American Airlines Flight 965 Crash Analysis

[Applause] 3,000 we're not getting any option we have the terrain alarm 63 we are in an emergency American 965 leaving 23 in 1995 only days Before Christmas an American Airlines Boeing 757 is on its Final Approach to car Columbia C approach American 965 the pilots are calm and relaxed they don't know they've made a terrible mistake alude 965 9,000 ft they've strayed more than 10 Mi off course and no longer have a clue where they are oh [ __ ] hold on baby in complete darkness the jet carrying 163 passengers and crew is heading into mortal danger I think we knew that something imminent was was around the corner baby more more flight 965 crashed into a 9,000 ft Mountain the crash reverberated throughout the aviation industry how could one of the most technologically advanced aircraft in the world equipped with a state-of-the-art navigational system and flown by some of the most skilled Pilots crash into the side of a [Music] mountain [Music] on December the 20th 1995 American Airlines flight 965 is preparing to depart Miami International Airport make our slot but uh well its destination is car Colombia flight 965 is scheduled to leave at 4:40 p.m. but has already been delayed for 30 minutes at the gate to allow for connecting passengers surely going to call us any second now the Duc only just made it in Miami they told us that we have to rush because the plane going to going to going to leave to Cali very soon definitely we were very happy because we know we're going to fly that night so you made it just in time just in time you going to leave it go from New Jersey to Miami we almost missed the flight Mercedes Ramirez along with her mother and father managed to get on the flight at the last minute we were on standby so we weren't sure if our names were going to be called off to actually get on that flight we heard our names and we were excited cuz like yes we got on the flight but it's very old American flight 965 finally leaves the gate at 5:14 p.m. m. 34 minutes late but the problems aren't over yet as they taxi towards the runway the tower informs them of yet another delay American 965 standby heavy seasonal traffic clogs the runways and they're forced to wait another hour and 20 minutes on the tarmac ready that's all there is to it wait American 965 f finally 2 hours late flight 9965 is cleared for takeoff fly the runway heading clear for takeoff Merry Christmas cleared for takeoff 27 right American 965 you do a great job good [Music] night Captain Nicholas tafuri aged 57 is in charge of flight 965 he's one of American airline's Premier Pilots with more than 13,000 hours of flying experience over 2,000 of them in the 757 he'd flown to Carly only 6 days earlier 2 they're heading climb to 16 that's 16 American 965 at the controls is first officer Donny R Williams age 39 although he's been flying for American for 9 years flight 965 is his first trip to [Music] car it's the holiday season and the plane is filled with passengers starting their Christmas [Music] celebrations everybody on that plane was either going back home for the Christmas holidays to visit their family so I think every every body was just happy and excited to go back the day of the flight December the 20th is a very special day for passenger Mercedes Ramirez Mercedes is a university student from Missouri it's her 21st birthday and this trip is a gift from her parents and usually we spent Christmas in Kansas City at home but they wanted to do something special and we had never spent the holidays with our family in Colombia so it was a big deal for us since we flew standby I couldn't sit with both my mom and my dad all in one row so my mother and I were seated next to each other I was by the window she was in the middle and then there was a passenger who was about my age who was in the aisle seat and then my father was in another row behind us and so nothing out of the ordinary at all just a normal flight 19-year-old Macio Reyes is sitting beside Mercedes mother Reyes is a student at the University of [Music] [Music] Michigan Gonzalo danan and his wife Nancy and their two children Michelle and Gonzalo Jr are seated nearby we were very excited because the first time you know we going with my family to pass you know Christmas over there in Cali we wanted to see our families members you know Brothers sister you know to see our city [Music] again 2 hours and 45 minutes into the flight the plane is cruising at an altitude of 37,000 ft and on a pre-programmed flight path heading towards Carly's Airport 36 miles they're flying a Boeing 757 a state-of-the-art airplane equipped with highly sophisticated computer [Music] systems when programmed with the appropriate data the onboard computer known as the flight management system can control the aircraft from takeoff to Landing it can be a pilot's best friend or in the case of flight 9965 their worst [Music] nightmare an awkward moment an hour before their scheduled arrival in KH makes Mercedes Ramirez change seats my mother had been talking to the college student who was next to her and I think she was trying to kind of set me up with him cuz she kept on saying oh well my daughter in college and my daughter's this and my daughter's that so I was very embarrassed I'm going so I got up from my seat and moved to the row behind us and I I sat with my father the seemingly trivial decision will prove to be her [Music] Lifesaver it's a clear moonless night with visibility more than 6 miles and that's just how it works that's ouren but Captain tfri is now getting concerned about their arrival time in KH debrief 1our sign in and you can't move that up at all cuz it's an FAA thing FAA regulations require a minimum number of hours on the ground before the cabin crew can fly again the plane and its crew are scheduled to leave Columbia the following morning but the unexpected delays in Miami means the plane may be late into car and not able to leave on time tomorrow when you want descent uh let me know a few minutes early in case there's a language problem okay sure any further delays will jeopardize their return flight the next day well see we got 136 mil to the V and 32,000 ft to lose and slow down to boots so oh might as well get get started if they land within the next 25 minutes they'll beat the deadline all right sir and if you'd uh keep the speed up on The Descent it it help us too okay okay okay G to let your sister sit beside the window Gonzalo Dan San's children quarrel over the window seat not knowing that the consequences will be dire and I remember I told them before Cali when the when the plane start to L altitude so we're going to see the Valley the city very nice with a lot of lights on it because usually by December by Christmas time they decorate you know the the mountains with different colors lights and everything then they start to fight for the window side and I was fighting with my brother gonzalito we are fighting for the window okay gonzalito let your sister have a chance by the window and I'm like oh I want to I want to see I want to see the lights I want to see the airport and he got mad okay go see by here oh see with your ca good boy gun little give me CH take a look at the lights that's [Music] City we're almost there job can you see the lights outside the window ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking we have begun our descent for landing a Cali it's a lovely evening as we expected we'll pass a shower or two on the way in this lovely evening is about to end in 30 seconds the pilots will make the first of a series of mistakes which will result in the death of nearly everyone on [Music] board American Airlines flight 965 is on its final descent roughly 63 mi from [Music] car car's aragan airport is situated at the end of a Long Valley on both sides of the valley are towering mountain ranges that stretch to almost 14,000 ft it's a formidable site what are these Nest no thank you you want your water you want to wait until we get on the ground about your water oh I'll wait for the ground to guide the plane on its proper pre-programmed flight path the aircraft must pass over a series of way points these are generally radio beacons at fixed positions along the Route the planes computer picks up the signal from