All language subtitles for Mayday.Air.Disaster.S25E10.Fatal.Test.Flight.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-BLOOM_track3_[eng]

- Scoops.

Pilots from
Airborne Express...

- On.

-...are testing a plane

that's been recently modified.

- Kick the tires,
light the fires, and make sure

she's exactly as advertised.

- The next thing
is our stall series.

- These pilots were trying

to test the stall
warning system.

- Feeling some buffet here.

- That's a stall right there.

- But something goes
terribly wrong.

- It's number two engine.

Pull up.

- Really? Really?!

- Terrain.

Flight 8-2-7 crashes
into a mountain in Virginia.

Everyone onboard is killed.

- It was just
complete devastation.

- While the flight data confirms
the plane entered a stall...

- And then here,
the airspeed falls off a cliff.

- ...it doesn't explain
why the pilots weren't able

to recover from the very
condition they were testing.

- It's a sobering thought
and a significant one.

- Mayday, Mayday.

- Pull up.

It's three days
before Christmas

at Piedmont Triad
International Airport

in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The crew of Airborne Express
Flight 8-2-7

and three technicians
in the cabin

have been waiting
more than four hours

for maintenance to be completed.

- Think we're getting
out of here tonight?

- At this rate, I think
we're all gonna be spending

Christmas together
in this cockpit.

What do you think, Terry?

- I think you can explain
that one to my wife and kids.

Flight 8-2-7,
aircraft is cleared

and released. Have a good flight
and a Merry Christmas.

- Roger, 8-2-7. Happy holidays,
Dispatch.

Finally.

Just after 5 p.m.,

Flight 8-2-7
is given clearance to fly.

The flight engineer
is 52-year-old military veteran

Terry Waelti.

- Taxi and pre-takeoff
checklist. Brakes.

- Flying tonight is 37-year-old
Captain Keith Leming.

- Checked.
- Checked.

- Cabin and freon compressors
are off. Anti-skid?

- Armed.
- While not flying,

48-year-old Captain Garth Avery,

is the designated
pilot-in-command.

- They were very experienced
as pilots.

The flight engineer
was incredibly experienced,

and they all knew the DC-8
and had many, many hours

in this airplane.

- Taxi and
pre-takeoff checklist complete.

Tower, ABX 8-2-7 heavy
is ready to go.

- The flight crew is operating

a modified McDonnell
Douglas DC-8.

- The DC-8 is an incredibly
reliable machine,

and it always has been.

- The DC-8 is a long-range,

narrow-body jetliner
introduced in 1959.

- As long as you use it
exactly the way it was designed,

they're just as tough
as nails.

- V-1. Rotate.

- At 5:40 p.m.,
Flight 8-2-7 takes off.

- Positive rate, gear up.

- Positive rate...

One thousand feet.

- Roger.

- Although it's a lesser-known
airline,

Airborne Express, or ABX,

is one of the largest
cargo carriers

in the United States,

after both Federal Express
and UPS.

In a bid to expand its fleet,

ABX purchased the aircraft

that would become Flight 8-2-7

and modified it
before putting it into service.

- ABX 8-2-7

is 2,500 for 5,000.

- MCT set. Ignition off.

- But before this plane
can be added to the fleet,

it has to be taken
for a test flight.

This is known as
a Functional Evaluation Flight,

or F-E-F.

- A Functional
Evaluation Flight

is basically to see
that everything

is as it's supposed to be,

kick the tires,
light the fires, go out and fly,

and make sure she's exactly
as advertised.

- After departing Greensboro,

Flight 8-2-7 is scheduled
to spend about two hours

flying the F-E-F before
returning to the airport.

ABX 8-2-7, for our maintenance

check, can we get a block
of 1-0 to 1-2 thousand?

- The flight crew needs
a dedicated block of airspace

to perform the tests.

Could you take a block of, uh,

thirteen to fifteen?

- We can do that.

- ABX 8-2-7, roger,

climb and maintain
block altitude

of 1-3 thousand
through 1-5 thousand.

- Having reached a quiet block
of airspace,

the crew works its way
through the F-E-F checklist.

- Scoops?

- On.

- The DC-8's scoops are part

of its pressurization system.

- Didn't get the left one.
Try again.

- It's really common
on test flights,

to have issues crop up.

This airplane had undergone
so many changes

that it needed
a thorough test flight.

