Original subtitles

3000.

We're not getting any oxygen.

We have the terrain alarm.

We are in an emergency.

We are observing you crossing the 260 of Lima at 31 miles west.

The level is 10 700.

October, 1996,

a state-of-the-art passenger jet

careens out of control for 30 horrific minutes

then crashes into the Pacific Ocean.

I've got it! I've got it!

What could've brought down AeroPeru Flight 603?

The answer to the mystery may be found in the aircraft's black box flight recorder.

A puzzle which investigators must solve.

The story they uncover is how a simple human error

set off a chain of events that ended in tragedy.

Two cents of American money brought down

a 75-million-dollar aircraft and killed 70 people.

This kind of a problem that they faced that night

was... probably one of ten

over the last 20 or 30 years.

You never lose hope immediately.

It takes time for you to get to that point

that you will accept the fact that...

there are no people that got out of there alive.

We're gonna turn over!

Lima, Peru.

Jorge Chavez International Airport.

AeroPeru Flight 603 prepared for takeoff to Santiago Chile.

The plane was a 4-year-old Boeing 757,

a state-of-the-art passenger jet

known for its reliability and safety.

AeroPeru 603 was flown by two of the national airline's

best pilots: Captain Eric Shreiber, 58,

and First Officer, David Fernandez, 42.

61 passengers and nine crew members were aboard.

Most were Chileans on their way home.

Others were Peruvian, British, Italian, Spanish,

one New Zealander and other Latin Americans.

Among them, the brother-in-law and close friend

of Mexico businessman Monus Albert.

Our companies do business in South America.

We export, and every so often, we go to see our clients.

On this trip, Kenny and Abraham

went to see some clients in Peru and Chile.

I had a very good relationship with both of them,

with my brother-in-law, of course.

We were like brothers. I loved the guy.

He married my only sister.

So, we had a great relationship.

Checklists complete,

First Officer Fernandez hailed the tower.

Lima Tower AeroPeru 603. Runway 1-5 ready for takeoff.

AeroPeru 603. Use noise abatement.

Wind calm. Ready for takeoff on runway 1-5.

- 1-5-1-5 transponder. - Flaps 1-5.

Takeoff briefing complete.

The captain makes a joke about their precision.

See how accurate we are? Not even Swiss.

Rolling.

The AeroPeru 757 was among a new generation

of computer-controlled aircraft

in which pilots are trained to rely on a central data system

designed to reduce errors, both mechanical and human.

On takeoff, the 757 performed perfectly.

80 knots.

Check.

V1, rotate.

V2.

Gear up.

Right.

Within moments,

the pilots received a highly unusual reading.

The altimeters are stuck.

The altimeter indicates the height of the aircraft

off the ground.

It reads zero, though they were obviously flying.

The altimeters have stuck.

- Yeah. - All of them.

This is really new. Keep V2 plus 10.

The 757 is equipped with three altimeters:

One for the pilot, one for co-pilot, one back up.

All three were dead.

Then they lost another crucial instrument.

The air speed indicator.

The speed.

- Eh? - The speed.

What's going on? We're not climbing.

- I am climbing, but the speed. - Hold it.

Maintain speed.

AeroPeru 603 left the lights of Lima,

out towards the Pacific Ocean.

With no air speed or altitude instruments,

the pilots were now flying blind.

The air traffic controller in Lima maintained contact

with the plane, noting its altitude and course.

He did not hear when the pilots got a new minor warning,

that they must adjust the rudder,

which steers the aircraft left and right.

...603. We are descending.

- Rudder Ratio. - That's strange.

Turn to the right.

Alan MacLeod is a veteran Air Canada pilot.

They got a rudder ratio warning which consists

of an amber light that would come flashing on there

with a beeping horn and a message on this engine

crew alerting system saying: Rudder Ratio.

That's just a system that reduces the amount of rudder the airplane

has that can be used as the airplane accelerates

to go faster and faster.

Because it was sensing wrong or improper information,

it sensed a fault, so it gave a warning to the crew.

