Original subtitles

Man: Something's going on. It's not good.

Narrator: Air Traffic Controllers in California

face a catastrophe.

Man: The radar controller said something like...

Man: Hughes Airwest 7-0-6.

Radio check. How do you hear me?

Man: No answer.

Narrator: A passenger plane with 49 people on board

vanishes from radar.

Man: What happened? Was it a structural issue?

It had crashed for some reason, and we had no idea whatsoever.

Narrator: Witnesses describe an almost unthinkable scenario.

Man: Was that something there?

Man: We didn't see it.

Four sets of eyes didn't see it.

Man: It might have been a plane...

Maybe not.

Man: The fact that somebody says something

doesn't prove anything until you've proved it yourself.

Man: What the hell were those guys doing up there?

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!

Controller: I think I lost one.

Man: Investigation starting...

Man: He's gonna crash!

Narrator: Los Angeles International airport.

Hughes Airwest flight 706 prepares for takeoff.

There are 44 passengers on board.

The flight has stops in Utah, Idaho, and Washington state.

Man: Welcome aboard, folks.

We'll be getting under way any minute now.

Narrator: Captain Theodore Nicolay is in command today.

Jeannine Moyle: Captain Nicolay had flown for the Air Force.

He was pretty senior,

so anybody who was flying with him felt comfortable.

Because of his seniority,

you knew he knew what he was doing.

Narrator: Los Angeles International

is one of the busiest hubs in North America.

Controllers direct crews

to follow specific air corridors on departure.

Controller: Airwest 706 red cleared for takeoff,

runway 2-4 left.

Climb via heading 2-5-0.

Pilot: Roger, 2-4 left, climb heading 2-5-0.

Narrator: First Officer Price Bruner

is also highly experienced.

Price Bruner: Weather looking clear all the way to Seattle.

Narrator: He has even more hours in the air than Captain Nicolay.

Moyle: Price was actually checked out as a captain,

although he elected to fly as first officer.

And I think he truly enjoyed being in the cockpit.

Narrator: Flight Attendant Pat Shelton

flies this route regularly.

Moyle: She was a beautiful gal with lots of long, dark hair,

and she had just gotten engaged.

She was so looking forward to getting married

and she was at a happy state in her life.

Theodore Nicolay: Runway's clear.

Price Bruner: Brakes released.

Narrator: In 1971, airlines in the U.S.

Have been flying the DC-9 for more than five years.

It's two efficient turbofan engines

make it ideal for short to medium haul flights.

Nicolay: Throttles are all yours.

Bruner: 80 knots.

Narrator: At 6:02 p.m.

The Hughes Airwest flight lifts off from L.A.

Controller: Turn right heading 0-6-0.

Bruner: Airwest 706 red, right 0-6-0.

Narrator: The heading takes the plane west

over the pacific ocean

before turning northeast towards its first stop, salt lake city.

Four minutes after takeoff, First Officer Bruner

contacts a different control center north of L.A.

Bruner: Los Angeles Center, good evening.

Airwest 706 Red with you.

Climbing through 6,000.

Narrator: The Los Angeles air route traffic control center.

Controller: Airwest 706 red turn left heading 0-4-0

until receiving Daggett.

Narrator: Head Controller Roger Anderson

is helping a trainee operator get up to speed.

Roger Anderson: That's it. You got to keep scanning.

It's something where you can't stop and think about

each decision in-depth.

You have to make quick decisions, a lot of reaction.

You got to move at a fast pace.

Narrator: Controllers must keep planes

at a safe distance from one another

as they fly in and out of L.A.

Anderson: In addition to Airwest,

the radar controller may have been talking to

five or six other jets climbing out towards the northeast,

in addition to a small number of criss-crossers

back and forth through the airspace.

Bruner: Ok, 0-4-0 direct to Daggett.

Narrator: The controllers monitor

the Hughes Airwest DC-9 on radar.

They use markers called "shrimp boats"

to track the position of every plane.

Anderson: Shrimp boats-- this was before automation,

and these were little, small plastic markers

with a pointy end.

And we'd write on them with grease pencil.

