Original subtitles

NARRATOR: It's a rough ride aboard a 737

on descent to New Orleans.

We were getting tumbled around pretty good.

NARRATOR: A violent thunderstorm

has caught the pilots off guard.

Mayday. Mayday. TACA 110. We're in the middle of a storm.

We're talking about the equivalent of an atomic bomb going off.

(CRACKLING)

CAPTAIN CARLOS DARDANO: Everything went black.

All the alarms start sounding in the cockpit.

- (ALARMS BLARE) - LOPEZ: We lost an engine.

Both engines.

NARRATOR: With no thrust, the plane won't get far.

I don't think that we'll make it.

I don't have any power in the engines.

NARRATOR: 38 passengers suddenly face a terrifying prospect.

They will crash in minutes.

LOPEZ: Look! That's where we're going to go in?

You got it, my friend.

NARRATOR: Unless the crew of TACA Flight 110

can perform one of the greatest feats

in the history of commercial aviation.

All right.

PILOT: Mayday. Mayday.

NARRATOR: A brand new Boeing 737

is making its way through heavy thunderstorms and hail

30,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico.

(IN SPANISH)

NARRATOR: (IN ENGLISH) TACA Airlines is a small,

family owned operation based in El Salvador.

TACA Flight 110

left Belize City less than two hours ago,

bound for New Orleans.

NARRATOR: Among the 38 passengers...

Gracias.

NARRATOR: ...no one is more eager to arrive in the U.S.

than Lee Burmeister.

BURMEISTER: I'd been down to Costa Rica for about a month,

and, um, my appendix ruptured

and I had surgery in a small little village.

It was a scary time.

I was really ready to get home.

NARRATOR: The heavy weather

the crew is now coping with

is a big change from earlier in the flight.

(LUIS CASTILLO SPEAKS SPANISH)

INTERPRETER: I remember that it was a very sunny day

when we left Belize. Everything was going well.

It was just like that. It...

It was pretty,

and then all of a sudden it was the blackest sky

I've ever seen in the afternoon.

NARRATOR: They're flying over the Gulf of Mexico in May.

At this time of year, the weather is unpredictable.

Violent storms can form in a matter of minutes.

Thunderstorms have all types of hazards in them,

from the heavy rain,

hail, uh, lightning, microburst, wind shear, severe icing.

We're talking about the equivalent

of an atomic bomb going off.

A tremendous amount of energy.

NARRATOR To avoid dangerous storms,

the crew tracks the weather with onboard radar.

But the technology has limitations.

Airborne weather radar typically operates in an X-band,

which is at a certain wavelength, and has limited power.

As a matter of fact, hail is not picked up on airborne radar.

JOHN NANCE: So we will sometimes get hail

blowing off a storm.

And yet it will only show up as green or yellow

in front of us on the weather radar.

Not as the heart of a red thunderstorm.

And, and unfortunately this is one of the reasons we have

to try to stay as far away from thunderstorms as we can.

NARRATOR: Captain Carlos Dardano was born to fly.

At just 29, he is the third generation in a family of pilots.

LOPEZ: Anti-ice on.

DARDANO: Since I was a little child,

I remember that I was dreaming on being a pilot

and being around airplanes all the time.

NARRATOR: Captain Dardano

has had to overcome tremendous obstacles

to earn his wings.

Six years earlier, in 1982,

he was flying for a small general aviation company.

I was doing a little aero-taxi business around the country.

NARRATOR: El Salvador was consumed by a civil war.

And Dardano found himself caught in the crossfire.

DARDANO: At a little grass runway airport,

I was shot by guerrillas in the face.

- NARRATOR: Badly wounded, - (GUNFIRE)

he managed to fly his passengers to safety.

We just take off,

and I stayed really low between trees

and I flew 20 minutes back to the main airport.

NARRATOR: The brush with death

cost him his left eye.

I was shot over here.

The bullet went through.

NARRATOR: But Dardano did not give up on his dream.

Despite his impaired vision,

he went on to become a certified commercial pilot.

ATC: TACA 110 runway two-eight.

