The Tragedy Of Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529 | Mayday S2 EP2 | Wonder

[Music] [Music] we are in an emergency it was just a small commuter plane buzzing back and forth from one town to another a journey of 86 minutes one of many that day no one could ever have imagined that it would end like this in drama and in death yet in 1995 two pilots with 26 passengers aboard managed to defy the laws of gravity for nine minutes and 20 seconds when their aircraft in effect lost the use of a wing struggling home like a wounded bird [Music] but when their plane makes a miraculous crash landing with all passengers alive their ordeal isn't over what awaits them is even more horrifying it's getting hotter here get me up tell my wife i love her i have never before since dealt with so much physical devastation and emotional upheaval and so much sorrow flying isn't always glamorous regional airlines are like the buses of the air trundling back and forth from one small city to another crews operate several flights a day working for up to 15 hours they face interminable ground delays and often surly passengers if a flight gets cancelled they don't get paid but they enjoy their work atlanta airport in georgia has become one of the busiest in the world it's the home of a very successful regional airline atlantic south east asa serves every town and city of the southeastern united states with a fleet of 83 turbo props in 1995 most of them were brazilians built by the brazilian firm embraer the brasilia is a high performance aircraft with state-of-the-art avionics at a top speed of 378 miles per hour today after 18 000 successful flights this brasilia will take off for the last time take off check below the line i've got your lights captain ed gannaway and first officer matt warmadam have just flown in from mekong georgia turn the lights on going through the departure checklist they're now ready for their second flight of the day flight asa 529 to gulfport mississippi hi [Music] flight attendant robin feck has been with asa for just over two years her cabin is a cramped space only 31 feet long most of her 26 passengers are seasoned business travelers ranging in age from 18 to 69 among them are six engineers two deputy sheriffs a minister two air force personnel and even an aspiring flight attendant for them the short trip to gulfport mississippi is a routine journey but they're half an hour late on their schedule already okay power's set auto feathers armed panels captain ed ganaway who's been with asa for seven years comes from a family of pilots he's a skilled and accomplished captain v1 vr pause rate gear up 529 departure fly heading 0-6-0 the two men have only been flying together for four months but get along well at six foot three and two hundred pounds matt warmer damn is a tight fit in the brasilia's cramped cockpit i think all pilots would agree that the brasilia was a constant love-hate relationship it uh it was at the time the fastest sleekest turbo prop around and uh and it was also very tricky to master the thing was built like a sherman tank [Music] hey robin hi it'll just be a couple more minutes like this it's going to smooth out okay just a couple more minutes don't be able to get up yes ma'am all right thank you [Music] david mccorkil is a frequent flyer and works in the software business he's on his way to an important meeting good afternoon ladies and gentlemen welcome aboard atlantic southeast airlines flight 529 service to gulfport mississippi passing through 13 000 feet the captain has turned off the fastest seat belt signs however if you are in your seats we suggest you do so with your seat belt loosely around your waist just in case we encounter any turbulence on route chuck fistera a nervous flyer works for a paper company and is on his way to visit a new mill [Music] ac 529 climate maintain flight level 2 0 0 2 0 0 ac 529 20. the brasilia on autopilot is climbing towards its cruising altitude of 24 000 feet 24 24. but the plane will never make it to this altitude [Music] the sound of that was tremendous it was as if someone had taken a baseball bat and hit an aluminum garbage can as hard as they could it was just a gigantic crashing sound and the airplane immediately lurched to the left i heard a loud bang and that's what you know just shot me out awake not knowing really what happened i i looked over and noticed everyone looking left out the window what i saw was very alarming the outer skin of the engine had been ripped off or as i determined later had peeled back because of some force i could see the the components of the engine itself and i could see fluid leaving the engine and exiting the back of the wing warning lights and chimes go off signaling trouble in the left engine the autopilot trips off as a result and gannaway takes control of the plane [Music] the plane is falling 5500 feet a minute the equivalent of over 90 feet every second [Music] oil from the destroyed engine is seeping into the air conditioning pack bringing smoke into the cabin [Music] unaware that the left engine is destroyed the pilot tries to adjust its propeller to improve the plane's lift left condition lever left condition lever feather warmer dam attempts to feather the propeller which means changing the angle of the blades in order to minimize air resistance the warning light indicates fire in the left engine condition lever fuel shut off no matter what gun away does the plane is still pulling violently to the left he struggles to counteract it by pushing hard to the right using both rudder and control column i need some help here i need some help on this the force of the crippled wing pulling to the left is relentless without the efforts of the pilots to keep the plane stable it would roll into a spin and spiral down into the ground killing everyone on board the engine has turned into a massive misshapen twisted metal fatally weakening the wing's aerodynamic capabilities and dragging it down the plane wants to keep turning left the pilots must push hard right on the rudder to the limit to keep them flying straight captain ganaway is confused feathering the propeller has not reduced the drag he's so preoccupied with handling the emergency he hasn't looked over his shoulder at the damaged engine yet he said it's