Original subtitles

V-1. Rotate.

As Air Algérie Flight 62-89

lifts off from Tamanrasset, Algeria...

Gear up.

...air traffic controllers hear an explosion.

The plane crashes into the desert.

102 people are killed.

Investigators examine engine debris found on the runway.

It looks like there's a fatigue crack

in the nozzle guide vane.

They know an engine failed

but not why the pilots couldn't recover.

Pilots are expected to fly out

of a situation either on takeoff or landing

where they've lost an engine.

The investigation reveals a crew that was struggling

not with the plane...

Let go. Take your hand away.

I let go. I let go.

...but with each other.

Which one of them is actually flying the plane?

Mayday! Mayday!

Pull up!

It's early afternoon

in the middle of the Sahara Desert in Algeria.

The crew of Flight 62-89 readies for its upcoming journey

at the remote Tamanrasset Aguenar Airport.

Seatbelts...

There are 97 passengers on board.

Among them, members of the local football team

headed to a tournament and military personnel.

Seatbelts... Seatbelts...

Though there are some European nationals,

almost everyone on board is Algerian.

Nav and instrument transfer switches...

normal.

In the cockpit, preflight checks are underway.

Yaw Damper...

on.

Today's flight is operated by Air Algérie,

a state-owned national carrier.

Air Algérie is a publicly owned

company that is owned by the country of Algeria.

The country takes a lot of pride in this particular airline

because it is the face and name of the country

as it goes all around the world.

62-89, requesting latest weather.

Yes, the wind is calm. Temperature two-three.

QNH 1-0-2-0. QFE 9-6-5.

Copied, we'll call you back for engine start.

44-year-old Fatima Yousfi is the first officer

of this flight.

She is Algeria's first female commercial pilot.

The female first officer was one of the first women

to be hired at an airline in Algeria,

which would be a big deal in such a male dominated field,

especially in that country.

As the first woman to pilot a Boeing 7-47

transoceanic flight,

Lynn Rippelmeyer, knows what it's like to blaze a trail.

Aviation was then, and still is in some cases,

a boys' club.

Back in the beginning of when women were initially beginning

in aviation here in the States,

maybe it's like it was for her, that it was unusual.

Tamanrasset, 62-89,

we request clearance for Ghardaïa.

Received, we will call you back.

- Hey, Boualem. - Hey.

We've got some Tamanrasset football players back there.

Oh-ho. Tell them we're rooting for them this weekend.

48-year-old Captain Boualem Benaouicha

has over 10,000 flying hours.

A thousand of those hours are on the Boeing 7-37.

The captain was highly experienced, had been flying

for over 20 years and had flown all kinds of aircraft

from small aircraft to large jetliners.

- 62-89, Tamanrasset. - Go ahead.

Start approved, call back for taxi.

Roger.

At 3:00 p.m.,

the pilots get clearance to start-up the engines.

Okay, Before Start checklist. Fuel quantity.

9800 kg.

Pumps?

On.

Flight 62-89 is a Boeing 7-37-200,

an early generation of the popular twin-engine jetliner.

The Boeing 7-37 is one of the most common types

of commercial airliners in the world

and there are different variations of it.

The Boeing 7-37-200 is a original version of the 7-37,

so it's an older model.

And it's not as highly sophisticated in technology

as the current 7-37s.

Flight 62-89 will be departing from Tamanrasset,

with a scheduled stop in Ghardaïa,

and then on to the capital, Algiers.

The total flying time is approximately three hours.

Ready to taxi, Air Algérie 62-89.

62-89, Tamanrassat, taxi onto runway zero two and backtrack,

wind 0-3-0 at ten knots.

Roger, taxing to runway zero two,

then backtracking, 62-89.

As they taxi to the runway,

passengers settle in for the journey.

We are ready, 62-89.

62-89, Tamanrasset, cleared for takeoff runway zero two,

wind 3-3-0 at twelve knots.

Cleared for takeoff on runway zero two,

Air Algérie 62-89.

You have 90 knots...

100 knots...

V1... rotate.

But seconds after takeoff...

Gear up.

...a loud explosion rocks the airplane.

Bismillah. What's going on?

The pilots assess the situation.

- Let go, let go. - I let go. I let go.

Passengers sense something has gone wrong.

We have a small problem, 62-89.

62-89, Tamanrasset.

The 7-37 is approaching a stall.

