The Crash Of Flight IFO-21 That Shocked The World | Mayday | Wonder

paper was light gold in medieval times [Music] oh no tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong [Music] a 737 is in trouble the pilots blinded by rain in the cabin government officials and influential businessmen the crash of ifo 21 shocks the world did a final act of war bring the plane down the white house demands answers this was no ordinary flight but a military jet carrying american politicians when the investigation is over the air force itself is held responsible [Music] [Music] wednesday april the 3rd 1996 a raw spring day near the city of dubrovnik croatia rain pelts the runway at the city's airport a small group of diplomats hurry through the storm trying to keep dry they're part of a delegation that's just touched down among them the croatian prime minister and the american ambassador to the region peter galbraith the flight into dubrovnik was scary flight we couldn't see anything at all at that point i've been ambassador to croatia for nearly three years and i'd done a lot of shuttle diplomacy and it certainly was one of the most uncomfortable the weather that made goldbreath's landings so bad isn't letting up in fact commercial flights into dubrovnik have been cancelled but the ambassador and the others aren't waiting for a commercial flight they're here to greet ifo 21 a u.s air force jet on a delicate mission the plane is a specially designed 737 the air force has a small fleet of these jets to transport high profile guests around the world the cabin has everything needed to do business and politics ten thousand meters in the sky today the cabin is filled with what the military called dvs distinguished visitors this group is led by united states secretary of commerce ron brown ron brown was a very smooth capable individual he was a washington insider and he had all the skills that that go with that brown is a star in the democratic party i obviously will do everything he played an important role in getting bill clinton elected president under clinton brown was appointed the first african-american commerce secretary in the country's history the united states companies are here today are eager to engage in dialogue and more importantly to do business today that job has taken brown to one of the most troubled areas in the world for four years civil war ripped bosnia and croatia apart but just a few months ago an uneasy peace began [Music] as commerce secretary brown is helping to rebuild the local economy [Music] the philosophy behind it was that the piece would not be durable unless there was economic progress in the region that that was really critical to the piece brown's three-day tour started that morning in tussler bosnia where the group toured an electrical plant and ate hamburgers with american troops stationed there being a former army man myself i know what being away from home is like so we thought we would bring a little bit of home to you the final stop on today's tour is the ancient coastal city of dubrovnik before the war it was a vital part of the country's tourism industry it was my idea that ron brown should go to dubrovnik the croatians were very eager to get the word out that dubrovnik was still standing and that was still a tourist destination so i thought it would be very useful to have ron brown and the delegation go there but on this damp day dubrovnik is not at its best or even visible fog presses down from the sky obscuring the city and the beautiful adriatic coast to the north of dubrovnik flies ifo 21 its pilot is captain ashley j davis his colleagues call him aj [Music] departure if021 i two one from the cockpit davis can see some clouds ahead that he wants to avoid i'm left here just a couple of miles for a build up fire421 this is approved as a request that uh climb and maintain fly level 160. up to 160 now ifo two one [Music] it's two o'clock in the afternoon aj davis and his crew have been on the go since dawn while the cabin of this plane is built for comfort the cockpit is virtually identical to a standard issue 737 aj davis grew up in baton rouge louisiana and dreamed of being a pilot he made it and has been on the front line of american military efforts [Music] in the past he flew mid-air refuellers high above the persian gulf but now he pilots diplomats and other officials from around the world it means a lot of travelling and a lot of time away from his wife and two children at ramstein an american base in germany according to the air force ranks shelley kelly is a technical sergeant today on ifo 21 her main job is to make sure the passengers have everything they need [Music] mr secretary something to eat no no thank you i was wondering how our times look the diplomats are expecting to arrive in dubrovnik by mid-afternoon but they've been running late all day for sure if you'd like yeah thank you early would be good as the plane nears dubrovnik aj davis calls the united states air force weather service for an update metro ifo 21 how copy over ifo 21 copy loud and clear weather for lima delta uniform as follows rain sky conditions 500 broken that would be sealing how well do you copy metro if021 copies yeah we've been in it all day are you expecting any uh changes in the weather pretty much continued rain over copy rain thanks for your help so let's see the sights of