Mayday (2013) s04e06 Episode Script
Panic over the Pacific
VOICEOVER: A 747 plummets towards the Pacific Ocean.
SCREAMING People just popped up like popcorn.
SCREAMING Engines one, two and three have lost thrust.
This airplane is totally out of control.
It is gonna crash.
In two minutes, China Airlines Flight 006 drops 10km through the clouds.
Air speed 270, 280, 290.
The plane begins to tear itself apart as it spirals towards the sea.
SCREAMING And I closed my eyes.
I thought I was gone.
Altitude 15,000ft.
12,000ft.
10,000ft.
Emergency! Emergency! February 19, 1985 - a China Airlines flight cruises across the Pacific to Los Angeles.
At 12,000 metres, it's racing towards the dawn.
For the passengers and crew on board, it's past midnight.
A two-man relief crew is in charge of the plane as it sails above the ocean on autopilot.
The main crew get several hours off in the middle of the trip so they're rested for the landing.
But Captain Min-Yuan Ho is restless.
(Sighs) Good morning, gentlemen.
Even though he's not officially on duty yet, Captain Ho returns to the cockpit.
(Sighs) Thought I'd keep you company.
The captain isn't the only one up.
Best friends Seksan Caniyo and Alex Knoll have something to celebrate.
I feel like I'm in first class! - It's Seksan's 30th birthday.
- Thank you.
I had the longest birthday because I gained my 12 hours back and we'd been drinking champagne, celebrating, 41,000ft in the air - you know, not too many people get to do that.
Bill Peacock IS in first class.
He's travelled all over the world for the American government.
There was nothing special.
It was a routine commercial flight.
I had a very nice first-class seat, sat there and read some books, went to sleep.
By now, the plane is nearing the coast of California.
WOMAN ON P.
A.
: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
We will shortly be serving you breakfast.
For those of you who wish to adjust your watches, the local time in Los Angeles is now 7am.
- Sleep well? - Very well, sir.
Thank you.
Good morning, captain.
After their five-hour break, the flight crew is reunited in the cockpit.
Soon after, the plane runs into some stiff winds.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.
We are experiencing some light air turbulence.
Please fasten your seatbelts.
The autopilot is set to keep the plane flying at 470km/hour but with the wind blowing hard, it's increasingly difficult to maintain the speed.
For the crew, the bumpy ride suddenly gets more worrying.
Engine four is giving us weak thrust.
There's a problem with one of the engines.
The flight engineer throttles up the engine .
.
but it doesn't respond.
We're losing speed.
In the cockpit, the strange situation suddenly gets much worse.
Engine four flamed out.
The fourth engine stops working completely.
Take a look at Engine Out procedures.
Work out a three-engine cruise altitude.
The problem with the fourth engine isn't a complete surprise.
At the pre-flight briefing, Captain Ho was told that a repair crew had worked on engine four before the flight.
Perhaps the engine still wasn't working properly.
We had a snag advisory on engine four before we took off.
- Yes, sir.
- Maybe that's it.
Without the fourth engine, the plane continues to slow down.
Air speed 240.
Call Oakland Centre and request a lower altitude.
Oakland Centre.
Dynasty 006 requesting new altitude.
Dynasty 006 stand by.
- (Sighs) Reignite engine four.
- Yes, captain.
At this altitude, there isn't much oxygen so the chances of a successful relight are slim.
No response, captain.
As the crew try to restart their engine, their plane slowly begins to roll to the right.
MAN ON RADIO: Dynasty 006, you're clear to flight 240.
We're banking right, captain.
Air speed 230.
As the plane continues to turn and slow down, it's in danger of stalling.
(Sighs) Altitude, hold off.
Nose down.
Hoping to increase his speed, Captain Ho tries pushing the plane's nose down.
Nothing the crew does seems to help.
Their jet is banking more and more steeply.
Dynasty Flight 006.
Oakland Centre.
How do you hear me? Air speed 220.
We're banking right, captain.
I'm disengaging autopilot.
(All scream) For the first time, Captain Ho takes manual control of the plane.
Seatbelts.
He struggles with the controls but the plane has veered into thick cloud and he can't see the horizon as he tries to keep his jet level.
I've lost ADI.
The ADIs have malfunctioned.
