we laid out the wreckage two-dimensionally we put lines and tapes on the floor to give us a grid and is this grid related to the geometry of the aeroplane they begin to reassemble it like an enormous jigsaw puzzle a lot of the structure bears characteristic shapes that you can say immediately this looks like a door frame a lot of stuff it has unique part numbers which can help you identify small and fairly what you would call unidentifiable bits as the work continues more pieces of the plane are found that show telltale blast damage all right the location is 817 204 [Music] when they gather the pieces that are near the front of the plane investigators make a chilling discovery this is where the bomb had started ripping the plane apart it became apparent that there was an area of the aircraft which in which the damage was really quite different from the rest the fuselage in this section isn't torn but blasted to pieces the fuselage structure in the area of the explosion was blackened and sooted the fractures were very rapid and jagged unlike normal tearing fractures of of skin frame 700 runs right round here not only do investigators now know it was a bomb they know where it blasted through the fuselage of the plane just outside of the forward luggage compartment peter clayton is responsible for reassembling the cargo containers that were directly behind the shutter zone the main goal i had was to identify the baggage container that contained the device we had maybe 20 baggage containers of a similar construction so we like it's like having 20 jigsaw puzzles all mixed up the investigators concentrate on the cargo containers that were found in the southern debris field wreckage that was ejected shortly after the explosion we concluded that there were only two on the aircraft one made of aluminium one made of fiberglass and they had been adjacent to each other on the aircraft and they were the only two that exhibited evidence of an improvised explosive device having detonated the metal container ave 4041 is of particular interest it was resting directly behind frame 700 where the blast damage is the worst the damage caused to the metal container is quite severe the damage to the adjacent fiberglass container i think you might call it collateral damage investigators create a simple framework and attach the pieces of the real cargo container to it [Music] as they do it becomes clear ave 4041 carried the bomb that brought the plane down [Music] closely examining damage to the floor and the side of the container investigators are also able to pinpoint the height of the bomb where it was in the container when it exploded what that said to me was that the device was probably in a suitcase and that suitcase was probably not on the floor of the container it looked like it was one level up according to luggage records it means that the bag containing the bomb had come from a connecting flight while investigators are assembling a piece of a metal container they discover a fragment of wreckage that doesn't belong well looking at it i saw a little piece of debris trapped in one of the folds so gently flexing this apart it fell out when i looked at it i could see it was a fragment of a printed circuit board an electronic circuit board can you bring me a camera and an evidence bag please [Music] let's get this still out [Music] i didn't know what it was about part of the airplane really or what it could have been somebody's shaver for i know eventually forensic experts in britain determined that the circuit board was a piece of a specific brand of radio news of the discovery makes its way to washington it reaches tom thurman who's returned to his office there and lo and behold an identification was made into a toshiba sf-16 radio and ironically enough the the name on the side of that radio just as a brand name i guess was called a bomb beat radio the radio cassette player had hidden the bomb it's very similar to the one that was recovered by german police when they cracked the palestinian terrorist cell two months before the bombing had german police somehow missed something had a bomb made here been used on the pan am flight when the bombing happened one of the initial suspects certainly was the pfl pgc cell in germany the intelligence told us that the pfl pgc was probably responsible for this 49 passengers who eventually boarded the pan am flight started their journey in the german city of frankfurt their bags were placed onto flight 103 in london but the airline did not ensure the passengers who checked in the bags actually got onto the plane perhaps a bomb made in germany had slipped through the cracks at heathrow while the terrorists walked away we had to then if that was the case prove it as the investigation continues there's a puzzling discovery while made by the same company the cassette player used in the lockerbie bombing is slightly different from the one that was seized in germany both were contained in toshiba radios but one was a one speaker model and the one that blew up the lockerbie plane was a two speaker more updated model radio the difference in the model of radio being used raises doubts perhaps the terrorists in germany are not responsible you can look at the way that a device is put together and say hey i know who put this together because i've seen this before and this is the way that this bomb builder puts a bomb together to call it a bomber signature law enforcement officials need more clues to figure out who had built the bomb [Music] perhaps the suitcase it was packed in can provide those clues studying small pieces of wreckage british forensic experts find that the suitcase was a hard sided samsonite 4000 samsonite made only a few thousand of these suitcases and sold all of them in the middle east several pieces of clothing have also been identified that were very close to the explosion likely in the suitcase that concealed the bomb most of these clothes were made by a single manufacturer and were only sold on the tiny island of malta so malta became the focus of the investigation because of the the manufacturer and eventually distribution of the some of the clothing that was found at lockerbie investigators find the shop in malta where the clothes were sold the owner gives them another clue the key thing that he told us was the person had a libyan accent something we didn't really have evidence yet that tied libya to the bombing it was just two weeks before the attack on the pan am flight in 1988 libya was reeling from a number of confrontations with the american military economic sanctions had been imposed the country was isolated and its leader muammar qaddafi aggressively anti-american perhaps the bombing of the pan am flight was an attack by libya against the united states pouring through baggage records for the pan am flight police discover one piece of luggage that had been carried from malta to frankfurt earlier that day bag number b8849 had then been sent through to britain's heathrow airport once there it was placed on the second level of cargo container ave-4041 it was the samsonite case investigators now know carried the bomb [Music] more than a year after the crash a new discovery in lockerbie helped simplify the confusing series of clues forensic experts discover another circuit board from among the clothes that came from malta [Music] it doesn't come from that circuit board that was in the sf-16 radio and this this circuit board is half the size of your thumbnail a photo of the circuit board is sent to tom thurman he believes it could be a piece of the timer from the bomb i spent months literally looking through all of the files of the fbi on other examinations that we had conducted over many many many years the fbi has photos of timers used to detonate bombs around the world but thurman can't find any that match the piece found at lockerbie next after a period i just i ran out of leads and at that point um said okay now we need to go outside the physical fbi laboratory thurman eventually takes the photo of the circuit to the central intelligence agency i called a contact of mine and said i need to bring something over for you to look at [Music] sifting through reports on various bombings thurman finds a match wait a second [Music] that could be the same do you have this timer when thurman closely examines the timer captured by the cia he's stunned within a few minutes literally i started getting cold chills and right now as i talk about it cold chills start on me because i can still see that moment so vividly in my mind that i'm looking at that circuit track that just like what i'm seeing in the photograph this is what we're looking for the timer the cia has was seized in africa a few years earlier [Music] two libyan men were trying to get it and several pounds of explosives passed airport security it's identical to the timer used to bring down flight 103 and wouldn't be set off by changes in pressure like the barometric switch discovered in germany this device was set to go off at a certain time not at a given altitude this is the time this is a long delay timer that brought down that aircraft but now we want to know okay where'd this come from the lockerbie bomb used a different timer and a different radio than the bomb found in germany someone else was behind the destruction of the jet this was not made in somebody's home laboratory this was a extremely professionally made uh timer while the criminal investigation becomes murkier the accident investigation is becoming increasingly clear [Music] the investigation eventually moves from scotland to farnborough england well known for its aeronautics industry the town is home to the aaib several months after the crash of pan am flight 103 investigators launch a massive endeavor they begin to rebuild a 20-meter section of the fuselage from the ruined jet they hope that it would give them information their