Original subtitles

NARRATOR: 19,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean,

a propeller cuts a hole on a passenger plane.

As the prop came off, I thought, Oh

crap, it's going to kill me.

It's going to cut me in two.

Heather.

Cabin pressure dropping.

NARRATOR: The pilots flight to control their plane.

Well, we all knew that, boy, this was

about as bad as it can get.

NARRATOR: They can barely turn around.

There was no way that we could

have landed the airplane.

Dispatch, Reeve 8.

We've got to get some controls back

or I absolutely cannot land.

Turn off the autopilot.

Are you out of your fucking mind?

NARRATOR: The pilots managed to get within sight of a runway.

I mean, we're essentially passengers now.

NARRATOR: But soon discover that this landing

is impossible.

Brace yourselves, boys.

Son of a bitch.

I wish I'd have called in sick.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Ladies and gentlemen,

we are starting our approach.

PILOT: We lost both engines.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Put the mask over your nose.

Emergency descent. PILOT: Mayday!

Mayday!

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Brace for impact!

MAN: He's gonna crash.

NARRATOR: Cold Bay Alaska, a frontier town

at the tip of the Alaskan Peninsula,

surrounded by the Aleutian mountains and hundreds

of miles of ocean.

Reeve Aleutian Airlines is one of Cold Bay's only links

to the outside world.

It operates a small fleet of rugged planes

carrying people and cargo across the state and beyond.

Reeve Aleutian Airlines Flight 8 prepares to leave Cold

Bay for Seattle, Washington.

The route will take the flight over a wide stretch

of the North Pacific Ocean.

54-year-old Captain James Gibson

is a hardened Bush pilot with more than 25 years experience

flying Alaska's tough terrain.

Set takeoff thrust.

NARRATOR: Gibson's flight engineer--

Thruster.

NARRATOR: --is 45-year-old Alaskan Gerald "Moose" Laurin.

His first officer is 39-year-old Gary Lintner.

GARY LINTNER: Generally we flew that route once a week.

On this particular day, we were scheduled

for five hours of flying time.

Gear up.

Gear up.

Flaps up good.

Flaps up.

Reeve 8 is off the ground about 23.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Reeve 8, Roger.

And have a good flight.

NARRATOR: There are 10 passengers on board,

mostly hunters and anglers.

Wendy Kroon is the senior flight attendant.

WENDY KROON: We were headed to Seattle.

It was a beautiful day.

It was clear, no turbulence, highly unusual.

Highly unusual.

There should have been turbulence.

NARRATOR: Pacific winds in the nearby Aleutian mountains

often create turbulent skies.

Captain Gibson will cross the North Pacific

aboard a Lockheed L-188 Electra powered

by 4 turboprop engines.

They're just an incredibly tough airplane.

Stronger than 10 acres of garlic, I used to always say.

NARRATOR: Gibson finishes turning his aircraft

on course towards Seattle when he hears

an unusual buzzing sound.

Do you hear that, Gary?

I do.

Not sure.

And I noticed that the vibration that I was feeling

in my feet and the vibration that was in the glass

was different.

And that's the first time I'd ever come across that.

And I thought, well, this is a little different.

The hell?

Moose, have a look, will you.

Yeah, you bet.

NARRATOR: As Gibson and Lintner wait for Moose Laurin

to report back, the vibrations become more pronounced.

I distinctly remember looking down and seeing

my control yoke shaking.

And I turned to Jim and I said, Geez, look at this.

And Jim and I are kind of looking

at each other across the cockpit,

and finally, he says, Oh, screw this.

Let's turn around.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Wendy Kroon helps

Laurin check the engines.

The engineer said, I want you to come back

and check number 4 engine and see if you can see anything.

And just as I looked out the window, the engine went.

As the prop came off, I thought, Oh

crap, it's going to kill me.

It's going to cut me in two.

But it flew forward, and then it

came back and slapped the engine,

and then went underneath.