It's going out of limits.
Just minutes after their fourth engine stopped working, the China Airlines flight suddenly stalls and begins falling from the sky.
(All scream) People just popped up like popcorn, hitting the cabin andoh, the tray was flying.
Hot teapots, noodles and all the luggage in the compartments were hitting people.
You could hear rivets popping.
It sounded like bullets were hitting the outside of the aircraft.
We were out in the middle of the ocean.
Nobody was shooting at us.
At that time, we didn't know if we were going to live or die.
China Airlines Flight 006 is out of control and hurtling towards the ocean.
Dynasty 006.
Oakland Centre.
How do you hear me? The crew are stunned, blindsided by their jet's bizarre behaviour.
Engines one, two and three have lost thrust.
(Both grunt) No response.
Dynasty 006.
Oakland Centre.
How do you hear me? Air speed 270.
280.
290.
Dynasty 006.
Oakland Centre.
How do you hear me? Struggling against the plane's wild motion, the flight engineer tries again to restart his fourth engine.
Ignition negative.
The G forces are so powerful that the flight engineer is pinned to the control pedestal.
Dynasty 006.
Oakland Centre.
Do you copy? You need to see this.
In Oakland, Air Traffic Control spots the plane's sudden descent.
In a matter of seconds, the plane falls almost 3,000 metres.
Altitude 370, 360, 350.
In the cabin, the G forces are punishing.
SCREAMING And I closed my eyes.
I thought I was gone.
I thought the plane just blew up in the midair.
The plane is about to exceed its maximum speed.
Approaching BMO.
Tumbling madly through the clouds, the 747 finally starts to pull out of its nose dive.
As the plane rights itself, the G forces change direction.
The passengers are pressed to the floor, feeling five times their normal weight.
I remember looking over at this dignified older Chinese gentleman who was sitting across the aisle from me and his face was being contorted like this.
Like he was lying on his side in a wax museum in a fire.
I mean, his face was just all contorted.
As the crew struggles to regain control of the plane, it begins to slow down.
Air speed 180 knots and falling.
Dynasty 006.
Oakland Centre.
How do you read me? Air speed 140 knots and falling.
The jet is still dropping but not as fast.
This could be the crew's chance to regain control.
I knew we were really in trouble because G forces, instead of being horizontal, started moving around to the vertical so we were being pushed down into our seats instead of sideways.
As their speed continues to fall, the flight engineer reaches desperately for the engine throttles.
Air speed 80 knots and falling.
But the engines don't respond.
No response.
The engines are flamed out.
After tumbling 3,000 metres in 30 seconds, the jumbo jet plunges again into another free fall.
SCREAMING And the second time when it went down, this time it plunged.
I mean, it went down! The change is swift.
Once again, the passengers feel pulled towards the nose of the plane.
You know, this airplane is totally out of control.
It is gonna crash.
Stuff was sliding around and flying around and shoved to one side and then shoved to another side so it was kind of like being on a boat that gear has broken loose and it's just going back and forth with the waves.
Ugly.
My stomach was up to my throat.
You smell People were urinating in their pants.
II really made peace with the Lord and I said to myself, I said, "Do you know, I've really had a wonderful life.
"If this is the end, I'm ready to do it.
" 2-5-0.
Air speed 290.
As the plane spins towards the ocean, the air speed increases rapidly.
Dynasty 006 With the crew struggling to control the plane, six separate calls from Air Traffic Control go unanswered.
The stress of the dive tears the landing gear doors off the plane.
In less than a minute, the plane drops 6km.
- (Screams) Hold on! - Let's link arms! SEKSAN: He said, "I love you, man.
" I told him, "I love you, man.
" And we said goodbye to our wife and he said something about his belonging, always belonging to his wife.
Andand that's when we just start pushing our chair back together.
INSTRUMENTS BEEP Altitude, 15,000 feet.
With no visible horizon line, Captain Ho doesn't know which way is up.
Without a reference, he can't stop the plane from spinning.
Emergency! Emergency! Nearing the end of a trip across the Pacific Ocean China Airlines Flight 006 falls suddenly from the sky.
After blindly plunging thousands of metres, the plane finally breaks free from cloud.
And when this things was falling down, it looked like you have a magnifying glass and you went like that.
