Original subtitles

NARRATOR: In northern Minnesota, a commuter crash

kills everyone on board.

NEWSCASTER (Archive): The deadliest US plane crash

in more than a year and a half now.

NARRATOR: Investigators face intense pressure to find the cause.

JOHN DELISI: The tragedy that has occurred puts a real focus

on what we need to do.

FO. ERICKSON: One to go. CAPT. FALITZ: 2040? Okay.

NARRATOR: The cockpit voice recording raises

disturbing questions about an inexperienced pilot.

JOHN DELISI: Why isn't the First Officer making his altitude callouts?

MALCOLM: What had happened here? What was his role?

NARRATOR: But when investigators dig deeper...

JOHN DELISI: Wow.

NARRATOR: They uncover a darker truth.

CSA: I checked twice, sir. We don't have your authorization.

AL: I was amazed when I read that.

NARRATOR: A deadly sequence of events that began months

before the plane ever left the ground.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Northwest Airlink Flight 5719

cruises across the skies of Minnesota.

First Officer Chad Erickson is two months

into his first airline job.

CRAIG: I'm sure that Chad was excited.

That was the first step in getting the job

that would lead you to the big job

to fly the big iron at big airlines.

NARRATOR: This is the first time he's flown a route

with an overnight stay.

FO. ERICKSON: Do we get our own room?

CAPT. FALITZ: No. You're gonna have to room with me.

And it's only a single bed,

so you'll have to curl up at my feet.

Of course you get your own room. You're on a contract now.

NARRATOR: Erickson's captain is Marvin Falitz.

MALCOLM: Well, the Captain grew up in New York City.

He was described as having a personality

that was somewhat at odds with a Midwestern personality.

It was a very outgoing personality

and a sarcastic sense of humor.

CAPT. FALITZ: Freakin' coffee tastes like piss.

MALCOLM: The First Officer had a different background

and upbringing than the Captain did.

He grew up around Minneapolis,

and the Midwest sense of humor I think

is perhaps more understated.

FO. ERICKSON: Oh, uh, see that falling star?

CAPT. FALITZ: Either that or a plane falling out of the sky.

NARRATOR: Captain Falitz and First Officer Erickson

are flying a Jetstream BA-3100, a small twin-engine turboprop.

CRAIG: The Jetstream was a handful to fly.

And we had to fly it by hand all the time.

NARRATOR: Craig Railsback is a former Northwest Airlink pilot

who also flew the BA-3100.

CRAIG: It was fairly unstable.

It was like balancing a beach ball on top of a Coke bottle.

The upside of flying an airplane like that

was you were incredibly proficient. I mean you...

We got to be really good at instrument flying,

and we flew in some really, really difficult,

challenging conditions which, you know, for a young guy

was great fun.

NARRATOR: It's the start of the Christmas season,

and many of the sixteen passengers are flying home

to spend time with their families.

Flight 5719 took off from Minneapolis shortly before 7 pm.

Its first destination is Hibbing, Minnesota,

about an hour away.

After that, it's scheduled to continue on to a final stop

in International Falls.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Twin City 7-19.

Hibbing weather: Sky partially obscured. Freezing drizzle.

JOHN COX: Hibbing's a small airport.

It does not have a control tower.

At about the twenty miles from the airport,

they'll clear you for the instrument approach

if the weather is below visual limits.

And at that point once you're cleared for the approach

you're pretty much on your own.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Expect vector for the ILS

final approach course at Hibbing.

FO. ERICKSON: Okay. Thanks a lot. Twin City 7-19.

CAPT. FALITZ: We can't take the ILS-3-1.

FO. ERICKSON: Because of the snow on the runway?

CAPT. FALITZ: What?

FO. ERICKSON: Because of the snow on the, uh, the runway?

I mean that's why, right?

Because you can't land on a tail wind with a snowy runway?

CAPT. FALITZ: I don't like to land with a tail wind anyway.

Tell them we'll take the localizer back course to 1-3.

NARRATOR: The Captain decides to approach Hibbing's runway

from the other side.

This approach is not equipped with the instruments needed

to fully guide the pilots to the runway.

It is known as a non-precision approach.

FO. ERICKSON: We'd like to back course up to 1-3.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Roger. Proceed, but you're on your own.

