Original subtitles

(aircraft engines)

NARRATOR: On approach during a thunderstorm...

Both runways are wet, severe turbulence.

NARRATOR: American Airlines Flight 1572 loses a valuable lifeline.

CONTROLLER (over radio): Be advised the tower is closed.

There's a leaky window in the tower.

McNAIR: The tower had actually been abandoned.

This was a very unusual situation.

NARRATOR: NTSB investigators learn that a supervisor went to the deserted tower.

I told them they could land.

Landing is at your discretion. The runway does appear to be clear.

NARRATOR: Moments before touchdown, disaster strikes.

LEE: What's up?

NARRATOR: And both of the plane's engines fail.

What role did an out-of-service tower play

in jeopardizing the lives of the 78 people onboard?

Tell them we're going down.

PILOT (over radio): Mayday, mayday! (airplane whooshing)

GPWS: Pull up.

(indistinct radio transmissions)

NARRATOR: On a stormy November night,

American Airlines Flight 1572 cruises 35,000 feet above Pennsylvania.

Smoother ride up here than at 33,000.

NARRATOR: Captain Kenneth Lee, a former military pilot,

has been flying with American Airlines for ten years.

That's for sure.

NARRATOR: First Officer John Richards also flew with the military

and has seven years of commercial aviation experience.

GUOID: This was a very experienced flight crew

that was very comfortable with the aircraft they were flying.

NARRATOR: They're flying the MD-83, a twin-engine narrow body jet.

GUOID: It has two turbofan engines mounted in the tail.

It has a T-tail and a swept main wing.

It was one of the last aircraft that actually had direct connection

between the controls in the cockpit and the services on the airplane.

Better get the cabin ready for our descent.

(intercom chime) Hi.

We're starting our descent now,

so you can lock the cabin up and prepare for landing.

Will do.

(chime) Please fasten your seatbelt.

NARRATOR: It's a short two-hour fight from Chicago's O'Hare Airport

to Bradley International Airport at Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

There are five crew and 73 passengers onboard, many of them returning home.

Please put your seat in the upright position.

The flight started out rather routinely.

It was the second day of a three-day leg trip for these guys.

CONTROLLER (over radio): American 1572, descend at pilot's discretion,

maintain flight level one niner zero.

Pilot's discretion to one nine zero, American 1572.

Let's go down.

NARRATOR: The flight is 25 minutes from landing.

I'm gonna get the ATIS real quick.

ATIS (over radio): Bradley Airport information Victor, zero three...

NARRATOR: ATIS, or Automatic Terminal Information Service,

provides pilots with important airport data like weather and approaches.

ATIS (over radio): Notice to Airmen, runway two four and one five.

Both runways are wet. Severe turbulence.

All right. Sounds like it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

- (chuckles) - I'll tell the passengers.

NARRATOR: They'll encounter some rough weather along the way,

but nothing this experienced crew can't manage.

JAMES: Many times I have experienced the same kind of

winds and weather that this crew has had,

and the winds will have a drastic effect on the airplane and pushin' it around.

The crew was very familiar with the weather,

and they were highly experienced enough to handle anything.

LEE (over PA): We've started our descent.

Right now they've reported some moderate turbulence on the descent,

so it might get a little choppy.

- Just watch me the whole way. - Yeah man, you got it.

NARRATOR: The pilots prepare for the landing.

- Any comments, just scream out. - You're gonna get a lot of turbulence.

- (laughs) - You know how to land it.

JAMES: They support each other, they back each other up.

If anything goes wrong, or somebody does something wrong,

the other one catches it and corrects it.

(aircraft engines)

NARRATOR: 50 miles from the airport, the weather worsens.

- That's a lot of rain. - I can see that.

(snorts)

The in-route controllers had told them the weather was going to be bad

due to thunderstorms and wind shear.

NARRATOR: Wind shear is a sudden change of wind speed or direction

that can be dangerous close to the ground.

American 1572, descend and maintain 4,000.

Descending 4,000, 1572.

NARRATOR: Flight 1572 is the last plane flying into Bradley Airport tonight.

RICHARDS: Approaching 4,000.

NARRATOR: The crew is making a difficult non-precision approach.

McNAIR: A non-precision approach means that you don't have a navigation aid.

There's more reliance on the crew to figure out the altitude

and descend those altitudes correctly and avoid all the terrain that's below there.

