All language subtitles for Mayday.S04E06.Panic.over.the.Pacific.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

A 747 plummets
towards the Pacific Ocean.

People just
popped up like popcorn.

Engines 1, 2 and 3
have lost thrust!

This airplane is
totally out of control.

It is going to crash.

In two minutes,
China Airlines Flight 006 drops

10 kilometers
through the clouds.

Airspeed 2-seventy...
2-eighty... 2-ninety.

The plane begins
to tear itself apart

as it spirals toward the sea.

I closed my eyes.
I thought I was gone.

Altitude 15-thousand
feet... 12-thousand feet...

10-thousand feet...
Emergency... Emergency.

February the 19th,
1985.

A China Airlines flight

cruises across the Pacific
to Los Angeles.

At 12-thousand metres,
it's racing towards the dawn.

For the passengers and crew
on board, it's past midnight.

A two-man relief crew is
in charge of the plane...

as it sails above the ocean
on autopilot.

The main crew get several hours
off in the middle of the trip

so they're
rested for the landing.

But Captain Mmyuan Ho
is restless.

Good morning gentlemen.

Even though
he's not officially on duty yet,

Captain Ho returns
to the cockpit.

Thought I'd keep
you company.

The Captain
isn't the only one up.

Best friends Seksan Caniyo

and Alex Noll have
something to celebrate.

I feel like
I'm in first class.

It's Seksan's
30th birthday.

I had
the longest birthday

because I just
gained my twelve hours back.

We'd been drinking champagne,
celebrating,

forty-one thousand
feet in the air.

You know, not too many
people get to do that.

Bill Peacock
is in first class.

He's traveled all over the world
for the American government.

There was nothing special.

It was a routine
commercial flight.

I had a very nice
first class seat.

Sat there and read some books.
Went to sleep.

By now, the plane is
nearing the coast of California.

Good morning
ladies and gentlemen.

We will shortly be
serving you breakfast.

For those of you who
wish to adjust your watches,

the local time in Los Angeles
is now seven a.m.

Sleep well?

Very well, sir.
Thank you.

Good morning captain.

After
their five-hour break,

the flight crew is
reunited in the cockpit.

Soon after, the plane
runs into some stiff winds.

Ladies and gentlemen,
this is your captain speaking.

We're experiencing some
light air turbulence.

Please fasten your seat belts.

The autopilot is
set to keep the plane

flying at 4-hundred
and 70 kilometres an hour.

But with the wind blowing hard,

it's increasingly
difficult to maintain the speed.

For the crew, the bumpy ride
suddenly gets more worrying.

Engine four is giving us
weak thrust.

There's a problem
with one of the engines.

The flight engineer
throttles up the engine.

But it doesn't respond.
We're losing speed.

Back in economy,

Seksan Caniyo has also
noticed something.

You notice the light
on that wing

isn't flashing anymore.

So what?

I thought
there was some light

blinking at the tip of the wing.

It looked like a cone.

But when I looked back this
time, I didn't see no cone.

Well, the light on that
wing is still flashing.

I think you've had
a few buddy. Have a seat.

In the cockpit,

the strange situation
suddenly gets much worse.

Engine four flamed out.

The fourth engine
stops working completely.

Take a look at the engine
out procedures.

Work out a 3-engine
cruise altitude.

The problem
with the fourth engine

isn't a complete surprise.

At the pre-flight briefing,
Captain Ho was told that

a repair crew had worked on
engine four before the flight.

Perhaps the engine still
wasn't working properly.

We had a SNAG
Advisory on engine four

before we took off -
maybe that's it.

Without
the fourth engine,

the plane continues
to slow down.

Airspeed 2-forty.

Call Oakland Center
and request a lower altitude.

Oakland Center.
Dynasty 006.

Requesting new altitude.

Dynasty 006.
Standby.

Re-ignite engine four.
Yes captain.

At this altitude,
there isn't much oxygen,

so the chances of a successful
relight are slim.

No response captain.

As the crew
try to restart their engine,

their plane slowly
begins to roll to the right.

Dynasty 006, you
are cleared to Flight 2-forty.

We're banking right,
captain. Airspeed 2-thirty.