feathered feather the hell is wrong with this thing i don't know for now the pilots are focused on the plane's vital statistics heading altitude speed and the power setting of its one good engine [Music] all these planes were designed to fly with one engine the airplane is capable of flying on one engine however in the case of 529 not only do you have an engine that is malfunctioned and stopped running but now it is broken from its normal mounted position and cant it which creates a very increased or or dramatic aerodynamic effect on the airplane let's close these oh sir you don't need to be looking at that my reaction was the hell with you if i want to look out the window i'm going to look out the window because these are the last moments of my life well it's all right that's just what turbulence feels like it's one engine are we gonna make it oh sir of course we're gonna make it how can the plane fly like that well these planes were designed to fly with only one engine we're not gonna make it what was important wasn't the conversation between the two of us i think that it was what was in our eyes i think that she knew that i knew that this was a huge problem and that it probably wasn't going to be something that was going to end without tragedy the pilots have managed to slow the plane's catastrophic rate of descent but not halt it in fact the airspeed has actually increased to 224 miles per hour captain ganaway has puzzled he's flown a brazilian one engine before and landed it without difficulty this plane has something very wrong atlanta center ac529 declaring an emergency we've had an engine failure we're out of 14-2 with this diamond ac 529 roger left turn direct atlanta flight 529 now flying over alabama makes a left turn back towards atlanta but the airport is almost 58 miles away will they make it the plane has begun to descend again and at breakneck speed warmer dam cancels the master caution warning finally silencing the plane's alarms captain ganaway experiments with his controls trying everything suddenly the nose of the brazilian lifts up and the plane speed slows to 186 miles per hour ac 529 say altitude descending two hundred at this time all right it's getting more controllable here the engine let's watch our speed for the first time since the crisis began the pilots can now turn their attention to the passengers trim completely here i'm gonna tell rob what's going on [Music] hi okay we had an engine failure robin we declared an emergency we're diverting back to atlanta go ahead and brief the passengers this will be an emergency landing backhand all right thank you feck hasn't told the pilots what she's seen of the destroyed engine she assumes they already know ac529 can you level off or do you need to keep descending the plane is descending again at about 3 000 feet a minute gannaway suddenly realizes they won't make it to atlanta could we're going to need to keep descending we need an airport quick uh okay uh we're gonna need to keep descending we need an airport quick roll the trucks and everything out for us ac 529 west georgia the regional airport is at your 10 o'clock position and about 10 miles away but the air traffic controller too preoccupied with handling the crisis aboard flight 529 fails to notify emergency services flight 529 makes another wide left turn that brings it on course to land at west georgia regional airport let's get out the engine failure checklist please engine failure and flight but they don't get a chance to diagnose their problem ac529 say heading uh turning to about uh 310 right now ac529 roger you need to be on a zero three zero for west georgia regional sir roger will probably turn right we we're having difficulty controlling right now we see your brakes positions position good good ma'am we accept responsibility for opening the door when the plane stops no okay um [Music] apu if available start you want me to start it we got to bring this thing down put that off get get bring the ice off and uh say your altitude now sir uh out of 7000 ac 529 trim fail trim fail oh good start ac 529 i missed that i'm sorry we're at a 6.9 right now ac 529 okay it's up and running it all right west georgia regional is your closest airport what kind of runway they got uh yeah what kind of runways west georgia regional got west georgia regional is it's 5 000 feet and his asphalt sir okay now i want you to remove any pens or sharp objects from your pockets i want you to take off your glasses and pour any drinks into the pocket of the seat in front of you we had to put the drinks in our pocket in front of us i think that shook a few of us and i i kind of noticed it wasn't going too well but most folks on that flight were business folks that flew real frequent so you know there was no screaming or panicking of any sort based on the fact that i was going to die i dealt with it in the best way that i could which was just to try to absorb it accept it and deal with came on practice take your seatbelt off and on okay that's it okay there's smoke and the door in front of us is blocked you got to get down your hands and knees and crawl the back okay so count the rows we got to get out of the fifth row [Music] the plane is still losing altitude far too quickly can it make it to the airport in time [Music] atlanta center normally only controls flights at altitudes over 11 000 feet for the last seven minutes flight 529 had been under this altitude and now the controller is having trouble locating them ac529 i've lost your transponder say altitude uh we're at a 4.5 at this time ac529 i've got you now and the airport's at your say you're heading now sir uh we are heading 0-8-0 roger you need about 10 degrees left west georgia regional airport is only eight miles away beneath the clouds two minutes flying time but they're not sure they can keep airborne that long i'll tell you what let me put you on approach he works that airport and we'll be able to give you more information contact atlanta approach at 12.0 atlanta approach air traffic control it monitors planes within a much smaller airspace including west georgia regional airport the brasilia now at 3 400 feet has slowed its descent to 1800 feet per minute but that's still too fast they won't make it to the airport [Music] on some passengers faces looks of