Phantom Strike | Mystery Crash | FULL EPISODE | Mayday: Air Disaster

[Music] september the 29th 2006 in sao jose dos campos brazil it's a big day at embraer headquarters the brazilian aviation firm has just sold a brand new private jet to excel air a us charter company the price tag 25 million dollars [Music] it's a beautiful airplane and it was a beautiful little ceremony that embraer had in the hangar just before we we got on the plane and the guys uh from xcel air were particularly proud the legacy is a modified regional jet the cabin redesigned for comfort it can seat up to 13 people and in its first four years of service embraer has delivered almost 100 of these sleek business jets xlr will use the jet to fly customers around the world but first the company has to get the plane up to the united states joseph lapore and jan palladino will be at the controls for the jets maiden voyage they've been down in brazil for a couple of weeks getting familiar with the new plane joe sharkey is a reporter for the new york times he's been offered a free ride home we were delivering an airplane basically and my role was hitchhiker and they kindly invited me along [Music] the legacy jet is heading to manhouse in northern brazil a stopover on its way to new york half an hour after takeoff the legacy is flying over the heart of brazil the countryside stretches out below the view out of the window is spectacular i glanced out and i was amazed just to the horizon nothing but tree tops and i just remember how pretty it seemed ten minutes to four in the afternoon the legacy jet makes contact with controllers of the brasilia area control center still nearly 100 kilometers away brazilian november 600 x-ray lima employee level zero good happening [Music] three three nine five two three three two time coming in yes seventy five percent of the country's air traffic is handled by the controllers in this room the traffic volume is larger than in any other control center in the country one of the many planes they'll be dealing with today is the legacy jet every flight that's handled by brasilia acc appears on computer screens as a small circle moving in the direction of the plane the computer also displays the plane's actual and planned altitudes november 6 0-0 paladino sends out a signal controllers use it to confirm that the data on their screen is coming from the plane they think it is an hour later the flight has settled into a familiar routine mode sort of settled down everybody was working and it was just a very very calm and peaceful time i was transcribing notes from one of the interviews from the embraer tour brasilia november 6-0 x-ray but in the cockpit palladino is having trouble getting back in touch with air traffic controllers in brasilia brazilian november 6 0-0 x-ray lima he can't raise controllers on the frequency he used almost an hour ago he tries other channels brasilia november 600 x-ray lima brazilian november six zero zero x-ray lima november 6 0-0 x-ray lima after 12 attempts paladino finally gets in touch with brasilia acc this time with a different controller who provides radio frequencies for future contacts contact one two three decimal three two two six smoke alright i'm sorry i didn't get the last two sorry save frequency one more time for november six zero zero x-ray lima the legacy loses radio contact again brazilian november 6 0-0 x-ray lima as the pilots try to restore communication with brasilia the plane continues to power through the sky it's just minutes before five o'clock suddenly there was the loudest bang i've ever heard in my life the concussion itself seemed to affect every atom in my body what the hell is that dude back there no one's sure what's happened to the jet but when joe sharky looks out of the window he's stunned by what he sees the end of the wave was chopped off and it was serrated it looked like it had been chewed off it became clear that we were in very very big trouble xlr vice president ralph mchaley rushes to the window for a look at the damage i said to ralph how bad is it and he looked at me and he said it's bad with more experience flying this type of plane co-pilot paladino takes over control of the olympic jet just let me fly the thing dude all right we're descending i want to get down okay it's yours the crew still can't make contact with controllers november 600 x-ray limit declaring an emergency do we have a wing tip no the entire tip of the legacy's wing is breaking up that affects airflow and is making the plane hard to control yeah okay as the plane begins to descend passengers in the back are worried that the damaged wing is getting worse our main concern was that wing uh but had taken such a hit that the structural integrity of the wing was obviously in question the leading edge was separating with so much damage to the wing the pilots can't turn sharply too much stress could rip the wing right off we're in a position where we realized we were gonna die i thought of my wife and i thought well okay one thing i can do is i can write a note to my wife which i did i took out my reporter's notebook and i wrote you know a short note saying that i loved her and well you know just saying what i could the amazon is a bad place to have to land a plane it's a dense jungle for as far as the eye can see there's nothing down there but trees and i thought where are they going to put this airplane down just hours into its maiden voyage the badly damaged jet is going down palladino and the poor's flying will soon be analyzed and debated throughout brazil the verdict against them will be harsh please answer november 600 x-ray