Original subtitles

NARRATOR: A commuter flight over France...

FIRST OFFICER: Look. We can see the ship there.

CAPTAIN: There she is.

NARRATOR: ...gets a rare view of a national treasure.

CAPTAIN: It's beautiful.

MORGAN: It's a clear blue day.

I'm sure both the crew members were feeling good,

and maybe they were going to have a little fun along the way.

PASSENGER: It's just stunning.

NARRATOR: Something rips the plane to pieces.

JULIEN: I was shocked.

This was so quick and it was so horrible.

NARRATOR: With an entire nation looking for answers,

investigators struggle to explain what really happened.

ALAIN: Stop it.

NARRATOR: They uncover an unimaginable chain of events.

ALAIN: What were they thinking?

MORGAN: You really have to get inside the mind of the pilots

to say whether or not you would have done the same thing

in those circumstances.

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 INTO THIS TRAGEDY...

Man: HE'S GONNA CRASH!

♪

♪

NARRATOR: In one of the busiest weeks of summer,

Proteus Airlines Flight 706 heads to the coast

of Brittany, Western France.

CAPTAIN: Flaps zero-plus-thirty.

NARRATOR: The 31-year-old captain is an experienced pilot.

He's flown everything from passenger planes

to water bombers.

FIRST OFFICER: Confirmed. Descent in 10 nautical miles.

NARRATOR: His first officer is just 27 years old,

but he has more than 300 hours' flight experience

in this same type of aircraft.

MORGAN: The skill on these pilots in the Beech 1900

is very high. They're professional aviators.

This is what they're trained to do.

This is what they do on a daily basis.

This was just a normal day for them.

NARRATOR: The captain and first officer

have divided their workload.

PATRICK: It's very common in the industry

for the pilots to swap legs,

meaning one pilot will take his turn flying the aircraft

and then the other pilot will fly the next trip.

On this particular flight, it was the first officer's turn

to fly the aircraft.

The captain was the pilot monitoring,

and that involves communicating with air traffic control,

doing checklists, managing the systems on the aircraft.

NARRATOR: Flight 706 left Lyon Airport

a little more than an hour ago.

They're on schedule to land at Lorient

in approximately 20 minutes,

and they're being guided to their destination

by local air traffic control.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: I authorize 3,700 feet in IFR.

CAPTAIN: Confirmed.

NARRATOR: The twin engine Beechcraft 1900D

can carry 19 passengers.

Some are headed to the beaches of southwest Brittany,

a popular tourist destination in France.

And today they're in for a treat --

the rare chance to see a treasured piece

of French maritime history,

a luxury ocean liner formerly known as the SS France.

JULIEN: People in France, we are so proud of this boat,

because of mechanical advancement but also,

it was a showcase of French art and design.

NARRATOR: When put into service in 1962,

this was the longest passenger ship ever built,

more than 150 feet longer than the Titanic.

The ship is a huge draw whenever it's in French waters.

So journalist Julien Beaumont is sent to cover the event

for the local press.

JULIEN: I went to Quiberon Bay that day because

I was a young journalist, that's my very first job,

and because it was the main story at that time.

I decided to go there and cover the story

and make some pictures.

NARRATOR: The young journalist hires a small plane

to get a better view.

But he's not the only one fascinated by the ocean liner.

FIRST OFFICER: Look. We can see the ship there.

CAPTAIN: Yes, there she is. I'll let the passengers know.

NARRATOR: As Flight 706 begins its descent

towards Lorient airport, passengers and crew

are about to get a perfect view of the famous ocean liner.

MORGAN: The pilots definitely got caught up

in the excitement of, let's go see the ship.

It's not just the first-class service,

but I think there was elements inside them as crew members

that also wanted a front row seat

taking a look at the ship itself.

CAPTAIN: Lorient, 706. We'll keep a visual

and we'll do a 360 for the passengers in the back.

We'll resume contact after for the approach to Lorient.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: 706, Lorient confirmed.