despair others are angry and bitter but most are thinking about their loved ones one woman writes a goodbye note to her children on a torn book cover she writes i love you you are the lights of my life always mommy i think we should pray seven minutes have passed for the first time captain ganaway manages to catch a glimpse of the left engine [Music] [ __ ] has exploded he's just hanging out there this was something his instruments hadn't told him it's no simple engine failure the engine is just dangling off the wing he knows he could land a brasilia with a failed engine but not when it's torn apart this is something his training hasn't prepared him for he wishes he could see through the clouds [Music] here yes ac529 roger expect localizer runway 3-4 approach and could you fly heading uh 1-8-0 uh no sorry 1-6-0 localizer frequency the controller's flight path will take the brasilia several miles south before landing ganaway knows he doesn't have the extra minutes that this will take we can get it in on a visual just give us the vectors we'll go the visual he asks for directions to take the plane straight in using the shortest possible route [Music] suddenly they're out of the clouds but the site that greets them couldn't be worse in front of them no airport only forest and villages captain ganaway who never stutters does now single engine checklist please where the hell is it [Music] robin feck is puzzled six minutes earlier warmer dam had told her the plane was turning back to atlanta but all she can see now is georgia countryside word of 1900 at this time we're below the clouds tell them you're out in 1900 now yeah uh we're vfr at this time could you give us a vector to the airport turn left fly heading zero four zero bear the airports at you're about ten o'clock in six miles sir radar contact lost at this time the plane's low altitude shocks the controller nineteen hundred feet only a minute earlier it had been at 3 400 feet the descent is far too fast remember brace yourselves and once we get out to where we're going white to the plane comes to a complete stop before we can get out knife brace positions please race positions sir heads down heads down please robin feck too preoccupied by the safety of her passengers looks out of a window and suddenly sees the tops of the trees she has but a few seconds left to strap herself in her jump seat before impact race positions keep your heads down everyone hold on this is gonna be rough the airport is only four miles away but too far for the crippled plane the pilots have to attempt a crash landing in a field over there [Music] the plane's altitude voice alarm sounds warning the pilots that they're flying too close to the ground without their landing gear lowered [ __ ] land the pilots will attempt to land on the plane's belly [Music] help me help me help me hold it help me hold it amy i love you these are the last words on the cockpit voice recorder the plane is flying at 138 miles per hour and only seconds away from impact [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so the plane had landed in a small field in burwell a sleepy farming community near carrollton georgia where nothing major ever happens many neighbors witnessed the plane coming down bill jetters and his wife lived in this house at the end of this field angled directly in the plane's path my wife was sitting at the kitchen table reading and she said bill we better get out of here because plane's gonna hit the house so uh about that time it started stopping i said well you call 9-1-1 and i'm going to see if i can help the plane [Music] emergency yes we have a plane crashed in our backyard a plane crashed yes eight minutes had passed since first officer warmer dam had declared an emergency and asked atlanta center for rescue vehicles to be alerted but the controller hadn't passed on the message minutes would make the difference now between life and death the local emergency services responded quickly but was still many miles away for almost a minute after impact there's an eerie silence the plane fuselage is broken in two could anyone survive as the dust settles all 29 people on board are miraculously alive with only a handful seriously injured by the impact it was an amazing situation only because i just couldn't even believe that i was alive at that point and i couldn't believe that i was looking at something that that was real but a new disaster is gathering fuel from the shattered wing tanks is pouring onto the ground the last thing i remember is is the sound of hitting the trees and then i honestly don't recall impact captain ed ganaway has been knocked unconscious by a blow to the head during the impacts when first officer matt warmerdam regains consciousness he realizes they're stuck the cockpit door is jammed and smoke is slowly seeping in he reaches for the emergency crash axe the cockpit window is the only way out the next immediate thought i had was now we're gonna blow up so get out of there he was burning you know right in the open you know so i just jumped over and i headed towards the opening and i walked out of the aircraft and i walked away from it the sparks ignite the fuel vapors creating a blazing fire within seconds the fire spreads to the fuselage in the rear section of the plane the passengers are now trapped by flames burning at 1800 degrees centigrade they can hear screams from the field outside where some passengers are already suffering from terrible burns to escape they too have to run through the fire not fall in it hoping for the best they turned back and i looked at the aircraft and what i saw was that the opening that i had come through was basically fully engulfed in flames and that the people that were exiting the aircraft were all on fire some of them would you know roll in the grass to try and put the fire out and sometimes that made it worse because it was spent for spilt fuel and then they would get even more ignited the whole situation got uglier and uglier in the sense that you would all of a sudden see people with their clothing burned off you would see people with with with with red red skin that you could see was burn you could actually see some people whose flesh uh was like dropping off of their bodies or their faces um it was it was just a horrible situation that