Original subtitles

NARRATOR: A military KC-135 is on a dangerous refueling assignment

over a war zone in the Middle-East.

Zero-five is level.

They told us that 15% of us could possibly get shot down.

What the...

NARRATOR: when suddenly the mission goes wrong.

- Whoa! - No good. We're losing it.

We were going 110 degrees of bank in both directions.

What the heck is happening?

It's beyond the capability of the airplane to do that.

- Go get the parachutes and helmets. -Roger.

It became apparent pretty quickly that we weren't gonna

be able to complete our mission.

NARRATOR: The question is why?

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Whale 05.

NARRATOR: Investigators must quickly

determine if it was a mechanical failure...

So this control cable snapped.

NARRATOR: ...or enemy fire.

Was this intentional? It's very critical to the entire operation

to really figure out what happened.

(opening theme music playing)

♪♪

NARRATOR: It's late afternoon

at King Abdul Aziz Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Dozens of US Air Force KC-1-35 aircraft

prepare for late night missions during the Gulf War.

Today, more than 90 large tanker jets

are preparing to refuel combat missions over Iraq and Kuwait.

(intense music playing)

At 90 knots I'll hand it over to you.

Roger.

NARRATOR: Major Kevin Sweeney and the crew

of US Air Force flight Whale 05

review the final details of their mission.

Start switches.

NARRATOR: He's the commander.

Flight start.

NARRATOR: Sweeney has over 20 years of Air Force flying experience.

It's his job to know the mission and his plane.

SWEENEY: The aircraft commander is just like the captain.

If you have to make any tough decisions, it's your responsibility,

although you... it's very important to take input

from the rest of your crew members and listen to them.

Set takeoff thrust at 1.82 EPR.

EPR set for takeoff.

90 knots. My airplane.

NARRATOR: Jay Selanders is Sweeney's trusted co-pilot.

Your airplane.

The aircraft commander is always responsible for the airplane

so you can't trade that. But specific duties

we would trade back and forth.

NARRATOR: At 5:25 p.m.

Whale 05 lifts off from Jeddah.

NARRATOR: Coalition forces are two weeks into Operation Desert Storm.

One of the largest bombing campaigns in aviation history.

Hundreds of daily bombing runs drive

Saddam Hussein's invading Iraqi army out of Kuwait.

The size of the American air power

contribution, if you will, in Desert Storm,

just can't be overstated.

It was quite astounding.

NARRATOR: Sweeney and his crew are flying a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker.

The aircraft is similar to Boeing's commercial 707,

but is specially designed for mid-air refueling.

JAY SELANDERS: It really began the jet era, and it is a great airplane.

It's true. It's fast. It's strong.

It's one of Boeing's best products,

and, and once you become accustomed to a few of its idiosyncrasies,

a sweet airplane to fly.

It will take you a long way and bring you home.

Steve, are you gonna transfer from the center tank?

Affirmative. Two units of trim should keep us within the limits.

NARRATOR: Senior Master Sergeant Steve Stucky is the boom operator.

He's critical to the refueling operation.

During refueling, he guides the fuel boom to the receiving plane.

Once he is within three to five feet

of the boom from the receptacle...

I got him at 1.0

STEVE STUCKY: I'll guide that boom into the receptacle.

Then we can transfer fuel from the boom into his airplane.

JOHN NANCE: The amount of fuel that you can carry,

whether in a bomber or a fighter,

becomes critical in terms of being able to get to the place that you need to go

and bring them back.

There simply isn't any other substitute for air refueling.

NARRATOR: Tonight's mission takes them along a tanker corridor,

an aerial highway for tanker crews,

heading North from Jeddah.

When they reach waypoint Rita,

they'll turn east

before making their final turn to the rendezvous point

less than 180 miles from combat zones near the Kuwaiti border.

Transition altitude.

Set altimeter 2992.

NARRATOR: Navigator Greg Mermis,

is in charge of keeping the mission safely on course.

GREG MERMIS: We were primarily responsible for running the rendezvous,

joining up with the other aircraft to complete the refueling.

I knew that Greg was gonna do everything

to put us in the right position at the right time.

NARRATOR: Tonight, they'll be refueling an AWACS plane,

a radar surveillance and control unit,

a prime target for enemy fire.

MERMIS: I don't think any of us had any idea what to really expect.

You know, they were estimating that 10% of the air refueling fleet was gonna

probably be shot down.