JOHN COX: Non-precision approaches are in fact more demanding

than the precision ones for the reason that

you have to monitor the descent rate, the descent altitude,

the navigation where you are laterally across the ground --

so there's actually quite a bit more going on.

FO. ERICKSON: We're cleared for the localizer back course approach.

Twin City 7-19.

JOHN COX: Non-precision approaches are more challenging,

and as a result they have a higher rate of accidents

than precision approaches.

CAPT. FALITZ: Call the company and tell them we're gonna have to fuel up.

FO. ERICKSON: Ops, 7-19... CAPT. FALITZ: Say Hibbing.

HIBBING OPS: Hibbing. Go ahead.

FO. ERICKSON: Uh, yeah, uh, Hibbing, this is, uh, 7-19 in range.

We're gonna need some more fuel.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Okay. In range. Positive fuel.

See you in a bit.

FO. ERICKSON: Ladies and gentlemen, we've begun

our final descent for landing at Hibbing.

For passengers continuing on to International Falls,

it will be a few minutes on the ground

and we'll be off shortly. Thanks.

CAPT. FALITZ: Okay. In range checklist.

FO. ERICKSON: Okay. Uh, pressurization... set.

The pilots make their final preparations for landing.

FO. ERICKSON: Uh, altimeter is 2-9er-8-6 set right.

CAPT. FALITZ: Set left.

JOHN COX: The accuracy of altimeters is something

that has to be checked very carefully.

If you believe you're at a thousand feet when in fact

you're at eight hundred, you're much closer

to an obstacle or the ground than you anticipate,

and so there's a constant cross-check that goes on

for a faulty altimeter.

NARRATOR: Just before 7:50 pm, Flight 5719

starts descending into the clouds and the blowing snow

of a cold Minnesota night.

♪ ♪

CAPT. FALITZ: Gear down. FO. ERICKSON: Gear down.

CAPT. FALITZ: Did you click the airport lights?

JOHN COX: An airport like Hibbing that does not have

a lot of traffic, in an effort to save money,

because the light bulbs are very expensive,

they are what's called pilot controlled lighting.

CAPT. FALITZ: Did you click it? FO. ERICKSON: Uh. I, um...

JOHN COX: The pilots, with a series of clicks

from their radios, can turn the lights up and down.

FO. ERICKSON: Uh... CAPT. FALITZ: Clicked it seven times.

FO. ERICKSON: Uh, I got it now.

NARRATOR: The runway lights are not what the pilots see next.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Twenty minutes pass.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Twin City 7-19, have you landed yet?

NARRATOR: By now, air traffic controllers

should have received confirmation from Flight 5719

that it has landed.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Twin City 7-19, please come in.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: An hour later, emergency responders locate the crash site

two miles northwest of the airport at Hibbing, Minnesota.

There are no survivors.

FAMILY MEMBER (Archive): They just said that there had been a plane crash

on Vic Powers Park and that one of our family members

was on the plane.

NARRATOR: Many of the passengers were from Hibbing,

a town now devastated by grief.

The community is left desperate for answers.

NEWSCASTER (Archive): In northern Minnesota tonight,

investigators are looking into the cause

of the deadliest US plane crash

in more than a year and a half now.

NARRATOR: The fatal crash of Flight 5719 mobilizes experts

from the National Transportation Safety Board.

JOHN DELISI: Well, I got a call from the, uh, comm center,

and the plan was for the go team to mobilize

in the early morning hours to arrive at the accident scene

by dawn the next morning.

NARRATOR: Systems investigator John DeLisi has been with

the NTSB for just over a year.

The snowy hillside outside Hibbing

is one of the most gruesome crash sites he's ever seen.

JOHN DELISI: The wreckage was up on a hill,

so it was in a precarious position,

and some of the bodies had been ejected.

Many were still inside the fuselage.

♪ ♪

It was the holiday season,

so many folks that were traveling

had brought Christmas presents.

They were scattered in the debris.

There was blood in the snow.

It really was one of the most difficult accident sites

I'd ever been to.

NARRATOR: The task now is to figure out

what brought down Flight 5719

so that that deadly crash is never repeated.

JOHN DELISI: The tragedy that has occurred

puts a real focus on what we need to do

bringing pieces of the puzzle together quickly.