- Alright. Scoops... off.

- The left one ain't working.

- With multiple redundancies
built into

the pressurization system,

the pilots are safe
to continue their flight.

- ABX 8-2-7, turn right,
heading of 3-6-0

vectors for traffic.

- Air Traffic Control
monitors the airspace,

redirecting Flight 8-2-7
when necessary.

ABX 8-2-7,

right 3-6-0.

And then we're gonna do
our manual drop.

You ready for hydraulics
to come off, Keith?

- Uh, yeah, go right ahead.

- Okay, go ahead, Terry.

- The manual drop
tests the plane's landing gear

without the use of hydraulics.

- Okay, gear free fall
one point five, V-S zero.

- Okay, you ready?
- Ready. Gear down.

- Gear... down. Three green.

- Got it.

- We're getting a little bit
of ice here.

- The biggest hazard
from icing

is that it changes the shape
of the wing.

And the airplane doesn't fly
nearly as well as it did.

- The crew comes up with a plan

to avoid performance issues
from ice build-up.

- Garth, if we go up 15,

I think we could
get out of this stuff.

- Uh, yeah,
you can go up there.

We've got that block.

- As the flight
climbs out of the weather,

the crew continues the tests.

- The next thing
is our stall series.

- For the stall series,
the pilots will intentionally

slow the airplane
until it's just about to stall,

to determine when
the stick shaker activates.

Most commercial planes
use a stick shaker system.

It's a vibrating warning
on the control column

that alerts the pilots
to take action

before the plane
actually stalls.

- We should stall at 122.

I'm gonna set that
in my interior bug.

- The pilots set
their target speed

for when the plane
is expected to stall.

- Mine's set.

- Shaker 128.

If you just call out
your numbers, I'll record 'em.

- They have to write down
the airspeed at which

the stick shaker triggers,

and then they have
to write down the airspeed

at which the stall begins.

- Captain Leming slows the plane

at a rate of one knot
per second

to reach the stall speed.

- Feeling some buffet here.

- The pilots detect a change
in the aircraft.

- Yeah, that's pretty early.

- As an airplane
approaches stall,

it starts talking to the pilots.

The airplane starts
vibrating or buffeting.

- They quickly take action
to avoid a stall.

- Set max power.

- One thirty-three.

- Then, one of the plane's
left engines begins to surge.

- That's number two engine.

- That's not normal,
and you know it's not normal.

And so, something like that's
gonna get your attention.

- Pull it back.

- You got it.

- The plane now
banks to the left...

and begins to drop.

The pilots attempt
to level the wings

and slow the plane's descent.

- Alright.
- Okay?

- Got it.

- Realising that the plane
is descending

below his jurisdiction,
the controller

assigns the pilots
to a new radio frequency.

- 8-2-7, change to Indianapolis
1-2-8 point four.

- But the controller's calls
to change frequencies

go unanswered.

The flight crew is busy
trying to recover the plane.

ABX 8-2-7,

Indianapolis 128 point four.

- Uh, ABX 8-2-7,

we're gonna stay
on this frequency a minute,

descending through 8,000,
call you right back.

- ABX 8-2-7,
you're in an emergency descent?

- Yes, sir.

Airborne Express
Flight 8-2-7

is out of control
and plummeting to the ground.

- Rudder.
- I got it.

Seeing that
Flight 8-2-7 is in trouble,

the controller checks
air traffic in the area

to find a safe altitude
for the plane.

- Okay, um,
can you hold 7,000?

- But there's no answer.

Flight 8-2-7 is less
than 5,000 feet from the ground

and descending fast.

- Now bring it back.
Left rudder.

Okay good. Easy.

- They could tell
they were in an emergency.

They could tell
they'd lost control.

They were probably
frightened to death.

- The pilots
continue their efforts

to recover the aircraft,
but are now too low.

Pull up.

Terrain. Terrain. Pull up.

- Really? Really?!

- Airspeed low. Pull up.

Just half an hour
into a standard test flight...

...the DC-8 crashes

into the East River Mountain
in Narrows, Virginia.

- ABX 8-2-7, do you copy?

ABX 8-2-7, do you copy?

- No one has survived.

- The mountains lit up,
and there was a explosion,

black smoke,

and red and blue flames
coming up off that.

- News of the crash

quickly spreads throughout
the community.