Final approach course continue inbound.

Descend at pilot's discretion. Maintain four thousand.

LOPEZ: Thank you, sir.

TACA 110. Four thousand.

NARRATOR: First officer Dionisio Lopez

has more than 12,000 flight hours.

He and Dardano have flown together many times.

NARRATOR: Captain Arturo Soley

is a flight instructor with TACA airlines.

He's onboard today

to observe the performance of this new plane.

A 737-300 series,

the jet was delivered to TACA airlines

- just two weeks ago. - (LIGHTNING CRACKLES)

This hail is going to scratch the paint.

We were really worried

about the paint coming off the airplane,

because this is a brand new airplane in the company.

NARRATOR: The 300 is the latest

in the world's most successful line

of twin engine passenger jets.

It's more aerodynamic than its predecessor.

It also features a new, state of the art engine design.

When you pick up a new jetliner worth millions and millions,

and fly it home with a brand new paint job

and everything is nice and new,

it's not just a thrill for the crew. It's a thrill for the airline, too,

Especially a smaller one like TACA.

This was a big, big deal.

NARRATOR: Fifty kilometers from the New Orleans airport,

the plane begins its final descent.

DARDANO: It felt like you hit a wall.

There was severe turbulence in the cockpit,

with a lot of noise. With ice hitting the airplane.

(RUMBLING)

(IN SPANISH)

BURMEISTER: (IN ENGLISH) It was awful.

Lots and lots of lightning.

And the plane was having a pretty rough trip.

We were, we were getting tumbled around pretty good.

Ask the flight attendants to take their seats.

LOPEZ: (OVER INTERCOM) Flight attendants, please take your seats.

NARRATOR: Suddenly,

less than 17,000 feet from the ground,

the flight becomes all the more terrifying.

(CASTILLO SPEAKING SPANISH)

INTERPRETER: It was very strange,

because it had never happened to me before.

The lights had never gone off during turbulence.

DARDANO: Everything went black.

All the alarms start sounding in the cockpit.

- (ALARMS SOUNDING) - All the instruments went out.

So I hit the throttles a couple of times,

trying to just go to basics...

control the airplane.

We lost power on the engines.

Then I find out that we didn't have any power.

I've got nothing.

NARRATOR: The plane has enough speed to glide,

but not for long.

It will rapidly lose altitude as it does.

No power also means no electricity

for all of the onboard systems.

In the New Orleans control tower,

Flight 110 disappears from radar.

TACA TACA 110. Approach. Say altitude.

TACA 110, this is New Orleans approach control.

How do you hear?

NARRATOR: Without power,

communication with the plane is now impossible.

(THUNDER RUMBLING)

BURMEISTER: It's really quiet.

There aren't any engine sounds.

There aren't any lights.

It feels like you're in a dark room without any power.

NARRATOR: In less than a minute,

the 737 drops almost a thousand feet.

It continues to fall.

LOPEZ: We are dropping at 1,500 feet per minute.

NARRATOR: And without power,

there is no way to restart the engines.

DARDANO: Well, we knew we didn't have much time

to try to find out where to land, or,

or what kind of emergency landing we're going to have,

or that we're going to have the engines started again.

NARRATOR: The altimeter and attitude indicator

have backup battery power.

Nothing else is working.

DARDANO: Get the APU started.

NARRATOR: The APU, or auxiliary power unit,

is a backup generator that provides emergency power

to vital systems.

But starting it takes time.

And with each passing second,

TACA Flight 110 falls closer and closer to the water below.

BURMEISTER: It was very quiet.

You could hear the hail hitting the plane.

(HAIL THUDDING)

I was thinking that this was... this was it.

That it's going down, and...

and this is, this is my last day.

Lopez, watch the gauges.

NARRATOR: Without power to the engines,

the state of the art jet liner has become a 43-ton glider.

DARDANO: We were wondering

if we can get the APU going really fast.

You know, you're gliding down in the middle of a thunderstorm

trying to, to get the power going.

(APU BEEPING)

The APU is up and running.