was taking place and it was getting worse and worse [Music] his right shoulder dislocated is banging the axe against the window with his left [Music] hand [Music] the person's clothes were on fire and she was on the ground i think it was a woman she was on the ground and robin said to me she says take off your shirt take off your pants try to beat the flames out and i did that one gentleman i saw was crawling completely engulfed in flames and another one that was most of his clothes was torn off now whether they got torn off in the crash or he tore him off himself i don't know i helped him away from the airplane and brought him up towards my brother-in-law's house and all he had on was his shorts and his skin was excuse me well being a paralyzed person myself i knew that i could do much for them i was looking and i thought to myself that'll be the these people that on that airplane are seeing the last seconds of a normal life that they'll ever live aircraft glass is much thicker than what you would see on like a like an automobile windshield it's uh several different composite layers that have been temper treated together to make it a very very tough surface and with each swing in the crash accident i was only able to chip away a small piece of glass i need some help i really did feel kind of alone there i'm looking around left and right and there's there's no other fools that close you know at that second but even though passenger david mccorkle believes that the plane might blow up at any second he goes to matt hormadam's rescue can you help me i haven't got enough room inside to swing it in here ah wait a second here hang on i gotta get some air the oxygen cylinder in the closet behind the co-pilot's seat punctures it'll make the cockpit fire much worse okay go ahead go ahead okay by now the rescue crews of the area have been notified firemen police officers paramedics all are hurriedly on their way to the crash site will the fire trucks arrive in time to save matt warmadam before the cockpit gets engulfed in flames david mccorkle is exhausted trying to break the strong glass suddenly a heat flame pops at him from below the cockpit he backs off scared for his life you're gonna let me die are you he has children and he must think of them as well how can he sacrifice his life for a man he does not know now more determined than ever he bangs even harder and faster then suddenly the weakened axe head flies off it's getting hotter here get me out guy pope a police officer is the first rescue worker to reach the burning plane i was about three miles from here when i received the call and about halfway here i could see the smoke pretty heavy smoke and i got out of the car and i ran up to the plane and when i went around the nose of the plane uh one of the passengers handed me a hatchet and said that the pilot was inside and i took the hatchet and started trying to cut a bigger hole i couldn't get around behind the cockpit because of fire it was still burning pretty heavy and there was an oxygen bottle there blowing the fire and uh you know it's just one of them things you you see a man burn you don't forget it this is live footage taken with a video from the windshield of a georgia state patrol police car as rescue workers are arriving at the site at this moment all passengers are out of the two sections of the broken plane except pilots ed ganaway and matt warmadam who remain prisoners of their cockpit well first off i had to tear the back of the cockpit out it burnt and there was no door or visible door or anything like that so i actually took my hands and tore it out when i started to pull him out he looked up and he said tell my wife amy that i love her i said no sir you tell her that you love her because i'm getting you out of here inside the ambulance i worked with him and i thought that probably he would not make it i took his name badge and pinned it on his underwear which was the only thing i'd left on him trying to cool him down because i thought that if he died at least someone would know who he was surprisingly matt was aware of everything around him and he kept trying to assure me that things were going to be okay he was comforting me because at that particular time i was crying matthew actually took his burned hand and wiped to tear away they found captain ganaway dead in the cockpit he had struck his head on impact and never regained consciousness he died of burns and smoke inhalation the crash survivors some with broken bones and others with burns ranging from minor to 92 percent are rushed to various hospitals in georgia 13 passengers were brought to tanner hospital in carrollton 15 minutes away where code black was immediately applied meaning everybody helps dr bobby mitchell after working a night shift was awakened he was responsible for treating four survivors including flight attendant robin feck when i got to the hospital some of the people that had survived the plane crash were already here the smell was initially just a wave of uh jet fuel that just hit you as the door opened and then that was mixed with just a pungent uh horrible odor of burned flesh this fact she had a cut on her scalp and a couple of broken bones like a collarbone and an arm and she was in a great deal of pain herself although she she didn't particularly want me to be dealing with her she said you get back with them and the orthopedist soon took over her care she was clearly still trying to care for her passengers [Music] when a patient suffers a severe burn the skin is violated and the skin really is the major part of your immune system so people that have been horribly burned that that initial defense is violated in infection infectious organisms organisms harmful the body can very easily get in and your immune system can just handle so much when they are able to survive for a period of weeks it is not uncommon for them to die from other organ failures which is what happened to a lot of the people that were on flight 529 i have never before or since dealt with so much physical devastation and emotional upheaval and so much sorrow and horror and sadness in one place at one time than than we did on that day in this this little small town hospital after a long day treating the horribly burned passengers and witnessing the courage of