62-89, are you in an emergency?

Don't sink.

Don't sink. Don't sink.

The pilots make desperate attempts

to recover the aircraft.

But their efforts are in vain.

The plane goes into a freefall.

The passengers brace themselves.

The plane bursts into flames and skids across the desert

just outside Tamanrasset airport.

Emergency response is immediately activated

and firefighters rush to the scene.

The impact and the fire that ensued afterwards

made survival very unlikely for the passengers in the aircraft.

But then, against all odds, rescuers discover a survivor.

Not within the wreckage, but lying in the distant sand,

clinging to life.

A gentleman seated all the way in the back

that didn't have his seatbelt on,

so when the airplane crashed and, uh, broke apart,

he was thrown free.

He shows only faint signs of life, as an ambulance

rushes him to hospital in critical condition.

Defying all expectations, the man's condition

soon stabilizes and he begins to recover.

This passenger's luck cannot be overstated

in what was Algeria's worst aviation accident at the time.

He is the sole survivor out of 103 passengers and crew.

While the country mourns the tragic loss of a football squad,

Algerian and French families grieve their loved ones

and soon demand answers.

The investigation into the crash of Flight 62-89

is conducted by a Commission of Inquiry

established by the Algerian Ministry of Transport.

They receive support from several international agencies,

including the NTSB,

America's National Transportation Safety Board.

I was the US Accredited Representative for this accident

to assist the Algerians.

Initially I wasn't going to travel to the scene, however,

the US Ambassador to Algeria requested our assistance.

While Algerian Investigators await the arrival

of their American colleagues,

they interview the Tamanrasset air traffic controller.

Did the pilots indicate that there was an issue?

The first officer called only seconds after takeoff.

We have a small problem, 62-89.

Pilots typically are hesitant to call 'mayday mayday'

or, uh, announce some type of an emergency,

particularly if, uh, they really don't know what

the situation and the critical nature of the situation is.

And what was the problem?

They didn't say but I heard something that

sounded like an explosion.

Seconds later, the plane was falling out of the sky.

You said an explosion?

That's what it sounded like.

Like a bomb?

I couldn't say.

So, in 2003 Algeria was not the safest place.

There was bombings and terrorist activities

because they were coming out of 11 years of civil war.

When the plane fell, was it in one piece?

Yes, it was.

Investigators found the airplane intact.

There were no claims of responsibility by terrorists,

so it pretty much ruled out that there was

some type of nefarious means to bring the aircraft down.

Can you describe how the plane fell?

It was...

nose up and crashed near the threshold of runway 20.

The controller and other witnesses saw

that the airplane was struggling to climb,

had a nose high pitch attitude and then impact the ground.

Eyewitnesses recall that the plane struggled

to gain enough lift to remain airborne,

an indication it was in a stall.

One week after the incident,

Algerian Investigators are joined by a member of the NTSB.

The Air Traffic Controller and witnesses

describe seeing a stall.

And one witness remarked that the landing gear was down.

If the landing gear is still down while the aircraft

is trying to climb, it creates a lot of drag on that airplane.

It takes a lot of thrust and a lot of power to maintain

the climb to overcome all that drag from the landing gear.

That would affect the plane's ability to climb,

but that alone wouldn't cause a stall.

There has to have been something else.

- Do you have the load sheets? - Yes. Right here.

One of the big questions is about the aircraft weight,

because if you're too heavy, you won't climb as well

as if you're within the weight envelope.

Investigators review the plane's load sheet

to see if the plane was overweight before takeoff.

It looks like the first officer

made some corrections here.

While reviewing the load sheet, the First Officer notices

the fuel weight is wrong,

and changes it from 88-hundred kilograms to the correct amount

of 9800 kilograms.

So with those corrections

the weight at takeoff would have been

48,708 kilograms.

And the maximum weight allowed at take off was 49,500 kg.

The first officer noticed that there was a thousand

kilo difference and, uh, the passenger count

was a little bit off,

which didn't make a whole lot of difference

in the overall weight and balance,

but did show that she was very attentive in her duties.

The aircraft weight was right up

against the maximum takeoff weight.

Even though it was heavy, the aircraft weight

shouldn't have affected the performance too much.

What about mechanical failure?

I'll get the maintenance reports.

Investigators make sure that the maintenance is clean,

and the aircraft has a clean bill of health

prior to the flight.

It was up to date in its maintenance cycle.