And it would contain just basic information

like aircraft call sign,

sometimes the assigned altitudes--

as much information as you can squeeze with a grease pencil

onto a little plastic marker.

Narrator: The sound of an emergency transmitter

warns the controllers

that a plane in the area may be in trouble.

They need more information to figure out what's happening.

Anderson: Frequently at the time,

people would accidentally trigger the transmitter.

It was seldom a real situation,

so we didn't tend to pay that much attention to it.

At this point, we looked back,

and our shrimp boats, where Airwest 706 is,

the target's missing.

The radar controller said something like...

Controller: Hughes Airwest 706, reset your transponder.

Radar contact lost.

Anderson: There's no answer.

Airwest 706--

controller: Radio check. How do you hear me?

Anderson: No answer.

This is getting bad now.

We've lost the target,

and we've got no communications with the aircraft.

Narrator: Anderson realizes the enormity of the situation

when the crew of a nearby military plane radios in.

Pilot: Center, we've just seen an explosion

on the side of a mountain.

Anderson: Hey, something's going on. It's not good.

And he said, "center, I didn't see it,"

but my co-pilot looked out the window.

He saw explosions on the side of the mountain.

Well, then, we knew something bad had happened.

What the hell happened?

Narrator: A DC-9 with 49 people on board

has slammed into the California hills.

Anderson: Did Airwest just explode?

Did a wing fall off?

What happened? Was it a structural issue?

It had crashed for some reason, and we had no idea whatsoever.

Narrator: The loss of the DC-9 will attract a lot of attention

because of its high-profile owner.

Just a year earlier, the airline was purchased

by billionaire aviator Howard Hughes,

one of the most famous people in America.

Dave Knutsen: Howard Hughes was looking for an airline to buy

at a good price.

And eventually they found Airwest.

It then became Hughes Airwest.

Narrator: The National Transportation Safety Board

assigns one of its top investigators to the case,

world war ii navy pilot dick baker.

Dick baker: San Gabriel Mountains.

Narrator: The crash location poses an immediate challenge.

Baker: Ok. We're gonna need choppers to get in there.

In the meantime,

I want you to find me anyone who saw anything...now.

Richard Rodriguez: In this case,

the accident site was very remote

and in very precipitous mountain terrain.

That makes it always difficult

for the investigators to get out there.

Narrator: The crash site is just a few miles

from the town of Duarte, California.

It's the best place to find witnesses.

In the hours after the crash,

dozens of people come forward with the same story.

They say they heard an explosion

and looked up to see the DC-9 falling

like a leaf to the ground.

Most have no idea what caused the explosion.

But a handful of witnesses say they do.

They insist it was a mid-air collision

between the DC-9 and a fighter jet.

Rodriguez: Witness statements can be notoriously deceiving,

but in a mid-air collision,

they're generally pretty accurate

as to the fact that a collision occurred.

Narrator: Investigators need to figure out

where this second jet may have come from.

With the American war in Vietnam raging,

military air bases on the west coast

are extremely active.

There are several in southern California alone.

Frank Romaglia: In the '70s,

there was lots of military training

going on in southern California

because there were clear skies and lots of desert out there

that they could train over.

Baker: Ok. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Narrator: Baker soon gets the information he needs.

Baker: El Toro's missing a jet.

Narrator: An F-4 Phantom hasn't made it back

to nearby el Toro's marine corps airbase.

It's the military's most advanced fighter.

The two-man jet is capable of flying

at twice the speed of sound

and outmaneuvering almost everything else in the sky.

Romaglia: It was simply the meanest aircraft on the block.

It had a radar missile capability

so you could shoot BVR-- beyond visual range.

It was high speed-- more than mach ii capable.

Narrator: The witness reports leave little doubt:

The missing fighter from el Toro's

is the aircraft that collided with the DC-9.

But how could experienced fighter pilots

fly into a much slower civilian plane?

Baker: What the hell were those guys doing up there?

Narrator: Witnesses provide some crucial information

about a mid-air collision

in the skies over southern California.

Several people share a particularly troubling detail.

Baker: I want you to tell me again

what you mean by trick flying.