So it was a little bit nerve-wracking.

NARRATOR: The crew faces Iraqi surface-to-air missiles

and more than 700 enemy aircraft,

including the dreaded Russian MiG-25.

SWEENEY: We had F-15s up there, F-16s and their primary mission was air-to-air

looking for enemy airplanes

to come and possibly try to attack an American airplane.

To be flying any sort of an airplane in a war zone is surreal.

I don't care how much you prepared for it.

The ability to think in a volatile environment

and to stay very calm is absolutely a requirement of the job.

Zero-Five's level.

NARRATOR: Whale 05 reaches cruising altitude.

As they get closer to enemy territory,

the pilots reduce radio contact to avoid detection.

The only other plane in sight

is another American KC-135 flying ahead in the same flight corridor.

Heading 088.

Altitude hold, on.

Altitude hold, check.

NARRATOR: The crew will keep this course for 45 minutes

until they rendezvous with the AWACS plane.

MERMIS: That was our time to maybe relax a little bit.

Nothing really kind of happening except cruising at that point.

So I always, you know, used to take the opportunity

to go ahead and make my dinner.

NARRATOR: Stucky, reviews his mission brief,

which involves delivering 125 thousand pounds of fuel.

There's times when desert air is very stable.

And it's like you're flying on glass.

But while I'm working on the paperwork,

I felt a little bounce.

NARRATOR: Selanders feels an abnormal movement in the yoke.

The autopilot was on, but I saw the yoke deflect about 30, 35 degrees to the left.

And it was shaking just a little bit,

which is very odd.

And just about the time I put my hands on the yoke,

thinking I was gonna punch the autopilot off,

it came back to neutral.

Well it's some, some anomaly.

NARRATOR: Moments later...

What the...

NARRATOR: ...things go very wrong.

I got it!

NARRATOR: It takes just a second for the plane to roll 110 degrees to the left.

What the heck is happening?

NANCE: The first thing to think about is fly the jet.

And the second thing is,

what the devil just happened?

We really had no idea what was going on to the aircraft.

I thought perhaps a missile had hit us.

Did we get hit?

STUCKY: Because it was violent.

I can't tell!

I'd been flying for probably 10 years at that point and

been on a lot of missions but never experienced anything like that.

NARRATOR: The crew can't tell if there's some kind of malfunction

or if they're under attack.

We're gonna lose her.

We gotta get her level.

NARRATOR: Just as it seems the plane is in an unrecoverable left bank,

it snaps hard to the right.

SELANDERS: The airplane literally flipped.

This is clearly unusual. It's beyond the capability of the airplane to do that.

SWEENEY: I mean, we're just totally out of control.

We were going a 110 degrees of bank in both directions.

NARRATOR: In the galley, Stucky is in trouble.

STUCKY: I didn't know what was going on.

It seemed like I would get to my feet and then I'd fall down again.

It wasn't good.

There's too much stress!

The airplane is very resilient, but it isn't resilient enough to

overcome the stresses that would be put on it if you rolled it in the wrong direction

and tried to get out of a high speed dive.

NARRATOR: If the aircraft banks much further,

it will be impossible to recover.

And if we didn't get this under control and out of these wild gyrations

very quickly, this airplane was gonna come apart, and then we're just history.

(intense music playing)

NARRATOR: The pilots of Whale 05 are facing a crisis

over the Saudi Arabian desert.

♪♪

The plane is rolling violently.

It's no good! It's no good. We're losing her.

I have got to focus on what I'm doing,

and I don't have any time for extraneous thinking.

NARRATOR: Just when all seems lost,

Major Sweeney plays a hunch.

Speed brake!

NARRATOR: Speed brakes are devices on airplane wings

designed to increase drag during descent and landing.

Sweeney deploys the speed brakes on both wings,

hoping it will level the airplane.

What happens is when the speed brakes come out,

it gives you more roll capability that is manually

at your command and less capability for the airplane to go off and do

something on its own aerodynamically.

NARRATOR: It's a procedure Sweeney remembers from his training.

It works.

I remember leveling out. I was just amazed that the airplane was still flying

and, you know, everybody is still there.

(intense music playing)

NARRATOR: Incredibly, the pilots have managed to level the plane

But they're not out of trouble yet.

SWEENEY: All right. I have lateral control, but we're losing altitude.

(instruments beeping)

We've got fire lights on engines one and two.

NARRATOR: The pilots discover a problem with the two left engines.

