Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer
babycarseattips
  • 6/16/2025

Category

📺
TV
Transcript
00:00A jetliner plummets to Earth in the Swedish Arctic.
00:04Mayday, mayday, mayday!
00:06Air Sweden 294!
00:08Bank angle!
00:09No, no!
00:11Bank angle!
00:15A deep crater reveals an aircraft in an astonishing descent.
00:20It's just far out of bounds with the way we normally fly the airplane.
00:24Investigators are shocked by what they find.
00:27That can't be what the plane was doing.
00:29I flew the jet for 10 years and never saw anything even remotely like this.
00:33As the evidence paints a terrifying picture of chaos.
00:36Please!
00:37I don't know, I don't see anything!
00:39And confusion.
00:40If you get past a certain point, that confusion can become terminal.
00:44Why did he let the captain fly the plane into the ground?
00:50Mayday, mayday!
00:51If you want to see something...
00:52Okay!
00:53There is a plane in the air.
00:54I have this.
00:54You have to move to the plane.
00:55Pull.
00:55Up!
00:57301, 0, 701.
00:59Okay, I have to move on to my size.
00:59I have to move on to my side.
01:00I want to move on to my side.
01:01A girl on the side.
01:02.
01:02.
01:0233,000 feet above the border between Norway and Sweden,
01:15a CRJ-200 jet cruises on autopilot during a late-night mail run
01:21for one of Sweden's largest cargo companies, West Air Sweden.
01:25We are approaching Bodo, where the outside air temperature is a balmy, minus 61 Celsius.
01:32The 42-year-old Spanish captain has more than 3,300 hours of flight time.
01:39Minus 30, a little good.
01:41His French first officer is 33, with a similar number of flight hours.
01:47Sweden 294, clear direct to Valen.
01:51Expect a circling approach to runway 01 at Tromso.
01:56Roger, circling approach for runway 01, Air Sweden 294.
02:01The experienced flight crew took off from Oslo, Norway just after 11 o'clock
02:08for a one-and-a-half-hour hop to Tromso, high in the Norwegian Arctic.
02:14The cargo jet is carrying about four-and-a-half tons of mail to the remote northern community.
02:21The CRJ-200 crosses into Swedish airspace as it heads further and further north.
02:29Sean Pruchnicki is a pilot who flew the CRJ-200.
02:36I like the airplane because it has all the bells and whistles.
02:39It's just as sophisticated as any of the larger jets.
02:42The aircraft itself is very fast. It's a very sleek airplane.
02:45So it's a lot of fun to fly.
02:48Ready for the approach briefing?
02:52Let's do it.
02:58ILS approach to runway 01, inbound heading 009.
03:03It's been a routine flight, and the plane is expected to land in Tromso in about 30 minutes.
03:09Climb and turn right.
03:11Acknowledged.
03:13And according to LAS ATAS, we can expect light wind and zero...
03:20What the hell?
03:21Suddenly, the captain sees his plane is in a steep climb.
03:26He pushes the nose down.
03:30What?
03:33What?
03:34What?
03:44Come up!
03:48Hooray! Hooray!
03:49Pull up!
03:50Come up!
03:57Back ankle!
03:59Come on, help me!
04:00Back ankle!
04:01Help me!
04:02Yes, I'm tying!
04:03I'm tying! Don't lift!
04:04Back ankle!
04:05Don't lift!
04:06Back ankle!
04:07The pilots can no longer make sense of what the plane is doing.
04:11Back ankle!
04:12Mayday!
04:13Mayday!
04:14Mayday!
04:15F32 294!
04:16Mayday!
04:17Mayday!
04:18294!
04:19Understood.
04:20Mayday!
04:21What is the nature of your emergency, please?
04:22The plane loses almost 10,000 feet of altitude and speeds towards the ground at more than 450
04:29miles an hour.
04:30Back ankle!
04:31Back ankle!
04:32Back ankle!
04:33Back ankle!
04:34Back ankle!
04:35Back ankle!
04:36Back ankle!
04:40We need to climb!
04:41Come on, we need to climb!
04:42Yes, yes, we need to climb!
04:43Back ankle!
04:44Go back!
04:45No!
04:46Continue right!
04:47Back ankle!
04:48Continue right!
04:49Come on, help me!
04:50Help me!
04:51I don't know!
04:52I don't see anything!
04:53Back ankle!
04:54Back ankle!