Narrator: It seems the fighter jet

may have been performing a stunt

moments before it collided with the passenger plane.

Man: The jet was doing a barrel roll.

Narrator: Stunt flying is dangerous not only for pilots,

but also for people on the ground.

It's strictly regulated.

Rodriguez: If he was performing acrobatic maneuvers

in an area that was not specifically assigned

for acrobatic maneuvers,

it would be in violation of his operating instructions

for any military flying.

Narrator: Investigators hope recordings of air traffic radar

will tell them more about what the F-4 pilots were doing.

But the controllers on duty that day

say the fighter didn't appear on their radar at all.

Controller: I would have warned Hughes if I'd seen the jet.

Narrator: And they have the tapes to prove it.

Anderson: We didn't see it.

Four sets of eyes didn't see it.

The target wasn't there.

What you don't know you can do nothing about.

Narrator: Investigators learn the identities

of the F's-4's two crewmen:

Marine pilot James Richard Phillips

and radar intercept Officer Christopher Schiess.

Christopher Schiess: Watch it!

Narrator: After the impact, only Lieutenant Schiess

was able to eject from the doomed fighter.

Romaglia: There's a time that you know

you have to get out of the aircraft.

There's no more fooling around.

Narrator: Investigators are anxious to learn

what Schiess knows,

but first doctors must check him for injuries.

Romaglia: I would think

if the other crew member did not survive,

you'd feel horrible because you were a survivor.

It's something that, you made it,

and the guy sitting just a few feet away from you did not.

Narrator: In Vietnam-era America,

the involvement of a military jet in a civilian disaster

sparks a public outcry.

Rodriguez: It was in an era of our nation's history

that the military wasn't

the most popular organization in the world.

And so it does create greater tension in the investigation.

Narrator: The Marines send their own man

to help with the investigation.

Baker: Dick baker.

Narrator: Lieutenant Colonel Jack Zyke.

Baker: I guess we'll be working together on this.

Narrator: He'll work with the NTSB

to figure out how the two planes collided.

Jack Zyke: These were good marines.

I doubt they were stunting.

Baker: Well, let's figure that out.

Narrator: The wreckage may offer some clues about what happened.

But recovering it from the remote crash site

in the San Gabriel Mountains will take time.

Reporter: The rough terrain and dense fog

have hampered the removal of bodies

and the search for clues.

Knutsen: It is very rough terrain--

bramble bushes, rattlesnakes, and very steep canyons.

This area was some of the roughest terrain

that I had ever seen, ever experienced.

Reporter: The first rescue workers had to hike six miles

to get to the scene.

They reported only the tail section intact,

no signs of life.

Narrator: Among the wreckage

are the remains of 49 men, women, and children--

the youngest just three weeks old.

Moyle: There is a port hole

adjacent to the forward jump seat,

and I'm just imagining that Pat Shelton

would have been looking out through that port hole.

I'm just wondering

if they weren't able to see a split second of something.

That haunts me often.

Reporter: This was the worst plane crash

in California history.

Narrator: In an area swarming with military flights,

the deadly collision

sends a chill through the flying public.

Rodriguez: We were very concerned

about the mid-air collision.

Narrator: Investigators need to figure out what went wrong

before it happens again.

A day after the crash,

they get a chance to talk to the accident's sole survivor.

Baker: Thanks, Johnny. Send him in.

Narrator: They're eager to ask him to explain the maneuvers

reported by the witnesses.

Rodriguez: There's a tremendous urgency

to talk to any survivor of an accident,

to get to them as quickly as possible,

because they tend to build on news stories

so you don't get the clear, unfiltered description.

Baker: Sit down, Lieutenant.

We won't bite.

Rodriguez: What were you doing?

Who, what, when, where, and why?

Narrator: Lieutenant Christopher Schiess

is just 24 years old.

He insists that he and his pilot were not stunting.

He maintains the collision was not their fault at all.

Schiess: The DC-9 hit us.

Like this.

His nose to our tail.

Baker: Hold on. Back up a bit.

Tell me exactly what happened.

Narrator: On the day of the crash,

Schiess was flying in the rear seat of the F-4,

the usual position for the radar intercept officer, or rio.