The erratic warnings were being generated

by the plane's central computer.

But the pilots could not understand why.

Then, the dead altimeters sprung to life.

Climb, climb, climb!

Climb! - I am!

Climb! You're going down, David!

I am up, but the speed.

Yeah, but it's stuck. The trim rudder ratio.

Climb, climb, climb!

Climb, climb!

Set heading 100.

So now you're...

It's okay on this heading.

Set the climb thrust.

Centre auto pilot in command.

Just as suddenly, the altitude readings return to normal.

The moment of calm would be brief.

Just one minute after takeoff,

Captain Shreiber attempted to engage the autopilot

to give them time to think.

The autopilot requires identical data

from two of the aircraft's three flight control computers.

But Shreiber's instrument readings were so different from those of Fernandez

the autopilot disengaged.

Then another alert.

Mach trim. Mach trim.

Mach trim indicates that the plane is not flying

in a level position.

Yet the 757 seemed to be flying normally.

Let's go to basic instruments. Everything's going to hell.

Mach speed trim is a system that trims the airplane.

It changes the angle of the horizontal stabilizer

in the back end of the airplane

and that has to be changed as the airplane accelerates

to a higher speed.

It was giving false indications,

so they got a warning that they had an over-speed,

which, of course, they didn't.

That warning would consist of, again, a master caution

and a master warning which is a red light

associated with... an aural warning as well.

Despite confusing warnings

and no autopilot, the aircraft was controllable.

If necessary, Shreiber could've kept the plane aloft for hours,

but he decided to land.

He instructed his first officer to declare an emergency.

We are in an emergency.

AeroPeru 603, Lima.

We are declaring an emergency.

We have no basic instruments,

no altimeter, no air speed indicator.

Declaring an emergency.

Received. Altitude?

We don't have.

We're up to 1000 feet.

Approximately 1700.

603, confirm if possible if you can change your frequency

to 119.7 to make sure you can receive radar instructions.

Just 40 miles from Lima,

the pilots of AeroPeru flight 603 now made their first attempt

at an emergency landing.

Puzzled by their problems,

they began to suspect that the AeroPero ground crew

had tampered with the aircraft.

We change to 1-1-9 point seven.

Auto-throttle, it disconnected by itself.

maintenance moves everything.

What have they done?

I'll take the controls now.

Okay, you have control.

The pilots did not know that their suspicions

were close to the truth.

But there was not time to speculate further.

- Lima, 603. - AeroPero 603, Lima.

We request vectors for ILS, runway 1-5.

They sought the runway with the help of the guidance transmitter

called the Instrument Landing System, or ILS.

The ILS provides information on their course

while altitude information comes from the aircraft's transponder.

Affirmative. Maintain present altitude.

What level do we have?

We have 4000 feet. Can you confirm for us?

Correct. Maintain 4000.

Shreiber and Fernandez had ever experienced

nor been trained for this emergency.

Auto-throttle disconnect.

Really, we don't have any control.

We don't have... any control, not even the basics.

Let's see. Check everything.

The airplane was controllable,

but you first have to diagnose what is wrong.

It's very easy with 20/20 hindsight,

sitting here in a chair on a nice sunny day to say,

"This is what he should've done."

But in the cold dark night,

with bells and whistles going off, it's very difficult

to analyze conflicting information that you're getting.

This kind of a problem that they faced that night was...

...probably one of 10 over the last 20 or 30 years

that has been similar to this.

Over the dark Pacific Ocean,

the pilots could not determine altitude nor speed by sight.

They requested that the tower help guide them in.

- Responding. - Air speed is zero.

All speeds. Right.

Can you give us the air speed please,

if you have us on the radar?

Yes. Affirmative. As of 10 seconds,

it seems that you're climbing at level 6000

at 22 miles south on heading 1-9-5.

The air traffic controller's computers calculated

a correct air speed by measuring the plane's

movement over the ground.

Okay. We have that.

We're on heading 190

and we have 7000 feet on the altimeter.

Yes, correct. You are now reaching 7000.

