Original subtitles

NARRATOR: On approach to Raleigh-Durham airport--

Did we just have a flameout?

NARRATOR: --the pilots decide to abort their landing.

When you have an engine failure,

you lose 80% of your performance.

Let's go missed approach.

NARRATOR: But the plan falls apart.

Lower the nose!

We were going down.

NARRATOR: Only five of the 20 people on board survive.

NTSB investigators are puzzled by the wreckage of flight 3379.

It appears the engines are rotating at full power.

So what went wrong?

NARRATOR: Only by taking a test flight

to the brink of disaster--

Yawing to the left.

NARRATOR: --will an astonishing sequence of events be revealed.

This airplane had to crash.

Mayday!

Mayday!

Pull up!

NARRATOR: American Eagle flight 3379 approaches Raleigh-Durham

International Airport.

OK.

Can you do the descent checklist, please?

NARRATOR: In the cockpit, Captain

Mike Hillis and first officer Matthew Sailor

prepare for landing.

Altimeter 3031, set, cross-checked.

3031.

Set.

Cross-checked.

These were young pilots just starting off in their career.

They were looking to go work at the major airlines,

where the pay and benefits were substantially better.

NARRATOR: The pilots are flying a Jetstream

3201, a twin turboprop airplane designed for short flights.

It's a workhorse for regional airlines like American Eagle.

DOUG TAUBER: Turboprop engines run more

efficiently at lower altitudes.

They're actually more fuel efficient.

So on these short haul routes, the Jetstream

pretty much fit that market.

NARRATOR: Flight 3379 took off at 6:00 PM

from Greensboro, North Carolina.

It's a 35-minute flight to Raleigh-Durham airport.

Well, folks, at this time, we're about 10.8 miles

from Raleigh-Durham International Airport,

about 5 minutes out.

We're about to begin our approach.

Weather tonight's not very good in Raleigh.

Two-mile visibility because of rain and fog, and the winds

are out of the North at 6 miles an hour.

NARRATOR: There are 18 passengers on board tonight.

Among them, college student Lauren Anderson.

I had been up the night before.

I had stayed up all night.

Pulled an all-nighter, wrote a paper,

and slid it under the door of my English professor that morning.

So I was pretty tired.

It had been a long week of finals.

I was ready to get home.

Eagle fight 3379, reduce to 170, then descend

and maintain 3,000.

NARRATOR: 10 miles from Raleigh-Durham, flight 3379

is cleared to begin its descent.

170 then 3,000.

3379.

NARRATOR: The flight crew reduces engine power.

In a turboprop plane, the engine power and the propeller speed

are controlled separately.

The Jetstream 32 had no autopilot,

so you were always hand flying.

It was one of the most demanding airplanes

on a pilot's flying skills.

NARRATOR: Descending to 3,000 feet,

the crew keeps a close eye on the weather.

When you get a chance, look out your window

and see if you see any of that ice.

Yeah, I was looking out there.

I don't see anything right now.

Icing can be a major threat to an aircraft.

It not only increases the weight of it,

but also spoils the aerodynamics over the wing.

NARRATOR: Icing isn't the only hazard facing the pilots.

Eagle flight 3379, caution wake turbulence.

Your spacing on a 727.

Turn left one niner zero.

NARRATOR: There's a 727 landing ahead of flight 3379,

which creates a potential hazard for the flight crew.

Heavy aircraft tend to generate very strong

horizontal tornadoes, called vortexes,

that come off the wingtips.

If the smaller aircraft has an encounter with wake turbulence,

it could be so powerful that it's beyond the control

of the pilot to counteract it.

NARRATOR: Left one niner zero, 3379.

NARRATOR: For safety, the pilots make a minor adjustment

to their course.

Eagle flight 3379, Raleigh, clear to land.

Wind 010 at 8.

Traffic, 3 and 1/2 mile final, a 727.

Cleared to land 5 left, 3379.

NARRATOR: Once the Boeing 727 touches down,

flight 3379 will be cleared to land.

We didn't anticipate any issues.

It was the same old, same old, I'd say.

I probably had taken that flight three times already that year.

And gear down.

Gear down.

NARRATOR: The pilots configure the pain for landing.

Flaps 20.

Flaps 20.

NARRATOR: Just minutes before touchdown--

Why is that ignition light on?

Did we just have a flame out?

NARRATOR: The engine ignition light illuminates.