And all of a sudden the whitewater break be coming closer and closer, faster and faster.
It's likeincredible.
And we thought we were going to die.
- INSTRUMENTS BEEP - Altitude, 12,000 feet.
As he struggles for control, Captain Ho has only 30 seconds before his crippled plane smashes into the ocean.
SCREAMING I can see the horizon.
Altitude, 10,000 feet.
For the first time since beginning his harrowing descent, the captain can now use the horizon line as a reference in levelling the plane.
As he tries to pull the plane out of its dive, the passengers pay the price.
Their bodies are forced into their seats, battered by another dramatic change in direction.
(Passengers cry out) You know, the G-force was so strong.
Um, I weigh 200 pounds, so my weight was almost 1,200 pounds.
It's a race against time and the plane starts to win.
ADI's coming back.
As the plane finally begins to level, the attitude indicators return to normal.
ADI's coming in.
More importantly, as mysteriously as the incident began, three of the plane's engines regain power.
Engines one, two and three are coming back.
Engine four still negative.
Reignite engine four.
Yes, captain.
Once again the flight engineer tries to reignite the fourth engine, but this time Engine four reignited.
For the first time in minutes, the plane is flying under control.
They saved the airplane.
They pulled the airplane out of this acrobatic manoeuvre at an altitude of 9,500 feet.
They popped out of the clouds at 11,000 feet and they had the airplane in stable level flight by 9,500 feet.
That was a masterpiece of flying.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking.
(Sighs heavily) Is anyone hurt? Do we have a doctor on board? There's a gentleman was sitting behind me all splattered with blood from hitting the compartment.
So we kept flying.
Umnext thing I knew that the whole plane was quiet.
Real quiet.
Nobody talked very much.
The talk was whispering, because we don't know, we still don't know we're gonna live or die.
Dynasty 006 fell off my screen, but she's back now.
A new controller, Brian Campbell, has taken over control of Dynasty 006.
Dynasty 006, Oakland Centre.
Do you hear me? Can you fly the plane? 006, we are flying now.
We are Emergency.
We are 9,000.
9,000.
Roger.
Roger.
We have radar contact.
Oakland Centre, Dynasty 006, we're declaring an emergency.
We request a direct route to San Francisco.
Well, they cleared all the other airplanes out of the way.
They gave them clear runway, so nobody was waiting, nobody.
He didn't have to wait for anybody else.
He went straight in for a landing.
Dynasty 006, Oakland Centre, you are now clear.
You are free to descend at pilot's discretion.
Captain Ho not only has injuries on board, the plane itself has been severely damaged.
His rear elevators, which help control the altitude of the plane, don't seem to be working.
Without them, landing his jet safely will be extremely difficult.
The problem is it's a very big airplane and it responds very, very slowly and you just might not do it before you run out of air.
You might hit the ocean.
What you need is a very cool head.
Captain Ho must now land using varying amounts of engine thrust.
After pulling the plane out of its terrifying dive, if he makes one mistake, Flight 006 could still end in disaster.
(Passengers cheer and applaud) On the ground, the full extent of the damage to the plane can be seen.
I saw this enormous piece of extremely complicated machinery that is much larger than most buildings sitting there on the tarmac with bits ripped off it.
Parts of the entire tail plane at the end were ripped off, as though a tornado had come through or a crane had been in and ripped pieces out of it.
It was a very sobering experience.
It's clear why the crew had such a hard time landing the plane.
Enormous chunks of the tail are missing, either torn off by the stress of the dive or crushed when the landing gear doors broke lose.
If the damage had been much more severe, the crew wouldn't have been able to regain control of their jet.
Two dozen passengers have minor injuries.
Only one requires hospitalisation, but is soon released.
A near disaster was avoided.
But what had gone wrong in the first place? The cockpit voice recorder is sent to Washington, but it's designed to tape over itself every 30 minutes.
None of what happened in the cockpit during the terrifying plunge from the sky remains.
A record of the plane's instrument activity during the flight has been captured by the flight data recorder.
But, again, the team runs into a problem.
The flight data recorder experienced unprecedented stress during the dive.
There were electrical interruptions too, which caused gaps in the recording.
Investigators begin with what they do have.