CAPTAIN: Ladies and gentlemen, on the left off the plane

you'll see the ocean liner Le France.

Air traffic control has just given us permission

to do a 360 around her.

We'll resume our route to Lorient immediately after

in approximately five or six minutes.

♪

They descend to 2,000 feet and begin circling the ship.

♪

PATRICK: Two thousand feet is indeed quite low

for a commercial aircraft.

Now with that said, this is a regional aircraft.

They tend to fly into smaller airports.

So for them to go to spend a little more time

at a lower altitude is not rare.

PASSENGER: Isn't she a beauty?

MORGAN: It would have been a tremendous view

on a crystal clear day.

You could have seen every detail of that ship

from two thousand feet.

NARRATOR: Not far away, Julien Beaumont

is enjoying a similar view.

JULIEN: It was a perfect day.

I mean it was sunny, no wind, beautiful weather,

high temperatures.

CAPTAIN: Look at the number of yachts down there.

FIRST OFFICER: Amazing. PASSENGER: Just stunning.

NARRATOR: As they complete their 360-degree turn

around the ship, the pilots begin preparations

for their landing at Lorient Airport.

CAPTAIN: 706. If permitted, we'll set direct course

for the airport.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: 706, Lorient confirmed.

NARRATOR: Without any warning,

Flight 706 disintegrates in midair.

JULIEN: I didn't hear the crash because the door was open

and I was taking my pictures, you know,

and the pilot told me, oh, look just in front of us.

So I just looked in front and take my camera like this

and just shoot.

I was shocked because it was so quick and it was so horrible.

I can see some big parts, big wreckage pieces

just going under the sea,

and some personal belongings like a jacket.

At that time you just realize and say, wow...

a lot of people died there.

♪

NARRATOR: The coast guard rushes to the crash site

hoping to rescue any survivors. But they find no one.

Hundreds of tourists aboard the ship and surrounding yachts

are stunned by what they've just seen.

JULIEN: It was like we are so happy to see the boat,

and in two minutes all of this became a tragedy.

♪

NARRATOR: It's soon clear there are no survivors.

All 14 passengers and crew are dead.

The sad news stuns the nation.

JULIEN: It was the big story in France.

All the journalists were on this story,

and all the French people wanted to know about this story.

It was really the main story in France at that time.

♪

NARRATOR: As the tragedy begins to sink in,

so the mystery deepens.

Despite hundreds of eyewitnesses,

no one seems to know what brought down Flight 706.

NARRATOR: The morning after the crash

of Proteus Airlines Flight 706,

French air crash investigator Alain Bouillard and his team

begin working the case.

ALAIN: So what knocked this plane out of the sky?

NARRATOR: With the entire country looking for answers,

there's immense pressure to explain how and why

the passenger plane went down.

ALAIN:

All we knew was that a plane had crashed

into the sea, and there were no survivors.

It was up to us to locate the wreckage,

first to recover the flight recorders

and then to find any other parts of the plane that we could.

♪

NARRATOR: The plane's black boxes are crucial

to explain what happened in the final moments

leading up to the crash.

But finding them won't be easy, because the wreckage

is a few miles off shore at the bottom of Quiberon Bay.

NARRATOR: The job of locating them

is up to investigator Sebastien David.

SEBASTIEN: I went to the site with a beacon locator,

which receives signals from beacons like the ones

that are equipping flight recorders.

NARRATOR: Navy divers waste no time

and begin scouring the seabed searching for the wreckage.

While waiting for the black boxes to be recovered,

Alain Bouillard interviews the air traffic controller

in charge of Flight 706's approach.

He's immediately surprised by what he learns.

ALAIN: Here's the scheduled route from Lyon to Lorient.

NARRATOR: Quiberon Bay was not even on their flight path.

Bouillard wants to know what they were doing there

in the first place.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: They requested a detour

to see Le France.

NARRATOR: It's a shocking discovery.

A commercial airliner should only request a detour

for safety reasons.

MORGAN: It's very, very rare for a passenger aircraft

to deviate from their standard flight plan.