DOUG TAUBER: Seeing the ignition light come on during approach

would typically raise a concern.

If combustion is interrupted for any reason,

it's what pilots call a flameout or an engine failure.

I'm not sure what's going on with it.

NARRATOR: If there is an engine failure,

the pilots need to reconsider landing.

The pilot would have to make the decision

whether to continue the approach, or abort the approach

and see what the problem is.

What you want me to do?

Are you going to continue?

OK, yeah.

I'm going to continue.

Just back me up.

NARRATOR: Captain Hillis decides to land.

All right.

Let's go missed approach.

NARRATOR: But then he reverses his decision.

DOUG TAUBER: A go-around or a missed approach

would have given the pilot more time to run

an engine failure checklist.

When you're on final, you really don't have

that much time to complete it.

Set max power.

NARRATOR: Now, at 1,500 feet, captain Hillis

aborts the landing.

When you have an engine failure,

you not only lost half your power, you

lose 80% of your performance.

NARRATOR: Flight 3379 isn't climbing,

and it's losing speed.

Lower the nose.

Lower the nose!

NARRATOR: At 1,400 feet, the plane is stalling.

You got it?

Yeah.

They're unable to climb.

They're starting to lose directional control

of the aircraft.

NARRATOR: Flight 3379 is turning steadily to the left,

veering further off course.

Lower the nose!

Things are getting bad real fast,

and they're running out of time.

Here!

NARRATOR: Plunging rapidly toward the ground,

the pilots fight to recover their plane.

There's no flight attendant on the plane.

There was a lot of commotion.

You could hear some kind of warning siren.

I was scared.

People were scared.

We knew we were crashing.

I knew we were going down.

I just braced myself, literally putting my hand

and my foot on the seat in front of me.

I had a moment that, OK, I need to survive.

I need to live through this.

When we crashed, I just remember hitting ground very, very fast,

very hard.

NARRATOR: Flight 3379 has just plowed through the dense woods

of North Carolina.

It's now a pile of burning wreckage.

The pain split literally in between my seat and the seat

in front of me.

I can remember taking my seat belt off, and hearing people

moaning, and people screaming.

I couldn't see anything.

I don't know if I lost my contacts,

or I just had fuel in my eyes.

I couldn't walk, but my adrenaline was pumping.

I was in fight-or-flight mode.

My intuition was up.

I had-- I had to survive.

And somehow I got away from the fire.

NARRATOR: Morrisville firefighter, David Farrell,

is one of the first responders on site.

And your heart's racing.

I mean-- you know, you're probably

fixing to encounter one of the worst things you've

ever been in in your life.

And you could see the fire.

Your heart was in your throat.

You know, your adrenaline's pumping, you're scared.

As I got closer to the scene, something called my eye.

And I looked down.

I saw a female pulling herself away from the fire,

and she couldn't move her legs.

He had asked my name.

And I told him I needed to find my suitcase,

and that I needed to get home.

I said, you-- you're going to make it.

You're not going to die on my watch.

You're through the worst of this,

and we're going to get you out of here.

NARRATOR: Lauren Anderson is one of only five survivors.

15 others are killed.

I did break bones in my hand, my clavicle.

Broke my ribs, punctured my lungs.

I had broken and dislocated my back.

Tibia, fibula break in my left leg, bones in my ankle.

NARRATOR: Captain Mike Hillis and first officer Matthew

Sailor are among the dead.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators

are on site by morning.

Anyone finding the data recorders?

Team is still looking.

Weather wasn't great last night.

Well, I'm going to need the pilot's record of icing

and the weather data.

In this particular accident, icing was very

paramount because 3379 was--

was a second accident for American Eagle.

Just a few weeks past we'd had another Jetstream

involved with icing conditions.

NARRATOR: Was icing the reason flight

3379 failed to make it to the airport just four miles away?

The landing gear's down.

Do we know how the flaps are set?

I'll check with that guy in the cockpit.

Strauch, here.

What can you tell us about the flap selector?

The cockpit section was particularly damaged.

A lot of controls a lot of the instruments

were unable to document.

MAN (OVER THE WALKIE-TALKIE): The flaps selector is

fused in a 20 degree position.

Copy that.

The flap extension was also very interesting,

because it was in the landing configuration.

Thanks very much.

The plane was iced up as they were landing.

I mean, that's trouble.