Schiess: Copy, Rick. Climb to 15,000.

Narrator: 27-year-old First Lieutenant Rick Phillips

is in the forward seat, flying the jet.

The pair has already flown across four states.

Their mission now is to get the F-4 back to home base--

el Toro's, California.

Schiess: We climbed to 15,000 feet, here.

And we rolled over for a look around.

Baker: An aileron roll?

Schiess: Yes, Sir. Full 360.

Narrator: Schiess claims they executed

a 360-degree aileron roll.

They wanted to check for other planes

flying above or below their jet.

Romaglia: The F-4 Phantom

had good visibility down over the nose,

and anytime you wanted to look anywhere,

it would just take a second to roll

so that an area in which you didn't have good visibility,

you could instantaneously get good visibility.

Narrator: After the roll,

Schiess uses his radar to scan the ground below--

part of his combat training.

Romaglia: It's excellent practice for ingress,

either at night or in the weather,

such that you could fly and use the radar

to know where you were over the ground.

He would have his head down in the radar scope,

doing ground mapping,

and then the front seater would be primarily visual

because he knew that he lost that extra set of eyes

that was down in the radar

instead of looking out for other aircraft

in the "see and be seen" environment.

Schiess: Watch it, Rick!

That's when I first saw the DC-9.

It came out of nowhere and slammed into us.

Narrator: Five seconds later, Schiess ejects.

Schiess: I got out.

Rick didn't.

Knutsen: The radar observer who had bailed out,

as one of his first comments said,

was that the DC-9 had hit them.

So this kind of became an objective.

Did the DC-9 hit the F-4?

Did the F-4 hit the DC-9?

Narrator: Investigators know the F-4

was not equipped with a black box.

They'll have no flight data from the fighter

to help confirm Schiess' story.

They won't get any clues from the phantom's wreckage, either.

The high-speed impact obliterated the small jet.

Hughes Airwest engineer Dave Knutsen is brought in

to see if the young lieutenant's story holds up.

Knutsen: Not unlike an intersection on the ground,

generally speaking,

the one who gets to the intersection first....

Bruner: Climbing through 15,000 feet.

Knutsen: Tends to have the right of way.

So that seemed to be kind of an overwhelming drive

to determine that.

Narrator: Wreckage from the DC-9

might explain which pilot was at fault.

Knutsen: The task began

to find a place where we could rebuild the airplane.

In this particular case,

it was a factory where they had put fiberglass together.

For whatever reason, they'd left hundreds of C-clamps.

These could be handy.

Plus there were overhead cranes,

which was ideal for reconstructing an airplane.

Narrator: Knutsen hopes putting the DC-9 back together

will help him understand exactly how the two planes hit.

Knutsen: We knew that there was a mid-air collision up there.

The objective was to, to the extent possible,

to rebuild the remains of the airplane

to help in the investigation

as to what actually happened up there.

Narrator: The team has recovered the DC-9's black boxes.

But they're badly damaged.

Baker: We'll have to see if the lab can do anything with these.

Narrator: They're sent to NTSB headquarters in Washington

for analysis.

Knutsen studies the twisted metal,

looking for scratches and paint marks--

clues that might reveal how the two planes hit.

But the most vital piece of the DC-9 is still missing.

Knutsen: We'd recovered the main section

which was in this canyon, along with all the remains.

But we still were missing

the front end of the cockpit area.

We've got to find the rest of it.

Narrator: In Washington, the lab is also having mixed success.

The DC-9's cockpit voice recorder

is completely destroyed.

But the flight data recorder has survived the crash.

Rodriguez: The flight data recorder, in this case,

gave very good information.

Narrator: If the pilots of the DC-9

had somehow flown off course...

Bruner: Right 0-6-0.

Narrator: The flight data recorder

should reveal their mistake.

Rodriguez: The aircraft did little

in the way of maneuvering.

The aircraft was in a steady state climb.

Narrator: Instead, the data shows

they never strayed from their assigned heading.

Bruner: Climbing through 15,000 feet.

Nicolay: Just another hazy day.