ALAIN: Why would they decide to go sightseeing?

NARRATOR: The official flight path should have taken

the airplane in a straight line over land.

But at the time of the crash, it was flying over the SS France

...many miles off course.

The captain's decision to deviate from his flight path

for such a trivial reason seems almost reckless.

But the controller in Lorient

saw no conflicting traffic on radar,

so he had no reason to deny the request.

CAPTAIN: Brest, Proteus descending 7-0-6.

And one little special request is to fly slightly west

over Quiberon Bay, sir, to go see Le France anchored there.

ALAIN: The controller in Lorient

simply advised the pilot of the Beechcraft

that he didn't have any information on the traffic.

ALAIN: Thanks for your time.

NARRATOR: Investigators now know Flight 706

was in an area where it was never supposed to be.

But they don't know what actually happened there.

NARRATOR: Bouillard begins investigating eyewitnesses.

Maybe they saw something the radar at Lorient didn't pick up.

ALAIN: So this is the area that we're focusing on,

and we understand...

NARRATOR: Although all of them saw burning wreckage

falling from the sky, nobody saw what happened

to cause this accident.

But what they did see catches Bouillard's full attention.

PATRICK: On this wonderful day there were

many, many general aviation aircraft sightseeing

over the SS France.

Eyewitnesses had seen more than a dozen

pleasure-seeing aircraft out on that nice afternoon.

ALAIN: You're positive?

NARRATOR: These aircraft would have been flying too low

to be detected by Lorient's radar, which explains

why the air traffic controller never saw them.

And that opens up a frightening possibility.

ALAIN: Is it plausible this could have been

a midair collision?

NARRATOR: A midair collision with a passenger plane

is so unusual it's almost unthinkable.

ALAIN: Air collisions with passenger planes were very rare.

NARRATOR: If it was a collision with another aircraft,

Bouillard knows the evidence lies in whatever wreckage

they find on the seabed.

Two days after the crash, Sebastien David picks up

a signal from Flight 706's homing beacon.

SEBASTIEN: The flight recorders were found on the seabed

at around 16 or 18 meters.

NARRATOR: The wreckage is finally located

and the bodies are found.

SEBASTIEN: This accident was tragic

because two pilots from the Beechcraft, 12 passengers,

including two babies, died.

NARRATOR: The nation is in mourning and in need of answers.

Now that wreckage has been pulled from the seabed,

accident investigators begin to examine the pieces,

searching for clues.

PATRICK: The whole purpose of accident investigation

is to determine the root cause of the accident

so they can prevent other accidents from happening.

Being able to retrieve all of the wreckage,

the flight data recorder, the instruments, the engines,

flight controls, the cables,

the accident investigators are able to definitively rule out

factors that likely didn't contribute to the accident

and allows you to focus on something out of the ordinary.

ALAIN: What do we have here?

NARRATOR: Recovered along with the wreckage of the Beechcraft,

they find pieces of another aircraft.

ALAIN:

The concentration of debris,

along with the examination done by the divers,

clearly showed that the wreckage was from two different planes.

So immediately we could confirm that the accident

was caused by a collision.

NARRATOR: It's a huge discovery.

And the shape of the recovered nose cone

is unmistakable to investigators.

ALAIN: It's a Cessna, but where did it come from?

NARRATOR: Air crash investigators now know they're dealing

with a midair collision.

They have a mystery Cessna on their hands,

and they need to find out where it came from.

NARRATOR: With no witnesses to the actual collision

and no radar data tracking the mystery plane,

they look for answers in the cockpit voice recorder

found in the Beechcraft.

SEBASTIEN: The cockpit voice recorder was in good condition.

We were really relieved because we knew

that we could proceed with the safety investigation.

ALAIN: Okay. Let's begin.

CAPTAIN: Flaps zero plus thirty.

SEBASTIEN: The recording was very important

to determine the flight path of the commercial aircraft

and to hear what happened in the cockpit.

FIRST OFFICER: Descent in 10 nautical miles.

