Original subtitles

I was afraid.

I didn't know where I was.

NARRATOR: Lost and disoriented, the strange crowd

makes its way through a wooded suburb.

Just minutes ago, they were aboard a flight

bound for Portland, Oregon.

All of a sudden, there was a big crash.

The next thing I knew I was standing outside.

I don't know how the hell I got there.

A man with a flashlight--

Excuse me.

Came down the aisle.

They continued circling for about an hour.

Was it a crew problem, or was it an aircraft problem?

NARRATOR: The voice recorder--

OK, let's go.

Could provide the answer.

Reset that circuit breaker momentarily.

I was very interested in how a highly experienced captain

could fly around in sight of the airport in good weather

and not put this airplane on the ground safely.

OK, declare a mayday.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are starting our approach.

We lost both engines.

Put the mask over your nose.

Emergency descent.

Mayday, mayday.

Brace for impact!

Here's the last one.

Investigation starting.

It's gonna crash!

NARRATOR: December 28, 1978--

We're losing an engine.

United Airlines flight 173 is less than 22 miles

from Portland International Airport.

It's flamed out.

Why?

You can fly a DC 8 or any transport airplane

with one engine inoperative.

NARRATOR: John Cox as a commercial pilot

an aviation expert.

It requires a lot of airmanship.

Pilots train every time they're in a simulator in case

of a loss of an engine.

All right.

The thing to remember is don't worry.

Captain Melbourne McBroom, a veteran of the Second

World War, is one of United Airlines'

most experienced pilots.

His first officer Rod Bibby has more than 5,000

hours flying experience.

The first officer was relatively new

on the airplane.

He had probably been on it six months or maybe less.

He was an experienced pilot, but he'd

been flying other equipment.

NARRATOR: Flight engineer Forrest Mendenhall is

the third member of the crew.

OK.

NARRATOR: It's his job to monitor the DC8's

three remaining engines.

The flight began in New York City

with a stopover in Denver.

It's three days after Christmas.

Many of the 189 people on board are

returning from their holidays.

17-year-old Amy Connor is flying back to boarding

school in Washington State.

I picked up the flight in Denver,

and everything seemed to go normally.

I got to my seat.

I was sitting in between two very nice people.

NARRATOR: In the cockpit--

All right.

NARRATOR: --the pilots are focused on getting

their plane to the airport.

United 173 would like clearance for an approach

in the 28 Left now.

NARRATOR: Air traffic controller Ed Kingrey

is on duty at Portland Tower.

I was working radar that night down in the radar room.

As I recall, it wasn't all that busy at the time.

United 173, heavy.

OK, roll out heading 010 to runway 28 Left.

NARRATOR: He clears Flight 173 to land on the airport's

longest runway.

He said, we'll-- we'll be heading in for a landing now.

In this case, he was coming from the east,

so he lined him up for a straight in.

You're going to lose number three in a minute, too.

NARRATOR: The plane's engines are

flaming out one after another.

I recall hearing the captain tell the tower

they're losing engines.

NARRATOR: With two engine's gone,

the autopilot can no longer fly the plane.

McBroom must get the crippled DC-8 to the airport himself.

You've got to keep running, Frosty.

Yes, sir.

NARRATOR: The engineer struggles to keep

the last two engines running.

How far do you show us from the field?

I'd call it--

EDWARD KINGREY: I told him it was 18 flying miles.

--18 flying miles.

Which would include the base leg

to the final and then the turn to final

to the end of the runway.

We just lost one and two.

NARRATOR: Flight 173 has now lost all four engines.

The cabin lights all went out.

That, we all assumed, was an indicator

that something was wrong.

NARRATOR: With no engines running,

back-up batteries now provide power

to only critical instruments.

People started to shout.

MALBURN MCBROOM (OVER PA): Brace!

Brace! - Get your heads down.

Get into your brace positions.

MALBURN MCBROOM (OVER PA): Brace!

NARRATOR: The 100-ton aircraft is losing more than 3,000

feet of altitude a minute.

Total power loss in a DC-8 would be very catastrophic.