04:55800 feet flight 294 falls below radar range
05:12West Air Sweden flight 294
05:16Hits the ground at almost 600 miles an hour the plane is obliterated
05:25It takes three hours before rescue helicopters arrive
05:31Even from the air it's obvious the pilots could not have survived
05:37The information we got from the rescue efforts was that the aircraft was found and also that the
05:47Accident was most probably not at all survivable
05:55The crash site is in one of the most desolate places on earth
06:09The accident location was in a flat valley in mountainous area
06:15The site was at the time a very cold with temperatures down
06:22Towards a minus 25 degrees Celsius
06:34The next day a team of investigators from the Swedish accident investigation Authority known as the SHK
06:41A arrives at the crash site the team includes technical investigator Tony Arvidsson
06:49This far north they have a very short window to find clues as to what caused the sudden crash of flight 294
06:59We only had daylight time for about three hours
07:03Investigators waste no time analyzing the wreckage to pinpoint the northbound planes orientation as it crashed
07:15That's the front of the plane
07:22Finding the four corners of the aircraft confirms the theory
07:26the theory the tail the nose the wingtips the aircraft had impacted the ground in an easterly
07:35direction this is the left wing all right but it's in the wrong place for a plane flying east
07:44this is Arvidsson's first clue about the accident the left wing is found in the south end of the
07:51crater and the right wing is in the north end for a plane traveling east it should be the other way
07:58around if they were coming in this way and the left wing is over there and they must have been
08:10upside down the crash has also created a crater 20 feet deep that tells investigators the plane hit
08:26the ground at tremendous speed they definitely came in hard and fast that's not normal you probably
08:35don't have a lot of control over the aircraft at that time the position of the wreckage and the
08:41size of the crater paints a picture of a plane hitting the ground off course upside down and
08:47at a blazingly high speed incredibly both of the planes black boxes survived the crash they're sent
08:59to France where the data can be downloaded investigators hope the data will shed light on why the plane was
09:06so badly out of control as they continue to scour the site blackened mail from the cargo hold presents a
09:21grim possibility we'd be looking at a fire explosion a fire or explosion on board could explain why the plane became so
09:33badly out of control while cruising at 33,000 feet the team gathers as much of the cargo debris for analysis as they
09:42can okay those two boxes and everything in here let's get it all swapped they need to determine whether fire was a cause of
09:58the accident so we send one ton of cargo to a fire expert elevator goes along with all the control cables
10:11this goes to the team recovers a total of three and a half tons of wreckage mostly parts from the flight controls we try to get as
10:29much as possible from the site we must to bury on the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the
10:36end of the end of the day before fierce winter weather sets in investigators must abandon the site they can only hope the cause of this crash
10:46lies somewhere in the pieces they're taking with them
10:53swedish investigators hope the norwegian air traffic controller on duty the night of the crash of flight 294 can help explain why the pilot's
11:01lost control of their plane at 33,000 feet
11:08okay so the first sign of trouble was a mayday call at 1219
11:16mayday mayday mayday mayday mayday mayday Glen
11:31understood mayday what is the nature of your emergency please
11:35so no explanation for the mayday call no they never said
11:38No, they never said.
11:40It's just a mayday call like this one with not much specificity.
11:44Then there's not much the controller can do other than try to discern what's happening and attempt to help.
11:49He was descending quickly and he started to veer east here.
11:54The radar data confirms what investigators observed at the crash site.
11:59Flight 294 was descending rapidly and veering east just seconds before it disappeared from the screen.
12:05And the return never split?
12:09No, just one blip all the way down.
12:11The radar shows only one return, meaning it didn't break into pieces in mid-air.
12:17If you have an airplane that came apart at altitude, you're going to see a lot of different radar returns.
12:22If you have one singular return and it doesn't advance forward very much, maybe one more hit and then it's gone, that indicates a dive intact.
12:30The investigators now know the pilots were struggling with a serious on-board emergency.
12:36Thanks for coming down.
12:37But still don't understand what could have caused such a catastrophic loss of control.
12:42In Stockholm, the team inspects the three and a half tons of wreckage for signs of a fatal mechanical failure.
12:55We're looking for a failure of any control surface.
12:59Ailerons, elevators, rudder.
13:02We need to check them all.
13:04An airplane has three primary flight control surfaces.
13:11Ailerons, the control roll.
13:14Elevators, the control pitch.
