Original subtitles

3000.

We're not getting any oxygen.

We have the terrain alarm.

We are in an emergency.

I can't see anything.

Damn, we're off-course.

- No, I can't see it. - Way off.

On June 1st, 1999,

as an American Airlines jet prepared to land

amidst severe thunderstorms,

passengers knew they were flying into trouble.

I don't know what made me aware,

so dog gone aware, that we were going to have a problem.

Oh, no!

Within minutes, their worst fears would be realized.

- Other one! - Other one!

- Other one! - Other one!

I'm yelling, "Get away from the plane.

Run. Get away from the plane."

I don't know where we're at,

but there's a road that goes around the airport.

We've got a lot of people hurt.

This film tells the story of a tragic and avoidable disaster.

The investigation would reveal

a lethal combination of pilot error,

the devastating effects of severe weather,

and a dangerous race to keep the plane on schedule.

It would also uncover disturbing evidence

of an industry-wide failing,

one that could kill again at any time.

Despite reliable aircraft and extensive training,

modern airlines and their crews face unprecedented pressures.

Intense industry competition demands that the whole system

from the flight planers to the pilots be efficient and on time.

The stresses this can bring would play a vital role in the loss of Flight 1420.

For a large operator like American Airlines,

the pressures start with the complex task

of scheduling their vast fleet.

Dispatchers direct the planes around the world

in a carefully choreographed dance.

The strain of maintaining this efficiency affects the entire system.

Of course, competition has become very intense...

A lot of pressure on the dispatchers, pilots,

flight attendants and basically the whole infrastructure

to accomplish the mission and make a dollar.

Every effort is made to ensure

that nothing disrupts these fragile schedules.

But there is one variable that no airline can control:

the weather.

The southern states of America

are especially prone to severe weather.

Storms not only cause delays,

but pose extreme dangers to commercial jets.

Delays, scheduling problems and fierce thunderstorms

would all conspire to turn a routine flight

into a terrifying race against time.

On June 1, 1999,

American Airlines Flight 1420 is running late.

The movement of the storm...

Everything is sliding to the southeast.

So, yes we do have a stormy evening headed our way.

The delay of Flight 1420

put pressure on the pilots even before takeoff.

The responsibility can fall on flight crews

to keep a tight schedule on track.

Dispatch, please.

Yeah, it's Michael Origel.

Crews have strict legal limits on their duty time.

The first officer warned the dispatcher

that they were in danger of running out of time.

...around 11:16.

The flight had to take off in the next hour or be cancelled.

The pilots also became aware of another pressure

caused by deteriorating weather near their destination.

The pilots had a weather briefing that they got

before they departed Dallas, Forth Worth,

which provided the forecast... the weather alerts.

The dispatcher and the captain preparing for the flight

looked at the weather information and thought

that they could get to Little Rock

before the thunderstorms impacted.

The 139 passengers just wanted to get home.

I was traveling with my son and my daughter.

We were coming home from our vacation.

It was my daughter's first flight.

The plane was late and there were a lot of delays of course.

It was tiring, it was frustrating,

it was late at night...

They soon began to sense that Flight 1420

was racing against the weather.

As they called for us to board the plane,

they wanted us there just to get on really quickly.

Just get on, sit down, put your seatbelt on, we're going.

They did mention that there was bad weather

between us and Little Rock.

They wanted to get ahead of the bad weather coming into Little Rock.

Finally, over two hours behind schedule,

flight 1420 leaves Dallas.

Unknown to the crew, the storms are already massing around Little Rock.

40 minutes later, 1420 is 100 miles from its destination.

At this point, the voice recorder transcript

reveals a calm and steady cockpit routine.

American 1420, are you going to still want lower?

So far, it's okay.

So far so good, ma'am.

American 1420, we'll let you know.

The First Officer on American 1420 was a new hire.

He had just recently completed training

and he had been paired on one of his first trips

with this management captain.

So, now you had a very experienced pilot

sitting in the left seat with the company

paired with a relatively new hire.

Bushman and Origel are clearly relaxed,

as they plan their approach and landing.

25 for 24, set and armed.

You think this stuff going to work out pretty well?

Yeah, we're almost down to max landing weight.

Oh, there's a moon out... or a spaceship.

Oh, it's the mother ship.

Center pump's coming off, all right?

The pilots are keeping a close eye on the storms ahead.