NARRATOR: At this rate, they will be lucky to stay airborne

for as long as 90 seconds.

Now Captain McBroom makes a horrifying calculation.

We can't make it.

NARRATOR: The airport is too far away.

We can't make anything.

NARRATOR: The jetliner is dropping fast

over a city of 350,000 people.

McBroom needs to find a safe place

to put the aircraft down and try to save

the lives of all onboard.

To land a transport jet off an airport

is a situation that no pilot wants to face.

Putting it into a populated area

would be an absolute last choice.

OK.

Declare mayday.

Portland Tower, United 173, heavy mayday.

He declared mayday, and then in a very--

what seemed to me like a--

a calm, matter-of-fact voice, I could hear the pilot.

Engines are flaming out. We're going down.

We're not going to be able to make it to the airport.

We lost power.

We're going down.

NARRATOR: Emergency services are told what's happening.

Flight 173 is flamed-out.

They're going down.

NARRATOR: Kingrey tries to figure out where they'll hit.

I could see him coming in from the south, his

navigational lights flashing.

I could tell he was quite low.

NARRATOR: The DC-8 is coming down

over a densely-populated suburb.

And I can no longer see him.

I was, of course, expecting the worst.

NARRATOR: Suddenly, Captain McBroom sees

what he's been looking for--

a dark area up ahead.

It looks like an empty field.

The place that you want to put it is where there--

there's minimum buildings, the most open area possible

because the 200,000 pounds-plus jet arriving at 140 knots,

which is 160-plus miles an hour--

it's going to do a lot of damage

to the things on the ground.

NARRATOR: Putting the plane on this narrow strip of land

is McBroom's best bet.

But as he gets closer, he realizes

it isn't an open field.

We can't make it.

NARRATOR: It's a heavily wooded suburb,

and he's headed straight for it.

JOHN COX: If they're woods and that's all you have,

then you're going to have to deal with it.

The tops of trees are pretty soft.

As you settle into the trees, they

get progressively less soft.

They're going to do a lot of damage.

NARRATOR: McBroom doesn't give up.

He actually tries to steer the plane between the trees.

The passengers still assume they're about to touch down

on a runway.

We clipped the top of a few trees,

and that felt like we were making the initial landing

at the airport.

So my first sense was, hooray, we're there.

And then all hell broke loose.

It was this enormous noise.

I can't even begin to describe what kind of noise it is.

It's physical.

You can feel it in your bones.

I saw the bright flash out there and--

and knew he had gone down.

NARRATOR: The plane carves a 1,600-foot-long

path through the trees.

After the plane stopped moving, it was pretty calm.

There was no fire.

People just wanted to get out and very polite, taking turns.

There was no hurry.

I remember seeing a lot of people

with the same expression of stunned disbelief.

You know, where are we?

And how did we get here?

NARRATOR: Incredibly, the DC-8 has crashed-landed

in the middle of a major American city

without injuring a single person on the ground.

Most of the 189 passengers and crew

are alive, including Captain Malburn McBroom.

The captain flying the airplane--

he kept it under control, and that's a big,

big, big positive.

NARRATOR: But he can't understand why his plane

lost power and crashed.

I was afraid.

I didn't know where I was.

I was only 17.

I also realized that my parents in Minnesota

needed to hear from me.

I walked into this home.

Hello?

And I said, I need to use your telephone.

I need to use your telephone.

My parents' initial reaction was to listen

and kind of blow me off.

I was a teenage drama queen, and 17-year-olds

do tend to exaggerate.

But a few minutes later, they got the news they broke

into their television program.

REPORTER: The plane crashed 5 miles

southeast of the airport in a residential area.

Two homes were hit, one disintegrated.

Rescue workers worked through the night.

They carefully picked through the wreckage,

looking for bodies.

They won't know the exact number of dead until

sometime today.

The news teams found us before the emergency

crews did, and so there were cameras, there was lights.

The next thing I know it was boom, boom real hard,

and we were shaking.

And we were down in the position.

All of a sudden, there was a big-- you know, a big crash.

