Original subtitles

ANNOUNCER: This program is rated PG, and contains

ANNOUNCER: This program is rated PG, and contains

ANNOUNCER: This program is rated PG, and contains

mature subject matter.

Viewer discretion is advised.

NARRATOR: An airplane loaded with passengers is going down...

ATC: He's coming down real fast.

I remember hearing a lot of screaming,

a lot of panic and a lot of chaos.

MAN: But what caused it to crash?

This wasn't a bomb, it wasn't a bird strike.

What happened up there at 37,000ft

that rendered this airplane uncontrollable.

SIAN: Now... engineers unlock the clues

to the world's biggest disasters...

... to find out what happens when big things go wrong.

These are the ultimate fears that keep structural engineers awake at night.

MAN: Oh, my God!

NARRATOR: Dawn. Denver Stapleton International Airport.

Thousands of passengers wait to board flights.

Among them, is sports caster Jerry Schemmel.

You know it seemed like a normal day, it really did.

I remember getting to the airport about six o' clock in the morning

and we found out our flight was cancelled.

And so we got put on standby status

and finally maybe close to six hours after originally supposed to fly,

got on United Flight 232 that took off to Chicago.

NARRATOR: At 1.45 pm, Jerry heads to his seat.

We were the last to board the aircraft,

I remember walking that plane thinking to myself "Well this is a big plane."

NARRATOR: Almost 20 years after its launch,

the DC-10 remains one of the largest passenger jets in the sky.

It's also highly distinctive.

The DC 10 is one of the most iconic airplanes of the '70s and 80's

because of its characteristic three engine structure,

it's got two engines under the wing and one over the tail.

NARRATOR: Today, as United flight 232 leaves Denver,

it's carrying 296 passengers and crew.

But none of them know they are heading for disaster.

(CLOCK TICKING)

First hour was routine, it really was.

it was a smooth flight,

I remember that everything seemed normal,

nothing out of the ordinary at all.

(CLOCK TICKING)

JERRY: The flight attendants were picking up the lunch

and the trays and all that, I'm thinking, it's a normal flight.

NARRATOR: Seconds later...

I thought a terrorist had planted a bomb,

it's been detonated and we're going down

and everybody is gonna die here in the next whatever it takes to hit the ground.

I remember hearing screaming, a lot of panic, a lot of chaos.

NARRATOR: But the explosion is only the start of their ordeal.

The blast damages critical flight controls.

(CLOCK TICKING)

NARRATOR: By a stroke of luck, on board is Denny Fitch

a flight instructor who has clocked over 23,000 hours flying

including in a DC10.

He helps the two pilots regain some control of the plane.

Denny Fitch and Captain Haynes have to reinvent the wheel

in order to land this plane.

It can only turn to the right and so as they're circling

they're going down at elevation.

That means they have only one shot to get it right.

NARRATOR: The crew aims for Sioux City, Iowa.

JERRY: Captain Haynes is on the PA system,

he said I want everybody to understand this is going to be rough.

This is not gonna be a landing where we're gonna land safely

and you're gonna walk off the plane,

this is going to be a crash landing.

NARRATOR: Against all odds, they line up with the runway.

I got in that brace position right away,

and I just waited and waited,

and thinking to myself, man 30 seconds is a long time.

(CLOCK TICKING)

NARRATOR: The DC 10 is descending at 255MPH, twice as fast as it should be.

I was not ready for how hard we hit.

It just sort of felt like we dropped out of the sky and hit the ground.

(CLOCK TICKING)

NARRATOR: The airplane's wing hits the runway first...

Fuel ignites. the aircraft breaks in two...

The biggest section skids off the runway

ending up upside-down in a cornfield.

One hundred and twelve people die in the crash.

It's one of America's deadliest air disasters.

This wasn't a bomb, it wasn't a bird strike.

Something happened up there thousands of feet up

that rendered this airplane uncontrollable.

What brought down this DC10?

And could it happen again?

NARRATOR: The roots of this mystery lie in events

before the plane even hits the runway...

It's 1965.

With the economy booming, air-travel is growing fast

and passenger numbers are doubling every ten years.

In response McDonnell-Douglas design the massive DC10

to carry more customers.

The first design proposals for the DC10

were for a wide-bodied double decker airliner

with four engines capable of carrying 550 passengers.

But that was just too ambitious, too aggressive,

it was paired down into what we see.

Which is the three engines, a single level

and it was a very very useful plane.