On-board weather radar scans a cone-shaped area

of sky in front of the plane.

Potentially severe storms show up in red.

There's your big "wha diddly".

Yeah, we've gotta get over there real quick.

I don't like that.

That's lightning.

It sure is.

The American Airlines' dispatcher issued an update

on the shape and formation of the thunderstorms.

Right now on radar there's a large slot to Little Rock.

Thunderstorms are on the left and right

and Little Rock is in the clear...

sort of like a bowling alley approach.

Thunderstorms are moving East North Eastward

towards Little Rock and they may be a factor for our arrival.

I suggest expediting our arrival.

The dispatcher gave this flight crew the weather information.

It appeared to him that there was going to be a gap,

or what he called the bowling alley,

where you had two types of thunderstorms

or two thunderstorms with an alley between it.

And that the flight crew, if they had expedited

their travel to Little Rock,

could probably make it up that alley

before the two storms closed together.

But as Flight 1420 descends,

the plan to beat the storms is about to go seriously wrong.

The pilots do not realize

that the walls of the bowling alley are closing in.

The route flown by American Airlines Flight 1420

is flanked by treacherous thunderstorms,

a corridor the pilots call The Bowling Alley.

With 80 miles to go, the path to Little Rock

still appears to be clear.

This is the bowling alley right here.

Yeah, I know.

In fact, there are city lights straight there.

- Do you want to go down? - Not yet, but pretty soon.

We're about 80 miles

from the airport and we've started our descent toward it.

Quite a light show on the side of the aircraft

and we're going to be passing that on our way to Little Rock.

It's been a pleasure having you on board our short flight.

And I'd like to take this opportunity

to thank you for flying American Airlines.

The lightning seemed to be on both sides of the plane.

It lit up the inside of the plane.

Very quick, you know, just...

"kaboom" type lightning

which was a little scary.

There was quick a light show off to the left,

normally that doesn't get pointed out.

If you go past the Grand Canyon,

that gets pointed out, but not a lightning show.

As the plane descends, transcripts of the cockpit

voice recordings show that the pilots

are aware of rough weather ahead.

Descent checks complete.

We've got to get there quick.

Yup. Sit them down early?

Hello.

I think it's going to get a little bumpy here again,

if you don't mind.

Do we need to sit down?

Uh, well, how far through are you?

Um... We're almost done, but not quite.

Well, finish it up real quick.

Okay.

I thought it was more turbulent than normal.

I remember especially watching the flight attendant

and I was looking at her with amazement.

I was wondering how could she hold those trays

and pour the drinks and not spill everything.

From that point, it just got worse.

With flaps 40, 130 000 pounds,

200 feet...

As they prepare for landing,

the pressure on the pilots will now steadily rack up.

Manual brakes?

Manual's fine.

At first, as the crew pick their way around the storms,

everything seems steady.

Yeah, actually there's the city right there.

Yeah.

Breaking through this crud. Good, doin' good.

Even when the first indication comes that the storms

are advancing, the pilots take it in their stride.

Whoa.

Looks like it's movin' this way though.

Yeah.

Just some lightning straight ahead.

I think we're going to be okay though.

Right there.

Yeah. Right down the bowling alley.

As my friends would say, California Cool.

Cool.

Peachy. - Exactly.

1420 at 11-3 for 10 000.

But when pilots contact the controller at Little Rock,

he gives the first of a series of alarming weather alerts.

We've got a thunderstorm just northwest of the airport

moving through the area now.

Wind is 2-8-0 at 2-8, gusts 4-4,

and I'll have new weather for you in just a moment, I'm sure.

Gale force winds are gusting to 50 miles per hour,

enough to blow tiles off a rooftop.

High winds pose a severe hazard for Flight 1420.

Crosswinds could make it difficult to control the plane on landing.

The pilots must quickly determine if they're within safe limits.

They calculate the strength of the cross wind from its angle

to their final approach.

All right, so, that's 2-8-0 at 4-4.

- Gusts at 44. - Right.

Near the limit.

Well, it's 40 degrees off.

I mean, you're not out of the limit

because of the angle, but that's pretty close.

The crosswind limit for landing is 30 knots

on a dry runway.

But Bushman and Origel now become confused

about what happens if it rains.

Well, 30 knots is the crosswind limitation,

but see 30 knots... that's not wet.

- That's dry. - Yeah, dry.

- What's the wet? - 20.