One thump I remember, and then the next thing

I knew I was standing outside.

I don't know how the hell I got there.

NARRATOR: Confronted by such an unprecedented disaster,

the entire airline industry needs an answer.

How could a DC-8 crash 6 miles short of the airport

on a calm, clear night?

The morning after the crash of United Airlines Flight 173.

NTSB investigators are on the scene.

One of the members of the team is human factor

specialist Alan Diehl.

We needed to get out and document the wreckage,

take photographs, take measurements, and so on, very

critical that you do that.

NARRATOR: It's apparent to Diehl

that this disaster could have been much worse.

How the hell did they miss those?

NARRATOR: Captain McBroom somehow

managed to shoehorn the plane into a narrow strip of woods

in the middle of Portland.

When I saw how close he'd come to apartment complexes,

I realized this could have been one of the worst

accidents in history.

NARRATOR: The main cabin of Flight 173

has survived the crash largely intact,

but the nose of the plane is completely destroyed.

It looked to me like the front of the airplane

almost opened up like a banana when it plowed

through the woods and couldn't believe that anybody

had survived this.

NARRATOR: Eight passengers and two members of the crew

are dead.

ALAN DIEHL: A flight engineer had died in the crash, as had

the lead flight attendant.

NARRATOR: Investigators hope survivors

can provide some insight into what brought this jet down.

When did you first notice something out of the ordinary?

NARRATOR: They learn that just over an hour before the crash

the passengers heard a terrifying sound.

We heard a loud thud and felt the plane jolt.

The whole plane just shook.

It was-- it was a jarring sensation.

What was that?

AIMEE CONNER: And of course, everybody

wanted to know what it was.

What was that?

Lots of conversation-starters.

What do you think that was?

Lots of guessing.

A man with a flashlight came down the aisle.

NARRATOR: One of the pilots comes

back to the passenger cabin.

At this point, I started realizing something

really was wrong.

Excuse me.

Can I look out the window here?

AIMEE CONNER: That something wasn't working

the way it should be and they weren't

telling us about it yet.

NARRATOR: The pilot is searching

for something in the darkness.

We're all wanting to know what was going on.

Then the captain came on the PA.

MALBURN MCBROOM (ON PA): Ladies and gentlemen,

this is your captain speaking.

The pilot finally got on and said,

we're having trouble with the landing gear.

We're not sure whether or not it's working correctly.

We'll be running a few routine checks.

Captains are always focused on the safety

of the passengers.

It comes with the job.

That is, if the airplane is experiencing an abnormality,

what's the effect on the passengers and crew?

Do we need to descend?

What do we need to do to make sure that everybody

gets through this abnormality with

the minimum negative effects?

How did the cabin crew react?

They told us to prepare for an emergency landing.

NARRATOR: Passengers are told to remove their jewelry

and securely stow any loose items.

It's clear that the captain is concerned

that his landing gear might collapse on touchdown.

But something isn't making sense to Diehl.

ALAN DIEHL: Crash landings on-airport

are eminently survivable.

First of all, you've got all the equipment

to handle the fire, the fire engines and the rescue people.

But if you have to go off-airport,

it's a whole different situation.

How does a landing gear problem bring down a plane?

NARRATOR: At the crash site of United Airlines Flight 173,

investigators retrieve the plane's flight recorders.

One contains flight data.

The other records voices in the cockpit.

ALAN DIEHL: I've always said that the flight data recorder

tells you what happened, but you

have to listen very carefully to the cockpit voice recorder

to understand why things happen the way they did.

NARRATOR: The recorders will be analyzed

at National Transportation Safety Board headquarters

in Washington.

One of the most important witnesses

is Ed Kingrey, the controller who

handled Flight 173's approach.

I cleared him for an approach to runway 28.

I was about to hand him off to the tower controller.

He basically said he'd stay with me, that he was having

some kind of unsafe gear indication

and he didn't know if one of the landing gear were down.

Negative.

We'll stay with you.

When we've got a gear problem we'll let you know.

NARRATOR: Flight 173 did not want to come in to land.