Jay and I looked at the engine instruments and they are, they're all over the place.

These engine instruments make no sense.

NANCE: Both engines on the left wing have fire lights on.

And why that would happen to both of them at the same time

is also going through your head.

NARRATOR: The plane is fully loaded with fuel.

Steve, how bad are the fires on engines one and two?

Checking.

NARRATOR: If there's a fire in the engines, it could lead to disaster.

(panting heavily)

Oh, my God.

The only thing I could see was torn sheet metal

on the wing where the engines were

and fuel being vented over the top of the wing.

They're not on fire.

STUCKY OVER RADIO: They're gone.

No fire?

Affirmative.

STUCKY OVER RADIO: No fire. The engines are gone.

Roger.

There was a moment where that sentence didn't make a lot of sense to us.

Wait a minute. They're gone?

SWEENEY: It takes just a moment for your mind to catch up to that,

because now you've got really important pieces of the airplane not there.

NARRATOR: Even with no fire, the crew faces

another urgent problem.

We really gotta get some fuel off here.

Let's start dumping. Jay, you fly.

Don't fight it.

I have the aircraft.

NARRATOR: The two remaining engines can't provide enough power

to keep the heavy aircraft airborne.

Well we had no time to relax. But I knew that we were in serious trouble

and we had to come up with a lot of different procedures

to keep us in the air.

Close, open, dump, pump.

Okay. Close. Open.

NARRATOR: The fuel dump checklist

is one of many emergency procedures embedded in Sweeney' brain.

He conducts it from memory.

Sweeney starts shedding fuel.

SWEENEY: We had to, had to get lighter so this baby's star to fly.

Jay and I could kinda start to feel at 1 6,000 feet

like she could start flying again.

Okay, I got the airplane.

Holding steady at 16,000.

NARRATOR: By dumping 50 tons of fuel,

Sweeney has succeeded in stopping their descent.

Good. Good. Halting fuel dump.

♪♪

NARRATOR: Even though the plane is maintaining its altitude,

there's no guarantee it can make a safe landing.

Go get the parachutes and helmets.

If anything else goes wrong,

we'll need to bail.

Roger.

NARRATOR: Ditching over the desert at night

is a terrifying option.

But there may be no choice.

No air crew wants to bail out. But I've got to get my crew back safely.

That's my job, is to get my aircrew back safely.

NANCE: The final methodology is to get everybody to jump out

but you may lose a crew member or two just in that process.

So this is not a decision to be taken lightly.

(intense music playing)

Greg, you get on the radio with AWACS. Call in the Mayday.

Roger.

NARRATOR: Looking for help, the crew contacts their rendezvous aircraft

to advise them of the situation

It became apparent pretty quickly that we weren't gonna be able to

complete our mission.

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, this is Whale 05.

We've had an in-flight upset and number one and two engines

have departed the aircraft.

I say again. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.

NARRATOR: There's no response.

It's no good. I think our high frequency radio is down.

It should have worked, but it didn't. We couldn't reach anybody.

NARRATOR: Alone with no radio contact,

the crew will have to find their own way back to Jeddah.

NANCE: We like our radios, especially when something goes wrong,

but they're not going to provide necessarily a hook to come out of

the sky and, and save you.

You've gotta do that for yourself, including getting back to an airfield.

Greg, are your nav instruments working?

Yes, INS is functional, radar is still up.

Well give me a heading back to Jeddah.

240.55 minutes. That's a long time to fly.

Copy. Jay, take us to 240.

NARRATOR: The crew relies on the navigator's skill

to find a safe route back.

MERMIS: It was just under an hour to get back to Jeddah.

It just seemed like an awfully long time

to be in an airplane that you were very unsure of.

- Your airplane. - My airplane.

NARRATOR: With great effort, Sweeney and Selanders wrestle t keep

the plane on course to Jeddah.

Without the weight and drag of the left engines, the plane wants to bank right.

The ailerons and elevators in a KC-135 are not hydraulic,

and so I have to fight her back to keep those wings level.

NARRATOR: But even if they make it back,

there's no guarantee they can land the plane.

We have to do a controllability check.

NARRATOR: The crew must test their flaps and ailerons..

Coming back to idle.

NARRATOR: The flight controls used to stabilize the plane on landing.

NANCE: A big airplane inherently has an ability to be landed if you can

keep it under control.

So the question is, are we safe to go ahead and try to

land this airplane with what we've got?