It's 25.

The discussion is never resolved

and the crosswinds will soon be gusting well over the limit.

Flight attendants, prepare for landing please.

The pilot's attention now returns

to the bad weather ahead.

He said the storm was to the northwest of the field.

- He said northwest. - Yeah.

Lightning strikes... He said storm.

But the task of tracking the storms

is made more difficult by the lack of sophisticated radar at Little Rock.

American 1420, um...

your equipment's a lot better than what I have.

How's that final for 2-2 looking?

What's that?

Uh... we can see the airport,

but we can just barely make it out.

Uh... we should be able to make 2-2.

That storm is moving closer like your radar says,

but it's a little farther off than you thought.

The controller is going, "Well, your radar is better than mine," and so forth.

The controller in this accident had a monochromatic

or basically, almost a black and white set of a radar

and could not determine the intensities of the storm.

Just eight miles from the airport,

the pilots now face another key decision:

How to approach the runway through bad weather?

Controllers routinely ask pilots

if they want to land visually

instead of relying on the airport's

electronic instrument landing system, or ILS.

But a visual approach means they must be able

to see the runway and this is proving difficult.

Uh... No, we can't really make it out right now.

We're going to have to stay with you as long as possible.

Now, as the wind suddenly changes direction,

the pilots' problems quickly mount up.

The wind's kind of kicked around a little bit right now.

It's 3-3-0 at 1-1.

Whoa.

It's a little better than it was.

Yeah, but 330 is a tail wind though.

The crew now face the problem of having the wind

behind them when they land,

greatly increasing the dangers of overshooting the runway.

Then, the controller calls in with more bad news.

Right now, I have a wind shear alert.

Wind shear is a sudden change of wind direction

over a short distance.

It is one of the most feared elements

of a severe thunderstorm.

To combat constantly shifting winds,

the pilots are forced to throw away

their previous approach plans and start again.

They have to reverse the direction of their approach,

so they will be landing into the wind.

Yeah, we're going to need, uh...

We would rather go into the headwinds, sir.

The pilots' decision to land in the opposite direction

is a prudent move, but it will create serious problems.

Okay... a right turn 2-5-0 the long way around?

Yes, sir. You're a little close to the airport.

Yeah, right. 2-5-0, that'll work.

As the pilots turn to their new approach,

the aircraft's weather radar,

which scans in front of the plane,

loses track of the thunderstorms.

Worse still, the turn delays landing

by more than 10 minutes...

and with every passing moment,

the storms are growing in intensity.

Runway 4 right, 1-1-1 point 3, 0-4-2.

I think... I think that was the airport below us.

Yeah, right...

Switching runways, keeping track of the storms,

all added greatly to the pilots' heavy workload.

2-2-17 glide slope intercept all the way down.

Missed approach right turn to 4 000.

Let's see, you've got the airport right...

Yeah. I don't have the airport.

Well, I'm saying you've got the ILS.

Yeah, I've got the ILS.

Airline pilots, they make their money

when they're flying into bad weather.

When the weather goes down,

now all of a sudden the workload starts to increase

because you have to factor in low clouds, rain,

lightning, thunderstorms, wind... all of these elements

start to bombard you the closer you get into the airport environment.

American 1420, it appears we have the second part

of this storm moving through.

The wind now is 3-4-0 at 1-6, gusts 3-4.

With the storms worsening,

the pilots need to make it to the airport

as quickly as possible.

You want to accept the short approach, keep it tight?

Yeah. But if you can see the runway,

because I don't quite see it. - Yeah, it's right there.

- All right. - See it?

You just point me in the right direction

and I'll start slowing down. Give me flaps eleven.

Damn, it's heading right over the field.

American 1420, did you call me?

Yeah. We got the airport,

but we're going right in between clouds.

I think it's to my right, uh...

off my 3 o'clock low about 4 miles.

American 1420, that's it.

Do you want to shoot the visual approach

or do you want to go off of the ILS?

A visual approach will allow 1420

to reach the airport faster than one that depends on instruments.

Uh, well, yeah.

I can start the visual if we can do it.

American 1420's cleared, visual approach runway 4 right.

If you lose it and need some help, let me know please.

But a visual approach means the pilots must keep the runway

in sight at all times.

The transcripts now reveal rising confusion

on the flight deck as the captain struggles

to fix the position of the airport.

Okay. Did you notice something?