Passengers and crew report that just before the failure of the jet's fourth engine, the plane flew through unexpected turbulence.
Had this caused the engine to fail? Satellite weather maps reveal that there was indeed heavy air turbulence over the Pacific.
But it wasn't severe enough to cause engine failure.
The jet's four engines are tested and studied.
Even after the horrific dive through the sky, they're found to be in working order.
However, given the previous history of problems with engine four, it receives particular scrutiny.
The wear on a small throttle valve trimmer is measured.
It's worn down by only 4/1000th of an inch but that's enough to restrict the fuel flow to engine four.
Engine four's not giving us good thrust.
Investigators determine that at 12,000m engine four did, indeed, deliver weaker than normal thrust.
It's known as a 'hung' engine.
The aircraft logbook reveals that engine four had been written up on two previous occasions, just the week before.
Perhaps the engine wasn't properly fixed, which led to the China Airlines mishap.
The NTSB decide to dig deeper into the history of maintenance on engine four.
We had a snag advisory on engine four before we took off.
- Yes, sir.
- Maybe that's it.
But after weeks of investigation, the NTSB concludes that the engine didn't need to be replaced.
All the repairs were done according to the book.
A faulty engine was not the cause of the accident.
And even with the loss of one engine, the plane shouldn't have been in immediate danger.
Engine four flamed out.
A 747 is designed to fly on only three engines.
There are standard procedures to follow in the case of an engine failure but the crew of the China Airlines flight hadn't followed them.
They tried to reignite the engine immediately, instead of descending.
Reignite engine four.
Yes, captain.
They attempted to restart much too high.
You are supposed to attempt to restart an engine only below 30,000 feet.
They were at 41,000.
What is a little curious to me is why they didn't use the normal relight procedure.
They were starting to try to relight the engine at altitude, and that would likely not relight.
No response, captain.
It's a mistake but it shouldn't have led to the plane spiralling out of control.
So how had a manageable problem turned into a near disaster? - I've lost ADI! - The ADIs have malfunctioned.
It's going out of limits! To get more information on what was happening in the cockpit, investigators interview the flight crew.
I heard the captain report the ADI was lost and then I saw the stand-by ADI was also going out of limits.
The crew tell investigators that their ADIs, which measure how level the plane is, weren't working.
They could have said, "This can't possibly be right.
" And looking at their indicators.
"Can't possibly be right and therefore they must have failed.
" MAN: The attitude indicator had indicated a position so implausible that it looked like it had to be a failed instrument.
This couldn't be what the plane was really doing.
But, in fact, when the ADIs are studied by the NTSB, they're all found to be perfectly normal.
When we started banking right, engine four was already flamed out.
We started to descend faster, and engines one, two and three also failed.
EQUIPMENT BEEPS Engines one, two and three have lost power! NTSB investigators are even more confused when the crew tells them that all of their engines had failed.
- No response, captain! - (Grunts) With the exception of engine four, the flight data recorder indicates that the other three engines were working the entire flight.
BEEPING CONTINUES - (Grunts) - Ignition negative! If the engines HAD all failed, there would have been a host of other problems such as cabin depressurisation - but that didn't happen.
ENGINES START UP Engines one, two and three are coming back.
Finally, when we descended lower in altitude, one, two and three came back and we were able to reignite engine number four.
Engine four reignited.
At the end of the dive, the crew had the plane under full power.
It was a remarkable recovery.
But to investigators, it's a puzzle.
The story the crew is telling doesn't match up with the evidence they've uncovered.
When the work is complete, there's only one conclusion - apart from a problem with a small valve, there was nothing wrong with the 747 before it plunged from the sky.
In fact, it was the crew that made a series of fateful decisions that almost crashed the plane.
Just after 10:00 Pacific time, engine four starts to lose thrust.
Engine four's giving us weak thrust.
The flight engineer struggles to fix the problem.
But investigators discover that he doesn't take one of the most basic steps he should have.
He leaves the engine's bleed air valve on.
The bleed air valve takes air generated by the engine to help cool the plane.
When an engine isn't working properly, the valve is supposed to be closed so the engine can use all available air to restart.
Unwittingly, the flight engineer has started a ticking clock.
Engine four is slowly losing its ability to stay lit.