SWEENEY: If we were gonna do a controllability check

and Jay and I determine that she's not flyable,

we're gonna have to bail out.

♪♪

All right Jay, I want you to slowly bring them down.

Roger that.

NARRATOR: Flying a severely damaged plane near enemy territory,

the crew of Whale 05 carefully check that the control surfaces on their

plane are safe for landing.

There's a moment right before you begin the check

that you don't obviously know exactly what's gonna happen.

NARRATOR: If the flaps are damaged...

- Flaps 10. - NARRATOR: it could cause an imbalance

and make the plane impossible to control.

We didn't know if the flaps would come down symmetrically.

We didn't know if they'd come down at all.

Nice and easy.

SWEENEY: We're gonna start milking the flaps down

and we see if we can maintain control of the airplane.

Jay is an integral part of this so he's gonna slide the flaps down to,

like, 30 degrees and be watching me and watching everything.

Flaps 30.

Now I'm gonna do a small turn left and right.

If I start to lose it, I'll say up, and you slam them back up.

NANCE: You're a test pilot at this particular point in time.

And you don't want to be testing on the actual approach

because there can be no recovery if you've made the wrong move.

Hell, I can land this airplane.

Okay, bring the flaps back up to zero.

We're gonna go home.

It was a big deal because at that point we thought

we could actually land the airplane.

NARRATOR: The pilots now know they can slow down the plane enough

to get it on the ground.

But they need to get it to a runway first.

A 130 miles to Jeddah. We might be in range now.

Jeddah, Whale 05. How copy on Victor?

NARRATOR: They attempt to contact the controller for assistance.

Whale 05, Jeddah.

CONTROLLER ON RADIO: You're loud and clear, go ahead

Ah! Yes, sir. This is Whale 05 inbound to Jeddah.

SELANDERS ON RADIO: Declaring an emergency. Engines one and two are out.

CONTROLLER ON RADIO: Whale 05, say souls on board

and fuel remaining.

SELANDERS ON RADIO: We have four souls on board,

currently 55,000 pounds of gas.

Roger. We are preparing the airport for your arrival now.

Zero Five. Thank you, sir.

NARRATOR: With the airport on standby, the crew begins its landing preparations.

Let's look at two engines inoperative landing.

NANCE: One of the things that I always loved about Air Force flying

was our operations manual covered literally everything.

Every procedure that you could possibly think of in an emergency

and including, in this case,

the loss of two engines on the airplane.

NARRATOR: One step will pose a big challenge.

Allow time for manual landing gear extension.

When you lose two engines like that, it affects

a lot of the hydraulics as well.

SELANDERS: We lost the left side hydraulics,

which means the gear have to be lowered manually.

NARRATOR: Without hydraulic power to lower the landing gear

Stucky will have to do it manually.

It's a complicated task.

It's a real emergency situation.

And you have to do each step in the checklist right.

All right, we need to lower by final descent.

Can you do it?

Yes sir, I'll get them down.

NARRATOR: It's a procedure he's only done in training.

I'm relying on him to do a stellar job of getting the landing gear down.

SWEENEY: This is a tight mission.

One more thing.

NARRATOR: Sweeney has an important realization.

We gotta pull the anti-skid or we lose our brake pressure.

Steve, it should be on the TR bus 2 behind you.

NARRATOR: There's only enough hydraulic pressure left to appl the brakes once.

Sweeney decides to disengage the anti-skid braking system.

- STUCKY: The anti - skid system, which

is similar to the automatic braking system on today's modern cars,

that don't allow you to lock up the brakes, they'll release, brake,

release and brake and that's what that anti-skid system is.

Got the anti-skid. Confirm?

Confirmed.

NARRATOR: Disengaging the system will ensure

- that the remaining hydraulic pressure... -STUCKY: It's pulled.

NARRATOR: ...is used to keep the brakes applied.

If I pull that circuit breaker and just put the brakes on once and hold them,

I'm... I'm gonna have full braking power.

Without the anti-skid you're gonna blow a few tires,

but that's not gonna take you off the runway,

and it is going to be a safe methodology

of bringing this airplane back to the surface.

Fifty miles.

NARRATOR: The crew is ready to begin the final approach.

Steve, get into position.

Roger.

NARRATOR: The longer they struggle with the controls,

the more tired the pilots become.

Jay, it's your turn.

I'll take comms.

SELANDERS: Okay, I got the airplane.

Your airplane.