Did you see the airport there?

Where?

There, okay...

You're on a base for it.

Okay. It's right there.

I'm on a base now?

It's like a dogleg...

and we're coming in and there it is right there.

I... I lost it.

You're downwind of it. It's right... it's right there.

Well, I still don't see it.

Just vector me. I don't know.

American 1420, monitor 1-1-8 point 7, runway 4 right, clear to land.

The wind now is 3-3-0 at 2-1.

18-7, we'll monitor, American 1420, thanks.

Uh, clear to land runway 4.

See... Those red lights there,

what are they in relation to?

There's the runway, uh... there's two runways.

Yeah, I know.

See, we're losin' it.

I don't see how we can maintain visual.

The pilots now have to abandon their direct visual approach

and request help from Little Rock's

instrument landing system.

But this delays landing even further.

Approach American 1420.

American 1420, yes sir.

Yeah, there's a cloud between us and the airport

and we've lost the field.

Um... we're on a vector...

Well, basically we're on the last vector you gave us,

which is like a dogleg, it looks like.

American 1420, can you fly heading 2-2-0?

I'll take you out to the ILS.

This news footage shows the storm on the night of the crash.

As heavy rain cuts visibility even further,

Captain Bushman becomes frustrated.

See, I hate droning around visual at night in weather

without having any clue where we are.

The thing that was really getting to me was...

I knew we were getting very low.

I knew that the rain was not letting up

and that we were being jolted around quite heavily.

See how we're going right in the middle of this crap.

Right. Approach American 1420,

I know you're doing your best, sir,

but we're getting really close to this storm

and uh, we'll keep it really tight if we have to.

The plane was rocking and rolling at that point.

It was pretty dog gone unstable.

I don't know what made me aware... so dog gone aware,

that we were going to have a problem.

I don't know what did that.

As flight 1420 lines up for final approach,

they're heading straight into the heart of the thunderstorm.

The crisis for the flight crew is about to get even worse.

With flight 1420 four minutes from touch down,

severe thunderstorms give the pilots another major problem.

Blinding rain and thick clouds are obscuring the airfield.

The visibility on the runway, known as RVR,

is getting dangerously low.

We're goin' right into this.

American 1420, right now,

we have heavy rain on the airport.

I don't have new weather for you,

but visibility is less than a mile

and the runway 4 right RVR is 3 000.

Visibility is down to 3 000 feet,

the pilots are unsure if it's safe to land.

3 000?

Roger that, 3 000, American 1420.

This is 4 right, correct?

American 1420, that's correct, sir,

on runway 4 right, clear to land.

The winds now 3-5-0 at 3-0, gusts 4-5.

Can we land?

0-3-0 at 4-5, American 1420.

3 000 RVR... we can't land on that!

- 3 000 at... - What do we need?

No... it's 2400 RVR.

- Okay. Right. - Yeah. We're fine.

Alright. 15.

Landing gear down.

And lights please.

As we descended, we descended through a very dark black cloud.

The rain seemed to be going horizontal.

It was windy enough, apparently,

outdoors, that the plane was moving around a lot.

I'd never done this before...

I buckled up really tight, almost uncomfortably tight,

and I was concerned enough I put my shoes back on and got ready to go.

There was something going on that made me very nervous.

The crosswinds are way over the limit.

The pilots could divert to another airport,

but they don't, even as the weather gets worse.

Wind shear alert!

Center field wind 3-5-0 at 3-2,

gusts 4-5, north boundary wind 3-1-0 at 2-9,

north east boundary wind 3-2-0 at 3-2.

The jolts seemed to be much stronger than I'd ever felt.

You could tell that the thunderheads were extremely close to the plane.

I said words to the effect that if he tries to land in this weather we'll crash.

- Flaps 28. - Add 20.

Then visibility falls drastically below the limit.

American 1420, the runway 4 right RVR is now 1600.

Damn.

The crew are rattled.

Under pressure, they begin to make mistakes.

Can't see anything.

Looking for 4-60.

- It's there. - Couldn't see anything.

The wind was throwing the plane around so violently...

I think there was enough of a crosswind that I was afraid

we were going to land on a wing.

It felt like we were going to tip over, I mean,

it just felt that bad.

- You want 40 flaps. - Yeah, I thought I called it.

I knew the way he was jockeying the plane

and the sounds of the engines that he was trying to get lined up for the runway,

and I couldn't see it and I couldn't see it,

but I could tell we were close.