United 173 heavy, turn left, heading 100.

I'll just orbit you out there.

NARRATOR: Kingrey cleared Flight 173

to fly a holding pattern south of the airport

over the Portland suburbs.

Captain McBroom wanted time to troubleshoot the gear problem

and give his flight attendants time to prepare the cabin

for an emergency landing.

If they have opportunity to plan and prepare

people, things such as where the exits are,

the quality and success of the evacuation

goes up dramatically.

A holding pattern would basically

give him his own air space there

to do whatever he had to do.

I didn't hear much from him after that.

NARRATOR: Investigators learn that after they begin circling

Kingrey only speaks to Flight 173

to warn them of other nearby aircraft.

I would give him traffic, and he would acknowledge it.

There's traffic out there about 9:30.

I see somebody out there with a light on.

EDWARD KINGREY: But no indication to me what was

going on inside the cockpit.

NARRATOR: The crew of Flight 173 is given as much time

as it needs in the holding pattern.

EDWARD KINGREY: It's up to the captain

to decide when it's time for them to come in and land.

They continued circling for about an hour.

NARRATOR: Investigators learned Flight 173 circled Portland

for an unusually long time.

There was no indication to me the--

the gravity of the situation.

NARRATOR: They now wonder what happened

during that hour of circling to turn

a landing gear malfunction--

We've got a gear problem.

We'll let you know.

NARRATOR: --into catastrophic engine failure.

The engines are flaming out.

We're going down.

We're not going to be able to make it to the airport.

I was clearly very interested in how a highly experienced

captain could fly around for over an hour

inside of the airport in good weather

and not put this airplane on the ground safely.

NARRATOR: Investigators find the plane's

right side landing gear.

A rusted bolt has pulled free of the mechanism that

raises and lowers the gear.

This could explain it.

NARRATOR: The landing gear would have

dropped suddenly into place.

JOHN COX: The free fall of the gear

would be very apparent to everyone on the airplane.

What was that?

JOHN COX: You would get a very large thump or clunking sound.

You'd feel the gear slam up against the lock,

and so you'd get this reverberation

through the airplane.

ALAN DIEHL: And we learn that, due to corrosion,

the extension mechanism had failed,

and that's what caused the gear to slam down.

NARRATOR: The discovery explains the troubling sound--

--heard in the cabin an hour before the crash.

But it still doesn't explain the massive engine failure.

The NTSB brings another investigator into the Portland

crash, Dennis Grossi.

DENNIS GROSSI: I was assigned to be the aircraft performance

engineer for this accident.

Basically, it's pulling together

all the information that's available to determine

the aircraft's performance.

NARRATOR: If there was a malfunction,

Grossi hopes the Cockpit Voice Recorder or CVR picked

up the pilots discussing it.

OK. Let's go.

NARRATOR: The recording begins 30

minutes before the crash as the pilots circle over Portland.

MALBURN MCBROOM (ON RECORDING): Ladies and gentlemen,

this is your captain speaking.

NARRATOR: In the era of analog recording,

the CVR uses a 30-minute-long loop of magnetic tape

that keeps recording over itself throughout the flight.

Most air disasters unfold in a matter

of minutes or even seconds.

So having the last half hour of cockpit sounds

and conversation should give investigators

enough material to work with.

DENNIS GROSSI: There's four channels, one cockpit area

microphone and then a channel for each

of the three crew members.

FORREST MENDENHALL (ON RECORDING):

--because I only got this thing to shine down there.

NARRATOR: They hear the flight engineer

leave the cockpit to troubleshoot

the landing gear problem.

In the early generation jets, it

was very common to have mechanical indications

that the landing gear was, in fact, down and locked.

NARRATOR: When the landing gear is lowered,

a small rod pops up on the wing,

providing visual confirmation that the gear is in place.

The flight engineer would be asked by the captain

to go back and check the mechanical indicators

for the position of the landing gear, walk down the aisle

to about the center of the wing.

Excuse me.

Can I look out the window here?

JOHN COX: And he could look over,

and there are tabs that actually come up and go down.