Rodriguez: There was no evasive maneuver

involved in this particular accident

by the DC-9.

Narrator: The flight data from the DC-9

doesn't explain what happened.

Ten days after the crash,

searchers finally find the nose of the DC-9

less than a mile from the main fuselage.

It's a key discovery for Knutsen.

Knutsen: After we had started rebuilding the plane,

questions arose about what angle were the airplanes going

when they collided?

And so one of my jobs as an engineer

was to get various pieces of the airplane

and determine what the angle of attack was, so to speak.

Bingo.

Narrator: There's only one way to explain

the size and angle of the gash slicing through the cockpit.

Knutsen: It looks like the stabilizer

cut the plane in two.

Knutsen: Once we got the plane constructed,

you could back off and you could see

where the vertical stabilizer of the fighter

came right underneath the pilot's seat

and just sliced off the nose.

Baker: So if they hit like this...

Knutsen: The F-4 had actually penetrated the DC-9

on the left side,

a few feet from the nose.

So, frankly, the F-4 hit the DC-9

rather than the DC-9 hitting the F-4.

Then we know who hit who.

Narrator: The markings suggest

the F-4 tried to avoid the DC-9...

Schiess: Watch it, Rick!

Narrator: At the last second.

Knutsen: It cut off the nose of the airplane.

And that took away all the controls.

And the airplane,

as some of the observers on the ground said,

it was like a falling leaf till they hit the ground.

Narrator: Investigators are convinced

Lieutenant Schiess is wrong about who hit whom.

More troubling,

it's not the only part of his story that doesn't add up.

Baker: He says they hit 15,000 feet here.

Zyke: But witnesses say that they saw them roll here.

Narrator: Witnesses contradict Schiess' story

about where the F-4 was when it performed the roll.

Rodriguez: The investigator brings a very cynical approach

to anything that he's investigating.

The fact that somebody says something

doesn't prove anything until you've proved it yourself.

Baker: He can't be in two places at the same time.

Narrator: Some witnesses insist

that a Marine F-4 was performing stunts

just before it crashed into the Hughes Airwest DC-9.

Baker: Was it like this?

No? O.K. How about this?

Rodriguez: There was some conflict

between what we had gotten from eyewitnesses,

or supposedly eyewitnesses along the flight path,

and what the rio was describing.

Schiess: And we rolled over for a look around.

Narrator: Lieutenant Schiess claims the move wasn't a stunt.

Baker: An aileron roll?

Narrator: He says it was a safe standard maneuver

called an aileron roll.

Schiess: Yes, Sir. Full 360.

Rodriguez: I can best describe that

as simply flying in a level upright position

and placing the stick either to the left or to the right

and the aircraft rolls about the longitudinal axis.

Narrator: During an aileron roll,

the jet flies in a straight line at a constant speed.

But during a barrel roll, loops are added,

so the jet covers less ground in the same length of time.

Investigators should be able to figure out

which maneuver it was

by reconstructing the F's-4's flight path.

Rodriguez: We actually flew the route of the flight

and were able to duplicate the aircraft's progress

along the flight path.

Narrator: Lieutenant Schiess' recollection of the flight...

Zyke: And Schiess says that they were here

two minutes before the crash.

Narrator: Is combined with witnesses' sightings of the plane.

Baker: An eyewitness who checked his watch

says he saw the plane here

one minute before the crash.

That looks like a straight run to me.

Rodriguez: The truth of the matter is

if there had been acrobatic maneuvers,

they would not have been in the mid-air collision.

It would have delayed the progress along the flight path

and the two aircraft would never have come together.

Narrator: Baker is convinced

the F-4 did not perform an aerobatic stunt,

but an aileron roll to check for other planes.

Schiess: All clear on my side.

Narrator: From the ground it would have been easy

to mistake one maneuver for the other.

Rodriguez: There was no indication

that he was what you would classify as a hotdog

or undisciplined in his activities.

I'm sure that they were more interested in getting home

than they were in, "oh, boy, I've got an airplane

and an hour to kill, and watch this,"

or something of that nature.

Narrator: But something still doesn't add up.

The F-4 is an incredibly nimble aircraft.