dubrovnik only four months after a peace treaty was signed the skies over this part of the world aren't guaranteed to be friendly planes are still required to fly in certain highly restricted lanes while he's aware that there are flight restrictions davis has never flown in this part of the world before as he nears the croatian border he gets an unexpected warning if021 magic is the call sign for the peacekeeping airborne early warning aircraft that watches air corridors like a traffic cop be advised you're leaving an approved corridor please reroute immediately davis isn't off course he's flying the exact route he had planned but without knowing it davis and his plane are flying out of approved airspace they're flying into potentially dangerous territory we're leaving an approved corridor reroute roger magic our error rerouting now to proper corridor over the second time today the approved corridors do change and davis and his crew should have been informed to stay on an approved course davis will have to swing out to the west it's an embarrassing situation that's going to cost them time shelley aj we've been directed to reroute we'll be arriving about 15 minutes late at dubrovnik apologies to all back there ladies and gentlemen could i have your attention please unfortunately there will be a slight delay on our arrival into dubrovnik dv's aren't going to be happy at all the weather head will probably slow us down even more outside his plane the heavy rain continues to crash down flying toward an unfamiliar airport with a cabin full of businessmen and diplomats davis has a difficult task ahead what happens to this plane and its passengers over the next several hours will capture the attention of the world a heavy rain soaks a small airport in dubrovnik croatia headed towards it is a us air force 737 carrying 35 people on a trade mission leading the delegation u.s secretary of commerce ron brown we'll see which path ambassador dubrovnik approach ifo two one level one zero zero the bronic approach good afternoon maintain ten thousand feet for beacon approach runway one two okay descending to ten thousand feet if-021 the weather is so bad today that commercial flights have been cancelled as they approach the airport the rain isn't letting up but the crew is dealing with more than just bad weather the recent civil war has taken a heavy toll on durovnik's airport it had been closed for several years and is waiting for a new landing system the airport was totally trashed by the serbs who had taken over the airport during the 91 war they really went out of their way to for the destruction they destroyed the instrument landing system the new one was on order [Music] around the world airports use sophisticated technology to help planes take off and land [Music] doppler radar warns of incoming storms glide slopes help pilots stay on course to land the devastated dubrovnik airport has none of that it doesn't even have radar to see the planes that are coming in for landing instead the airport is using so-called non-directional beacons to guide planes towards the runway in the aviation world it's ancient technology there are many non-directional beacons used in the united states and throughout the world but they're an older navigational aid and in fact they were on the way out [Music] the system in dubrovnik has two beacons on the ground which send out signals to the plane when the crew receives the signals they consult their charts and follow the course that will take them to the airport the crew of ifo 21 is still waiting to hear the first signal when they get a call from the ground 9a uh cro to ifo 21 if021 i read you 9a cro older another plane this one carrying ambassador goldberg had touched down earlier in dubrovnik the pilot of that plane is an experienced flyer who's very familiar with the area he wants to let the crew know what to expect ifo 21 we landed about an hour ago the weather was at minimum adjusting the rating to split if you have to execute the missed approach over roger9acro we read you out diverting wouldn't be welcome news for the members of the trade delegation the pressures to get the passengers to schedule news conferences and other activities for probably pretty high as davis closes in on the airport the dubrovnik tower calls again i-421 report level if021 5000 iphone21 roger descent to 4000 report kilo lima papa down to four thousand ifo 21 [Music] sir thank you flying above the storm the crew finally hears the radio signal from the first beacon hey at kila lima papa we're tracking outbound at 119 degrees 119 confirmed [Music] mr secretary we're landing we'll take this up later adam it's not very broken up down there i can't see through it tim the clouds are thick the crew can't see the ground they have to trust their instruments as they descend through the storm if021 sir we are inside the locator inbound i-421 roger cleared for beacon approach runway is what if021 aj davis flies blind through heavy rain and cloud cover he expects to see the airport any second pull up pull up iphoto one do you read just before three o'clock in the afternoon dubrovnik tower loses all contact with ifo 21. i i421 do public approach do you read i-421 do you read without approach radar to track the plane controllers have no idea where it is [Music] perhaps the plane has diverted to another airport i-421 do