And I kept thinking, "Where's the runway?"

1000 feet...

20...

40-40 land...

This... this is a can of worms.

Wind is 3-3-0 at 2-8.

I'm going to stay above it a little.

There's a runway off to your right.

You got it? - No.

I've got the runway in sight. You're right on course--

Stay where you are-- - I got it. I got it.

Most of the people at that point in the plane

were just holding on really tight.

Just looking forward, I mean, like rigid.

I suspected the worst. I really did.

We might not get down.

In the midst of fierce thunderstorms,

Flight 1420 is about to land at Little Rock.

Low visibility and high winds

make the final approach treacherous.

Wind 3-3-0 at 2-5.

- 500 feet. - Plus 20.

Wind 3-3-0 at 2-3.

Damn, we're off course.

- I can't see it. - Way off!

I can't see anything.

- Got it? - Got it!

100 feet.

50 feet.

40...

30...

20...

10...

We hit the runway real hard and we didn't slow down.

We're down! We're sliding!

Oh, no!

We were still going very, very, very fast,

and at that point I thought, we're dead.

On the brakes!

It was just chaos.

It was terrifying.

It was quite literally terrifying.

Other one!

Other one... other one!

When the plane actually stopped,

there was a moment of absolute total silence.

There was fire in front of me...

and I could see debris and it was silent.

And I thought, "Oh my gosh. I'm dead!"

Well, I knew we were in deep trouble.

You know, it's a process that started,

and in some way, it's got to end,

it's gonna end and when it ends how do I get out of here?

Within those minutes, I heard a small scream.

And I heard it get louder and louder and louder,

like it was on a megaphone and it hit me: That's my daughter.

And I was like, "Oh, okay. We've got to get out of here.

You know, we've got to do something."

The passengers struggled to get out before fire engulfed the cabin.

I had a broken scapula, a dislocated shoulder,

and cracked ribs and all sorts of stuff going on,

but I didn't feel a thing.

I just wanted to get out.

I was not going to die in that thing.

I got out of that plane probably in ten seconds.

It was like being in a war, go, go, go.

I was yelling, "Get away from the plane, run,

get away from the plane, go! Go. Go."

Some folks looked like they'd been in an explosion.

Their clothes were tattered.

I saw a man using his cell phone to call for help.

Okay, I don't know where we're at,

but there is a road that goes around the airport...

We've got a lot of people hurt.

Traveling at over 100 miles an hour,

the aircraft ran off the end of the runway,

ploughed down a 25-foot embankment

and slammed into a steel walkway.

The plane was ripped into several pieces.

The wreckage finally came to rest on the muddy banks of the Arkansas River.

10 passengers died in the crash.

Captain Bushman was killed instantly

when the cockpit was split open by the steel walkway.

It was a shame I hadn't... literally a shame,

that I had not done more to save people.

That's the worst nightmare I have.

The US National Transportation Safety Board

was immediately notified.

Greg Feith was the NTSB's chief investigator.

The night American 1420 happened,

I received a phone call about one o'clock in the morning

from our communication center at the NTSB,

advising that there had been an aircraft accident

at Little Rock and there may be some fatalities involved.

Fellow investigator Don Eick was quickly on the scene.

There's a sense of adrenalin as an accident occurs like this

where you're being launched to the accident scene.

And there's a strong urge to get there,

to try to find out what happened,

to document the facts, so we can prevent it from happening.

The NTSB set up a command center close to the site.

They would spend the next 18 months

piecing together the events that led to the crash.

We did have a basic idea

when we got on scene of what happened.

We just didn't know why.

We knew the airplane went off the end of the runway.

We knew the pilots couldn't stop it.

We knew that the aircraft was destroyed

going through this catwalk.

We knew that the subsequent post-crash fire killed people.

We just didn't know why at that point.

The NTSB worked backwards from the impact,

piecing together the sequence of events

from the final approach all the way back to Dallas, Fort Worth.

The first question for investigators

was why the pilots had been unable to stop the plane.

Analysis of the tire tracks left by the skidding plane

showed a complete loss of control after touch down.

When you look at the width of those tire tracks,

you then see that the airplane wasn't going straight,

but in fact was sliding sideways.

Here you have this machine

that weighs 130, 140 000 pounds.

It has a hundred or so people on it

and it is sliding uncontrolled off this runway.