lima the crew of the legacy jet searches desperately for a place to land their crippled plane captain joseph lapore finds a small military base on his chart november 6 00 x-ray lima we have an emergency state area emergency remember 600x right lima declared an emergency you need to land at sierra bravo charlie charlie is that your airport affirmative do you know how long your runway is 2600 meters standby zero that's good right eight thousand feet okay we're coming in we're declaring an emergency this is november six zero zero x-ray limit did you see something 2600 meters is more than long enough to land a legacy but the crew doesn't know how the plane will respond when it touches down the canopy of green there was a slash of brown oh two miles away i heard joe say there's an airport sir bravo we see you we're coming in finding an airport was a stroke of luck but the crew's troubles are far from over now they have to get the damaged jet safely on the ground palladino and the poor can't configure their plane for a routine landing hold up let's dump the flaps at the top of the flare right so give me nine on the flare extending flaps increases the size of the wing since a bigger wing can generate more lift pilots can slow down to land with all the damage they've sustained the crew doesn't want to put too much pressure on their wing they won't be able to extend their flaps until the last moment they'll have to land faster than usual when you land under those sort of circumstances you're landing faster than you normally would and you get a real appreciation of just how fast an airplane is actually moving because you you know you're coming down like gangbusters i see these trees now you know at ground level just sort of it looked almost like a movie with one of those moving backgrounds and i'm thinking i hope this runway doesn't run out paladino hits the brakes hard good good you got it hold it then finally the plane begins to slow good job oh man and then finally we just did come to a halt there's that that beautiful silence that occurs when the engines are shut down and everything was just quiet again for more than 25 minutes the business jet had flown with part of its wing torn off there's also damage to the plane's tail somehow high over the rainforest something tore into the plane the bizarre day takes another strange twist because they've landed at a military base soldiers confiscate the passports of everyone on board that's the point at which i realized that we were in custody i don't think the others on the airplane had had the immediate sense that this was a custodial situation along with the two pilots the jets passengers are taken to the nearby air base [Music] the emergency on board the legacy jet has thrown brasilia acc into turmoil but it's not the only problem controllers there are facing another plane they're expecting to see hasn't shown up gold flight 1907 should be on radar in brasilia the missing flight is a boeing 737 with 154 people on board it's been in the air for two hours and should be nearing brasilia but controllers there can't find any trace of that plane miles there isn't any gold there isn't any gold with us here they check its status with controllers in manos who were last in contact with the plane anxiety was high and controllers were confused about what to say they didn't know what was happening deep in the amazon those who were on the xlr jet are also struggling to figure out what happened we hit something man that's all i know maybe it was a condor it was 37 000 feet well maybe it was a military jet oh i think the plane must have exploded please hit the debris field [Music] as they're trying to piece together the day's strange events the group gets some shocking news a goal flight has crashed it's the plane that's been missing i just heard the 737 went down the amazon right where we were it was like a thunderclap the world changed immediately and joe and jan were just stricken i don't think i've ever seen two more anguished men in my life the goal flight crashed right where the legacy lost a piece of its wing it can't be a coincidence [Music] approximately 100 kilometers from the military base the wreckage of goal flight 1907 has been found greatest difficulty involved the fact that the plane fell straight down when it hit the ground the trees covered it up making it hard to get to electricity the shattered remains of the plane litter the jungle floor [Music] the news hits controllers in brasilia extremely hard [Music] they had just realized that the worst thing that could happen in their control happened people were crying a lot of people had to be dragged out of the room things were not under control in the room over the next several days troops pour over the scene of the gold crash [Music] the dense jungle slows their progress to walk about one kilometer in the forest took us about an hour a makeshift helicopter landing pad is carved out of the jungle it's becoming increasingly clear that no one has survived 154 people are killed at the time it's the worst crash in the history of brazilian aviation what had happened in the skies above the amazon investigators face a mammoth job colonel ruffino ferreira is in charge of the investigation into the gold crash an investigator always has to keep an open mind you can't start with any preconceived ideas when we arrived at the location of the accident the only thing we knew for sure was that we had found the plane that was missing the wreckage of the gold jet is spread over more than two kilometers the widespread debris tells investigators that the plane ripped apart before crashing