JOHN DELISI: The flight recorders should be back there.

Come on.

NARRATOR: DeLisi searches for the plane's recording devices.

JOHN DELISI: I was stepping over some of the victims

to get to the aft cargo compartment.

NARRATOR: He knows that on a plane of this size

he'll likely find only one of the black boxes,

the cockpit voice recorder.

JOHN DELISI: Here's the CVR.

JOHN DELISI: At the time, a commuter airplane

with nineteen or less seats, only a requirement

for a cockpit voice recorder, not a flight data recorder.

JOHN DELISI: Like I thought. No data recorder.

All right. Let's go.

NARRATOR: With no FDR, the difficult job

of understanding the crash just got harder.

AL: An FDR is very helpful.

It can give you speeds and altitudes

and all the flight controls.

You can check and see if anything malfunctioned

by looking at the data.

JOHN DELISI: When there's no flight data recorder,

it puts us in a bit of an old school type of investigation

where the analysis of the physical evidence

becomes so much more critical.

JOHN DELISI: All right. Let's see what the data tells us.

NARRATOR: As the team waits for the CVR,

DeLisi turns to radar data from approach control.

He tracks Flight 5719's descent path.

JOHN DELISI: The radar data itself was very valuable for us.

It showed the profile, the flight path

that the airplane took to get to the accident site.

So we quickly began to analyze that.

NARRATOR: Immediately he spots something highly unusual.

JOHN DELISI: Look at this rate of descent. It's ridiculous.

AL: The rate of descent was double what we'd normally see.

It should be about a thousand feet per minute.

Now in this case it was over two thousand,

sometimes up at two thousand, two hundred.

JOHN DELISI: They're supposed to be over here,

but they're all the way up here. What are they doing?

NARRATOR: A look at the approach chart for the back course

into Hibbing reveals that the turboprop

didn't fly the standard approach.

Instead of following a gradual step-down to the runway,

Flight 5719 remained level for five miles,

then descended rapidly.

JOHN DELISI: Why did they start their descent so late?

JOHN DELISI: A normal approach is gonna fly

a relatively stable glide path with a slow and steady rate

of descent to get to the runway.

But this airplane seemed to stay high for a long time

and then have a very high rate of descent to the impact.

JOHN DELISI: We need to hear what the pilots were saying.

Do we have the CVR yet?

AL: Me as a pilot, it does make you wonder,

because the later you start the descent

the faster you're gonna have to descend to get down.

And the faster you descend, the harder it is

to break that rate of descent.

JOHN DELISI: One of the real tragic aspects about this accident

was that some important new safety technology

was coming online, the Ground Proximity Warning System.

It's just a shame that that system was not yet installed

on this particular airplane.

NARRATOR: The ground proximity warning system

uses an onboard computer that senses when the plane is too low

and warns the pilots.

JOHN DELISI: That technology was required by the FAA,

and it had to be in all commuter airplanes

by April of the following year.

So this airplane was scheduled to come out of service

for maintenance to get the Ground Proximity Warning System

installed within a month or so of the accident.

NARRATOR: Investigators know the Northwest Airlink pilots

could not have heard a low altitude warning.

But they still don't understand why the plane

was descending so rapidly.

They wonder if weather conditions

may have played a role.

JOHN DELISI: It was important to determine if

there was anything atmospheric like a build-up of ice

that might have contributed to this exceedingly high rate

of descent.

NARRATOR: They check the temperatures

and the type of precipitation encountered by the turboprop.

They make an important discovery.

JOHN DELISI: These are prime conditions for icing.

The plane would have descended right through it.

JOHN DELISI: The build-up of ice, particularly on the wings

of an airplane, can kill the lift

that the wings are capable of generating.

So sometimes an airplane with a rapid rate of descent

might be indicative of an out of control motion

caused by a build-up of ice.

NARRATOR: DeLisi reviews the accident history

of the Jetstream 3100 and makes a disturbing find

about the aircraft's winter weather performance.

JOHN DELISI: The Jetstream had been involved in some previous accidents

in which the build-up of ice contributed to

a loss of control.

CRAIG: The Jetstream had a history of what they call

tail plane icing problems

where you could actually end up in a position

where you couldn't flare the aircraft for landing,

which obviously would be important.