you read but as the minutes stretch on with no word from the american plane local controllers are taking no chances initiate emergency procures near the end of our shift we heard about the possibility of a missing plane we didn't know who was on the plane we had no details about the flight for situations like this there is a certain procedure and we just waited for more information peter galbraith is waiting at the airport with croatia's prime minister it was clear from my own flight in that it this was a very marginal landing i did not expect them to attempt the landing in dubrovnik the croatian prime minister came up to me and pulled me aside he said we've lost radio contact with ron brown's plane i got the state department operations center on the phone and he's asked to activate the us military to start search and rescue activities word goes out to the chain of air traffic control centers but no one has had any contact with ifo 21 the search and rescue effort focuses on the approach to the airport perhaps the plane had ditched into the adriatic at the time i was about a hundred miles away i was in grinders of italy we launched two of our mh-53 helicopters with special tactics air force personnel on board headed to dubrovnik for hours there is no sign of the missing aircraft the weather conditions are getting worse fog was in thunderstorms in the area low visibility i-421 dubrovnik approach do you read ifo 21 has a cpi or crash position indicator on board iphone 21 do you read if the plane went down the cpi should be sending out an ultra high frequency signal but the dubrovnik airport as well as lacking radar does not have the equipment to pick up the signal iphoto one dubrovnik approach do you read iphoto one do you read iphoto one do you read as the hours pass poor visibility frustrates the searchers they arrived off the coast and they were over water looking for the crash hours after the plane disappears police respond to a tip a local villager has seen something on the hill above his house it's a long way from the coast where the search is concentrated [Music] we went up with two vehicles to check the mountains the weather was extremely horrible strong rain and thick fog so we went on foot for about an hour up that mountain then we came close it's almost 7 30 at night four and a half hours after the crew called for clearance to land the crash of ifo 21 is finally confirmed [Music] the news races from dubrovnik to america the crash site has been reached by croatian police and i've i've just received word that there's also a croatian doctor on the scene the tail section is the only substantial piece of ifo 21 that's left debris and bodies are scattered across the mountain these were hard moments as we were walking over the boulders not knowing if we're going to step on someone's body these are the moments that you can't forget then almost miraculously police make a heartening discovery inside the tail section they find a survivor it's technical sergeant shelly kelly [Music] as we arrived at the tail section one policeman went inside and found the body of a stewardess and he tried to help that was our hope we wanted to help we wanted to save every life and hers was our chance we were counting on it [Music] in the darkness they realize that kelly needs immediate medical attention if she's going to survive when i realized that there was no one to help i radioed the police central station in dubrovnik and got them the location of the crash site by then it was completely dark [Music] st john's hill is alive with close to a hundred croatian policemen and military american forces are also rushing to the scene enormous rocks and treacherous conditions make the wreck site difficult to reach but there are also remnants of the recent war [Music] mike canavan is in charge of the u.s crash recovery operation i've met a croatian major he told me that he was going to be the guide that would take us up to the top of the mountain and at that time he happened to mention that there were several minefields between where we were and the crash site it takes almost two hours for canavan to finally make it up the rocky hill we have been walking for some time and it was very dark and all of a sudden i saw something that was darker and i didn't know what it was and i reached out and it was an aircraft engine on top of the hill the weather is making it impossible for helicopters to land emergency workers can't wait for the weather to clear they have to get technical sergeant kelly off the mountain immediately she has a broken spine and other severe injuries but if she can be kept alive rescuers hope she can shed some light on what went wrong [Music] with kelly off the mountain the search for other survivors continues [Music] finally in the darkness rescue workers find the body of ron brown the us commerce secretary in fact as rescuers continue to comb the hillside all they find are bodies aj davis and the rest of the crew were probably killed instantly [Music] all the other members of the trade delegation are also killed [Music] as dozens of emergency workers continue their grim search a call comes from dubrovnik [Music] technical sergeant shelly kelly is pronounced dead in the ambulance on route to hospital no one has survived the crash of ifo 21 a grim spring rain hammers down on the mountains of croatia near the