some of them dr mitchell was asked to assist the autopsy on captain ed gannaway i looked down at him and kind of put my hand over on i told everybody i thought i hope wherever his spirit is that he knows what a good job he did and and i just said you know you're the hero i hope you know it captain getaway regional airlines are a north american phenomenon in the early 1960s a small band of independent airlines first became known as air taxis which in time became commuter airlines then finally regional airlines in 1978 the us deregulated the airlines and as the small and mid-sized cities became the economic engine of the country regional airlines prospered as never before the national transportation safety board in the united states is responsible for investigating air disasters its go team is on duty 24 hours a day to fly to the scene of any major crash the ntsb will have several subgroups working at the same time each examining a particular part of the plane gordon jim hookey an aerospace engineer was in charge of the propeller maintenance group we went out to the crash site and in the usual fashion you just kind of look around and get a feel for where all the pieces are we came along the propeller assembly that was missing looking down through the dirt we could see the telltale marks the beach marks around along the fracture surface that indicated it might have been a fatigue fracture during the last 10 minutes of flight 529 no one on board the plane suspected that the engine failure had been caused by a propeller blade fracture hooky had good reason to be concerned by the broken propeller blade he'd seen it all before four years earlier another asa brasilia had nose-dived and crashed in woods in georgia killing all 23 people aboard including former u.s senator john tower of texas and space shuttle astronaut manly sunny carter the ntsb's investigation of that incident had found the crash had been caused by a badly designed propeller control unit and they blamed the manufacturer hamilton standard then in march 1994 just 17 months before asa 529 on two separate commercial flights identical propeller blades broke from metal fatigue over canada and over brazil in both cases the aircraft involved managed to land safely these accidents pointed to serious problems in hamilton standard propellers and became a major crisis for the company airlines were ordered by the government to carry out an inspection of all the fifteen thousand propeller blades in service investigators found that the broken propeller had been declared suspect and sent back to hamilton standard for inspection when the asa mechanics took the blade off the the hub as soon as they turned it over we marked down the serial number so when we went back to do the records we could immediately go to that particular blade investigator jim hookey took the broken blade stop to atlanta airport from there it was sent to the ntsb laboratory in washington by next morning blade number 861398 was being examined under a scanning microscope investigators found telltale deposits of chlorine a corrosive substance known to eat into the inner walls of the propeller blade so then the question becomes where did the chlorine come from in two of the previous propeller failures the problem had also been traced to corrosion caused by chlorine in the inner wall of the blade flight 529's blade had also snapped off 13.2 inches from the hub very similar to the two previous blade failures under the microscope ntsb scientists saw that two cracks along the inner wall of the blade had joined to form a single fissure this had grown and grown until it circled the blade at which point it snapped under the stress of normal operation but the ntsb scientists noted something else on the inner surface extending about one and a half inches from the fracture there was a series of sanding marks hooky set off to hamilton standard intent on getting the maintenance records for the propellers what had been done to the blade when it had been recalled at the factory hookey examined the blaze repair reports he noted the initials of the technician who did the work csb christopher scott bender he was a young technician who worked at a hamilton standard propeller repair facility christopher bender had watched the news of the accident on television little realizing how he was involved in the accident i saw the hamilton standard prop on it and i was like i hope this is not a prop failure oh it was just kind of the back of my mind and that morning they were like you know the ntsb is down there faa is investigating uh and they've called in some of our engineers to go also down there and it might be a prop failure uh and as soon as i heard that my heart just sank i was like you know i think i might even cry a little bit because i was just you know just emotionally overwhelmed that you know something i had put my hands on the procedure somebody trusted me to do failed and because that somebody had died after discovering the technician who had last worked on the propeller blade that caused the crash of asa 529 the ntsb now had to find out how the blade had passed inspection propeller blades are hollow inside weights are inserted to balance the prop they're kept in place by a cork soaked in chlorine it was the chlorine that had caused the corrosion in the previous accidents however on this blade bender had been unable to detect any evidence of corrosion he then did what he'd been told to do polish the inside of the blade the draft accident report we present to you today involves atlantic southeast airlines flight 529 and embrace the ntsb found that by polishing the blade hamilton standard had unwittingly removed all traces of the crack and a later more thorough ultrasound examination couldn't detect it the ntsb asked for more accountability for management at hamilton standard and so the final report read the fracture was caused by a fatigue crack from multiple corrosion pits that were not discovered by hamilton standard because of inadequate and ineffective corporate inspection and repair techniques training documentation and communications some final questions still needed to be answered why had the broken propeller blade destroyed the engine in previous incidents the entire propeller had fallen away harmlessly but on flight 529 