Grief counselors
arrived today

at Airborne's headquarters

to help family and friends
cope with their loss.

- Obviously, it's just
a terrible time

for everyone here,
particularly at...

at this time of year.

- Bob MacIntosh from the NTSB,

the National Transportation
Safety Board,

leads the investigation.

- We know this was a...

a maintenance
examination flight.

Obviously,
it was not successful,

and that's about all
I can tell you right now.

The wreckage site certainly
presented some challenges.

We were going to have to deal
with some mountainous terrain.

We had to get to work.

- Benjamin Berman
is one of the first team members

to arrive at the crash site.

- I got to the top
of the mountain

and I looked out at the scene,

and it was just complete
devastation.

I really thought, you know,
what is it that could have

brought that plane down?

That's our job
as NTSB investigators.

- Investigators begin
their painstaking efforts

to transport pieces
of the demolished plane

to a hangar for examination.

- We found the four corners.

Looks like the plane was intact
when it hit the mountain.

- So, if you can see
all four corners,

which are the nose,
the right-wing tip,

the tail, and the left wing tip,

in close proximity,
it probably means

the airplane was intact
until it hit the ground.

- This particular
wreckage scene told us

that we most probably
had a loss of control,

and that we were gonna
have to find the, uh...

reason for that loss of control.

- We recovered the CVR and FDR.

Let's get them off
to Washington.

- That cockpit voice recorder
was going to tell us

not only what they said,
but how they said it.

- While investigators wait
for the CVR download...

- I got the checklists
for the FEF.

- ...they review the checklist
the flight crew was using

during the Functional
Evaluation Flight

to get a better understanding

of what they were doing
prior to the crash.

- It looks like
standard FEF stuff.

They're testing
the flaps, rudder,

landing gear, stall system.

- There's nothing unusual
on the list of tests

the pilots were performing.

- Well, maybe there was
a problem with the plane

before the FEF.

I'll get Berman to talk
to the maintenance team

that modified the plane.

- It was an old airplane,

but it had just come out
of a major retrofit.

- Can you take me through
exactly

what you guys did
to the airplane?

- Well, it was a fairly
major overhaul.

- Investigators learn
that extensive maintenance

and modifications
were carried out on the aircraft

over the course of six months.

- Yeah, it looks like
you guys pretty well

took the whole thing apart
and put it back together, huh?

- As we looked
at the maintenance records,

we could find that, uh,
there was a great deal of work

that had been done
on the aircraft.

Perhaps something had
fallen through the cracks.

- Could technicians
have overlooked something

during the modification
of the airplane,

causing the pilots
of Flight 8-2-7

to lose control?

Pull up.

Terrain. Terrain. Pull up.
- Really? Really?!

- I've got the dispatch logs
for the plane right here.

Investigators review
Airborne Express Flight 8-2-7's

dispatch logs to see
if any malfunctions

were reported after the plane
was released from maintenance.

- It looks like
they finished the modifications

and delivered the plane
on December 15th,

one week before the crash.

Wait a second...

This wasn't the pilots'
first attempt at this flight.

- The fact that they tried
to do the flight earlier,

that was really relevant.

- Look here.
The pilots conducted

a partial FEF the day
before the crash.

They scrapped it midway through,
low hydraulic pressure.

- That can mean
getting the landing gear down

and in place or not, uh...

or being able to power
the flight controls or not.

If the hydraulic pressure
is not right,

that's very serious.

- Okay.

And what did you think caused
the low hydraulic pressure?

- Did a hydraulic issue
cause a loss of control?

- Got it.
The maintenance crews say

that they suspected
that trapped air in the lines

led to low hydraulic
quantity indication.

- Did they fix it?
- Yeah.

They replaced
the nose gear actuator

the day of the accident.
- But was that the end of it?

Or did our pilots
end up having issues

with the hydraulics again?

- We needed to figure out
what had been going on.

Could something have gone
wrong in that maintenance?

- Investigators are able
to recover the plane's

rudder components
from the crash site.

They examine them
for any signs of damage

to the hydraulic system.

- No pre-impact hydraulic leaks.

The hydraulic system
was working fine.

- The hydraulic system
wasn't a probable cause

for the mishap
and loss of control.

- If it wasn't the hydraulic
system, what was it?

We should call the witness list.
Maybe somebody saw something.