And he could see if the gear was extended and locked.

NARRATOR: It's exactly what Aimee Connor

described to investigators--

A man with a flashlight came through the aisle.

--in her post-crash interview.

How's that main gear back there?

Both appear to be down and locked.

NARRATOR: Despite his engineer's report,

Captain McBroom is still concerned.

If the gear is locked, none of the lights should be flashing.

And the touchdown if that gear folds or something.

Obviously the lights were affected, the electronics that

tell the crew members whether or not the gear is down

and locked.

NARRATOR: Landing gear failure is

rare in commercial aviation.

When it does happen, statistics show that most

passengers survive unscathed.

In 2008, engine failure forced British Airways Flight

38 to make a crash-landing.

The impact ripped the Boeing 777 landing

gear from the fuselage.

The plane was totaled, but no one was killed.

There's one check we missed, checking

the gear warning horn.

- Right. - Correct.

Right.

Normally when we see these problems of a gear light

not coming on, it's a light bulb or some minor piece

of circuitry.

NARRATOR: It appears that a minor electrical problem

had become a major distraction for Captain McBroom.

So how do we do that?

NARRATOR: That still doesn't explain

why the plane lost power.

But what investigators hear next could explain everything.

RODERICK BEEBE (ON RECORDING): Losing an engine.

It's flamed out.

Why?

Fuel.

NARRATOR: First officer Beebe's answer is chilling.

After nearly an hour in a holding pattern,

Flight 173 is simply running out of gas.

RODERICK BEEBE (ON RECORDING): We're losing an engine.

NARRATOR: NTSB investigator Alan Diehl has discovered

something crucial on the CVR.

It's flamed out.

What?

NARRATOR: Less than eight minutes before the DC-8

crashes into a Portland suburb, the captain

seems unconvinced that low fuel is behind his engine failure.

He was asking what was causing that,

and he got a very adamant answer saying "fuel."

Fuel.

As if to say, we've been trying to tell

you about this all along.

Open those crossfeeds there or something.

JOHN COX: There are cross feed valves that are opened

in a specific sequence to let one tank feed

one or more engines, and it's the job of the flight

engineer, in the case of a DC-8,

to know exactly how to do that.

Showing fumes.

NARRATOR: Though the crew couldn't agree on

exactly how much was left--

No, it's showing 1,000 or better.

I don't think it's in there.

NARRATOR: --one thing is certain--

there isn't enough to keep the engine's running.

Losing an engine.

It's flamed out.

It takes a few things to make an engine run.

One of them is fuel.

MALBURN MCBROOM (ON RECORDING): You got that crossfeed open?

NARRATOR: Captain McBroom is desperate.

He needs to get more fuel to the remaining engines.

No, I haven't got it open.

Which one?

Open them both.

Damn it, get some fuel in there.

NARRATOR: Each of the plane's four engines

has its own fuel tank.

Opening the crossfeeds should allow fuel to flow

between the four main tanks.

Number two is empty.

NARRATOR: But it's not working.

You're going to lose number three in a minute, too.

NARRATOR: One by one, fuel starvation shuts down all the,

engines leaving the DC-8 without any power.

MALBURN MCBROOM (ON RECORDING): OK.

Declare mayday.

The engines didn't have any fuel.

We knew that the aircraft ran out of fuel.

So then became the question, why?

Why would a modern transport aircraft

like this run out of fuel?

NARRATOR: Investigators focus on two possibilities--

mechanical failure or human error.

Was it a crew problem, or was it an aircraft problem?

NARRATOR: McBroom may be the only one

who can give the answer.

I wanted to be on final with as much fuel as I could have.

You've got to keep them running, Frosty.

NARRATOR: Recovering from his injuries

in an Oregon hospital, he's now well enough

to tell his side of the story.

We finally sat down with Captain McBroom

and asked the tough questions.

JOHN COX: A pilot takes the responsibility

for the passengers and his fellow crew members

extremely seriously, and to be involved in an accident

where there are fatalities is something

that never leaves you.

It would be with a pilot the remainder of their lives.