But neither the pilots nor the air traffic controller

knew that the altitude indicated on the scope was incorrect.

It was coming from the plane's erratic computer.

The traffic controller would try to help the pilot,

but he was receiving the wrong information on altitude.

He was receiving the wrong indication from the captain's altimeter.

The reason the air traffic control system

was transmitting improper altitude readout information to the airplane

was because the airplane's altimeter,

through the air data computer,

would send the indicated altitude

that the airplane was experiencing

down to the radar unit, and of course, it was incorrect

and they would read it off their readout down in

the air traffic control center and transmit it back

to the pilots, and of course, it was incorrect

because they were getting incorrect information to begin with.

Investigators would later discover the AeroPeru 603

was drifting downward,

while the altimeter showed them at a near constant 10000 feet.

The passengers were as yet unaware of the drama

unfolding in the cockpit.

Avoid large or abrupt radar inputs.

If normal left hydraulic systems pressure available...

Now, Captain Shreiber ordered Fernandez to scan the flight manual

for some explanation of the warnings.

Yes, crosswinds. Do not attempt an auto-land.

In Lima, the air traffic controller continued to guide

AerpPeru 603 back to the ground.

AeroPeru 603, we are observing you now at level 9200.

What is your heading now? - We're heading level 2-0-5.

Affirmative. You are turning slowly to the right, correct?

No, we are maintaining course to stay away from the coast.

With incorrect altitude information being transmitted

from the aircraft to the tower,

they did not realize that the plane was descending.

Your distance is 30 miles.

Do you want a heading to proceed

to the localizer, correct?- Correct.

We're going to suggest course north 3-6-0.

3-6-0. We have problems here reading the instruments.

You're going to have to help me with altitudes

and air speeds if it is possible.

Okay. Received.

Let's go.

The approach is set.

The 757's computers send critical warnings.

Information that the pilots were trained to obey,

but could not trust.

Let's try to make a descent on this heading.

It's climbing.

The air speed plummeted to below stall speed,

and then raced up again.

Let's go down to 10 000 feet.

Why does the speed go away so fast?

Could it be the real speed?

That's what worries me.

No. I don't think so.

Can you verify our speed please?

320 is indicated.

We have 350.

The engines are on idle,

but we keep accelerating and accelerating.

Okay. Received.

Nerves were now stretched tight.

You can imagine the pilots, they're flying there.

They don't have a true indication of the speed.

They're obviously trying to fly the airplane

and changing the attitude up and down,

that in itself will change an indication of air speed,

although it was incorrect.

Both pilots were really confused.

They didn't know what to do.

They didn't know how to act

and they did unhuman efforts to save the aircraft.

But, I mean, they were really...

...tired of all the work and all the confusion and all the alarms.

Fernandez suggested that they try the speed brakes

used to rapidly slow the aircraft.

Extend the speed brakes.

For a moment, it appeared to be working.

Then, another warning.

All three indicators are fine on speed.

Fine on...

Over speed.

Overspeed means the plane

is flying too fast.

The pilots didn't believe it.

But if it was right,

the 757 could be torn apart.

They were forced to make a decision,

to speed up or slow down.

If they got it wrong, 70 people would die.

15 minutes had passed since takeoff,

then the computerized brain of AeroPeru 603

sent another burst of contradictory warnings.

Rudder ratio.

It can't be. Nothing's disconnecting.

All engine instruments are okay.

What can our real speed be?

Lima tower provided their only chance of survival.

We are observing you crossing the 260 of Lima

at 31 miles west, level is 10 700,

velocity is approximately 280 over the ground.

Perfect.

The controller's altitude reading was incorrect.

Junk information being generated by the 757's computers

and radioed to the tower.

Over speed.

The brakes were on, but now, another over-speed warning.

Then, the stall warning sounded.

Let's descend.

We can't be over speed.

We're still flying.

They get a stall warning that the airplane

is falling out of the sky

at the same time they got an over-speed warning.

It's impossible to have two contradictory alarms.

Either you're stalling or either you're having over-speed.

So, that created more confusion.

Really, this problem has never happened before.

