The Mysterious Black Box Of Flight 980 - An Unsolved Mystery

[Music] [Applause] [Music] in bolivia tonight a team of mountain climbers is trying to reach that eastern airlines jet which crashed into the side of a mountain outside the ponds the wreckage of eastern flight 980 lies buried in a giant glacial snowdrift [Music] 29 people on board including eight americans and there is not much hope [Music] so [Music] on a quiet new year's day in 1985 eastern airlines flight 980 was doing its regularly scheduled international flight and while this route was a staple for eastern airlines it's not as commonly flown today the flight 980s route on that day had departed in asuncion paraguay and was scheduled to make its first stop in la paz bolivia where after a brief layover it would continue on to ecuador until its final destination ending at miami international airport in the united states as flight 980 would depart at 5 57 pm local time in asuncion paraguay everything would be business as usual throughout the duration of the flight everything was eerily quiet a mere 10 crew members and 19 passengers on an airplane designed to accommodate at least 130. as the hour and 40 minute flight duration passed the flight was in its final leg towards el alto international airport in la paz bolivia on flight 980's final approach towards el alto flight conditions according to the incident report were labeled as imc while this is just a fancy way of saying that the pilots were reliant on their instruments for navigation this is to be expected when flying at night during a cloud cover nonetheless where the story takes a disturbing turn is when you read the final transcripts at 8 25 local time 980 would ask for landing clearance from air traffic control and after a back and forth and receiving the weather report at 8 37 the pilot would confirm their descent to 18 000 feet and with this final transmission and their reported crossing of the decon intersection the plane would never be heard from again as the night would unfold with further attempts to reach the plane the following sunrise would lead to one of the most questionable investigations in aviation history it wouldn't take long for news outlets to pick up on the flight's disappearance after subsequent attempts over the night to radio the flight a search investigation involving the bolivian government was launched as it was in their jurisdiction as information passed hands soon after a missing passenger list was arranged and there were quite a few that could easily set off a few red flags for one both the u.s ambassador to paraguay and his wife were listed as passengers of flight 980 until it was later discovered that arthur davis the u.s ambassador had something come up last minute and didn't end up actually getting on board with his wife another interesting individual listed on the passenger list was the director of the united states peace corps william kelly for context here the peace corps programs are often used as a way of helping developing countries that remain friendly through a wide variety of volunteer programs if someone had a politically driven message to deliver targeting both the ambassador and a local peace corps director would definitely increase tensions flight 980 had been found crashed into the south side face of mount ilimani while the normal planned route would have had no problem with this mountain this had indicated that something had caused the flight to drastically veer off course in a later investigative incident report it notes that they may have taken an alternative route to avoid weather in the area but no correspondence with air traffic control seems to indicate any issue on board or any intent to change their route even more interesting if you dig up some of the earliest newspaper coverage on this topic the united press international had reported that local villagers in the village of cahone had reported parts of the plane falling from the sky and a loud roar of thunder directly above them while it is to be expected that the plane's impact would have caused some commotion if you mapped it out you'd be concerned as kahone was a full nine miles away from where the plane had actually come to rest and this would have also meant that the plane was headed in an entirely different direction for no discernible reason now with the limited details i've shared thus far you'd think that discovering the true nature of what happened on board would be a top priority and something you need to know about investigating any flight crash is that the first order of business is to retrieve the flight's black box and while what i've shown you might raise an eyebrow generally the best course of action is to suspend your disbelief until the most important piece of information can be analyzed a black box is standard in any commercial flight and is set to record all conversation of the cockpit as well as recording the control inputs put into the plane considering that the flight obviously veered off course something obviously caused it to do so whether it be an external force or human error and when it comes to these black boxes they are designed to be incredibly durable meaning that the next course of action to figure out what had happened to the plane would include hiking up 19 000 feet to the crash site [Music] [Music] as the investigation would continue more details would emerge that would make this situation questionable at the very best with the three parties responsible for this investigation being the bolivian government as it was their territory the peruvian government as the flight had originated from there and the ntsb or national transport safety board for the united states as it was their plane as they all met they just couldn't seem to make it up the mountain to properly investigate the scene