dubrovnik airport a 737 has crashed the jet was an american air force's plane on a trade mission through the region police and members of the military have searched for survivors but all 35 people who were on the flight are now dead [Music] including the american secretary of commerce ron brown in the darkness the rescuers begin a very different job mike canavan is with the u.s special forces once we realized there were no survivors the mission changes it goes there's no one to rescue now you have to recover remains by dawn the weather has improved peter galbraith gets his first glimpse of the crash site we walked up the mountain the weather was somewhat better and near the top there was the fuselage of the plane rear part of it and debris all over the place and then on the other side of the ridge were the bodies there's nothing in the world that compares to a plane crash one thing that my folks did on the mountain and then down into broadneck is they did this with dignity and respect and i thought it was done exceptionally well [Music] ladies and gentlemen the vice president and the first lady and the members of cabinet and i wanted to come here to be with the employees of the commerce department at this very difficult hour hillary and i have just come from ron brown's home visiting with alma and michael and their family and friends who are there as the truth sets in the hard questions begin how had a specially redesigned u.s air force 737 crashed on a hillside in croatia was it simply bad weather or in a war-ravaged part of the world was there another cause purpose of the accident investigation team i can guarantee you that they will be extremely thorough in their analysis in trying to determine the causes of this accident because of the high profile nature of the passengers rumors begin swirling immediately howard swansea is one of dozens of experts assigned to the team and every accident there's always a lot of speculation in this particular case you had a high-ranking us government official and so by the time we had even got to the crash site there was just quite a bit of media attention around it there were fragments pieces of aircraft miles away from the wreckage so my idea was to get as much information or collect as much artifacts or physical evidence as i could right from the start the investigation team is at a disadvantage they discover that there's no cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder on the plane what's standard for passenger jets is not required in the air force i had assumed uh that that the air force and these vip flights had higher safety standards than commercial flights and so i was really shocked to learn that the standards were generally lower than those for commercial aviation without the standard tools investigators can't afford to overlook anything the wreck is almost three kilometers from the airport how did a trained crew get so far off course as swansea examines the wreckage nelson spawnheimer is brought in to look at other evidence [Music] an expert in aerial navigation he plots the plane's doomed final minutes to trace the last moments of the flight he turns to the sky and the us air force radar plane which had been patrolling the region if021 this is magic five one be advised you're leaving an approved corridor please rule out immediately rerouting now to proper corridor apart from heading out of approved airspace spornheimer finds nothing unusual about the plane's flight until the end the radar track that i was given was from an aywax aircraft and showed that the enroute portions of the flight from about 100 miles prior to the airport were entirely nominal the last segment of the flight however beginning 20 kilometers from the airport is different on their final approach the plane begins to head off course they start flying in a straight line which heads right into the mountains my initial look at the flight track of the aircraft showed a seven degree bearing error in the final segment of the approach a small error when traveling at hundreds of kilometers an hour could quickly lead to an enormous problem but why would the plane get off course at the end of the trip if the rest of the flight showed no major navigational problems even in bad weather how had the crew become so lost spornheimer examines the outdated navigational equipment at the airport badly damaged during the recent war perhaps it had malfunctioned two separate navigational beacons are used for landing in dubrovnik one guides planes to the runway the other lets them know if they've gone too far the first is located on nearby colocep island it transmits a specific morse code signal to make it easily identifiable when they hear it all davis and his crew need to do is fly a heading specified on their landing charts if they do they should eventually arrive at the airport the second beacon is located at the airport itself it's a fail-safe device if the crew hears the beacon before they see the airport they have to declare a missed approach and circle around to try landing again in fact the plane that brought peter galbraith to dubrovnik just minutes before ifo 21 only landed on its second attempt if01 i read you 980 suggesting converting to split you have to execute the missed approach over 9a cro we read you out but after studying the equipment spornheimer doesn't believe it played a role