UN Secretary-General’s Fatal Flight on Peace Mission | Mayday: Accident Files

stop short of the terminal you can have the Secretary General disembark there a top Diplomat on a secret mission flies into a mystery that will linger for decades going down it's just not possible that dog homersfield was killed in a common accident it had to be something more Victory leads to tragedy my God please help us please help us oh God when Pilots gamble with the lives of celebrated football players total electrical failure the physics of flying aren't going to change just because someone important is in back of the airport a US Air Force jet carrying an American VIP crashes in a war torn country was there some political issues that may have been involved was the airplane shot down three crashes all with high-profile passengers can investigators withstand the scrutiny that's what the investigators are facing they know that they'll get the answers but they need to be able to show the world the process that led them to those [Music] answers a United Nations transport plane the Albertina is on a vital mission in central Africa estimate B andola at 2347 arrival time 0020 the destination is in DOA airport in the British colony of Northern Risha controllers and local dignitaries an anxiously await the arrival of one of the most important people in the world on board the DC 6 is United Nations Secretary General dag hamers at least they're willing to talk what else do we know about their latest demands he's flying in from Congo to hold peace talks with a rebel leader ham and most likely members of his Aaj on board were pretty aware that this is a difficult Mission it was a Secretary General for whom a physical risk was integral part of his job the United Nations security council meeting again to deal with the difficult and dangerous Congo situation it was cono in the early 60s was uh of utmost priority in the Cold War it was of top tier strategic importance a bloody Civil War has erupted there and world powers including the US and the Soviet Union are backing opposing factions Hammer shold hopes to resolve the deadly conflict and help reunite Congo all right descending to 6,000 mil Traffic Ahead 6,000 yes sir the captain of the Albertina is 35-year-old PE hen Quist our visibility should be pretty good once we get down there 29 9-year-old lar lton is hen's first officer all right give me 2,000 RPM and 20 in minimum descent altitude that's 5,000 ft but we'll have the runway Insight long before then the flight left Congo's Capital leopoldville just over 6 hours ago they made arrangements in the route of the plane to avoid any unpleasant surprises we need to extend to prevent an ambush it's flown an indirect route and a flight plan has not been filed the pilots have maintained radio silence for most of the flight are you staying in andola they don't know who might be listening in negative there were opportunities for uh counterforces to uh perhaps uh shoot at aircraft that were on Final Approach the Secretary General and his delegation should be on the ground in about 10 minutes your lights in sight overhead and descending uh Roger report reaching 6,000 ft Roger okay they're 10 minutes away the plane needs to fly past andola airport and circle back to land on its only Runway at that point the peace Mission can and [Music] begin moments later controllers in andola are becoming increasingly concerned Albertina and ol Tower do you read the secretary General's plane is overdue laka andola Airport have you had any contact with the UN flight negative no contact here the plane carrying one of the most important people in the world is missing at first light a search plane heads out on a slope 9 mil from the airport Searchers notice a gash in the trees the flight clearly ended with a violent impact and an intense fire when local authorities arrive they find bodies amidst badly scorched wreckage dag hammerel is dead the Secretary General had been a very famous guy a champion of world peace so this was a major world event I know that I'm speaking for all of my fellow Americans expressing our deep sense of shock and loss in the untimely death of the Secretary General of the United Nation Mr dag H the Cold War politics surrounding the flight to indola lead many to speculate that the secretary General's plane was shot down was there anyone who wanted to see hammerel Deb where do you want me to start and where to end Rhian investigators search for Clues a difficult task because 80% of the fuselage is [Music] melted wrist watches damaged by the Sudden Impact reveal the exact time of the crash 1213 the secretary General's plane hit the ground 3 minutes after its last radio transmission your lights in sight overhead Anda descending critical questions about the flight's final moments cannot be answered by a voice or to recorder the dc6 was not equipped with either the only chance of getting a firsthand account of what happened rests with a sole survivor security officer Harold Julian it blew up he states that the plane blew up before it crashed then there was the crash he was not in good shape after the accident it's hard to uh to measure the value of his statement investigators hope Julian can provide more details but he dies 5 days after the accident did it really blow up before the crash like he says investigators comb through the dc6 looking for evidence that may reveal if it was ripped open by Machine Gun fire or a missile and they test for the presence of explosives but come up empty they divided the metal Parts in small pieces and so on and they didn't