however that being said local mountain climbers were able to make it up without any oxygen as they didn't require acclimation unlike government authorities these mountain climbers were bernardo gorache juan ando and freddie ortiz who managed to reach the site before anybody else when they arrived at the crash site they reported no survivors along with no human remains of the items they claimed to bring back with them it included the pilot's personal belongings the original flight plan but the black box was apparently nowhere to be found this was despite the fact that the tail piece of wreckage had still been intact and for reference this is usually where a black box is stored in case of a crash when bernardo spoke to the press he stated that it was unsafe for any further expedition until the dry season but by calling off the search efforts like this it had one unique consequence it would effectively bury the crash site in meters and meters of snow government officials seemed to echo this notion as the search effort was cancelled about a week later with no government entity really showing any interest in the crash after this announcement leaving the families with little to no closure in hindsight this looks incredibly shady as one of the final discoveries made by bernardo karachi and his team was that the plane's cargo included nearly 1 million dollars in poached reptile skins [Music] during 1985 no other reported investigations were made by the bolivian government and when bolivia had finally released their accident report in september they ultimately cited the area as inaccessible and there was no mention of the contraband found on board at all the official incident report concluded that this was a controlled flight into terrain for unknown reasons and simply blamed it on the weather without much elaboration however it appears that bolivia never made their own attempt to ever go up to the mountain because citing the area as inaccessible was a complete joke by march snow cover had blanketed the area nonetheless ramon valdez who was an eastern airlines flight engineer had also been originally planned to be on this plane and he had reached the site on his own dime in a private excursion this team included a native mountain climber by the name of ronnie ebada and while they echoed the report of no bodies or black box they managed to get up to the site with no problems at all by this time searching was difficult as there was a fresh layer of snow cover from the following months ramon and not wanting to let the trip go to waste took it upon himself to photograph the wreckage for a film meant to raise funds for the families when he had returned home apparently the ceo of eastern airlines frank borman and another top management associate had learned of his expedition and privately asked him not to release any of the photos in exchange for additional money to be allocated to the families as far as i'm aware this footage was basically lost to time and it took a while to track down but that is what you're seeing right now i will leave rey's video in the description for a full watch through as this unreleased film is basically the only footage that exists now while rey valdes made it up the mountain in march by july judith kelly the widow of william kelly who had also passed in the crash had her own private expedition up the mountain she took with her the same bernardo garache from the first expedition as her guide once again this expedition had no problems reaching the crash site and once again no bodies or black box could be located however this trip wasn't necessarily made in intention to recover evidence or dig through snow the reason judith kelly hiked up this mountain was for her own closure after she had returned home she made it a point to press the ntsb further about a well-prepared investigation by professionals and when they finally agreed to search the area the report would leave us with far more questions than answers [Music] this third expedition involved quite a few people names being greg feith as the ntsb investigative lead bernardo garachi allen and mark gerber royce fitch jim baker and al arrington as the individuals scheduled to investigate the site but leave it to the professionals to have one of the worst expeditions possible for one the group was given a total of six hundred dollars for the entire trip and forced to pay for everything else they needed out of pocket the report notes that they were forced to bring their own climbing gear and food as they could not be guaranteed by bolivia and to top that off they were given a total of three days notice prior to their trip forcing them to prepare for everything last minute on the first day of climbing they had gone up seventeen thousand feet only to realize that none of their gear had been transported by the bolivian red cross and instead had gone to their second base camp at 19 000 feet as the sun set from the first day of climbing they were forced to wait in the cold with no camping gear while the red cross was going to deliver all of the rest of their gear after waiting two more hours the red cross had finally arrived bringing with them two tents but no stoves or fuel to cook their food and the report pathetically notes that they were barely able to defrost cold noodle soup that night as a result of this mishap one of the team members al arrington had developed a pulmonary edema and was put onto oxygen this forced jim baker and al arrington to turn around and have to head back down to the base of the mountain the remaining members continued on the next morning but not before roy fitch had fallen into a crevice injuring him despite this injury they pressed on and after camping at the second base camp they ascended to the crash site which by then another member mark gerber had