NARRATOR: The DC-10 is a state-of-the art aircraft

and its construction calls for the latest materials.

One very strong metal in particular...

Titanium.

For high stress applications requiring a strong metal,

there's no substitute for titanium.

While the strength of steel in on a par with titanium,

it weighs 45 percent more.

Titanium appears almost indestructible.

NARRATOR: It's perfect for jet-engine parts...

Like a fan disc.

Set deep inside the engine,

a fan disc produces most of the thrust needed for flight.

Spinning at 3,800 revolutions per minute,

it experiences immense stress when in use.

So it has to be tough.

To construct aviation components out of titanium,

you have to start with a raw material. This is called a billet.

NARRATOR: These are huge pieces of metal alloy,

forged in extreme heat.

Before shipping, each billet undergoes

ultrasonic inspection to look for any defects.

If there are defects within the billet,

those defects get carried along into whatever component you're manufacturing.

NARRATOR: In a factory mistake, one billet escapes the safety check.

And the first clue to the United 232 disaster lies within it.

It's a flaw no bigger than a grain of sand.

Hidden just below the surface of the 7000-pound billet.

It's then sent to Ohio, where it's disk.into a fan

And fitted into the most critical part of the airframe...

The tail-engine of the Sioux City jet.

A deadly crack now lies in the heart of the plane.

No-one knew that this microscopic anomaly was in this fan disc.

NARRATOR: Even the smallest defects can bring down the biggest machines.

As space shuttle engineers discover in Florida, in 1986.

NARRATOR: Like the DC-10,

a weakness lies within the 1.2- billion-dollar spacecraft.

ARCHIVE: T minus three minutes and counting

NARRATOR: January 28th, and the Challenger shuttle prepares for blast off.

ARCHIVE: Gimbal checks now complete.

On board, seven crew members, including high- school teacher, Christa McAuliffe.

ARCHIVE: T minus two minutes and counting

She's the first US civilian selected to go into space.

Key to lift-off, rocket boosters on both sides of the shuttle,

packed with 500 tons of explosive fuel.

NARRATOR: Rubber O-rings, just a quarter of an inch thick,

are all that seal in the highly flammable gas.

ARCHIVE: Ninety seconds and counting.

A "O" ring is squishy so that, when you press on it,

it deforms and fills all the microscopic gaps

between the two materials you're pressing together.

And that now, does not allow any gas to get out or any liquid.

ARCHIVE: T minus 45 seconds and counting.

Sounds of pressure and water system now armed.

Because the O Rings are basically a form of rubber

you've got to be careful when it comes to temperature.

If it's too cold it changes how that material reacts.

NARRATOR: O-rings work best at temperatures above 64 degrees.

But on launch day, it's a chilly 36 degrees.

Take a donut, right? As soon as you buy a donut,

it's nice and squishy. It's soft.

It's at room temperature.

Stick the donut in the refrigerator overnight.

Now pick it up, it's crispy, right?

It's just like more brittle and it's tough.

ARCHIVE: T minus 30 seconds, we've had a go for auto sequence start.

NARRATOR: Engineers flag their concerns about the O-rings performance

in the cold and try to stop the launch.

But NASA proceeds anyway.

ARCHIVE: The SRB hydraulic power units have started.

The first evidence of a potential abnormality

is in the form of black smoke that's just puffing out

right above a seal where an O Ring would be.

INAUDIBLE RADIO: T minus 10...

That's an indication that high pressure gas is getting through that seal

and as the gas gets through, it starts to open up even more.

ARCHIVE: Three. Two. One.

And lift off on the 25th space shuttle mission,

and it has cleared the tower.

Challenger go with throttle up.

NARRATOR: Nobody in mission control spots the smoke.

Challenger has passed the point of no return.

Disaster is inevitable.

You end up with a major failure,

where the fuel was blowing out of the sides

and the whole thing blew apart.

(EXPLOSION)

NARRATOR: The world watches in horror.

ARCHIVE: Obviously a major malfunction.

We have no down link.

NARRATOR: One of the most complex machines ever built,

brought down by a quarter inch part.

Like Challenger, the Sioux City DC-10

is fatally compromised by a hidden mistake.

In a highly engineered piece of equipment like an airplane,

the very small details really matter

and it only takes one tiny little failure to cause a catastrophe.

NARRATOR: Coming up. Other clues to why it crashed...

The thought of all three failing at once

was inherently possible,

but was waved off as not gonna happen.