You were outside your home
at the time?

And what did you hear?

- The team begins
to interview witnesses

to see if anyone
heard or saw something

that could point to the cause
of the crash.

- The local newspaper people
were there

asking people what they had
heard and seen that night.

- All you could see
was just parts.

It just, the plane
had cleared out a big path.

- That area
was full of information.

- Witnesses describe
seeing the plane descend

out of the clouds
at a steep angle

and hit the mountain
at high speed.

- Thank you so much
for your time.

I think we've got something.

- Three witnesses confirm

they could hear the plane
making a banging sound

followed by a slapping sound.

- Kind of an odd noise.

It sounded kind of low,

and then he started
coming up real loud.

- The witnesses told us
that there was slapping

and banging that they heard.

- If airflow entering the engine
is disrupted,

it can cause the engines
to backfire.

If airflow
over a wing is disrupted,

it can make a slapping sound.

Both can be signs of a stall.

- If the witness reports
were true,

it suggested that possibly
there was an engine issue

that may have been part
of the sequence of events.

However, it would require
further examination

of the flight data recorder.

- NTSB Investigators
turn to the plane's

Flight Data Recorder to confirm

whether Flight 8-2-7

was in a stall
before it crashed.

- Isolate the airspeed.

There's a gradual reduction
in airspeed here.

- One knot per second. It looks
like they were setting up

for the stall series.

- And then here,
airspeed falls off a cliff.

- That's a stall.

- Let's see
the engine parameters.

- They search
for further confirmation

that Flight 8-2-7 stalled.

- It looks like
a compressor surge

from the number two engine.

- That tracks with
what the witnesses said

they were hearing.

- Lack of airspeed
and a compressor surge

are clear signs
that the plane stalled.

- Give me the roll angle.

- They were banking left,
right, left, right, left.

- They were in a roll reversal.

- A roll reversal
is a phenomenon that occurs

when a plane banks steeply
to the left and right,

in the opposite direction
of a pilot's inputs.

It's usually
the result of a stall.

- You're flying slow enough.
You're just barely possessed

of enough lift
to stay in the air.

And now the airplane
does exactly the opposite

of what you were
asking it to do.

- Yeah, that's four
roll reversals before the crash.

- How did the crew
of Flight 8-2-7

allow their plane
to get so out of control?

With the arrival
of Flight 8-2-7's

Cockpit Voice Recorder, or CVR,

investigators zero in
on the test

the pilots
were conducting immediately

before the plane stalled.

- Okay, are you ready?

- Ready.

The next
thing is our stall series.

We should
stall at 122.

I'm gonna set that
in my interior bug.

- Mine's set.

- Shaker 128.

If you just call out
your numbers, I'll record 'em.

Investigators listen
to the pilots

working their way through
the stall series.

Feeling some buffet here.

- Yeah, that's pretty early.

- So the plane entered a stall
sooner than they expected.

- Yeah.

- When I was looking
through the transcript before,

there was something
that Captain Leming said earlier

in the flight, uh...

Captain Leming, "We're getting
a little bit of ice here."

- Garth, if we go up 15,

I think we can get
out of this stuff.

- Uh, yeah, you can go up there.
We've got that block.

- So ice builds up,

disrupts airflow
over the wing...

- Decreases lift,
increases drag...

- And the plane would have
stalled at a higher airspeed

than they calculated.

- Did ice accumulation
on Flight 8-2-7

cause a premature stall?

It's happened before.

December the 12th, 1985.

Evidence suggested that
shortly after taking off

from Gander International
Airport in wintry conditions,

a build-up of ice
on Arrow Air Flight 12-85

caused the plane to stall
at a higher airspeed,

leading to a crash that killed
all 256 people on board.

Investigators study
meteorological reports

to determine if Flight 8-2-7

was flying through
icing conditions.

- There's a scattered area
of light rain here

along 8-2-7's flight path.

Cloud tops out
at around 14,000 feet.

What was their altitude
block again?

- Uh, 13 to 15,000.

- The type of weather they were
in the night of the accident

was really conducive to icing.

They were in prime territory
to pick up ice

whenever they were
in the clouds.

- What speed did the pilots
say they expected the stall?

- Stall 1-22, shaker 1-28.

- Well, according to the FDR,

the plane stalled at 126 knots.

- That's only
four knots earlier.