developed pulmonary edema and deteriorated over the night something you need to understand about searching through the wreckage is that they were required to be physically capable to dig through snow to investigate the scene by this time only three out of the seven were physically capable that day the report notes searching through various pieces of wreckage and notably they had found their first and only sign of blood out of all of the expeditions it had been found on the metal portion of the pilot's shoulder harness in the cockpit despite all odds greg feith had managed to find a key portion of the wreckage that being the aft stairwell which by now had become buried in seven feet of snow and in this aft stairwell portion he had even located where the black box was supposed to be mounted yet once again no black box after a day of searching the investigation was called off and just when you think things couldn't get any worse the descent down the mountain was hampered with even more problems as the group's reliance on the red cross would fail them once again greg feith and royce fitch descended in one day the others in the group had stayed behind and requested for fuel stoves and food to be delivered to the 17 000 foot base camp while they recovered when the red cross had finally arrived they instead brought two gallons of kool-aid and clothing it's incredibly interesting just how many bad things these people had happened to them on this individual expedition and furthermore it's even more interesting that the ntsb never planned another follow-up when everybody and their widow can investigate this plane crash but a government agency just can't bother to spend more than 600 it almost begs the question as to whether or not something else was going on at eastern airlines as time would pass it would paint the situation surrounding flight 980 in a far different light for one the contraband found at the crash site was simply a drop in the bucket compared to the shady back room that was eastern airlines as a whole because soon after flight 980's crash more and more headlines would begin to pop up regarding seizures of other contraband found on the flights to miami that contraband in the vast majority of cases being snow and not the type of snow found on the top of mount illimani ground crews at airports working specific shifts were caught loading extra suitcases filled with nose candy and two portions of the cargo hold as well as other creative parts of the plane in one instance at eastern airlines a pilot had actually found about 15 kilos under his seat in april of 1984. according to george jenn an ex-eastern airlines pilot who wrote a book on this subject from mid-1984 until january 1989 a period of just over four years official government records revealed that there were 2 723 pounds of snow over a ton and 826 pounds of flour seized by drug enforcement and us customs on eastern aircraft flying into the united states at the time officials estimated that 20 to 25 of energy powder smuggled into the united states entered the country via eastern while the majority of this operation stemmed from colombia where flights were routed into miami we obviously know that other south american countries were in on this ordeal as well hence the cayman skins from flight 980 originating from paraguay subsequent convictions would show that incoming bags to miami filled with contraband would be unloaded by eastern workers and set aside where accomplices would later pick them up individually additionally eastern's involvement with money laundering for the cartel was also alleged jerry loeb who was an eastern airlines veteran pilot testified that he was aware of at least 45 to 50 flights to panama where the airliner was paid off to transport illegal funds on unmarked pallets hereafter the money was deposited into panama banks until it was wired into the u.s for a legitimate investment and in regards to flight 980 had some of that money gone into the right pockets that may have been the reason there was so little interest in investigating the crash for perspective when that ex-pilot had met with the fbi regarding the unmarked pallets being shipped to panama within four hours of submitting the report eastern had hired people to monitor him and he was later fired in 1991 eastern airlines would ultimately file for bankruptcy but not before a series of highly questionable events that would lead them to being bought out for 606 million dollars by a corporate raider by the name of frank lorenzo lorenzo would run the airliner into the ground no pun intended but not before eluding 750 million dollars in the company's assets for his other airliner with every passing day from this point on eastern airlines in the flight 980 crash would fade in the memories of the public until 2016 when two individuals by the name of isaac stoner and dan fatrell would find themselves browsing wikipedia for a list of unrecovered flight recorders here they noticed that flight 980 had listed the reason for non-recovery as terrain inaccessible it would pique their interest as they would soon discover all of the questionable details surrounding the investigations this would lead to the creation of their blog operation tanapa in which they would plan their own investigation to mount dilemani while they had done their research in this flight in a variety of ways one of the newer avenues they also sought to research was contacting bernardo garachi who in a written interview with outside magazine would finally break his silence on what had actually happened on his first expedition in 1985. for one he claims that the person responsible for sending him up the mountain was royce fitch a us diplomat and if you recall he was also present on the third expedition according to his version of the story bernardo notes