NARRATOR: The recording might also reveal

if the pilots of Flight 706 made a fatal error

as they were flying over the SS France.

FIRST OFFICER: Pass over the outer marker at 1,440 feet.

CAPTAIN: Thank you.

ALAIN:

From analyzing the cockpit voice recorder,

you could tell that there was a good atmosphere in the cockpit.

The weather was good, the crew was relaxed

but still conducting themselves professionally.

NARRATOR: Then, as they listen to the recording,

investigators hear something completely unexpected.

PASSENGER: You're not flying over Quiberon Bay?

ALAIN: Who's that?

PASSENGER: Because Le France is moored there.

CAPTAIN: Is that right?

PASSENGER: Yeah. Right over here.

CAPTAIN: Lorient's here. Quiberon Bay is here.

ALAIN: There's somebody else in the cockpit with the pilots.

PASSENGER: You're not flying over Quiberon Bay?

Because Le France is moored there.

CAPTAIN: Is that right?

PASSENGER: Yeah.

ALAIN:

We were surprised that a passenger

was able to step into the pilot area.

As a general rule, the presence of a third person

is not allowed.

NARRATOR: On most commercial airlines, it's strictly forbidden

for passengers to enter the cockpit.

But that rule doesn't apply to small aircraft.

MORGAN: The Beechcraft 1900 is an aircraft designed

for short flights.

Because there is no flight attendants,

the crew is going to have open communications

between the passengers and the crew throughout the flight.

PATRICK: Look, it's a small regional aircraft.

There's no door in between the cabin and the flight crew.

It's just rather natural.

A passenger felt that they were going to be fairly close

to this scenic event,

and he saw no harm in them deviating away.

CAPTAIN: Brest, Proteus descending 7-0-6,

and one little special request is to fly slightly west

over Quiberon Bay, sir, to go see Le France anchored there.

NARRATOR: It's now clear why the captain decided to make

that fateful detour.

ALAIN: He did it because a passenger asked him to.

SEBASTIEN: Without the CVR recording,

we would never have known this information.

FIRST OFFICER: Look. You can see the ship there.

PATRICK: The captain had made the decision

to try to comply with the passenger request.

Pilots like to please their passengers.

CAPTAIN: Yeah. There she is.

NARRATOR: As investigators continue listening,

it becomes clear how the desire to entertain passengers

leads Flight 706 into danger.

♪

They approach the bay at 5,000 feet,

but the ocean liner below is difficult to see.

CAPTAIN: Ask them if we can go lower,

3,000 feet if it's possible.

FIRST OFFICER: Can we descend lower please?

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: I authorize 3,700 feet in IFR.

NARRATOR: Air traffic control gives them permission to descend

to 3,700 feet, but it's not enough.

The pilots want to go even lower.

PATRICK: In order for all the passengers in the cabin

to see the ship, they would have had to come down

to a lower altitude because the passengers

really don't like steep bank angles.

Coming down to a lower altitude allowed them to fly

at a shallower bank angle, getting a much better view.

NARRATOR: The captain decides to descend

all the way down to two thousand feet.

At this point, everything is about to change.

The pilots are entering

unrestricted airspace and cannot be seen

by Lorient's radar.

They are no longer guided by air traffic control.

They're on their own.

CAPTAIN: Listen.

What we're going to do if possible is cancel IFR.

We'll keep the visual.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: 706, Lorient confirmed.

Your IFR is canceled at 15:54 local.

ALAIN: Stop it. He canceled instrument flight rules.

MORGAN: It's very, very rare for a commercial airline

to cancel IFR.

FIRST OFFICER: Look, we can see the ship there.

CAPTAIN: Yes, there she is.

ALAIN: The decision to cancel instrument flight rules

and switch to visual flight rules did surprise us.

CAPTAIN: Lorient, 706.

We'll keep a visual and we'll do a 360

for the passengers in the back.

We'll resume contact after for the approach to Lorient.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: 706, Lorient confirmed.

NARRATOR: In order to avoid a collision,

the pilots must now rely solely on what they can see

with their own eyes.