Something had gone terribly wrong on landing

and investigators had to find out why.

They questioned the survivors of flight 1420

who would provide an extremely important clue.

The NTSB investigators needed to find out

why flight 1420 had slid uncontrolled off the runway.

They set out to interview surviving passengers,

many of whom were local to Little Rock.

Their eyewitness testimony would point the inquiry

towards the most important mechanical system

used to slow a plane down after landing.

What we were really interested in

were those passengers that were sitting in a position

right near the wings who could look out the windows

and tell us whether they saw the ground spoilers deploy.

Spoilers are large flaps that flip up on landing,

literally spoiling the airflow over the wings.

This prevents them from giving lift

and allows braking to take effect.

Crucially, none of the passengers

saw the spoilers deploy.

To check their testimony, the NTSB examined information

from the airplane's black boxes.

The flight data recorder, which monitors the systems

on board during flight, confirmed that the spoilers had failed to deploy.

The implications were catastrophic.

Flight 1420 had no hope of stopping in time.

On the brakes!

We're sliding! - Oh no!

So, was the failure of the spoilers to deploy

a mechanical problem

or in the confusion of final approach, was it pilot error?

To find out, the NTSB would make clever use

of the cockpit voice recorder or CVR.

- You want 40 flaps? - Yeah! I thought I called it!

One of the key elements that the CVR team

was listening for was the setting of the spoiler handle.

Was saw on the flight data recorder that the ground spoilers didn't deploy.

We wanted to know if the handle had been actually armed or not.

And we were looking for a specific click sound.

We couldn't find that sound on the accident CVR,

which led us to believe that the handle was never

in the armed position at touch down.

Intensely busy in the cockpit,

the pilot simply forgot to arm the spoilers.

Had they deployed, the MD80 aircraft

might have over shot the runway,

but it would have stopped before hitting the catwalk.

The pilots had made serious and ultimately fatal errors,

but investigators wanted to know why.

They suspected that pressures earlier in the flight

led to these mistakes.

They turned their attention to the weather.

It was clear to us that severe weather

had been in the area around the time of the accident.

How it played a part was one of the things

we had to try discover,

and putting the radar images in, the observations,

trying to put it all together would take weeks, of course,

to get this information done.

The NTSB wanted to know what role the weather

had played in the crash

and had the pilots been fully aware of the dangers?

See, we're going right in the middle of this crap.

One of the concerns that all pilots have

when they're trying to land an aircraft is, of course,

making sure that the crosswinds that they may experience

don't exceed the capabilities

of either themselves or the aircraft.

The winds now 3-5-0 at 3-0, gusts 4-5.

Can we land?

This particular flight crew had a limitation

not imposed by themselves, but imposed by the company

and that was that they were not allowed to exceed

a 10-knot crosswind on a wet runway.

Crosswind limits are clearly stated in the operating manual.

The crew of 1420 were flying beyond regulation limits.

This... This is a can of worms.

There's a runway off to your right.

You got it? - No.

The effect of the winds can be seen in this NTSB animation

showing the captain's desperate last maneuvers.

Winds definitely impacted the flight.

If you look at the animation,

you'll see him fighting the winds...

Definitely not good.

We're down!

On the brakes!

Other one! Other one! Other one!

When you start talking about wet runway,

thunderstorms... not good.

But were the crew of 1420

aware of the hazards posed by the severe weather?

For the NTSB, previous accidents had made the dangers

of thunderstorms all too clear.

In 1994, a US Air DC 9

fell victim to wind shear in North Carolina.

The plane stalled at 250 feet and fell from the sky.

A Delta Tristar crashed after flying into the most severe kind of wind shear

that created an intense downdraft of air.

So should the crew of 1420 have aborted the approach?

There's the runway... uh... there's two runways.

Yeah, I know. See we're losing it.

I don't see how we can maintain visual.

This NTSB weather animation overlays the path

of the aircraft with ground radar images of the storm.

Bushman and Origel landed in lightning, torrential rain and hail

and the crosswinds gusting well over the limit.

Based on the information we had from ground base weather radar,

the flight crew of 1420 should have been seeing the majority of that storm.

They would have been seeing the leading edge going green,

rapidly changing to yellow to a bright red.

Can't see anything. Looking for a 4-60.

As they progress towards Little Rock,

they started to paint the bad weather

not only on their on-board radar,

but they could see out the window... lightning.