We're established on the inbound track for the VOR approach.

- Flaps 5. - Check. Flaps 5.

NARRATOR: This type of approach creates extra work for the pilots.

The non-precision approach is the hardest of all the approaches to fly,

because it takes so much attention to fly the approach.

It has to be set up correctly.

CONTROLLER (over radio): American 1572, be advised,

The tower is closed at this time due to a problem with one of the windows.

NARRATOR: The non-precision approach and rough weather

aren't the only challenges facing the crew.

Uh... Copy. There's a leaky window in the tower.

NARRATOR: At larger airports,

the control tower has two areas for managing incoming and outgoing flights:

approach control, typically located on one of the lower floors,

and tower control at the top.

Mark Guiod was the air traffic manager at Bradley Airport for 12 years.

GUOID: Once they're within five miles of the airport,

the approach controller turns them over to the tower

to bring them in for landing and taxiing to the gate.

NARRATOR: But a leaky window has shut down the tower,

forcing the air traffic controller to leave her post.

GUOID: The tower controllers are the pilots' eyes on the ground.

They're the ones that ensure that the runway is sterile

and clear for them to land on - that there are no obstructions, no other traffic.

They also provide critical information in the late stages of the flight.

- Flaps 11 please. - You got it.

NARRATOR: The pilots must now rely on their own observations to land safely.

The pilots were expecting someone to be able to be in the tower,

the controller to see the condition of the runway

and to give them the information needed to see if anything during the thunderstorm

had blown onto the runway, so they could make a safe landing.

NARRATOR: The approach controller is closely monitoring the flight.

He notices the plane is veering off course.

American 1572, it looks like you're a bit to the left of final.

- Uh, yeah. It looks like we're left of it. - Copy.

NARRATOR: Seven miles from the airport, Captain Lee gets the plane back on course.

- Let's have gear down. - Gear down.

(aircraft engines)

I'm going up to the tower.

NARRATOR: The supervisor in Approach Control volunteers

to give the crew of Flight 1572 some guidance.

American 1572, there is someone in the tower.

(on radio) It's not officially open but you can change to tower frequency.

JAMES: It would have been a big relief to the crew to have someone in the tower,

the controller up there to give them the information they need for the approach.

Hey Tower, American 1572. We are six miles from runway one five.

Landing is at your discretion. The runway does appear to be clear.

RICHARDS (over radio): Copy.

BENZON: Any landing is really at the pilot's discretion.

But in this particular case, they needed to be extra vigilant

because they did not have any official tower assistance.

Flaps 40.

NARRATOR: The pilots configure the aircraft for landing.

Flaps and slats to 40-40. You are cleared to land.

- There's 1,000 feet. - LEE: Okay.

NARRATOR: Flight 1572 is just 60 seconds from touchdown.

(crashing). LEE: (grunts) What the...?

(screaming)

Bells and whistles were going off.

Lights were flashing, and something had to be done.

(alarms blaring) GPWS: Terrain.

NARRATOR: Two and a half miles from Bradley Airport in Connecticut,

American Airlines Flight 1572 has struck something while descending to the runway.

The pilots must act quickly to avoid crashing.

RICHARDS: Go! Go around. LEE: Going around.

NARRATOR: They pull the nose up in an attempt to recover.

- Flaps 15, positive rate, gear up. - RICHARDS: Gear up.

The crew immediately began a go around procedure.

They raised the gear, raised the flaps,

crammed the engines forward, and immediately after that,

things went downhill very quickly.

(beeping)

The left motor's failed.

NARRATOR: Seconds after the pilots commence the go around,

the plane's left engine loses power.

JAMES: That's the last thing you need to have happen,

is a power failure on one of the engines.

RICHARDS: There's the runway straight ahead.

Okay. Tell 'em we're going down. Tell 'em emergency.

Okay Tower, a call for emergency equipment.

(on radio) We are going down on the runway.

It looks like we've got an emergency on 1572. Send the trucks.

Emergency vehicles have been dispatched.

NARRATOR: As the pilots prepare for an emergency landing, the situation worsens.

The right engine also fails, turning the MD-83 into a 60-ton glider.

They realized they had the second power failure, which made double trouble.

NARRATOR: Without its engines, the plane has drifted further off course.