find anything in that way what more when investigators study key pieces of wreckage from the dc6 everything indicates that the plane was making a routine Landing flaps 30 flap 30 the landing gear was down the flaps were extended okay speed down to 120 knots Rhian investigators find no evidence of an attack or any other type of foul play for now the cause of the crash that killed dag hammer going down remains a mystery according to the Chart it should have been 6,000 ft here investigators working on the crash of dag Hammer's plane now study the navigational chart for andola it tells them that at the location where the altina crashed it should have been at an altitude of 6,000 ft he should have been nearly 1,700 ft above the Treetops damage to the trees indicates the plane did not dive to the ground but rather came in at a shallow angle investigators wonder how did the Albertina end up so low the transcript says your lights Insight overhead noola descending Roger report reaching 6,000 the transcript of the radio conversation between the pilots and the controller clearly shows that less than 10 minutes before hitting the ground the crew had the airport in sight from a safe altitude your lights in sight overhead and but the transcript reveals something else a single unexpected word descending the Albertina was already descending when it flew past the airport but it should have been maintaining its altitude he's continuing to shed altitude here and keeps descending until he hits the hill here at an altitude of 4,290 Ft for some reason the pilots began their descent too early it's unfathomable that uh there was any intention to be below 5,000 ft at that point in the in the approach these guys are experienced it's tough to see how they could have screwed this up investigators can't explain what they've just discovered is it possible dag hammerel died because the pilots were unaware of the elevation of the terrain below them your attention to detail your altitude awareness needs to be extremely high I'll stop short of the terminal you can have the Secretary General disembark there the marins are very small it's a matter of seconds before they hit the ground cont breaks breaks the Rhian investigators have reached a conclusion that will be debated for decades the pilots lost track of their altitude and flew the plane into the ground three other reports on the crash agree there's no evidence of an assassination the hammer shold file is closed it's a big thing when a Secretary General of the United Nations dies in a aerplane crash a very big thing 40 years later in 2011 the mystery is reignited when former US Intelligence Officers make a stunning claim dag Hammer's death was no accident on the night of the crash one of those officers Paul Abram was working for the National Security Agency at a signal monitoring base in cre he claims to have heard a remarkable recording the most important chatter came down to we have the plane Insight yes we've checked it's the plane I've hit it there flames it's crashing dag Hammer scald was murdered period he was shot down the claims lead to a fresh look at the evidence in 2013 Sven hammerberg joins a new investigation looking for answers for the United Nations my task was to look into the details and see if there were any new information available and I was asked to evaluate the investigations that had been performed before when I look into the basic facts around the crash I look at the trees and the crash site and um the statements over radio and so on okay to re-evaluate the previous investigations hammerberg studies the terrain around andola airport he notes the heights of the hills he Compares what he finds to what shown on the chart used by the UN pilots and he makes a shocking Discovery there's a hill here a hill here a hill here but there's nothing marked here here where the crash s is the terrain around the airport includes Hills West of andola that rise to more than 4,300 ft but they're not on the chart the crew might have been unaware of the high west of the field and there were were no signs of it on the chart Sven hammerberg believes he knows what went wrong during the final 3 minutes of the flight and it has nothing to do with assassins overhead and descending passing the airport the pilots descend below the minimum safe altitude of 5,000 ft 45 as they turn back towards the runway they suddenly lose sight of the runway lights I don't have the runway in sight the pilots don't realize that a hill is blocking their view because the hill isn't marked on their chart before they even know they're in danger it's too late late to save themselves going down going down place place I think that all the ingredients of a controled flight into terrain they are there to finally put the issue to rest investigators request NSA files and audio recordings from the night of the crash the answer was that they remain classified as top secret and will not be released given my knowledge of the recordings tape logs uh fact similes Etc that they have concerning this incident I'm not the least surprised that they haven't been released I've it uh it's just in their nature it's been over 50 years since the mysterious crash and in 20 2019 a un report accuses several Nations including the United States of withholding critical information and without access to those records doubts about the cause of the crash Remain the common thing about VIP flights in general is they tend to be non-routine flights and often times the mission has a few nuances that make it sometimes more dangerous and given that this was