PATRICK: This is see-and-avoid country.

That means that each aircraft is entirely responsible

for seeing and avoiding any other aircraft in that airspace.

They're not under radar control.

There's no coordination of altitudes or flight patterns.

So when you put high-speed traffic --

the Beechcraft in this case --

in a mix of all of these other general aviation aircraft,

it greatly increases the risk of midair collision.

MORGAN: You don't have that extra set of eyes

looking out after you.

You don't have anyone else specifically putting you

on a course that they know is going to be clear

of other air traffic.

Once that IFR clearance is canceled,

it absolves the controller of all responsibility

for any traffic avoidance.

CAPTAIN: Ladies and gentlemen, on the left off the plane

you will see the ocean liner Le France.

Air traffic control has just given us permission

to do a 360 around her.

We'll resume our route to Lorient immediately after

in approximately five or six minutes.

ALAIN: What were they thinking?

NARRATOR: They have just entered a high traffic zone

and are only seconds from colliding

with an unidentified aircraft.

Now Bouillard needs to know who was flying the other plane

and where it came from.

NARRATOR: As investigators struggle to explain

a deadly midair collision, they search for answers

in the final minutes of the cockpit voice recorder.

ALAIN: Let's continue.

CAPTAIN: Lorient, 706.

We'll keep a visual and we'll do a 360

for the passengers in the back.

NARRATOR: They learn that as Flight 706

descended into uncontrolled airspace,

the pilots had no trouble spotting and identifying

other planes nearby.

FIRST OFFICER: We've got a DR400. It's pretty much beneath us.

CAPTAIN: There's a Cessna. I've got it in my sights.

ALAIN: They were doing their jobs.

The captain followed the rules of see and avoid.

NARRATOR: But for some reason there's one Cessna

they didn't see, nor did anyone at air traffic control.

ALAIN: Okay. Here's our Beechcraft that we know

saw the traffic in the area.

Why didn't they see the Cessna they collided with?

NARRATOR: To find out more, investigators

have been working to identify this mystery aircraft...

until they finally make a breakthrough.

ALAIN: Bouillard. We found it.

NARRATOR: They get a report from a small airfield

10 miles inland from Quiberon Bay.

The air traffic controller there has a missing plane.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: This plane left here shortly

before the accident.

NARRATOR: Just nine minutes before Flight 706 went down,

a private Cessna took off and it never returned.

ALAIN: Yeah, that looks like our plane.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: He was planning to fly over to see Le France.

NARRATOR: The Cessna pilot is Francis Gilibert.

He's a retired airline pilot

with more than 15,000 hours of flight time.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: He was highly experienced

and a well respected pilot.

PATRICK: For a pilot to reach 15,000 hours with an airline,

you can assume he was a very skilled pilot

in every aspect of aviating,

not only his stick-and-rudder skills, his decision making,

all of the attributes necessary

to be a successful professional pilot.

NARRATOR: Even though the Cessna was flying at an altitude

where it should have been detected on radar,

for some reason the air traffic controller

was never able to see him.

ALAIN: Why didn't the Cessna show up on Lorient's radar?

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: It looks like he didn't have his transponder on.

ALAIN: It wasn't on?

NARRATOR: The transponder allows air traffic control

to identify and track the exact location of an airplane.

PATRICK: A transponder is absolutely critical.

The radar may show very little, if anything,

from a small aircraft.

NARRATOR: In 1998, French aviation rules

don't mandate the use of transponders on small aircraft,

so Francis Gilibert wasn't breaking any rules.

MORGAN: He didn't turn the transponder on

for his flight that day,

and this is an incredible surprise because

certainly he wouldn't have flown many of those 15,000 hours

without that transponder being on.

There's many things that could have played a factor

in why he didn't turn the transponder on.

It could have been just his mindset of hey,

I'm going on a pleasure flight.

I'm going on a visual flight plan.

It's not going to make any difference.

NARRATOR: Without the transponder,

Lorient's air traffic control had no way of knowing

the Cessna was even in the sky.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Your IFR is canceled at 15:54 local.