Captain Lee tries to line it back up with the runway.

You got it dude. You're gonna make it.

NARRATOR: But they may not have enough lift to reach it.

JAMES: A stall is an aerodynamic effect.

It's when the wings lose lift, and the airplane loses directional control.

The only way to fly out of a stall is max power, which they did not have.

(gasps) Hold on, guy.

(skidding) (grunts) Hold it down buddy.

Hold it down, hold it down. Hold it down.

Hold it down. Hold it.

(screeching)

God bless you. You made it.

(relieved sigh)

McNAIR: It was a miracle that the first officer saw the

runway and the crew reacted so quickly.

It was a very good reaction and certainly it saved a lot of people's lives.

NARRATOR: Flight 1572 has landed safely after a treacherous final approach.

Everyone has survived and, remarkably only one person has suffered a minor injury.

(applause)

The pilots are hailed as heroes for saving their plane and everyone on board.

GUOID: One of the key things about something like this is

that you never stop flying the airplane,

and those who do don't live to tell about it.

NARRATOR: The events that nearly brought down Flight 1572 are a complete mystery.

What have we got so far?

NARRATOR: It will be up to investigators

from the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, to find the answers.

- Bob Benzon heads up the team. - BENZON: I was the investigator-in-charge,

with about a dozen NTSB people underneath me, plus many people from the industry.

The aircraft hit the ground hard approaching the runway threshold.

Maybe the engines had something do to with it.

NARRATOR: Did a loss of engine power

cause Flight 1572 to crash land in front of the runway threshold?

BENZON: When we first arrived at the accident site,

our first order of business really was

to kind of do areconnaissance look at the aircraft.

This thing looks like it flew through a war zone.

BENZON: During our initial examination, the aircraft was very, very damaged.

It reminded me of something like a B-17

that had gone through a raid on Schweinfurt in World War II.

It was beat to heck.

Branches sticking out of the landing gear, engine blades missing, battered flaps.

The aircraft was unflyable.

- They definitely hit some trees. - Oh they sure did.

YOUNG BENZON: And the engines definitely had power

when they shredded those branches.

NARRATOR: Mangled branches in the plane's engines indicate

that they were working normally.

The discovery raises another question.

If the engines had power, why'd they hit the trees?

The main question became why the aircraft was low enough to hit trees

and still make it to the runway.

If you're gonna analyze an accident like this,

which has been categorized as a controlled flight into terrain,

you have to understand where the airplane went,

and when it went there, and why it went there.

Where exactly did they hit the trees?

NARRATOR: To understand why Flight 1572 struck trees,

investigators try to identify the first point of impact.

INVESTIGATOR: The trees they hit are on top of a ridge,

about two and a half miles northwest of the runway.

We have a team out there now.

Let's see if the trees or the ridge were marked on the chart.

The approach chart itself, when you look at it,

had the ridge marked with a small dot with the altitude.

The chart has the top of the ridge at 819 feet.

BENZON: Once we get a look at the approach chart itself that the crew was using,

we noted that the ridgeline was just a mere dot

with the number 819 next to it, an altitude.

That dot could have been anything. It could have been a building, a giant tree.

Other airlines use a slightly different chart that shows topographical features,

including this ridgeline.

NARRATOR: Did Flight 1572 come in too low

because there was a lack of detail on their approach chart?

And do we have an altitude for the tree strike?

I need an altitude for the first impact mark.

MAN (over radio): 771 feet.

INVESTIGATOR: They shouldn't have been anywhere near those trees.

NARRATOR: The team is surprised to discover that when Flight 1572 hit trees,

it was 48 feet below the altitude listed for the ridgeline.

They weren't just below the ridge.

They dropped 309 feet below the minimum descent altitude.

NARRATOR: The minimum descent altitude, or MDA,

is the lowest altitude a crew can descend to

until they are able to see the runway.

It's designed to keep planes above terrain or obstructions.

Those altitudes are hard altitudes. When the FAA builds those altitudes in there,

they have to take in consideration of all all the clearances,

the trees, the elevation, to keep the airplane at a safe altitude.

Why would they drop so low?

Maybe there was something wrong with their altimeters.

McNAIR: Investigators see the airplane descended too low,

so the question is did the crew have the correct indication?

Let's see if the static system is working.