I recall seeing the number one

and number two warning lights come on,

but I knew we had fuel.

ALAN DIEHL: He was still convinced that somehow

the fuel had either leaked out of the tanks,

or the fuel burn was too high, or the gauges were wrong.

No, it's showing 1,000 or better.

I don't think it's in there.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, in Washington,

Dennis Grossi digs deeper in search of a mechanical cause.

He studies Flight 173's flight plan.

He uses it to calculate the amount of fuel

the DC-8 should have burned.

JOHN COX: A DC-8 burns somewhere

in the neighborhood of 13,000 pounds of fuel an hour.

The question is, did this aircraft

burn fuel faster than normal?

NARRATOR: If the data shows any discrepancy,

it could mean the captain was right.

DENNIS GROSSI: There must have been a problem

that the engines were burning a lot more fuel than normal

or there was some anomaly in the aircraft.

NARRATOR: His analysis finds no problem.

Flight 173 took off with more than enough fuel

to reach Portland and was consuming

it at the standard rate.

The fuel burn is completely normal.

The conclusion was that the aircraft performance was

normal and that there was no anomalies in the amount

of fuel consumed.

Showing films.

NARRATOR: Investigators are left

with a troubling question.

How could an experienced crew lose track of how much fuel

they had onboard and, in fact, run out of fuel when they

were in view of the airport?

NARRATOR: Grossi considers the possibility that the plane's

fuel gauges malfunctioned.

He studies the CVR transcript, focusing in on the crew's

discussion of fuel levels.

DENNIS GROSSI: Fuel gauges are not known

for being all that precise.

That's why it was so important for the performance study

to correlate the amount of fuel that was actually

on the aircraft with what was actually

being indicated to the crew.

How not sure we got, Frosty?

NARRATOR: If the gauges weren't working properly--

5,000.

NARRATOR: --it could explain why the crew let

the fuel levels fall so low.

The crew discuss, how much fuel do you have?

We got 5,000 pounds.

NARRATOR: By matching the time and the transcript

with the fuel burn chart, Grossi

can determine if the gauges were working accurately.

You take the data and apply the time factor to it,

and you can figure out how much fuel they

should have had remaining.

NARRATOR: He discovers the flight engineer--

FORREST MENDENHALL: 5,000.

NARRATOR: --had the correct reading

5,000.

That's exactly right.

There was nothing wrong with the gauges either.

He said that they saw 5,000 pounds.

That was consistent with what the fuel burn study showed.

NARRATOR: Investigators are convinced

that Flight 173's fuel system was

working exactly as it should.

Lights in the fuel pump.

NARRATOR: 35 minutes after the captain put his plane

into a holding pattern, a warning

light tells the flight engineer that fuel is dangerously low.

That's about right.

The feed pumps are starting to blink.

ALAN DIEHL: Fuel pump lights come on.

This means that the-- they're literally sucking air.

As the fuel sloshes around in tanks,

this plane should have been headed for the airport soon.

NARRATOR: But captain McBroom still isn't ready to land.

JOHN COX: To be in an airplane with that little fuel, it's

something that, as a pilot--

I've never been in that position,

and I would be extraordinarily uncomfortable.

NARRATOR: His reaction is puzzling.

I figure about another 15 minutes.

ALAN DIEHL: The flight engineer said, Captain, 15 minutes?

That's going to run us kind of close on fuel out here.

Not enough.

15 minutes is really going to run us low on fuel here.

That was his one definitive statement to the captain

that things were not right.

NARRATOR: The captain wants more time to prepare

for the emergency landing.

Call around.

Give them our passenger count and them him to give

that to the fire department.

NARRATOR: Instead of heading straight for the runway,

he turns the plane into one last circle over Portland.

I kept thinking, why isn't this guy

turning in to the airport at this time?

NARRATOR: The plane has been in a holding pattern

for more than 40 minutes.

It will take at least 15 more to land,

but the aircraft has only 14 minutes worth of fuel.

A crash landing is now inevitable.

Engines are flaming out.

We're going down.

We're not going to be able to make it to the airport.