It can turn much more sharply than any commercial airliner.

Romaglia: For the F-4,

minimum "cruising around" airspeeds

were in the neighborhood of a minimum of 300 knots.

And that would enable us to at least do an initial 5-G turn

if an airliner popped up in front of you.

Narrator: If the F-4 wasn't stunting,

why couldn't it avoid

the much larger and less nimble DC-9 in its path?

Investigators study the basics:

The weather.

Rodriguez: It was what I would classify

as a typical southern California day.

There were no obstructions to visibility.

Baker: We're missing something.

We need Schiess back here.

Rodriguez: I don't believe that the initial descriptions

by the rio of his flight path

and what activity had taken place

was in any way in error

because of deliberate action on his part.

I think he was... He was very much in shock

as a function of the event he had been through.

Baker: Ok, Lieutenant.

Let's go back to the very beginning.

What were you doing before the flight?

Schiess: Before the flight we were at the base in Fallon,

getting the F-4 looked over.

Narrator: On the afternoon of June 6th,

the young officer is 372 miles from Los Angeles,

at an airbase in Nevada.

His F-4 Phantom is one of a group of fighters

that's been practicing air intercepts

over the western united states.

Romaglia: They were en route

from Fallon Naval Air Station up in Nevada

back to marine el Toro's in the south Los Angeles basin,

relatively close to lax.

Schiess: I just needed some guidance with an oxygen issue,

and we were good to go.

Baker: Oxygen issue?

Narrator: Investigators learn

the F's-4's high altitude oxygen system was leaking.

Schiess: So there's no way to fix it at this base?

Narrator: And the mechanics in Nevada couldn't fix it.

Schiess: Sir, it's Lieutenant Schiess.

Yes, Sir. Will do.

Yeah, they still want us to head back to el Toro's.

Narrator: To avoid using the broken oxygen system...

Schiess: Just keep it nice and low.

Narrator: They've been ordered to fly at low altitude.

Schiess: And that's what we did.

Narrator: At 5:15 p.m., the F-4 takes off.

Pilot Rick Phillips cruises lower than he ordinarily would.

If it weren't for the oxygen problem,

he could fly much higher

and clear of commercial traffic leaving Los Angeles.

At around 6 p.m.,

the pilot needs to climb to avoid the mountains ahead

and get above a layer of haze.

Schiess: Copy, Rick. Climb to 15,000.

Romaglia: The crew in the F-4, they climbed from,

I believe it was about 1,500 to 15,000 feet.

You could certainly do climb rates

of 10 to 15,000 feet a minute easily in a phantom.

Narrator: Baker wonders if the rapid increase in altitude

could have brought on a dangerous condition

known as hypoxia.

Rodriguez: Hypoxia will degrade your visual acuity.

Romaglia: It's a deprivation of oxygen to the brain.

It slows down your thinking,

and that's not good in a tactical high-speed aircraft.

Narrator: Marine corps investigators...

Zyke: This system is for the masks.

Narrator: Are familiar with the F's-4's design.

Zyke: And this one here is for the cabin pressure.

Narrator: They know that the problem with the oxygen system

would only have affected the masks,

and those are only required at very high altitudes.

At 15,000 feet,

there should have been plenty of oxygen in the cockpit.

Rodriguez: The pressurization system of the aircraft

would have held the cabin altitude

well below 10,000 feet,

so there was no requirement for the oxygen

from a standpoint of physiology.

The crew was not hypoxic in any way, shape, or form.

Narrator: The cause of the collision remains a mystery.

There's a basic concept in aviation

called "see and avoid."

It's every pilot's job to watch out for other planes.

Investigators wonder why the pilots of the DC-9

did not take any action to avoid the disaster.

Baker: Not much here.

You got anything?

Narrator: Investigators find that commercial pilots

don't get as much training as their military counterparts

when it comes to visual scanning.

Bruner: Engage autopilot.

Rodriguez: There was no formal training at Airwest

with respect to "see and avoid" scanning.

The crew may have had some residual training

from past military experience,

but Hughes Airwest did not have an established program.

Bruner: Too bad you're missing the dodgers game tonight.