that there were footprints at their old campsite suggesting that someone had followed them up the mountain however these footprints had not extended all the way up to the top suggesting that they had turned around at some point when bernardo had returned from the summit he claimed that he was detained by the bolivian government separated from his team and searched thoroughly after interrogating him once at the base camp they took him back to the airport to interrogate him once again where he claims one of the men there threatened him should he choose to speak about anything that had happened that day if this is true when you pair bernardo's statement to the press stating that they would have had to wait until april for another search it almost seems like he was pressured into giving this statement i mean we know for one the area is both not inaccessible and in march of that year it was also safe to climb the mountain as ramon valdez had done just that we also need to understand that the bolivian government had literally zero interest in investigating the scene at all and with this collective statement from bernardo 30 years later it points to this entire situation wanting to be swept under the rug getting back to isaac and dan who were planning the trip to ilimani in 2016 when they arrived in bolivia they had decided to search 3000 feet below the crash site along the south face as in 2006 it was reported that parts of the wreckage had begun to slide down the mountain in their search they would end up documenting a staggering amount of debris as well as some human remains they also believed to have found parts of the black box as well as the magnetic tape that would have held the data inside after they left they took their findings with them as they were not trusting of the local bolivian government to investigate this new finding properly but in doing so they inadvertently broke in an international law taking evidence home after waiting over a year for the bolivian embassy to give the okay to investigate what they had found they would be disappointed because on february 7th 2017 as the ntsb had reported that the parts of the black box they had discovered were only some chip pieces of the outer casing as well as another piece being the connective part to the pilot's headset and the magnetic tape that they had found was not the right size and instead included an 18 minute recording of the television show i spy while this came up short this whole situation once again highlights how poorly this was investigated in the first place furthermore this mystery only goes deeper as we can't answer what happened to the black box and that makes it impossible to understand what had happened to the plane definitively now where do i even begin with coming up with a cohesive theory as to what happened to flight 980 well for one something you need to know about el alto international airport is that it isn't necessarily an easy airport to land at it's a tiny target at a high altitude that by many first-hand accounts makes the approach incredibly difficult and while pilot campbell hadn't flown this route that many times something else you need to know is that further flight reports from eastern regarding the omega navigation system aboard flight 980 later reported having some issues as well don mcclure the chairman of the alpa's accident investigation board had written a report regarding flights from paraguay to bolivia knowing that the omega system had the potential to track about four miles off course we know the pilots were reliant on their instruments for navigation however four miles would not be nearly enough for the plane to strike the mountain and it also wouldn't explain how debris had fallen over the village of kahony had they simply tracked from a different angle from the decon intersection while i'd love to write this off simply as pilot failure there's just an entire mess of other details that don't seem to make sense at all for one why was there not a single attempt to go up the mountain from the bolivian government we know that royce fitch hired bernardo garache on behalf of the united states but all the bolivian government did was cite the area as inaccessible after three separate investigations reached the site number two who threatened bernardo garache and who followed them up the mountain number three who is smuggling yukari cayman skins and why was that not included in the bolivian report number four what caused parts of the plane to fall from the sky given that this was almost 10 miles away number five why was the ntsb's expedition so poorly executed with no follow-up and number six is it possible that the black box was recovered in an undisclosed expedition while i'll admit all this stuff borders on conspiracy and the more likely scenario is that there was some navigational errors there's still a lot of food for thought here what we do know as a seed of truth here is that this airliner was in fact implicated in an operation of one or more cartels and as you can imagine whenever there's any involvement in that territory the cartel's insane amount of wealth and control over governments can really open up the bounds of what is possible while the secrets of flight 980 might still remain scattered along the side of mount illimani until then this entire situation will remain a mystery this is barely sociable have a good night [Music] you

Channel: Barely Sociable

Views: 1,689,049

Rating: 4.9257011 out of 5

Keywords: unsolved mystery, flight 980, eastern airlines, unsolved mysteries, mysteries, mystery

Id: pl20NdwAs3k

Length: 26min 10sec (1570 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 20 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/eambertide]

Someone should convince a billionaire like Musk to hold a proper expedition