13:16And a rudder that controls yaw.
13:19Broken flight control, like the elevators, could cause some problems.
13:24But this is the worst damage Arvidsson has ever seen.
13:29It's impossible for him to get any useful information about flight control surfaces.
13:37This tells me nothing.
13:39We want to make sure that the control surface is working properly, but it was too damaged.
13:45Investigators try to identify the pieces of wreckage based on serial numbers and other markings to make sure all the control surfaces were on the plane when it hit the ground.
14:03Left and right ailerons.
14:06Both elevators.
14:09Rudder.
14:10We have them all.
14:10We could find and identify all the control surfaces, which make it most probable that the aircraft was intact all the way down to impact.
14:26They rule out a serious mechanical failure and move on to another theory.
14:32That an onboard fire brought down the plane.
14:35Test on flight 294's cargo don't offer investigators much more insight than the control surfaces.
14:45No sign of fire or explosion.
14:48The cargo was destroyed at impact.
14:52Not in an onboard fire.
14:55Searching for answers, the investigator in charge, Nicolas Seeger, turns to the flight data, now in from France and ready for analysis.
15:03The FDR data for us is really important to understand the course of events.
15:10It also helps us to calculate the trajectory of the aircraft.
15:16So they're cruising at 33,000 feet when suddenly they start to pitch way up.
15:23A plane normally changes pitch by about one degree per second.
15:27But in this case, you had six degrees per second.
15:32So it was a really rapid change of pitch.
15:36Then the plane starts pitching down and starts rolling out of control.
15:42We could see this is not normal.
15:45Wait a minute.
15:46If the plane is pitching up, why is the altitude decreasing?
15:53That can't be right.
15:54When a plane pitches up, investigators would expect it to climb in altitude and its speed to slow.
16:03But that's not what the data from flight 294 shows.
16:08His airspeed indicator was not changing.
16:11Same with the altitude.
16:13The altitude should have showed a climb if this was good data, and it did not.
16:18That can't be what the plane was doing.
16:20Investigators must get to the bottom of the contradictory data before they can figure out what brought down West Air Sweden flight 294.
16:29We're going to have to go back and figure out exactly what was going on here.
16:37Investigators in Stockholm try to understand discrepancies in flight 294's flight data.
16:43Okay, so let's assume airspeed and altitude are correct, yes?
16:51The plane's pitch data doesn't make sense.
16:55We made calculations to determine the real pitch of the aircraft during the event.
17:03The calculations point to an astounding conclusion.
17:08So, no pitch up at all?
17:12Not that we can tell.
17:13The calculations indicated that the pitch was actually going down after the start of the event.
17:24Right here, the data shows a steep pitch up, but the plane flies level and then pitches down.
17:38Not up.
17:39What the hell?
17:46It seems the captain thought the plane was pitching up when it was actually flying straight and level.
17:56The discovery leads investigators to a disturbing question.
18:00Were the pilots responding to an emergency that didn't actually exist?
18:10If they aren't actually pitching up, why are they pushing the nose down?
18:15The indication that the ADI, the attitude deviation indicator on the captain's side,
18:22had suddenly shown a 30-degree pitch up is about the only thing that even comes close to making sense
18:27for why this crew would take a perfectly good airplane and do a dive.
18:32Investigators soon discover that it's not just the pitch data that's off.
18:37Right here, heading and roll are wonky, too.
18:41You see that?
18:42Yeah.
18:43That tells us something.
18:45Yeah.
18:46It's another valuable clue.
18:48When we looked at FDR data, we could see four parameters that were not consistent with the other parameters.
18:56And those were the pitch, the roll, the heading and the ground speed.
19:02All four parameters come from what's called an inertial reference unit, or IRU.
19:08It's made up of gyroscopes that provide information to the cockpit displays and to the flight data recorder.
19:16There are two IRUs, one for each pilot's display.
19:19The FDR gets its data from the captain's side, the IRU.
19:26Investigators study the plane's manuals and electrical drawings.
19:29We found that the IRU-1 was sending the attitude signal to flight data recorder and the primary flight display number one.
19:41It's an important discovery.
19:42It's an important discovery.
19:44The captain's display and the flight data recorder both get their pitch data from the same source.
19:50The captain's instrument was telling him the plane was pitching up when it was still flying level.
20:05And that it was rolling to the right, when it was actually rolling left.