We're losing speed.
With more engine power on the left wing than the right, the China Airlines flight begins turning.
In order to keep it from turning to the right, the proper thing to do would have been to step on the rudder.
That would have produced a twisting force, so to speak, that would have overcome the imbalance of the engines.
But instead of adjusting the rudder himself, Captain Ho continues to let the autopilot fly the jet.
The autopilot is designed not to move the rudder.
The autopilot can adjust the ailerons and spoilers on the plane's wings.
But these flaps aren't strong enough to overcome the imbalance that the plane is experiencing.
Without the help of the rudder, the plane's turn becomes steeper and steeper.
Investigators discover that after losing power to his fourth engine, Captain Ho continues to leave the autopilot on.
He doesn't take complete control of the plane.
He doesn't adjust the plane's rudder with his left foot.
Air speed 240.
The plane enters a critical moment.
It's about to flip on its side and enter a nosedive.
The NTSB believes that the captain was concentrating on his airspeed indicator, but seemingly fails to notice the instrument directly beside it - his attitude indicator.
This instrument would have warned him that his plane was starting to roll alarmingly to the right.
During the plane's nosedive, it flies through thick cloud.
With no visual horizon as a reference, the flight crew must trust their instruments to level the plane.
I've lost ADI.
Instead, what investigators believe happened is that the crew became spatially disoriented.
They decided that their instruments were failing.
They simply didn't believe what they were seeing.
And they thought they had lost their attitude instruments.
They hadn't lost their attitude instruments.
The airplane was in fact embarking on an aerobatic manoeuvre.
The most probable reason for all three crew members believing something so unlikely as that all attitude indicators could malfunction in the same way at the same time is that the way in which they malfunctioned was so unexpected and strange that it didn't seem to correspond to any possible thing that the airplane could be doing.
The airplane had in fact rolled over on its back and gone into a vertical dive, and that's something that Boeing 747s don't typically do.
As the plane begins tumbling towards the ocean, another critical lapse in judgment occurs.
The stand-by ADI was also going out of limits.
I tried to restart During interviews, the flight engineer told the NTSB that all three of the plane's working engines failed.
We started to descend faster, and engines one, two and three also failed.
But the flight data recorder shows that, in fact, they were still working.
In the heat of the crisis, the engineer had made an enormous mistake.
Engines one, two and three have lost pow! The investigation reveals that as the plane fell, the thrust in each engine was indeed reduced dramatically.
But the cause wasn't engine trouble.
The engine throttles had been lowered to 'idle' in an attempt to slow the furious fall of the jet.
It was something the engineer missed in the chaos of the dive.
You can understand why the flight engineer might have been confused about this situation if he had not seen the captain pull the power to idle on the engines.
He would reasonably assume that the fact that they went to idle was a problem, rather than intentional.
Investigators also believe that they know why the engines didn't give the crew more power when the engineer tried to throttle them up.
The cold temperatures at 9,000m would stop them from responding quickly.
No response, captain! But in the heat of the moment, the engineer could have taken their slow response as another indication that they failed.
The NTSB discovers that, indeed, gauges in the generator panel behind the engineer show that the three engines were still firing Ignition negative! .
.
but the gravitational force became so powerful the engineer couldn't look back.
After months of painstaking recreation, the NTSB investigators believe they understand what happened inside the cockpit of China Airlines flight 006.
But what they don't understand is why.
The crew's medical records are examined.
Was there something wrong with the captain that might explain the bizarre behaviour? Nothing turns up.
You know, it wasn't just the Three Stooges who, you know, won a trip on a 747 or something.
It was a trained crew - highly experienced, thousands of hours.
How could an experienced crew make so many fundamental mistakes? The investigators find the answers in the hours before the incident.
What they uncover is a potential danger that affects pilots around the world.
The NTSB team decides to examine all of the factors affecting human behaviour, including a new field of research.
For the first time, as far as I know, in a report, the circadian rhythms, the biorhythms, the day and night functioning of the body, was seriously taken into account as a possible explanation of why an extremely experienced Boeing 747 captain didn't notice things that to other pilots might have seemed obvious, such as the fact that his aeroplane was busy flipping on his back when he was attempting to deal with an engine problem.