NARRATOR: And later, a Dakota train crash shows

what can happen when warning signs are ignored.

NARRATOR: When big things go wrong,

engineers must find out why.

In the case of the Sioux City plane.

One clue is a microscopic defect in the fan disk.

These cracks are virtually invisible to the untrained eye

and they are extremely hard to detect to the trained eye.

NARRATOR: But the plane flies for 17 years without incident.

So what else could explain this disaster?

All aircraft undergo regular maintenance

and the Sioux City DC-10 is no exception.

Its three jet engines clock up 42,000 flight hours,

and with each flight, the tail engine edges closer to failure.

Every time the engine was started

the crack would grow a little bit more from the cavity,

just a fraction.

We call it a fatigue crack

and it's started to grow and progress

over the lifetime of the engine.

DR. HENRY: Now this crack starts spreading

and starts growing and getting deeper and deeper into the material,

weakening this component. And you have no idea.

NARRATOR: Engineers carry out six major inspections

during the aircraft's lifetime, but every time they miss the flaw.

It was so small that it wasn't really considered

and the whole system was designed to detect these larger cracks

and these larger anomalies.

In this instance it was just so small

that it went undetected during the ultrasonic testing of that time.

NARRATOR: By the final inspection in 1989,

just months before the crash,

the cavity in the engine has grown into a crack about half an inch long.

And it's still missed.

There would come a point where it had grown enough,

that one more start of the engine would result in it breaking and smashing out.

NARRATOR: Now every flight is a potential disaster.

Unseen cracks can grow and may eventually snap.

When they do, they create havoc.

As the drivers of two huge freight trains discover.

NARRATOR: On the North Dakota plains...

A train's axle has slowly grown a micro-crack over 11 years.

Just like with the DC10,

routine inspections and maintenance have failed to spot it.

And when it breaks, disaster strikes, causing a catastrophic collision.

NARRATOR: Two billion tons of freight moves

across America's rail-lines every year.

And all that cargo calls for big trains.

December 30th, 2013, a 104-car train travels west,

through the city of Casselton. Loaded with grain.

The steel axle of one of the cars has a tiny fatigue crack.

Hidden in the metal since it was manufactured over a decade ago.

One and a quarter inches long, the crack is growing

and, as it weakens, the axle begins to bend.

Imagine you gotta piece of rope and deep inside the rope

is like a little shard of glass.

And so now as you start using the rope

and you're working with the rope,

you're moving it around and that little shard of glass

is gonna start cutting the tendons of that rope,

making it weaker and weaker, but you can't tell

cause you're looking at the outside of the rope.

NARRATOR: Around 2.08pm, it finally snaps.

Broken pieces of steel tumble under the train

and derail some of the cars behind.

But the train is so long its driver has no idea.

And coming the other way, another train,

pulling the worst possible cargo.

Over two million gallons of combustible crude oil.

By the time the driver of the oil train sees the derailed car,

it's too late.

You've got metal wheels in contact with a metal rail,

so you've got plenty of friction and a source for a spark,

and a spark goes off and lights the whole thing up.

NARRATOR: The fireball spews toxic gasses and burns for 24 hours.

It's sheer luck that nobody dies in this disaster.

Coming up... More clues uncovered.

The pilots don't know what's going on,

but something is very, very wrong with the aircraft.

NARRATOR: And more shocking disasters when big things go wrong.

NARRATOR: A DC10 aircraft has crashed,

killing half those on board.

The survivors start to come to terms with their ordeal.

I don't even know what happened,

I didn't even know we were upside down until I let go of my seatbelt.

We went to the wing and slid down into the corn field.

To be unscathed is a miracle.

NARRATOR: Investigators now examine the wreckage looking for answers

but with vital components strewn across Iowa,

it's a difficult task.

MAN: That whole fan area is missing!

NARRATOR: The next piece to the puzzle lies somewhere surprising.

NARRATOR: In 1968 when planning the DC-10,

its manufacturers, McDonnell-Douglas,

consider the growing domestic market.

With the right plane, a fortune could be made.

The company needs a plane with longer range than two-engined jets,

but with lower operating costs than its four-engined rivals.

The engines of the time, the jet engines,

didn't have enough thrust to only use 2.

The optimal solution then is to have three engines,

but where do you put the third engine?

You can't have two engines on one side and one on the other.

So, the solution was to put the third engine

on top of the airplane in the tail.