AL: So therefore if there's any indication of icing, that

does lead you towards looking into that in more detail.

NARRATOR: Investigators need to know how bad

the icing conditions were just before the crash.

JOHN DELISI: I was wondering if you have a couple of minutes.

NARRATOR: They talk to other pilots who flew into Hibbing that night.

JOHN DELISI: So you were aware of the potential

for icing during your approach into Hibbing?

NARRATOR: The pilots tell DeLisi they faced

moderate icing conditions.

JOHN DELISI: But why would these two pilots start their descent so late?

They also describe a common technique

used to prevent ice accumulation.

JOHN DELISI: Well, in talking to other pilots at Northwest,

we began to learn about what they referred to as

a slam dunk approach.

A slam dunk approach was described as one in which,

while you have to pass through an area of icing,

crews want to minimize the time they spend there.

So they may hold their altitude close into the airport

and then very rapidly do a steep descent

to get through the altitudes in which there was icing

as quickly as possible.

That's not a standard technique.

But as we began to hear about it,

it matched what we were seeing on

the air traffic control radar.

NARRATOR: It now seems the rapid descent was not due

to a loss of control caused by icing.

Instead, it looks like it was part of a deliberate strategy

to avoid icing.

JOHN COX: It's something professional pilots deal with a lot,

and it requires a lot of skill in aircraft handling

to get the airplane down quickly

without having the speed go up to an unacceptably high level.

NARRATOR: Marvin Falitz was an experienced captain

who'd flown in winter weather conditions countless times.

He was more than capable of safely performing

a slam dunk approach.

So what went wrong on Flight 5719?

NARRATOR: While he waits to hear what the cockpit voice recorder

will reveal, John DeLisi tries to figure out

why the pilots of Flight 5719

didn't slow their rapid descent into Hibbing.

JOHN DELISI: They should have leveled off right here.

We've got to get our hands on those altimeters.

JOHN DELISI: As some of the pieces began to develop

in this accident, it fit into the category

of what we refer to as CFIT, Controlled Flight Into Terrain,

a perfectly good airplane that hits the ground.

Very important for us in an accident like that

to understand what altitude the crew believed

the airplane was at.

NARRATOR: The Jetstream BA-3100 has two cockpit altimeters.

JOHN DELISI: Got it.

NARRATOR: DeLisi wants them both checked

for any sign of malfunction.

JOHN DELISI: Put this altimeter with the other one.

Let's get them tested right away.

JOHN DELISI: Had there been a malfunction of the altimeters,

it might have indicated to the crew

that the airplane was still well above the ground

when in fact it wasn't.

♪ ♪

JOHN DELISI: Nothing other than impact damage, huh?

Let's look at the pivot on this one.

JOHN DELISI: So we did a thorough examination and teardown

of both the Captain's and the First Officer's altimeter.

NARRATOR: But the analysis turns up nothing.

JOHN DELISI: There was no evidence of any malfunction.

Both altimeters seemed to be working just fine.

JOHN DELISI: Let's see what the rest of the wreckage tells us.

AL: Well, you look closely at the engines.

You wanna recover the engines.

You wanna do what testing you can.

Sometimes you're able to restart the engines,

a lot of times not.

But you can see if there's any malfunctions that are obvious.

JOHN DELISI: Definitely spinning when they hit the ground.

JOHN DELISI: A loss of power could have led

to a loss of control.

It might have contributed to a high rate of descent.

JOHN DELISI: Thrust levers were functioning properly.

No sign of a jam.

NARRATOR: Once again, they find no clues to the cause of the crash.

JOHN DELISI: There was no evidence of engine malfunction.

Both engines appeared to be working just fine.

JOHN DELISI: Are we ready with the CVR? Assemble the team.

I'll be there in a minute.

NARRATOR: Finally, investigators get the evidence

they've been waiting for: the cockpit voice recording.

JOHN DELISI: All right, everybody ready? Play the tape.

FO. ERICKSON: Uh, cancel on 127.4.

We're cleared for the localizer back course approach.

Twin City 7-19.

NARRATOR: They listen as Captain Falitz

and First Officer Erickson prepare to land in Hibbing.

CAPT. FALITZ: Okay. What altitude can we go down to?

FO. ERICKSON: Uh, 2040.