NARRATOR: Sweeney takes one last break to save his strength for landing.

Jeddah approach, Whale 05.

- Whale 05, go ahead sir. - SWEENEY: Jeddah Approach, 05.

We have the city in sight.

We're gonna fly in south of your field from the east here

and came into runway three four left.

No other traffic for the airport at this time.

CONTROLLER: It's all yours.

All righty. We'll use it and we'll get out of your way shortly.

NARRATOR: Sweeney briefs the team on his plan for the approach.

Okay, we're gonna start high and fast, 210 knots

Jay, you start just slowly.

Don't drop the flaps unless everything's looking good.

SWEENEY: Any questions?

No questions.

Okay Steve, drop the nose gear.

Extending nose gear.

NARRATOR: Whale 05 is less than eight minutes from landing.

Nose gear down and locked.

Roger. It's showing down.

Proceeding to right and left main gear.

Throughout the flight it seemed like we just continually had these

dragons come over the hill and the

last one is this landing gear.

Once we put the landing gear down, we're going down.

We're committed to land.

We don't get a go around, because we're not gonna have enough

thrust on two engines.

NARRATOR: With all three landing gear down,

the crew of Whale 05 now has no option

but to try landing the severely damaged plane.

SELANDERS: Six miles. Speed 210.

Flaps 20.

NARRATOR: Minutes from touching down,

all their skill and planning is about to be tested.

I mean it was very important that

each one of us clearly knew what we're gonna do.

We were gonna have one shot at it.

♪♪

Minimums. Runway in sight.

NARRATOR: With two engines missing,

Whale 05 is about to attempt a landing at King Abdul Aziz Airport.

Runway in sight.

SELANDERS: It was one of his best approaches probably ever.

He was on center line. He was exactly on glide slope.

100 feet.

Coming back to idle.

Flaps 50.

Flaps 50. Looking real good.

50.

40.

30.

20.

Reverse thrust to interlock.

NARRATOR: Major Sweeney begins to deploy

the reverse thrust on the inboard right engine to help slow the plane.

But it has an unintended outcome.

As soon as he did that, the left wing started to rise.

NARRATOR: The powerless left wing is lifting.

The right wing could scrape the runway and cause the plane to cartwheel.

Not now. Not now!

And I remember thinking I'm not gonna lose it now and slammed it down.

NARRATOR: Without the braking action from full reverse thrust

the plane is quickly running out of runway.

He immediately put it back down and we relied on the brakes.

Brakes!

Jay was gonna put his brakes on too,

and we were gonna blow a couple tires.

(brakes screeching)

NARRATOR: The crew of Whale 05 is safely on the ground.

We did it. (laughing)

I think we blew three or four tires before it was over

because of the lack of anti-skid but,

extraordinary job really under the circumstances.

Woo! (laughing)

You had a sense that oh my god, we... (chuckles)

We managed to get back here and live through this.

Who would have thought that?

SELANDERS: There was that one moment when you actually stoppe moving,

and feel like we've made it.

And I think we enjoyed that for maybe a second,

and then got out of the airplane.

I remember looking back at the wing and woo...

That was just a shock.

I mean they're gone.

And there's big holes in the wing and,

parts hanging out.

Wow!

NARRATOR: Within a day, the US Air Force launches an investigation.

Lieutenant Colonel Ike Stokes is the lead investigator.

The fleet of KC-135s is indispensable to the war effort.

Did the plane malfunction?

Did it come under enemy fire?

There was truly more external pressure than I have experienced in the past,

because they're flying 90 to 100 missions out of Jeddah

on a daily basis.

So it's very critical

to the entire operation of the war to really figure out what happened.

Hard to believe both engines are gone.

STOKES: You're gathering the information.

You're analyzing the information.

It was just uh, a wonderment to see something like this.

NARRATOR: Stokes checks for scorch marks and residue from explosives.

One thing investigators always consider,

was this intentional?

Did someone shoot at the plane?

NARRATOR: If this was an enemy missile,

it could mean the threat from Iraq is escalating,

putting the entire refueling fleet,

and the outcome of the war at risk.

Let's face it. We're fighting a war.

We have a critical asset.

These are combat air refueling missions,

so if the fighters and bombers do not get the fuel,

they can't complete the mission

NARRATOR: But evidence of enemy fire is not what Stokes finds.

There's no scorch marks or

explosive residue.

There's no evidence of an enemy attack.