NARRATOR: But even without air traffic control,

why didn't the pilots hear each other over the radio?

Bouillard studies the different approach charts

that would have been used aboard each aircraft,

and he uncovers a startling detail.

The pilots were communicating on different radio frequencies.

ALAIN:

It was a big discovery to know

that in such tight airspace there could be two planes

on totally different frequencies.

CPT. GILIBERT: Position report Juliette Echo

is 3,000 abeam Arradon.

ALAIN: The pilot of the Cessna had not been in contact

with control at Lorient.

He was in contact with the tower at Quiberon,

and so both planes were on different frequencies

with different controllers.

CPT. GILIBERT: I am descending from 3,000 to 1,500.

NARRATOR: With no transponder

and no radio communication between them,

there's no way the pilots could have known about each other

in advance.

CAPTAIN: Ask him if we can go lower.

NARRATOR: As Flight 706 descended into traffic,

Francis Gilibert never would have heard their calls.

But that still doesn't explain

why such experienced pilots collided.

♪

Bouillard orders the full reconstruction of both planes

to determine who hit who and where they were positioned

moments before the crash.

ALAIN: Let's see what this can tell us.

ALAIN: Rebuilding the plane is always extremely difficult,

but it's necessary in order to understand the events.

PATRICK: Imagine dumping a puzzle box on a table

and trying to figure out where do I begin?

It's the same way except now imagine taking tin foil

and wrapping it up, squeezing it, compressing it,

unwrapping it and doing that a dozen times

and now trying to figure out where do those pieces

go back together, because all of this wreckage,

especially in a violent midair like this, was mangled.

It was shredded, sheared apart, small pieces, large pieces.

NARRATOR: Eventually, the tireless efforts of investigators

begin to pay off.

ALAIN: What's this?

PATRICK: By reconstructing the aircraft,

they were able to find key pieces of evidence

and, in this case, it was the paint transfer marks.

ALAIN: This paint is definitely from the Cessna.

PATRICK: A paint transfer is like, well,

when you have two cars that bump up against each other

and one car leaves paint on another.

Same thing happened here.

NARRATOR: Alongside the paint transfer,

investigators also find distinctive marks

on the Beechcraft's wing caused by a propeller.

ALAIN: This is the Cessna's point of contact.

PATRICK: So the Cessna initially struck out at the wingtip.

As it continued moving forward, the heavier parts of the Cessna

continued and struck the rear part of the aircraft.

That part of the tail was found over 400 meters away.

That tells you this would have been a very violent impact.

ALAIN: I'd say this confirms it.

The Cessna's point of impact

above Beechcraft's seventh porthole

causing catastrophic failure

and the Beechcraft tail to break off.

NARRATOR: The evidence is clear. The Cessna hit the Beechcraft.

The marks also reveal the exact position of the two planes

at the moment of impact.

PATRICK: By the red paint going at that angle across the wing,

the accident investigators can determine

what the direction of the two aircraft were,

what the relative converging pattern flight pass

would have been,

and that opens up a whole new set of questions.

NARRATOR: Bouillard now knows

how the Beechcraft and Cessna collided.

What he still doesn't understand is why on such a clear day

the pilots failed to see each other.

Armed with physical evidence of the collision,

French investigators now want to find out

what the two pilots could see in the last moments

leading up to the crash.

ALAIN: Why didn't they just look out the window?

NARRATOR: Bouillard turns to the flight data recorder

recovered from the Beechcraft.

ALAIN: Play it, please.

NARRATOR: It records the plane's every move

as well as the inputs from the pilots.

ALAIN: The flight data recording allowed us

to reconstruct the 360

and the different altitudes and tilts of the plane

during the turn.

PATRICK: The flight data recorders

allowed the accident investigators to figure out

what the approximate geometry of both aircraft

at the time of the impact.

ALAIN: The Beechcraft was on a bank to the left.

NARRATOR: The flight data recorder tells investigators

the Beechcraft was still turning when the two planes collided.