No work deferred. No technical exemptions.

The maintenance reports provide no leads.

Maybe there was an environmental factor at play.

Take a look at this.

Did the location of the airport have something to do

with the stall?

The temperature is 23 degrees Celsius.

So it's hot.

Tamanrasset is in a harsh desert climate

and the high temperatures

can affect the aircraft's performance and climb.

And the airport sits at 4,518 feet above sea level.

At this altitude, the air is already thin.

If you factor in the heat, it's high-density altitude

that affects the performance of the airplane.

So, it's generating much less lift over the wings,

so it takes longer to get the airplane airborne.

So just a few pounds below max take-off weight.

High elevation airport.

High temperature. Landing gear extended.

That could definitely cause a plane to stall.

But that doesn't explain the explosion.

Right. What are we missing?

Investigators study the crash site of Flight 62-89

for evidence that could explain the explosion

heard seconds after takeoff.

So, the first point of impact is here...

5,396 feet from the takeoff point.

Skidded through the airport perimeter fence, across the road

and came to rest here,

less than three hundred feet outside of the airport.

The plane is destroyed by the fire

but the main wreckage is practically in one piece,

except for the rear section.

And, look at this debris.

This was on the runway, right about here.

Engine debris.

On the runway we found a large quantity of engine debris

which is indicative of an engine shelling

when a large quantity of engine blades are thrown out

the back end of an engine.

It's an old adage in accident investigation,

"What fails first falls first."

So, if they find debris prior to finding the wreckage,

then they know that happened prior to the accident.

So one of the engines blew out.

That must have been the explosion the controller heard.

What caused the engine failure?

We needed to get our eyes on those engines

to determine which failed and why it failed.

Investigators begin a visual inspection

of the plane's engines, starting with the right one.

Take a look at the fan blades.

Hmm. Heavy deformation.

It was definitely rotating at the time of impact.

On the right engine showed that it was turning at impact.

We don't know at exactly what level of thrust

it was rotating at.

If the right engine was operating on impact,

then did the left engine fail?

These turbine blades have far fewer deformations

than the right engine.

It looks like it was barely moving.

The hot section is completely torn apart.

In an engine's hot section,

fuel is ignited in a combustion chamber,

generating a powerful stream of hot air

that spins the turbine blades.

The damage is evidence that the left engine failed.

We knew that the failure was in the hot section

and so we had to follow every lead that we could

to determine where the failure occurred.

There's a bunch of blades missing from the hot section.

The missing pieces are most likely

the debris that we found on the runway.

We found that the hot section was basically 'corn cobbed'

as we say. There was not many blades left in the hot section

and there was metal all over the place.

What caused the blades to break?

Let's get some of these parts out on the table.

We wanted to further tear down the engine.

We wanted to look at the failures under the microscope.

We wanted to look at the metallurgical aspects

of the failure. We wanted to look to see

if there was a bird strike.

Investigators begin by examining components

from the hot section in search of pre-existing defects.

I managed to remove the sediment from the nozzle vane.

Nozzle guide vanes direct the hot air flow

in the combustion chamber

to the blades of the high-pressure turbine,

causing them to spin.

Interesting.

It looks like there's a fatigue crack in the nozzle guide vane.

Investigators find evidence of fatigue cracks

in two of the left engine's nozzle guide vanes.

This type of cracking occurs over time,

and as the engine ages, these cracks get slightly larger

and eventually they will fail.

And it will destroy the entire engine.

If this was a progressive failure,

why wasn't it caught earlier?

This type of cracking is typical of an older engine

and it's a progressive failure.

So that gets us into the question of what was

the maintenance history, what was the inspection criteria

that was used by the operator?

Investigators look into the engine's repair history.

It looks like the left engine

was completely overhauled four years ago.

When would have been the last time

they looked at these nozzle guide vanes?

During the Hot Section Maintenance Inspection,

which was last year.

Any mention of cracking?

Any work done on any of them?

Inspections of the hot section are meant to catch

fatigue cracks. So why weren't these found?

Since this was an Algerian registered aircraft,

it falls under the authority of the Algerian civil

aviation authority for oversight of the inspection not the FAA,

which typically has more stringent requirements.

The crack formed at some point.

It was missed during the inspection last year.

It grew and grew until point of failure

and then blew out at takeoff.

Yeah. That explains why the engine failed,

not why the plane stalled.