NARRATOR: The prop tears a hole in the bottom of the plane.

Heather.

There was a big huge bang.

Holy crap.

Wendy, are you OK?

Then of course, the cockpit gets all foggy.

And there's almost no sound, your eardrums are popping.

NARRATOR: The hole in the fuselage

has caused an explosive decompression.

Cabin pressure dropping.

NARRATOR: The rapid change in air temperature and pressure

creates heavy fog, which obscures vision, and starves

the plane of oxygen.

So when you try to breathe it,

you end up getting lightheaded, and you can actually pass out.

It's a little disconcerting because the fog

and it's quiet, you think, geez, am I dead or not?

Oh God.

Finally, when the fog cleared, I saw out the window

that we were in a right turn.

NARRATOR: A right turn is taking the flight Northwest

towards the Bering Sea.

And so I naturally grab the yoke

to try to level the wings.

Jammed.

No ailerons either.

It felt like the yoke was in concrete.

It just felt solid as a concrete block.

NARRATOR: At the moment that the propeller strikes

the fuselage, junior flight attendant

Victoria Fredenhagen in the back of the plane

springs into action.

VICTORIA FREDENHAGEN: After the explosions,

I wasn't sure what had happened.

But I got up and got the oxygen walk-around bottle

and put that on.

I went to look out the right side

and the passenger there said to me,

you don't want to look out the window.

And it was like, Oh, there's no propeller on number 4.

NARRATOR: Wendy Kroon and Moose Laurin

are dazed by the incident, but they're not injured.

I've got ot go.

I had fallen all the way back on my back.

So I jumped up, and my first thoughts

were get the passengers to the back of the airplane.

But I had a really bad feeling.

I stopped with one foot still in the air,

and I grabbed a hold of the cargo net,

and I was hanging on it, and looked down at my foot.

And oh, my heart dropped to my feet.

Fear just ran through me.

I'm looking straight down at my foot over a hole,

straight down to the ocean.

I can actually to this day see the ocean, that view,

the color, the white gaps.

NARRATOR: The hole is more than 1 and 1/2 feet wide.

That scared the crap out of me.

NARRATOR: In the cockpit, the pilots still have

no idea what has happened.

Jim and I got our masks on.

And within seconds, Moose came through the cockpit door

and said, Holy crap, we just lost number four propeller.

Jim, he said, what do you mean lost it?

Moose said, it's gone.

It went away.

So he reached up and pulled the emergency shutdown

handle on the number 4 engine.

NARRATOR: But James Gibson has a more immediate

problem, the loss of cabin pressure

with a jammed control column.

Dammit.

NARRATOR: He can't descend to a lower altitude

where there's more oxygen.

Everybody, calm down.

Just a second.

Jim saw that the autopilot disconnect lights were on,

and he reached over and turned the autopilot back on again.

NARRATOR: The Electra has two sets of control cables.

The manual cables are jammed, but the cables for the

autopilot seem to be working.

Wings level.

And I personally thought that was probably

one of the smartest things that anybody ever did

in the history of aviation.

Descending to 10,000.

NARRATOR: The autopilot is now keeping

the plane on a steady and descending

course over the North Pacific.

For the moment, everything seems

to be under control, until.

There's a hole back there I can see straight through.

What?

Yeah, right straight through the plane.

I saw the ocean.

And then they go, wait, a hole through the floor?

I go, Yeah, there's a hole through the floor.

I wanted to yell at them, like yes, I saw

a freaking hole on the floor.

Get in the seat and put oxygen on.

OK.

NARRATOR: Gibson is flying fast, over 200 knots.

He's down one engine, and his control column is jammed.

He must find a way to slow down or his plane will rip apart.

Hold power back to 2000.

.

Look, nothing.

GARY LINTNER: When his hand moved those throttles back

and the horsepower gauges didn't move,

boy, I'll tell you what I said, man,

I wish I'd have called in sick.