Although Captain Ho had the required 15 hours off duty before flying that day, the NTSB investigators take a closer look at the captain's schedule before the night of the flight.
I do not think I was fatigued.
I can't say I slept well during the flight, but This accident occurred at what would be about 2:00am, local time.
And that's pretty significant.
Most people are asleep around 2:00am.
So this incident occurred at a point in hiswhat we'd call 'circadian rhythms' - in his body clock - where he would be at his deepest sleep.
I remember also, he had gone back There we a crew rest area on the 747.
He said he'd rested for five hours and slept for two, but Another thing I remember from his interview was he said, "You never really sleep well on the airplane.
" A captain never sleep well during a flight.
I work for many years for this airline, but I never have this problem before.
That seemed like a very true statement.
You know, it's hard to get a really solid sleep on the airplane, particularly if you're a person in command, as he was.
So, putting it all together, we saw this was an experienced crew, a qualified crew.
And they were flying on a schedule that would make them susceptible to some of the negative or adverse effects of fatigue.
During six flights in the previous six days, Captain Ho had covered a total of 18 time zones.
(Sighs) Thought I'd keep you company.
The NTSB research suggests that desynchronosis - or jet lag - may have been a cause.
I think all these factors certainly would have contributed to his being, uh, performing to less than his full potential at the time.
Investigators also take a closer look at the very machinery that is supposed to make long-distance flying easier.
Take a look at Engine Out procedures.
Work out a three-engine cruise altitude.
Yes, captain.
We have people in the front of airplanes because we believe that in circumstances which nobody has foreseen, the human being in the front of the airplane can react creatively, can solve a problem that nobody has thought about before, in realtime.
And automation CAN'T solve problems that nobody has thought about before in realtime in quite the same way.
The NTSB concludes that, possibly fatigued from air travel and bored by the monotony of his tasks We're banking right, captain.
I'm disengaging autopilot.
.
.
the captain relied on his autopilot for too long.
When he should have taken direct control, he hesitated, trusting his systems.
That is obviously a failure.
The crew didn't behave as they should have behaved.
Pilot error.
As a result of the China Airlines near-mishap and other incidents around the same time, aircraft manufacturers began to rethink the design of their automated systems.
The idea of the automation is that it's going to help the human do the human's job.
It's going to help the human take the airplane from the gate to the gate at the other end, and it's going to help along the way.
Boeing makes use of this particular incident to say, "We still want the crew to have full authority, "so that they can move the controls "as far as it's physically possible to move them "and to manage the airplane - "even if it may bend the airplane, "as it is better to do that than to restrict the pilot's authority "and then have him guess whether or not "he's in charge or the computer's in charge.
" Whatever mistakes the flight crew made that day, they did succeed in their ultimate task.
They flew the airplane well.
They did an excellent job with the approach afterward.
They, uh, were careful with the airplane.
They knew the airplane had been damaged.
They didn't know the severity of it.
They were gentle with the manoeuvring and yet tested enough to make sure that they wouldn't get themselves in further trouble as they made the approach to landing.
The one big thing they did right - and one only ever needs to do one big thing - is they saved the airplane.
And, in principle, that's all you ever need to do right when something happens to your airplane.
You need to save the airplane and you need to save the passengers, and that's what they did.
How can you forget something like that? ThatI survived through that.
So it's hard for me to forget that I was lucky and it wasn't my time yet.
The pilot saved our lives.
He got us into it, but he got us out of it.
And perhaps there was one other hero that day - the Boeing 747 itself.
It was put through manoeuvres and stresses that far outweighed its known limits.
And yet, despite it all, the aircraft survived and landed safely.
Supertext Captions by the Australian Caption Centre
SCREAMING People just popped up like popcorn.
SCREAMING Engines one, two and three have lost thrust.
This airplane is totally out of control.
It is gonna crash.
In two minutes, China Airlines Flight 006 drops 10km through the clouds.
Air speed 270, 280, 290.
The plane begins to tear itself apart as it spirals towards the sea.
SCREAMING And I closed my eyes.
I thought I was gone.
Altitude 15,000ft.
12,000ft.
10,000ft.
Emergency! Emergency! February 19, 1985 - a China Airlines flight cruises across the Pacific to Los Angeles.
At 12,000 metres, it's racing towards the dawn.