two-dimensional reconstruction couldn't [Music] they can see that the explosion tore a one and a half by five meter hole in the side of the plane chris prothero is a senior inspector of air accidents at the aaib what was very difficult to understand was the fact that this area of direct damage was effectively a pinprick in relation to the size of the aircraft as a whole and it was very difficult to understand how this pinprick of damage had resulted in such a comprehensive destruction of the of the aircraft the bomb that brought the plane down had less than half a kilogram of explosive yet its destructive power was immense investigators want to learn more about how shock waves behave inside a jet it's rather like a freeze frame on a video footage if you can capture that point as the thing is coming apart it tells you a great deal about the way it's coming apart what they discover is that the initial blast wave wasn't the only one to damage the plane a large section of the ceiling of the aircraft has been pushed up with so much force that the rivets connecting it to the plane's frame popped it wasn't torn apart but blasted by a shock wave the other features that the 3d reconstruction allowed us to identify were areas of remote pressure damage on the crown skin and and other areas where explosive shock had been channeled through the internal spaces in the aircraft the inside of a jet acts like an echo chamber bouncing the shock waves of the bomb around they gather strength until they encounter a weak spot in the skin when they do they blast through the work in farnborough is powerful proof of how destructive even a small bomb can be and how vital it is to track the bombers down almost two years after the lockerbie disaster the criminal trail of evidence brings investigators to zuri the timer that detonated the bomb is traced to a swiss company called mebo one of the owners of the company admits to building it [Music] the timer was given to the libyan government total of 20 of them were made all delivered to libyan officials early in the investigation focus was directed at the palestinian terrorist group in germany now there's growing proof that they had nothing to do with the downing of flight 103 there were any number of suspects and it wasn't until we kept putting everything in one pile in the libya in the pile kept stacking up and it spelled libya criminal investigators have linked the timer that detonated the bomb to libya they know that a libyan bought the clothes that were in the suitcase and they know that libya has a recent history of military confrontation with america all they need now is the bomber himself in 1999 they finally have him at the time of the disaster abdel was an al-m officer for the libyan government he's arrested and charged he was a high-ranking libyan official he certainly could have access to whatever he wanted our investigation determined that mcgrache also had a front company at mebo he had been there many times he certainly knew each other when you start to see all the connections and these things just start fitting together it made it easier to accept our evidence in 2001 scottish judges sentence him to life for the murder of 270 people two years later the government of libya officially accepts responsibility for the bombing and pays 2.7 billion dollars to the families involved anger is also aimed at pan am for the role it played in the disaster a scottish inquiry points a finger at the company the passenger who checked the bomb onto flight 103 did not get on board it's a fact that pan am could have discovered had it been following proper procedures one of the things we discovered when we looked into the bombing of pantone flight 103 was that there were several bags on that plane that did not correspond to passengers [Music] one of the changes that came about as a result of the air india bombing was that airlines were forced to make sure no bag was put on a plane without a passenger accompanying it called passenger baggage reconciliation without proper notification pan am had stopped matching passengers and baggage at heathrow airport so that rule that said that all passengers and luggage have to be matched was not followed the company was eventually found guilty of willful misconduct after the crash and the court ruling pan am declared bankruptcy 20 years after the bombing of pan am flight 103 its shattered fuselage still stands in farnborough england those pieces may soon be used to train investigators here and around the world a critical aid in case terrorists strike again [Music] the the enduring feeling i have as a result of lockerbie is the tremendous level of cooperation we had from all the agencies and considering that there were about two and a half thousand people with the military the police and so on involved in this i think that's uh that's a great tribute lockerbie was a rare occasion that we felt honored to be a part of to help make to help make this happen we played small roles but everybody played small roles to make big contributions to an overall success in the town of lockerbie there's little evidence today of the horror that exploded from the sky 20 years ago in a small church near where the dying plane's cockpit landed is a stark reminder of the toll of terror and the importance of bringing the guilty to justice [Music] indira gandhi international airport new delhi a gateway to india [Music] november 12th 1996. air traffic controller vk dutta arrives for the late afternoon shift [Music] there was a white supervisory official there was one person who was sitting beside me and he was assisting me and the things were all normal but normal at indira gandhi doesn't mean calm this is becoming one of the most congested airports in the world in 1990 the government of india signed open skies agreements with several different countries those pacts have made it easier for foreign airlines to land at indian airports many airlines are taking advantage of the new policy air traffic controllers are now handling more traffic than ever the open sky policy acted as a catalyst in the air traffic growth the volume of traffic grew from i believe 175 movement a day to around 225 movement a day we have to perform we have to perform during that time so whether 10 aircraft come on that time or 20 comes so you have to handle them just past six o'clock saudi arabian airlines fight 763 takes off into the sunset [Music] get up get up clear on left captain khalid al shabaili powers the boeing 747 away from the runway his co-pilot nazir khan handles all radio communication there are 289 passengers on board many are indian workers returning to their jobs in the middle saudi east airborne zero three contact radar 127 while flight 763 was on the runway its movements were tracked and directed by an air traffic controller in the airport's tower 279 good day but shortly after the plane takes off the tower passes the pilots over to approach controller vk dutta who's in another room at the airport [Music] approach controllers at indira gandhi guide planes through the airspace beyond the runways they're in charge of all arriving and departing flights within 110 kilometers [Music] the approach controller normally is uh responsible for arrival and departures of the aircraft which are coming in they are safely and expeditiously you know they're brought to the final approach tonight dutta is controlling five flights some of these are leaving the airport while others are coming in his task is to keep those planes spaced safely apart but not so far apart as to cause any delays there's a country's coordination with the tower who handles the ground traffic so he would tell approach controller that this fellow is ready and you know uh he is to be accommodated between these two flights so that kind of uh dynamics uh we do we were doing at that time saudi 763 approaching flight level one zero roger zero flight level one four zero clear to climb 140 saudi 763 this evening a united states air force cargo plane is coming in for a landing even though it's an air force jet this flight is dutta's responsibility i think we probably had three or four back and forth with the controller where he was verifying our altitude or checking on our altitude telling us about other traffic in the vicinity approaching 140 for higher saudi flight 763 reaches its last assigned altitude of fourteen thousand feet the pilots request permission to fly higher roger maintain flight level one four zero standby in order to coordinate incoming and outgoing traffic dutto wants the saudi flight to stop climbing saudi 763 will maintain 140. datta is concerned with another plane now flying east for a landing at indira gandhi airport it's a passenger jet operated by kazakhstan airlines the illusion 76 is a massive russian plane originally built for the military a modified version is now widely used as a commercial airliner data wants it to pass over top of the saudi flight before landing after that he'll let the saudis continue their climb he was supposed to cross maintaining thousand feet of separation kazakh 1907 now reaching one five zero four six miles from delta papa november roger maintained flight level one five zero identify traffic 12 o'clock reciprocal saudi boeing 747. dutta doesn't want the kazakh flight to be surprised to see the saudi jet since planes don't have radar to track other aircraft they rely on controllers to warn them about other planes nearby maintaining one five zero one nine zero seven will report how many miles all pilots tuned to the approach control radio frequency are able to hear one another as they communicate with the ground how many miles eight miles now it was strictly visual and trying to trying to pick up on the radios where everyone else is at and what they're up to traffic is at eight miles level one four zero suddenly a massive explosion shatters the evening's car all at once out of the