We had to start making major inquiries into the possibility

of an icing involvement.

These are pilot reports from five other planes

flying into Raleigh.

We do have pilots reporting light icing,

but just trace icing at high altitudes.

NARRATOR: Investigators learned that the other pilots flying

near Raleigh-Durham weren't reporting any

significant issues with icing.

The icing, although it was present in the area,

was absolutely no factor in the accident investigation.

They were all set to land.

So what went wrong?

I mean, they had engine trouble.

The investigators had a major challenge

trying to figure out if one of the engines

had malfunctioned in some way.

Hey, can you bring that blade over here, please?

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Now, is this blade from the left propeller?

Yes.

This is from the right propeller.

NARRATOR: The team examines the propellers for an indication

that they were rotating.

Yeah, it was bent.

And look at the damage where it hit.

NARRATOR: The way the blade is damaged provides a clue.

If you've got turning propellers on your airplane,

they tend to grab into things and bend forward as they hit

the debris of trees, and so on.

It appears the engines are rotating at full power.

So he's four miles from the airport.

He's configured to land.

What happened?

As we spent more time on site with the 3379 wreckage,

the questions just kept coming.

It made it very clear that this accident

was going to be a real puzzler.

Were the pilots reporting any problems during their approach?

Let me have a look.

NARRATOR: NTSB investigators hope the pilot's conversations

with air traffic controllers can shed some light

on why flight 3379 crashed before reaching

Raleigh-Durham airport.

They're the last people to talk to the crew,

and we want to know if there was anything

unusual in their conversations.

No, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

Eagle fight 3379, reduce to 170, then descend

and maintain 3,000.

NARRATOR: The controller tells investigators that flight

3379's approach seemed routine.

170 then 3,000.

3379.

Was there any conflicting traffic as they were coming in?

Well, yes.

There was a 727 landing right ahead of them.

I warned them about wake turbulence.

Eagle Flight 3379, caution wake turbulence.

You're spacing on a 727.

Turn left one niner zero.

The wake turbulence issue is particularly critical.

This would be a factor that we were

going to have to deal with.

Thank you very much.

Sure.

How fast does a wake vortex descend?

300 feet per minute.

NARRATOR: Investigators compare the flight path of flight 3379

with the estimated path of the wake vortex.

All right, let's see what we got.

NARRATOR: They use recorded radar returns

for both planes and factor in the weather

at the time of the accident.

Looks like flight 3379 missed it.

By more than 600 feet.

The jet stream did not fly through any of those vortexes.

Wake turbulence did not affect the flight

path of the accident aircraft.

NARRATOR: But the radar data reveals that something

happened along the flight path.

Why does he veers off course after missing

the weight vortices?

He's off to the left.

Why?

Why is this aircraft over here to the left

of the final approach path, configured to land?

PILOT (ON RECORDER): OK.

Can you do the descent checklist, please?

NARRATOR: The team turns to the cockpit voice recorder,

hoping they might find an explanation

for the unusual left turn.

We were going to really have to look

at what was going on on the flight deck

with the cockpit crew.

What were they saying?

What were their intentions?

CO-PILOT (ON RECORDER): Altimeter 3031, set,

cross-checked.

Pressurization, set and checked.

Ice protection is on.

NARRATOR: Investigators here the captain and first officer

planning the approach with precision.

PILOT (ON RECORDER): OK, reviewed.

So far so good.

NARRATOR: The flight crew seems to be working in perfect tandem

as flight 3379 approaches the airport.

Why is that ignition light on?

PILOT (ON RECORDER): Did we just have a flame out?

Did he just say flame out?

Play that again.

PILOT (ON RECORDER): Did we just have a flame out?

When the captain talks about the ignition light, that--

all this-- that came out of nowhere.

We had a flame out.

We lost the left one?

Yeah.

NARRATOR: They discover that the ignition light illuminated

moments before the crash.

This ignition light introduced the thought of a lost engine.

Considering the physical evidence that we'd seen,

this idea was very strange.

You would expect during that period

that there would be some sort of confirmation.

Nothing happened other than absolute quiet.

We needed to try and figure out what was going on.

These are the engine sound waves from when

the ignition light went on.

NARRATOR: Another way for investigators to determine

if the engines were operating is to analyze their sound

on the cockpit voice recording.

This study is attempting to home in on blade passing

frequencies, blade passing meaning all these revolutions

of the propeller.