CAPT. FALITZ: Okay. Put it in there.

NARRATOR: They soon hear a conversation that confirms

their theory about the slam dunk approach.

FO. ERICKSON: So you... you're just gonna stay up here

as long as you can?

CAPT. FALITZ: Yes.

JOHN DELISI: They definitely knew what they were doing.

NARRATOR: It's clear that the pilots were

in the midst of a slam dunk approach

when something went wrong.

But what was it? Investigators listen closely.

FO. ERICKSON: Localizers alive. Final approach fix is at 14.

CAPT. FALITZ: Roger. Gear down.

FO. ERICKSON: Speed checks. Gear down.

NARRATOR: What they hear is baffling.

CAPT. FALITZ: Flaps 20.

NARRATOR: In the flight's final moments, there's no sign of trouble.

JOHN DELISI: We didn't hear either crew member

express any concern about the airplane.

There were no issues being raised.

There were no warning lights that they discussed.

There was no aircraft malfunction

that they were addressing.

JOHN DELISI: If they were in control of the plane,

why the hell did they slam it into a hill?

Did we miss something? All right. Rewind the tape.

CAPT. FALITZ: Looks like I can't go lower than 2040.

Here. Take a look at it.

JOHN COX: Minimum descent altitude is the lowest altitude

that the pilot can descend to until they see the runway.

It's a critical altitude because

that's as close to the ground as you can get

and still be in the clouds.

FO. ERICKSON: Boost pumps are on.

NARRATOR: The investigators listen carefully to the recording.

FO. ERICKSON: Before final checklist complete.

NARRATOR: It's what is not said that alarms them the most.

JOHN DELISI: Why isn't the First Officer making his altitude callouts?

NARRATOR: First Officer Erickson should be telling his captain

how close they are to their minimum altitude and

warning him when they descend past it. But he does neither.

JOHN DELISI: We didn't hear the regular callouts

about two thousand, one thousand feet,

distance from the airport.

It seemed as if the First Officer

didn't really know what was going on in the approach.

AL: Callouts are very important, and

the higher the rate of descent the more important they are.

FO. ERICKSON: Gear down. Flaps 20.

JOHN DELISI: He never told the Captain

how close they were getting to the ground.

NARRATOR: Captain Falitz has his hands full landing the plane.

He expects his first officer to keep an eye on their altitude.

FO. ERICKSON: Flaps 20.

JOHN COX: In an airliner cockpit, there's a division of duties.

One person's going to physically fly the airplane.

The other one has several duties.

One is to monitor the way that the airplane is being flown.

NARRATOR: But on this flight, the First Officer never once

reports the altitude

as the plane speeds closer and closer to the ground.

JOHN DELISI: Callouts would have been standard,

something that they would have rehearsed,

practiced in the simulator.

And when we didn't hear them, those calls, we knew

something wasn't progressing the way it was briefed.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The CVR leads investigators to wonder:

Was the loss of eighteen lives in the Hibbing crash

due to the failings of an inexperienced young pilot?

AL: He was the new guy. Maybe he just wasn't aware.

REPORTER (Archive): Material released today in Washington, D.C.,

indicates that the NTSB is now focusing

on the crew's performance.

NARRATOR: Malcolm Brenner is an NTSB aviation psychologist.

MALCOLM: My role in the investigation was to serve

as human performance investigator.

So human performance, we look at human issues such as

the background of the pilots, their training,

their interaction, company pressures,

any sort of issues that will give us a broader perspective.

FO. ERICKSON: 1.93.

NARRATOR: Investigators need to learn all they can

about the 25-year-old first officer

who failed to make critical altitude callouts

during the flight's descent.

JOHN DELISI: We found out that the First Officer was relatively new.

He had put himself through training.

He had no military background.

FO. ERICKSON: Do we get our own room?

CRAIG: As a new pilot, you're, you're overwhelmed with

just the job itself and you're really struggling to keep up

'cause things are happening at a very fast pace.

CAPT. FALITZ: Okay. In range checklist.

FO. ERICKSON: Okay. Uh, pressurization set.

NARRATOR: There's nothing in Erickson's record

that points to a pilot who was struggling

with the pressures of the job.

In fact, it's quite the opposite.

AL: This guy graduated number one in his class.