in the crash both the non-directional beacons were found to be operated normally by flight tests within a few days after the accident there are bizarre rumors of an even more sinister theory perhaps davis was following a decoy beacon put in the mountains on purpose in a troubled region was this an attack on the trade mission [Music] to get a signal that is strong enough to be heard you have to have a very large ground system which is difficult to establish in rocky sandy soil so it would be very expensive and very time consuming to set up an ndb in the mountains such an elaborate scheme would be nearly impossible to pull off no evidence is ever found of a decoy beacon the investigation continues in the wreckage of the air force flight investigators discover an important piece of the puzzle the plane's adf or automatic direction finder is recovered it appears to be working but only one of the units had been installed on this jet to perform a proper landing in dubrovnik a plane requires two adfs the device listens to the signals put out by the land-based beacons but it can only listen to one at a time we're still not past it i'm tuned back to klp flying with one adf the crew can listen to either the beacon which is telling them how to get to the airport or the beacon which is telling them they've gone too far they can't do both at the same time that would have required two adf receivers in the aircraft which the accident aircraft had only one and only having one adf restricted their ability to follow the approach accurately i got cv we're still not past it i'm tuning back to klp by quickly tuning back and forth between the two beacons the crew can use one adf to listen to two signals but it would have added stress to an already difficult landing and it's another surprise the air force jet wasn't adequately equipped to land at this airport you're talking in a very short time span of making the approach it's going to become rather difficult in trying to dial both to keep listening to the code if you're also trying to search for your course and headings as he continues to study the path that ifo 21 took nelson spawnheimer focuses on an s-shaped curve in the plane's flight it's the sort of path a plane would take when looking for a signal from a non-directional beacon but just when the crew should be looking for the beacon signal the s turns disappear about two or three miles inside the final approach fix for the next seven or eight nine miles the flight track is perfectly straight instead of trusting the navigational system that was in place even though it was primitive the crew suddenly seems to give up and spornheimer thinks he knows why fighting heavy rain and hampered by a single direction finder spawnheimer believes the crew resorted to another even older piece of technology to find the runway something called ins or inertial navigation system an ins system uses gyroscopes to maintain an awareness of how much the airplane turns and banks after entering a specific geographical position at the beginning of a flight an inertial navigation system tracks all the turns a plane makes it's a self-contained system on the aircraft but there is a potentially enormous problem if the gyroscopes don't perfectly calculate every single maneuver of the plane a pilot can be off course it's not very broken up down there i can't see through it the crew might have thought that switching to this system would help them find their way but in this case it might have put the plane dangerously off course ins drift in this case was probably in my view the primary reason the aircraft ended up where it was [Music] investigator howard swansea examines the jepson approach chart the crew was using as they attempted to land hampered by poor visibility and relying on the inertial navigation system their charts would have been a key aid [Music] but when he takes a closer look at it he notices something peculiar a key figure the minimum descent altitude isn't accurate the minimum descent altitude is the height where pilots must be able to see the airport if you can't see it at that height you have to abort the landing each country has the responsibility of developing these procedures and then publishing information so that other nationalities as well as their own air crews can fly those approaches [Music] swansea discovers that the minimum descent altitude on the chart doesn't meet american aviation standards given the mountainous terrain it should have been more than 2 800 feet but the chart the crew was using said it was just over 2100 feet it means that the crew could have flown almost 700 feet lower than experts in the us thought was safe without having to abort the landing combined with the other problems the crew was dealing with the non-standard chart sealed their fate struggling to find the airport they were straining to see through the clouds assuming they were still safely above the mountains but why wasn't an air force jet properly equipped to land in dubrovnik [Music] and why didn't the crew have the right landing charts that would have made even a difficult flight safer [Music] the answers are found at an american military base in germany with some of the most senior members of the air force in the spring of 1996 a u.s air force jet crashed just outside the airport in dubrovnik croatia [Music] none of the 35 people on board