(SIGHS)

(CASTILLO SPEAKING SPANISH)

INTERPRETER: When the lights came back on,

I was relieved.

I thought it was something temporary. No big deal.

NARRATOR: The APU is now providing emergency power

to the plane's systems.

But the engines are still not running.

To fire up the powerful turbo-fan engines,

the crew must follow the procedure

for a complete engine restart.

Thrust to idle. Fuel levers off.

NARRATOR: The APU can generate the power to restart the engines.

But it takes time.

It takes like 30 seconds or so,

but it feels like all your life.

Call a mayday to New Orleans.

Get us out of this storm and onto a runway.

Mayday. Mayday. TACA 110.

We are, we are in the middle of the storm, sir.

We need vectors to the runway now, sir.

- We lost an engine. - Both engines.

LOPEZ: Both engines, sir. Both engines.

Understand. Both engines, TACA 110. Roger.

NARRATOR: The controller knows he needs to get the plane

on the ground as soon as possible,

even if it means sending it to another airport.

TACA 110. Roger.

Turn left heading two-eight-zero.

Vectors to Navy Callender runway two-two.

NARRATOR: Flight 110 is still

thirty-two kilometers from New Orleans.

The stricken plane has a better chance of landing

at a U.S. naval base 27 kilometers away.

But the plane will not make it to any airport

unless the crew gets the engines started.

28, 29, 30. Hit it.

(WHIRRING)

NARRATOR: Only 5,000 feet from the ground,

the left engine ignites.

Speed.

(SIGHS)

Okay. Good job.

Start working on the other one.

NARRATOR: The plane can fly with only one engine.

But both engines would be safer. Especially in bad weather.

DARDANO: Request a vector back to New Orleans.

Okay, we have one engine back on.

Request vectors to New Orleans.

Uh, TACA 110 wilco. Fly heading two-niner-zero.

Vector around the thunderstorms to your right.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Captain Soley is taking the steps

to fire up the second engine.

SOLEY: Here comes the other one.

And here comes the other one. (SIGHS)

Speed.

All right.

Now you've got both of them.

NARRATOR: With both engines back,

it appears the crisis is over.

Okay, sir, we have both engines back now.

We really appreciate what you've done for us.

We are going to go down to three-one-zero.

For the engines to come back on,

it really didn't make anybody feel that much better.

We are still in a mess.

Look. I don't feel any power.

Why don't I feel any power?

NARRATOR: Something's wrong.

The engines appear to be running,

but they're not providing any thrust.

The sucker is not starting.

NARRATOR: Then, the gauges show that

the engines are overheating.

(BEEPING)

They're burning up from the inside.

The risk of a catastrophic engine fire

now leaves Dardano no choice.

He must do something no pilot would ever want to do:

Shut down both engines for good.

Once again, the plane is without power.

And falling fast.

We knew that we don't have any possibility

to restart the engines.

And we had to start looking for someplace to land.

NARRATOR: The plane is quickly closing in on 3,000 feet.

At the rate it's dropping, it won't make it to New Orleans.

Okay, where do I put this thing down?

NARRATOR: Visibility begins to improve

when the plane breaks through the storm clouds.

But it's still raining,

and Dardano has less than three minutes

to find a place to land.

I was seeing just swampy land

all over the place.

NARRATOR: New Orleans is surrounded by canals and lakes.

The city is protected by a system of levees...

man-made barriers designed to prevent flooding.

It's no place to try to land a 737.

We are... We don't have power on the engines.

TACA 110, I'm gonna vector you to Lakefront Airport.

You're only 11 miles from Lakefront.

I don't think that we'll make it.

I don't have any power in the engines.

I guess we'll have to go down.

We're going to declare an emergency.

We're gonna have to decide where to put this thing.

TACA 110, do you have visual reference

of the ground at this time?

Yes, sir.

TACA 110, there is an interstate highway

directly ahead of you at twelve o'clock

and seven miles.

Let's see what it is.

NARRATOR: Landing on a highway

may be Dardano's only option.

It was probably a possibility,

but you always know that the freeways are full of cars.