these beacons one after the other and guides it safely to the destination flight 965 is now approaching the Waypoint called tuua tuua is a radio Beacon at the head of the valley which leads to car after passing to Lua they should fly down the valley and pass over the final Waypoint called Roso then they fly past the airport turn right and land from the south she really well Cali approach American 965 American 9er 65 good evening go ahead naor American 965 Carly air traffic controller Nelson Rivera will oversee the Final Approach of flight 965 but he has a problem insurgents opposed to the Colombian government have blown up the radar installation Rivera has no way of knowing where planes are until they radio their position the distance DME from Cali without radar the air traffic controller must rely on the flight crew to provide the aircraft's distance to the runway the DME is 63 the DME is the distance measuring equipment in the Boeing cockpit Roger 965 is clear to uh descend and maintain 1 5,000 ft altimeter 32 report okay understood clear direct to Cali V uh report TOA inir it's a misunderstanding Captain tfri thinks he's being told to fly direct to Cari and forget all about t but the controller needs him to report when he passes to so that he knows where the plane is to me the word directly means that he was authorized to go directly to Cali that there was no delay therefore he had to inform us of his position in tuua because we don't have radar I needed him to inform me of that exact location tfri punches direct to Cari in his computer since the plane no longer has to pass over them all the way points between his present position and Carly will now be erased including tuua the one he's now approaching put direct Cali for you in there okay thank you uh flight attendants please prepare for landing thank you and I remember they they give us the order to to put the the back of the seat straight I remember that and everybody was know so happy because we were very close to the city 11 minutes before their estimated time of arrival go ahead please sir the wind is gone Air Traffic Control asks the flight crew if they'd like to land on Runway 1 n you want to shoot the N Street instead of their planned approach to Runway 01 yeah we'll have to scramble to get down we can do it uh yes sir we'll need a lower altitude right away though Roger the American 965 is cleared to V DME okay the pilots are pleased Runway 1 19 is a straight in approach from the north they won't have to lose precious Time by circling the airport but there isn't much time they need to start getting the plane down quickly Williams deploys the speed brakes the brakes are flaps on the top of the Wings when they're raised they reduce lift and increase the plane's rate of descent approach Runway 1 ner R number one arrival report this Split Second decision to land on Runway 1 n set off a chain of events that will end in disaster arrival will report V thank you sir report t v report Tua I got to give you a tua first of all you want to go right to Cal or to Tua I thought he said the Raza want a rif yeah he did we got time to pull that out events begin to unravel very quickly in the cockpit the pilots have to locate the new charts for the approach to 1 n enter the new route into the computer and still fly the plane and Tua one Roso yeah there it is see that comes after Tua they're getting totally confused the controller keeps asking them to report when they've passed to L but having erased it from their computer they have no idea where it is Captain tfri asks the tower if they can forget to lure and fly directly to Roso their last way point before the runway can American Airlines 965 go director Roso and then do the Roso arrival sir affirmative take the Roso one and Runway one Niner the wind is Cal all right Roso the Roso one to19 thank you America 965 report tuua at 21 M and 5,000 ft okay report Tua the controller is still asking them to report passing the Tua Beacon without radar he doesn't realize that they're already P it and are speeding down the valley towards the airport captain tuuri now makes another fateful decision having decided that they're going to head for the Roso Waypoint instead he punches R into his computer the computer database responds by offering a list of more than 10 waypoints to choose from all beginning with r normally the nearest one Roso would be at the top of the list but tonight it's not Captain tfri doesn't notice and pushes the execute button at over 300 mph and descending at a rate of approximately 1300 ft per minute flight 965 begins to Veer off on a new and deadly [Music] course I never imagined that they were deflecting the route in addition to losing altitude because I didn't have radar in the cockpit of flight 965 the pilots are completely unaware of what they've done they're busy studying charts as their plane crosses the mountains into unknown territory for more than a minute American Airlines flight 965 has been turning off its proper course and into the mountains captain tfri and first officer Williams suddenly noticed that their aircraft where are we is taking them somewhere that they don't want to go going out to let's go right to tuua first of all okay yeah where we headed uh 177 Captain Torri is floundering in the pitch Darkness if he could only find the Tula Waypoint he could get his bearings he switches from one computer system to another and then manually enters the radio frequency for the Tua Beacon okay I'm getting it 177 just doesn't seem right on mine I don't know why left turn so you want a left turn back around to ulq n hell no let's press on to we we're um press on to where though T hopelessly lost and less than 2 minutes from Impact tfri decides to press on with his doomed approach let's go to C first of all okay we're [ __ ] up here didn't we yeah go direct clo how do we get [ __ ] up here come to the right right now come to the right right now the pilots don't know it but when the plane veered off course it crossed over the mountains they're now in another Valley parallel with the one they should be flying [Music] down passengers are completely unaware that in less than 60 seconds the aircraft traveling more than 210 mph is going to crash well it's said [ __ ] tuua I'm not getting for some reason see I can't okay now no Tua is [ __ ] up okay yeah but I can put it in the box if you I want to let's just go to the extended Center Line of uh which is Roso Roso why don't you just go direct to Roso then all right okay let's I'm going to put that over to you they decide to give up on Tua and make straight for the airport they don't realize that there's now a wall of mountains between them and car ner altitude 9,000 ft Roger distance now the plane's ground proximity warning system is telling them they're about to crash this is C approach can you hear me he didn't answer he never answered again it easy does it I could feel that we were just violently just going up and I felt like I was in a roller coaster right or something and the turbulence was absolutely horrible and by that time people were screaming and everybody knew on the flight that something was very [Music] wrong too low [Music] terrain instinctively I reached over and I I grabbed my father's hand and I put my head in my lap in my mind I just kept on thinking thinking come on just straighten it out straighten it out up baby more more these were the last words on the cockpit voice [Music] recorder American 965 this is C approach can you hear me at 9:42 2 p.m. on its Final Approach to Runway 1 19 American 965 can you hear me American Airlines flight 965 seemingly vanishes Without a [Music] Trace American 965 this is C approach can you hear [Music] me I never experienced anything like this before this was the first time that I lost a and the crew was not responding it is very difficult to grasp the moment when the plane didn't answer I looked outside from the control tower I could see from there the sky I started to look for the plane the night was clear and I thought I could see the plane coming but in this case I never saw the plane go ahead moments after the plane's scheduled arrival airport monitors indicate a 7-minute delay friends and family wait with anticipation for the arrival of their loved [Music] ones as the revised