- So even if there was ice,
it was likely to have had

little impact. I mean,
certainly not enough

to make the plane unrecoverable.

- Whether there was a great deal
of contribution from ice,

we could never determine,

but, uh, the consensus

was that it was not
a major element

in the cause of the accident.

- You said stall
1-22 knots, shaker 1-28?

Mm-hmm.
- Well, when we were listening

to the CVR,
I don't remember hearing

the stick shaker.

- The purpose
of the stick shaker

is to get
your undivided attention,

not only by noise,
but by shaking you.

Because there's only one thing
that that's telling you,

and that is,
"If you slow any more,

I'm gonna stall."

- Let's have a listen.

- Did the pilots receive
proper warning

that their plane
was entering a stall?

I'm feeling some buffet.

- Yeah, that's pretty early.

- That's a stall right there,
that ain't no shaker.

- So, they're slowing
the plane down,

waiting for the shaker
to activate...

- Then all of a sudden,
they're in a stall.

No warning.
- So the shaker failed?

- With no stall warning there,
the pilots had, in a sense,

a right to believe
they weren't stalling.

Well, what's going on here?
Well, it's not a stall,

because the stick shaker's
not vibrating.

- Well, the question is,
when did it fail?

During the flight or before?

To determine if
the stick shaker malfunctioned,

investigators search
the wreckage

for stall components that might
have survived the fiery crash.

- Nothing, huh?

Yeah, that's what we thought.

The stall system
was completely destroyed.

- We never were able
to exactly identify

what that failure point
was in the system.

Our team wanted to find out
how much maintenance

and inspection had
taken place on the system.

- With no clues in the wreckage,

NTSB Investigators speak
to the maintenance technician

about Flight 8-2-7's
stall warning system.

- Hey, thanks for your time.

Did you test the stick shaker?

- Yeah, we did, on...

On December 5th.

- Two weeks before the accident.
How extensive a test?

- Quite extensive.
Have a look.

- The shaker,
the heating components.

- The stick shaker system

passed all those pre-flight
maintenance checks.

- What about the transducer?

- Let me check.

- The transducer is a small flap

nestled in the recessed
part of the wing.

It moves backwards
when airflow is detected.

When there is insufficient
air over the wings,

it moves forward and triggers
the stick shaker to activate.

- No.

No, it doesn't look like
we tested the transducer.

- That part is not covered
by the pre-flight test.

It suggests that the failure
of the stick shaker to work

was a bad transducer.

But to me, why it failed

wasn't as important as...

what the effect of it failing
was on the crew.

- Feeling some buffet here.

- Yeah, that's pretty early.

- That's a stall right there,
that ain't no shaker.

- Even without the stick shaker
activating,

the flight crew knew
they were in a stall.

That's number two engine.

Bring it back. Okay, good.

- But if they knew...

- Left rudder.

- ...why couldn't they recover?

- Easy.
- Terrain. Terrain.

- Bring it back.
- Pull up.

Rudder.

- Really?
- Terrain. Terrain.

Investigators return
to Flight 8-2-7's CVR

to get a better sense
of the actions the pilots took

when their aircraft
went into a stall.

That's a stall right there.

That ain't no shaker.

- Set max power.

- One thirty-three.

- So, as soon as they
recognize they're in a stall,

they push power
to the engines.

- That's the right move.

That's number two engine.

- There's the engine surge.

- Pull it back.

- So what did they do next?

- Alright.

- Okay.

Start bringing the nose back up.

- They pulled the nose up?

- That would make
the stall worse.

- Pulling back on
the control column

in response to a stall
is inconsistent

with a normal stall recovery

and would not reduce angle
of attack and break the stall.

- Well, that's what would have
triggered the roll reversal.

- How'd they deal with that?

- Rudder.

- Got it.
- Rudder.

- Got it.
- Left rudder.

- The left rudder's buried.

- Investigators discover
that in addition

to moving the control wheel
right and left,

the pilots also used the rudder
to stop the plane from rolling.

- You have to be ahead of it.

And that's a very
difficult thing to do.

- So they spend
almost a minute

trying to fight
the roll reversal

with the rudder.
And no mention of a stall.

- Investigators suspect
that the pilots

were so preoccupied
dealing with the roll reversal

that they failed to realize
that the plane was in a stall.