to the ground the aircraft disintegrated during the fall it hit the ground in pieces there was practically no damage caused by the impact with the ground the plane had already fallen apart just three days after the crash the plane's flight data recorder is found most of the cockpit voice recorder is also recovered except for one critical part because in this accident the impact was so strong that the module separated from the record modern voice recorders don't use tape conversations are recorded digitally onto a memory module but that part of the goal cvr has broken free without it the rest of the cockpit voice recorder is useless while the search for the module continues ferreira looks at the information from the 737s flight data recorder [Music] he learns that the plane was flying at 37 000 feet it was on course and flying level at its assigned altitude then without warning the plane pitched over and plummeted toward the ground whatever happened it was sudden and catastrophic [Music] the data recorder tells pereira that the plane spun 11 times before it hit the [Music] ground else i can't see gold there isn't any gold with us here it's on its way so what's already in my area police investigators want to know what air traffic controllers can tell them about gold flight 1907's final minutes there was no mayday in fact we never had contact with the gold jet controllers say there was no warning that the jet was in trouble it simply vanished colonel ferreira studies air traffic control data from the day of the accident there is no sign of the goal flight but the readings from the smaller legacy jet capture his attention it seems to be flying erratically instead of keeping to a single altitude the radar shows it flying up and down [Music] dangerously perhaps the private jet pilots were testing out their new plane by climbing and descending quickly [Music] they may have collided with the gold jet as a result of their reckless flying when that information leaks out to the country's newspapers it makes front page news the population thought it was unjust that a smaller aircraft was able to make an emergency emergency landing while the larger aircraft with 154 people just fell into the amazon and everyone died neither lapor nor palladino are officially charged but they are confined to a hotel room in brazil while the investigation continues ferreira interviews the two pilots about what they did and what they saw look we are proceeding northwest on course to men house at 37 000 feet okay we are attempting to contact brazilian control are you changing altitude no i was on the plane had the plane been flying erratically or doing loop-de-loops or whatever it was i think i would have had a pretty good story for the new york times did you say you were flying at 37 000 feet yes that's right flight level 370 we never moved from that when he reviews the information from the legacy's flight data recorder ferreira confirms the pilot's story although the ground radar shows the legacy flying wildly the data from the plane shows that it didn't change altitude at all but there is something shocking about the legacy's path [Music] the business jet was flying north to manos the goal flight south from manhouse [Music] ferreira can see that both planes were flying at the same altitude 37 000 feet he makes a horrifying discovery for some reason the two planes were on a collision course air traffic is typically routed along specific corridors through the sky essentially highways in the air but planes traveling in opposite directions are supposed to be separated by at least one thousand feet the airway system for instance between brasilia and manos is very simple it makes airplanes fly northbound maintaining even levels and airplanes flying southbound maintaining odd levels but somehow the legacy jet and the goal 737 were traveling down the same aerial highway in opposite directions for long minutes they were heading straight for each other it seems more and more likely that the two planes collided at the crash site workers find support for this incredible theory [Music] the left wing of the goal flight is recovered investigators discover that about halfway along the wing it's sliced clean through none of the other wreckage is sliced this way the precise nature of the cut tells ferreira that this is not damage that was caused by impact with the ground the badly damaged wing would have sent the 737 into a spiral dive the pilots would have had no way of controlling it the sudden spiral motion would have pulled the plane apart it's the reason the wreckage is spread over such a wide area ferreira finds the most conclusive evidence of a collision on the legacy's damaged wing on the legacy we found very small traces of paint that came from the gold wing together the planes had a combined speed of sixteen hundred kilometers an hour at that speed the wing tip of the small jet easily sliced through the 737 colonel ferreira now understands what caused the gold jet to crash but he doesn't know why how had the two jets ended up in the exact same airspace without anybody noticing [Music] investigators in brazil now realize that they are dealing with something very unusual a mid-air collision is a very rare event in aviation and it should not have happened with two very modern new aircrafts the situation becomes more complicated when investigators study a critical document the legacy's flight plan flight plans are filed by using a standard form which is the same all over the world the form will contain the flight number as well as requested flight level or altitude according to this document when it