That's when I knew, well, we all knew that, boy, this

is really a bad situation.

This was about as bad as it can get.

The throttle cables must be cut.

Son of a bitch.

NARRATOR: The pilots can't slow the engines.

The speed could tear apart the damaged plane.

It's also preventing Gibson from descending

as quickly as he'd like. - Come on.

Come on.

Still at 65.

Let's see if we can get turned around.

NARRATOR: Gibson instructs the autopilot to make

a right turn back to Cold Bay.

Oh God.

NARRATOR: It seems the autopilot's lateral control

is also damaged.

And if we just cracked it to the right just the slightest

bit, the airplane would start immediately

rolling into a rapid right hand turn. .

And it scared the living crap out of all of us.

And the only way to get it out of that rapid right hand turn

was to turn that control knob all the way full left,

and then it would just barely stop the right turn

and just slowly bring the airplane back.

NARRATOR: Gibson has no way of steering his airplane.

He can't descend quickly, and his emergency

oxygen is running out.

The crew and passengers are flying straight out to sea

with no way to return to safety in a plane on the verge

of tearing itself apart.

Through terrifying trial and error,

Captain James Gibson discovers what his damaged

plane can and cannot do.

OK, stable.

NARRATOR: His autopilot has put the plane into a slow descent,

but turning is next to impossible.

Reeve 8 is stuck at full throttle flying

further and further from land.

Declare an emergency.

Mayday! Mayday!

This is Reeve Flight 8. Number 4--

NARRATOR: Flight dispatcher Richard

Huff receives the call of the Reeve base in Anchorage.

RICHARD HUFF: Reeve 8 had taken off out of Cold Bay

prior to my coming to work.

And probably 45 minutes after I had gone on shift,

they called me.

Reeve 8, manual flight control ceased.

Heading, 104, full throttle.

Unable to reduce speed.

Is that you Gary?

It's Huff.

Huff, no, we've got nothing.

Reeve 8, understand, no flight control, confirm.

No, no, no, negative.

We got no manual control, but autopilot vertical control

kind of working.

Approaching 10,000 feet.

Dropping to 10,000 feet.

OK, we got you.

It was the worst damage report

I had ever had at our company.

NARRATOR: The autopilot finally gets the Electra

down to 10,000 feet.

Captain Gibson activates the autopilot's

altitude hold switch.

It works.

The plane holds at 10,000 feet.

Reeve 8, running at 10,000 feet.

Over.

Thank God.

It's now safe to remove your masks.

That's a whole lot better.

NARRATOR: Passengers are no longer at risk of hypoxia,

but Gibson still can't slow down or turn back to safety.

Reeve 8, you guys are going back to Cold Bay?

We're working on it.

Trying to figure out how to fly this thing.

Everybody wants to know what's going on.

So I'm really busy talking on the radio.

And I'm watching Jim try to overpower the autopilot

or help the autopilot.

NARRATOR: The autopilot won't turn the plane around.

Gibson still can't budge his column to make a manual turn.

And I thought, well, hell, maybe I can do that.

So I reached up and I grabbed the yoke, and I moved it.

Whoa.

And it scared the living hell out of Jim.

Christ, Gary, hold on.

He just about climbed out of his seat, you know.

And I just-- Oh, I felt terrible, but now at least

we knew that we could overpower or help the autopilot.

So that meant that probably our control

cables were not severed.

And that was really good news.

NARRATOR: The pilots used their combined force

to muscle the plane into a slow right bank.

They begin a long turn back to Cold Bay.

The wide turns will get the plane on course,

but won't provide the precision needed to land.

The aircraft being a 1950s vintage aircraft

was not equipped with auto land type autopilots.

It didn't have the sophistication that

would allow it to line up directly

on an airport and auto land.

We can't land like this.

No chance in hell.

Without manual control, there's

no way to land the airplane.