BENZON: The pitot-static system was quite important,

because that system controls altitude, altimeters,

it controls airspeed indicators,

and it also controls the vertical velocity indications.

NARRATOR: Did sensors provide incorrect data to the plane's altimeters?

The MD-83 has three sets of sensors on the exterior fuselage.

They measure air pressure to determine airspeed, altitude, and vertical speed.

If one of the static sensors is leaking or obstructed,

it can give pilots inaccurate information,

making them think they are above or below their actual altitude.

GUOID: If the pitot tube is clogged, you lose those vital instruments,

and that can happen from a variety of reasons.

BENZON: Pitot static systems have caused problems before,

problems severe enough to cause crashes.

- YOUNG BENZON: You ready? - Yep.

NARRATOR: The test forces air into the sensor

to determine if the air pressure is being measured accurately.

- But it proves to be a dead end. - The static system is working.

Well then, let's see what the controllers can tell us.

BENZON: It's always valuable to be able to speak to the air traffic controllers

after an accident.

Often the air traffic controller is the last person to speak to the crew

prior to an accident.

YOUNG BENZON: Did the crew report anything unusual

- on their decent into Windsor Locks? - No. No, it was a standard approach.

But the weather conditions weren't great at the time.

- Were there any down drafts? - Um...

NARRATOR: Did strong winds push Flight 1572 into the trees?

If an airplane encounters severe down drafts,

it could push the airplane down several hundred feet.

NARRATOR: Wind shear poses a danger to aircraft.

In 1985, a severe downdraft slammed Delta Airlines Flight 191 into the ground,

more than a mile short of the runway in Dallas, Texas.

137 people lost their lives.

In 1994, a year before Flight 1572's close call in Connecticut,

US Air Flight 1016 crashed into trees

while attempting to land in a powerful thunderstorm in North Carolina.

It ploughed into a residential neighborhood, killing 37 people.

Thunderstorms have incredible wind shear.

They can have updrafts at 200 miles an hour,

and then, you know, half a second later after you pass through that,

you get a downdraft at 200 miles an hour.

There was a lot of wind around the airport, all night.

What about when this flight was coming through?

There was some wind shear.

NARRATOR: Investigators learn that airport sensors registered some downdrafts.

We made sure to give them updates. Like I said, it was rough.

- So they knew what they were flying into? - Yes.

GUOID: Given the weather conditions at the time and the unstable air,

investigators were able to determine that there may have been downdrafts

up to 300 or 400 feet per minute occurring at the time of this event.

So if there was a downdraft, these guys would have been prepared for it.

Oh yes.

BENZON: It was possible that wind shear could have pulled the aircraft

down into the trees. But a careful look at the weather at the time,

after that we determined that simply wasn't true.

Was there anything else out of the ordinary that night, besides the weather?

Well, the tower was shut down for repairs at the time. Leaky window.

One of our supervisors went up to make sure they landed okay.

You mean the tower was down during their approach?

CONTROLLER: Yes.

I'd like to speak to the supervisor who was in the tower.

Sure. Of course.

NARRATOR: Did Flight 1572 slam into trees due to a lack of guidance from the tower?

BENZON: Air traffic control work is demanding, and it's a precise job.

If there are any major disruptions, either in the tower or on the radar scope,

it could affect aircraft traffic greatly.

Were there any signs the crew was having trouble during approach?

Not really. It was all normal until they called in the emergency.

Take me through what happened.

They were already six miles out, lined up with the runway.

The runway looked clear so I told them they could land.

RICHARDS: We are six miles from runway one five.

Landing is at your discretion. The runway does appear to be clear.

RICHARDS (over radio): Copy.

Did you give them an actual clearance for landing?

The tower was closed. I can only give advisories.

It's up to them to decide after that if they want to land.

Advisories are just information provided to the pilot for their own use.

They can listen to it, they can not listen to it, it's up to them.

In this case, the tower was not open

so therefore he didn't have authority to issue a landing clearance.

NARRATOR: Investigators still don't know if poor weather and a closed control tower

caused the pilots to drop below the minimum descent altitude...

- LEE: What the...? NARRATOR: And into the trees.

Let's start it at 12:53, when the crew contacts the tower.

NARRATOR: Investigators turn to the cockpit voice recording

of Flight 1572's final approach,

to determine why the plane dropped too low and flew into trees.