As the plane
continues to turn and slow down,

it's in danger of stalling.

Altitude, hold off.
Nose down.

Hoping
to increase his speed,

Captain Ho tries pushing
the plane's nose down.

Nothing the crew does
seems to help.

Their jet is banking more
and more steeply.

Dynasty, Flight 006.
Oakland Center.

How do you hear me?
Air speed 2-twenty!

We're banking right captain!
I'm disengaging autopilot.

For the first time,

Captain Ho takes manual
control of the plane.

Seatbelts!

He struggles
with the controls.

But the plane has
veered into thick cloud.

And he can't see the horizon as
he tries to keep his jet level.

I've lost ADI!

The ADIs have
malfunctioned!

It's going out of limits!

Just minutes after
their fourth engine stopped

working, the China Airlines
flight suddenly stalls

and begins falling from the sky.

People just popped up
like popcorn, hitting the cabin.

And all the tray was flying,
hot teapot, noodles...

And all the luggage from the
compartments was hitting people.

You could hear
rivets popping.

It sounded like bullets
were hitting

the outside of the aircraft.

Which, you know, we're
out in the middle of the ocean.

Nobody's shooting at us.

At that time,
we didn't know

if we were gonna live or die.

China Airlines
flight 006 is out of control,

and hurtling towards the ocean.

A China Airlines jet
is tumbling out of the sky.

After losing power
to one engine,

the jet is spinning
out of control.

It's dropping fast, straight
towards the Pacific Ocean.

You can see
the stewardesses, all these

people who didn't have their
seatbelts on, they were flying.

Dynasty 006, Oakland
Center, how do you hear me?

The crew are stunned -

blind-sided by their jet's
bizarre behavior.

Engines one,
two and three have lost thrust!

No response captain!

Dynasty 006, Oakland
Center, how do you hear me?

Air speed 2-seventy...
2-eighty... 2-ninety!

Dynasty 006, Oakland
Center, how do you hear me?

Struggling
against the plane's wild motion,

the flight engineer tries again
to restart his fourth engine.

Ignition negative!

The G-forces are
so powerful

that the flight engineer is
pinned to the control pedestal.

Dynasty 006,
Oakland Center, do you copy?

You need to see this.

In Oakland,
Air Traffic control spots

the plane's sudden descent.

In a matter of seconds,

the plane falls almost
three thousand metres.

Altitude, 3-7-0...
3-6-0... 3-5-0!

In the cabin,
the G-forces are punishing.

I closed my eyes.
I thought I was gone.

I thought the plane just
blew up in the mid-air.

The plane is about to
exceed its maximum speed.

Approaching VMO!

Tumbling
madly through the clouds,

the 747 finally starts to pull
out of its nosedive.

As the plane rights itself,
the G-forces change direction.

The passengers are pressed
to the floor,

feeling five
times their normal weight.

I remember looking
over at this dignified older

Chinese gentleman who was
sitting across the aisle

from me and his face was
being contorted like this,

like he was lying on his side
in a wax museum in a fire.

I mean his face was just
all contorted.

As the crew
struggles to regain

control of the plane,
it begins to slow down.

Airspeed 1-eighty knots
and falling.

Dynasty 006, Oakland
Center, how do you read me?

Airspeed 1-forty knots
and falling.

The jet is still
dropping - but not as fast.

This could be the crew's
chance to regain control.

I knew
we were in real trouble,

because the G-forces instead
of being horizontal started

moving around to the vertical.

So we were being
pushed down into our seats

instead of sideways.

As their speed
continues to fall,

the Flight Engineer
reaches desperately

for the engine throttles.

Airspeed eighty knots
and falling!

But the engines
don't respond.

There's no response.
The engines have flamed out.

After tumbling three
thousand metres in 30 seconds,

the jumbo jet plunges again
into another freefall.

The second time, when it
went down, this time it plunged.

I mean, it went down.

The change is swift.

Once again,
the passengers feel pulled

towards the nose of the plane.

You know, this airplane
is totally out of control.

It is going to crash.

Stuff was falling around
and flying around.

Shoved to one side then
stuffed to one side.