arrival time comes and goes rumors begin to circulate throughout the terminal that air traffic control has lost contact with flight 965 in an instant Joy turns to shock as cries that the plane has crashed spread throughout the [Music] [Music] terminal locals living near the town of buga north of carar report hearing a massive explosion [Music] rescue teams race to the town which lies near the base of a local mountain range that stretches as high as 10,000 [Applause] [Music] ft it's now 3:00 a.m. almost 6 hours after the crash the first elements of the search and rescue team are trekking up the side of el Delia [Music] Mountain there are no roads it's completely cut [Music] off in the midst of tons of Twisted and torn metal lies 21-year-old Mercedes Ramirez her last memory prior to impact is grabbing her father's hand and the deafening sound from the back of the plane of the tail section striking trees the next memory I have is the next day it's daylight I wake up and it's I see the sunlight uh around me and I don't know where I am and what's around me looks like a like a landfill like a trash dump and so as I'm laying there I'm thinking where in the world am I Mercedes is critically injured with severe internal injuries and a shattered leg help is anybody out there help me 19-year-old college student Macio Reyes also survives the impact can you hear me and responds to Mercedes Cry for Help can you move um I can try I'm not sure my my leg is been backwards okay pleas okay hold on hold on okay help me please okay the only way for me to get out was having to drag myself over people and I remember this lady who I had to drag myself over and I'll I'll I'll never forget her looking back I think oh my goodness that was someone's mom or that was someone's sister or someone's wife but at that time she was just an object that I needed to get over to get out can you move can you stand up I think my leg is broken okay we'll try three one two three no I get I get he lifted me was when the first time I actually felt pain it just felt like an electrical current going up up and down my leg so he laid me back down and then he went off to to try to find help okay okay just stay here okay okay okay okay okay [Music] help is anybody out there while I was laying there more of the thoughts that were coming into my mind was is why me why did this happen to [Music] me at first light the Colombian Air Force starts searching for the crash site they were unable to leave earlier because they had no night vision [Music] equipment on the ground rescue teams which had been climbing throughout the night are approaching the summit of [Music] eluvio when I wake up I start to feel the pain in my back then when I hear the sound of the helicopters I realized something happened I started not to feel Panic help me someone please help me Daddy I'm here Papa Michelle Gonzalo Dan San's six-year-old daughter Michelle still strapped in her seat answers her father's desperate call for help keep talking to me okay sure so I realized that my my daughter was alive too then I start to coll to try to look for my where the voice of my daughter coming from Michelle please I'm coming where are you danan struggles to crawl through the broken and twisted cabin to reach his daughter but she's pinned beneath the wreckage ow ow my leg hurt when the plane crashed my legs I had my seat on and I I guess the crash was so deep that my legs like speared into the ground I tried to move myself but my legs hurt they hurt really bad I couldn't pick myself up daddy it hurts okay Michelle I'm going to get get some water for you soon and bring it back okay then I Tred to crawl more to try to get out despite a severe back injury Duan manages to crawl towards a small open section of the fuselage I saw a hole behind me and I said inside me say God help me to get out from here help us over here help us when I get up of the fuselage of the planea I remember remember my son talked to me here [Music] gito and he he say father father help me despite A desperate search Gonzalo Duan is unable to locate his son amongst the wreckage gito realizing there's no way to get off the mountain by foot the survivors of flight 965 are still unsure if they will ever make it the temperatures have fallen dramatically and without protective clothing they could die of exposure in a matter of hours stay awake for Papa okay okay M since first light the Colombian Air Force has been searching for the crash site without success with each passing minute the four survivors all Gravely injured take one step closer to [Music] death shortly after Daybreak the crew of a Blackhawk Chopper spots the crash sign [Music] I could see the helicopters perfectly from where I was at and um even though I could see them perfectly I didn't know if they could if they could see me help us when when I saw the helicopter very close to the trees to the top of the trees I start to moving the the blanket I start to moveing the blanket then I say oh they saw they saw me they saw me they saw me they're coming for [Music] us more than 8 hours after impact and after enduring life-threatening injuries and near freezing temperatures the survivors of flight 965 are about to be rescued people finally know that we're here and they're finally here to to rescue us after so many hours of being stuck on that side of that mountain so seeing them was one of the greatest things [Music] ever they came and they thrw a rock and the people start to descend and you know I was so happy because I feel you know that they they going to help us the first thing I told him my son is alive my son is alive but I don't know where he is help me to find him please help me to find her and my daughter is alive I told her she's inside she's inside the fusel as the rescue team divided up one went into the fuselage to free Michelle another scoured the site for Gonzalo dussan Jr Gonzalo is found hanging in the branch of a near nearby tree he's been suspended in the air above the crash site for more than 8 hours his condition is grave Mauricio Reyes is the first to be airlifted off the mountain but low cloud cover grounds the chopper and delays the removal of the remaining [Music] survivors fearing that Michelle Duan may not survive the weight volunteers decided to take a calculated risk they fashioned a makeshift stretcher out of a piece of the wreckage and began to evacuate Michelle off the mountain by foot shortly after Michelle Duan left the crash site the weather clears and the remaining survivors are airlifted to a base camp halfway down the mountain and then to hospital for emergency medical treatment more than 13 hours after the crash of Flight 965 Michelle Duan is the last survivor to emerge from The Jungle of eleria alive surgeons attempt to save the life of her brother Gonzalo Jr but he dies on the operating table from massive internal injuries I don't think that there is any medical explanation or scientific explanation there is no explanation that out of 159 people that were strong and like tough that me little little girl a six-year-old girl could survive out of so many people that were so much stronger than me I just thank God so much of the 163 passengers and crew on board flight 965 only four survived the crash experts will later label the accident a non-survivable event all of the survivors were seated within two rows of one another just above the wing huge girders carrying the wings make this the strongest part of the plane despite this Mercedes Ramirez lost both her parents on her 21st birthday December 20th 1995 my life changed forever and has never been the same ever since there is a 160 people on that flight who the moment that plane hit that mountain all their hopes and dreams were instantly lost but for some reason I've been given a second chance at life and so I'm going to try to make the best of [Music] it the successful evacuation of the survivors led to the gruesome task of recovering the bodies of the 159 Souls who perished on the slopes of Mount duio investigators now descend on the crash side to try to find out how one of the most sophistic ated airliners equipped with state-of-the-art technology could Veer off course and crash more than 35 M from the airport the investigation was led by aeronautica civil Colombia's equivalent