And one of the key statements that this captain made,

which basically summarized the entire flight,

was the captain saying...

I hate droning around visual at night in weather

without having any clue where we are.

"I hate droning around at night

when I don't know where I am."

That was such a key statement.

It was at that point,

by an experienced 10,000-hour captain,

that he should have abandoned the approach

going into Little Rock and either gone to his alternate

or made his way back to Dallas.

But to make a statement like that and then continue an approach to an airport

where you have a thunderstorm in progress over the airport...

is a recipe for disaster.

But the pilots were not the only ones to be heavily criticized.

As the investigation continued,

American Airlines' flight policy would come under fire

and an industry-wide scandal was about to be exposed.

For months after the crash of flight 1420,

the NTSB dug deeper into the circumstances surrounding the accident.

The question was: Who would take responsibility?

American Airlines were reluctant to admit

that their pilots had knowingly flown

into a severe thunderstorm.

Initially, they tried to pin the blame

on the controller at Little Rock.

American started legal action

against the authorities responsible for airport controllers.

American's lawyers claimed that the crew of flight 1420

had not been given all the current weather information.

American 1420, your equipment's a lot better than what I have.

How's that final for 2-2 left looking?

But after interviewing the controller at Little Rock,

investigators were unconvinced.

It's highly unlikely that the flight crew

wasn't sufficiently informed

about the nature of the weather,

and the severity of the weather,

not only en route but, of course,

during the course of landing at Little Rock.

The focus turned back on the pilots.

Lawyers representing the passengers were determined

to get American Airlines to accept liability for the crash.

I mean, it is about money, in a way,

because you want to make them pay,

because I saw the letters that they would write back to my lawyer,

minimizing what we had been through.

Minimizing my daughter's burns,

cuts, the psychological effects it had on my son at age 15

and my daughter and me... and just minimizing everything.

So you want to find a way to hurt them.

Renee Salmans and many other survivors

attended the NTSB public hearings

held in Little Rock eight months after the disaster.

With the captain dead, the co-pilot was the first to testify.

As we went off the end of the runway,

I could see the runway lights coming up

and I knew we were going off the end of the runway...

I couldn't see anything in front of us.

All I thought was that the gear would collapse

and we would continue to slide, it's got to be okay.

And all of a sudden, I felt the impact.

I followed it as close as I could.

You bet. I wanted to know what happened.

I went to all of the NTSB hearings.

I was outraged.

I was mad.

For me, they didn't ask him the right questions.

You know, I wanted to ask him: What were you thinking?

Why did you all play chicken with our lives?

The co-pilot's testimony was highly controversial.

In his account of the final moments of the flight,

he claims to have told the captain to abort the approach,

otherwise known as a go-around.

Who can call for abandoning the approach?

Either pilot.

Did you call for a go-around at any time?

Yes, sir, I did.

Sounds like after reviewing the tape,

you can definitely hear the "go" and the "around".

It seems like he talked at the same time I did

and I looked over at him

and he brought the airplane back on course.

However, when NTSB specialists studied the cockpit voice tapes,

they couldn't hear this statement.

Damn, we're off course. No, I can't see it.

Way off!

Even though he stood by that statement,

we could never validate it.

That led to a controversial finding because we weren't

really sure if that took place or not.

The NTSB asked tough questions to the co-pilot,

but was American Airlines' training also at fault?

Greg Feith put an American Airlines' manager on the stand.

What were the company rules

for pilots flying near thunderstorms?

When asked the question, he basically responded

that he just didn't want his pilots flying into that type of weather.

Our pilots are forbidden to enter or depart

a terminal area blanketed by thunderstorms.

To the NTSB, this policy simply wasn't clear cut enough.

Well, that's a very subjective call for a pilot.

Pilots need boundaries.

You have to set limits.

If there's convective activity, that is thunderstorm activity,

that's within five nautical miles of the airport,

there's lightning, there's wind shear... don't go there.

The deeper they looked, the more the NTSB found

that flying into thunderstorms was disturbingly widespread.

Extraordinary evidence given at the hearings

revealed that the problem spread through the whole industry.

Expert analysts from MIT spent weeks recording

the flight paths of planes landing at Dallas, Fort Worth.

They waited for thunderstorms and watched how pilots reacted.

Their animation plots the planes coming in to land

overlaid with radar images of the storms.