blade loss unbalanced the propeller and led to uncontrollable high-speed shaking as the engine shuttered in its mountings this was the ominous hammering sound heard by the passengers it literally ripped the engine open and left the useless propeller jammed against the wing the flight crew weren't handling the engine failure as a true engine failure in that some mechanical malfunction occurred and the engine stopped running they didn't know that the engine actually had vibrated significantly and broken from its mount and actually canted or twisted on the wing the ntsb found that the rescue services might have arrived more quickly if controllers had heeded matt warmerdam's request for help on the ground given by radio six and a half minutes before the crash another key ntsb recommendation was to replace the flimsy crash acts that had failed in warmer dam's rescue with a sturdier model investigators praised the crew of flight 529 for the way they dealt with the crisis calling their reactions reasonable and appropriate but the board could offer little advice on the one thing that had caused all these deaths fire the conundrum is how do you make a fuel burn in an engine but not ignite when it's spilled one way to reduce the severity of post-crash fires is by utilizing less flammable fuel in 1984 the federal aviation administration and nasa decided to test a new safer fuel by staging an accident using a remote control plane unfortunately it was not a conspicuous success [Music] [Music] but the us navy has been using a safer form of jet fuel called jp5 since the 1950s yet it's not used in commercial aviation the primary reason that civilian sector or commercial aviation has not gone to a lower flammability fuel is the question of availability and distribution and the cost it costs more to produce the jp5 everything comes down to money what's it going to cost to develop a system what's it going to cost to implement the system what's it going to do for the overall safety of the airplane and who's going to pay for it personally from a safety standpoint i'll pay two dollars extra in my ticket to know and to have that security until a solution is found there will continue to be stories like asa529 on impact everyone on this flight had survived but the subsequent fire became the killer for the victims of the fire recovery has been a slow painful and excruciating process first officer matt warmadam was burned on 42 of his body some other survivors suffered up to 90 burns treatment included daily baths and removal of dead skin from burn wounds there would be years of skin graft operations the 24-hour day wearing of pressure garments to minimize scarring chronic itching and soreness and daily physical therapy your ability to sense and feel through those areas is permanently changed for the worse temperature control is lost when you walk from an air-conditioned building into the outside you take for granted that your body starts accommodating that either by sweating or redirecting blood flow people with burns especially horrible large surface area burns that's lost forever they have to plan everything they do they have to plan where they're going to be and the clothing much more carefully so there are emotional and physical things both that are lost forever my medical treatments were quite extensive um i think i'm i honestly have lost count how many surgeries i had to go through to to get back to the point where i could fly again but it's got to be somewhere near 50. including all the skin grafting things that they had to do in the hospital and as such psychologically was was tough in the beginning um there i was happy to be finally starting my career as i had dreamed it from my childhood and it was suddenly ripped away and that was tough there was a lot of long nights talking with amy um trying to get over the the pain and despair of all that i did have trouble getting my life back in order it it caused me to drink more than uh more than i had before i think at the plane crash it just took the last bite and i stayed in the fire service for a while after that but my heart was never in it again i quit my job as i was a vice president of a software company traveling a lot making very good money and i went to work as a buyer in alaska i also reconnected with my ex-wife and we got remarried moved down to south carolina and had all our kids move in with us so yeah i did change my life it helped me to kind of put a lot of things in perspective including not only how i acted myself but also how i treated other people one year after the crash the military fraternal organization of pilots bestowed its prestigious medallion on matt warmadam for his part in saving the lives of his passengers he accepted it in honor of the crew seeking closure on the trauma of the crash residents built a memorial to the victims of flight 529 behind shiloh united methodist church a short distance from the accident site in burwell you know i wish this had never happened i wish i could go back in time and and fix it and take care of it that it didn't happen you know i don't know if they believe in god run up i i pray for them that god comforts them through the hurt they've had in their lives much has changed for the company that manufactured flight 529's propeller now renamed hamilton's sunstrand it's part of the giant united technologies aerospace and defense group flight 529 was the last time that one of its propellers failed in flight its inspection and repair process was made more stringent in some cases exceeding faa requirements since the three blade failures have been none whatsoever of the 29 people aboard asa flight 529 only eight escaped with minor injuries of the 21 others who received major injuries and burns 10 subsequently died flight attendant robin feck declined to be interviewed for this film still suffering from the pain and anguish of that terrible day she's never worked as a flight attendant again the best thing i ever could have done for myself was that day two years ago when i'd finished training and took the controls of a asa plane and flew again i stubbornly recaptured my dream and now that i'm doing it again it's this has been a joy it's what i do it's what i love that's what i always wanted to do with my life and i'm doing it again [Music] you