of the [Music] FAA assisting the Colombians were investigators from the US national Transportation safety board including Dave Ivy the wreckage and debris report indicated that the airplane actually impacted the Eastern side of the mountain as it was trying to proceed back West to get into the valley and the main body of the wreckage cleared the mountain top or the ridge I should say and landed over on the western side which is inside the Valley [Music] area also following the investigation was Dave Simmon an airline Captain who knew the Carly approach well in the days that followed the crash the industry was shocked they were shocked because they didn't know how could a sophisticated airplane like the 757 flown by a well-respected international carrier like American Airlines with well-trained Crews get so far off course nobody could figure out how did it happen why did it happen sabotage and mechanical malfunction were soon ruled [Music] out attention began to focus on the action of the flight [Music] crew the discovery of the black boxes enabled the investigators to follow the final moments of American Airlines flight 965 there is never one single item that or error that typically brings an airplane down there's an error chain and a chain is made up of many links the airplane was in route to Cali as they were approaching from a distance out the controller offered them a straight in landing are you able to approach Runway one ner would you like to shoot the one n straight in uh yeah we'll have to scramble to get down we can do it when they they first accepted the approach the first officer remarked that we do need to get down in a hurry in order to accomplish this uh yes sir we'll need a lower altitude right away though at the time the crew accepted the approach to Runway 1 19 they were too high too fast and too close in to safely make this approach to lose altitude the first officer deploys the speed brakes this action will come back to haunt the flight crew in the fin final segment of the flight the fact that they accepted that Runway put the crew in a rushed and hurried manner give a tua first of all you want to go right to Cal or to Tua I thought he said the Roo W Ral yeah he did we got time to pull that out the flight crew now needs to study the approach charts and reprogram the computer meanwhile the airplane is moving at more than 5 miles per minute and when you start to rush and you can't prepare in an adequate amount of time then additional errors start to occur because they're rushed and in a hurry and scrambling they then make a dangerous request can American Airlines uh 965 go direct to Roso and then do the Roso arrival sir affirmative take the Roso one and Runway one Niner when the controller said affirmative take the ros1 he meant use the ros1 arrival procedure although the crew thought he meant to go direct to Roso that's not a good idea because to proceed direct to Roso is the last point just before the runway and Roso is the last point before landing not the first point that you should be targeting and this miscommunication really dealt with the the pilot believing one thing and the air traffic controller believing another that was another Link in my view that was part of the error chain uh where are we the crew looks at at their at their charts in front of them and they see the fixed Roso and it is identified by the letter R so they naturally put R into the computer thinking it will take them directly to Roso the computer offers a list of RS to choose from but unbeknownst to the pilots none of them is Roso habit has shown and the system is designed to place the one that is closest to your airplane first and so here was an r that showed up first and he selected that a map display in front of the pilot shows the proposed course to the Waypoint he selected it will take the plane left into the mountains according to americ American Airlines procedure prior to executing an input such as this to select the r you confirm with the other pilot does this look correct to you 965 9,000 ft this clearly was not done if it had been they would have seen a dotted line showing a provisional path from the nose of the airplane turning and going back to about their 7:00 position Captain T y hastily presses the execute button in aviation we call that fast fingered Freddy when you don't confirm anything you're in a big hurry to punch something in the computer and you don't confirm where it's really going to take you yeah it's left the left turn yeah I got to identify that [ __ ] though unfortunately the crew does not know that R stands for another fix that is 132 miles away behind them at about their 7:00 position and that's where the airplane starts to go to the flight crew of American Airlines 965 has unwittingly directed their aircraft off its intended course and into mortal danger uh where are we the plane was simply doing what it was programmed to do in this case it's to fly to Bogata 130 miles away more than a minute into the turn the pilots are unaware that the plane is flying away from car and is heading dangerously off course the first officer is getting the charts out the captain's getting the charts out they're trying to tune radios no one's flying the airplane no one's watching what happens and they assume that the automation is going to take care of them sometimes it will but in this case it didn't uh where are we we're going out to let's go right to T Lua first of all okay yeah where we headed uh 177 ulq done what with the what what happened here there's an old saying in aviation never point an airplane someplace that your brain hasn't been 5 minutes earlier American 965 these things now uh what did you want sir distance DME in this case the airplane got in front of them it was flying what was selected and in fact it was flying in beyond the Pilot's recognition of where it was supposed to be traveling the pilots had lost what's referred to as situational awareness left turn so you want a left turn back around hell no let's press on press aw though Tua uh that's a right you once they became unsure of their position once they became confused and disoriented that's the time to click off the Automation and to basically uh abandon the approach climb to the minimum safe altitude and to and to go to Cali go to to Cali altitude instead of abandoning the approach and gaining altitude flight 965 continued its deadly descent when the warning sounded that the plane was about to crash into the ground first officer Williams disengaged the autopilot within 1 second but forgot to retract the speed brakes which had been deployed earlier 965 this is can you hear [Music] me according to the official report had they remembered to lower the speed brakes the plane could have cleared the mountain with room to spare this accident is known as a cfit accident which means controlled flight into terrain by that I mean the airplane was controlled by the crew and it was a perfectly normal functioning airplane and the crew flew the airplane into the mountain it's one of the leading causes of accidents of over the last 100 years and still is a problem both these Pilots were experienced Pilots flying the 757 for American Airlines and both these Pilots were good pilots and I think it's like anything else two good Pilots were LED astray by a problem that they were trying to figure out and at the time they failed to do the basic thing fly the airplane a court eventually ruled that the pilots of flight 965 had shown willful misconduct during the approach to kly airport Survivor Mercedes Ramirez who lost both her parents continues to deal with the crash I think this was a classic textbook case of everything you should not do when flying a plane hopefully it's a wake up called the pilots that no matter how many times you've flown to a city you just have to be alert and aware because every little move that you make you have the lives of people in your hands that's