And no way I'm going to try to land in the highway,

because we'll kill many more people.

So that was not an option, really.

NARRATOR: Eleven years earlier,

a Southern Airways flight facing a similar emergency

was forced to land on a highway in Georgia.

The crash landing killed nine people on the ground,

and 63 people onboard the plane.

I don't think we're going to be able to make it there.

You're six miles away from Lakefront Airport.

- Can you make it there? - No, sir. We're at 2,000 feet,

- and losing altitude. - (ALARM SOUNDING)

NARRATOR: The crew only has one option left.

I guess I'm going to have to make a ditching here, sir.

NARRATOR: They must take their chances, and put the plane down on the water.

TACA 110, Roger. Whatever you need to do, sir.

And that was about the last communication with the tower.

Then we were like, uh, 1500 feet

when that was going on.

This is New Orleans tower.

We have an inbound 737 probable ditching.

Forty-five souls onboard.

NARRATOR: The Coast Guard is immediately deployed.

Dardano plans to put the plane down

in the canal directly ahead of him.

Okay. There.

(EXHALES) Put it down softly.

BURMEISTER: It was kind of the feeling

of everyone on the plane

that we weren't gonna get out of this.

It was a doomsday kind of feeling.

And this... this was it.

Excuse me. What's going on?

(IN SPANISH)

BURMEISTER: (IN ENGLISH) The steward's body language.

I didn't even have to understand what they were saying.

You could just see them in distress.

NARRATOR: The 737 can only stay in the air for another minute.

As Dardano looks for a safe stretch of canal

to drop the plane in, another option appears.

LOPEZ: Look! Look at that one over there.

And then Lopez saw the levee

parallel to the canal that we were making the approach on.

Can we put it down on the grass?

Yes, boss.

NARRATOR: The levee is much shorter

and narrower than a runway,

but it looks safer than the water.

That's where we're going to go in?

You got it, my friend.

NARRATOR: They will have to act fast to get there.

DARDANO: Prepare the cabin.

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

INTERPRETER: You don't even have time to think about being scared.

So I can't say I was scared.

We had to start preparing the cabin.

(IN SPANISH)

BURMEISTER: (IN ENGLISH) I had to assume crash position.

And it was really difficult for me,

because I had just had surgery.

You're kidding me.

And I had stitches going up the middle of my stomach.

I've got stitches. Operation.

NARRATOR: Passengers only have seconds to prepare.

(CASTILLO SPEAKING SPANISH)

INTERPRETER: The passengers had to take off

their shoes, their jewelry.

They had to put their shoes under the seat in front of them.

So we went through the whole emergency checklist.

NARRATOR: Air traffic control

can no longer pick up the low flying 737 on radar.

The controller asks other planes to look for it.

Six to Kilo Alpha. If you could check your east

just slightly to the south three to four miles.

We lost an aircraft down there. A 737.

If you could let me know what you see.

PILOT: (OVER RADIO) Roger. Kilo Alpha to Six,

I'll see what I can do.

INTERPRETER: I felt scared when I got back to my seat.

That's the moment when I really got scared.

Okay. Put the gear down.

(ALARM CONTINUES SOUNDING)

All right.

NARRATOR: But Captain Dardano is still flying

towards the water.

Well, the levee was parallel to my right.

NARRATOR: To have any hope of landing on the levee,

he needs to make a sudden and dramatic course correction.

That requires a risky maneuver known as a sideslip.

So we just had to do a little bit sideslip

to get into position to, to make a perfect landing.

NARRATOR: It's a move meant for small planes and gliders.

Not a 43-ton Boeing 737.

But it's a risk he has to take.

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

I prayed.

Oh, God.

I was in disbelief that this was happening.

NARRATOR: Only 700 feet

separate the plane from the ground.

Without engines, the pilots have no thrust reversers

to slow the plane when it touches down.

Dardano has an additional challenge.

With only one eye,

he's unable to gauge depth

as he speeds towards the narrow, rain-soaked strip of grass.

Oh, God. Oh, God.