collided with the goal flight the executive jet wasn't expected to be at 37 000 feet the legacy's flight plan called for the jet to fly at 37 000 feet only until it reached brasilia then descend to 36 000 but the collision took place 850 kilometers northwest of brasilia well past the point where the legacy was supposed to descend so why hadn't the legacy followed its flight plan [Music] the flight plan calls for you to descend to 360 at brasilia why didn't you we weren't told to before we took off we were cleared for 370 all the way to manaus that's what we did sir i don't know where you're getting the information from yeah we followed the rules we were not told to descend and we did not decide colonel ferreira needs to check the story that the crew is telling he wants to know exactly what they were told by controllers when they took off from sao jose dos campos november 600 x-ray lima atc permission from announced flight level 370. the legacy's last instruction was to fly all the way to manhouse at 37 000 feet the pilots obeyed that instruction even though it differed from their flight plan air traffic control always can deviate from the flight plan because they have best knowledge of their actual traffic situation leaving manhouse the gold jet was also cleared to fly at 37 000 feet both planes were assigned the same altitude by controllers at opposite ends of the country once we were certain that both planes were flying at the same altitude we knew for sure there would be a lot to investigate on the side of air traffic control ferreira turns his attention to conversations between controllers in brasilia and the legacy jet the cockpit voice recorder from the legacy gives investigators a remarkably detailed look into what happened on the private jet the brand new legacy jet has a state-of-the-art recorder that captures two hours of conversation the cvr was probably the most important component from the investigation the crew is told to change radio frequencies and get in touch with the controller monitoring their flights [Music] decimal one i'm sorry one two five zero five today at this point the legacy jet is approaching brasilia but the crew never receives any instructions regarding their altitude brazilian november 600 x-ray lima level three seven zero good afternoon november 600 x-ray lima when the legacy overflow brazilian flight level 370 according to the flight plan it should have been descending to 360 but air traffic controllers simply forgot to give the order to the legacy to descend to 360. the pilots would have assumed they were meant to stay at 370 37 000 feet no airplane should ever change altitudes without receiving instructions from air traffic control to discover why controllers didn't give that crucial instruction colonel ferreira takes a closer look at the technology used to monitor the traffic over brazil so can you call up the legacy jet stream on the radar screen we see the altitude speed and the transponder information of each plane each flight has an individual code assigned to it that helps controllers track it underneath that there are two separate numbers on the left the plane's actual altitude on the right the altitude the plane is supposed to be at according to its flight plan so here the number of changes to three six zeros as the legacy jet passed over brasilia the number on the right the planned altitude changed the computerized system automatically updated it according to the flight plan at this point the plane was supposed to descend to 36 000 feet 360. to my knowledge only brazilian air traffic control system is using this kind of design in other parts of the world this update has to be done manually the computer changed a single number which led to a critical error without much experience with the computerized system the controller mistook the new planned altitude for the plane's actual altitude the system changed it automatically from the authorized altitude to the planned altitude which made the controller believe the legacy was flying at 360. police investigators talk with the controller who was on duty when the number changed on the screen it was shortly after that i went on break lucy relieved me he tells police about a critical mistake on his part you have five aircraft your legacy is at three seasons before leaving he handed his flights off to another controller telling him where he thought the legacy was flying i believe it was at 3c0 and that's what i told you when the new controller took over the one being relieved gave him the legacy's altitude information according to the flight plan but the jet was actually flying a thousand feet higher right in the path of the goal flight colonel ferreira studies transcripts of conversations onboard the legacy and finds that the crew was having their own difficulties during the flight how much longer guys that's a good question ralph the crew seems unfamiliar with some of the jets advanced systems still working out the kinks on how to work this flight management system where's the one that gives us total time my impression is that the pilots were trying to learn their aircraft systems during the flight investigators also uncover a breakdown in communications brazilian november 600 x-ray lima flight level 370 good afternoon after a brief conversation between the legacy jet and brasilia acc colonel ferreira notices something extremely unusual for almost an hour the legacy pilots don't talk to anyone on the ground they stayed 57 minutes without attempting any contact with air traffic control which seems like a lot of time after 57 minutes they tried to call 12 times without