PATRICK: The accident investigation team

was able to determine is at the time of the impact

the Beechcraft was in a gentle bank angle,

the Cessna in a gentle descent.

NARRATOR: Bouillard knows the Cessna

was descending on the right

because its propeller struck the Beechcraft's right wing.

From the flight data, he also knows that at the time of impact

the Beechcraft was still banked to the left

at a 17-degree angle.

He combines the data to find out what the Beechcraft pilots

could see out of their windows.

CAPTAIN: Look at the number of yachts down there.

FIRST OFFICER: Amazing.

NARRATOR: The first officer is in a better position

to see the Cessna approaching on the right.

But today he's busy executing the turn

and preparing for landing.

MORGAN: The pilot flying is actually going to be very focused

and very concentrated.

It's a very high workload ensuring that

he's staying on his altitude that he's limited to

and he's looking in the direction on his instruments

in the direction of which he's going to be turning.

So he's not going to be looking out the window at all.

NARRATOR: With the first officer flying, the captain

was the one responsible for scanning the sky.

Why didn't he see the Cessna?

Bouillard uses the flight data

to reconstruct what the captain could see at different stages

during their turn around the ship.

ALAIN: Okay. Let's start just before the 360

and go up until the collision. Now we're entering our turn.

NARRATOR: They discover the Cessna

was in the captain's line of sight for several seconds,

but it was much too far away to see.

MORGAN: The size of the Cessna is a tremendous factor.

It's a very, very small aircraft,

and in fact the difference between that and say a 757,

which would be huge in your windscreen --

this would be the size of an ant on your windscreen.

NARRATOR: As they continue the banking turn,

the Cessna drops below the captain's line of sight.

ALAIN: We know the Cessna would have approached from his right.

NARRATOR: By the time the smaller Cessna

is close enough to be seen, just seconds before impact,

it remains hidden from view.

MORGAN: The captain sitting in the left seat

would have had to look across the first officer

out the right window to see the Cessna coming.

And in this case that just was not possible at all.

ALAIN: There's no way he would have seen anything

from that direction.

NARRATOR: It's now clear why the Beechcraft pilots

didn't see the Cessna.

But why didn't the Cessna pilot see the Beechcraft?

ALAIN: That Beechcraft's a pretty big plane.

NARRATOR: The 19-passenger commercial aircraft

was almost 60 feet long.

ALAIN:

We tried to understand why the pilot of the Cessna

hadn't been able to detect anything,

since he was in a better position to see the other plane.

CPT. GILIBERT: No!

♪

NARRATOR: Using the same model as the crashed Cessna,

Bouillard tries to figure out how the pilot

could have missed what was directly in front of him.

ALAIN: Okay. Now start walking around the cockpit.

PATRICK: They would walk around the aircraft holding objects

to find out if the pilot sitting there could see the object,

and this would help them to determine

what the blind spots would be

and where the good-visibility spots would have been for him.

ALAIN: Continue.

NARRATOR: As Bouillard directs the marker

to where the Beechcraft would have been

as it came out of its final turn, it disappears.

ALAIN: That's it! We found it.

NARRATOR: It's a major breakthrough.

The side blind spot covers a zone from 35 to 55 degrees,

which means it would have blocked the Beechcraft

for as long as 30 seconds before impact.

MORGAN: Even the best pilot would likely not be able

to see something coming from their side window to them.

NARRATOR: Then, investigators discover that,

just as the Beechcraft exited the blind spot on the side,

it entered an even bigger blind spot

right in front of the Cessna pilot.

MORGAN: The engine is directly in front of you,

so you would have to look around over the top of the cowling

of the engine as well as the large instrument panels,

and those would also be a factor

in being able to see around from the pilot's position.

NARRATOR: Even in those final seconds when the Beechcraft

was directly in front of the Cessna,

it was blocked from the pilot's line of sight.

CPT. GILIBERT: I'm descending from 3,000 to 1,500.

ALAIN: By the time he came out of that last blind spot,

he didn't have a chance.