SUPERVISOR (over tape): Landing is at your discretion.

The runway does appear to be clear.

And what are you showing right now for winds?

One seven zero at two four.

RICHARDS (over tape): Copy.

He's checking the runway, giving them weather updates. Solid job so far.

NARRATOR: The team listens to the Supervisor giving the crew

guidance to help them land.

It was a good initiative for him to do that.

It was something some people would not have done

based on the fact that the tower itself was a bit of a precarious area.

LEE (over tape): Flaps 40.

Flaps and slats to 40-40. You are cleared to land.

- Okay. Give me 1,000 down. - 1,000 down.

You got it.

Stop that.

1,000 feet a minute? There's no way.

NARRATOR: As they neared the ground,

the crew decided to make their final descent at 1,000 feet per minute,

nearly double what is normal.

BENZON: That, in my mind, is quite excessive.

He didn't have to descend that steeply.

GUOID: Especially on a non-precision approach

where you have a minimum descent altitude that you should not be going below,

The faster you're descending, the earlier you have to start leveling off,

or else you end up going below the target altitude,

by the time you correct and come back up again.

According to the descent profile,

they're five miles from the airport, at 1900 feet.

NARRATOR: Using the radar beacon data from Air Traffic Control,

investigators track Flight 1572's cockpit conversation throughout the descent.

BENZON: At 1,000 feet per minute, they're below their MDA in less than a minute.

Sure that's fast. But the first officer should be calling out the altitudes.

McNAIR: While the aircraft's descending,

the pilot is supposed to monitor the airplane's MDA, minimum descent altitude.

JAMES: The First Officer should call out 1,000 above the MDA to the captain,

and then 100 foot to the MDA, and then the MDA altitude.

Okay. Let's listen to the First Officer's call outs.

- RICHARDS (over tape): There's 1,000 feet. - Good. He made 1,000 foot call out.

NARRATOR: But they don't hear any more call outs after that.

JAMES: The first officer called out the 1,000 foot above the MDA.

He did not call out the 100 foot above the MDA.

NARRATOR: Investigators then hear something unusual.

- 1,080 is your, uh... - Right.

You're going below your, uh, your...

(crashing) LEE: What the...?!

Hang on.

Was that the minimum descent altitude call out?

I think it was supposed to be.

NARRATOR: The team discovers

that the first officer mishandled the remaining call outs.

The first officer started to call out for the MDA but never finished his sentence.

So he makes half a call at their minimum.

YOUNG BENZON: And then doesn't say anything else until they're below it.

INVESTIGATOR: And by then they've hit the trees.

NARRATOR: Why did the pilots make such a critical error so close to landing?

- Let's talk to the pilots. - BENZON: In this particular case,

we were very fortunate to have a live crew to interview.

We wanted to determine exactly what they were thinking about during the accident.

Walk me through your actions, four miles from the airport,

as you approached minimum descent altitude.

Look. The weather was rough. We were two hours late departing.

I was monitoring the instruments.

- 1,080 meters is your uh... - Right.

BENZON: Okay. And then what?

As we got closer to the minimum descent altitude,

I looked outside for the airport.

And when I looked back, we were below minimums.

- You're going below your... - Got it.

BENZON: During that time, he was looking out,

he was not monitoring the flight gauges as closely as he should have been.

In this case, the appropriate procedure

would have had the first officer glued to the altimeter and the compass

and other instruments in the cockpit until the captain said, "I see the runway."

Why didn't you call for a go around?

Well, there was no time. We immediately hit the trees.

(crashing) LEE: What the...?

It was a stressful night.

GUOID: There could be a bit of task saturation in there.

This went from an easy, kind of relaxed flight

with a little bit of weather difficulty,

to "Oh my gosh, everything's going wrong really, really fast."

Something doesn't add up.

The First Officer couldn't have been at his minimums

seconds before hitting the trees.

Maybe there was an issue with their altimeter settings?

NARRATOR: Pilots must calibrate the altimeters based on outside air pressure,

which can change dramatically in extreme weather conditions.

Pilots frequently recalibrate the altimeters

to maintain an accurate altitude reading.

The altimeter setting's very important.

You can't do an approach in bad weather

unless you know what the altitude of your airplane is.

INVESTIGATOR: Let's see what settings they used.

- That's a lot of rain. - I can see that.