20:12The automation is telling him, point the nose down, and he's trying to follow this.
20:17Unfortunately, it's erroneous information, and that eventually leads to a loss of control of the aircraft.
20:23I flew the jet for ten years and never saw anything even remotely like this.
20:26It's now clear the pilot was receiving bad information from a faulty IRU.
20:37Is it possible the first officer was, too?
20:41The FO's instrument has its own gyro.
20:45Investigators learned that IRU-1 was only feeding the captain's instrument.
20:50A second IRU feeds the first officer's display and is not recorded by the flight data recorder.
20:57So is it possible that both sides could have failed?
21:02If the first officer's instrument was correct, he should have seen that the plane was flying straight and level.
21:09So why did he allow the captain to push the plane into a high-speed dive?
21:15To find out, the team recreates the flight in a simulation based on the data from IRU-1.
21:22Okay, start the animation.
21:24It paints an almost incomprehensible picture.
21:27Three seconds after his instrument shows a pitch up, he pushes the nose down.
21:35The pilot tried to solve the problem by pushing the elevators to nose down.
21:42When the captain pushes the nose down, his ADI continues to show a pitch up.
21:48So he keeps pushing the plane into a steeper and steeper dive.
21:54Then they begin to roll to the left.
21:57The plane continues to roll until it's on its back.
22:00Eventually they do reach a speed of 508 knots.
22:08It is pretty much incredible that the aircraft did not start breaking up because of the aerodynamic forces.
22:13But any control movement at all is going to rip the tail off or going to rip the control surfaces off.
22:18Flight 294 hits the ground inverted at a speed of almost 600 miles an hour.
22:24The speed with which this airplane went from stable flight to a smoking hole, a crater literally,
22:32is just astounding because it involves a descent rate at one point of over 20,000 feet per minute.
22:38That's a straight vertical dive at almost speed of sound.
22:41It means that whatever happened, happened extremely rapidly.
22:44Investigators can now see what happened, but they still don't understand why the failure of a single instrument
22:51led to such a sudden and catastrophic crash.
22:56How do you go from level flight at 33,000 feet to 1,000 kilometers per hour, impact in what?
23:05Uh, one minute, 20 seconds.
23:12Investigators are stumped.
23:14The failure of one single instrument in a triple redundant system should allow the crew
23:25or the operations to actually cope with this situation.
23:32To better understand how the pilots were interpreting flight data,
23:36investigators now turned to the cockpit voice recording of flight 294.
23:41Let's hear what was happening up there.
23:42Investigators hear no signs of trouble in the minutes leading to the accident, until...
23:51Okay, now this is where the trouble starts.
23:55What the hell?
24:03What?
24:07What?
24:07What?
24:07What?
24:07What?
24:08What?
24:08What?
24:09What?
24:10What?
24:10What?
24:11What?
24:12What?
24:12What?
24:13What?
24:17They're barely talking to each other.
24:18We were a little bit surprised that there were no communication for the first 10 to 12 seconds
24:29after the problem has started.
24:33Bank angle.
24:34Come up.
24:35For some reason, the two pilots never discuss the unusual pitch.
24:39Come on, help me.
24:40Bank angle.
24:41Help me.
24:42Bank angle.
24:43Help me.
24:43Yes, I'm trying.
24:44I'm trying.
24:45Don't lift.
24:46Don't lift.
24:47Or how to troubleshoot the issue.
24:48Bank angle.
24:49Bank angle.
24:50Wait a minute.
24:51Stop.
24:52Bank angle.
24:53Bank angle.
24:54Bank angle.
24:55When did this start?
24:5813 seconds after the trouble started.
25:0340 degrees.
25:04Exactly when it should come up.
25:07The warning is programmed to sound when the plane's bank angle gets to 40 degrees, which
25:12is precisely when it sounded on flight 294.
25:15In a CRJ 200, the bank angle display and warning get data from the IRU designated to the first
25:24officer's side.
25:26Hearing the bank angle call-outs gives the investigation some vital information.
25:32In our fellow reference unit number two was working as it should be.
25:37The first officer was getting good information.
25:40The discovery confirms the first officer should have known the plane was never pitching up
25:47in the first place.
25:48So why did he let the captain fly the plane into the ground?
25:55We need to climb and turn right.
25:57Acknowledged.
25:58Investigators have a new mystery to solve.
26:00And according to last eight tests, we can expect light wind and zero...