right side of the window right side of the cockpit this cloud just lit up those missiles to my mind's eye there were missiles kind of pork screwing picking up speed was what they looked like and they looked like they were coming right at us we actually started veering the aircraft away before it became apparent that they weren't coming at us the saudi airlines jet spirals towards the ground billy this 1815. one inch one five say again got on the radio right away called the controller you saw something that looks like a big explosion then you stuck to me that something has gone wrong dutta's radar screen both the saudi jet and the kazakh plane have simply vanished when i saw other blips are coming so i won the sweep again [Music] and but they were not there at all [Music] we then heard the controller call for for the saudi air jet and illusion with no response that was obviously very bone chilling something tragic has happened in the skies near new delhi's airport vk dutta is about to become the target of an investigation into one of the deadliest plane crashes of all time kazakh 1907 report your position [Music] at new delhi's airport a sense of dread is growing two planes have vanished from approach controls radar the worst nightmare and air traffic controller has us in the media saudi 763 together the two missing planes were carrying 349 people zach 1907 report position i gave one or two call to kazakhstan 7763 how many kids i have where my wife is whom i am related to u.s air force pilot captain tim place soon confirms the worst what did you see two distinct fires on the ground two fires on the ground fulfilling roger my senior came to me so i told him the accident happened i told the people who were to do search and rescue that the aircraft have crashed at 40 nautical miles west of delhi two planes have gone down over chakra daddy is a town 65 kilometers west of new delhi its mustard and grain fields are now burning with the twisted wreckage of two ruined airplanes all of a sudden the sky turned a bright red color and i saw fire one plane started to come towards us there was fire and parts of the plane were flying everywhere people were running the plane's engine broke off and the plane started to spin out of control and fell into the field trophy i was told that there's been a mid-air collision apparently there's a jumbo jet which may be involved and why didn't you just head out there was this adrenaline rush in that sense i was i was very new in the business and i knew i had to get that story vishnu som is assigned to report on the crash for new delhi television he arrives in the darkness of night a few hours after the crash we parked our vehicle on the side of the road and it was i mean there was there was a fair bit of moonlight he and his cameraman are one of the first media crews to arrive on the scene hey turn off the light don't want to attract attention police have likely cordoned off the area i stepped onto the field and um i mean i thought it was a fallow field nothing was growing over there because it was just sand and you know because it was dark and our only visual reference was was the moonlight we just sort of kept going and then i remember seeing clumps around me you know just these these little piles on on all sides and because there wasn't enough light i didn't know what exactly it was and then i stopped because i said you know something's terribly wrong over here turn on your light turn on your light i realized that the clumps that i saw all around either the remnants of the aircraft or dead bodies there was a a tree just maybe 15 feet away from me to my right there was this burnt corpse on that tree and that's that's an image which uh which you know it which comes back and continues to haunt me even after so many years as night turns today hope of finding any survivors fades none of the passengers aboard either plane has survived 349 people are dead it's the worst mid-air collision of all time news of the crash spreads around the world what remains clear is that there was more than one set of factors that might have resulted in the collision we have two very separate wreckage fields captain kps nair is one of the first investigators on the scene [Music] i was gushed horrified i can't explain it because i have not seen anything like that before it is something which i can't explain the kazakh flight and the saudi airlines jet have fallen seven kilometers from each other investigators have two separate crash sites to examine but they know one cause will explain both accidents it's unlike a single aircraft falling somewhere two large bodies colliding each other in the sky there are different causes how had two planes that were supposed to be a thousand feet apart collided investigators consider three possibilities an error on the part of the air traffic controller an error by one of the crews or the failure of an instrument on one of the planes they hope the mangled wreckage will hold the clues they need their first priority is to find the black boxes from both planes they record cockpit conversations along with critical data about the flight like its altitude speed and heading although fire has ravaged the wreck sites the black boxes from both planes are found on the first day of the investigation but for the moment they hold their secrets it will take several months for experts to extract data from the recorders in the meantime investigators focus on conversations between the two planes of the air traffic controller in this particular case we had the evidence of the atc transcript without onboard radar the planes around delhi's airport rely on air traffic controllers to guide them vk data comes under enormous pressure did he make mistakes that caused the worst mid-air collision ever those times were bad these media people they growled far so i told them that you know there's no fault of mine hi i'm vk datta i'm sorry to keep you waiting that was it investigators want to know everything that dutta did on the night of the crash was traffic heavy evenings are always busy dutta's radar doesn't track a plane's altitude instead controllers in new delhi write a plane's last reported position on a strip of paper the strips are continually updated it's the only way for controllers to keep track of the altitude of the planes under their control level information is not there so level has to be confirmed by the pilot 1907 now reaching one five air traffic controllers can only know a plane's altitude when the pilots report it are these your notes yes sir this is the kazakh one and this is the saudi one investigators learned that dutta was in charge of five flights at the time of the accident and that the saudi and kazakh flights were flying in opposite directions of the same aerial pathway the area the dutta manages is divided into a network of air corridors controllers use them to channel flights in and out of the airport but many of the corridors are used for military flights in fact even at such a busy airport there's only one main corridor for commercial planes in cases like this there are strict rules he has to follow between two aircraft the requirements specify a vertical minimum separation of 1000 feet when aircraft fly through the sky they leave turbulence in their way like boats on the water it can affect the planes around them air traffic controllers deal with this by keeping planes at different altitudes roger maintained flight level one four zero standby for hire dutta was supposed to ensure that the two planes were one thousand feet apart as they approached each other he planned to do what he'd done many times before have the incoming plane pass a thousand feet over top of the outbound plane it was a routine procedure but somehow the two planes had ended up on a collision course one of the two planes was not where it should have been investigators wonder if dutta made a mistake that led to the horrific crash pouring through the atc transcripts investigators quickly learned that dutta had given the two planes the proper directions but since his radar doesn't display altitude there was no way for him to tell if the planes followed those instructions investigators are so convinced that dutta did nothing wrong three days after the crash he's back on duty then uh my family and other people heard this there was a little sigh of relief that you know our guys if [Music] investigators returned to the crash site they are hoping to recover certain instruments from the two aircraft perhaps a mechanical failure had led one of the planes off course normally the altimeter would have stopped at that point where the accident took place and we wanted to know what altitude they were registering at the time of the [Music] but the saudi cockpit has plunged deep into the ground the accident investigation becomes an excavation the saudis nose portion was well below the earth it was about uh 10 to 12 meters below the end of the nose [Music] machines had to be brought in [Music] excavators to dig up and lift the cockpit of the saudia [Music] the altimeters of the kazakh flight are easier to find that plane didn't crash nose first [Music] there's some chance there are clues about its exact altitude at the time of the accident when they're pulled from the wreckage investigators discover that there is indeed something strange about the altimeters both the captain and the co-pilot have an altimeter in front of them but in this case they do not have the same reading there was a difference between the two by about 300 feet strange perhaps the conflicting altimeters had led the crew of course but the difference in readings may simply have been caused by the force of the crash at this point investigators don't know mostly there and the closest you can get it investigators need to discover which of the two planes was at the wrong altitude they explore other evidence the pattern of the damage on