So it was kind of like being
on a boat that the gear has

broken loose and it's just

going back and forth with
the waves. Ugly!

My stomach
was up to my throat.

The smell of people
urinating in their pants.

I really made
peace with the Lord.

And I said to myself, I've
really had a wonderful life.

And if this is the end,
I'm ready to do it.

Altitude, 2-5-0!
Airspeed 2-ninety!

As the plane
spins toward the ocean,

the airspeed increases rapidly.

Dynasty 006,
Oakland Center, do you hear me?

With the crew
struggling to control the plane,

six separate calls from air
traffic control go unanswered.

The stress of the dive

tears the landing gear
doors off the plane.

In less than a minute,
the plane drops six kilometers.

Hold on!
Let's link arms.

He said,
'I love you man.'

And I told him,
'I love you man.'

And we said goodbye to our wife.

And he said something
about his belonging,

he give all
his belonging to his wife.

And, and that's when we just

start pushing our chair
back together.

Altitude,
15-thousand feet.

With no visible
horizon line,

Captain Ho doesn't know
which way is up.

We passed VMO.

Without a reference,

he can't stop
the plane from spinning.

Emergency... emergency!

After blindly
plunging thousands of metres,

the plane finally breaks
free from cloud.

When this thing
was falling down,

it looked like you had a
magnifying glass

and you went like that.

And, all of a sudden,
the white water break

coming closer and closer
and faster and faster.

It's like incredible.
We thought we were gonna die.

Altitude,
12-thousand feet.

As he struggles
for control,

Captain Ho has only
thirty seconds

before his crippled
plane smashes into the ocean.

I can see the horizon!

Altitude,
10-thousand feet!

For the first time

since beginning his harrowing
descent, the Captain can

now use the horizon line as a
reference in leveling the plane.

As he tries to pull the plane
out of its dive,

the passengers pay the price.

Their bodies are forced
into their seats,

battered by another dramatic
change in direction.

The G-force
was so strong.

And I weigh 2-hundred pounds,

so my weight was almost
twelve hundred pound.

It's a race
against time,

and the plane starts to win.

ADI is coming back!

As the plane
finally begins to level,

the attitude indicators
return to normal.

ADI is coming in.

More importantly,
as mysteriously as the incident

began, three of the plane's
engines regain power.

Engines one,
two and three are coming back.

Engine four is still negative.
Re-ignite engine four.

Yes, captain.

Once again,
the flight engineer

tries to re-ignite the
fourth engine - but this time...

Engine four re-ignited.

For the first
time in minutes,

the plane is
flying under control.

They saved the airplane.

They pulled the aircraft
out of this acrobatic

maneuver at an altitude
of 9500 feet.

They popped out of the clouds
at 11000 feet

and they had the plane
in stable level flight

by nine thousand five hundred
feet.

That was a masterpiece
of flying.

Ladies and gentlemen,
this is your captain speaking.

Is anyone hurt?
Do we have a doctor on board?

This gentleman
sitting behind me...

he was all splattered in blood
from hitting the compartment.

So we kept flying.

And next thing I knew that
the whole plane

was quiet, real quiet.

Nobody talked very much.

If they talked
they were whispering

because we still do know
if we're going to live or die.

Dynasty 006 fell
off my screen, but she's back.

A new controller,
Brian Campbell,

has taken over control
of Dynasty 006.

Dynasty OO6, Oakland
Center, do you hear me?

Can you fly the plane?
006, we are flamed out.

We, ah... emergency. We are
niner thousand, niner thousand.

Roger, roger.
We have radar contact.

Oakland Center. Dynasty 006.
We can control the aircraft.

Roger, roger.

Less than ten
minutes after

the start of their problems,
everything seems normal again.

Oakland Center request radar
vectors to return to course.

There really is nothing
I can do to assist.

He's the pilot,
he's flying the airplane.

I'm going to give him
a safe altitude to descend to.

I'm giving him a destination.

It appeared to me that he was
well in control of his aircraft.

Dynasty 006,
Oakland Center.

Are you declaring an emergency?

Do you want to divert
to San Francisco?

Negative Oakland Center.
Condition normal now.