[Applause] 3,000 we&#39;re not getting any option we have the terrain alarm 63 we are in an emergency American 965 leaving 23 in 1995 only days Before Christmas an American Airlines Boeing 757 is on its Final Approach to car Columbia C approach American 965 the pilots are calm and relaxed they don&#39;t know they&#39;ve made a terrible mistake alude 965 9,000 ft they&#39;ve strayed more than 10 Mi off course and no longer have a clue where they are oh [ __ ] hold on baby in complete darkness the jet carrying 163 passengers and crew is heading into mortal danger I think we knew that something imminent was was around the corner baby more more flight 965 crashed into a 9,000 ft Mountain the crash reverberated throughout the aviation industry how could one of the most technologically advanced aircraft in the world equipped with a state-of-the-art navigational system and flown by some of the most skilled Pilots crash into the side of a [Music] mountain [Music] on December the 20th 1995 American Airlines flight 965 is preparing to depart Miami International Airport make our slot but uh well its destination is car Colombia flight 965 is scheduled to leave at 4:40 p.m. but has already been delayed for 30 minutes at the gate to allow for connecting passengers surely going to call us any second now the Duc only just made it in Miami they told us that we have to rush because the plane going to going to going to leave to Cali very soon definitely we were very happy because we know we&#39;re going to fly that night so you made it just in time just in time you going to leave it go from New Jersey to Miami we almost missed the flight Mercedes Ramirez along with her mother and father managed to get on the flight at the last minute we were on standby so we weren&#39;t sure if our names were going to be called off to actually get on that flight we heard our names and we were excited cuz like yes we got on the flight but it&#39;s very old American flight 965 finally leaves the gate at 5:14 p.m. m. 34 minutes late but the problems aren&#39;t over yet as they taxi towards the runway the tower informs them of yet another delay American 965 standby heavy seasonal traffic clogs the runways and they&#39;re forced to wait another hour and 20 minutes on the tarmac ready that&#39;s all there is to it wait American 965 f finally 2 hours late flight 9965 is cleared for takeoff fly the runway heading clear for takeoff Merry Christmas cleared for takeoff 27 right American 965 you do a great job good [Music] night Captain Nicholas tafuri aged 57 is in charge of flight 965 he&#39;s one of American airline&#39;s Premier Pilots with more than 13,000 hours of flying experience over 2,000 of them in the 757 he&#39;d flown to Carly only 6 days earlier 2 they&#39;re heading climb to 16 that&#39;s 16 American 965 at the controls is first officer Donny R Williams age 39 although he&#39;s been flying for American for 9 years flight 965 is his first trip to [Music] car it&#39;s the holiday season and the plane is filled with passengers starting their Christmas [Music] celebrations everybody on that plane was either going back home for the Christmas holidays to visit their family so I think every every body was just happy and excited to go back the day of the flight December the 20th is a very special day for passenger Mercedes Ramirez Mercedes is a university student from Missouri it&#39;s her 21st birthday and this trip is a gift from her parents and usually we spent Christmas in Kansas City at home but they wanted to do something special and we had never spent the holidays with our family in Colombia so it was a big deal for us since we flew standby I couldn&#39;t sit with both my mom and my dad all in one row so my mother and I were seated next to each other I was by the window she was in the middle and then there was a passenger who was about my age who was in the aisle seat and then my father was in another row behind us and so nothing out of the ordinary at all just a normal flight 19-year-old Macio Reyes is sitting beside Mercedes mother Reyes is a student at the University of [Music] [Music] Michigan Gonzalo danan and his wife Nancy and their two children Michelle and Gonzalo Jr are seated nearby we were very excited because the first time you know we going with my family to pass you know Christmas over there in Cali we wanted to see our families members you know Brothers sister you know to see our city [Music] again 2 hours and 45 minutes into the flight the plane is cruising at an altitude of 37,000 ft and on a pre-programmed flight path heading towards Carly&#39;s Airport 36 miles they&#39;re flying a Boeing 757 a state-of-the-art airplane equipped with highly sophisticated computer [Music] systems when programmed with the appropriate data the onboard computer known as the flight management system can control the aircraft from takeoff to Landing it can be a pilot&#39;s best friend or in the case of flight 9965 their worst [Music] nightmare an awkward moment an hour before their scheduled arrival in KH makes Mercedes Ramirez change seats my mother had been talking to the college student who was next to her and I think she was trying to kind of set me up with him cuz she kept on saying oh well my daughter in college and my daughter&#39;s this and my daughter&#39;s that so I was very embarrassed I&#39;m going so I got up from my seat and moved to the row behind us and I I sat with my father the seemingly trivial decision will prove to be her [Music] Lifesaver it&#39;s a clear moonless night with visibility more than 6 miles and that&#39;s just how it works that&#39;s ouren but Captain tfri is now getting concerned about their arrival time in KH debrief 1our sign in and you can&#39;t move that up at all cuz it&#39;s an FAA thing FAA regulations require a minimum number of hours on the ground before the cabin crew can fly again the plane and its crew are scheduled to leave Columbia the following morning but the unexpected delays in Miami means the plane may be late into car and not able to leave on time tomorrow when you want descent uh let me know a few minutes early in case there&#39;s a language problem okay sure any further delays will jeopardize their return flight the next day well see we got 136 mil to the V and 32,000 ft to lose and slow down to boots so oh might as well get get started if they land within the next 25 minutes they&#39;ll beat the deadline all right sir and if you&#39;d uh keep the speed up on The Descent it it help us too okay okay okay G to let your sister sit beside the window Gonzalo Dan San&#39;s children quarrel over the window seat not knowing that the consequences will be dire and I remember I told them before Cali when the when the plane start to L altitude so we&#39;re going to see the Valley the city very nice with a lot of lights on it because usually by December by Christmas time they decorate you know the the mountains with different colors lights and everything then they start to fight for the window side and I was fighting with my brother gonzalito we are fighting for the window okay gonzalito let your sister have a chance by the window and I&#39;m like oh I want to I want to see I want to see the lights I want to see the airport and he got mad okay go see by here oh see with your ca good boy gun little give me CH take a look at the lights that&#39;s [Music] City we&#39;re almost there job can you see the lights outside the window ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking we have begun our descent for landing a Cali it&#39;s a lovely evening as we expected we&#39;ll pass a shower or two on the way in this lovely evening is about to end in 30 seconds the pilots will make the first of a series of mistakes which will result in the death of nearly everyone on [Music] board American Airlines flight 965 is on its final descent roughly 63 mi from [Music] car car&#39;s aragan airport is situated at the end of a Long Valley on both sides of the valley are towering mountain ranges that stretch to almost 14,000 ft it&#39;s a formidable site what are these Nest no thank you you want your water you want to wait until we get on the ground about your water oh I&#39;ll wait for the ground to guide the plane on its proper pre-programmed flight path the aircraft must pass over a series of way points these are generally radio beacons at fixed positions along the Route the planes computer picks up the signal from these beacons one after the other and guides it safely to the destination flight 965 is now approaching the Waypoint called tuua tuua is a radio Beacon at the head of the valley which leads to car after passing to Lua they should fly down