the two planes may help answer a critical question what was the relative angle between the two aircraft at the time of the their contact most of the pieces from the two planes are kilometers apart but a large section of the tail from the saudi aircraft is found near the beginning of the debris field this suggests it was one of the first pieces to come off that plane the significant point of contact in this particular accident in the air was between the taylor of the il-76 and the wing portion of the 747 of saudi arabia the tale of the kazakh plane appears to have pierced through the left wing of the sandy jet if that's the case the kazakh flight hadn't been above the saudi jet when they collided as air traffic controllers thought it must have been below it [Music] it's a puzzling discovery that adds to the mystery investigators still don't know which plane was in the wrong airspace what they do know is that once the two planes hit there was no hope for either crew after hitting the other plane's wing the kazak plane's tail tore through the horizontal stabilizer at the rear of the saudi 747 five and a half meters of it is torn off without it the saudi crew can't control their plane the result is the aircraft goes into uncontrollable spiral and in this particular case if i would say the both the aircraft had gone into that situation what they found in the wreckage of the two jets frustrates the investigators they now understand how the planes collided but they still don't know why they were at the same altitude or in fact what altitude they collided at how had the kazakh jet which was supposed to be above the saudi flight ended up below it almost two weeks after the accident captain ashok burma joins investigators at the scene by that time the operations for digging the saudia cockpit had been completed whatever equipment was recoverable had been recovered like the rest of the evidence uncovered so far the instruments from the saudi plain don't help explain what happened the force of the crash has completely destroyed you i can't find anything too much damage i agree look at this we could hardly find any useful material with the disappointing discovery investigators are forced to move on they've learned all they can of the crash site the case now depends on what they can find out from the black boxes investigators hope that somewhere on the cockpit recordings or buried in the flight data are the clues they need where were the planes when they collided and how had they ended up on a deadly collision course [Music] it's been three months since the mid-air collision of two passenger jets near new delhi [Music] investigators have been frustrated by a lack of conclusive evidence they hope the plane's black boxes will help them solve the case in order to avoid any suggestion of bias the boxes from the saudi flight are being analyzed in england technicians from the air accidents investigation branch try to extract valuable data the neutrality of state where the recorders are handled was an essential thing each plane was equipped with two black boxes a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder the flight data recorder contains information on dozens of aspects of a plane's performance among them the altitude the airspeed and the changes pilots make to the flight controls [Music] the cockpit voice recorder picks up all the conversations in the cockpit as investigators try to learn more about the collision near new delhi they use the information stored on the black boxes to make a chronology of events peter shepard is head of the recorder section of the air accidents investigation branch [Music] he'll work backwards from the moment of impact point of collision is reasonably well defined by rapid changes in parameters on each each aircraft if we make that our time zero point we can then relate that to the individual times and build up a you know a common time base first shepard and his team concentrate on the saudi 747 saudi 763 approaching one four zero for higher roger maintain flight level one four zero stand by for hire saudi 763 will maintain one four zero the cvr reveals that the saudi pilots received clear instructions about their altitude and seem to have understood them after being told to hold at 14 000 feet there was no discussion of climbing to a higher altitude which would have taken them into the path of the kazakh flight next shepard looks at the flight data recorder to confirm that the saudi flight actually followed the instructions it was given the recorder from the saudi flight showed us that the altitude had been normal during climate the saudi pilots leveled off at 14 108 feet well within their safe corridor it had leveled at its assigned altitude of um 14 000 feet and continued to fly level the saudi pilots followed the atc instructions meticulously which is borne out by their confirmatory calls back to the atc air traffic controllers wanted the two planes separated by one thousand feet and wanted the saudi plane to fly below the kazak jet if the saudi pilots did nothing unusual suspicion is growing that somehow it was the kazak plane that was in the wrong place alarmingly when investigators examined the information from the kazakh jets flight data recorder they discovered that it descended far below the fifteen thousand feet it was supposed to stay at moments before the collision the kazakh plane is at fourteen thousand one hundred feet almost one thousand feet lower than its assigned altitude and less than 10 feet below the saudi flight it then powered directly into the saudi jet the gaza crew had not stopped descending at the altitude they were clear to that was 15 000 feet but why had the kazakh flight dropped so badly off course kazak 1907 report position kazakhstan airlines presents one theory for their plane's dramatic loss of altitude in kazakhstan defense mainly relied on presence of turbulence perhaps a sudden burst of turbulence had forced the plane lower the data recorder of the kazakh flight does seem to indicate that the crew had a bumpy ride it shows two distinct and sudden drops of more than 400 feet the airline claims both of these drops were caused by turbulence but peter shepard isn't so sure when we saw the jumps uh 250 500 feet uh our initial response that was that these can't be right i mean you know it it was the rate at which they changed was beyond that that an aircraft could actually perform what else could cause the plane to drop so quickly or at least seem to drop so quickly shepard searches for an explanation we tried to resolve the inaccuracies in the kazakh recording by by looking at the other parameters that were recorded and trying to derive altitude using these other recordings it's intricate math by using information including the speed and rate of descent from the flight data recorder shepard determines that the plane was on a steady downward approach [Music] the reason for the apparent sharp drops is simple shepard learns that the sensor that sends altitude information to the flight data recorder was faulty it would stick and temporarily stop sending information when it got unstuck it would wrongly appear as though the plane had lost considerable altitude it's as if there was a bit of glue on one area and it's stuck in that uh and eventually the altitude changed so much the force on it made it jump again and it's stuck there for a little while investigators can now conclusively dismiss turbulence as a factor in the collision so there's no sudden descent scanning maintenance records investigators also discovered that there was no problem with the kazakh plane's altimeters they conclude that the difference found in the cockpit instruments was a result of the crash it didn't cause it to understand why the kazakh plane kept descending after it was told to hold investigators turn to the cockpit voice recorder it begins long before the crash itself initially there are no hints that anything is wrong 1907 report level passing passing 240 kazakh 1907 because the illusion 76 is a modified military plane it has another unusual feature a position for a radio operator in the cockpit igor rep mans that position and handles all communications for the kazakh flight 1907. as the aircraft nears the airport rep gets in touch with approach controller data delhi approach good evening 1907. passing 230-180 i told kazakh to descend and maintain flight level one five zero that is fifteen thousand feet roger kazak one nine zero seven descend flight level one five zero report reaching one thousand feet vertical separation is sufficient and that was granted to the two aircraft 1907 now reach 150 the kazakhstan radio operator had at one time stated reaching flight level one five zero it's just one minute before the impact and at this point the kazakh plane appears to be right where it's supposed to be one thousand feet higher than the saudi plane but investigators know that instead of leveling off the plane continued to descend this is where the trouble starts as investigators compare the flight data information to the cockpit voice they noticed something disturbing kazakh 1907 now reach 150 when rep calls out that they've descended to 15 000 feet he's actually over one thousand feet higher than he thinks he is investigators wonder how he could make such an enormous mistake why would he say he was at fifteen thousand feet when in fact he was at sixteen thousand they consider the layout of the cockpit a radio operator does not have its uh independent altimeter there are two metric altimeters fitted in front of one each in front of the pilots with some effort the radio operator could also see this whatever the reason rep is mistaken about his plane's height and he's the only one in contact with the ground despite being told to remain at 15 000 feet the plane continues to descend as it does dutta issues a warning to the kazakh pilots identified traffic 12 