Anything yellow or orange is a potentially severe thunderstorm.

Of the 2000 encounters with thunderstorms,

two out of three pilots flew into the storm

and landed their aircraft.

I was very surprised by the testimony at the public hearing.

Given the fact that they are flying the best equipment,

typically have the best training,

have the best information available to them,

for those decisions to be made to continue into harm's way,

it was very surprising to me that they tried to do that.

Pilots know that if we go into that thunderstorm,

we may not come out of that thunderstorm,

and if we do it may not be basically in one piece.

Why did so many pilots fly into danger?

The MIT researchers found pilots were more reckless

if they were behind schedule, if it was night,

and if aircraft in front of them were also flying into bad weather.

In the Little Rock case, two of those three elements

were present: it was night and they were running late.

The MIT investigation was chilling evidence

that the crash at Little Rock

was part of a much wider problem.

We're not seeing a major improvement,

to put it bluntly.

There's a limited time for training,

weather was a significant part that set up the stage

of this accident.

We do not condone any operation

to be conducted in such weather.

It is a known severe weather hazard

and it should have been suspended... no operation.

Ironically, it also emerged that new technology

may be partly to blame for bad decision-making.

Might it be that we're desensitizing pilots?

We're putting weather radar on-board aircraft,

we're putting wind shear detection systems on airplanes.

Most of these systems only react when you're in the hazard,

at that time, it may be too late.

The root causes behind the crash of 1420 went even deeper.

Why were the pilots so determined to land?

Gregory Feith found the answer back at Dallas, Fort Worth

before the flight even left the ground.

There he found signs of a deadly condition

in aviation known as "get-there-itis".

There may have been a sense of "Get-there-itis".

The flight crew knew that they were pushing their 14-hour duty day.

It had been a long duty day, the airport's right there,

let's try it, let's see if we can accomplish the mission.

Pilots are goal-oriented, we're mission oriented.

We will stick our nose in there

to try and see if we can accomplish the mission.

Sometimes, we will accomplish that mission,

but sometimes, we get too far into it that we can't bail out,

we don't have any more options and bad things happen.

For flight 1420, the pressures of "Get-there-itis"

sparked a fatal series of mistakes and misjudgments.

At the end of a long day, rushing to beat the storms

and get the passengers to their destination,

the crew of 1420 made a basic mistake

that cost eleven people their lives.

They forgot to arm the spoilers.

They were so busy trying to get the plane on the ground

that they forgot to do what they needed to do.

They didn't have time to do it.

After the accident, American Airlines

revised their checklist procedures.

Both pilots must now confirm that the spoilers are armed,

ready for landing.

In October, 2001, the NTSB published their report.

They concluded that the two main causes of the crash

were first the decision to land in a thunderstorm,

and second, the pilots' failure to arm the spoilers.

American Airlines declined to take part in this film

or comment on the findings.

As an investigator, I had over two years

to basically criticize and determine

what the captain was trying to accomplish.

That particular captain had seconds to make decisions

based on the information he was getting.

And while it's unfair for an accident investigator like myself

to start pointing the finger, I wasn't there.

I blame them,

but I'm not angry per se at them.

I don't waste my time with anger on them.

They got nothing but flack.

You can understand it,

but I can't understand a person, you know,

wanting to kill himself either.

We've been out and visited his grave

at the Air Force Academy a couple times

and the guy just got caught up in a bad, bad situation.

I mean, uh... been there, done that.

One year after the crash,

the survivors of flight 1420

gathered at the site to remember those who died.

For surviving passengers,

the effects of the crash are long lasting and profound.

We as a family worked long and hard to work through it.

We had many talks.

It blew apart a lot of relationships.

You find out who your real friends are.

I cannot do enough to mitigate what happened

to the individuals on the airplane.

Life is a precious thing and you're definitely here

for a very short time.

All of a sudden, your life looks like about a second and a half long.

The impact of the crash is something that I try

to block out of my mind, because I still feel uh...

...a reaction.

People ask me if I'm okay.

Well, no, I'm not okay!

No! We'll never be okay.

And what is this okay stuff?

You're different.

Deal with it.

I mean, that's the way we're going to be.

The day after...

...it happened when Adam and I were in the hospital, and Samantha...

...Adam and I got up and we looked out the window

and we just couldn't believe that life went on.

We just couldn't believe cars were driving

and it was sunny and life went on,

because for us, life stopped.

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