We will continue to Los Angeles.

Air Traffic Control
clears the plane

to climb
to 10-thousand 5-hundred metres.

But a new problem soon arises.
Roger Oakland Center.

Captain, our landing
gear is down and locked.

Can you bring them up?
Negative.

The hydraulic fluid in system
one is empty.

For some reason, the
plane's landing gear is down.

Hydraulic fluid,
which controls the gear

and many other parts of the
plane, is also leaking away.

Oakland Center, Dynasty 006.

Request new clearance
to maintain flight level 2-7-0.

Dynasty 006, Oakland
Center. Do you have injuries?

Standby Oakland Center.
Sir, are you okay?

One passenger has
suffered serious injuries,

and two-dozen others
have cuts and bruises.

Oakland Center, Dynasty 006.

We have at least two
injuries on board.

Dynasty 006,
Oakland Center.

Are you declaring an emergency?

Do you want to divert
to San Francisco?

Standby, Oakland Center.

Oakland Center,
Dynasty 006.

We are declaring an emergency.

We request a direct
route to San Francisco.

They cleared all the
other airplanes out of the way.

They give him clear runway.
So nobody was waiting.

He didn't have to wait
for anybody else.

He went straight
in for a landing.

Dynasty 006, Oakland
Center. You are now cleared.

You are free to descend
at pilots' discretion.

Captain Ho not only
has injuries on board,

the plane itself has been
severely damaged.

His rear elevators,
which help control

the altitude of the plane,
don't seem to be working.

Without them,
landing his jet safely

will be extremely difficult.

The problem is
it's a very big airplane,

and it responds very slowly.

And you just might not do it
before you run out of air.

You might hit the ocean. What
you need is a very cool head.

Captain Ho must
now land using varying

amounts of engine thrust.

After pulling the plane
out of its terrifying dive,

if he makes one mistake, Flight
006 could still end in disaster.

Nearing the end
of a trip across the Pacific

ocean, China Airlines flight 006
falls suddenly from the sky.

No response...
The engines have flamed out!

Emergency! Emergency!

After
a terrifying plunge,

the crew manages to wrestle
the plane level again.

But the jet is badly crippled.
The elevators aren't working.

Without them,
Captain Ho has to land

mostly by reducing power
to his engines.

It's a controlled
fall towards the runway.

As we came in, we flew
over the house in Atherton

where I had lived with my kids
and been born.

And I looked down
and said boy this if fitting.

If we don't make it down or
if this plane explodes

on landing because it's been
so badly torqued and ruptured.

You know,
at least I got to see that.

He made one of the best
landings I've ever seen.

I mean, it was just
a perfect touchdown.

Ladies and gentlemen,
this is Captain Ho speaking,

wishing you a safe journey.

I hope you enjoyed our, uh,
an eventful flight.

Thank you for flying
China Airlines.

I thought he was a hero.
He saved our lives.

I mean, how can, we fell, very,

we didn't know how far
we fell at that time.

We thought he was a hero
and everything was fine.

On the ground,

the full extent of the damage
to the plane can be seen.

I saw this enormous
piece of extremely complicated

machinery that is much
larger than most buildings,

sitting there on the tarmac
with bits ripped off it.

Parts of the entire tail
plane at the end,

were ripped off as if a tornado
had come through or a crane

had been in and ripped
pieces out of it.

It was a very
sobering experience.

It's clear why
the crew

had such a hard time
landing the plane.

Enormous chunks of the tail
are missing -

either torn off
by the stress of the dive,

or crushed when the landing
gear doors broke loose.

If the damage had been
much more severe,

the crew wouldn't have been able
to regain control of their jet.

Two dozen passengers
have minor injuries.

Only one requires
hospitalization -

but is soon released.

A near disaster was avoided -

but what had gone
wrong in the first place?

The National Transportation
Safety Board arrive

that very day - and launch
their investigation.

The cockpit voice recorder is
sent to Washington.

But it's designed to tape over
itself every thirty minutes.

None of what
happened in the cockpit

during the terrifying
plunge from the sky remains.