MALCOLM: When he got the job with the airline,

he said it was his dream job.

The First Officer had prepared index cards with

aviation data for every airport that the airline flew to.

This was above and beyond what was normally required.

He was doing special studying so he could be prepared

and be a better pilot.

♪ ♪

AL: Everybody that flew with him thought

he was an excellent pilot. So that doesn't explain it.

JOHN DELISI: No. Wasn't the First Officer.

AL: So then you look for other.

Why would he not make those callouts?

What would cause him not to make those?

JOHN DELISI: So what do we know about the Captain?

CAPT. FALITZ: Then they expect you to work on your days off.

It's ridiculous. Yeah, sure.

Get yourself to International Falls

just so you can fly back to where you just came from

and then rush to get another flight to God knows where.

You know, I think it's gonna take three hours

before I'm sitting behind the wheel

of my first flight of the day. Man oh man. What a life. Huh?

AL: You first look at pilots that had either flown with him

or knew of his flying capabilities.

JOHN DELISI: Show me that file.

AL: Was there anything that jumped out

that indicated there was something not normal with him?

MALCOLM: The Captain was described by his friends

as being intelligent and an engaging personality.

JOHN DELISI: Let me see his test records.

NARRATOR: Captain Falitz was known as a skilled senior pilot.

But a deeper look reveals a man with a troubling record.

JOHN DELISI: When we looked at the Captain's training records,

we began to understand that he had some previous issues

in his flight training.

JOHN DELISI: Boom. Boom. Boom.

MALCOLM: Soon after he joined the company,

he failed his oral exam.

He failed two more proficiency exams in his career.

That's unusual for a professional pilot

to fail that many times.

AL: The problem hadn't been tracked by anybody

in the organization because they had failed

at different locations.

So nobody put everything together... until we did.

♪ ♪

JOHN DELISI: Some of the instructor pilots were noting

that his cockpit resource management wasn't up to par

and that he had a tendency to be domineering in the cockpit.

AL: He had an issue with dealing with other people.

JOHN DELISI: Are all these formal complaints against Captain Falitz?

CRAIG: Marvin was the first captain I flew with after my IOE,

my initial operating experience,

and he tended to be a little bit domineering

and would berate you and was intolerant of mistakes

and really not a particularly great instructor pilot.

JOHN DELISI: Hmm. Wow.

NARRATOR: Perhaps the most disturbing complaint against Captain Falitz

is that he once physically struck a colleague in anger.

JOHN COX: For a professional pilot to physically have

an altercation or attempt to, quote,

"discipline" a fellow employee is totally unacceptable.

JOHN DELISI: I don't get it. What was making this guy so angry?

CAPT. FALITZ: You gotta be freaking kidding me!

NARRATOR: According to people who knew him,

Captain Falitz's morale took a big hit when

Northwest Airlink instituted a new residence policy

for their pilots.

MALCOLM: About a year before, the company

for cost-saving purposes started a new policy

where they required the pilots to reside at their outstations.

These would be small towns outside of Minneapolis.

CAPT. FALITZ: Why are we even doing this trip?

FO. ERICKSON: I don't know. Why are we?

CAPT. FALITZ: Maybe someone called in sick.

MALCOLM: It was received very poorly by the pilot community

because it meant they had to move, uh,

while they had roots in Minneapolis

and children going to school and spouses working

and mortgages to pay.

On short notice they had to move to these small outstations.

CRAIG: The relationship between the company and the pilots

was poor, and some of us were extremely unhappy.

And I think Marvin was very unhappy with the company.

AL: He'd gotten used to living in the Minneapolis area.

He had friends there. He had a social life.

MALCOLM: The Captain fought very hard to remain in Minneapolis.

He did not want to move.

And the only way he could do it was by downgrading.

It meant a twelve percent cut in his salary.

CAPT. FALITZ: What time were we out of the gate?

FO. ERICKSON: Uh, 52.

CAPT. FALITZ: According to your watch or the clock?

FO. ERICKSON: Well it's the, it's the same.

I, I sync my watch to the clock.

CRAIG: He was a very intelligent man, but I think he was,

I think he was troubled in the sense that his life

had not worked out maybe the way he wanted it to work out.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Investigators make another disturbing discovery.

Captain Falitz would sometimes be deliberately rough

with the flight controls.