These engines were ripped right off.

NARRATOR: Stokes wonders what kind of force tore off the plane's left engines.

STOKES: One of the things that we really wanted to do,

uh, was to find the engines.

But at the time we had no idea as to where to exactly look.

We're gonna need those missing engines.

Although the navigator did record where the mishap occurred,

those engines could be spread over quite an area of desert.

NARRATOR: Fortunately, a group of Bedouins discovered the engines

and reported the find.

STOKES: They said, what do you want us to do with them?

And we immediately said, get a truck,

flatbed, and a crane, and go out to the desert,

and let's get the engines recovered.

Accident investigation can do incredible things

by piecing together from very small bits of evidence what happened.

But it is so much easier when you can actually go out and get these things.

And thank goodness they were able to find them in the desert.

Nice work.

A big thing that helped us out in the investigation

was getting the engines back to the location.

NARRATOR: Stokes, notices something unusual.

Did they find it like this?

NARRATOR: One of the thrust reversers is partially deployed

Of course, we need to explain or understand why that was open.

NARRATOR: Thrust reversers change the direction of exhaust air flowing

from the back of the engine to slow the plane down.

The idea that the thrust reverser, uh, could come open in flight

at cruise speed of over 80 percent of the speed of sound

is a very important consideration because that could create an upset situation.

NARRATOR: Did the thrust reverser deploy mid fight

and cause the engines to rip off the plane?

This control cable snapped.

STOKES: But in looking at it you could see how the cables that

operated the thrust reverser ripped out as the

engine was departing from the airplane.

There's nothing wrong with the engines.

NARRATOR: Deployment of the thrust reversers

didn't rip the engines off the plane.

Let's see what the crew has to say.

NARRATOR: Investigator Ike Stokes wonders if the crew

can shed some light on why a KC-135 lost two engines mid - flight.

STOKES: Okay. So tell me what happened when the event started.

Knowing, in this case, that we had a crew that survived the mishap,

it was invaluable.

Because you really do need the initial inputs

of what those crew members experienced, to put the whole story together.

Well, the yoke moved for a second.

Then it corrected itself.

And then out of nowhere it cranked itself left.

At what point in the flight was this?

Oh, shortly after reaching cruising altitude.

And then another KC-135 passed us.

Wait, so... so another plane was passing you?

Yeah it was on the same flight path but it had further to go so,

we let it pass through.

It felt like we hit heavy turbulence.

NARRATOR: It's a significant clue.

How far away was the other aircraft when it passed your plane?

Oh, I'd say a quarter of a mile, half a mile to the left of us.

NARRATOR: Heavy aircraft leave powerful wake turbulence behind them when they fly.

Stokes wonders if Sweeney's plane was close enough

to getcaught in the other KC-135's wake.

We're talking about very strong circular wind

coming off of this airplane wing,

and it can cause the upset of another airplane,

regardless of its size, if it hits it just right.

And how far away was the other plane when the turbulence started?

They were at least two miles ahead of us.

NARRATOR: If this was indeed wake turbulence,

investigators wonder why only the left engines were affected.

Thank you, Major.

Thank you, sir.

NARRATOR: An examination of the right engines

might help to reveal what happened.

Right engine bolts?

NARRATOR: Each KC-135 engine is attached to the wing with three large bolts.

These four are completely severed.

NARRATOR: Stokes discovers that two bolts on each right engine were sheared in half.

How did those engines stay attached?

They were one bolt away from actually losing

the engines off of the right wing, which would have made them

nothing more than a high-speed glider.

NARRATOR: With wake turbulence looking more and more a likely cause...

So Whale 05 is at 25,000 feet.

NARRATOR: ...investigators compile the critical data needed to calculate

the forces that Whale 05 may have passed through.

Whale 20 is at 25,500 feet.

That's everything.

NARRATOR: But they need help from the plane's manufacturer

to analyze the data.

Let's talk to Boeing.

STOKES: Understanding how the two airplanes affected their separation

gave us the data necessary to talk with the engineers at Boeing.

Wow. The left wing G forces,

were 2.88.

That exceeded the structural capability of the pylons

and so they separated from the airplane.

And the right wing, 2.61.

Let's see what that looks like.

NARRATOR: The extreme lateral G forces on the left side of th plane,

were enough to tear the left engines off

but not quite strong enough to rip them off the right side.

Point one four more Gs on the right side...

...and this plane would have been nothing more but a massive glider.