o'clock reciprocal saudi boeing 747 and 10 miles likely to cross in another five miles report if in sight he tells them to watch out for the saudi flight but the kazakh jet just keeps flying lower head just before the crash igor rep seems to have recognized that the plane is now flying dangerously low but his warning doesn't come in time keep the 150 do not decide the cockpit voice recorder proves what investigators found in the flight data at the time of the crash the kazakh jet was trying desperately to get back on course but investigators are still puzzled why had the kazakh plane kept descending after ruling out controller's error ruling out the mechanical failure do you have to go further into details of human behavior during the operation of a flight kazakhstan is one of several now independent republics that used to be part of the soviet union the national airline has a reputation at indira gandhi airport there was always a sense that you know these were small fly-by-night operators essentially doing the charter business and they didn't necessarily follow the conventions of modern western aviation we examined their background of knowledge of english language the crew in the soviet uh states they passed english examination but they're not fluent in spoken english verma now listens more closely to the cockpit voice recorder looking for an indication that the crew misunderstood their instructions had a language barrier caused the crash how many miles traffic is at eight miles level one four zero did the kazakh pilots confuse their own altitude with that allocated to the saudi aircraft report eight miles verma finds that members of this crew weren't communicating clearly with each other eagle rep was responsible for communication with the ground but there's no indication that the pilot and co-pilot were listening to his instructions switch on engine inlet heating while the rest of the crew was busy discussing arrival procedures rare loans seem to be occupied with their altitude now looking 1907 it is a usual practice that uh the briefing for the arrival is completed before start of descent so that all crew can pay full attention to the radio while the radio operator appears to have understood that the saudi plane was at 14 000 feet investigators believe the co-pilot thought that he was cleared to fourteen thousand feet and continued his descent what level when the pilot does respond he seems confused i think pilots did not pay that much attention and relied too much on the radio operator and to navigate the aircraft during this critical phase the decision to increase power and stop descending ends in tragedy keep the 150 do not decide accelerate the final report points a finger squarely at the crew of the kazakh plane in the wrong place at the wrong time a simple misunderstanding led to the deaths of 349 people the investigation concluded that the primary cause of this media collision was non-adherence to the authorized altitude allocated to the kazakhstan aircraft investigators are confident they know what caused the worst mid-air collision in aviation history but there are steps they want the industry to take to help make indirect andy airport safer what they find is that the technology that could have prevented this accident was already at the airport saudi 763 investigators have determined that poor cockpit communication and a simple misunderstanding caused a devastating accident which killed almost 350 people but technology existed that could have helped avoid this accident systems that would have helped both the pilots in the air and the controllers on the ground investigators are especially critical of the radar that was being used in new delhi air traffic controllers did rely on fairly outdated technology at that stage there wasn't any secondary radar available at delhi airport there was only an old primary radar primary radar sends out radio signals to locate airplanes in the sky the signal bounces off the plane and back to a dish on the ground it reads a plane's position but not its altitude the primary radar gives you a 2d picture secondary radar works differently a transponder aboard an aircraft sends a message to the ground with key information about the flight including its altitude saudi 763 approaching flight level one zero zero roger climb flight level one four zero on the day of the collision approach controller vk dutta could only rely on what the crews told him about their aircraft's altitudes that's it 1907 now reach 150. the kazakh radio operator said that they were flying at 15 000 feet but dutta had no way to confirm that if he had known the kazakh flight's actual altitude he could have diverted the saudi flight from its path [Music] that is the 3d picture so you you can you have some some time to react to it you can take the aircraft away at the time of the accident india had ordered a 118 million dollar air traffic control system with secondary radar and more sophisticated communications and navigational equipment the system had originally been scheduled to be installed two weeks before the accident but on the day of the crash the system hadn't even been unpacked secondary radar is an advancement on the primary data and in this particular case also by getting the altitude information it could have been possible that the accident of this nature could have been avoided in the year following the accident there would be three near misses near indira gandhi airport would take more than two years for the secondary radar system to be installed [Music] today controllers at indira gandhi international airport see an airplane's flight number altitude and heading it's far more information than controller vk dutta had available to him on the day of the accident [Music] experts believe another piece of technology could have helped prevent the collision tcas tcas equipment generates caution and warnings for the crew it allows them time to react draws their attention to the situation around and it looks into the vertical separation t-cass is a collision avoidance system that can be installed on board airliners in many countries the technology is mandatory it alerts pilots when other flights are coming too close the system also automatically tells them what evasive action they should take neither plane was equipped with tcas the indian airport authority has also made the airport safer by redesigning the air corridors coming and going from the runways at the time of the collision there was one main air corridor for commercial planes landing and taking off from indira gandhi international airport with the increase in air traffic that single corridor was becoming too crowded [Music] in the wake of the accident more air corridors were open for commercial flights [Music] in general evsn safety standards has improved the concern for the safety has improved [Music] out-of-date technology and poor communication led to this crash but like almost every aviation accident it was a chain of seemingly minor events that ended in disaster in retrospect [Music] there were some very unlucky people to meet in the sky that night you know it's a it's a one in a million chance for that to happen uh certainly there were other things that could have helped radar collision avoidance systems and and i think we continue to make advances there i i don't worry about flying certainly you know destiny i don't know it was uh glad we weren't five minutes in front of where we were at that's for sure [Music] vk dutta went on to have a long career as an air traffic controller today he works at a college training young controllers so i'm chief instructor there so i'm training atus i'm addicted to my job i love it i really love it [Music] dutta who was initially suspected of having caused the crash helped implement the changes to make new delhi's airports safer his efforts have paid off the airport now handles 20 million passengers a year since the new radar system was installed and the new corridors opened there hasn't been a fatal accident at this airport [Music] august the 6th 2005 bari italy an ancient port town on the adriatic sea where the past meets the present just north of this historic city barri international airport serves ten major airlines and more than one and a half million passengers each year one of those carriers is tunisia's tune inter airlines captain shafique garbi is a pilot with tuneintur today he's in command of flight 1153 the 45 year old tunisian is a military trained pilot with a flawless flight record garbi's co-pilot is 28 year old ali khabaria how much fuel you added 400 kilograms 2700 total yes captain gabi and his co-pilot flew from tunis to bari this morning to collect 34 italian passengers now they're going to fly them to gerber a tunisian resort island [Music] among the passengers is 31 year old police officer lucas cuicharini his girlfriend paola is traveling with him [Music] our first choice wasn't gerba it was cape verde the thing with que verde is that it was a period of terrorist activities the flight would have left from either rome or milan since they are two large airports paola was afraid that there would be an attack so we chose not to go to cape verde it was my first trip with pala we met the previous winter we had plans to marry the following year to tighten your belt pull on the loose end of the strap to release your seat belt [Music] ladies and gentlemen your life vests are located beneath your seats to inflate the best pull firmly on the red cord only when you're leaving the aircraft if you need to refill the vest blow into the mountains roger that clear for takeoff final prep for departure the crew is flying a french-made atr-72 the small turbo prop is perfect for short flights it doesn't need a lot of maintenance or guzzle a lot of fuel just after 2 30 in the afternoon the plane takes off 49 minutes after takeoff flight 1153 is 400 miles away from its destination