CRAIG: His way of getting revenge on the company

was to sometimes take it out on the passengers.

AL: I was amazed when I read that, to tell you the truth.

And I was amazed that a person

would intentionally make a rough flight to make people mad,

because what good does that do?

This guy, from what I understand,

he did it because he wanted to punish the airline.

As more and more details

about the Captain's personality emerge,

investigators are forced to consider a troubling question.

JOHN DELISI: Could his anger somehow have caused this crash?

NARRATOR: They learn that one of the airline's

customer service agents had a run-in with the Captain

shortly before he boarded the doomed flight.

JOHN DELISI: We need to hear this woman's story.

CSA: I remember every word. It's like it happened yesterday.

CAPT. FALITZ: Hello, dear. I'm deadheading this flight.

Marvin Falitz.

JOHN COX: Deadheading is when the airline

will position pilots and flight attendants at a different city

so that they can then act and actively fly a flight later.

So you may go from point A to point B as a passenger

and then from there then you will act as a flying crew member

on a separate flight.

CSA: Sorry, but I don't see your name on the list.

CAPT. FALITZ: Check again. Marvin Falitz. F-A-L-I-T-Z.

CSA: I checked twice, sir. We don't have your authorization.

MALCOLM: The paperwork that the agent had

did not include a deadheading clearance for the Captain.

CAPT. FALITZ: Look. It's not rocket science.

Pick up the phone and call dispatch.

CSA: I'm real busy. So how about you call them?

CAPT. FALITZ: How do you live with yourself

knowing that you are completely useless?

MALCOLM: He effectively refused.

He insisted that she should do it and stormed off.

CSA: I have never seen a pilot that angry before.

MALCOLM: As a good professional pilot,

he should be able to maintain professional performance

even though he has things in his life

or has these disturbances going on. This captain did not.

NARRATOR: There's mounting evidence that Captain Falitz

had serious anger management issues.

What puzzles investigators is why a bright young pilot

like First Officer Erickson didn't intervene

if his captain was behaving recklessly.

JOHN DELISI: Hello?

NARRATOR: They receive a phone call from a ramp service agent

at Minneapolis airport.

He claims to have important details regarding

the pilots who flew Flight 5719.

CAPT. FALITZ: Why isn't the exterior pre-flight done?

FO. ERICKSON: I was...

CAPT. FALITZ: You didn't check the damn exterior lights!

NARRATOR: The service agent witnessed Captain Falitz

berating First Officer Erickson over a pre-flight check.

FO. ERICKSON: Uh, I was gonna check the lights from inside the cockpit.

CAPT. FALITZ: That's not how you do it!

You have to go outside and see it with your own stupid eyes!

Does Northwest even screen you guys anymore?

You know what? Screw it. I'll do it myself.

FO. ERICKSON: You know, I...

AL: The Captain was being very, very critical

of the First Officer, and the First Officer

was a relatively new pilot.

So, you know, you're gonna make mistakes.

So there was a better way to handle it.

And the Captain did not take the better way.

CAPT. FALITZ: If we're late for departure, it's on you!

AL: This happened immediately before the flight.

So it set the tone for the two of them working together,

which was a bad way to do things.

JOHN COX: Communication between flight crew members

is an essential component of aviation safety.

We call it Crew Resource Management.

And it makes sure that everybody in the flight deck

is agreeing with what the airplane's doing

and what the intent is to do.

JOHN DELISI: Okay, thanks. Let's get that CVR back in here.

We need to find out

what was going on between those two pilots.

JOHN DELISI: All right. Cue it up.

NARRATOR: After uncovering stunning details

about Captain Falitz's sometimes rude

and even aggressive behavior, investigators listen

to the cockpit recording in a new light.

CAPT. FALITZ: Call the company and tell them we need to fuel up.

MALCOLM: In listening to the CVR, the Captain makes

a lot of corrections or directions to the First Officer

of very simple things.

FO. ERICKSON: Ops 7-19... CAPT. FALITZ: Say Hibbing.

HIBBING OPS: Hibbing, go ahead.

FO. ERICKSON: Uh, Hibbing, uh...

MALCOLM: He was intimidating and not constructive.

HIBBING OPS: Positive fuel. See you in a bit.

CAPT. FALITZ: You can't just say Ops.