(chuckles)

McNAIR: In this case, because of this storming that was going through that area,

the pressure was falling rapidly.

And when that happens, your altimeter setting goes down quickly.

It means if you don't reset your altitude,

then your airplane is flying lower than you think it is.

(aircraft engines)

Here. The dispatcher updated them with an altimeter setting of 29.23.

NARRATOR: NTSB investigators check

whether the pilots of American Airlines Flight 1572 properly set the altimeter

during the stormy approach into Bradley Airport.

- What time was that? - 12:30 a.m.

That was 25 minutes before they hit the trees.

And with the changing weather conditions,

they must have received an update from Bradley ATC.

One thing that the crew considers and expects from the tower or air traffic

is the update of the weather as quick as possible,

so they can also amend what they need to do.

Okay. They first contacted Approach Control at 12:43.

Bradley Approach, American 1572. We are at 11,000 feet.

NARRATOR: Investigators expect the approach controller

to give the crew a weather update,

including the altimeter pressure setting.

GUOID: The approach control issue the altimeter setting on initial contact

when an arriving aircraft enters their airspace.

The altimeter is displayed as a digital display in the control tower as well.

CONTROLLER (over radio): American 1572, Bradley approach, roger.

Expect VOR runway one-five approach.

NARRATOR: But the update is never provided.

McNAIR: Approach did not update their altimeter setting,

even though the pressure was dropping rapidly.

There's nothing at all from approach,

right up until he passes them off to the tower.

Why wouldn't the approach controller give them a weather update?

Good question. Let's ask him.

BENZON: One thing that puzzled investigators was

why the air traffic controllers in the Bradley tower

didn't keep the pilots updated with the current altimeter setting.

YOUNG BENZON: You mentioned before that the weather was quite active that night.

Yes. It was changing quickly all night.

What was the airport's altimeter setting at the time of the accident?

Let me see. (clears throat) 29.15.

NARRATOR: Investigators learn that

the altimeter pressure setting at the time of the accident

was not the setting the pilots were originally given.

Why didn't the crew receive an updated setting?

Um...(clears throat) 29.15.

(sigh)

Uh, I didn't think to give it to them.

GUOID: Sometimes things that you do over and over and over again become too routine

and late at night, when there's not a whole lot going on,

sometimes those are the things that drop through the cracks.

BENZON: We wondered about that excuse a little bit, but it's what he said.

So in essence, the pilots did not have the current altimeter setting

when they flew the approach.

We got the altimeter setting from the time of the accident.

NARRATOR: Comparing the two altimeter settings

will reveal how much lower the plane was flying then it should have been.

.08.

McNAIR: The difference in the altimeter setting

from what they had put in their instruments to what was reality

was about .08 inches of mercury, which equates to 76 feet.

Because of the pilots' outdated setting,

they thought they were 76 feet higher than they actually were.

NARRATOR: The discovery is eye-opening.

Once you get close to the ground, 76 feet is a big deal.

Once you're coming across the minimum descent altitude

and you're keeping the airplane level at the minimum descent altitude,

76 feet is critical.

The question is would they have hit anything had they been 76 feet higher?

Well, we know they struck the trees at an altitude of 771 feet. Add 76 feet to that.

- They wouldn't have hit anything. - No impact.

If they had the correct altimeter setting, even though they went below the MDA,

they still would have been 76 feet higher,

and we probably wouldn't be talking about this right now,

because they would have missed the trees.

But that doesn't explain why they were 309 feet below their minimum decent altitude.

76 feet of that are on ATC. The other 233 feet are pilot error.

JAMES: This was out of the control of the pilots to a certain extent,

but going below the MDA should have been caught

by both the first officer and the captain.

This is what created the accident.

In the end it came down to the crew's decision.

NARRATOR: Investigators now understand what happened to Flight 1572.

YOUNG BENZON: The outdated altimeter setting,

and the rough weather meant that the crew had almost no

room for error on the approach.

And when they were descending too fast and passed their minimum descent altitude,

there was no way they could have recovered before hitting the trees.

NARRATOR: Only one question remains unanswered.

In spite of hitting the trees, how did they make that landing?

Here's the FDR readout.

NARRATOR: NTSB investigators turn to Flight 1572's Flight Data Recorder

to learn how the crew managed to recover their jet after they struck the trees.