I was prepared for the plane to blow up and explode.

I was prepared for a tragic event,

and, mentally, had said goodbye to my family.

This is it.

NARRATOR: There's a high cement wall

in front of the levee,

and a steep embankment on the left.

There may not be enough room to land.

Watch out for the wing on that side.

DARDANO: I see it.

Come on.

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

(THUDDING)

We touched down with one wheel and the other one...

BURMEISTER: Was it a hard landing?

Yes. If the seatbelt snapped,

we would have flown through the plane, for sure.

NARRATOR: On the soggy grass,

the plane is in danger of skidding off the levee

into the water.

DARDANO: I was trying just to control the airplane,

not to hit the brakes,

and not to lose the airplane at the last minute, you know.

The spoilers were out.

So, we were just thinking,

"Okay, we make it. We make it. We make it."

(LAUGHING)

Very good.

Very good. Very good, Charlie.

Very good, my friend.

I was surprised.

(CHEERING)

BURMEISTER: It was a hard landing, but, um...

But it was a nice... it was a nice landing.

Um, just to be alive.

(LAUGHING)

INTERPRETER: The landing was spectacular.

The plane landed so smoothly.

There wasn't even a bit of turbulence.

A perfect landing.

That was, uh,

I think the most beautiful landing I ever made.

INTERPRETER: When I looked out my window, there was no fire.

So I immediately opened the door, and deployed the slide.

(IN SPANISH)

(IN ENGLISH) They told us to get off the plane.

That the plane was going to blow up.

NARRATOR: The New Orleans controller

has no idea what has become of TACA Flight 110.

Another aircraft relays the news to the tower.

PILOT: (OVER RADIO) Kilo Alpha to Six.

Everything looks okay.

Looks like he did a pretty good job.

They made it.

You're not gonna believe where they are!

(INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER)

NARRATOR: For the first time in history,

a 737 without any engines

has landed safely outside of an airport.

Now, investigators must find out why the sophisticated engines

on a brand new jetliner failed in mid-flight.

NARRATOR: Pilots call this a dead stick landing.

A landing with no engines.

As it turns out, TACA 110 has landed on NASA property.

This is the Michoud Facility,

where they manufacture parts for the space shuttle.

The evacuation was quick.

We got out of the plane quickly.

We slid down the chutes.

I got to the top of the levee,

and there were some nurses that were on the plane,

and they looked at my stitches and everything.

No major injuries.

Just one person that had had an operation.

But she's okay.

- JOURNALIST: Where were you headed? - To New Orleans.

And soon after, an ambulance came,

put me on a stretcher and took me to the hospital.

You have to thank God.

CROWD: That's right. Yes.

LOPEZ: And also to our captain, because he kept calm.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER, APPLAUSE)

Now, that's not something you see every day.

NARRATOR: Within hours of the emergency,

investigators arrive

and begin examining the damaged plane.

To end up with a jetliner

sitting on a levee, having landed there, being perfectly intact

is almost an unbelievable sight. It's beyond incredible.

Just a couple of questions for you, but the first thing I'd like to say is...

nice landing.

So tell me, when did the engine trouble start?

NARRATOR: Investigators meet with the crew right away.

They want to know exactly what was happening

when the engines flamed out.

We were descending to 16-5

when both our engines flamed out at the same time.

That both of them coming apart at the same time

is an infinitesimal possibility.

NARRATOR: This plane was powered

by one of the most advanced and widely used

jet engines on Earth:

the CFM-56.

It powers not only the Boeing 737,

but Airbus and military planes as well.

NANCE: The CFM-56 is just a marvel

of current engineering aeronautically.

There are thousands and thousands of them out there,

and they almost never, ever fail.

NARRATOR: But two CFM-56s had failed

on this one plane alone.

Investigators desperately need to know why.

I haven't flown through too many storms that intense.

NARRATOR: They turn their attention

to the weather conditions.

It's considered a very rare occurrence

for engines to have flamed out in flight.

And, uh, therefore, the concentration was on

what possibility would cause this?

