All language subtitles for Air.Disasters.S07E06.Panic.Over.the.Pacific.1080p.PMTP.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-maldini_track3_[eng]

A 747 plummets
towards the Pacific Ocean.

People just popped
up like popcorn.

Engines 1, 2, and
3 have all crashed.

This airplane is
totally out of control.

It is going to crash.

In two minutes, China
Airlines flight 006 dropped

six miles to the clouds.

Airspeed 270, 280, 290.

The plane begins
to tear itself apart

as it spirals toward the sea.

And I close my eye.

I thought I was gone.

Altitude, 15,000 feet,
12,000 feet, 10,000 feet.

Emergency. Emergency.

Ladies and gentlemen,
we are starting our approach.

We lost both engines.

Mayday. Mayday.

Brace for impact!

It's going to crash!

February 19, 1985.

a China Airlines flight cruises

across the Pacific
to Los Angeles.

At 39,000 feet,
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 Min-Yuan
Ho is restless.

Oh. 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 Noel

have something to celebrate.

I feel like I'm
in first class.

It's
Seksan's 30th birthday.

Thank you.

I had the longest
birthday because I

just gained my 12 hours back.

And we've been drinking
champagne, celebrating

41,000 feet in the air.

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 your breakfast.

For those of you who wish
to adjust your watches,

the local time in Los
Angeles is now 7:00 AM.

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 seatbelts.

The autopilot
is set to keep the plane

flying at 290 miles 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 4 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 noticed the light in that
wing isn't flashing anymore.

So what?

In the cockpit,
the strange situation

suddenly gets much worse.

Engine 4 flamed out.

The fourth engine
stops working completely.

Take a look at
engine out procedures.

Work out a three
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 advisor on
engine 4 before we took off.

-Yes, sir.
-Maybe that's it.

Without
the fourth engine,

the plane continues
to slow down.

Airspeed, 240.

Call Oakland Center and
request a lower altitude.

Oakland Center.

Dynasty 006, requesting
new altitude.

Dynasty 006, stand by.

Reignite engine 4.

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 tries
to restart their engine,

their plane slowly begins
to roll to the right.

Dynasty 006,

you're cleared to flight 240.

We're banking right, captain.
Airspeed, 230.

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?

Airspeed, 220.
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 clouds,

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 stops

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 tea, pots, noodles, and all
the luggage in the compartment

were 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
we're going to live or die.

China
Airlines flight 006

is out of control and
hurtling towards the ocean.

You can see the stewardesses,

all these people who didn't
have their belt on,

they were flying.

Dynasty 006. Oakland Center.
How do you hear me?

The crew is stunned,
blindsided by their jet's

bizarre behavior.

Engines 1, 2, and
3 have lost power!

No response, captain.

Dynasty 006. Oakland Center.
How do you hear me?

Airspeed 270, 280.

290.

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 10,000 feet.

Altitude 370, 360, 350.

In the cabin,
the G-Forces are punishing.

And I close 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 BMO.

Tumbling madly
through the clouds,

the 747 finally starts to
pull out of its nosedive.

As the plane writes itself,
the G-Forces changed 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 is 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.

Air speed 180
knots and falling.

As their
speed continues to fall,

the flight engineer
reaches desperately

for the engine throttles.

Air speed 18
knots and falling.

But the
engines don't respond.

No response.

The engines are flamed out.

After tumbling
10,000 feet in 30 seconds,

the jumbo jet plunges again
into another freefall.

And the second time
when it went down,

this time it's plunge.

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.

Altitude 250.

Airspeed 290.

As the plane
spins toward the ocean,

the airspeed increases rapidly.

Dynasty 006.

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 3.5 miles.

Hold on!

Let's link arms.

He said, I love you, man.

I told him, I love you, man.

And we said goodbye
to our wife.

And he said something
about his belongings.

He gave all his
belongings to his wife.

And that's when we
just start pushing

our chair back together.

Altitude 15,000 feet.