Without a cockpit
voice recorder, we had to

reconstruct what the crew, uh,
said and how they interpreted

things and what was going
on in the cockpit, to the best

of our abilities, with the other
data that was available to us.

A record
of the plane's instrument

activity during the flight
has been captured

by the flight data recorder.

But, again,
the team runs into a problem.

The flight data recorder
experienced unprecedented

stress during the dive.

There were electrical
interruptions too -

which cause gaps
in the recording.

The FDR information will
have to be recovered using

painstaking techniques
of reconstruction.

It's a frustrating
start to the investigation.

Investigators begin with
what they do have.

Passengers and crew report that
just before the failure

of the jet's fourth engine,

the plane flew
through unexpected turbulence.

Had this caused
the engine to fail?

Satellite weather maps reveal
that there was indeed heavy

air turbulence over the Pacific.

But it wasn't severe
enough to cause engine failure.

The jet's four
engines are tested and studied.

Even after the horrific
dive through the sky,

they're found to be
in working order.

However, given the previous
history of problems

with engine four, it
receives particular scrutiny.

They had an anomaly
with one of the engines.

They believed that the
engine had flamed out

or that there was something
seriously wrong with the engine.

The wear on a small

throttle valve trimmer
is measured.

It's worn down by only 4
one-thousandths of an inch.

But that's enough to restrict
the fuel flow to engine four.

Engine four is
giving us weak thrust.

Investigators
determine

that at 12-thousand meters
engine four did indeed

deliver weaker
than normal thrust.

It's known as a hung engine.

The aircraft logbook reveals
that engine four had been

written up on two previous
occasions just the week before.

Perhaps the engine wasn't
properly fixed--

which led to the China Airlines
mishap.

The NTSB decide to dig
deeper into the history

of maintenance on engine 4.

We had a SNAG Advisory
on engine four

before we took off -
maybe that's it.

But after
weeks of investigation, the NTSB

concludes that the engine
didn't need to be replaced.

All the repairs were done
according to the book.

A faulty engine was not
the cause of the accident.

And even with the loss of one
engine the plane shouldn't

have been in immediate danger.

Engine four flamed out.

A 747 is designed
to fly on only three engines.

The loss of thrust
on a four-engine airplane

is a minor event.

It's an event,
you have to take care of it

but the airplane is easily
re-trimmed and the airplane

will fly on three engines with,
with no difficulty.

We're banking right,
captain. Air speed 2-thirty.

The airplane is
perfectly capable of flying,

it's not as efficient
because it has this big round,

drag producing device out there
not producing any thrust

but given that it's not
going to get quite so many

miles per gallon otherwise
it's perfectly flyable.

Take a look at engine
out procedures.

Work out a three-engine
cruise altitude.

Yes, captain.

There are standard
procedures to follow

in the case of an engine
failure.

But the crew of the
China Airlines flight

hadn't followed them.

They tried to re-ignite
the engine

immediately instead
of descending.

Re-ignite engine four.
Yes captain.

They attempted
to re-start much too high.

You are supposed to attempt
to re-start an engine

only below 30-thousand feet.

They were at 41-thousand.

What is
a little curious to me

is why they didn't use
the normal relight procedure.

They were starting
to try to relight

the engine at altitude and that
would likely not relight.

No response, Captain.

It's a mistake.

But it shouldn't have
led to the plane spiraling

out of control...
So how had a manageable problem

turned into a near disaster?

I've lost ADI.

The ADIs
have malfunctioned.

It's going out of limits.

To get more
information on what was

happening in the cockpit,

investigators interview
the flight crew.

I heard the captain
report the ADI was lost.

And then I saw the standby ADI
was also going out of limits.

The crew tell
investigators that their ADIs -

which measure how level
the plane is - weren't working.

They could have said,
this can't possibly be right.

And looking at their indicators,
can't possibly be right.

And therefore
they must have failed.

The attitude indicator
had indicated a position

so implausible that
it looked like

it had to be
a failed instrument.

This couldn't be what
the plane was really doing.

But, in fact,
when the ADI's are studied

by the NTSB-- they're all
found to be perfectly normal.

When we started banking
right engine four

was already flamed out.

We started to descend faster and
engines 1,2 and 3 also failed.