gerber [Music] so we started chatting with other passengers we were all excited we talked about the vacation like luca and paula barbara baldacci is on her way to gerber for a vacation with her fiance francesco barbara barbara was 23 years old she was on the verge of realizing her lifelong dream of graduating in biology after writing her final exam she decided to take this vacation with her fiance francesca francesco then 75 miles from the nearest land and 23 000 feet above the sea the plane's right engine stops working we've lost engine number two let's get to 17 000 feet tui 1153 request one seven zero dui captain garbi begins an emergency descent descending one seven zero when you have a single engine flame out you would descend down to a lower altitude the air is thicker the propeller is more efficient under current conditions the atr 72 can best fly on one engine at an altitude of 17 000 feet power lever flight idle start button the crew struggles to restart the right engine check but then less than two minutes after the first engine quits stop stop engine number one is flame down both of the planes engines have stopped our first thought was of a terrorist attack since there were so many at the time we tried to figure out what was happening so we looked towards the cockpit to see if someone was trying to sabotage the plane the plane is now falling to the sea at 800 feet per minute mayday mayday mayday dui 1153 we have lost both engines request immediate landing at palermo the crew still hopes to reach an airport but they have 70 miles of ocean to cross before they're over land crews are trained for almost anything there's a checklist for them to follow to solve most problems including what to do when both engines die both engines flame out checklist fuel supply check the pilots don't know why their engines have stopped the only clue they're getting is a low fuel feed warning a low pressure warning light tells a pilot that there's low fuel pressure going to the engine now that could be a mechanical problem or like or that could be a contamination problem the crew follows the steps laid out by the manufacturer to re-light their dead engines fuel supply check power lever flight idle start button engine relight negative get chokery the captain asks the cabin crew to bring the onboard engineer shokri habui to the cockpit palermo approach this is tui1153 we have lost both engines request immediate landing the closest airport is in palermo on the italian island of sicily tui 1153 palermo affirmative you are clear for landing palermo approach what is our distance to the airport your distance to palermo is now 48 nautical mile an atr 72 will fall from the sky at a predictable rate one foot down for every 16 feet forward 48 nautical miles is further than the plane can glide i don't think we're gonna make it [Music] if they can't restart their engines soon they'll be forced to ditch in the sea ditching ic is a very difficult decision to make because it's the hardest thing to do you have swells waves wind is anybody gonna see you how long can the plane float for landing a passenger plane on water is extremely dangerous in 1996 an ethiopian airlines pilot was forced to bring his 767 down on the indian ocean the ditching was recorded by a tourist on a nearby beach 50 people survived but 125 people died the crew of this small plane doesn't usually include an engineer when there is one on board he usually travels in the cabin i remember this person looked at the stewardess and shook his head as if saying no after the second engine had shut off him [Music] the crew of flight 1153 has tried all it can they're running out of time and options flight engineer shokri habui has joined in the struggle to get flight 1153's engines started you've run the checklist yes the captain hopes the engineer will know something that isn't covered by the checklist attempt to restart the engines right engine first fuel supply check engine two start power button on engine relight negative palermo approach tui1153 any closer airport where we can land negative one one five three palermo airport is the closest airport to your position we're not gonna make it prepare the ditch oh my god be merciful [Music] more than once i tried to get the stewardesses attention asking what i should do if i had to put on the life jacket if i had to stand if i should take off my shoes i got no answer she was in shock and started to cry the senior flight attendant does give the passengers direction the captain has decided to land the plane at sea i'll let you imagine the panic on board people were screaming and crying please stay calm and follow your cruise instructions [Music] there were people in the front seat that had a baby girl she had been playing and was so excited to now see the panic in her mother's face made me feel so sad tui1153 what is your fuel load cockpit's fuel quantity 1800 kilograms captain garby's fuel gauge shows that he has plenty of fuel but for some reason neither engine will restart just 10 minutes after the trouble began the plane is seven thousand feet above the ocean and falling outside it's completely silent but in the cabin there's panic please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened my first instinct was to undo my seat belt to prevent getting trapped when we hit the water i didn't want to be trapped in my seat and go down in a horrible way secondly i put on my life jacket and quickly blew it up i did this to soften the blow of the impact do not inflate your vests until you left the plane a plane ditching at sea will more than likely fill with water that's why safety procedures call for passengers to only inflate their life vests once they've cleared the plane otherwise they could become trapped inside the flooded fuselage and drown in the ethiopian airlines crash many passengers ignored this advice and drowned after surviving the initial impact negative the dead engines aren't the only problem confronting the crew start many of their instruments get their power from the engines without the engine some vital gauges are dead on a two engine flame out you go on your standby instruments which is you have an attitude indicator you have an altimeter fuel supply check the crew continues to try to restart their engines but it's become clear that they've run out of time they're not doing anything confirm distance please your distance is now 20 miles boats i see boats choosing to ditch near a ship or a vessel is not written in any checklist it's just good airmanship because the rescue can start immediately and it increases your chances of survival clear my approach it's tui1153 we can't make it to the airport we see two boats on the left side we're going there if you can please call garbi turns his plane towards the boats [Music] can you send helicopters or something similar fast fast fast emergency all marine units aircraft in distress 20 nautical miles of palermo even before the plane hits the water rescuers are on their way i had very little information we didn't know the nature of the crash or anything about the plane auto press dump although it's a rare maneuver there is also a checklist for ditching a plane in the water before ditching the crew ensures all landing gear is retracted to help the plane land more smoothly landing your lever up when pilots ditch they want their airplane as streamlined as possible so that it glides across the water when it hits pilots must not only monitor the systems on the plane they also have to assess conditions at sea they don't want to hit a wave head on if you hit perpendicular to the to the waves or swells with the aircraft it's like hitting concrete the plane will break up passengers can see what's coming [Music] i was hanging on tight to the seat in front of me and through the window i could see the impact was imminent the crew is 700 feet above the sea you're with me ellie huh careful chakra ready ready here we go there's another god but this is messenger in the name of god merciful merciful at a speed of 145 miles an hour the plane collides with the sea [Music] i came up to the surface wearing only my pants i had lost my life jacket and clothes on impact i got to the surface and grabbed onto i thought i was going to die because i was spitting blood i felt my lungs filling with blood garbi survives but has been seriously injured co-pilot ali khabaria has also survived but flight engineer shokri habui is killed no one aboard the nearby boat saw flight 1153 crash into the sea the plane has broken into three pieces the tail section and much of the fuselage sink to the bottom of the sea but the largest section containing the two wings stays afloat it becomes a makeshift life raft for survivors but not all of the passengers have survived many haven't made it out of the plane and to the surface a fleet of rescue personnel are on route including admiral vincenzo parche of the italian coast guard rescuers must travel 26 miles through heavy seas to get to the crash site the sky was very visible but the water is agitated this caused some problems to the recovery mission helicopter pilot stefano borigana is one of the first to arrive at the scene the approach control asked us if we were aware of digital aircraft out of the coast of palermo and if we were able to help them to locate their airplane when we approached the airplane we could see the wings floating [Music] there were several people in the water around the aircraft all floating and everybody with their jacket inflated oregano spots lucas cuicharini floating away from the main wreckage there was one man without his jacket and he was at the farthest from the airplane i decided to go over him and throw one of our light jacket to him the coast guard arrives and begins pulling survivors from the sea the actions of the people in the water made us very agile because of what they were doing we ourselves did not panic