NARRATOR: Investigators now know

that Captain McBroom received clear warnings

about low fuel levels.

This didn't have to happen.

NARRATOR: What they don't understand

Is why he ignored them.

ALAN DIEHL: And this was not an act of God.

This was not a massive mechanical failure.

This was an airplane that was perfectly flyable, good night,

within sight of the airport.

This accident should never have happened.

RODERICK BEEBE (ON RECORDING): How much fuel we got now?

NARRATOR: The NTSB's Al Diehl returns to the CVR looking

for anything that might shed some light on the captain's

state of mind.

When you listen to the tapes over and over again,

you can detect things like voice inflections,

subtle voice mannerisms that are trying to communicate

to other members of the crew.

NARRATOR: Diehl is struck by an unusual aspect of McBroom's

behavior in the cockpit.

RODERICK BEEBE (ON RECORDING): How much fuel we got now?

NARRATOR: His crewmates tried more than once to alert

him to the fuel situation.

How much fuel we've got now?

4-- 4,000, in each, pounds.

Both the first officer and the second officer

were acutely aware of the fuel status.

NARRATOR: But McBroom is focusing

on the broken landing gear.

There's-- there's one check we missed, checking

the gear whirring horn.

Right.

Correct.

Right.

So how do we do that?

JOHN COX: Flying with a very senior captain, it

would be very difficult to--

to challenge that Captain in those days about something

like fuel.

ALAN DIEHL: The other crew members

are trying to get this captain's attention,

but he was apparently totally focused on the gear problem

to the exclusion of all else.

NARRATOR: Even after the engines begin to flame out,

McBroom is still trying to fix the malfunctioning

landing gear.

McBroom was not going to give up.

He was going to find a-- what we sometimes called

the golden BB, the one thing that would answer

the riddle as to why this light is not on,

and of course that never happened.

NARRATOR: McBroom is determined to fix

a mechanical problem that could threaten the plane's safety.

On the touchdown, if that gear folds or something--

NARRATOR: As a result, he misses a far

bigger and deadlier threat.

The gear problem is really a distraction for the crew.

You had a small problem with a small potential consequence,

the gear collapsing on landing.

But the captain was so focused on

that he lost the big picture.

Reset that circuit breaker momentarily.

See if we get gear lights.

DENNIS GROSSI: They lost sight of the real emergency,

which was the lack of fuel.

NARRATOR: Al Diehl now understands

how Captain McBroom's obsession with the malfunctioning

landing gear led to disaster.

JOHN COX: After this accident, the National Transportation

Safety Board said flight crew members need

to be better trained to communicate when they

have safety of flight issues.

NARRATOR: What happened aboard Flight 173

is, alarmingly, not an isolated case.

Just a year earlier, another DC-8 crashed in almost

identical circumstances.

ALAN DIEHL: It was a United crew, same kind of aircraft,

gear unsafe light, entered a holding pattern at night,

flew around, troubleshooting the gear problem.

They flew into a mountain and killed everybody aboard.

NARRATOR: It was one of a string of deadly crashes

during the 1970s involving a lack of communication.

The list includes Eastern Airlines

Flight 401, a Lockheed L-1011 bound for Miami.

Here, too, they had a gear unsafe light.

They ended up descending into the Everglades, crashing,

and killed over 100 people.

NARRATOR: The deadliest air disaster

in history at Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

It was caused by poor communication.

The collision claimed 583 lives.

ALAN DIEHL: There was a pattern here

where we're having the same types of accidents where

other flight deck crewmembers were having a difficult time

getting the captain's attention and making

him do the right thing.

NARRATOR: Al Diehl is convinced that the way pilots

communicate with each other is now a growing

threat to commercial aviation.

A lot of people at NTSB elsewhere

thought we were going to be headed for a bloodbath

if we didn't get a handle on the causes of human error.

Diehl learns about an experimental pilot training

program developed by NASA that could help

solve the growing problem.

Known as Cockpit Resource Management or CRM,

it's a system of training designed to improve

the way pilots communicate.

It helps to improve crew coordination

and improve collective decision-making

on the cockpit.