Nicolay: This year they're going all the way to the world series.

Bruner: Not if the giants can keep it up.

Rodriguez: I don't think that the average crew member

in the airlines

was aware of how significant outside scanning was

or should be.

We had studies that pilots would spend

less than 50% of their time looking outside,

and sometimes as low as 20%.

Narrator: Investigators conclude that the Hughes Airwest pilots

may not have had enough training to scan effectively,

and that's why they failed to spot the F-4.

Not everyone is convinced.

Many of his colleagues remember Captain Nicolay

as an exceptionally vigilant pilot.

Moyle: Captain Nicolay was that kind of a pilot, I think,

who really had an instinct with flying.

On one occasion, we had a near miss,

and he took the airplane for a dive.

And I can remember him explaining to his first officer

and to whoever was in the vicinity

about how important it is to keep your eyes out

because anything could come along.

Narrator: If Captain Nicolay

was on the lookout for planes in his path,

why didn't he see the approaching F-4?

Baker: The F-4 is coming in at 420 knots

from the north...

Slightly east.

The DC-9...

Is coming in at 320 knots...

From the southwest.

What's the rate of closure?

Knutsen: I was able to calculate

the closing speed of these two planes

was roughly 1,000 feet per second.

And if one thinks about that...

And a good comparison

is the muzzle velocity of a .45 caliber gun.

Narrator: In the seconds before the crash,

radar operator Schiess has his head down,

checking his scope.

Pilot Phillips is likely checking instruments.

Baker: At 15 seconds,

the F-4 is one-tenth of an inch big in the window--

tiny.

10 seconds... Three-tenths of an inch.

Still tiny, but maybe now he can see it.

5 seconds... The entire window's filled.

Narrator: In addition to the rapid closing speed,

the color of the fighter may have also been a factor.

Romaglia: It would be very difficult

in the accident context

for the airline guys to spot the F-4

because it was painted marine/navy gray-blue,

which would be very hard to see against the sky,

which in fact is the objective.

Rodriguez: The probability of these two aircraft,

either one detecting and avoiding the other,

was slim and none.

Narrator: Investigators suspect the design of the DC-9 cockpit,

with its wide window dividers,

may have made the visibility problem even worse.

Baker: You can't see it here, or here.

Narrator: The F-4 would have been hidden

by the window posts...

Baker: It's completely obstructed.

Narrator: For close to 25 seconds.

Rodriguez: It's virtually impossible for the DC-9 crew

to have detected the F-4 as it approached.

Nicolay: Just another hazy day.

Schiess: Watch it!

Narrator: None of the pilots that day

had enough time to see the other plane in their path.

But air traffic controllers are supposed to make sure

planes fly at a safe distance from each other

and prevent collisions in the sky.

Controller: Airwest 7-0-6 red turn left heading 0-4-0

until receiving Daggett.

Narrator: But they didn't see the F-4 either.

Rodriguez: Why did the F-4, the marine aircraft,

not show up on the radar?

Anderson: What the hell happened?

Narrator: Controllers should have been able to spot the F-4

and warn Hughes Airwest flight 706

that it was on a collision course.

Rodriguez: The fact that the DC-9

was under radar control at the time

raised many questions about

why did they not give warning or a traffic alert to the DC-9,

which was the primary responsibility

of the air traffic controllers?

Baker: A couple rookies in there.

Narrator: Investigators wonder

if the inexperience of the trainee controllers

could have played a role.

Anderson: A new person

training in an air traffic control facility

has to train with live traffic.

Now there's a lot of simulation equipment

available for training.

But back then, we had none of that.

Narrator: But when they study staff reports and transcripts...

Baker: They all check out.

Narrator: They find the trainees

were well-qualified and well-supervised.

Anderson: The two trainees--

you can say, "well, they were trainees.

What do they know? They probably weren't paying attention."

Wrong.

Trainees are paying attention

much more closely than a journeyman controller

who can tend to get a tad complacent

because they're so comfortable with the routine.

Narrator: There appears to be no way to explain

why the radar system in Palmdale didn't detect the F-4.

Then investigators discover some key details

about the equipment installed there.