Pilots are expected to demonstrate their ability

to fly out of a situation

either on takeoff or landing when they've lost an engine.

Investigators examine the crew's training records

to determine if they knew how to handle a single-engine failure

on take-off.

The first officer's last exercise in engine failure

during takeoff was four months ago.

The captain's training was even more recent,

only two months before the crash.

They both should have known what to do in this situation.

They've got the airplane veering to the left.

There's no way they didn't know that engine failed.

So what did they actually do?

Investigators prepare to listen

to the cockpit voice recorder from Air Algérie Flight 62-89.

It was very important for us to listen to the CVR

to determine how the pilots dealt with this engine failure.

I've got it cued up to right before takeoff.

V1.

Rotate.

Gear up.

They hear the sound of the engine failing

five seconds after takeoff.

Bismillah. What's going on?

- Let go, let go. - I let go. I let go.

They transferred control in the middle of an emergency?

That didn't even sound like a proper transfer.

He just took the controls.

For another pilot to take control

from the pilot who is flying,

the pilot needs to say, 'I've got it'.

Taking control of the airplane without saying

he was taking control made things worse for him

and for the first officer.

The captain is the pilot monitoring.

He shouldn't be taking over.

He should be diagnosing the problem.

So, do either of them identify a left engine failure?

After handing over control to the captain,

the first officer realizes they aren't properly configured

to climb with only one engine.

Gear up, or are we okay?

But there's no response from the captain.

We have a small problem, 62-89.

62-89, Tamanrasset.

Just seconds after the engine failure

the situation deteriorates as the plane begins to stall.

There are no attempts by the pilots to work together

to identify or troubleshoot the problem.

Let go. Take your hand away.

- I let go. I let go. - Let go.

Take your hand away. - I let go.

Don't sink. Don't sink.

Seconds later, the Ground Proximity Warning activates,

indicating the plane is getting

dangerously close to the ground.

- Please! - Take your hand away!

Both pilots really didn't know what the other was doing,

didn't know what the other expected of them,

and may well have been working at cross purposes.

And as a result of that, the team performance broke down.

Don't sink. Don't sink.

I don't hear a single mention of engine failure.

And why was he telling her to let go so many times?

Was she trying to take back control of the plane?

Which one of them is actually flying the plane?

When all is said and done, the pilots did not work together.

Without more information from the flight data recorder,

we really don't know exactly what they did

to control the airplane.

Investigators turn to the Flight Data Recorder, or FDR,

from Flight 62-89 to determine how the pilots tried to recover

from the loss of the left engine.

Flight data recorders are important to investigators

because it gives them information on how the pilots

were operating the airplane and how they were managing

the critical situation they were in.

Not much here.

Older plane, older FDR.

It doesn't actually tell us

how the pilots were handling the engine failure.

Because we only had five parameters on the FDR,

we had to go to Boeing and ask for a detailed

aircraft performance analysis to determine what happened

on this accident flight.

Using the FDR's limited data,

Boeing's performance study includes a reconstruction

of engine operations and flight controls

in the final moments of the flight.

So, there is the left engine losing its thrust

after it blows out.

That's odd.

The data from the fully functioning right engine

shows something unexpected.

Look at the thrust from the right engine.

Yes, it seems to be going up and down.

But we know it was working fine.

That can only mean one thing.

Bismillah. What's going on?

The team finds evidence

of thrust being added to the right engine.

Let go, let go.

And then pulled back.

I let go. I let go.

When one engine fails,

what you need is maximum power on the other engine,

not reduce it.

So thrust is pulled down,

then back up, then down, then back up again.

We have a small problem, 62-89.

62-89, Tamanrasset.

Let go.

It's as if they were having some sort of a tug of war?

They shouldn't have been.

The first officer did the right thing by increasing

the power to the right engine.

What likely happened is that the captain wasn't fully aware

of which engine had failed. However, the first officer

knew that the left engine had failed

and was trying to push up the throttle on the right engine

to keep them from stalling.

Let go. Take your hand away.

- I let go. I let go. - Let go.

Take your hand away. - I let go. I let go.

Don't sink. Don't sink.

The captain's basically telling the first officer

to get out of his way, to leave him alone,

to let him be in charge of the airplane by himself,

which he was.

Knowing that the left engine had failed,

the first officer might have been trying to help things out

by increasing the power on the right engine.

- Please! - Take your hand away!