Call up the comparison.

NARRATOR: They compare the engine sounds from flight 3379

to other engines operating at 100%.

We're looking at the acoustics of the engine performance,

and it's relatively easy to match

that against the acoustics of a working engine.

They're almost identical.

NARRATOR: Investigators hear evidence that both engines

were running at full speed.

The sound analysis told us the sounds generated by the engines

on this aircraft were consistent with two

engines generating power.

The ignition light must have misled

the pilots into believing the left engine flamed out.

But really it hadn't.

This sound analysis put the idea of an engine failure

to bed.

It just wasn't a factor in the accident.

NARRATOR: This discovery leaves investigators puzzled.

Why was that ignition light on if there was

nothing wrong with the engine?

Why's that ignition light on?

Did we just have a flame out?

NARRATOR: Investigators examined Jetstream manuals to determine

why an ignition light would come on even though the plane's

engines were fully operational.

So what activates it?

It's wired to a negative torque system.

NARRATOR: Negative torque occurs when the air loads

on the propellers cause them to drive

the engines instead of the engines driving the propellers.

It can be a sign of a flameout.

This is the same scenario you would have as when you put

your car in low gear going down a hill,

and use the transmission to drag.

It says the ignition light will

activate if they advance the propeller speed too quickly.

There was a situation when you would be at a low power setting

on your torque, and as you go speeds high in preparation

for landing, if you move those speed levers up too quickly,

that could trigger the negative torque

to cause that light to come on.

PILOT (ON RECORDER): Go ahead.

Flaps 10.

NARRATOR: Investigators returned to the CVR

to learn if the pilots mentioned increasing the propeller speed.

Let's go ahead and go speeds high.

NARRATOR: They hear captain Hillis advancing the propellers

to 100% for landing.

PILOT (ON RECORDER): Why's that ignition light on?

There it is.

He advanced the propeller speed, and boom,

the ignition light illuminates.

NARRATOR: The team discovers that the pilots

created negative torque.

Negative torque doesn't necessarily mean

there was an engine failure.

You would get a transient situation for a second or two.

That could trigger that light to come on.

We had a flame out.

He misdiagnoses the situation.

Well, surely he checks his engines RPMs?

CO-PILOT (ON RECORDER): What you want me to do?

Are you going to continue?

OK, yeah.

I'm going to continue.

Just back me up.

He's not even checking to see if there's

an actual engine failure.

Look at your instruments.

Determine whether or not the--

both engines are generating power.

It's not that hard.

They're trained for that.

If he had, he would have seen the engine power is where

he put it, 100% full power.

If you don't know if you have an engine failure,

but you're responding to a potential engine failure,

that's not very good, and that could

very easily cause an accident.

Let's go missed approach.

NARRATOR: So what actions did the pilots take

during the missed approach?

OK, so how did they configure their plane

for the missed approach?

They set engine power to max.

Set max power.

As they should.

What else?

There's no mention of reducing the flaps to 10

or retracting landing gear.

A go around would be done by informing the other pilot.

Then, apply max power, retract the gear, retract the flaps.

NARRATOR: But the pilot's failure to raise the gear

or retract the flaps doesn't explain the accident.

Hard to believe that configuration caused the pain

to veer to the left and crash.

Well, there's only one way to find out.

There was a necessity to conduct some flight tests,

because we really wanted to figure out what the crew had

introduced in the configuration that

would make the aircraft deviate from this intended flight path.

OK, let's go max power.

NARRATOR: Investigators turned to test pilots for help.

They'll take a Jetstream 3201 to its limits,

to try to solve the mystery.

Sometimes you have to put yourself

in an uncomfortable position, and you know what's going

to happen if you go too far.

Max power.

Flaps to 20.

NARRATOR: They start by duplicating

the configuration the pilots had set for the missed approach.

Flaps 20.

Gear down.

OK.

Gear down.

OK, it's a bit slower than a regular missed approach,

but it's still doable.

NARRATOR: So why did flight 3379 turn to the left and crash?

Let's do the same configuration,

but put max power on the right engine but not the left.

Roger that.

NARRATOR: They try a different configuration in the hope of

recreating the pilot's actions.

Max power, right engine.

Yawing to the left.

I can't climb like this.

NARRATOR: Investigators finally understand how Captain Hillis

executed the missed approach.

Set max power.