success brazilian november 6 0-0 x-ray paladino did try to get hold of ground control but he couldn't get through brazilian november 600 x-ray he then tried the backup frequencies listed on his navigation charts brasilia november 600 x-ray lima november 6 0-0 his only contact a single garbled message sorry save frequency one more time for november six zero zero x-ray lima both pilots and air traffic controller should have been more concerned of maintaining two-way contact all the time this is their duty brazilian november 6-0-0 had pilots and controllers spoken they might have discovered that the legacy was flying north in a corridor reserved for southbound traffic as the public learns about the mistakes in the air traffic control center there is growing pressure to make some changes we wanted to understand what had happened to these people inside the control room controllers should have been able to see on their radar screens that these two airplanes were flying in a collision course brazilian air traffic control is one of the last in the world to be run largely by the country's military since they're run by the military they're run by the brazilian air force we did not have complete access to information except for what was released as fingers appointed at controllers many of them come forward with stories of overwork and poor training they complained that they weren't well trained in english language was which is the international aviation language also they had complaints about their equipment in fact the controller who incorrectly reported the legacy's altitude had been on the job for only a year a valuable piece of the puzzle is still missing investigators still don't know what happened during the final minutes of the goal flight soldiers have been scouring the amazon jungle with metal detectors looking for the plane's missing memory module [Music] almost a month after the crash they find it colonel ferreira hopes to hear some reason why the gold crew wasn't able to avoid colliding with an oncoming jet [Music] thanks very much brazilian one two decimal two goal one nine 1907 there are no alarms before the collision no warning that they were flying straight for another jet pilots rely on air traffic controllers to keep other planes out of their path they spend much of their time monitoring their instruments not the skies ahead at the speed they're traveling they'd only have to look away for a few seconds to miss an approaching plane there were no issues of communication and no misunderstanding between the pilots and air traffic control keep going they had no idea what had just happened to their plane and fought until the end to regain control [Music] for less than a minute the pilots struggle for control but there's nothing they can do but why were there no warnings both planes were equipped with a safety feature designed to prevent exactly this type of accident ferreira now needs to know why that system failed [Music] earlier in the investigation strange radar images suggested that the legacy pilots were flying wildly over the amazon now those suspicions have vanished but ferreira revisits the fluctuating radar data to understand why neither plane knew the other was coming you see the altitude is very significant to try to understand this last piece of the puzzle colonel ferreira returns to the radar display that air traffic controllers saw the day of the crash instead of displaying just the expected altitude and the actual altitude the letter z appears between them the set on the air traffic controller's screens indicates that the airplane he's looking at has lost its transponder modern commercial aircraft are equipped with transponders like small radio stations they broadcast information on the plane's altitude and flight number this information is received by computers on the ground and instantly displayed on the screens of air traffic controllers in brasilia if the transponder fails so-called primary radar takes over automatically signals are sent out from the ground that hit the target and return those readings are wildly inaccurate primary radar only is a passive indication of anything that is flying through the airspace the difference of the actual altitude in the primary radar system might differ several thousand feet [Music] the inaccuracy of the radar tracking the legacy jet explains why its altitude appeared to be rising and falling investigators discover that the transponder wasn't sending out signals for more than 50 minutes before the crash but controllers didn't notify the pilots that may be because they didn't notice the subtle change the way in which the information is displayed to the controller does not visually alert him to the change there are no flashing lights that would tell the controller that the plane has lost its transponder [Music] there's an even more critical role played by the transponder it doesn't just beam information to controllers on the ground but to other planes as well all commercial aircraft are equipped with a warning system called tcas the traffic collision avoidance system tcas gives a relative position of other airplanes within range of your own airplane tcas picks up a signal from an oncoming plane's transponder and issues a warning if it's too close if either plane's transponder is off the system won't work ferreira discovers that the legacy's transponder was working early in the flight and after the collision but for more than 50 critical minutes it was silent how had a state-of-the-art jet just off the factory floor developed problems with its transponder the failure of the transponder certainly contributed