And the way it does that is it teaches captains to listen

better, and it teaches the other members

of the flight deck to be respectfully assertive.

NARRATOR: In a move that will have

a lasting impact on airline safety,

the FAA adopts deals CRM recommendation.

From here on, the job of flying a commercial airliner

will never be the same.

United Airlines is one of the first

to implement a CRM training program for its pilots.

It's still in use today.

United's director of flight training operations

is Marc Champion.

The principles of Crew Resource Management

are that no one individual in the cockpit

can possibly understand or see all of the threats

that are out there.

It requires the entire crew to really foresee and manage

the various threats that happen to be in play

when an airplane is in flight.

NARRATOR: Today, United pilot Sheri Rutledge--

Also I'm having a hard time maintaining my speed here.

--is undergoing CRM training.

Let me talk to the flight attendant.

You continue to steer the airplane.

DENNIS GROSSI: I got the airplane.

NARRATOR: In this simulation, she and her captain

are dealing with an emergency.

Engine oil low pressure.

If oil is less than 60 PSI--

NARRATOR: A mechanical problem has forced a shutdown

of one of their two engines. - --level one to idle.

Confirm to us.

Engine one shut down, engine mode selector to ignition.

It's designed to mimic the situations that I will

see in actual airplane flying.

Yes.

Oakland Center, United 1916, we're declaring an emergency.

We've had an engine failure at altitude.

There are specific threats that we

have to deal with as a crew, be able to communicate,

plan, decision-make through to a safe outcome.

So it's a problem-solving type of scenario,

and you're very focused.

It doesn't look to me as though we've got a fire

issue, though.

We've shut it down quickly enough.

All the flight crew comes together, agrees on,

yes, this is the way--

everything's appropriate, and then you go to the next step.

Yeah, pull the book out.

Let's take a look at that.

OK.

It's very easy sometimes to know what your intention is

and think that the people around you

will also know what that intention is.

But that's not usually the case.

I'm going to go off and talk to dispatch to maintain

flying the airplane.

How are we doing on altitude?

NARRATOR: They keep each other informed every

step of the way, exactly as the exercise intends.

--San Jose as well.

I wanted to--

Ladies and gentlemen, your captain speaking.

We're now in our descent into San Francisco

this ERM training makes every difference in every flight.

It has empowered me as a crew member

and reminded me to speak up.

We're getting a little close in here.

To help with decisions, to maintain

my situational awareness, and that, I think,

is the most important part of it.

ALAN DIEHL: In the States, we've literally gone a decade

without losing a single passenger

at a major carrier accident.

Many of the experts have concluded that that was

at least partly due to CRM.

NARRATOR: Had the crew of Flight 173

received such training--

I figure about another 15 minutes.

NARRATOR: --they might have expressed their concerns

more forcefully, insisting Captain

McBroom land immediately.

Not enough.

15 minutes is really going to run us low on fuel here.

Instead, they expected their captain

to make the right decision.

OK, declare mayday.

NARRATOR: Melburn McBroom was held

responsible for the crash.

He retired shortly afterwards.

Flight 173 passenger Aimee Connor

met Captain McBroom in 1998, six years before his death.

The man that I saw at the reunion

was very broken, very broken, and yet so willing

to be there for us under whatever

circumstances there were.

MALBURN MCBROOM: Call around.

Give them a passenger count.

AIMEE CONNER: If I had had any anger toward him

before the reunion, I sure didn't after I met him,

I know that he truly believed he had more

fuel onboard than he did have.

MALBURN MCBROOM: Tell him to pass that

on to the fire department.

I always said that pilot air is not an answer.

It's only a symptom of some underlying problems.

MALBURN MCBROOM: The thing to remember is, don't worry.

ALAN DIEHL: McBroom was flying under the cockpit

culture of the time.

This was an accident waiting to happen.

They were a product of their times,

and we have to judge those men by the environment

they operated in.

You don't do that sort of thing on purpose.

We can't make it.

He was devastated.

He lost his license.

He lost his family.

The rest of his life was just shattered.