With no
visible horizon line,

Captain Ho doesn't
know which way is up.

With SPNO--

Without a
reference,

he can't stop the plane
from spinning.

Emergency. Emergency.

After blindly
plunging thousands of feet,

the plane finally breaks
free from the clouds.

And when this thing
was falling down,

it looked like you
have a magnifying glass

and you went like that.

And all of a sudden,
the white water

break becoming closer and
closer, faster and faster.

It's, like incredible, and we
thought we were going to die.

Altitude 1,200 feet.

As he
struggles for control,

Captain Ho has only 30 seconds
before his crippled plane

smashes into the ocean.

I can see the horizon.

Altitude 10,000 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,

passengers pay the price.

Their bodies are forced
into their seats,

battered by another dramatic
change in direction.

You know,
the G-Force was so strong.

And I weigh at 200 pounds.

So my weight was
almost 1,200 pounds.

It's a
race against time,

and the plane starts to win.

ADI's coming back.

As the plane
finally begins to level,

the altitude 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 1, 2, and
3 are coming back.

Engine 4, still negative.

-Reignite engine 4.
-Yes, Captain.

Once again,
the flight engineer tries

to reignite the fourth engine.

- But this time...
- Engine 4, reigniting.

For the
first time in minutes,

the plane is flying
under control.

They saved the airplane.

They pulled the airplane out
of this acrobatic maneuver

at an altitude of 9,500 feet.

They popped out of the
clouds at 11,000 feet,

and they had the airplane
in stable level flight

by 9,500 feet.

That was a
masterpiece of flying.

Ladies and gentlemen, this
is the captain speaking.

Is anyone hurt?

Do we have a doctor on board?

There's a gentleman

sitting behind me all
splatter with 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,

and the talk were whispering,
because we don't know--

we still don't know
we're going to live or die.

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

A new controller,
Brian Campbell,

has taken over control
of flight 006.

Dynasty 006. Oakland Center.
Do you hear me?

Can you fly the plane?

006, we are flameout.
We are... emergency.

We are 9-er thousand.

Roger. Roger.

We have radar contact.

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

Roger. Roger.

Less than 10
minutes after the start

of their problems, everything
seems normal again.

Request radar vector
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 35,000 feet.

You are now cleared
to climb to 350.

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 270.

Dynasty 006. Oakland Center.
Do you have injuries?

Stand by, Oakland Center.

Sir, are you OK?

My head.

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?

Stand by, Oakland Center.

Oakland Center. Dynasty 006.
We're declaring an emergency.

We request a direct
route to San Francisco.

Well, they cleared all
the other airplanes out

of the way, they gave them
clear runway so nobody

was waiting, nobody-- 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 pilot's 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, 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.

It's a controlled fall
towards the runway.

As we came in, we flew

over the house in Atherton
where I had lived,

where my kids had been born.

And I looked down, and
said, boy, this is 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
perfect touchdown.

Yes!

Ladies and gentlemen,
this is Captain Ho speaking.

Wishing you a safe journey.

I hope you enjoyed
our uneventful flight.

Thank you for flying
China Airlines.

We hope you fly with us again.

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
airplane, at the end,

were ripped off as though
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 arrives that very day and
launches their investigation.

The cockpit voice recorder
is sent to Washington,

but it's designed to tape
over itself every 30 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 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

caused gaps in the recording.

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
4/1000 of an inch,

but that's enough to restrict
the fuel flow to the engine 4.

Engine 4 is giving
us weak thrust.

Investigators
determined

that at 39,000 feet,
engine 4 did indeed deliver

weaker than normal thrust.

It's known as a hung engine.

The aircraft logbook
reveals that engine 4

had been written up on
two previous occasions

just the week before.

The NTSB decides to dig
deeper into the history

of maintenance on engine 4.

We had a snag advisor on
engine 4 before we took off.

Yes, sir.

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 4 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 no difficulty.

We're banking right, captain.