to this accident and we had to find out what caused it to fail [Music] investigators examine the legacy jets transponder unit they discover that the system which controls it had a troubled history it had been installed on a different plane but removed because it wasn't working it was repaired and then placed on the jet that was sold to xlr investigators have the system tested but even with its suspicious past after the crash they can find no obvious problems with the plane's transponder now this is the layout now on the standard one in the legacy colonel ferreira does notice something potentially dangerous about the design of the legacy's cockpit if a pilot uses the built-in foot rest during flight his toes can come in contact with the buttons on the transponder show me what it looks like in standby and when the transponder does go into standby it would be difficult for a pilot to notice there's no alarm a small yellow warning light is the only indication that the transponder isn't on it was not easy for the pels to detect that because it's not hooked up with the central warning and alert system but the pilots of the legacy jet do not remember using the plane's foot rest still working out the kinks on how to work this flight management system investigators suspect that one of the pilots may have turned the transponder off by mistake the most probable scenario is that by accident one of the pilots temporarily turned off the equipment as he tried to familiarize himself with the technology on board however the transponder went off at a critical moment the crew had no last-ditch safety system to warn them that they were flying right at a 737. even though the t-cast system on the gold plane was working there was no signal from the approaching jet for it to receive closing in on each other at sixteen hundred kilometers an hour the pilots never saw each other coming brazil's air traffic control system would undergo some radical changes as a result of the collision but those changes would not come without a fight the investigation into the crash of goal flight 1907 has uncovered dangerous problems with brazil's air traffic control system brazilian november 600 x-ray lima level 370 good afternoon two planes were assigned to fly at the same altitude in the same airspace overworked and inexperienced controllers in brasilia neglected to instruct the legacy jet to descend to 36 000 feet you have five aircraft the legacy is at 360. then they mistook the legacy's planned altitude for its actual altitude to make matters worse the legacy pilots unfamiliar with brazilian airspace were unable to make contact with controllers on the ground and somehow the transponder which broadcasts their location in the sky went silent which controllers in brasilia failed to notice a multi-billion dollar atc system designed to keep planes apart had failed to detect two planes on a collision course one by one a series of human errors occurred and all of the defense systems that exist to avoid these errors were defeated a month after the crash of the gold passenger plane controllers begin a work to rule campaign they want to draw attention to problems with the system once they did start working to the rules and not stretching them anymore this triggered what we called the aviation crisis in brazil at a certain point maybe 40 percent of flights in all of brazil had over an hour delays following the crash and the work slow down changes start being made there has been a lot of changes in brazilian aviation after the accident specifically with regards to air traffic control the air force had to admit that they had a shortage of controllers and also there's a higher degree of accountability [Music] in the united states the federal aviation administration issues two recommendations as a result of the tragedy pilots flying legacy jets are warned of the possibility that putting their feet up in the cockpit could accidentally turn off the transponder and manufacturers are told that an alarm should sound if the tcas system shuts off [Music] the controllers who are involved in the crash are charged with varying degrees of manslaughter but those criminal charges worry people who were closely involved with the disaster an investigation like ours which focuses on prevention suffers huge setbacks when there is pressure to lay charges by blaming people we might be creating a culture where people will not come forth and be honest about failures and mistakes and when we try to hide that things get swept under the carpet and soon enough they'll come out again no controller leaves his home in the morning thinking he's going to crash a plane and so the criminalization only interferes with investigations that can prevent further accidents [Music] more than two months after the crash the crew of the legacy jet is finally allowed to return to the united states joe and jan barely got out of the country uh there was an attempt to to hold them under uh what i thought was a cobbled together initial criminal charge of quote failing to ensure the safety of brazilian skies while we are all grateful for the safe return of joe and jan and everyone aboard the legacy we're all saddened by this tragedy which took many innocent lives more than a year after the accident the legacy jet that survived a mid-air collision was still at the airfield in the amazon its maiden voyage cut short by a tragic series of technological and human errors [Music] you

Channel: Mayday: Air Disaster

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Id: SRM8eO28Eh4

Length: 49min 11sec (2951 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021