CPT. GILBERT: No!

NARRATOR: Investigators believe they now understand

the unusual sequence of events that led to tragedy

in the sky over Quiberon Bay.

ALAIN: I think we now know what happened.

NARRATOR: The Beechcraft is nearing the airport in Lorient.

At the request of a passenger,

the captain asks to deviate from the flight path.

CAPTAIN: ...06 and one little special request

to fly slightly west over Quiberon Bay, sir.

ALAIN: They decide to take a look at the ocean liner Le France.

NARRATOR: Proteus Airlines Flight 706

diverts over the bay and descends to 3,700 feet.

CAPTAIN: Ladies and gentlemen, on the left off the plane

you will see the ocean liner Le France.

Air traffic control has just given us permission

to do a 360 around her.

We'll resume our route to Lorient immediately after,

in approximately five or six minutes.

MORGAN: You know, you really have to get inside the mind

of the captain to say whether or not

you would have done the same thing in those circumstances.

It's a clear blue day.

I'm sure both the crew members were feeling good,

and maybe they were going to have a little fun along the way.

ALAIN: Once near the ship they decide to descend

to get a closer look.

But to go below 3,700 feet, they cancel instrument flight rules

and go visual.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: 706, Lorient confirmed.

NARRATOR: Now the Beechcraft is in uncontrolled airspace,

below radar.

With no guidance from air traffic control,

it's up to the captain to visually scan for nearby planes.

CAPTAIN: There's a Cessna.

ALAIN: And once at 2,000 feet,

they decide to do a 360 degree turn around the ship.

♪

NARRATOR: With the 360 almost complete,

the pilots begin to prepare for landing at Lorient.

ALAIN: At the same moment, the Cessna is approaching

from the right.

NARRATOR: The Cessna does not have its transponder on,

and it's communicating on a different radio frequency

than the Beechcraft.

CPT. GILIBERT: I am descending from 3,000 to 1,500.

NARRATOR: Lorient air traffic control has no idea it's there.

CAPTAIN: It's beautiful.

NARRATOR: The bank angle of the Beechcraft,

combined with the fact that the pilot responsible

for scanning the skies was sitting in the left seat,

makes the approaching Cessna impossible to see.

ALAIN: They can see only sky out of the right-hand side

of the plane.

NARRATOR: By terrible coincidence,

the Cessna pilot can't see the Beechcraft either.

ALAIN: But the structure of the aircraft creates a blind spot,

and the pilot is unable to see the Beechcraft.

PATRICK: During the last 10 seconds of flight,

the pilot of the Cessna was likely paying attention

to his sightseeing over the SS France.

The Beechcraft was coming in from this approximate position

in his peripheral vision.

ALAIN: At the last moment the Beechcraft

comes out of the blind spot. And it's too late.

CPT. GILIBERT: No!

MORGAN: This was a perfect storm.

That crash at the speeds that they were traveling

would have been catastrophic.

It would have completely torn apart both of the aircraft

into pieces.

NARRATOR: While the crash of Flight 706 remains a tragedy,

what was learned through the course of this investigation

would lead to significant innovations in airline safety.

They include the mandatory use of transponders

in small aircraft such as the Cessna and

limited access to the cockpit on all commercial flights.

PASSENGER: You're not flying over Quiberon Bay?

CAPTAIN: Listen.

What we're going to do if possible is cancel IFR.

We'll keep the visual.

NARRATOR: Finally, it is now prohibited for commercial pilots

to cancel Instrument Flight Rules unless it's an emergency.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: IFR is canceled 15:54 local.

MORGAN: As a result of this investigation,

the skies have been made safer.

This catastrophe could have been avoided

with the use of the automation that we now have available

and is now in use today.

PATRICK: Fortunately, midair collisions

involving commercial airliners are almost nonexistent anymore.

And the reason for that is that we've employed

a multi-layered system, airspace regulations, radar,

air traffic control, traffic collision and avoidance systems

to prevent this from ever happening again.

♪