It was a new emergency.

In aviation, you always figure:

What's going to kill me?

What is the critical thing?

Let's take care of that first, and then...

...we'll take care of the lesser issues later on.

When you get a stall warning

or when you get an over-speed indication,

you need to pay attention to those immediately.

In this case, they were getting both a stall warning

and an over-speed. Well, which is right?

First Officer David Fernandez

finally realized that the odds were against a safe landing.

We request, is there any plane that can take off and rescue us?

Acknowledged. Rescue has been alerted.

Any plane in the area to guide us?

An AeroPeru that may be in the area.

Anybody. - Don't say anything like that.

Yes, because right now we are in a stall.

The stick shaker vibrated violently,

indicating that the 757 was going too slow

and could fall from the sky.

AeroPeru 603, we have a 707 that is leaving for...

We will advise him.

We are not in a stall.

It's a false alarm.

Shreiber's air speed indicator read 350 knots,

well above stall speed.

No, we have stick shaker, it has to be.

But even with speed brakes and everything,

we're maintaining 9500 feet.

Why aren't we getting the same reading?

When the airplane is slowed up to a point in the air

that it can no longer sustain itself in flight, it stalls.

The wings stall or stop flying.

There's a warning system built into the airplane

that tells the pilots when that's happening,

that's known as a stick shaker along with a voice warning,

which we just heard.

When the stick shaker goes off because the airplane has slowed down too much,

you get a warning like this where the control column

is shaking and vibrating along with the voice warning

saying the airplane is stalling.

And of course, the pilots would go into the aircraft

stall recovery procedure at that point.

In the battle between man and machine,

the deranged 757 was winning.

The pilots now had no sense of where they were or how high.

They had gradually been descending,

and were now just 1000 feet over the sea.

Lima tower, misguided by AeroPeru 603's

incorrect transponder, reassured the pilots

that they were at 10 000 feet.

AeroPeru 603, you are now flying on course 1-2-0.

We observe you to be at level 10 000.

Your speed is approximately 2-2-0,

and at a distance from Lima of 33 miles to the north-west.

The 707 will be ready in 15 minutes to fly west to help you.

The pilots had to abandon their attempt at landing.

The best hope now is that another aircraft

could get airborne and guide the 757 back to the airport.

To have another aircraft come alongside and formate

or you formate on it would have been one way

of recovering from this abnormal situation.

However, we must remember that the flight

was at night in darkness. The pilots may or may not

have had any formation flying training.

But that would have been one way

to resolve the problem quite well, actually.

Too low, terrain.

- What's happening? - Too low, terrain?

Now the pilots receive the most terrifying warning of all.

It is called the ground proximity alarm,

meaning a collision with the earth is imminent.

Still, the tower told them they were at 10 000 feet.

We have the terrain alarm and we're supposed to be at 10 000 feet?

According to the monitor, you have 105.

Too low, terrain.

Too low, terrain.

There is not checklist for if you have these

seven or eight warnings going off,

which they did and they couldn't shut them off.

It's a very rattling experience.

I could play that tape for you and you'd hear those things:

"Whoop, whoop, pull up, terrain, terrain."

And all of these things going off

and the stick shaker.

It...

It's a very unnerving environment.

All the computers are going crazy here.

Shreiber turned the aircraft towards the sea,

away from a possible collision with a mountain or skyscraper.

Too low, terrain.

Too low, terrain.

Despite the erroneous warnings, the terrain alarm was correct.

There's a system on board the aircraft called

the ground proximity warning system

and it senses the rate of descent of the airplane.

The irony of the situation was that they were getting warnings

from that, saying, "Too low, terrain, terrain, too low."

That probably, in all probability, was a true warning.

But because they had been subjected to so many warnings,

and on-going false warnings and horns, bells and whistles,

they didn't really, I don't think,

react to that too seriously.

The air traffic controller noted AeroPeru's new course

away from Lima.

AeroPeru 603.

I don't understand you!

We observe you turning to the left, circling to the west.

Affirmative. We are heading 2-5-0.