an airport where the crew had never flown before there are several risk factors involved here so in a sense this was a more unsafe flight than was necessary but any Lessons Learned From the Albertina crash are forgotten when a charter flight is within sight of the runway and a football team's dream comes to a horrifying end it's just before sunset in Santa Cruz Bolivia lamia flight 2933 is about to take off on board is Brazil's Underdog football team chape Coen Colombia here we come the team is heading to Colombia to play in their first ever final in the prestigious copper sud Americana we were always a really United team a team that wanted the best for everyone we were a family and that made us strong the team has hired a small Bolivian Airline called lameir to take it to Colombia the1 rotate the plane departs Santa Cruz Bolivia at 6:18 p.m. it's a 1600 mile trip to Rio negro just outside medin Colombia the site of the championship game captain Miguel Koga and first officer Fernando gotia are veteran Bolivian Pilots with more than 6,000 flight hours each Gear Up gear up the crew is flying an Avo 146 Regional Jet the 146 has always been a very very sound airframe and a very good design it's a little more expensive to operate cuz you've got four engines but that's a lot of reliability just under 4 and a half hours later rro 2933 good evening as they are approaching Rio negro first officer goer checks in with a traffic control by at 2933 control good evening radar contact maintain and descend to flight level 230 join the rioo V the controller instructs the crew to go into a holding pattern because other planes are in a queue waiting to land they choose a holding Point called gamley holding at gley 7 minutes later a request from the lameir cockpit takes Air Traffic Control by surprise lamia 2933 request priority for approach we have a fuel problem you ask for priority you're basically making a request that if they can fit it in get you in a little bit faster stand by I have an aircraft below you on approach uh additionally they are doing a Runway inspection but within seconds the situation in the cockpit suddenly appears more urgent we have a fuel emergency that's why I'm asking you at once for Final Approach requesting immediate descent with it's very unusual to declare priority and then 30 seconds later say they're out of fuel me at 29 make a right now to begin your descent you have traffic one mile below when you declare an emergency the Red Sea parts now everybody is concentrating on doing exactly what you need especially to get to the Airfield as soon as possible we're already starting to descend I'm heading for the runway in the cabin the lights go out and the engines fall silent the team feels the plane descending nobody said anything to us we didn't know anything 2933 total electrical failure without fuel runway's cleared firefighters alerted color we need vect vectors vectors to the runway the crew needs the controller to provide directions to The Runway but the plane has disappeared from radar lost your radar signal I don't have you report heading now heading 360 360 when they told me their altitude was 9,000 ft I thought the worst my God please help us please help us oh God I remember asking God to make the lights and Motors turn back on emergency crews rush to the crash site they discover that seven passengers are still alive including four chapen players you feel desperate I was terrified I didn't want to die I didn't want any of us to die about 70 people are dead it's one of the worst tragedies in the history of Sport the Morning Light reveals that the lamia plane hit the crest of an 8700 ft Mountain a team from the Colombian air accident investigation group is is already on scene Landing GE was down investigators can see the plane was configured for landing look the flaps are extended the wreckage showed the plane's position in relation to the runway and the crew's intentions of heading [Music] there it's clear that the crew was descending ing towards the airport no Scorch marks but their biggest clue is what they don't find no fuel smell either there was a very light smell of fuel at the accident site normally when planes crash with fuel on board the smell is much stronger the fuel level indicators are at zero the plane was out of fuel investigators wonder how did the fuel get to zero was it a mechanical failure or human error as Brazilian fans grieve the loss of their beloved chap Coen football team in the crash of lameir Flight 2933 investigators hope the flight data recorder contains Clues as to why the jet was completely out of fuel when it hit the ground let's isolate the fuel flow rate there was a leak or some other problem it should show up here okay let's go they consider the possibility that a fuel leak led to an unexpected engine shutdown they're consuming just over 1,000 lbs of fuel an hour throughout their Cruise very steady the fuel consumption according to the data recorder was normal for the duration of the flight fuel system checks out let's look at the warning system if the fuel warning system malfunctioned the pilots may not have been aware there was a problem the warning goes on here at 9:15 well I can't be right they don't declared a fuel emergency until 9:52 they knew they were low on fuel for nearly 40 minutes without declaring a fuel emergency investigators can't believe what they're seeing at 9:15 a low fuel warning light turns on that's got to be about 180 Mi to metagene they should have found somewhere closer to land they're here buat airport is here uh 77 miles away why