The moment the captain reduced the thrust on the right engine

and never returned it to takeoff thrust,

with the gear down, it doomed the flight.

The pilots should have been able to work together

to recover the plane.

These planes are designed to fly with a team.

Pilot flying, pilot not flying, both have very specific roles

that they are trained to do, especially in emergencies.

They stay in their roles, they help each other,

they work as a team, and this crash

could have been avoided if they would have done that.

Why didn't the crew of Air Algérie Flight 62-89

work together to prevent the loss of 102 lives.

Okay. I'll cue it up to pre-flight preparations.

Investigators return to the cockpit voice recording

of Flight 62-89

to understand why there was a lack of coordination

between the two pilots.

Nav and instrument transfer switches... Normal.

Yaw Damper... On.

They listen as the First Officer works through

the Pre-flight checklist.

They're surprised by what they don't hear.

Where's the captain?

Is she doing the flight preparation by herself?

Pressurization Mode Selector... Auto.

Okay, flight instruments...

We found that the first officer was actually

in the cockpit by herself

conducting most of the pre-flight work

without the captain.

It's unusual for the captain not to be present

during the pre-flight because there were responsibilities

that the captain has to get his side of the airplane ready.

It's just inappropriate for the captain not to be in the cockpit

during the pre-flight and it's actually kind of rude.

It's only after the First Officer completes

the pre-flight preparations that the captain enters the cockpit.

The last QNH 1-0-1-9.

1-0-1-9, roger.

Good afternoon, Captain.

How are we looking?

Uh, good. I completed the pre-flight checklist,

I tested your oxygen, and everything is set to go.

Good, good.

Captain Benaouicha's late,

leaving his responsibilities to the first officer.

When the captain showed up,

he was not in the mindset of getting brought up to speed

or being part of the team of setting the cockpit up

for the flight.

Heading.

Zero-two-zero.

Altitude.

Investigators then hear the pilots performing

their Before Start Checklist.

Two-eight-zero.

You know, I could have been on the team

with those boys back there?

Give me a break.

Who's the third voice?

A flight attendant?

The only male flight attendant is the chief flight attendant.

Okay, takeoff speeds.

As part of the checklist,

the First Officer reviews the takeoff speeds.

V1 - 144 knots. VR - 146 knots.

You're saying you were good enough to turn pro?

Oh yeah, I was a good footie player.

Even had a scout come and watch me play.

Yeah, they were scouting you to mow the pitch.

Um, V2 - 150 knots.

Okay, that's enough. I understand.

Can we go? I got it. I got it. Let's go.

So the captain is just carrying on a conversation with

his friend while they're doing their Before Start Checklist?

What is even worse is he cuts her off

before they could even finish it.

One of the most important parts of the information

that she was trying to give were the takeoff speeds,

and then there should have been a briefing

of an engine failure departure.

At this airport that was a special departure

that needed to be briefed. It was ignored.

Did the captain become more focused

once they began to taxi?

Roger, taxing for runway zero two.

What investigators find most shocking

is what they hear next.

Where are we eating tonight?

That place across from the hotel.

Oh. You always go back to the same place.

I like what I like.

We are in Algiers!

Plenty of good spots to eat.

They are completely distracted. They are violating

every sterile cockpit rule.

During critical phases of flight,

extraneous conversations and non-essential conversations

between the crew members are prohibited.

Not only is the Captain dismissing the First Officer

he has this casual attitude about basic safety practices.

It's possible he was more interested in talking

to the flight attendant than reviewing the briefing

with the first officer.

It's possible that he had been through so many

pre-flight takeoff briefings

that at that time he felt it was unnecessary.

Bismillah. What's going on?

- Let go. Let go. - I let go, I let go.

As a result of his dismissive attitude,

the captain is unprepared to properly respond

when the crisis occurs shortly after take-off.

Had the pilots completed their pre-flight safety briefing,

their response to the engine failure

might have been very different.

Gear up.

Engine failure, left engine. Fly V2 plus 25.

Lowering the nose to 12 degrees.

V2. Gear up.

Once the plane was stabilized,

the pilots could have returned safely to the airport.

Engine failure is actually a relatively common occurrence.

Every pilot needs to be prepared and trained.

So, instead of letting the first officer fly the plane

while he diagnoses the issue,

he tries to do everything himself.

And transferring control during an emergency situation?

There was never a positive transfer of control.