the valley and pass over the final Waypoint called Roso then they fly past the airport turn right and land from the south she really well Cali approach American 965 American 9er 65 good evening go ahead naor American 965 Carly air traffic controller Nelson Rivera will oversee the Final Approach of flight 965 but he has a problem insurgents opposed to the Colombian government have blown up the radar installation Rivera has no way of knowing where planes are until they radio their position the distance DME from Cali without radar the air traffic controller must rely on the flight crew to provide the aircraft&#39;s distance to the runway the DME is 63 the DME is the distance measuring equipment in the Boeing cockpit Roger 965 is clear to uh descend and maintain 1 5,000 ft altimeter 32 report okay understood clear direct to Cali V uh report TOA inir it&#39;s a misunderstanding Captain tfri thinks he&#39;s being told to fly direct to Cari and forget all about t but the controller needs him to report when he passes to so that he knows where the plane is to me the word directly means that he was authorized to go directly to Cali that there was no delay therefore he had to inform us of his position in tuua because we don&#39;t have radar I needed him to inform me of that exact location tfri punches direct to Cari in his computer since the plane no longer has to pass over them all the way points between his present position and Carly will now be erased including tuua the one he&#39;s now approaching put direct Cali for you in there okay thank you uh flight attendants please prepare for landing thank you and I remember they they give us the order to to put the the back of the seat straight I remember that and everybody was know so happy because we were very close to the city 11 minutes before their estimated time of arrival go ahead please sir the wind is gone Air Traffic Control asks the flight crew if they&#39;d like to land on Runway 1 n you want to shoot the N Street instead of their planned approach to Runway 01 yeah we&#39;ll have to scramble to get down we can do it uh yes sir we&#39;ll need a lower altitude right away though Roger the American 965 is cleared to V DME okay the pilots are pleased Runway 1 19 is a straight in approach from the north they won&#39;t have to lose precious Time by circling the airport but there isn&#39;t much time they need to start getting the plane down quickly Williams deploys the speed brakes the brakes are flaps on the top of the Wings when they&#39;re raised they reduce lift and increase the plane&#39;s rate of descent approach Runway 1 ner R number one arrival report this Split Second decision to land on Runway 1 n set off a chain of events that will end in disaster arrival will report V thank you sir report t v report Tua I got to give you a tua first of all you want to go right to Cal or to Tua I thought he said the Raza want a rif yeah he did we got time to pull that out events begin to unravel very quickly in the cockpit the pilots have to locate the new charts for the approach to 1 n enter the new route into the computer and still fly the plane and Tua one Roso yeah there it is see that comes after Tua they&#39;re getting totally confused the controller keeps asking them to report when they&#39;ve passed to L but having erased it from their computer they have no idea where it is Captain tfri asks the tower if they can forget to lure and fly directly to Roso their last way point before the runway can American Airlines 965 go director Roso and then do the Roso arrival sir affirmative take the Roso one and Runway one Niner the wind is Cal all right Roso the Roso one to19 thank you America 965 report tuua at 21 M and 5,000 ft okay report Tua the controller is still asking them to report passing the Tua Beacon without radar he doesn&#39;t realize that they&#39;re already P it and are speeding down the valley towards the airport captain tuuri now makes another fateful decision having decided that they&#39;re going to head for the Roso Waypoint instead he punches R into his computer the computer database responds by offering a list of more than 10 waypoints to choose from all beginning with r normally the nearest one Roso would be at the top of the list but tonight it&#39;s not Captain tfri doesn&#39;t notice and pushes the execute button at over 300 mph and descending at a rate of approximately 1300 ft per minute flight 965 begins to Veer off on a new and deadly [Music] course I never imagined that they were deflecting the route in addition to losing altitude because I didn&#39;t have radar in the cockpit of flight 965 the pilots are completely unaware of what they&#39;ve done they&#39;re busy studying charts as their plane crosses the mountains into unknown territory for more than a minute American Airlines flight 965 has been turning off its proper course and into the mountains captain tfri and first officer Williams suddenly noticed that their aircraft where are we is taking them somewhere that they don&#39;t want to go going out to let&#39;s go right to tuua first of all okay yeah where we headed uh 177 Captain Torri is floundering in the pitch Darkness if he could only find the Tula Waypoint he could get his bearings he switches from one computer system to another and then manually enters the radio frequency for the Tua Beacon okay I&#39;m getting it 177 just doesn&#39;t seem right on mine I don&#39;t know why left turn so you want a left turn back around to ulq n hell no let&#39;s press on to we we&#39;re um press on to where though T hopelessly lost and less than 2 minutes from Impact tfri decides to press on with his doomed approach let&#39;s go to C first of all okay we&#39;re [ __ ] up here didn&#39;t we yeah go direct clo how do we get [ __ ] up here come to the right right now come to the right right now the pilots don&#39;t know it but when the plane veered off course it crossed over the mountains they&#39;re now in another Valley parallel with the one they should be flying [Music] down passengers are completely unaware that in less than 60 seconds the aircraft traveling more than 210 mph is going to crash well it&#39;s said [ __ ] tuua I&#39;m not getting for some reason see I can&#39;t okay now no Tua is [ __ ] up okay yeah but I can put it in the box if you I want to let&#39;s just go to the extended Center Line of uh which is Roso Roso why don&#39;t you just go direct to Roso then all right okay let&#39;s I&#39;m going to put that over to you they decide to give up on Tua and make straight for the airport they don&#39;t realize that there&#39;s now a wall of mountains between them and car ner altitude 9,000 ft Roger distance now the plane&#39;s ground proximity warning system is telling them they&#39;re about to crash this is C approach can you hear me he didn&#39;t answer he never answered again it easy does it I could feel that we were just violently just going up and I felt like I was in a roller coaster right or something and the turbulence was absolutely horrible and by that time people were screaming and everybody knew on the flight that something was very [Music] wrong too low [Music] terrain instinctively I reached over and I I grabbed my father&#39;s hand and I put my head in my lap in my mind I just kept on thinking thinking come on just straighten it out straighten it out up baby more more these were the last words on the cockpit voice [Music] recorder American 965 this is C approach can you hear me at 9:42 2 p.m. on its Final Approach to Runway 1 19 American 965 can you hear me American Airlines flight 965 seemingly vanishes Without a [Music] Trace American 965 this is C approach can you hear [Music] me I never experienced anything like this before this was the first time that I lost a and the crew was not responding it is very difficult to grasp the moment when the plane didn&#39;t answer I looked outside from the control tower I could see from there the sky I started to look for the plane the night was clear and I thought I could see the plane coming but in this case I never saw the plane go ahead moments after the plane&#39;s scheduled arrival airport monitors indicate a 7-minute delay friends and family wait with anticipation for the arrival of their loved [Music] ones as the revised arrival time comes and goes rumors begin