Channel: Wonder

Views: 860,908

Rating: 4.8464704 out of 5

Keywords: Wonder, wonder channel, survivial videos, survival stories, i shouldn't be alive, wonder i shouldn't be alive, outdoor channel, extreme documentary, air crash investigation, air crash investigation 2020, seconds from disaster, mayday, mayday plane crash, plane crash doc, plane crash documentary, plane crash disaster, plane crash investigation, Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529, flight 529 atlantic southeast airlines, flight 529 crash, flight 529 crash 1961, asa flight 529

Id: RrjFX1TVVX0

Length: 51min 44sec (3104 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/mohishunder]

PSA: This one has more graphic description of burn injuries and general suffering than I can remember in any other episode. Had to fast forward through quite a bit.

[u/Comforse]

Here's a mega link for those outside US, interested into watching it.

[u/oneonone112]

This one always makes me cry

[u/timmy186gtr]

Best episode of the entire show.

[u/gamingthemarket]

The book is a great read with info on the recovery of the FO and surviving pax:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3035880-nine-minutes-twenty-seconds

[u/Aubo4Origin]

One of the best made episodes IMO.

[u/lukaszpg]

Me - no - like. Too much suffering.

[u/TrackrunnerG]

I love the soundtrack on this (particularly when the pilots try to feather the propeller)

In all seriousness Captain Gannaway is a hero and it's such a shame he didn't make it

[u/chewtoyfl]

The Wikipedia article says “The overcast skies and low cloud ceiling at the crash site also contributed to the severity of the crash.” Why would that be?