The system may not have been reliable enough

to accurately track a fast-moving fighter jet.

Anderson: It was nothing more than world war ii technology.

And temperatures generated by this equipment

would cause the equipment to drift drastically.

And sometimes it would drift so bad off its peak performance

that we really couldn't see at all.

Narrator: Investigators need to know

exactly what the radar in Palmdale

could and could not see.

Investigators conduct a radar test.

They fly an F-4 along the route Schiess and Phillips took

to see whether it can be picked up by radar in Palmdale.

Anderson: Uh, was that something there?

The F's-4's traveling almost 500 miles an hour.

Narrator: The F-4 does six runs.

The controller can barely track the high-speed fighter.

Anderson: It might have been a plane...

Maybe not.

It could just be interference

that it was shown frequently on the radar,

ground clutter... Who knows what?

A single blip means absolutely nothing.

We have to have a history of blips

to see that it's actually traffic.

Narrator: They conclude it was almost impossible

to detect the marine F-4 as it streaked across the sky.

Baker: He's all alone.

And no one knows he's there.

Narrator: To make matters worse,

in 1971, military pilots were not routinely briefed

on civilian air traffic routes.

Rodriguez: The military pilots were not that familiar

with what the civilian pilots were doing,

not just the Los Angeles area,

but in other heavy congested areas.

Narrator: The military plane was not under orders

to check in with civilian air traffic control.

Baker; these are the roads in and out of lax.

Narrator: The air corridors surrounding lax

are like spokes on a wheel that extend for miles.

Flight 706 was following one of those established corridors.

Baker: Your guys were crossing

one of the busiest flight paths in the country.

I assume they knew it was there?

Schiess: We should stay clear of traffic

if we cut east of Los Angeles.

Narrator: Schiess tells investigators

that they hoped to avoid commercial air traffic

by skirting the city.

Instead, they turned into one of the airport's busiest lanes.

Rodriguez: The terminal area charts

would show those departures,

but the military doesn't have those

because they don't operate

out of Los Angeles International Airport.

Romaglia: The question I have in my mind is:

Why did the F-4 crew,

why did they not get ahold of an air traffic control guy

to let them know where they were and what they were doing?

Narrator: The investigators reach an alarming conclusion.

Air transportation in America has a dangerous flaw:

The military and civilian systems don't communicate.

Baker: Bang.

Anderson: Could we have done anything different?

No, absolutely not!

It was just something that happened.

We could not have changed it.

Not us.

Narrator: The exhaustive investigation

produces two separate reports:

One civilian and one military.

They cover every detail of the deadly accident...

How two Marine airmen were hindered by an oxygen leak.

Schiess: So there's no way to fix it at this base?

Narrator: How they took off

without advising civilian air traffic controllers

and flew low over the California desert.

Anderson: Was that something there?

Narrator: How controllers couldn't track

the supersonic fighter jet,

and why the crew of a DC-9 with 44 passengers on board

never saw them coming.

Nicolay: Just another hazy day.

Narrator: The reports lead to important changes

in the rules governing aviation.

Knutsen: Military pilots used to fly VFR, visual flight rules,

which has a much lesser requirement

for reporting positions and that sort of thing.

And so, as a result of this accident,

everybody had to be on radar control,

and that means being controlled

by radar operators on the ground.

Narrator: Military pilots are now advised

of all restricted air traffic zones near commercial airports.

The size and shape of the zones has also changed.

Rodriguez: There was a continuum of revision

to restricted airspace

into what we call the upside-down wedding cake.

Narrator: No longer merely spokes in a hub,

restricted airspace at busy airports

now surrounds the entire terminal.

Hughes Airwest was sold in 1980

and eventually folded into Northwest Airlines.

But the legacy of the airline's deadliest accident endures.

Schiess: Watch it!

Narrator: Lessons learned from the accident

helped force changes to air traffic control...

That make passengers safer to this day.

Anderson: It was so unfortunate

that 50 people died that evening.

It's so sad.

But this past year in the U.S.,

35,000 were killed in traffic deaths,

so the system is extremely safe.

The procedures we use, the technology we have,

it works well.