For the passengers and crew on board, it's past midnight.
A two-man relief crew is in charge of the plane as it sails above the ocean on autopilot.
The main crew get several hours off in the middle of the trip so they're rested for the landing.
But Captain Min-Yuan Ho is restless.
(Sighs) Good morning, gentlemen.
Even though he's not officially on duty yet, Captain Ho returns to the cockpit.
(Sighs) Thought I'd keep you company.
The captain isn't the only one up.
Best friends Seksan Caniyo and Alex Knoll have something to celebrate.
I feel like I'm in first class! - It's Seksan's 30th birthday.
- Thank you.
I had the longest birthday because I gained my 12 hours back and we'd been drinking champagne, celebrating, 41,000ft in the air - you know, not too many people get to do that.
Bill Peacock IS in first class.
He's travelled all over the world for the American government.
There was nothing special.
It was a routine commercial flight.
I had a very nice first-class seat, sat there and read some books, went to sleep.
By now, the plane is nearing the coast of California.
WOMAN ON P.
A.
: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
We will shortly be serving you breakfast.
For those of you who wish to adjust your watches, the local time in Los Angeles is now 7am.
- Sleep well? - Very well, sir.
Thank you.
Good morning, captain.
After their five-hour break, the flight crew is reunited in the cockpit.
Soon after, the plane runs into some stiff winds.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.
We are experiencing some light air turbulence.
Please fasten your seatbelts.
The autopilot is set to keep the plane flying at 470km/hour but with the wind blowing hard, it's increasingly difficult to maintain the speed.
For the crew, the bumpy ride suddenly gets more worrying.
Engine four is giving us weak thrust.
There's a problem with one of the engines.
The flight engineer throttles up the engine .
.
but it doesn't respond.
We're losing speed.
In the cockpit, the strange situation suddenly gets much worse.
Engine four flamed out.
The fourth engine stops working completely.
Take a look at Engine Out procedures.
Work out a three-engine cruise altitude.
The problem with the fourth engine isn't a complete surprise.
At the pre-flight briefing, Captain Ho was told that a repair crew had worked on engine four before the flight.
Perhaps the engine still wasn't working properly.
We had a snag advisory on engine four before we took off.
- Yes, sir.
- Maybe that's it.
Without the fourth engine, the plane continues to slow down.
Air speed 240.
Call Oakland Centre and request a lower altitude.
Oakland Centre.
Dynasty 006 requesting new altitude.
Dynasty 006 stand by.
- (Sighs) Reignite engine four.
- Yes, captain.
At this altitude, there isn't much oxygen so the chances of a successful relight are slim.
No response, captain.
As the crew try to restart their engine, their plane slowly begins to roll to the right.
MAN ON RADIO: Dynasty 006, you're clear to flight 240.
We're banking right, captain.
Air speed 230.
As the plane continues to turn and slow down, it's in danger of stalling.
(Sighs) Altitude, hold off.
Nose down.
Hoping to increase his speed, Captain Ho tries pushing the plane's nose down.
Nothing the crew does seems to help.
Their jet is banking more and more steeply.
Dynasty Flight 006.
Oakland Centre.
How do you hear me? Air speed 220.
We're banking right, captain.
I'm disengaging autopilot.
(All scream) For the first time, Captain Ho takes manual control of the plane.
Seatbelts.
He struggles with the controls but the plane has veered into thick cloud and he can't see the horizon as he tries to keep his jet level.
I've lost ADI.
The ADIs have malfunctioned.
It's going out of limits.
Just minutes after their fourth engine stopped working, the China Airlines flight suddenly stalls and begins falling from the sky.
(All scream) People just popped up like popcorn, hitting the cabin andoh, the tray was flying.
Hot teapots, noodles and all the luggage in the compartments were hitting people.
You could hear rivets popping.
It sounded like bullets were hitting the outside of the aircraft.
We were out in the middle of the ocean.
Nobody was shooting at us.
At that time, we didn't know if we were going to live or die.
China Airlines Flight 006 is out of control and hurtling towards the ocean.
Dynasty 006.
Oakland Centre.
How do you hear me? The crew are stunned, blindsided by their jet's bizarre behaviour.
Engines one, two and three have lost thrust.