NARRATOR: Even if Gibson beats the odds

and manages to line up with a runway at Cold Bay,

he's traveling too fast to land.

Good chance it would have gone off the end of the runway

if we'd have landed it to 200 and some knots.

NARRATOR: Gibson won't be able to slow down.

He needs a longer runway.

Dispatch, Reeve 8.

How long is that runway in King Salmon, about 9,000 feet?

NARRATOR: King Salmon Airport Is more than 310

miles Northeast of Cold Bay.

It's farther away, but has a longer runway.

Reeve 8, King Salmon runway is 8900 feet long.

Over.

Close.

If we land at 200 knots, is 8900 feet going to do it?

No.

No, not even close.

NARRATOR: Gibson considers a measure of last resort,

ditch the plane in the Pacific.

Dispatch, Reeve 8.

I may have to ditch it in the water at Bristol Bay.

NARRATOR: 217 miles from Cold Bay, Bristol Bay

is close to emergency rescue support.

But Richard Huff is against Gibson's plan.

This is the ocean.

And unlike a river, it's got swells and--

No.

Uh-uh.

I was totally against on an ocean ditching.

NARRATOR: Like the 1996 ditching of Ethiopian Airlines

Flight 961, Gibson risks cartwheeling,

and killing everyone on board if he doesn't land perfectly.

Reeve 8, strongly advise, do not landed at Bristol Bay.

Oh, no kidding.

NARRATOR: In Anchorage, Richard Huff

proposes another risky plan, fly Northeast towards home

base at Anchorage Airport.

Anchorage International had two runways that were 10,500.

Plus all the medical facilities that were in the area

made it a better, more viable operation.

Reeve 8, dispatch.

Consider flight direct to Anchorage.

Over.

NARRATOR: Flying to Anchorage is risky.

The towering mountains rise to nearly 10,000 feet.

The 434 mile passage would take the crippled electorate

through unpredictable weather over the Aleutian mountains.

If Gibson encounters turbulence en route to Anchorage,

it could cause more damage to his already vulnerable plane.

FLIGHT DISPATCHER: Reeve 8, strongly suggest Anchorage.

Over.

Dispatch, Reeve 8.

I heard you the first time.

And this will be my decision.

Over.

Moose, we got enough fuel to get to Anchorage?

Yeah.

Yeah, we're good.

More than enough.

Dispatch, Reeve 8.

Confirm weather conditions in Anchorage.

Light surface winds 260 degrees at 9 knots

at Anchorage.

This thing's damn tank.

We'll make it.

OK, dispatch, we are flying to Anchorage.

Roger, Reeve 8.

Inbound to Anchorage.

Standing by.

NARRATOR: By experimenting, Gibson has slowly mastered

the damaged autopilot.

He delicately adjusts the lateral control,

and then adds muscle to the column,

forcing the plane on a new heading to Anchorage.

OK.

Stable.

Don't touch a thing.

NARRATOR: For now, Gibson has luck on his side.

There is no turbulence as they pass

over the Aleutian mountains.

But his engines are still stuck on full throttle.

In Anchorage, ground crews prepare for a disaster.

After four anxious hours, Reeve flight 8 approaches

the airport from the West.

Captain Gibson carefully adjusts the autopilot

and begins circling the airport.

His only hope is that he can somehow

regain enough control to attempt a landing

before running out of fuel.

But controls were just real stiff,

and all we knew was that as long

as we tried to use the autopilot

and manually helped, that we could fly

the airplane a little bit, make some turns, and a little bit

of pitch control.

NARRATOR: At Reeve headquarters,

flight engineer John Minton is called in

to help the pilots find a way to land their plane.

JOHN MINTON: I was walked through the scenario

by the people that were already there,

and asked to help any way I could with my knowledge

of the aircraft.

JAMES GIBSON: Dispatch, Reeve 8.

Hang on

I've got to get some controls back

or I absolutely cannot land.

Over.

Roger, Reeve 8.