NARRATOR: Believing his left engine has failed,

the captain increases power only to the right engine.

Lower the nose.

Lower the nose!

NARRATOR: The imbalance in engine power

robs the plane of the airspeed it

needs to climb out with the gear down and the flaps extended.

The flight test told us that an airplane

with that configuration could not have been flown safely.

It had to crash.

He had that plane configured all wrong.

NARRATOR: Investigators conclude that the captain

didn't configure his plane correctly

for a missed approach.

If the captain thought one of his engines failed,

they should have performed a single-engine missed approach.

Didn't do that either.

So he set himself up for a nearly unflyable airplane.

You got it?

Yeah.

NTSB investigators focus squarely

on the captain of flight 3379, 29-year-old Michael Hillis.

To come across an accident where a response was botched

as poorly as this one, it begs the question,

how did he get there?

He's got 2,294 hours of turboprops,

3,499 total flying hours.

He's young, but he's no rookie.

NARRATOR: NTSB investigators scrutinize

the personnel records of the pilots of flight 3379.

We want to find out the background of the pilots.

Is there anything in their performance that

can reveal something about their performance

on the night of the accident?

NARRATOR: From American Eagle's files,

the team learns that Michael Hillis was licensed to fly

multiple turboprop airplanes.

He starts off training on the Jetstream in March 1991.

We've got single-engine missed approaches today.

Are you ready for that?

Yes, sir.

NARRATOR: Investigators dig deeper into Captain

Hillis' pilot records.

All right.

I am cutting your left engine.

We like to see an airman with airmanship,

so we had to look back at the training information.

Look at this.

Trainer's evaluation.

OK, you're losing airspeed that you're going to need.

How do you get it back?

Not sure.

Now, this is telling.

He's messing up single-engine missed approaches.

It was very obvious that this captain

was having serious troubles with his airmanship development.

Single-engine missed approaches, engine failures.

When is this?

April 1992.

That was two years before the accident.

He had more than enough time to improve.

Well, he must have dug in.

He makes captain a few months later.

By the time pilots become airline pilots,

they're pretty good.

The-- the selection process is so rigorous

that you don't get to be an airline pilot unless you

had considerable capabilities.

That's all I have here.

Will any American Eagle pilots that will talk to us about him?

Let's find out.

NARRATOR: The NTSB wants to know more about Hillis' career.

Usually in the pilot file, there'll

be some little notes about the issues that

have been encountered by other persons

in flying with the captain.

What can you tell me about Mike Hillis?

Well, We're pretty broken up about this.

NARRATOR: Investigators track down American Eagle's

Raleigh-Durham base manager.

Unfortunately, we had a lot of complaints about his flying.

I was really surprised to hear him say that.

Complaints?

From whom?

Several first officers that flew with him out of Raleigh.

Co-pilots were whispering to their colleagues.

It was something not normal.

Well, we had co-pilots that were afraid to fly with him,

and they'd keep a close eye on what he was doing.

Really?

If pilots are afraid to fly with this guy, which

is essentially what the base manager told us,

that's very revealing about the accident.

I hate to say it, but this is a really questionable pilot.

We got a picture of a pilot who could fly OK,

but when he was faced with something unexpected,

his performance would start deteriorating.

How did this guy end up on American Eagle, huh?

Where'd they find him?

His application should be on file.

We tried to get as much information

as we can for a complete pilot's history.

His previous job was with ComAir.

NARRATOR: Captain Hillis applied to work

for American Eagle in October 1990,

while he was flying for another airline.

Find out if they did a background check on this guy.

NARRATOR: When investigators ask American Eagle

about background checks on Mike Hillis,

they're shocked by what they learn.

They did not go back and check with previous employers.

NARRATOR: The NTSB does what American Eagle never did,

they requisition Mike Hillis' file from ComAir.

When we compared his records with ComAir with his records

at American Eagle, they were consistent.

"Moody, unpredictable, gets distracted.

Concerns about tunnel vision in an emergency situation."

Huh.

And he was potentially a dangerous pilot.

"Tunnel vision in an emergency situation."

ComAir could see it.

This guy wanted him fired.

It just keeps getting worse.

I've never encountered before or since a pilot who

was recommended to be terminated because he

was potentially unsafe.

ComAir recommended for dismissal.

Well, did they fire him?

He resigns from ComAir before they can fire him.

That Captain should not have been flying passengers.