26:05What the hell?
26:11When the captain of flight 294 plunges into a deadly dive...
26:18Why didn't the first officer intervene?
26:24As investigators look at the FDR data, they make an important discovery.
26:29The pilots both received what's called a miscompare warning.
26:34The warning is shown on both displays when there's a mismatched reading between them.
26:39In this case, PIT for pitch.
26:42Investigators now know that while the captain saw a sudden 30 degree pitch up,
26:48and the co-pilot saw a perfectly level aircraft, both saw the pitch discrepancy warning.
26:53It's a puzzling find because pilots are trained how to react to the warning.
27:03Come up!
27:08You would hope that communication-wise, you'd be able to verbalize,
27:12I have what appears to be an extreme pitch up.
27:15What are you showing on your side?
27:18I'm showing a pitch up.
27:20In the event of a discrepancy, pilots should check a third standby instrument
27:29to determine which side is wrong and switch the faulty instrument to the working IRU.
27:35Looks like my side's bad. Switching to IR2 now.
27:40Ideally, what we refer to as a standby attitude indicator could have kind of broken the tie.
27:51In other words, we have three sources of information,
27:54and the best two out of three is what you're trained to go with.
27:58All right. Let's see what they say next.
28:01But when investigators listen to the CVR,
28:05We need to climb. Come on, we need to climb.
28:08Yes, yes, we need to climb. Go left. Go left.
28:09They don't hear that kind of conversation.
28:12Continue right.
28:15Instead, they hear the sound of a crew that can't figure out what's happening to their plane,
28:21or how to correct the problem.
28:23Come on, help me. Help me, please.
28:24I don't know. I don't see anything.
28:27Come back.
28:29And what that tells us is that the crew members are both very mentally consumed
28:33with looking at their primary flight display, trying to figure out actually what is going on.
28:38What is the real position of the aircraft in space?
28:42It's a troubling revelation.
28:44What the hell?
28:48Seeger decides they need to see exactly what the pilots experienced
28:51when the instruments began to fail.
28:54They book time in a CRJ simulator.
28:58Okay, so let's start the error on the left side, please.
29:04They fly the same route as flight 294 and program a fault into the left side IRU.
29:12In the simulator, we could observe the two primary flying displays,
29:17and we could also see that everything was working according to design.
29:25There it is. Freeze it there, please.
29:29When the captain's ADI shows a sudden climb, the miscompare warning comes on,
29:35telling the captain and first officer they're seeing different pitch readings.
29:39Okay. All right, let's pick it up here.
29:43Let's pick it up here.
29:45Then, they make a new discovery.
29:48And now we've got the declutter mode kicking in.
29:52Freeze it there, please.
30:00All right.
30:01When a pilot's ADI reaches extreme pitch or roll values,
30:06it goes into what's called declutter mode.
30:08All non-essential information disappears,
30:11and red arrows tell the pilots which direction to fly.
30:15The declutter mode is to help the pilot focusing on the most important things.
30:23But that's not the only insight the flight simulator provides the investigation.
30:28And guess what disappears in declutter mode?
30:33Investigators learn that in declutter mode,
30:36the PIT discrepancy warning alerting the pilots of mismatched displays also disappears.
30:43Four seconds after that warning appeared, it disappears for good.
30:49It's not enough time for the captain to register the problem.
30:52What the hell?
30:55And as a result, he instinctively pushes the nose down,
30:59not realizing he's putting the plane into a dive.
31:05Soon, the first officer's gauge also enters declutter mode.
31:08But in almost the opposite configuration of the captain's display.
31:20Come up!
31:22Now, neither one of them has a discrepancy warning.
31:27This is potentially problematic because the crew is still trying to figure out what's going on,
31:32in addition to following the erroneous automation commands.
31:36So this box, what was telling them what the problem was,
31:38actually disappears when the situation becomes even more dire.
31:43As the pilots were struggling to regain control of their plane...
31:48Yes, I'm trying. I'm trying. Go left. Go left.
31:51Both were missing a vital piece of the puzzle,
31:55that their displays were showing different pitch angles.
31:57That's one bit of information that really should not have been removed when it goes to a decluttering function.
32:04That was the only cue that they really had that there was potentially a problem between both primary flight displays.
32:12Investigators now have a picture of what happened in the cockpit.
32:17We need to climb. Come on, we need to climb.