Engines one,
two and three have lost thrust.

NTSB investigators
are even more confused

when the crew tells them that
all of their engines had failed.

With the exception of engine 4,

the flight data recorder
indicates that the other

three engines were working
the entire flight.

If the engines had all failed,

there would have been
a host of other problems--

such as cabin de-pressurization-- but that didn't happen.

Engines one,
two and three are coming back.

Finally when we descended
lower in altitude, one, two and

three came back and we were able
to re-ignite engine number four.

Engine four, re-ignited.

At the end
of the dive, the crew had

the plane under full power - it
was a remarkable recovery.

But to investigators,
it's a puzzle.

The story the crew is
telling doesn't

match up with the evidence
they've uncovered.

After months of investigation,

the NTSB team slowly
piece together a reenactment

of the plane's near catastrophe
over the Pacific.

It includes information from the
reconstructed flight recorder,

personal interviews, and the air
traffic control transcript.

When the work is complete,
there's only one conclusion.

Apart from a problem
with a small valve, there was

nothing wrong with the 747
before it plunged from the sky.

In fact, it was the crew that
made a series of fateful

decisions that almost
crashed the plane.

Just after ten o'clock
Pacific time,

engine four starts
to lose thrust.

Engine four is giving us
weak thrust.

The flight engineer
struggles to fix the problem.

But investigators
discover that he doesn't take

one of the most basic steps
he should have.

He leaves the engine's
bleed air valve on.

The bleed air valve takes air
generated by the engine

to help cool the plane.

When an engine isn't
working properly,

the valve is supposed
to be closed,

so the engine can use all
available air to restart.

It's a little puzzling
that the flight engineer

didn't shut off bleed air.

And in my mind the most likely

reason for it is that he didn't
expect to be

told to re-start the engine
at forty one thousand feet.

And so when the captain
instructed him to try some

re-starts he just wasn't
ready with his checklists.

He was doing something
out of order.

And that's why it
didn't occur to him

to shut down the bleed air.

The end result
is that the engine,

which is slow to start,
won't start at all.

Unwittingly
the flight engineer

has started a ticking clock.

Engine four is slowly
losing its ability to stay lit.

We're losing speed.

With more
engine power on the left wing

than the right, the China
Airlines flight begins turning.

In order to keep it
from turning to the right,

the proper thing to do would
have been to step on the rudder.

That would have produce
a twisting force so to speak

that would have overcome
the imbalance of the engines.

But instead
of adjusting the rudder himself,

Captain Ho continues to let
the autopilot fly the jet.

The autopilot is designed
not to move the rudder.

The autopilot can
adjust the ailerons

and spoilers on
the plane's wings.

But these flaps aren't
strong enough to overcome

the imbalance that the
plane is experiencing.

Without the help of the rudder,

the plane's turn becomes steeper
and steeper.

Now, it's possible
that he'd forgotten

that the autopilot
didn't use the rudder.

He may have been assuming
all along that the autopilot

was just flying the airplane the
way a human being would have,

which it wasn't.

Engine four flamed out.

Investigators
discover that after losing

power to his fourth engine,

Captain Ho continues to leave
the autopilot on.

He doesn't take complete
control of the plane.

He doesn't adjust the plane's
rudder with his left foot.

Airspeed 2-forty.

He didn't use the rudder
to compensate

for the lack of thrust
on the right outboard engine.

The airplane
started to lose speed

and one thing led to another
and, in the end,

it was really that
little error of airmanship,

the failure to
step on that left rudder pedal

that triggered everything else.

Re-ignite engine four.
Yes, captain.

Rather than taking
control of flying the plane,

Captain Ho's attention seems
to be focused

on his engine problem--

something that
his flight engineer

could handle on his own.

No response, Captain.

It's really critical
that attention be paid

to flying the airplane.

But, it's happened over and over
again in aviation that, uh,

the crew gets focused
on a problem with a system,

in this case an engine but it
could have been a light bulb,

it could have been any uh other
malfunction.

And if everybody's focused on
that and nobody is flying,

then they're not prepared for

what's happening
to the airplane.

The plane enters
a critical moment.