We're working on that.

The Electra has two separate flight control systems

that work side by side but are completely

separate from each other.

They have the autopilot, and then they have manual.

So if one is damaged, the other is there.

In this scenario, the mechanical side was damaged,

and the autopilot side was not damaged.

NARRATOR: Minton considers his options.

His conclusion shocks everyone.

Disconnect the autopilot and see what happens.

All of us wanted to see if manual control of the airplane

was an option.

And the only way to do that is take the autopilot out

of the system and see if the normal manual hydraulic system

was workable in any way, shape, or form.

Reeve 8, John Milton suggests turn off the autopilot.

Are you out of your freaking mind?

NARRATOR: If any of the manual flight cables

were severed during the accident

and Gibson disconnects the autopilot,

they may be left with no control at all.

Yeah, we thought the airplane could possibly

just go out of control.

And then if we couldn't reengage the autopilot,

then we'd really be in for a thoroughly

entertaining afternoon.

NARRATOR: In what could be his last flight command,

Gibson hits the autopilot disconnect.

Disconnecting autopilot.

For him to put his thumb on that button

and disconnect that autopilot was just

about the bravest thing I think he thought

he ever did in his life.

NARRATOR: The plane remains steady.

With the autopilot disconnected,

Gibson checks to see if his manual controls have loosened.

Nothing.

Dammit.

NARRATOR: They're still jammed.

Jim immediately turned the autopilot back on again.

And by this time, we were pretty depressed.

This was not looking good at all.

There was no way that we could have landed the airplane

just using the autopilot.

There just was not enough control.

NARRATOR: The lives of the 15 people on board

depend on the pilots getting more control of the plane.

But having spent hours struggling with jammed

manual controls and a crippled autopilot,

Captain Gibson needs a rest.

Gary, I'm done.

You got to take it.

He was just done in.

And he said, Gary, you take the airplane,

I'm going to take a break.

NARRATOR: The crew is exhausted and out of options.

Then Lintner notices something that

changes the entire situation.

I looked down at the autopilot,

and I suddenly saw that the autopilot was off.

Its turned off.

And I'm sitting here making turns with the airplane.

Hell, I've got a good 3 degree bank going, you know?

NARRATOR: He is steering the plane without any help

from the autopilot.

And I turned to Jim and I said, hey, I've got control here.

What?

GARY LINTNER: Yeah, ..

Man, immediately he grabbed the yoke and the two of us

got on it.

With the two of us, hell, we had pretty good control.

And that's when we said, Oh man,

this is a whole different ballgame now.

NARRATOR: Somehow the pilots have gained enough manual

control to pitch the nose up and steer

a course for the runway.

As long as we have manual control over the airplane

without the autopilot, it would have been OK.

You give us three degrees of bank and one degree of pitch,

we'll deal with the rest.

Huff, I don't know how, but we got some control back.

We're coming in.

NARRATOR: But Gibson still faces one major problem.

It's a 10,000 foot runway, but you can still run out

of runway for going too fast.

NARRATOR: He's traveling far too quickly to land.

Captain James Gibson is about to try landing his badly

damaged Lockheed Electra.

The plane's four engines are numbered left to right.

The first three are stuck on full throttle.

Gibson needs to shut one of them down to slow his plane.

Huff, we'll kill number 1 to offset the loss on number 4.

No, no, no.

They shut down number 1, they shut down everything.

Negative, Reeve 8.

Engine number 1 now controls power

generator for all hydraulics.

Do not shut down number 1.

The loss of number 1 engine and the probable loss

of the hydraulic system would have caused

the crash of the airplane.

OK, Moose, kill number 2.

Reeve 8 shut down engine number 2.

NARRATOR: Their speed drops, but not enough.

185 knots.

It's too fast.

NARRATOR: If Gibson overshoots the runway,

he could kill more than his crew and passengers,

there's a residential neighborhood just

beyond the end of the runway.