But we are going out towards sea because of the low-terrain alarm.

The tower confirmed that the 757

had turned away from the airport,

out toward the open Pacific.

Yes, affirmative. We observe you at 42 miles

flying to the west. Course 2-5-0.

We are over water, aren't we?

Affirmative. Over the water.

You are 42 miles to the west.

Now in darkness and heavy haze,

the pilots had another problem with their speed.

Are we going down now?

We have 370 knots.

Are we descending now?

We're showing the same speed.

You have 200 knots speed approximately.

Speed 200 knots?

220 ground speed reducing speed slightly.

The pilots were stunned.

200 knots was precariously close to a stall speed.

Damn, we're going to stall right now!

Let's go up. Let's see.

Let's go up here.

The two men struggle with the deadly situation.

A computer that warns them of flying too fast,

too slow and too low, all at once.

Shreiber now decided to risk a second attempt at landing,

seeking the signal known as the ILS

to guide the aircraft to the runway.

I want to try to intercept the ILS.

I'm trying to descend.

Lima AeroPeru 603,

we will try to intercept the ILS,

let us know if we are in.

Received, AeroPeru 603,

you show now level 9700.

The instruments seemed to be working.

For a moment, there was a glimmer of hope.

- This one's right. - This one's okay too.

The air traffic controller attempted to raise

the pilots' spirits with good news.

Stand by to verify speed.

The 707 is about to take off. It is on taxi.

Confirm our speed.

It is very important.

We do not have any speed indications onboard.

Understood. You're starting to turn

and we observe your ground speed at 270.

Stay there, Eric. 270 is okay.

They now knew their speed,

but altitude remained fatally wrong.

Altitude is 9700.

Your speed is 240 knots. Ground speed on the monitor.

How can we be flying at this speed

if we're descending with engines on idle?

Give me the altitude, please.

Yes, you are maintaining 9700

according to the scope, sir.

9700?(tower): Yes, correct.

What is your indicated altitude?

Do you have any visual reference?

9700, but it's indicating "too low, terrain".

Are you sure you have us on the radar at 50 miles?

Hey, look! With 370, we have--

370 of what? We lowered gear.

AeroPeru 603, Lima.

What do we do with the gear?

Suddenly, they realized the awful truth.

We're hitting water.

Pull it up!

Climb, climb, AeroPeru 603.

If you need to, pull up.

For 20 seconds, the pilots struggled for altitude.

I've got it. I've got it.

We're going to turn over.

AeroPeru 603, Lima.

AeroPeru 603, Lima.

The next morning, Mexico businessman Monus Albert

learned that an AeroPeru flight had crashed.

Five minutes after takeoff, the crew informed the tower

that they were having an emergency

and they were requested to return to Lima.

During the process, contact with the aircraft was lost

at 01:10, with the latest position of the aircraft

being 50 miles north of the city of Lima.

About 6 o'clock in the morning I got up

and turned on the news channel

and I heard there was a crash, an airplane crash

of AeroPeru, but the news mentioned New York to Lima.

Rescue operations are underway by authorities.

The aircraft was carrying 61 passengers and 9 crew members.

His brother-in-law and his business partner were on AeroPeru 603.

So I went to the shower and didn't pay a lot of attention,

but when I came out, they corrected the news

and they said, "From Lima to Santiago."

And I knew on that plane Kenny and Abraham were flying.

The news was very vague, so they mentioned there might be

some survivors and they mentioned that the plane

crashed into the Pacific Ocean

and they didn't have a lot of news and the crash was at night.

In my mind, I thought the plane sort of landed on water

and most of the people got out.

Guido Fernandez had just been appointed

Peru's accident investigator.

AeroPeru was his first case.

The co-pilot, David Fernandez, was his nephew.

I was in bed. It was about 4:30 in the morning

and... they called me.

"Your... nephew is lost in an airplane."

They asked me, "How do you feel

that your nephew was the co-pilot?"

"My gosh, I feel very bad,

but I'm a professional and I have to do a job.

I have to comply and complete my duty."