It's about to flip on its side
and enter a nosedive.

The NTSB believes that the
captain was concentrating

on his airspeed indicator,
but seemingly fails to notice

the instrument directly beside
it, his attitude indicator.

This instrument would
have warned him

that his plane was starting
to roll alarmingly to the right.

They concentrated on one
part of the phenomenon

and lost the full picture.

And, as they lost
the full picture,

they lost apparently a very
important part of any

instrument flying,
which is the scan.

You look at all the primary
instruments one after

another and whatever is going on
you look at them all constantly.

During
the plane's nosedive,

it flies through thick cloud.

With no visual
horizon as a reference,

the flight crew must trust their
instruments to level the plane.

I've lost ADI!

Instead,
what investigators believe

happened is that the crew
became spatially disoriented.

They decided that
their instruments were failing.

They simply didn't
believe what they were seeing,

and they thought they had
lost their attitude instruments.

They hadn't lost their attitude
instruments.

The airplane was in fact
embarking on

an aerobatic maneuver.

The most probable reason
for all three crew members

believing something
so unlikely as that all attitude

indicators could malfunction
in the same way at the same

time is that the way in which
they malfunctioned was

so unexpected and strange that
it didn't seem to correspond

to any possible thing that the
airplane could be doing.

The airplane had in fact
rolled over on to its back

and gone into a vertical dive.

And that's something that
Boeing 747's don't typically do.

As the plane begins
tumbling toward the ocean,

another critical
lapse in judgment occurs.

The standby ADI was also
going out of limits.

I tried to restart...

During interviews,
the flight engineer told

the NTSB that all three of the
plane's working engines failed.

We started to descend
faster.

And engines one,
two and three also failed.

But the flight data
recorder shows that,

in fact,
they were still working.

In the heat of the crisis,

the engineer had made
an enormous mistake.

Engines one,
two and three have lost thrust!

The investigation
reveals that, as the plane fell,

the thrust in each engine was
indeed reduced dramatically.

But the cause wasn't
engine trouble.

The engine throttles had
been lowered to idle -

in an attempt to slow the
furious fall of the jet.

It was something the engineer
missed in the chaos of the dive.

You can understand why
the Flight Engineer might

have been confused about this
situation if he had not

seen the captain pull the power
to idle on the engines.

He would reasonably
assume that the fact that they

went to idle was a problem,
rather than intentional.

Investigators also
believe that they know why

the engines didn't give
the crew more power

when the engineer
tried to throttle them up.

The cold temperatures
at 9-thousand meters would

stop them
from responding quickly.

No response, Captain!

But in the heat
of the moment,

the engineer could have
taken their slow

response as another
indication that they failed.

The NTSB discovers that indeed
gauges in the generator

panel behind the engineer
showed that

the three engines were
still firing.

Ignition, negative!

But the gravitational
force became so powerful--

the engineer couldn't look back.

After months of painstaking
recreation,

the NTSB investigators believe
they understand what happened

inside the cockpit of China
Airlines flight 006.

But what they don't
understand is why.

The crew's medical
records are examined.

Was there something wrong
with the captain that might

explain the bizarre behavior?

Nothing turns up.

You know it wasn't just
the three stooges who,

you know, won a trip on a seven
forty seven or something.

It was a trained crew, highly
experienced, thousands of hours.

How could
an experienced crew make

so many fundamental mistakes?

The investigators find
the answers

in the hours
before the incident.

What they uncover is
a potential danger

that affects
pilots around the world.

In 1985 a series
of small pilot errors

lead to a terrifying
plunge from the sky.

Spinning wildly out of control,
a China Airlines flight

tumbled ten kilometers
towards the Pacific ocean.

By the time the crew
regained control,

the plane was badly damaged.

Amazingly,
everyone on board survived.

Investigators have uncovered a
series of mistakes which nearly

led to the death of everyone on
board China Airlines Flight 006.

But how could an experienced,
well-trained

and healthy crew make
so many mistakes?

The NTSB team decides to examine
all of the factors affecting

human behavior, including
a new field of research.