Everything I had was crossed, fingers, toes, eyelashes,

because this was a no kidding backed

up against the wall situation.

There was no fooling around, and lives were at stake,

on the ground and in the air.

NARRATOR: Gibson speeds toward the runway still unsure

how to stop his plane once he gets there.

At 8:13 PM, he risks it all and attempts a landing.

Let's do this.

Anchorage, Reeve 8.

Ready to land, runway 6 right.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Reeve 8,

clear to land, runway 6 right.

You might want to go in the back for this.

NARRATOR: Wendy Kroon returns to the passenger cabin

to make final preparations for landing.

I really had that strong tow to do my duty

and get to the back.

NARRATOR: To do so, she must cross the gaping hole

in the cabin floor.

I jumped across up onto the seats with my arms

trying to hold on to the overhead bins,

trying to hold up as much weight as I could.

And I went about four rolls before I

went down onto the floor, and then

crossed and got to the back.

NARRATOR: With barely any control, and too much speed,

Gibson begins the approach.

Shoes off.

Place all sharp objects in the air sickness bags.

This too?

Yeah.

Approach flaps.

Approach flaps.

Gear down.

Gear down.

NARRATOR: The pilots pulled back on their columns

to raise the nose for landing.

Seconds before touchdown, they cross the foot of the runway--

170 knots.

NARRATOR: --50 knots faster than normal.

Sink rate 800 feet a minute.

I'd never had had to myself, or watched anybody else try

to land an airplane that fast.

They can do this.

They can do this.

NARRATOR: News crews capture the attempt.

But at the last minute, Gibson realizes he's still going too

fast and can't land safely.

Son of a bitch.

Go around.

Go around.

We're good.

We're good, yeah.

When we made that first pass, it was too fast.

And they were not going to land.

And so it was exciting when the gear went down

and it came back up.

That was good.

MAN: Oh, they're going to go around.

They're going to go around.

The airplane was very low above the trees

as we were going up and around.

And you could see houses and people down in their yards.

NARRATOR: The failed approach proves Gibson may

be attempting the impossible.

Our problem was that we're just going too fast.

We were doing 170 knots all the way down.

NARRATOR: Gibson must find a way to reduce his speed

by at least 10 knots.

But shutting down the remaining engines is not an option.

The Electra short wings get most of their lift

from air pushed back by the propellers.

You can't just turn the airplane

engines off and glide.

There was just too much drag from those large propellers,

and so the lift of the wing would be gone completely.

So the airplane would just fall out of the air.

NARRATOR: With two engines at full throttle,

and too much speed to land, Gibson loops out to sea

and begins a second approach.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Reeve 8, Tower.

Clear for second approach, runway 6 right.

Gear down.

Gear down.

NARRATOR: Planes pick up speed as they descend.

To reduce his landing speed, Gibson

decides to start his second approach from a mere 800 feet.

He also makes a bold decision that will make a second go

around impossible, on touchdown,

he's going to kill the two remaining engines.

Last chance, guys.

Come on.

Come on, come on, come on.

146 knots.

NARRATOR: The plane hits the ground.

Cut all engines.

Emergency shut down engines 1 and 3.

Once the E handles were pulled,

the airplane was committed.

There was no turning back.

140.

NARRATOR: With all the engines cut, the plane slows down.

But there's a high price to pay.

It's the engines that provide the electrical and hydraulic

power that controls the steerings and brakes.

Now we're a hurtling projectile

down the runway with no hydraulic control

of the airplane.

Well, now isn't this something.

We got no control, directional control

at all on this airplane.

I mean, we're essentially passengers now.

We've become passengers with front row seats.

NARRATOR: Aborting the landing is now impossible.

The plane speeds at 140 knots towards the neighborhood

beyond the airport.

Gibson has no hydraulic breaks.

All he has are emergency brakes,

and they don't have nearly as much stopping power.