- It still doesn't explain
why Captain Leming

would have pulled back
on the yoke

to try to recover
from the stall.

- To recover from the stall,
you can't pull back.

You need to point the nose
of the airplane down

even more in order
to gain speed,

or you will not recover.

You will fly into
the mountaintop in Virginia.

Terrain. Terrain.

Pull up.

Terrain. Terrain.

- And we wanted to know why,

why did he do that?

Especially at those most
critical moments.

- Morning, Bob.

- I'm looking to see
if there's anything

in ABX's operations manual
on the DC-8.

Here's a copy.

- Investigators search through
ABX's procedures

to understand
why Captain Leming

pulled back
on the control column

to recover from
Flight 8-2-7's stall.

- Wait.

Bob, did you see this?

It says that priority
in a stall recovery

is to maintain altitude
by increasing the pitch.

- Pulling back
on the control column

increases the pitch
of an aircraft.

- Well, it might be okay
for an approach to a stall,

but not for an actual stall.

- So, the things that you do
to recover

from an approach to stall

are totally different
from what you do

to recover from an actual stall.

If you're right over the trees,
you gotta try

the approach to stall recovery

because you're gonna hit
the trees.

If you're at 36,000 feet
and you stall,

if you don't put the nose down
five or ten degrees,

you're not gonna recover.

- That can't be
the current procedure, can it?

- I've got a joint memo
with the FAA.

- Investigators discover
an update

to Airborne Express' flight
test procedures.

- And what's it say?

- The updated procedure
called for a reduction of pitch

to recover from a stall.

- The revised procedure
called for pilots

to lower the nose
when entering a stall,

the opposite
of what Captain Leming did.

- The change was made
after a loss-of-control incident

in May 1991.

- May '91... May.

What flight was that?

- It was a DC-8
doing a post-modification FEF.

- The same plane
and flight as 8-2-7.

- On May 16th, 1991,

another Airborne Express DC-8
lost control during an F-E-F.

- The pilots managed
to recover from the stall.

And the policy has been
to reduce pitch

during a stall ever since.

- So, why didn't the crew
of Flight 8-2-7

use the updated procedure?

Okay.

- We learned that the director
of Flight Technical Programs

was responsible
for the procedures,

the checklists,
and the selection

and training of pilots.

As a result, we wanted
to talk to him to learn more.

- The NTSB meets with
the airline's

Director of Flight
Technical Programs

to determine why the crew
of Flight 8-2-7

didn't follow
the updated procedure.

- I just have a few
questions to ask,

and then I'll let you
get back to work.

- Of course.

- How do ABX pilots train
to recover from a stall?

- I tell them whatever you do,
don't lose altitude.

So if you're in a stall,
you set max power

and you increase
the pitch of the aircraft.

- Well, that's different
from the updated policy,

which calls for a nose down
pitch recovery.

- Correct.

- He just didn't agree
that that was necessary.

- If you increase the pitch,

you'll make the stall
even worse.

- The engines
are properly spooled

as you're approaching a stall.

You can power
your way out of it.

- The director believed
that if the engines

were running properly,

pilots could increase thrust

and fly out of a stall.

- He had his own opinions
about what should be done,

and they were not
in agreement

with the proper procedure.

- See, what I don't get is...

old procedure, new procedure,

there is no procedure
that says to pull back

for the duration of the stall.

- I keep going back
to the way they were dealing

with this roll reversal.

- Rudder. Rudder.

- Got it.

- And left rudder.

- The crew were unable
to recover the airplane

in the approximately 90 seconds
that it took

from when this lack
of the stick shaker

was identified,
to when it impacted terrain,

and our question was, why?

- Investigators assess
ABX's DC-8 flight simulator

to see exactly how flight crew
experienced a stall

during their training.

- Now, I'm going to slow
this thing down into a stall.

There's the shaker...

There's the stall.

And I'm going to pull back
on the yoke

like our pilots did.

- So, I continued
to raise the nose

up higher and higher,

and I was just astounded
at what the simulator did,

or mainly, what it didn't do.

- Well, we're in a stall

and there's no roll,
no pitch down,

nothing like you would see
in a real life stall.

- The simulator just kind of
reached the end of its program.

It just sat there.

- If this is how
they were trained,

they would have no idea
how a stall truly feels.

- Their training was not only
zero training,

it was negative training.

It gave them a false impression

of what they would experience.