didn't they land [Music] a according to the manufacturer when the low fuel warning comes on in this aircraft you are only guaranteed 23 more minutes of flight but the pilots flew 13 minutes beyond that limit they should re-root the plane to bogatar but instead they continued to medine so you look at this and you say oh my God you violated the basic procedures we know how to stay safe we know how not to run out of gas in the air and you guys didn't do a single thing in accordance with the rules as chape coen's fans mourn their Heroes looks like we have a problem investigators turn to the plane's cockpit voice recorder for answers but they discover it cut out 1 hour and 40 minutes before the end of the flight it's a huge setback investigators still don't know why the plane ran out of fuel did the pilots make mistakes calculating their fuel load before the jet left Santa Cruz airport so they take off with about 20,000 lb of fuel should I do it tax before takeoff 441 lb Julian AEV and his team calculate how much much fuel the plane legally needed to make a direct flight to medine you have to have enough fuel to take off fly to your destination and land you have to have enough fuel to go down and make an approach and come back up and then you have to have enough fuel to fly to an alternate destination and to hold for 30 minutes and then to descend and land total 26570 lb so they were short by about 6,570 lb they left with enough to get to but barely drop more investigators then discover a disturbing pattern 100 three times earlier in the year This Crew had made the same flight but in the opposite direction without any reserve fuel each time they landed successfully less fuel is used because Rio negro is higher in altitude you ascend a shorter distance therefore saving more fuel no doubt that contributed to the flight arriving safely at Santa Cruz investigators now see that in addition to disregarding the need for Reserve fuel the crew didn't account for the additional 6,000 ft climb they didn't just press the limits they did something really criminal because they put the airplane right at the edge of its capability to burn fuel and get them back on the ground safely now investigators need to know why these Pilots didn't follow the most basic protocols the answer lies back in Bolivia it emerges that Captain Koga was a lameir co-owner with a financial stake in the company did he gamble dozens of lives just to save money on fuel when you've got somebody who is flying the airplane and responsible for the airplane who also is a part owner and knows the finances You' got a conflict of interest when investigators get their hands on company records looks like they ow everybody even the employees weren't getting paid they discovered the company was in big financial trouble the captain likely skimped on fuel to save money I think the crew knew they were doing something illegal the crew knew they were below the appropriate fuel levels from the beginning of the flight this is a sad and unfortunate part of the accident lamia's co-owner Vargas Gamboa is charged with manslaughter and the airline's operating license is suspended lamia is out of business by the end of the year surviving player Jackson fulman is walking again with a prosthetic leg but the pain and memories of that night endure I want people to pray for us and remember all of those people that left us those fighters who fought Until the End I'd like to see everyone honor the people who unfortunately left us that night those decisions to press the airplane Beyond its limits and the unwillingness to advise air traffic control of the criticality of their fuel situation directly resulted in the accident and it it's one that I could not believe a professional pilot would do but when pilots flying a highlevel delegation make a bad decision the top official on board never reaches his Final Destination heavy rain soaks a small airport in dubnik Croatia heading towards it is a US Air Force 737 carrying 35 people on a trade Mission leading the delegation US Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown a star in the Democratic party who helped Bill Clinton get elected Ron Brown was a Washington Insider uh and he had all the skills that that go with that the goal of his mission is to help Croatia and Bosnia rebuild their economies a destructive war in that region has just ended in an uneasy truce the pressures to get the passengers to schedule news conferences and other activities were probably pretty high departure ifo2 one Ashley J Davis is the captain he's a military pilot who flew midair refuelers high above the Persian Gulf tonight the bad weather is just one of the challenges the crew is facing the airport was totally trashed by The serbs Who had taken over the airport during the 91 War they destroyed the instrument Landing system the crew must rely on a signal from a navigational Beacon to guide them to the airport hey AG at Kil Lima Papa we're tracking outbound at 119° 119 confirmed Mr secretary we're Landing we'll take this up later Adam 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 ifo 21 sir we are inside the locator inbound I4 21 Roger cleared for Beacon approach for now AJ Davis is Flying Blind but he expects to see the airport soon P i21 do you read just before 3:00 in the afternoon Dubrovnik Tower loses all contact with ifo 21 IO 21 duic approach do you read I 421 do you read with no radar to track the plane controllers have no idea where it is 4 and a half hours later it's confirmed that ifo 21 crashed into a nearby mountain range 35 die as a result