Under any circumstances.

Did American Eagle know about this guy's performance history?

It doesn't look like they asked.

There's no record of ComAir providing it to American Eagle.

NARRATOR: But the picture is crystal clear.

Michael Hillis' flying career was blemished

by failed certification tests, bad evaluations from trainers,

and complaints from colleagues that were never

passed on to American Eagle.

One would have to ask themselves,

if you really knew the background of this pilot,

would you put your wife or your child in that aircraft?

And the answer would be no.

NARRATOR: But there were two pilots

in the cockpit of flight 3379.

Lower the nose.

Lower the nose!

In this case, the ability of the first officer

to recognize that the captain's skills were deficient,

it took a long time.

Did the first officer know who he was flying with?

NARRATOR: Here investigators wonder

if First Officer Sailor knew he was teamed

with an unreliable pilot.

First officer Matthew Ian Sailor, 25 years old.

Worked for American Eagle for a year before the crash.

NARRATOR: The NTSB looks into the work

schedules of First Officer Sailor and Captain Hillis.

Had he flown with Hillis before?

No.

Not once.

NARRATOR: They discover the first officer was

new to this particular route.

So was he based out of Raleigh?

No.

He worked out of Miami.

I think it was critical to this accident

that the first officer was from a different base

than the captain.

First officers in Raleigh Durham

knew to keep a close eye on him, but he's out of Miami.

This guy had no idea who he was flying with.

Let's go ahead and go speeds high.

NARRATOR: When First Officer Sailor joins Captain Hillis

in the cockpit on December 13, 1994,

he has no idea what type of pilot he's teamed with.

This pilot should never been a pilot

in command of that aircraft.

NARRATOR: As flight 3379 is on final approach

for Raleigh-Durham, Captain Hillis is caught by surprise.

He misinterprets the elimination of an ignition light.

Why is that ignition light on?

Did we just have a flame out?

I'm not sure what's going on with it.

We had a flame out.

NARRATOR: Captain Hillis doesn't realize that by increasing

the propeller speed too quickly, he

has created a momentary negative torque condition.

He misdiagnosed it as an engine failure

and responded improperly.

I'm going to continue.

NARRATOR: Instead of landing, Hillis

decides to do a go-round.

Let's go missed approach.

Starting with the captain's misdiagnosis of an engine

failure, and his decision to go around, it pretty much was

self-induced engine failure.

NARRATOR: The pilots now face a severe emergency.

The gear was down.

He was trying to climb.

Set max power.

It was impossible in that configuration.

They're basically about to go off the edge of the cliff.

Lower the nose.

NARRATOR: It falls to the first officer

to rectify the captain's mistakes.

Here!

I think he could have saved the airplane, but by the time

he recognized that, it was too late.

NARRATOR: 15 people are killed because of Hillis' errors.

Made every mistake in the book in the last two minutes

of the flight.

I had anger, sure, at that time,

for the pilot and the co-pilot, for the errors that they made.

Ultimately, there was more pointing

fingers to the airline.

Had American Eagle accessed documents about Hillis' past

before they hired him, he might not have been in that cockpit

on December 13, 1994.

The final take away from 3379 is

that we've got to identify those airmen that don't

display airmanship qualities.

NARRATOR: The crash of Flight 3379

reveals deep flaws in the standard hiring

practices of US airlines.

Background information on pilots is almost

never shared between airlines.

If I was to apply for a job somewhere,

they would check my references.

This is a pilot!

Isn't it important that we find out if this person

is competent enough?

We asked for it in '88, '90--

NARRATOR: Tragically, the case of flight 3379

is not unprecedented.

--and again in '93.

NARRATOR: In three previous accidents,

the NTSB recommended that records from previous employers

be made available to a pilot's current employers.

Fourth time's the charm.

NARRATOR: Now, for the fourth time,

the NTSB recommends that US airlines

conduct better background checks on prospective pilots.

But still, no changes are made to federal regulations.

I felt like I had to do something.

I had to speak for these 15 people that couldn't speak.

And I went and spoke in front of Congress.

NARRATOR: In 1996, two years after the crash,

Congress passes the Pilot's Record Information

Act to ensure airlines have access to previous companies'

pilot records.

The chances of a pilot falling through the cracks,

as this captain did, have been reduced

because of that legislation.

It's unfortunate for that to happen,

but that's what it took.