Airspeed 230.

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 reignite
the engine immediately

instead of descending.

Reignite engine 4.

Yes, captain.

They attempted to
restart much too high.

You are supposed to
attempt to restart

an engine only below 30,000
feet, they were at 41,000.

But it's 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
tells 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
ADIs are studied by the NTSB,

they're all found to
be perfectly normal.

When we started
banking right,

engine 4 was
already flamed out.

We started to descend
faster, and engines

1, 2, and 3 also failed.

Engines 1, 2, and
3 have lost power.

NTSB investigators
are even more confused

when the crew tells them
that all of their engines

had failed.

No response, captain.

With the
exception of engine 4,

the flight data
recorder indicates

that the other
three engines were

working the entire flight.

Ignition, negative.

If the
engines had all failed,

there would have been a
host of other problems

such as cabin depressurization,
but that didn't happen.

Engines 1, 2, and
3 are coming back.

Finally, when we decided that
lower in altitude, 1, 2, and 3

came back, and we were able
to reignite engine number 4.

Engine 4, reignited.

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

pieces together a re-enactment
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 10:00 Pacific Time,
engine 4 on the China Air

flight starts to lose thrust.

Engine 4 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.

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 the most-- in my mind,
the most likely reason for it

is that he didn't expect
to be told to restart

the engine at 41,000 feet.

And so when the
captain instructed

him to try some restarts,
he just kind of wasn't

ready with his checklist.

He wasn't-- 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 4 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 produced 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

in 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 4 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 240.

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.

Reignite engine 4.

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 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 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 of the
primary instruments one

after the other.

And whatever is going on, you
look at them all constantly.

During the
plane's nosedive,

it flies through thick clouds.

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
altitude instruments,

the airplane was,
in fact, embarking

on an aerobatic maneuver.

As the plane begins
tumbling toward the ocean,

another critical lapse
in judgment occurs.

The stand by 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

1, 2, and 3 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 1, 2, and
3 has lost power.

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 a 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 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 29,000 feet

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

show 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 won a trip

on a 747 or something,
it was a trained

crew, highly experienced,
thousands of hours.

How could an
experienced crew make

so many fundamental mistakes?

The NTSB team decides to
examine all 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 his back when he
was attempting to deal

with an engine problem.

Although Captain
Ho had the required 15 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 about 2:00 AM,
local time,

and that's pretty significant.

Most people are
asleep around 2:00 AM.

So this incident
occurred at a point in his,

what it would call,
circadian rhythms,

his body clock where he would be
at his deepest sleep.

I remember also that
he had gone back into--

there was a crew rest area
on 747,

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

But another thing I
remember from his interview

was he said, you never really
sleep well on the airplane.

A captain never sleep
well during a flight.

I worked for many
years for this airline,

but I never have
this problem before.

During six flights
in the previous six days,

Captain Ho had covered a
total of 18 time zones.

Thought I'd keep you company.

The NTSB
research suggests

that desynchronosis or jet
lag may have been a cause.

And I think all
these factors certainly

would have contributed
to his being

performing at less than his
full potential at the time.

Engine 4 flamed out.

Investigators
also take a closer look

at the very machinery
that is supposed to make

long distance flying easier.

Take a look at the
engine out procedures.

Work out a three
engine cruise altitude.

Yes, captain.

We have people in the
front of airplanes because we

believe that in circumstances
which nobody has foreseen,

the human being in the
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 nobody has thought
about before in real time

in quite the same way.

The NTSB
concludes that possibly

fatigue from air
travel and bored

by the monotony of his tasks--

We're banking right, captain.

I'm disengaging autopilot.

--the captain relied
on his autopilot 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's going to help

the human do the human's job.

It's going to 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's

physically possible
to move them,

and to manage the airplane,
even if it may bend

the airplane, as it is better
to do that than to restrict

the pilot's authority
and then have him

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

is 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
with 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
that they wouldn't get

themselves in 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.

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.