of the accident the Fatal Flight of the US Air Force jet carrying Commerce Secretary Ron Brown becomes a high-profile investigation the vice president and I wanted to come here to be with the employees of the Commerce department at this very difficult [Music] hour in every accident there's always a lot of speculation in this particular case you had a high ranking US government official uh so my idea was to get as much information to physical evidence as I could the investigation team is at a disadvantage they discover that there is no cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder on the plane it's not required on Air Force jets I had assumed 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 the crash site is just over 2 mil from the airport investigators wonder what happened during the flight's final moments the team plots the plane's fatal descent using data from a surveillance plane that was patrolling the region the radar track that I was given showed that the en rout portions of the flight from about 100 Mil prior to the airport were entirely nominal but on its Final Approach the plane begins to head off course and straight towards the mountains my initial look at the flight track of the aircraft uh showed a a 7° bearing error in the final segment of the approach How could a military crew fly a very high-profile government official end up 7° off course and headed towards elevated terrain investigators need to find out why US Air Force jet ifo 21 veered off course just before it crashed an important clue turns up in the wreckage it's the plan's ADF or automatic direction finder the device listens to signals put out by two navigational beacons the first beacon transmits Morse code to the plane when the crew hears the signal they follow a heading specified on their Landing chart that should take them straight to the runway but if the crew hears the second Beacon before they see the runway they must declare a missed approach and circle around to try Landing again to land in Dubrovnik safely a plane needs two ADF receivers one for each Beacon we're still not past it I'm tuned back to KP but investigators discover this jet had only one receiver and only having one ADF restricted durability to follow the approach accurately the crew would have to switch the ADF back and forth between the two signals adding a complication to an already difficult Landing 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 heading in fact flight ifo 21's erratic flight path suggests to investigators that the flight crew gave up on the ADF navigation and used an even older piece of technology to find the runway the ins or inertial nav ation system an ins system uses gyroscopes to maintain an awareness of how much the airplane turns and Banks but the ins has a potential flaw if the gyroscopes don't calculate each maneuver perfectly a pilot can drift off course not very broken up down here I can't see through it ins drift in this case was probably in my view the primary reason the aircraft ended up where it was investigator Howard swansey recovers the Jefferson approach chart hampered by poor visibility and relying on the ins the chart would have been a key Aid to the crew on close inspection swansey notices something peculiar a key f figure the minimum descent altitude is wrong given the height of the surrounding mountains they should have been flying at 2800 ft but the chart's minimum descent altitude is 700 ft lower than that the chart made the pilots think they were still safely above the mountains as they searched for the [Music] airport investigators Now understand the circumstances that led to the crash that killed Commerce Secretary Ron [Music] Brown in the end a fatal combination of factors caused the accident de bronik approach ifo 21 level 1 0 0 the bronic approach good afternoon maintain 10,000 ft for Beacon approach run1 ifo 21 the crew were fighting bad weather they were Landing in an unfamiliar airport and hampered by old technology in the final report dubnik Airport is singled out for an improperly designed approach procedure I got CV AJ Davis and his crew are found responsible for flight errors they made in their push to get their mission on the ground in response the Air Force also orders all military aircraft to carry flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders and prohibits air craft including those for high ranking diplomats from flying into an airport without approval from the Department of Defense in all three of these cases where you have VIPs on the airplane um there was complex environment and also the desire to get these important people where they need to be on time and the crew put pressure on themselves to push the edges uh of their capabilities to make sure that these people AR arrived on time the basics for flying an airplane doesn't change based on who's on the airplane whether is a VIP or a regular everyday passenger the same risk have to be dealt with the physics of flying aren't going to change just because someone important is in back of the airplane

Channel: Mayday: Air Disaster

Views: 56,873

Keywords: Air Crash Investigation, Airplane Crashes, Aviation Accidents, Boeing 757, Controlled Flight, Disaster Documentary, Fatal Flight, Fatal Neglect, Gambling, Hammarskjöld, Harrowing Experiences, High-Profile Passengers, Lingers for Decades, Mayday: Air Disaster, Ndola Airport, Official Channel, Pilot Error, Special Report., Speculation, US Air Force Jet, VIP On Board

Id: A4za6G-Onh4

Length: 42min 38sec (2558 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 17 2023