YOUNG BENZON: So they hit the trees

and they immediately pull the flaps back to 15 and go to max thrust.

NARRATOR: The data shows that the crew

quickly configured the plane for a go around.

(alarms blaring)

- RICHARDS: Go! Go around. - LEE: Going around.

Flaps 15, positive rate, gear up.

RICHARDS: (gasps) Gear up.

Then, just as they begin their go around, they lose their left engine.

GUOID: The aircraft actually ingested trees, the tops of the trees,

into the engines.

The left motor's failed.

Followed by their right engine.

(alarms blaring)

Here you have a scenario where something devastating just happened,

we just plowed through some trees on the top of a ridge

two and a half miles away from the runway,

and losing capabilities on this aircraft by the second.

They've got the nose way up,

they're losing speed, and both their engines are gone.

INVESTIGATOR: That's a recipe for a stall if I've ever seen one.

All of a sudden, they were starting to lose airspeed.

They were in a nose-high attitude, and that's the worst time that could happen.

(gasping)

GUOID: Airspeed is what makes the airplane fly.

If there isn't enough air moving over the wings,

the wings stop flying, and that is what's referred to as a stall.

RICHARDS: There's the runway straight ahead.

McNAIR: Fortunately, the first officer saw the runway.

They had to get the airplane on the ground in a hurry,

because they would not be able to keep on flying with the engine power they had.

Okay. Tell them we're going down, tell them emergency.

So now he's gotta reconfigure the aircraft again.

And remember, this is all happening in seconds.

He's gotta focus on trying to save whatever altitude and airspeed he has left

to make it across the fence and to the runway environment.

This is a critical stage of flight now because he doesn't have power.

All he can do is trade altitude for airspeed.

Now we know their flaps were all the way down to 40.

- Flaps 40, all the way down. - They're all the way down.

GUOID: He's gotta generate something else that's gonna get him across the fence,

and that's when he drops 40 degrees flaps.

The drag from the flaps slows them down,

but for the first few seconds, it balloons them up.

GUOID: 40 degrees of flaps changed the curve of the wing,

which increases the lift of the wing and gives him that extra little bounce,

to get a little bit further.

BENZON: If he had not of done that, or if he would have delayed it a little bit,

the accident could have been totally catastrophic.

You got it dude. You're gonna make it.

They glide down to the runway.

Unfortunately, they didn't have quite enough airspeed and altitude,

so they landed early - kind of scooted and flopped onto the pavement of the runway.

(screeching)

(panting)

They made mistakes going into the tree strike, if you will,

and yet did a brilliant job landing the aircraft.

That's an incredible show of airmanship.

BENZON: The crew's actually excellent cockpit resource management

in the very difficult situation that occurred after they hit the ridgeline.

They cooperated. They didn't panic.

GUOID: The way these two pilots worked together was remarkable.

And one of the last things that's on the tape that kind of really gives you a chill

is after they make the runway, and the first officer says:

God bless you, you made it.

McNAIR: This is an accident that probably is not well known to a lot of people.

And that's because the aircraft was able to end up on a runway

and nobody was killed.

NARRATOR: The captain's impressive recovery

doesn't make up for the crew's errors.

The NTSB's final report concludes that the probable cause of this accident

was the crew flying below the minimum descent altitude

before they could see the runway.

We think in essence the main factor involved in the accident

was the fact that the pilots did not

monitor the altitudes they were flying through correctly.

They should have leveled off at a point and they simply did not do so.

NARRATOR: Following the accident,

American Airlines increased the MDA requirement by 100 feet,

and visibility requirement by half a mile for non-precision approaches

to Bradley Airport.

A lot of rain.

NARRATOR: The NTSB also recommends that,

in conditions where pressure is falling rapidly,

controllers should issue altimeter setting updates as frequently as possible.

GUOID: The approach controller issues the current altimeter setting.

That didn't happen either, right?

What's important to understand though, in terms of responsibility,

is that the captain is the final authority on the flight.

It's ultimately the captain's responsibility

to ensure the safety of the flight.

In this case, he did not ensure that he had the most current altimeter setting.

This accident was important to me,

because it was one of the few where nobody was killed, nobody was hurt,

and yet, the Safety Board came up with some pretty good recommendations

to mitigate some of the factors that existed.

(aircraft engines)