Overwhelmed by the speed of the plane

the emergency brakes burst into flames.

MAN(ON RADIO): We have fire on the nose wheel.

We are fire on the nose wheel.

Now we're going off the runway.

We're definitely going off the runway.

We're just looking straight into that ditch, and Jim says,

brace yourselves, boys.

Brace yourself.

Nice.

I think we're there.

There was no real emergency because we could sense

that everything was good.

Everybody's fine back here.

Well, there's, of course, adrenaline

running at that point.

It just felt-- it felt good.

I think it was just surreal because we were OK.

They did it.

We're all good.

Heck of a landing, guys.

Heck of a landing.

And as soon as I hit the ground, one of the pastors

come up to me and goes, when's the next flight to Seattle.

I'm looking at him like,

I don't think you realize how bad the situation was.

I'm still amazed that they got it on the ground

without hurting anybody or anything.

They didn't even put a scratch on the airplane.

We just sat there and watched them foam the airplane.

There was foam all over the airplane

from the fire trucks and firemen,

and the airplane was reasonably OK.

NARRATOR: Passengers exit the plane.

But Gibson has one last command before he releases his crew.

That's Coach Brice, boys.

Jim said, well, boys, I think we handled that

like real true professionals.

I think we ought to get our hats, coats,

and ties on for our departure.

NARRATOR: After a six-hour ordeal,

Captain Gibson and his crew have

landed a badly crippled plane and saved the lives

of everyone on board.

The company was always telling us that we're a bunch

of unprofessional .

I guess you can't probably print that, but anyway.

NARRATOR: It's now up to NTSB investigator Ron Schleede

to find out what went wrong.

RON SCHLEEDE: The loss of a propeller in flight

is a very serious event.

It can lead to catastrophic accident,

has led to catastrophic accidents in the past.

NARRATOR: Though the Reeve Aleutian

accident was not catastrophic, it

is part of a disturbing trend.

Since 1965, there have been four

cases of spontaneous propeller loss on the Electra L-188.

We had an airplane that nearly went into the ocean

because a propeller came off.

So we needed to find out as best as we could

what caused this accident.

NARRATOR: In Washington, investigator Dennis Grossi

reviews the cockpit voice recording

to understand the challenges faced by the crew

as they tried to land.

DENNIS GROSSI: Shortly after takeoff, the flight crew

detected a vibration.

That vibration continued on and until the propeller

departed the aircraft, damaging the fuselage,

causing a rapid decompression of the cabin,

a loss of engine controls, and the limited

flight control authority.

Dammit.

NARRATOR: For Schleede, there are only

two possible causes that can explain

the loss of the propeller.

RON SCHLEEDE: With fatigue crack

or some other preexisting damage

would cause the whole propeller assembly to separate.

And that has happened before.

The other possibility is the gearbox, the powered gears

that drive the propeller, if there's a catastrophic failure

there, that can also cause the engine

or the propeller assembly and gearbox to separate.

That has also happened in the past.

NARRATOR: His team studies what's

left of the damaged engine.

Right away, it's clear his investigation

will be difficult.

The wreckage really didn't give us much of a clue

because what we needed to look at was gone.

NARRATOR: The propeller and the gearbox it was attached to

or lost at sea.

The parts that likely caused the vibration

are gone for good.

Without them, the case may be impossible to solve.

With no physical evidence to examine,

Schleede's team studies the plane's

flight data recorder hoping it can explain the vibration.

RON SCHLEEDE: The flight recorder on this airplane

was a very rudimentary recorder.

It records by a stylus scraping a metal foil.

And so it's not a very scientific thing compared

to what we have today.

So we could not on the flight recorder

determine where the vibration came from.

NARRATOR: The Electra has a history of engine vibration,

vibrations so serious, it's been known to tear

the plane apart at high speed.

Investigators examine the rubber mounts designed

to absorb those vibrations.

If they're worn down, it could explain the accident.

But the mounts check out.