So, that's what I did.

Fernandez rushed to the crash site in a Navy helicopter.

It was clear there were no survivors.

Nine bodies were floating in the debris.

The rest sank with the 757.

Fernandez met with the air traffic controller at Lima tower.

His account was baffling.

Well, the controller really didn't know,

he was just trying to help.

So, he did all he could to help them,

but unfortunately for him, it was a new emergency too.

Fernandez put thoughts of his nephew out of his mind.

His job was to retrieve the aircraft's flight data

and voice recorders to determine what happened.

He needed help.

Fernandez contacted the National Transportation Safety Board

in Washington DC,

the world's leading agency for air accident investigation.

They had found the aircraft.

It was pretty well documented by radar.

The Navy, the Peruvian Navy had...

gotten a fix on the flotsam and the wreckage in the ocean

and the only thing left to do

was find it on the bottom of the ocean,

which they did not have the facilities for.

Rodriguez flew to Lima to join Guido Fernandez

in his effort to find answers.

I found out that his nephew was the first officer.

I suggested that perhaps they should consider removing

Captain Fernandez from the investigation

because of emotional involvement and what have you.

The American investigator's concerns soon vanished.

He was very objective.

I would say, an excellent investigator

considering that it was not a distant nephew,

I mean, it was his very close relative.

He... He did an outstanding job.

The black box in the Boeing 757

can emit a locator beacon for 30 days before batteries run dead.

The US Navy provided underwater remote-operated vehicles

to survey the debris field,

seeking the black boxes.

The wreckage confirmed that the plane went down in one piece.

I've done in-flight break ups that were spread

over 15, 16 miles and maybe a mile and a half wide,

which tells you instantly that,

what you know of looking at the wreckage,

that this thing didn't hit in one piece.

It clearly was disintegrating as it was crashing.

But in this case, it was a fairly tight debris field.

So, obviously, it hit at high speed

and was a fairly closely-knit wreckage pattern.

The data recorders were retrieved from the 757.

Brought to the surface, the boxes were placed in coolers

full of fresh water to keep them from oxidizing.

They were taken back to Washington

for analysis at the NTSB.

The cockpit recorder could offer the evidence investigators sought.

Every word spoken by pilots Shreiber and Fernandez,

and every unnerving alarm was recorded on audiotape.

The recorded voices were faint, sometimes hard to make out,

but the chaos in the cockpit

rang through with chilling clarity.

Too low, terrain.

The tape was digitized into a computer, filtered and enhanced.

Now, investigators had the clue they'd been looking for.

It was clear to us that they were really

experiencing a problem with air speed and altitude.

And... the air speed and altitude indications

in the aircraft are strictly a function of what we call

the piedostatic system.

The piedostatic system if found on all aircraft, large or small.

External ports measure outside air pressure

to provide data on altitude and speed.

If these ports are blocked,

the plane's computers receive false data

and generate false warnings.

But why these ports would be blocked was a mystery.

Robot vehicles searched for the missing piece of the puzzle.

What they found stunned investigators.

Captain Shreiber's static port

was completely blocked with tape.

Investigators now learned what happened.

Just before AeroPeru 603 lifted off from Lima,

maintenance workers cleaned the aircraft.

A worker covered the static ports with tape to protect them.

This is standard procedure.

But he forgot to remove the tape.

It was a small oversight, with catastrophic results.

The taping was never removed,

and when the airplane departed and started to fly,

nothing but trapped static sea level air pressure

was sensed by those instruments.

As a matter of fact, the airplane was climbing up to thinner air

and the information presented on the instruments

and to the air data computer was false,

which generated just totally non-normal readings.

The inspector who was supposed to quality check his work

did not do it, and the supervisor

out on the line that night was not there,

he was sick and there was a...

a regular mechanic who was filling that role

and he did not see it.

And the captain or the pilot...

In this case, the captain did the pre-flight.

They do a walk-around looking for just that kind of thing,

the captain did the pre-flight that night

and he did not detect it either.

A little piece of paper with glue caused an accident.

But the paper and the glue are not to blame.