You have to specify who's supposed to answer:

Hibbing, Sioux City, Duluth?

CRAIG: Before I was an airline pilot,

I was a flight instructor.

And one guaranteed way to have that guy shut down

and not be able to perform was to berate them,

humiliate them, embarrass them.

FO. ERICKSON: Uh, do we get our own room?

CAPT. FALITZ: No, you're gonna have to room with me,

and it's only a single bed.

So you'll just have to curl up at my feet.

MALCOLM: The Captain's tone was not very receptive

and was aggressive

and led to a breakdown in proper management

with the First Officer.

FO. ERICKSON: Um... you've got nine miles to the arc.

CAPT. FALITZ: Just put it up in your clipboard

and talk me through it when I need information, okay?

MALCOLM: So the Captain was talking down to him.

CAPT. FALITZ: No! This thing. That's what this is for.

JOHN DELISI: He was paralyzed with fear.

That's why he didn't make his callouts to the Captain.

He was, he was terrified of him.

MALCOLM: The danger of an aggressive attitude

is that it breaks down crew performance.

JOHN DELISI: I'd be reluctant to speak up too.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Investigators think they finally understand

all the events and circumstances

that sent a Northwest Airlink commuter plane

speeding headlong into the ground near Hibbing, Minnesota.

JOHN DELISI: It was disturbing to hear about

the Captain's background and his anger management issues.

CAPT. FALITZ: How do you live with yourself knowing

that you are completely useless?

CAPT. FALITZ: You have to go outside and see it

with your own stupid eyes!

JOHN DELISI: And when we pieced that together

with the environment that we heard him set in the cockpit

on the cockpit voice recorder, things began to add up.

FO. ERICKSON: You, uh, you're just gonna stay up here

as long as you can?

CAPT. FALITZ: Yes.

JOHN COX: The Captain had a plan, but because it wasn't

the standard plan the First Officer didn't know what it was.

CAPT. FALITZ: Did you click the airport lights?

FO. ERICKSON: Uh...

JOHN DELISI: While they were inside the final approach fix

with a rate of descent at over two thousand feet per minute...

CAPT. FALITZ: Click it. You clicked it seven times.

FO. ERICKSON: Uh, yeah. I, uh...

JOHN DELISI: ... the Captain seems to be berating the First Officer

about clicking the radio button to turn on the runway lights.

FO. ERICKSON: Okay. I got it now.

AL: He was afraid to do anything.

So that kind of explained why he was silent a lot of the time.

JOHN DELISI: The First Officer wasn't able to participate

in monitoring the airspeed and altitude.

The First Officer was really just along for the ride.

CRAIG: Flying, for the most part, the stakes are very high.

And when you see what happens in the aftermath of an accident,

it brings home just how serious this job is

and how serious everybody involved in the airline business

needs to take it.

NARRATOR: The crash of Flight 5719 exposed deficiencies

in Crew Resource Management training

and highlighted the importance of interpersonal relationships

in flying.

CRAIG: Airline flying's a team sport.

FO. ERICKSON: Minimums. CAPT. FALITZ: Got it.

CRAIG: It's important to have a team attitude.

JOHN DELISI: Well, this accident in many ways

has become a case study in just how valuable it is

to empower either crew member to be assertive

and to speak up when something isn't going right.

FO. ERICKSON: Pressurization set.

JOHN COX: A first officer, even though they may be new

and very junior, is not only given permission

but is encouraged to ask or question a very senior captain

when they get uncomfortable.

Ma'am or sir, I don't know why we're doing this.

I'm not comfortable here.

NARRATOR: Among the NTSB's recommendations is closer oversight

of pilot training programs

so that airlines can address potential issues

before an accident occurs.

AL: Do CRM training on a regular basis.

Make sure that they're monitored.

Go, you know, fly with your crews every once in a while

just to see what's going on.

There's a lot of things that can be done.

CRAIG: One way some airlines deal with a personality conflict

is they have a no pairing list.

In other words, if you have a personality conflict

with a certain pilot you can check off a box

and they won't make you fly with that person.

JOHN COX: It's one of those accidents that

we learned a lot from,

and it became a good means to show failures

within the system that could be corrected.

So I would say that we learned from it,

and as a result the aviation industry is safer.