Is there an environmental effect

since they were flying through rain and hail?

Tell me about the storm.

The winds were fierce.

There was so much rain and hail,

we could barely see out the window.

NARRATOR: Dents in the fuselage

reveal that the plane was struck by hail

almost an inch in diameter.

If the hail was strong enough to damage

the exterior of the plane,

investigators wonder if it crippled the engines, as well.

A turbofan engine

is made up of a system of fans and blades.

A large fan brings air into the engine.

A series of blades compresses the incoming air

which mixes with fuel to ignite,

spinning the turbines deep inside the engine.

WEAVER: The first thing you look for is to find the parts.

And then look in the front and the back of the engine

to determine if there's damage

that might explain something has gone in the engine,

or something has broken inside the engine.

NARRATOR: To peer inside the engine,

they use a borescope.

NANCE: This is where you put the little TV camera

on the end of a scope of some sort.

You can look in the internal hot section of the engine,

and see what they could see.

INVESTIGATOR: No hail damage to the compressor that I can see.

Keep going deeper. Let's see what's at the center.

NARRATOR: But the turbines

deep inside the engine are charred.

INVESTIGATOR: Look at this.

Turbines are almost completely melted.

When the engine, uh, overheats, uh,

if the overheat is allowed to occur long enough,

then it will cause melting of the turbine blades.

So when did you get the temperature warning?

The engines started to overheat right after we started them.

(ALARM SOUNDING)

WEAVER: And the damage to the turbine,

which is the melting of the blades,

means that you can no longer produce

thrust out of that engine.

NARRATOR: The charred turbines

do not explain why the engines stopped working in the first place.

For some reason, Flight 110's engines had quit,

restarted, and only then, burned up.

But before the search for answers can continue,

investigators are confronted with another problem.

The plane is starting to sink.

It can't stay here much longer.

Maybe NASA has some ideas.

NARRATOR: The levee was never meant to support

forty-three thousand kilograms.

NANCE: A jetliner has an awful lot of weight

on a very small footprint.

You leave a plane there for two or three days,

you may have it mired up to its hubcaps.

NARRATOR: There was barely enough room to land the plane on the levee.

Getting the plane off of it could be even more challenging.

You've got really three ways to get this airplane out of there.

One is to fly it out. Secondly to disassemble it.

Or third, put it on a barge.

But it's not as easy as it sounds.

NARRATOR: Disassembling the plane

could cause more damage.

Do you think we can fly it off?

NARRATOR: The decision is made.

They'll attempt to take off and fly the plane to New Orleans.

The very first problem in getting the airplane

ready to fly was getting the engines to the point of reliability,

which meant they had to replace the right engine.

It was just cooked. It was too far gone.

The left engine was probably going to need to be overhauled,

but they could fly it out with that.

NARRATOR: After replacing the right engine,

they bring in test pilots to get the plane off the ground

and to the airport 24 kilometers away in New Orleans.

NTSB OFFICIAL: It's a good,

safe operation that we're doing here today.

We can accelerate up to... virtually to takeoff speed.

And then if we decided to stop, why, we could stop the airplane.

NARRATOR: With no passengers

and very little fuel to weigh the plane down,

it reaches takeoff speed in just 365 meters.

The investigation at the emergency landing site

comes to a dramatic end.

NANCE: In most scenarios in which an airplane comes down

in the wrong place but is still intact,

you'd probably never get it out that way.

This just happened to be amazing luck.

INVESTIGATOR: Hey, guys.

NARRATOR: Investigators must now try to figure out

why the engines failed in mid-flight.

If rain caused them to shut down,

thousands of other planes are at risk.

NANCE: This was an incredible situation,

because these engines are just too reliable.

Did they go through a thunderstorm?

That's not supposed to do it. So, what happened?

NARRATOR: The CFM-56 engines

are designed to withstand a heavy rainstorm.

Most water is diverted away from the core while in flight.

Whatever makes it inside should evaporate,

or drain from the engine.

The engines were sent back to the G.E. test facility in Ohio,

where they have the test facilities

that can recreate water ingestion testing.