Humans are to blame,

because humans used that tape in the wrong place

for the wrong purpose.

Another accident, shockingly similar to AeroPeru 603,

had happened just eight months earlier to another 757.

In February 1996, 189 people died

when a German charter called Bergen Air

crashed five miles after takeoff,

from Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

The NTSB assisted in the investigation.

A survey of the wreckage revealed that one piedotube,

the other critical part of the piedostatic system, was blocked.

As with AeroPeru 603,

night was the pilot's worst enemy.

The Bergen Air pilot flipped the plane upside down

before crashing into the sea.

The Bergen accident nearly pointed out already

that a crew will get confused

by these cryptic advisories...

Rudder ratio, mach trim...

And not getting a clear indication

what the underlying problem is,

which is a problem with the air data computer

or anything which comes behind it.

The piedotupe or the static port.

These were effects which were well-known by the manufacturer,

and so, it happened again.

Three months after the Bergen Air crash,

bulletins were issued to all airline carriers

about the piedostatic problems,

but AeroPeru had not yet implemented the changes.

The bulletins and the, let's call it, the fruits

of the Dominican Republic investigation of Bergen Air

had not yet reached AeroPeru at the time this accident occurred.

The Peruvian government very correctly

made a point of that in their report on the accident

saying that they should have given more impetus

to those recommendations

to get them out to the industry quicker.

Well, it's very unfortunate, but it comes back to the...

fact that communication in aviation, uh...

is sometimes deficient.

There is not that high level of exchange

of information between different operators,

as they're all competitors.

They do not exchange certain information

and specifically not the one which is safety-related.

And that's definitely the case in the AeroPeru accident.

9700! But it's indicating "too low terrain".

Even if Shreiber and Fernandez had known about Bergen Air,

it may not have helped them survive,

given the high pressure of their situation.

It's easy to sit here in the 757 cockpit

and play the Monday morning quarterback,

having heard the bells and the over-speed warnings

the ground proximity warning, the stall warning...

It's very easy to do that and sit here

and say what I would have done being an experienced pilot.

But to put yourself into the position of those two pilots

that night, they were in an extremely difficult situation

to fly that airplane and recover from that experience.

Two weeks after the crash, Monus Albert joins dozens

of grieving families, seeking the remains

of his brother-in-law and friend.

He finally identified them in a Lima morgue.

I wanted to find them. I really wanted to find them.

And one part of me didn't want to find them

because there was this fantasy that if I don't find them

maybe they're in an island with a drink

and looking at some girls dancing.

I can close the chapter, I can go and have them buried

and there will be a place for the family to go and...

put some flowers once in a while and say,

"Okay, my brother-in-law is here or my dad is here or my husband is here."

Now that investigators had the answer

to the mysterious loss of AeroPeru 603,

the lawsuits began.

In November 1996, a Miami lawyer

took on the case on behalf of 41 passengers and crew,

arguing that the manufacturer, Boeing,

was liable for the accident.

Boeing has to foresee the misuse of their product.

In other words, a manufacturer of a product

is legally liable for the foreseeable misuse of their product,

if it can be corrected.

In other words, Boeing builds the airplane

with a potential hazard in it.

That hazard is that in order to clean the airplane

you have to cover the static port,

and if you don't take it off, the airplane can crash.

I wanted them back.

Since I couldn't get them back,

at least I wanted the wives of the victims to be compensated.

How much is that worth? I don't know, I didn't know.

Abraham had three daughters, and now...

they don't have a father.

So, what is the compensation?

The best compensation is if it can be done is get them back.

Give them life back again,

but because that is not possible...

...then the other possibility is to get a monetary compensation,

and then you fight for the best compensation you can get.

Boeing argued that AeroPeru was at fault, not its 757.

An AeroPeru worker taped the static port,

which is marked with clear warnings.

Boeing also blamed Captain Eric Shreiber.

It was his job to visually inspect the aircraft

before taking off.

But investigator Richard Rodriguez can understand

how Shreiber overlooked the tape on the static port.

One of the reasons is it's very high.