The engines on the DC10 were the General Electric CF6 turbofan engine,

this engine had a very good reputation in aviation

as being safe, reliable, and all around a great engine.

NARRATOR: The CF6 engine seems like a winner,

with innovations in both power and fuel efficiency.

With three of these engines, DC10's can range 3500 miles.

And at a greatly reduced fuel cost.

But could this drive for efficiency come with a downside,

creating a fatal weak point in the plane?

Sometimes, saving money can cost lives...

as a London neighborhood learns.

NARRATOR: A tower block burns through the night...

And horrified residents can only stand by and watch.

How could this happen to a recently renovated apartment building...

Grenfell Tower. London, England. Built in 1974.

While modernizing the building,

aluminum weather-proof sidings are fitted

in place of expensive zinc sidings.

But there is a major problem with this aluminum siding.

This actually had plastic or polyethylene inside of it.

So, the majority of it is combustible, it's flammable.

NARRATOR: There's also a two-inch gap

between the aluminum siding and the insulation.

The perfect funnel to fuel a fire.

It's a really bad design, right?

Because now, what you've done is you've got a little gap, air gap.

So, it's like you've wrapped the entire building in a sheath that's combustible.

And you've given just enough space for air to get in there

and feed the flames.

NARRATOR: In the early hours of Wednesday June 14th,

a refrigerator catches fire on the fourth floor.

Firefighters arrive in ten minutes.

But the blaze spreads too fast.

Once you get this thing started

once the air can get in and fuel it there's no going back.

NARRATOR: The fire takes hold and burns all night long.

As the sun comes up, the scale of the tragedy becomes clear.

It could've easily been avoided.

It emerges that fire-resistant sidings for the whole building

would have only cost another $400,000.

Now for that amount saved 72 lives were lost.

NARRATOR: Coming up... The unthinkable happens to the DC-10...

There is no way that all of the hydraulics

should ever fail all at once, that's impossible.

NARRATOR: And more big things go wrong.

NARRATOR: Planes crash for all kinds of reasons...

Pilot error, mechanical failure, even bad weather.

And like the weather,

there's something else engineers can't control...

NARRATOR: The engineers who designed the futuristic- looking three-engined DC10

are convinced they have preparednfor every possible scenario...

With the most up-to-date safety systems,

including not just one, but two back-ups to its vital hydraulics.

The hydraulics in this type of machine

are essential to assist the pilot and the aircrew

in maneuvering these flight control surfaces

so they don't have to exert, you know, 200, 300 pounds of pressure on the yolk.

NARRATOR: These systems control the plane's movement,

enabling a pilot to change direction, altitude or speed.

If that hydraulic system isn't operating,

it's almost impossible to make the plane go in any direction you want.

There are very few applications of hydraulic systems

that can be more mission-critical than aviation hydraulics.

For the very simple reason that many human lives are at stake.

NARRATOR: Which is why the DC-10 has three hydraulic systems

when it only needs one to fly.

The thought of all three failing at once

was inherently possible but was waved off as not gonna happen.

NARRATOR: For an explosion to take out all three systems is unthinkable.

There's no way that all of the hydraulics should ever fail all at once.

That's impossible.

It was a one in a billion catastrophic failure,

the likes of which no one had ever seen before.

NARRATOR: But that billion to one bad luck chance does happen...

As the pilot and passengers of one of the most famous aircraft of all time

find out in the skies near Paris.

NARRATOR: July 2000. 109 passengers board an Air France Concorde

for a luxurious flight to New York.

After an hour's delay, it finally gets clearance to take off.

MATT: The winds had changed at that point,

and instead of taxi-ing to another runway

and creating a further delay the aircrew elected

to go ahead and take-off on the first runway.

NARRATOR: But this runway hasn't been inspected.

ROB: Just five minutes earlier a DC-10 had taken off from the same runway.

And as it did so, it lost a titanium alloy strip.

A small piece of titanium, the size of a ruler, not that big.

That day they'd failed to do a foreign object and debris, or a FOD check

on the runway prior to their departure.

So, the piece of metal went undetected.

NARRATOR: As the Concorde begins take-off,

the pilots are unaware of the 16-inch metal strip

lying directly in their path.

And the plane's tires run right over it.

The Concorde going down the runway and hitting that piece,

that strip of metal from a DC 10 is a one in a million chance.

I mean if that had been off to the left just a little bit

they would have completely missed it.

The rubber explodes. Portions of the tire debris

slam into the fuel tank.