NARRATOR: If some hidden design flaw

caused the engines to fail,

investigators need to find it.

They hope water ingestion testing

can provide some answers.

Once they got these engines and started testing them, the very first thing

was to go to the FAA standard,

the way FAA had tested them in the past, and what had been approved.

Okay, let's see what they can handle.

You basically, uh, spray water from nozzles

into the inlet of the engine.

And the amount of water you adjust in percentage

to the amount of air to simulate flight conditions.

NARRATOR: Despite rigorous water testing,

the engine does not flame out.

Like we thought. It wasn't the rain.

Nothing went wrong. The engine continued to run.

So, obviously, something else had happened.

WEAVER: So, they needed to examine this

in much more detail.

Was there something more severe about the weather?

LOPEZ: We lost an engine.

Both engines.

LOPEZ: Both engines, sir.

NARRATOR: Investigators study

all available data on the storm

that somehow brought down TACA Flight 110.

That was more than a thunderstorm. It was a hailstorm.

In the case of TACA,

uh, we had basically a frontal system to the north.

Some very strong winds, and a vertical

producing several hail events.

And in the southern latitudes,

you don't typically see too many hailstorms.

- So, it was abnormal. - (THUNDER RUMBLING)

NARRATOR: The engines are designed to ingest water.

But investigators are unsure

if hail acts differently from water inside the engine.

They never thought about hail getting into the core.

Hail is only created in a thunderstorm.

It basically starts as a raindrop.

It goes up above the freezing level,

freezes, becomes a piece of ice.

Then as it gets heavier,

drops back down below the freezing level,

coats another layer of water around it,

and gets back into the updraft again

brought to higher altitudes, and refreezes.

So hail is multiple layers of ice that forms on a particle.

NARRATOR: Investigators learn

that the engines were designed to withstand

the impact from hail stones of a certain size.

The FAA standards called for a mixture

of hail sizes of one-inch and two-inch diameter balls.

NARRATOR: Some of the hail

TACA 110 encountered was smaller than that.

Those smaller pieces of hail could make their way

through the fan and compressor blades,

accumulating deep inside the engine,

where they would melt.

Hail was considered to not be a factor in the center core,

but if it had been, what would it look like?

NARRATOR: Investigators calculate the amount of hail

that could have entered the engine core.

They then estimate the volume of water

the melting ice would have produced.

That's substantially more water.

NARRATOR: Investigators want to know if this excess water

overwhelmed the engines,

and caused the failure.

Okay, let's try more water and see what happens.

NARRATOR: They perform another water ingestion test,

this time adding even more water

to account for the hail inside the engines.

So if they used enough water to emulate that,

maybe they could make it fail.

Well, they tried, using a high speed on the engine.

And still, it wouldn't fail.

Okay, what are we missing?

Or was there something unique about the engine operation itself that...

that might have contributed to the engine losing power?

NARRATOR: Engine performance figures

from the flight data recorder

give investigators a new lead.

Just before the flameout,

engine power was down to 35%.

ATC: TACA 110. Runway two-eight.

Final approach course continue inbound.

Descend at pilot's discretion. Maintain 4,000.

LOPEZ: Thank you, sir.

TACA 110.4,000.

They had just started their descent.

Thank you, sir. TACA 110.

Four thousand.

NARRATOR: As the plane began its final approach

to New Orleans, the engines automatically reduced power

to slow down for their descent.

At a lower power setting,

the engines may not have been able to handle as much water.

(PEOPLE SCREAMING)

(ALARMS BLARING)

NANCE: We'd been testing everything

in accordance with the normal FAA methodologies

at high speed on the engines.

But these guys were in descent to New Orleans.

NARRATOR: They repeat the test,

this time with less power to the engines.

INVESTIGATOR: So we wanna see what happens

when we add the same amount of water,

but with the engines powered down to 35%.

Okay?

(WHIRRING)

NANCE: The big aha moment was when they realized that

it was the speed of the engine

that was managing to get the engine

through the ingestion of as much water

as they could throw at it, and presumably as much hail.