we had the calm collaboration of all these people because despite what happened they knew help was coming and they would be rescued within the hour the crash site is teeming with rescuers they search for survivors from the water and from the air [Music] 23 people are pulled from the mediterranean sea but 16 have died in the crash including paula di chaola my relatives told me a couple days later while i was still at the hospital i had no reaction [Music] that's where i got really down barbara baldacci and her fiance francesco are also killed seemed impossible that this terrible tragedy would happen because barbara and francesco were great swimmers [Music] they used to go underwater without any problems how is it possible that many on that plane saved themselves and they didn't i was stunned and incredulous it's quite likely that none of those who died ever had a chance to swim to safety their serious injuries would have prevented them from escaping after the plane hit the water in this accident most of the survivors were seated in the rear of the plane most of those who died up front those sections along with some valuable clues are now at the bottom of the sea the one section that didn't sink is towed to the port in palermo and taken to a nearby hangar a team of agents from italy's national flight safety agency the ansv begin looking for leads their job find out why flight 1153's engine stopped in mid-flight we need to collect as much as evidence is possible in order to fulfill two main cancers what happened and why had it happened they are led by chief ansv investigator vincenzo panetta i arrived in palermo the day after the accident on the 7th very early in the morning a flight test engineer by training panetta has led several air crash investigations the engines and central fuselage of tune interflight 1153 have been recovered the rest of the plane lies somewhere off the sicilian coast the main challenge of the investigation was the fact that the flooded recorder and the copy divorce recorder and also the front fuselage were 1500 meters under the sea while the italian navy conducts a deep water search for the rest of the wreck and the crucial black boxes italian investigators are given some assistance by the plains european manufacturer atr's giuseppe calderelli is here to find out if there's a floor with the company's plane anytime it is an accident and also one people die for me is a big accident worldwide hundreds of atr 72s cross the skies each day those aircraft have a very uh sound structure and robust systems and are very cost efficient together panetta and caldorelli set out to find why both engines on such an advanced airplane died in mid-flight tui1153 we have lost both engines before it happens again captain garvey how are you i'm getting better thank you investigators want to know what happened in the cockpit of tune into flight 1153 when the engines died without the cockpit voice recorder they must rely on the recollections of surviving passengers and crew members the main cause of dublin could be the lack of fuel but according to captain shafique garbi lack of fuel was not the problem what were your fuel readings the fuel quantity indicator said 1800 kilograms of fuel what is your fuel load cockpit fuel quantity 1800 kilograms fuel supply check was there any warning that you were low on fuel there was definitely no low fuel warning just a low feed pressure light the absence of a low fuel warning and the presence of a low feed pressure warning is a major clue these set of alarms usually indicates that there is a problem in feeding the engine with fuel since the plane's gauges indicated that there was fuel on board that did not get to the engines atr's giuseppe calderelli looks for flaws in the fallen plains fuel delivery system four years earlier an airbus operated by air transat developed a leak in the fuel line that feeds the plane's right engine over time the plane leaked all of its fuel and both engines failed the pilots were forced to glide their plane to an emergency landing that incident has a lot of similarities to the tuninter crash giuseppe calderelli's team looks for breaks or blockages in the fuel lines and evidence that the fuel pumps malfunctioned and stopped fuel flow to the engines while calderelli waits for technicians to complete tests on pumps and lines panetta decides to start a new line of inquiry [Music] he explores the possibility that the fuel that was on board was somehow contaminated fuel contamination can derive from four or five different sources kerosene-based jet fuel is very delicate if stored or transferred improperly it can be polluted with water sand or fungus even sticky residue from the hoses of refuelling tankers any of these could prevent the fuel from properly igniting and could have caused the engines to shut down how much fuel you added 400 kilograms the plane last took on fuel in bari samples from the tanker that supplied it are taken for testing panetta needs to prove that one of these contaminants got into flight 1153's fuel prevented combustion and caused both engines to fail sediments can be transferred from the tanker truck to the aircraft so the fuel feeder can be clogged and so the engine can have some problem technicians remove the truck's fuel filters to look for evidence of contamination hoses and couplings are swabbed for sticky residue or colonies of microorganisms and submitted for testing at an italian air force laboratory the fuel is filtered for minute particles suspended in the fluid [Music] and carefully examined for impurities [Music] the truck's filters are also inspected for residue or sediment from the tanks meanwhile in palermo calderelli and his technicians have completed tests on flight 1153's fuel lines and pumps the tests are thorough the results conclusive [Music] the fuel feed line were okay we're no no leak if the fuel delivery system was working and the two pilots remember having ample fuel the fuel quantity indicator said 1800 kilograms of fuel then why had the engines failed when test results from the barri fuel tanker come in they too are conclusive the fuel filters hose couplings and tanker fuel at bari airport are clean so fuel contamination as a source of double engine flame out was then excluded at this point the investigators still don't know what caused the downing of tune interflight 1153 but something has been eating at panetta if the plane was filled with fuel and since the fuel is stored in the plane's wings why did the wing section float floating on the wing indicates that the weight of the wing was not so high we have been told by atr that if the amount of fuel that was supposed to be into the wing around two thousand kilograms where on the fuel tanks the wings maybe would not be able to float panetta suspects the plane didn't have as much fuel as the pilots thought but he doesn't know how that could be two weeks into the investigation panetta gets an important lead in the case after two weeks of the event we received some technical documentation from the aircraft operator according to the logs captain garbi flew the same aircraft the day before the accident after that flight he reported a problem with his fuel gauge when he left the aircraft the day before he reported that the right display float indicator was out of service so it need to be replaced the fuel quantity indicator or fqi is a gas gauge that tells pilots how much fuel is left on board [Music] the lights on the fqi were malfunctioning and captain garbi made a note of this in the maintenance log we were able to see that the fuel pumping indicator was changed the day before the event the maintenance log raises the possibility that the fqi that the mechanic installed was not the right one for the plane it doesn't seem to have the right model number tuneinter flies two models of atr aircraft the atr 42 and the larger atr 72 the fuel quantity indicators for each plane look identical except for a different model number at the top of each unit [Music] the atr 72 should have a model number two five zero zero but according to the logs mechanics installed a unit with the model number two two five zero instead tuning test maintenance logs offer a valuable clue [Music] but for panetta there's no definitive proof that the wrong fuel quantity indicator was installed on the plane it could have been a mismatch that aircraft documentation so we need to prove that there is only one way to know for certain whether flight 1153 had the right fuel quantity indicator go find it at the bottom of the sea we need of course to recover the wreckage from bottom aircraft to see physically see what was the fuel quantity indicator installed on on the aircraft not until three weeks after the crash do investigators recover wreckage from the sea the data from the plane's black boxes confirms what the pilots have been saying there was no warning of low fuel so there appeared to be enough fuel to make the flight the black boxes can't solve this mystery investigators hope that the tail and front section can they are hauled aboard a naval vessel from the sea [Music] the moment the cockpit is hauled in panetta is there there's only one thing he wants to see inside so when the wreckage was recovered from under the sea and put on a ship deck i realized that as a matter of fact the three-point indicator for an atr-42 was installed it was like we found the smoking gun the wrong fqi was installed on flight 1153 panetta finally has the break he's been looking for the atr's fuel quantity indicator collects data from sensors in the fuel tanks and calculates how much fuel is in the tanks but since the fuel tanks on the 42 and the 72 are a different size fuel quantity indicators can't be swapped between them technicians conduct refuelling tests with the wrong fqi installed on an atr 72 [Music] and the results are chilling the results show that if you install an fqi type