32:19Yes, yes, we need to climb. Go left. Go left.
32:22Continue right.
32:23Okay.
32:25But to figure out why the pilots couldn't tell if they were climbing or diving...
32:29Come on, help me. Help me.
32:31Please!
32:32I don't know. I don't see anything.
32:34Investigators will need to take to the skies.
32:42Investigators fly an identical plane on the same route under the same moonless conditions
32:47to find out what the pilots of Flight 294 could and couldn't see on the night of the accident.
32:54I can see lights.
32:57Maybe Ritson.
33:01And I can just see the horizon over there.
33:06We are approaching Boudou.
33:08Even when flying at night time, there can still be visual cues that can help you understand the orientation of your aircraft.
33:14Things like you can still see a visible horizon sometimes when there are a lot of city lights.
33:21The test seems to be in vain, revealing nothing out of the ordinary.
33:26Okay, let's start the descent into Tromsel.
33:29Now I can't see anything out there.
33:39It was very, very difficult to discern the horizon during this flight when you had the cockpit illumination on.
33:48Investigators have made a major discovery.
34:00With the cockpit lights turned on, it would have been impossible for the pilots to see the lights below or the horizon.
34:06The pilots of 294 would likely have depended entirely on their instruments for guidance.
34:14Instruments that showed contradictory information.
34:18We need to climb. Come on, we need to climb.
34:20Yes, yes, we need to climb. Don't left. Don't left.
34:23Continue right. Continue right.
34:24When we can't see outside, we trust our instruments.
34:29But if your instrument is telling you something that is completely separate from what your body is telling you,
34:34it's not a matter of ignoring one or the other, it's a matter of verifying what the situation is.
34:39The discovery reveals a critical piece of the puzzle.
34:42Ready for the approach, Brayson?
34:46Let's do it.
34:48After the captain of flight 294 switches on the cockpit lights,
34:52According to last ATIS, we can expect...
34:55His display begins to indicate a substantial pitch upwards.
34:59What the hell?
35:01But glare inside the cockpit means the pilots can't see the horizon below.
35:05The captain can't tell if his plane is actually climbing or not.
35:08Had this happened earlier, when they might have had some form of a visible horizon,
35:15it could have had an entirely different outcome, and probably would have.
35:19He sees this, so his first reaction is to push his nose down.
35:26Seeger thinks the captain's response...
35:29Yes, I'm trying.
35:31...made it impossible for either pilot to make sense of the plane's movements.
35:34One of the adages that we have kind of instilled in commercial aviation and in military aviation is,
35:42in an emergency, order a cup of coffee first before you decide to do something.
35:47There are very few things in aviation that need an instantaneous physical response.
35:51In less than 30 seconds, the plane is upside down and diving.
35:56Extreme negative G-forces make the pilots feel weightless,
36:00so they can't tell if they're climbing or descending.
36:04When faced with a negative G environment, it's disorienting for many reasons.
36:09One of which is that it actually affects your cognitive ability,
36:13so your ability to understand the situation that you're in.
36:15In just five seconds, as autopilot disconnects, he's faced with a 30-degree pitch-up,
36:26and his instrument display changes.
36:31Mayday, mayday, mayday, F-294, mayday, mayday, mayday.
36:35Investigators believe that the rapid-fire chain of events triggers what's known as the startle or surprise effect in both pilots.
36:42That surprised effect, together with the lack of communication between the pilots,
36:49can explain the difficulties there were to solve the problem.
36:54Bang, bang, bang.
36:57This is basically the environment that they found themselves in,
37:00going from extremely normal operations to extremely abnormal operations,
37:06basically within a split second.
37:07In a lot of ways, this accident is kind of a perfect storm scenario.
37:21The fact that both crew members were looking away from their instruments,
37:25as they were required to do, briefing the approach.
37:27The fact that the autopilot disconnected so quickly,
37:30the fact that the indication of pitch was so extreme.
37:35Bang, bang.
37:37Come on, help me. Help!
37:38Please!
37:40Investigators now believe they have pieced together what went so horribly wrong on Flight 294.
37:46Oh, bang.
37:47No! No, no!
37:48But they still have one final question to answer.
37:57Ready for the approach briefing?
37:59Let's do it.
38:01The final minutes of Flight 294 are now clear to investigators.
38:05ILS approach to runway 01, inbound heading 009.
38:11The approach briefing is interrupted when the captain notices a sudden climb.