But when the engine went down to idle,

that's when they managed to find the key.

That's when the engine couldn't handle it.

Well, now we know what happened.

Bad timing.

And that test gave a completely different result.

NARRATOR: Investigators have discovered

why the engines flamed out.

It showed something that no one understood at the time.

Because in all the testing and all the logic

that had gone into it, they hadn't taken into account

the slow speeds of the engine on descent.

WEAVER: At the lower speeds,

uh, the hail having a significant velocity and momentum

can actually see an opening between the fan blades.

And it's able to get through the fan blades

and directly into the core.

NARRATOR: The engines filled with hail and water,

and flamed out.

For investigators, only one mystery remains.

DARDANO: Look. I don't feel any power.

NARRATOR: What went wrong after the TACA crew

restarted their engines?

The sucker is not starting.

NARRATOR: Why did they overheat,

and fail?

NARRATOR: When the engines on the 737 flamed out,

the crew knew they had to act fast.

DARDANO: We lost power on the engines.

NARRATOR: To have any hope of restoring engine power,

they first needed to get the APU running.

Get the APU started.

NARRATOR: Since the engines were no longer spinning,

they had stopped ingesting air and water,

but a successful restart was far from guaranteed.

WEAVER: If you do not have all the proper conditions,

you can get what's called a hot start,

which means that you have too much fuel

for the amount of air going into it,

and the flame will now migrate into the turbine,

where it could overheat it.

NARRATOR: After studying the engine data

from the flight recorder,

investigators conclude that the overheating

and ultimate failure of the engines,

was, in fact, due to a hot start.

(INAUDIBLE)

Mayday. Mayday. TACA 110. We lost an engine.

Both engines.

LOPEZ: Both engines, sir. Both engines.

NARRATOR: With his engines flooded with fuel,

and no time to properly drain them,

Dardano hit the ignition switch.

If he didn't get all the timing correctly,

then this is what's gonna happen. You're gonna get a hot start.

I can't be critical of a pilot in that condition.

That aircraft is coming down.

NARRATOR: Rain and hail from an intense storm

crippled a modern passenger jet,

and nearly led to disaster.

Investigators must find a way

to make sure it never happens again.

One of the beauties of aviation and aviation safety

is when we find there's a problem, everybody works together to solve it.

And in this case, the problem indicated a need for an engine change.

Not... not a complete design overhaul, but just a few tweaks.

But that was done almost immediately,

much to the credit of everybody involved.

NARRATOR: The shape of the engine nose cone

and the spacing of the fan blades are modified

in order to better deflect hail away from the core.

Also, additional bleed doors are added,

to drain more water from the engine.

That sort of thing hasn't happened again.

And there are thousands and thousands of these engines

flying every day for hours and hours and hours.

NARRATOR: Within a year of the incident,

737-300s around the world

are retrofitted with the upgrades.

The plane involved in the daring landing

is back in service within a month.

LOPEZ: Look! Look at that one over there.

That's where we're going to go in?

You got it, my friend.

NARRATOR: The crew's actions on Flight 110

are legendary in the aviation world.

The decision-making at the very end

when they were going to put it in the canal

and saw an opportunity to put it on dry ground,

and did so, that was superlative. It was the decision-making.

NARRATOR: Investigators credit the calm nerves

and determination of Captain Dardano...

- Watch out for the wing on that side. - I see it.

NARRATOR: ...for avoiding what could have been a fatal disaster.

(THUDDING)

Captain Carlos Dardano is dubbed a hero in the media.

NEWSCASTER: Passengers that day were overjoyed.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

Dardano and his crew kept the calm.

And because of that,

forty-five people who rode that plane are alive today.

NARRATOR: Today, the Dardano family tradition continues.

Carlos' son and daughter have followed in their father's footsteps,

both becoming pilots.

At the beginning, I was mad when I was shot.

I lost part of my vision.

And then I had this accident, that everything went well.

(INAUDIBLE)

And 20 years later, I have a career,

and have a good life, and...

Life is for a reason, and reason is for life.

(LAUGHS)