The investigation hits another dead end.

RON SCHLEEDE: We could not determine even

a probable cause in this case.

When you can't do that and have to say, I don't know,

that's very hard for an investigator to say.

NARRATOR: But there is another question

Schleede hopes he can answer, why was Gibson's plane so hard

to land.

In four other cases when an Electra's propeller separated,

the planes landed without incident.

RON SCHLEEDE: The loss of a propeller

is not necessarily catastrophic.

It's designed to fly with only half its engines.

NARRATOR: If with three engines intact,

Gibson could barely maintain control of his plane,

something made this case unique.

NTSB investigators examine the gash where the propeller

punctured the hull.

Doesn't look like any cables are cut.

NARRATOR: The hole explains the decompression, but not

the complete lack of control.

It's only by taking a closer look from inside the cabin

that they finally discover the root of the control problem,

the badly damaged cabin floor.

That buckling of the floor from the explosive

decompression jammed the flight controls,

where the cables ran through holes in the floor structure.

NARRATOR: The autopilot control cables and the manual cables

were both pinched by the collapsed floor.

Jammed.

NARRATOR: But because only the autopilot uses hydraulics

to move the cables, it can apply far more force

on them than a human pilot.

This is why the autopilot was able to control

the plane ever so slightly.

RON SCHLEEDE: They were able to get the autopilot

to move the control surfaces to make minimal corrections

and keep the airplane stable.

Hey, I've got some control here.

What?

NARRATOR: But with the manual cables so badly jammed,

investigators wonder why the crew

was suddenly able to regain enough control

to land the plane.

A closer look at the pinched cables

explains why they eventually came free.

Looks like they sawed their way out of this mess.

They kept pulling as hard as they could on the yoke,

pushing and pulling, turning--

NARRATOR: Deep scars in the hole's joists tell the tale.

The pinched control cables gradually carved

channels into the airframe.

They were actually cutting right into the metal

during the long flight before they landed.

NARRATOR: That gave the crew just

enough control to get the plane lined up with the runway.

Let's do this.

Anchorage, Reeve 8.

Ready to land, runway 6 right.

NARRATOR: Dennis Grossi believes

brute force was only part of what

made this flight exceptional.

I've listened to a lot of CVRs in my 35 years

with the NTSB, and there's nothing that

even comes close to this one.

And the crew was quite exceptional.

JAMES GIBSON: Anchorage, Reeve 8.

Ready to land, runway 6 right.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Reeve 8,

clear to land, runway 6 right.

Gear down.

Gear down.

170 knots.

Sink rate 800 feet a minute.

They were able to regain control of the aircraft

and start a descent, which is extraordinary.

NARRATOR: Once in Anchorage, Gibson resisted the temptation

to land on his first approach.

Son of a bitch.

Quite often when pilots are on approach

and things start to go wrong, the instinct

is to get the airplane down and land

it in spite of the conditions.

Go around.

Go around.

The captain showed extraordinary airmanship

and leadership.

NARRATOR: Gibson's last flight command may

have distinguished him most.

Cut all engines.

Emergency shut down engines 1 and 3.

Then of course, the decision by the captain

to cut the power once they touch down,

that eliminated the possibility of a go around.

So he knew at that point that this is it.

NARRATOR: In 1983, US President Ronald Reagan

recognized Captain James Gibson and his crew

for their heroic landing.

I said you too, what does it feel

like when a propeller starts to come

through the side of the plane?

Well, it was a few moments there

that I wouldn't want to repeat, sure, but it was exciting.

NARRATOR: James Gibson flew with Reeve for six more years

before retiring.

He died in 2010.

Gary Lintner retired from Reeve and professional flying

in 1996.

Victoria Fredenhagen left aviation and opened

her own business in Anchorage.

Two years after their fateful flight,

Moose Loren and Wendy Kroon married.

Reeve Aleutian Airlines folded in 2000

after 68 years of service.