38:16Light wind and zero...
38:19What the hell?
38:21The start of the event was a runaway on the left side pilot flying display,
38:27showing an increasing pitch.
38:30But he has no idea what he's seeing is from a faulty inertial reference unit.
38:35The pitch warning disappears, the autopilot disconnects,
38:40and the captain pushes the nose down following instructions on his ADI.
38:44As the plane begins to dive, the pilots don't know their displays no longer match.
38:50What?
38:52What?
38:54And as they can't see the natural horizon outside,
38:58neither pilot can verify their actual attitude.
39:03As the plunging jet rapidly gains speed,
39:06negative G-forces make the pilots feel weightless.
39:10Flight 294 rolls to the left until it banks upside down.
39:16It's possible that this occurred because now the first officer had grabbed the yoke
39:22to steady himself or to possibly try to contribute to solving the problem.
39:25Upside down and hurtling to earth, the first officer's display shows the plane in a nosedive and banking left.
39:34Come up!
39:36Bank angle!
39:38But the captain sees the opposite, a plane climbing and rolling right.
39:42Come up! Bank angle!
39:43His first officer's suggestions make no sense.
39:46And the inverted G-forces make it almost impossible to think.
39:50Come on, help me!
39:51Help me!
39:52Bank angle!
39:53Help me!
39:54Yes, I'm trying!
39:55Don't lift!
39:56Don't lift!
39:58Bank angle!
39:59If you get sucked into a reality in the middle of the night like this,
40:03that is not commensurate with what's actually happening,
40:07in other words, it's an induced reality,
40:09then it begins to get confusing.
40:11And if you get past a certain point, that confusion can become terminal.
40:16The plane is in a steep dive, nearly inverted,
40:19and traveling at speeds approaching 600 miles an hour.
40:23Once you get to that point, the mind pretty much checks out
40:27in terms of giving you good guidance on how to fly the airplane.
40:31And after that point, there's just no recovering.
40:34We need to climb!
40:36Yes, we need to climb.
40:37Don't lift!
40:39Continue right!
40:41Continue right!
40:43Come on, help me!
40:45I don't know, I don't see anything!
40:48What?
40:49What the?
40:50Bank angle!
40:52Bank angle!
40:53No!
40:54No, no!
40:5680 seconds from the first sign of trouble,
40:59the plane slams into the ground.
41:06There's no training that's typically provided
41:09to understand how to effectively recover
41:12from a situation such as this.
41:15The final question for investigators
41:16will be the most difficult to answer.
41:20Why did the inertial reference unit fail in the first place?
41:26With more than 9,000 identical units in service around the world,
41:31the answer is vitally important.
41:36The IRUs have been recovered from the crash site,
41:39but they're very badly damaged.
41:42The physical IRU was damaged beyond recognition.
41:48And we couldn't find out what caused the problem.
41:58Nothing.
42:00Without the device's memory cards,
42:02investigators are unable to determine the cause of the failure.
42:06We tried in every possible way, but we didn't have enough evidence to understand it.
42:16What the hell?
42:18Regardless of what caused it,
42:20the IRU's failure should not have caused an accident.
42:23There are backup instruments on board for precisely that reason.
42:27Redundancy is one of the keys to aviation safety.
42:31Because not only do we need redundant pilots,
42:34because human beings can fail,
42:36but we need redundant instruments.
42:38We don't want to ever get in a situation where a single point failure
42:41is going to cause you to not be able to fly the airplane safely.
42:44In their final report, investigators list the pilot's failure to communicate properly,
42:55the lack of information provided by the flight instruments about the failure,
43:00and the effect of negative G-loads on the crew as the main factors causing the accident.
43:05It's important to communicate really early when you've got a problem,
43:13so the other pilot can understand what's going on.
43:17The investigators recommend that airlines adopt standard call-outs
43:22for pilots to use in similar emergency situations,
43:26and that manufacturers improve the design of primary flight displays,
43:30so that important error messages aren't removed in declutter modes.
43:35If you've got more than one crew member,
43:38and in almost all instances in airline flights you do,
43:41you need a procedure for immediately checking with each other
43:44and having standard call-outs,
43:46so that you are coordinating your actions and coordinating your brains.
43:49Here we had one carbon-based brain making decisions that were incorrect
43:54and starting a slide into an accident sequence
43:56because there was no coordination with the other one.