NARRATOR: It breaks a seal on the tank.

You never want jet fuel to be leaking out of a plane that's about to take off.

NARRATOR: There's a spark in the damaged fuel cell, and it ignites.

As the plane takes off, this engine fire becomes catastrophically destructive,

and the plane crashes.

NARRATOR: All 109 people on board die in the crash.

Bad luck brought down one of the most advanced passenger jets of all time.

NARRATOR: Coming up... The crew battle to save flight 232

They've got one shot to get it down.

NARRATOR: United Airlines 232 is at 37,000ft

on its way to Chicago.

On today's flight, 296 people including Jerry Schemmel.

We're Just cruising along, it's a smooth flight,

and I'm starting to get a little sleepy,

I'm thinking a little nap might be good.

Didn't really think anything was out of the ordinary.

NARRATOR: A half an inch crack in the fan disk of the DC10's tail engine

has gone unnoticed for 17 years.

But it's about to reach breaking point...

I hear this explosion.

The pilots don't know what is going on

but something is very, very wrong with the aircraft.

NARRATOR: They quickly realize the explosion has taken out the tail engine

It came from the back of the plane,

you could hear the explosion, you could feel it,

and you could feel the plane beginning to drop after that.

And I thought, wow this is really serious.

NARRATOR: Even if one engine fails,

the DC-10 should be able to fly with the other two.

But this plane isn't responding.

The pilots are unable to steer the plane go up and down

they are basically powerless.

NARRATOR: Exploding shrapnel from the tail engine

has cut through all three hydraulic systems.

The odds that all three hydraulic systems were to fail at once

was so rare that it wasn't even in the emergency procedures.

Without these controls the pilots can't steer the plane or take it up or down.

NARRATOR: The plane is descending six times faster than it should be.

I grabbed my arm rests and held on.

NARRATOR: In the cockpit, alarms are blaring.

The plane is now almost impossible to control.

The first thing that was going through their heads was,

what the hell happened, what's going on back there?

(CLOCK TICKING)

NARRATOR: The flight crew radio Minneapolis Air Traffic Control

for emergency assistance.

NARRATOR: They're directed to the nearest airport,

Sioux City, Iowa.

NARRATOR: As the plane descends,

it constantly rolls to the right,

threatening to turn upside-down.

If that happens and flips all the way over

the plane will tumble to its doom.

(CLOCK TICKING)

NARRATOR: Pilot captain Al Haynes fights to level the plane.

The one thing that they do have control over is the throttles

which provides power to each of the engines under the wings.

So, the captain pulls back on the throttle on one side

and ups the power on the other side

and this slowly brings the wings back into alignment.

It works and the captain regains a crude form of steering

using just the throttles, but there's another problem,

the captain now finds he can only make right hand turns.

NARRATOR: DC 10 training instructor Denny Fitch

is sitting in first class.

By coincidence, he's practiced this exact scenario

on a flight simulator,

after hearing about a similar failure in Japan.

He races to the cockpit to help and takes over the throttles,

as the pilots figure out their next move.

NARRATOR: The DC10 begins a succession of circles over Iowa...

With every turn to the right it drops 1500-feet.

I could feel this plane taking this right turn,

and we just kept going that way. And I thought

why are we just continuing to turn right,

why aren't we ever levelling off.

(CLOCK TICKING)

Captain Haynes got on the PA system and told us

that we'd been given a directive to make an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa.

He said I want everybody in their seats,

the seatbelts are fastened, they're pulled tight

because, he said, we are in serious trouble.

NARRATOR: Emergency vehicles scramble for a crash landing.

I think we circled around four or five times trying to get to Sioux City.

(CLOCK TICKING)

NARRATOR: At 3.53pm, the crew put the DC-10 into its final turn.

It's the moment of truth.

JERRY: Captain Haynes is on the PA system

telling us that he was gonna give us a command to brace three seconds before we hit.

He said...

He said I want everybody to understand this is going to be rough.

(CLOCK TICKING)

I thought to myself let's just get this thing over with

because I'm as ready as I can be mentally and physically.

I've said my prayers, I've said my goodbyes in my own mind.

NARRATOR: A normal DC10 landing speed is 120mph

but this plane is approaching twice as fast.

And they're almost going to make the runway when all of a sudden...

(CLOCK TICKING)

The wing tips and catches.

And the plane just breaks apart and tumbles.

I'm looking around, I'm seeing bodies being thrown about.