The captain just took the control yoke

away from the first officer,

so he injected himself in the emergency.

- Let go, let go. - I let go. I let go.

The captain took control at the worst possible time

when he was out of the loop.

And by not assigning responsibility to her,

he gave himself the responsibility

of doing two things at once

diagnosing the nature of the engine problem

and then flying the airplane.

Please!

By trying to fly the plane and diagnose the problem

on his own, the captain took on too much.

It put the first officer in a very difficult position.

She's now in the supportive role, the non-flying role,

waiting to be told what to do,

and he's not giving any helpful orders other than 'let go'.

Why would an experienced captain so brazenly dismiss

his First Officer's help,

risking the lives of everyone onboard?

Investigators look into the pilots' backgrounds

in an attempt to understand why the captain took over

from his first officer in the midst of an emergency.

So the captain actually had twice as many flying hours

as the first officer.

The captain was both qualified as a captain on a 7-3-7

but also as a first officer on a 7-6-7.

Perhaps his attitude was that flying the 7-37

was not that big of a deal because I fly a 7-67

which is much more sophisticated and highly technical.

But she had more hours on the 7-37.

Not only did she have more experience flying the 7-37

that's the only plane that she was flying.

I think there's a good chance that had she been left alone,

she would have flown the airplane out of the scenario

that we saw in this accident.

The question is, would he have reacted the same way

if the first officer was a man?

In 2003, at the time of this crash, here in the States,

female airline pilots only constituted less than 6%

of the pilot population.

And it really hasn't changed that much

in the 20 years since then.

The first officer was Algeria's first

female commercial airline pilot.

My friend, male pilots in this part of the world

aren't used to sharing a cockpit with women.

I think Algeria is becoming fairly westernized

but, in some cultures, there is the feeling that a man

has to be up in the cockpit in case anything goes wrong.

Why did this captain take control from the first officer

when she was doing an okay job at that point?

And I think you can't rule out the possibility

that there may have been some gender stereotyping

on his part that played a role in it.

Sadly, this accident was totally preventable.

Investigators now have a clear picture

of what led to the crash of Flight 62-89.

V1, 144 knots. VR, 146 knots...

You're saying you were good enough to turn pro?

After arriving late and allowing the flight attendant

into the cockpit, the captain interrupted

a crucial pre-flight safety briefing.

Um, V2, 150 knots.

Okay, that's enough. I understand.

Can we go? I got it. I got it. Let's go.

The captain demonstrated a lax attitude

towards cockpit protocols.

Fatigue cracks in a nozzle guide vane

in the plane's left engine were reaching their breaking point.

And when the guide vane failed,

it set off a chain reaction.

High-speed metal fragments ripped the engine apart.

- Let go, let go. - I let go. I let go.

When crisis struck,

the captain decided he needed to be the one to handle

the controls and took over flying from his first officer

before even identifying the problem.

The engine failure alone was not the cause of this accident.

Engines fail and pilots are trained

to handle those emergencies.

Failing to retract the landing gear after the engine failure

made recovery more difficult.

Let go! Take your hand away!

- I let go. I let go. - Let go.

Take your hand away! - I let go!

It was the captain's assumption of control

of the aircraft without properly identifying

the nature of the emergency,

his failure to raise the landing gear,

and his lack of adherence to standard operating procedures

that eventually doomed the flight.

As a result of this accident,

Algeria's Commission of Inquiry makes several recommendations.

They recommend that Air Algérie,

along with other operators, ensure that their

Crew Resource Management training programs emphasize

the importance of handover procedures

and task-sharing in the cockpit.

In the 1980's, they had captains who were trying to fly

a team airplane solo.

So, a lot of training went into it to teach that your

best resource is your team.

You support each other and work together as a team

for the safety of the airplane.

The fact that the captain insisted on taking over control

of the airplane at that critical moment...

cost everybody on that airplane their lives.

I felt particularly affected when I saw

that the accident was preventable.

And I think the investigators did the best job they could

trying to discover why the crew made the errors that they did.

The next time that happens, people won't die

as a result of that.

For Lynn Rippelmeyer, it's one more example

of why the industry needs to continue evolving.

The airlines now are much more open to hiring women,

to not having gender bias,

realizing that women do have a lot

to contribute to the industry.

And I think it's up to women now to step up to the plate

and take the opportunities that the career offers.

They're amazing.

Subtitling: difuze