They were very, very close to coming off.

The G-force loading was just not enough to sling them off of the airplane.

It was said that we had one more gyration

and we might have been a high-speed heavyweight glider.

But we made it.

NARRATOR: This leaves investigators with one burning question.

These guys train for lead changes.

So why did this mission go sideways?

♪♪

NARRATOR: US Air Force investigator Ike Stokes

tries to understand how wake turbulence nearly destroye

a gigantic tanker aircraft.

The separation between the two planes is by the book.

That's it.

The wind was 85 knots from the west.

STOKES: The wind was blowing enough at altitude

to push the wing tip vortices from the preceding airplane

into the flight path of the mishap aircraft.

STOKES: I mean they accounted for everything.

They were foiled by the direction of the wind.

Perfect storm.

NARRATOR: But Stokes still doesn't know how this perfect storm

ever got a chance to form.

When you're taking off between 90 to a 100 airplanes on a daily basis,

the arrival and departure from the base is very critical.

And in this particular case,

the mishap aircraft was parked in such a way that it had to go first

and be followed by the second airplane,

the one that had further to go.

The solution that they came up with, was a perfectly responsible solution,

and that was we're gonna take off individually

and then you're going to pass me.

Had the number two plane been parked to the left of the mishap airplane,

the mishap never would have occurred.

NARRATOR: Investigators finally understand what happened to Whale 05.

05's level.

NARRATOR: On a wartime mission over the Saudi Arabian desert,

two KC-135s switch position mid-flight.

Altitude hold, on.

Altitude hold, check.

NARRATOR: The wake turbulence generated by the passing plane

is blown into the path of Whale 05.

It creates a tremendous force that flips the plane so violently

G-forces rip both engines off the left wing.

STOKES: I've often heard flying described as hours and hours of sheer boredom

followed by moments of stark raving terror.

In this case, the crew experienced that stark raving terror.

No, there's too much stress!

NARRATOR: The oscillations almost push the right engines

and the aircraft beyond the point of recovery.

Speed brakes!

NARRATOR: But with the quick thinking of a seasoned wartime commander,

the plane levels off.

Coming back to level flight was a true feat of airmanship.

Greg, are your nav instruments working?

Yes, INS is functional, radar is still up.

Well give me a heading back to Jeddah.

NARRATOR: The coordination of a well-trained crew...

Nose gear down and locked.

Runway in sight.

NARRATOR: ...brings Whale 05 back home safely.

The aircraft commander was an excellent airman.

But the fact is, he had every brain in that airplane

working in tandem with him side by side to make sure they didn't miss anything.

Brakes!

I was very fortunate to fly with one of the best crews in the Air Force,

in my humble opinion.

They did their job in a critical situation

and it wasn't just me getting back the airplane,

it was the team got back the airplane.

We did it.

NARRATOR: Whether it's a refueling plane in wartime

or a routine domestic flight in a 747,

the importance of teamwork can never be overstated.

Why this crew succeeded is because they were thoroughly imbued

with the idea that they had to talk to each other seamlessly,

and all of them put their minds to the task of

what are the proper procedures?

What are we facing?

What do we need to do?

And that, I think, is still one of the many lessons that comes out of this.

SELANDERS: Kevin and I have gone through this numerous time

over barbecue and beer,

and tried to figure out, is there anything we could have done better?

Are there steps that we missed?

And we're pretty satisfied that as a crew,

we took the actions that needed to be taken when they needed to be taken

and probably wouldn't change a thing.

NARRATOR: The crew's handling of the crisis earned them each

the Distinguished Flying Cross

for heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight.

SELANDERS: It's like a Purple Heart almost. You don't want it

because you're in a situation you probably don't wanna be in.

But we're very thankful, very, very, um, happy with that.

The Air Force trains you that every day is not gonna be a perfect day.

There's gonna be a day that you're gonna get in the bucket.

And when that day comes, if you've done your homework,

you'll be good enough to make it.

And I think the Air Force does an outstanding job of this.

- NARRATOR: Amazingly, the same KC - 135 went on to fly for another 13 years.

SELANDERS: I do remember seeing the airplane sitting over by itself,

thinking you know that... that'll never fly again.

Uh, and as it turns out,

Boeing came out, put a laser on it and said it was still straight.

It hadn't been bent. It was repaired, flown back from Jeddah

and flew a number of missions and it soldiered on for quite a while.

Captioned by National Captioning Institute