For the first time
as far as I know in a report,

the circadian rhythms,
the bio-rhythms,

the day and night functioning
of the body was seriously

taken into account as a possible
explanation of why

an extremely experienced
Boeing 747 captain didn't notice

things that to other pilots
might have seemed obvious.

Such as the fact that his
airplane was busy flipping on

its back when he was attempting
to deal with an engine problem.

Although Captain Ho
had the required

fifteen hours off-duty
before flying that day,

the NTSB investigators
take a closer look

at the captain's schedule before
the night of the flight.

I do not think
I was fatigued.

I can't say I slept
well during the flight.

This accident occurred at
what would be 2 am local time.

And that's pretty significant.

Most people are asleep
at two am.

So this incident occurred
at a point in his what is were

called circadian rhythms,
his body clock,

where he would
be at his deepest sleep.

I remember also
he had gone back,

there is a crew rest
area on 747's

and he said he rested for five
hours and slept for two.

But the other thing
I remember from his interview is

he said, uh, 'You never really
sleep well on the airplane.'

A captain never sleeps
well during a flight.

I worked many
years for this airline.

But I never had this
problem before.

It seemed like a very
true statement.

It's hard to get a really
solid sleep on the airplane.

Particularly if you are the
person in command, as he was.

So putting it all together,
we saw that this was

an experienced crew,
a qualified crew.

And they were flying a schedule
that would make them susceptible

to some of the negative or
adverse affects of fatigue.

During six flights
in the previous six days,

Captain Ho had covered
a total of 18 time zones.

I thought I'd keep
you company.

The NTSB research
suggests that

de-synchronosis, or jet lag,
may have been a cause.

And I think all of these
factors certainly would

have contributed
to his performing at less

than his full
potential at the time.

Investigators
also take a closer

look at the very machinery
that is supposed to make

long-distance flying easier.

Take a look at engine
out procedures.

Work at three-engine
cruise altitude.

Yes, captain.

We have people
in the front of airplanes

because we believe that,

in circumstances that nobody has
foreseen, the human being

in front of the airplane can
react creatively,

can solve a problem that nobody
has thought about before,

in real time.

And automation can't solve
problems that no-one has

thought of before in real time,
in quite the same way.

The NTSB
concludes that,

possibly fatigued from
air travel,

and bored by the monotony
of his tasks...

We're banking right, captain.

I'm disengaging auto-pilot.

...the Captain relied
on his auto-pilot for too long.

When he should have taken
direct control, he hesitated,

trusting his systems.

That is
obviously a failure.

The crew didn't behave as
they should have behaved.

Pilot error.

As a result of the
China Airlines near mishap,

and other incidents around the
same time,

aircraft manufacturers
began to rethink

the design of their
automated systems.

The idea
of the automation

is that it is going to help
the human do the human's job.

It's going help the human take
the airplane from the gate

to the gate at the other end.

And it's
going to help along the way.

Boeing makes use of this
particular incident to say

we still want the crew to have
full authority

so that they can move
the controls as far

as it is physically
possible to move them.

And to manage the airplane even
if it may bend the airplane.

Because it is better to do
than rather than to restrict

the pilot's authority
then have him guess

whether or not he's in charge or
the computer's in charge.

Whatever mistakes
the flight crew made that day

they did succeed
in their ultimate task.

They flew
the airplane well.

They did an excellent
job of the approach afterward.

They were careful
with the airplane,

they knew the airplane
had been damaged.

They didn't know
the severity of it.

They were gentle with the
maneuvering and yet tested

enough to make sure
they wouldn't get themselves

into further trouble as they
made the approach to landing.

The one big thing
they did right, and one only

ever needs to do one big thing,
is they saved the airplane.

And, in principle, that's all
you ever need to do right,

when something
happens to your airplane.

You need to save the airplane

and you need to
save the passengers

and that's what they did.

How can you forget
something like that.

That I survived through that.

So it's hard for me to forget
that I was lucky

and it wasn't my time yet.

The pilot saved our lives.

He got us into it,
but he got us out of it.

And perhaps there was
one other hero that day.

The Boeing 747 itself.

It was put through maneuvers

and stresses that
far-outweighed its known limits.

And yet, despite it all,

the aircraft survived
and landed safely.