Some were out of their chairs, some were still strapped in their chairs,

we bounced a couple of times, we start sliding and going forward.

The nose of the plane dug into the runway

and we flipped over end to end.

The plane broke into big pieces at that point and I just held on...

and slid upside down and backwards and finally came to a halt.

JERRY: I was getting ready to run away from the aircraft,

I heard a baby crying back inside the wreckage

and I followed the cries.

And by this time we were almost completely full of smoke.

I couldn't see anything but I could hear the cries.

So I honed in on it

and I realized the crying was coming from inside an overhead bin in this plane.

I find the latch, open the latch, lift the lid

and just sort of scooped the baby with one arm

and as soon as I grabbed her she stopped crying.

And then I just turned around headed for the opening and got outside the plane.

NARRATOR: Emergency crews swarm over the wreckage. 112 die.

They find the three flight-crewand Denny unconscious, but alive.

Miraculously 184 passengers and crew survived the impact.

I looked back and I could see the wreckage from where I'd come out of.

And it was at that point that it hit me how bad this was,

because I knew we were in a big plane.

I'm thinking, this is a terrible disaster.

NARRATOR: The footage shocks the nation.

And with some 400 DC-10's still flying

the aviation industry is desperate to figure out what went wrong.

But Investigators face a monumental task.

Debris is spread across -Iowa. And a vital piece of the puzzle is missing.

NARRATOR: When big things go wrong,

the causes can be obvious.

NARRATOR: But other times engineers have to search for answers.

ARCHIVE: You can really see what is missing

that whole fan area is missing.

NARRATOR: One vital piece of evidence

in the fatal Sioux City crash is missing.

The fan disc is not at the debris site

and could be anywhere in Iowa.

ARCHIVE: The obstacle is 20 square miles of farmland.

The key part still missing used to be in this empty casing.

The shell that held engine number 2 and the fan that pushed air to it.

NARRATOR: Months go by and despite a $50,000 reward the fan disk remains lost.

They searched high and low for this fan disk.

the search was extensive, farm land over the mid-west,

and further, hidden by corn and crops.

It didn't turn up until later when a farmer was harvesting

and they literally ran into a fan disk.

NARRATOR: Now investigators have the final piece to learn

what caused United Airlines Flight 232 to crash.

And seen through the eyes of an engineer,

the clues are clear...

Cutting costs...

The third engine on the tail section is a disaster waiting to happen.

NARRATOR: A hidden flaw...

We call it a fatigue crack.

NARRATOR: Missed signs...

Maintenance teams failed to pick up this crack time and time again.

NARRATOR: And sheer bad luck...

The thought of all three failing at once was waved off as not gonna happen.

NARRATOR: As a result of the Sioux City crash,

investigators would make 31 sweeping recommendations

to improve inspections and airline safety.

MATT: Several of them revolving around redundancy and hydraulic systems,

the protection of these hydraulic systems

and then refined manufacturing and inspection processes for these fan disks.

NARRATOR: But why, in 1989, faced with such a catastrophic failure

of its hydraulic systems, didn't United 232 simply fall from the skies?

You have a huge piece of metal that is largely uncontrolled.

How do you bring that down and land it with only the engines?

NARRATOR: The answer lies in the quick thinking

of the pilots,

Denny Fitch and the crew.

It was apparent to us that we had lost all of our hydraulic fluid

and when I asked Dudley for the procedure for that...

he said there isn't one.

So we made it up as we went along.

I've heard pilots, many of them over the years,

that went into a simulator, put in to a DC-10,

same conditions we had, number 2 engine explodes,

hydraulics go out, and they say every single time

that plane nose dives to ground and the computer said everybody's dead.

We have a lot of experience here and it showed up in the cockpit.

There is no substitute as far as I am concerned in experience

and we had it and it shows that experience is very important...

NARRATOR: The heroic actions of the pilots on flight 232

undoubtedly saved Jerry and the other survivors.

Proving when big things go wrong, people can step in.

Accidents will happen. Planes will go wrong.

And when they do it is the actions of one or two people

that can save hundreds.

When I look at it today, 31 plus years later,

I think we could not have had a better crew inside that cockpit

to give us a shot at making this thing work

and not everybody dying.

We overcame the odds because we had a group of four people in that cockpit

that did all they could, to try to save lives.

I don't know if it could have gone any better than it did.

I thank them personally, and I still do in my mind every day

for their heroic efforts inside that cockpit.