ifo 21 survived the plane was a specially redesigned 737 but the investigators have found that the crew didn't have the equipment it needed to safely land in the war-ravaged airport [Music] and that the charts they were using weren't up to american aviation standards to discover why the crew were attempting to land in such difficult circumstances the investigators question colonel john mazurowski he's the operations group commander for the airlift wing in charge of the flight his job is to provide transportation for a growing number of distinguished visitors but these are tight budget times maserorsky has been told to do more with less what i'd like to talk about now is the jefferson approach subject one of the major focuses of the investigators is the jepson landing charts the crew were using the charts drawn up for most major airports give crews a vast amount of information including what to do in the case of a missed approach but investigator howard swansea has already found that these charts were not up to us standards the air force had a directive that required all procedures in foreign countries to have gone through a u.s or their evaluation process prior to an air force crew being able to fly that approach landing at the dubrovnik airport had not been approved the jepson landing charts that did exist for the airport had not been reviewed it's the reason that howard swansea found a difference between what the charts said and what was considered safe by the defense department [Music] mazurowski believed that restricting his planes to approved airports would severely limit some of his missions it takes time to check all the airports out he had asked for the review to be waived for some airports including dubrovnik this jefferson approach waiver what caused you to initiate this it just seemed like uh we had been using these approaches for years and safety didn't seem to be in question but the defense department waiver was never granted the approach for dubrovnik was never approved yet even without the safety clearance the air force continued to land there 2-1 level 1 0-0 the bronic approach good afternoon the airport in dubrovnik was far below modern standards the charts used to land there hadn't been checked by the department of defense nevertheless senior air force officials had decided to permit landing at dubrovnik and other airports they were flying into in fact none of them have been approved in this time frame not to my knowledge sir no in the end a fatal combination of factors had come together to cause the crash of ifo 21 dubrovnik approach if021 level one zero zero the bronic approach good afternoon maintain ten thousand feet for beacon approach runway if021 the crew were fighting bad weather they were landing in an unfamiliar airport which was hobbled by old technology the unapproved charts made a bad situation much worse [Music] [Music] after an investigation involving nearly 150 interviews the final report on the crash of ifo 21 exceeds 7 000 pages how much of the weeping we have done this last week because there were so many brilliant young people on that plane with him from different backgrounds and different racial groups why because ron brown could see in them the promise of a new tomorrow [Music] the results of the investigation fault several individuals and institutions [Music] dubrovnik airport is singled out for an improperly designed instrument approach procedure [Music] today automatic direction finders are no longer needed to land at dubrovnik the airport has replaced its approach equipment with the instrument landing system which was being delivered at the time of the accident i got cv the final report says aj davis and his cockpit crew are responsible for flight errors and like a bullet piercing the heart of air force operations leading military figures are blamed for a failure of command [Music] in the aftermath of the report two senior members of the air force are relieved of their posts the air force severely reprimands colonel john mazurowski for dereliction of duty he is demoted and eventually retires as a major 13 other officers are also singled out for their roles in connection with the crash the air force also changed the way it did business all military aircraft were ordered to carry flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders aircraft is allowed to fly into an airport without approval from the department of defense not even for high-ranking diplomats if01 sir we are inside the locator inbound i-421 roger cleared for beacon approach runway ifo21 [Music] the air force command was held accountable for the accident but it's the pilots the crew and the passengers of ifo 21 who paid the ultimate price for oversights made by the 86th airlift command [Music] you

Channel: Wonder

Views: 482,108

Keywords: Wonder, wonder channel, survivial videos, survival stories, extreme documentary, mayday air crash investigation, mayday air disaster, air crash investigation, air crash investigation full episodes, air crash documentary, US Air Force Flight IFO-21, Us air force flight, 1996 Croatia USAF CT-43 crash, croatia usaf ct-43 crash, 1996 croatia usaf ct-43 crash, 1996 croatia usaf ct-43 crash air crash investigation, 1996 croatia usaf ct-43 crash victims

Id: I3x3GuDUMIw

Length: 50min 33sec (3033 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 07 2021