to circulate throughout the terminal that air traffic control has lost contact with flight 965 in an instant Joy turns to shock as cries that the plane has crashed spread throughout the [Music] [Music] terminal locals living near the town of buga north of carar report hearing a massive explosion [Music] rescue teams race to the town which lies near the base of a local mountain range that stretches as high as 10,000 [Applause] [Music] ft it&#39;s now 3:00 a.m. almost 6 hours after the crash the first elements of the search and rescue team are trekking up the side of el Delia [Music] Mountain there are no roads it&#39;s completely cut [Music] off in the midst of tons of Twisted and torn metal lies 21-year-old Mercedes Ramirez her last memory prior to impact is grabbing her father&#39;s hand and the deafening sound from the back of the plane of the tail section striking trees the next memory I have is the next day it&#39;s daylight I wake up and it&#39;s I see the sunlight uh around me and I don&#39;t know where I am and what&#39;s around me looks like a like a landfill like a trash dump and so as I&#39;m laying there I&#39;m thinking where in the world am I Mercedes is critically injured with severe internal injuries and a shattered leg help is anybody out there help me 19-year-old college student Macio Reyes also survives the impact can you hear me and responds to Mercedes Cry for Help can you move um I can try I&#39;m not sure my my leg is been backwards okay pleas okay hold on hold on okay help me please okay the only way for me to get out was having to drag myself over people and I remember this lady who I had to drag myself over and I&#39;ll I&#39;ll I&#39;ll never forget her looking back I think oh my goodness that was someone&#39;s mom or that was someone&#39;s sister or someone&#39;s wife but at that time she was just an object that I needed to get over to get out can you move can you stand up I think my leg is broken okay we&#39;ll try three one two three no I get I get he lifted me was when the first time I actually felt pain it just felt like an electrical current going up up and down my leg so he laid me back down and then he went off to to try to find help okay okay just stay here okay okay okay okay okay [Music] help is anybody out there while I was laying there more of the thoughts that were coming into my mind was is why me why did this happen to [Music] me at first light the Colombian Air Force starts searching for the crash site they were unable to leave earlier because they had no night vision [Music] equipment on the ground rescue teams which had been climbing throughout the night are approaching the summit of [Music] eluvio when I wake up I start to feel the pain in my back then when I hear the sound of the helicopters I realized something happened I started not to feel Panic help me someone please help me Daddy I&#39;m here Papa Michelle Gonzalo Dan San&#39;s six-year-old daughter Michelle still strapped in her seat answers her father&#39;s desperate call for help keep talking to me okay sure so I realized that my my daughter was alive too then I start to coll to try to look for my where the voice of my daughter coming from Michelle please I&#39;m coming where are you danan struggles to crawl through the broken and twisted cabin to reach his daughter but she&#39;s pinned beneath the wreckage ow ow my leg hurt when the plane crashed my legs I had my seat on and I I guess the crash was so deep that my legs like speared into the ground I tried to move myself but my legs hurt they hurt really bad I couldn&#39;t pick myself up daddy it hurts okay Michelle I&#39;m going to get get some water for you soon and bring it back okay then I Tred to crawl more to try to get out despite a severe back injury Duan manages to crawl towards a small open section of the fuselage I saw a hole behind me and I said inside me say God help me to get out from here help us over here help us when I get up of the fuselage of the planea I remember remember my son talked to me here [Music] gito and he he say father father help me despite A desperate search Gonzalo Duan is unable to locate his son amongst the wreckage gito realizing there&#39;s no way to get off the mountain by foot the survivors of flight 965 are still unsure if they will ever make it the temperatures have fallen dramatically and without protective clothing they could die of exposure in a matter of hours stay awake for Papa okay okay M since first light the Colombian Air Force has been searching for the crash site without success with each passing minute the four survivors all Gravely injured take one step closer to [Music] death shortly after Daybreak the crew of a Blackhawk Chopper spots the crash sign [Music] I could see the helicopters perfectly from where I was at and um even though I could see them perfectly I didn&#39;t know if they could if they could see me help us when when I saw the helicopter very close to the trees to the top of the trees I start to moving the the blanket I start to moveing the blanket then I say oh they saw they saw me they saw me they saw me they&#39;re coming for [Music] us more than 8 hours after impact and after enduring life-threatening injuries and near freezing temperatures the survivors of flight 965 are about to be rescued people finally know that we&#39;re here and they&#39;re finally here to to rescue us after so many hours of being stuck on that side of that mountain so seeing them was one of the greatest things [Music] ever they came and they thrw a rock and the people start to descend and you know I was so happy because I feel you know that they they going to help us the first thing I told him my son is alive my son is alive but I don&#39;t know where he is help me to find him please help me to find her and my daughter is alive I told her she&#39;s inside she&#39;s inside the fusel as the rescue team divided up one went into the fuselage to free Michelle another scoured the site for Gonzalo dussan Jr Gonzalo is found hanging in the branch of a near nearby tree he&#39;s been suspended in the air above the crash site for more than 8 hours his condition is grave Mauricio Reyes is the first to be airlifted off the mountain but low cloud cover grounds the chopper and delays the removal of the remaining [Music] survivors fearing that Michelle Duan may not survive the weight volunteers decided to take a calculated risk they fashioned a makeshift stretcher out of a piece of the wreckage and began to evacuate Michelle off the mountain by foot shortly after Michelle Duan left the crash site the weather clears and the remaining survivors are airlifted to a base camp halfway down the mountain and then to hospital for emergency medical treatment more than 13 hours after the crash of Flight 965 Michelle Duan is the last survivor to emerge from The Jungle of eleria alive surgeons attempt to save the life of her brother Gonzalo Jr but he dies on the operating table from massive internal injuries I don&#39;t think that there is any medical explanation or scientific explanation there is no explanation that out of 159 people that were strong and like tough that me little little girl a six-year-old girl could survive out of so many people that were so much stronger than me I just thank God so much of the 163 passengers and crew on board flight 965 only four survived the crash experts will later label the accident a non-survivable event all of the survivors were seated within two rows of one another just above the wing huge girders carrying the wings make this the strongest part of the plane despite this Mercedes Ramirez lost both her parents on her 21st birthday December 20th 1995 my life changed forever and has never been the same ever since there is a 160 people on that flight who the moment that plane hit that mountain all their hopes and dreams were instantly lost but for some reason I&#39;ve been given a second chance at life and so I&#39;m going to try to make the best of [Music] it the successful evacuation of the survivors led to the gruesome task of recovering the bodies of the 159 Souls who perished on the slopes of Mount duio investigators now descend on the crash side to try to find out how one of the most sophistic ated airliners equipped with state-of-the-art technology could Veer off course and