It's about maybe 15, 17 feet up in the air,

and at night with a flashlight,

and this happened to be duct tape,

which you're not supposed to use,

they specified the tape and it was duct tape,

which is silver, so it would not distinguish itself

against the background of the fuselage of the aircraft.

So basically, three or four people

failed to detect the tape on the aircraft,

prior to departure.

As the search for blame continued,

the worker who taped the port was jailed for his negligence.

Lawyers, they...

Lawyers, you know, sometimes,

they confuse the matters and they...

...send a guy and ask people questions.

And these questions... The one that stuck the tape was a painter,

the lowest-cultured

and the one that knew less

about what could happen,

and the judge resolved

that he was the one responsible and he was in jail.

You don't lose the airplane because a maintenance man

making two dollars an hour down in Peru makes a mistake.

It's foreseeable that that kind of a person

is going to make a mistake.

That's human nature, that they're going to make a mistake

and you build your system so you don't lose

your 50-million-dollar airplane

because a maintenance guy makes a simple mistake.

Schreiber and Fernandez were also scrutinized.

Veteran pilot Alan McLeod

believes that in their situation,

he would not have attempted to land.

He would have continued to fly for as long as he could,

with the plane angled upwards slightly

and the speed set just above cruise.

Experience has shown that if you don't fly the airplane

when you are experiencing an abnormal situation,

and they certainly were, you must fly the airplane,

just concentrate on flying the airplane

and get the airplane under control, first and foremost.

Are we going down now?

We have 370 knots.

If you don't do that, the airplane's going to bite you

and you're going to end up in more serious situations.

So, I would fly the airplane, make sure I was able

to fly it safely, if only by using the attitude direction indicator

and normal power settings that I was familiar with,

and eventually work my way back and get it on the ground.

Pilots called it "flying by numbers",

relying not on computers, but on basic aviation

and human instinct.

It always becomes a problem when pilots are reduced

to be push-buttonists.

The man-machine interface has to work, and has to work

as humans are to operate these airplanes.

They have to be designed

appropriately for the use of a human being.

Of course, you can put in all digits and numbers,

and computer gimmicks, and you can...

But still, it's man who has to operate and survey it.

And I believe, a human being should be in charge.

In 1999, Boeing and AeroPeru

decided to settle the lawsuits out of court.

Families and loved ones received an exceptional settlement

averaging a million dollars US per victim.

The damages were high because of the terrible way

the passengers and crew on AeroPeru died.

We were able to show that a lot of the people were alive.

In a crash like this, a lot of the people

would survive the crash, and then died of drowning.

There was no question in our minds that the people

suffered terrible terror and pain when this happened to them.

They were horrified, they were awake, they knew what happened.

The disaster helped sink AeroPeru.

Combined with increased competition and rising debt,

the national airline went bankrupt in 1999.

Boeing increased training on piedostatic problems

and issued new regulations about unapproved static port covers.

Since 1996, there has not been another piedostatic failure

like the one on AeroPeru 603.

The designers of these products,

the manufacturers of the products,

I know that they have take safety into account.

They have to, of course, they do that

because they know it's the right thing to do,

but they also know that if they don't do it,

there's going to be somebody watching them that's going to investigate it,

that's going to find out why it happened,

and that they're going to be accountable

for what they do wrong,

and if they don't take into consideration safety,

they're going to have to pay for it.

Well, it... The accidents made the aviation industry aware

that something simple like a piedotube

or a static port, can cause a major incident

or even an accident.

And even...

airline pilots were reminded that...

this is a vital basic thing and it may happen

and this is way to prevent it from turning into a catastrophe.

The case was settled.

The industry repented and moved on.

Such is the world of commercial aviation.

But it was little consolation for those whose lives

were scarred forever by an insignificant piece of tape.

Suddenly, saying that guy doesn't exist anymore,

it's very hard... to swallow.

It's very hard to understand

and it took me a long time...

to accept.

So, the memory's still there.

It'll be there for a long time.

I'm not going to let go. I don't want to let go.

difuze