let's say 42 on an atr 72 aircraft if i have no fuel into the aircraft in the fuel tanks with zero fuel the fuel pump indicator will show me 1 000 and 800 kilograms precisely the amount of fuel that the captain reported having when his engines flamed out cockpit fuel quantity 1800 kilograms investigators conclude at 23 000 feet above the mediterranean the wrong fuel indicator led the crew to believe that they had ample fuel when their tanks were actually empty engine relight negative they're not doing anything the engines could not possibly have been restarted with hundreds of atr 42s and atr 72s still flying the implications are stark could there be other planes flying with the wrong gauge the first safety recommendation was to mandate all operators that use atr 42 and 72 aircraft in their fleet to check whether the right fuel coin indicator was was installed on the aircraft panetta and calderelli have uncovered the error that caused both of flight 1153's engines to quit in mid-air but the case isn't closed standard flight procedures should have uncovered the error before takeoff and prevented the disaster captain garbi's aircraft went in for repairs in tunisia the night before the crash the plane's fqi indicated 790 kilograms of fuel in the tank after the new fuel quantity indicator was installed it showed that there was almost four times as much fuel on board three thousand one hundred kilograms the following morning captain garbi noticed that the fuel levels had gone up he assumed the fuel had been added but when fuel is added to an aircraft a refueling slip must be left in the cockpit [Music] where is the refueling slip the pilot asked to the fly dispatcher where was this refueling asleep but the fly dispatcher was not able to find his refueling sleeve i'll get to you when you get back from germa roger that [Music] there was no refueling slip because the plane hadn't been refueled in spite of regulations the captain left without that vital piece of paper there are some standard regulations requiring the pilot to take off only when he is sure about the quantity of fuel with the wrong fuel indicator on board and less fuel than he believed captain garbi makes it to bari italy [Music] and tops up his plane for the next leg of the trip to gerber how much shoe are you adding 400 kilograms 2 700 total believing he has 2700 kilograms of fuel on board captain garbi begins his flight to gerber if the correct fuel quantity indicator had been installed the captain would have known that he had only 540 kilograms not nearly enough to make the crossing tui1153 request immediate landing in palermo we've lost both engines [Music] panetta's investigation comes to a close he draws up his final report his colleague giuseppe calderelli voices a bold view even with no fuel and dead engines flight 1153 could have made it to land the aircraft was in a position that allowed to reach palermo dui 1153. calderelli wonders if the pilots did everything they could have to get the plane safely to palermo investigators get some unexpected answers by having seasoned pilots fly the exact same flight with the exact we are now same big trouble because the second engine has gone off so vincenzo panetta's investigation into the crash of tune enter flight 1153 has uncovered the events that led up to the accident now he and giuseppe calderelli need to resolve one question did mistakes made by the pilots cost people their lives we're not gonna make it prepare the ditch calderelli and his team study the plane's specifications and draw a surprising conclusion flight 1153 could have been able to glide to palermo according to manufacturer data an atr is able to glide three miles for every thousand feet of descent with the help of the tailwind that day flight 1153 could have been able to glide 70 miles to palermo the crew might have been able to make it landing your lever up so what had the pilots done wrong to answer that question panetta and calderelli recreate flight 1153 in the flight simulator at the atr facility in france test pilots try to glide an atr 72 for 70 miles from the altitude at which flight 1153 lost its second engine [Music] simulation was requested to see the range of the aircraft uh starting from the second engine out double engine fly mounts you have to be very aware of the configuration of the aircraft in order to keep as much as possible the altitude and distance to to fly before the crash stop stop engine number one is flame down with both engines out the priority is to keep the plane gliding as far as necessary to do that pilots can change the angle of their windmilling propellers you have the maximum grid performance when you minimize the drag it's very important to think to feather the propeller in order to reduce the drain feathering the props involves changing their angle against the wind the maneuver reduces drag when you want to feather the propeller in flight you first have to reduce the power lever to idle and put the condition lever back to feather position the crew did not feather their props when their engines quit the windmilling propellers created enormous drag if the crew of flight 1153 had feathered their props they may have been able to glide further than they did let's get to 17 000 feet by the time captain garby's second engine flamed out he was just below 22 000 feet to further reduce drag at that altitude the plane should be slowed to 158 miles per hour the atr 72's ideal gliding speed surprisingly to glide as far as possible a pilot doesn't want to fly as fast as possible the faster a plane flies the more the airflow pushes against it creating resistance every plane has an optimal speed to achieve the furthest glide the crew continued flying up to 55 miles an hour faster than their optimal gliding speed that added to the drag on the plane and reduced the distance they could glide by feathering his props and reducing his speed a simulator pilot in france was able to get the plane as far as palermo you're with me ellie huh careful flight 1153 hit the water 26 miles from shore well short of what the plane was capable of achieving the simulation confirmed that the crew might have been able to make it to land it was uh theoretically possible to reach the coast but it was also very difficult to achieve that result simulator pilots had one big advantage over the crew of flight 1153 they weren't in a life or death situation and they knew they had to glide instead fuel supply check but captain garbi didn't know he was out of fuel he didn't think he'd need to glide to palermo garbi focused on restarting the engines instead feathering the props isn't part of that procedure if the captain had known he was out of fuel he might have acted to maximize glide instead once he realized that his engines wouldn't start his focus was on trying to find a place to ditch the plane captain garbi also had to contend with a lack of instruments as well as radio interruptions what is your fuel load cockpit fuel quantity 1800 kilograms most importantly captain garbi had the lives of his 34 passengers to consider of course it's much easier to cope with that kind of situation on the simulator because if you do wrong if you crash the aircraft you have the magic button right reset everything is okay again and that's very different in the real life with the passengers behind and when it's through your life your distance is now 20 miles we're not gonna make it the simulation highlights the importance of proper training to deal with unlikely situations such as a twin-engine flameout innovation is a very rare event vincenzo panetta's report urges airlines to train their pilots how to ditch without engine power better pilot training is just one of 17 safety recommendations in the accident report perhaps the most important that atr redesigned the fuel quantity indicator in order to prevent a fuel quantity indicator type 42 on a 72 aircraft and vice versa to prevent mechanics from installing the incorrect part panetta believes that the only answer is to design the fqis so that they only fit on the plane they're meant for nine men faced charges of criminal negligence for the downing of flight 1153 including the tune in tear mechanic who installed the wrong fqi and captain garvey [Music] i'll get it to you when you get back from germa roger that there is no single cause of the accident this accident like many other aircraft was determined by a seas of action a seasonal event linked one to each other this is unheard of i would have accepted the engine breaking or a window shattering but to have people die because of a lack of fuel we remember this to avoid such other tragedies so that when you board a plane you don't have to endure anything not even the simplest things because it is the simple things that can be avoided tragic events like this should not happen attempt to restart the engine the crash of flight 1153 was caused by a series of grave errors on the ground and in the air but the flight data recorder does show that the crew's last move before hitting the water was absolutely perfect here we go according to the available evidences the flight data recorder and also some statements released by a crew that survived the aircraft touched the sea first with the the rear part of the aircraft at an attitude which is compatible with the optimum pitch altitude of the aircraft which is nine degrees captain garbi raised the plane's nose up to nine degrees at the last possible moment so instead of plowing into the sea his plane glided along the surface of the water [Music] the maneuver likely saved lives by allowing more passengers to escape the ruined aircraft his flying may have prevented this accident from becoming an even greater tragedy you

Channel: Mayday: Air Disaster

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Id: htyjUpIG-ZE

Length: 146min 0sec (8760 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 15 2022