crash more than 35 M from the airport the investigation was led by aeronautica civil Colombia&#39;s equivalent of the [Music] FAA assisting the Colombians were investigators from the US national Transportation safety board including Dave Ivy the wreckage and debris report indicated that the airplane actually impacted the Eastern side of the mountain as it was trying to proceed back West to get into the valley and the main body of the wreckage cleared the mountain top or the ridge I should say and landed over on the western side which is inside the Valley [Music] area also following the investigation was Dave Simmon an airline Captain who knew the Carly approach well in the days that followed the crash the industry was shocked they were shocked because they didn&#39;t know how could a sophisticated airplane like the 757 flown by a well-respected international carrier like American Airlines with well-trained Crews get so far off course nobody could figure out how did it happen why did it happen sabotage and mechanical malfunction were soon ruled [Music] out attention began to focus on the action of the flight [Music] crew the discovery of the black boxes enabled the investigators to follow the final moments of American Airlines flight 965 there is never one single item that or error that typically brings an airplane down there&#39;s an error chain and a chain is made up of many links the airplane was in route to Cali as they were approaching from a distance out the controller offered them a straight in landing are you able to approach Runway one ner would you like to shoot the one n straight in uh yeah we&#39;ll have to scramble to get down we can do it when they they first accepted the approach the first officer remarked that we do need to get down in a hurry in order to accomplish this uh yes sir we&#39;ll need a lower altitude right away though at the time the crew accepted the approach to Runway 1 19 they were too high too fast and too close in to safely make this approach to lose altitude the first officer deploys the speed brakes this action will come back to haunt the flight crew in the fin final segment of the flight the fact that they accepted that Runway put the crew in a rushed and hurried manner give a tua first of all you want to go right to Cal or to Tua I thought he said the Roo W Ral yeah he did we got time to pull that out the flight crew now needs to study the approach charts and reprogram the computer meanwhile the airplane is moving at more than 5 miles per minute and when you start to rush and you can&#39;t prepare in an adequate amount of time then additional errors start to occur because they&#39;re rushed and in a hurry and scrambling they then make a dangerous request can American Airlines uh 965 go direct to Roso and then do the Roso arrival sir affirmative take the Roso one and Runway one Niner when the controller said affirmative take the ros1 he meant use the ros1 arrival procedure although the crew thought he meant to go direct to Roso that&#39;s not a good idea because to proceed direct to Roso is the last point just before the runway and Roso is the last point before landing not the first point that you should be targeting and this miscommunication really dealt with the the pilot believing one thing and the air traffic controller believing another that was another Link in my view that was part of the error chain uh where are we the crew looks at at their at their charts in front of them and they see the fixed Roso and it is identified by the letter R so they naturally put R into the computer thinking it will take them directly to Roso the computer offers a list of RS to choose from but unbeknownst to the pilots none of them is Roso habit has shown and the system is designed to place the one that is closest to your airplane first and so here was an r that showed up first and he selected that a map display in front of the pilot shows the proposed course to the Waypoint he selected it will take the plane left into the mountains according to americ American Airlines procedure prior to executing an input such as this to select the r you confirm with the other pilot does this look correct to you 965 9,000 ft this clearly was not done if it had been they would have seen a dotted line showing a provisional path from the nose of the airplane turning and going back to about their 7:00 position Captain T y hastily presses the execute button in aviation we call that fast fingered Freddy when you don&#39;t confirm anything you&#39;re in a big hurry to punch something in the computer and you don&#39;t confirm where it&#39;s really going to take you yeah it&#39;s left the left turn yeah I got to identify that [ __ ] though unfortunately the crew does not know that R stands for another fix that is 132 miles away behind them at about their 7:00 position and that&#39;s where the airplane starts to go to the flight crew of American Airlines 965 has unwittingly directed their aircraft off its intended course and into mortal danger uh where are we the plane was simply doing what it was programmed to do in this case it&#39;s to fly to Bogata 130 miles away more than a minute into the turn the pilots are unaware that the plane is flying away from car and is heading dangerously off course the first officer is getting the charts out the captain&#39;s getting the charts out they&#39;re trying to tune radios no one&#39;s flying the airplane no one&#39;s watching what happens and they assume that the automation is going to take care of them sometimes it will but in this case it didn&#39;t uh where are we we&#39;re going out to let&#39;s go right to T Lua first of all okay yeah where we headed uh 177 ulq done what with the what what happened here there&#39;s an old saying in aviation never point an airplane someplace that your brain hasn&#39;t been 5 minutes earlier American 965 these things now uh what did you want sir distance DME in this case the airplane got in front of them it was flying what was selected and in fact it was flying in beyond the Pilot&#39;s recognition of where it was supposed to be traveling the pilots had lost what&#39;s referred to as situational awareness left turn so you want a left turn back around hell no let&#39;s press on press aw though Tua uh that&#39;s a right you once they became unsure of their position once they became confused and disoriented that&#39;s the time to click off the Automation and to basically uh abandon the approach climb to the minimum safe altitude and to and to go to Cali go to to Cali altitude instead of abandoning the approach and gaining altitude flight 965 continued its deadly descent when the warning sounded that the plane was about to crash into the ground first officer Williams disengaged the autopilot within 1 second but forgot to retract the speed brakes which had been deployed earlier 965 this is can you hear [Music] me according to the official report had they remembered to lower the speed brakes the plane could have cleared the mountain with room to spare this accident is known as a cfit accident which means controlled flight into terrain by that I mean the airplane was controlled by the crew and it was a perfectly normal functioning airplane and the crew flew the airplane into the mountain it&#39;s one of the leading causes of accidents of over the last 100 years and still is a problem both these Pilots were experienced Pilots flying the 757 for American Airlines and both these Pilots were good pilots and I think it&#39;s like anything else two good Pilots were LED astray by a problem that they were trying to figure out and at the time they failed to do the basic thing fly the airplane a court eventually ruled that the pilots of flight 965 had shown willful misconduct during the approach to kly airport Survivor Mercedes Ramirez who lost both her parents continues to deal with the crash I think this was a classic textbook case of everything you should not do when flying a plane hopefully it&#39;s a wake up called the pilots that no matter how many times you&#39;ve flown to a city you just have to be alert and aware because every little move that you make you have the lives of people in your hands that&#39;s

Transcript for:American Airlines Flight 965 Crash Analysis

Transcript for:
American Airlines Flight 965 Crash Analysis