They would have
been startled...

- Left rudder.
- at what the wings did

- with the roll...
- Okay. Easy.

Don't... Don't...

- ...and they would not
have recognized it

necessarily as a symptom
of a stall,

because in their simulator,
it didn't have that symptom.

- Maybe they didn't realize
they were still in the stall,

but surely,
there were other indicators

that they were falling
out of the sky.

Why didn't
the pilots of Flight 8-2-7

realize they were diving
towards a mountain?

- Okay, put yourself
in the pilot's shoes.

You realize you're in a stall.

- Feeling some buffet here.

- Yeah, that's pretty early.

- That's a stall right there.
That ain't no shaker.

- You push power to the engines.
Pull back on the yoke.

- Start bringing
the nose back up.

- Your number two engine surges.

- That's number two engine.
- Pull it back.

- Now you're dealing
with a roll.

The plane's banking
left and right.

You're applying rudder.

- Rudder.
- Got it.

- Rudder. Rudder.
- Got it.

- You got ATC in your ear

telling you to
switch frequencies.

- 8-2-7, change to Indianapolis
128 point four.

- You look outside.
What do you see?

- Nothing.

- Right,
because it's pitch black out,

and you're in the clouds.

There's no visible horizon.

You're just flying
on instruments.

- They had no visual cues.
- Exactly.

- You're now removing
the visual aspect

of a horizon out there
that can help anchor you.

You're just stacking
the deck against yourself.

- Now, the question is,

what were they doing flying
a stall series test at night

in the first place?

- Investigators review
the flight's dispatch logs

to retrace the pilots' steps
on the day of the accident.

- The FEF was scheduled
for 1:20 p.m.,

but the maintenance delays
pushed it past sundown.

Had they just pushed it
to the next day,

none of this
would have happened.

- So why didn't they?

Why go through
with the FEF at night?

- Alright.

- One of the key decisions
was to conduct the check flight

later at night
than they'd planned

in the darkness hours.
And so, you know,

did anyone pressure them
into doing that?

- What was the ABX policy
on when to fly an FEF?

- Investigators return
to ABX's Director

of Flight Technical Programs

to find out why the pilots
proceeded with an FEF at night.

- No policy, necessarily.

Just a preference to fly them
during the day.

- Do ABX pilots
understand the risks

of flying an FEF at night?
- Sure,

and I'd rather they
conduct them during the day,

but there's no prohibition
against doing them at night.

- And what are the recommended
weather conditions

for flying an FEF?

- Preference is to fly
in clear skies

and not on instrument,

but we have no specific
restrictions on that.

- We discovered that
there was no written policy

prohibiting this flight from
being conducted at night.

- The NTSB's investigation

has uncovered numerous factors

that led to the crash
of Flight 8-2-7.

- Stick shaker malfunction,

incorrect stall procedure,

negative simulator training,

FEF at night.

Had just one of these
factors not been present,

the crew would likely
have survived.

- I think this accident
was caused by a failure

to recognize that
a functional evaluation flight

requires rigorous preparation

and criteria and controls
to be placed on it

to protect the pilots
who are flying it.

- Start bringing
the nose back up.

- This was not God reaching down

and slapping
an airplane out of the sky.

There were reasons
for this happening,

and this could have
been avoided.

- In the wake of the crash
of Flight 8-2-7,

the NTSB makes a series
of recommendations

to make Functional
Evaluation Flights safer,

and to better prepare pilots
for stall conditions.

- This accident brought
a lot of significant

changes to the industry.

- We issued recommendations
to try to improve

airline oversight
and FAA oversight

of functional evaluation
programs.

And those efforts
were successful.

- Flight simulators
used for airline training

were made much more realistic.

Every airline pilot

receives training
in recovering the airplane

from a high-altitude stall

where they have to use
this Airborne Express

revised stall recovery procedure
to get the job done.

- The report also recommends
a revision

to the DC-8 maintenance manual

calling for regular calibration

and testing of the complete
stall warning system.

- There might have been
other airplanes out there,

you know,
flying around in service

where the stall warning system
really wasn't working.

It's a sobering thought,
and a significant one.

- The strength
of aviation safety

is a direct result of learning
the most we can learn

from every single accident.

This wasn't an accident in vain.

Yes, it could have
been prevented,

but now, we know how.

Subtitling: difuze