(Both grunt) No response.
Dynasty 006.
Oakland Centre.
How do you hear me? Air speed 270.
280.
290.
Dynasty 006.
Oakland Centre.
How do you hear me? Struggling against the plane's wild motion, the flight engineer tries again to restart his fourth engine.
Ignition negative.
The G forces are so powerful that the flight engineer is pinned to the control pedestal.
Dynasty 006.
Oakland Centre.
Do you copy? You need to see this.
In Oakland, Air Traffic Control spots the plane's sudden descent.
In a matter of seconds, the plane falls almost 3,000 metres.
Altitude 370, 360, 350.
In the cabin, the G forces are punishing.
SCREAMING And I closed my eyes.
I thought I was gone.
I thought the plane just blew up in the midair.
The plane is about to exceed its maximum speed.
Approaching BMO.
Tumbling madly through the clouds, the 747 finally starts to pull out of its nose dive.
As the plane rights itself, the G forces change direction.
The passengers are pressed to the floor, feeling five times their normal weight.
I remember looking over at this dignified older Chinese gentleman who was sitting across the aisle from me and his face was being contorted like this.
Like he was lying on his side in a wax museum in a fire.
I mean, his face was just all contorted.
As the crew struggles to regain control of the plane, it begins to slow down.
Air speed 180 knots and falling.
Dynasty 006.
Oakland Centre.
How do you read me? Air speed 140 knots and falling.
The jet is still dropping but not as fast.
This could be the crew's chance to regain control.
I knew we were really in trouble because G forces, instead of being horizontal, started moving around to the vertical so we were being pushed down into our seats instead of sideways.
As their speed continues to fall, the flight engineer reaches desperately for the engine throttles.
Air speed 80 knots and falling.
But the engines don't respond.
No response.
The engines are flamed out.
After tumbling 3,000 metres in 30 seconds, the jumbo jet plunges again into another free fall.
SCREAMING And the second time when it went down, this time it plunged.
I mean, it went down! The change is swift.
Once again, the passengers feel pulled towards the nose of the plane.
You know, this airplane is totally out of control.
It is gonna crash.
Stuff was sliding around and flying around and shoved to one side and then shoved to another side so it was kind of like being on a boat that gear has broken loose and it's just going back and forth with the waves.
Ugly.
My stomach was up to my throat.
You smell People were urinating in their pants.
II really made peace with the Lord and I said to myself, I said, "Do you know, I've really had a wonderful life.
"If this is the end, I'm ready to do it.
" 2-5-0.
Air speed 290.
As the plane spins towards the ocean, the air speed increases rapidly.
Dynasty 006 With the crew struggling to control the plane, six separate calls from Air Traffic Control go unanswered.
The stress of the dive tears the landing gear doors off the plane.
In less than a minute, the plane drops 6km.
- (Screams) Hold on! - Let's link arms! SEKSAN: He said, "I love you, man.
" I told him, "I love you, man.
" And we said goodbye to our wife and he said something about his belonging, always belonging to his wife.
Andand that's when we just start pushing our chair back together.
INSTRUMENTS BEEP Altitude, 15,000 feet.
With no visible horizon line, Captain Ho doesn't know which way is up.
Without a reference, he can't stop the plane from spinning.
Emergency! Emergency! Nearing the end of a trip across the Pacific Ocean China Airlines Flight 006 falls suddenly from the sky.
After blindly plunging thousands of metres, the plane finally breaks free from cloud.
And when this things was falling down, it looked like you have a magnifying glass and you went like that.
And all of a sudden the whitewater break be coming closer and closer, faster and faster.
It's likeincredible.
And we thought we were going to die.
- INSTRUMENTS BEEP - Altitude, 12,000 feet.
As he struggles for control, Captain Ho has only 30 seconds before his crippled plane smashes into the ocean.
SCREAMING I can see the horizon.
Altitude, 10,000 feet.
For the first time since beginning his harrowing descent, the captain can now use the horizon line as a reference in levelling the plane.
As he tries to pull the plane out of its dive, the passengers pay the price.
Their bodies are forced into their seats, battered by another dramatic change in direction.
(Passengers cry out) You know, the G-force was so strong.
Um, I weigh 200 pounds, so my weight was almost 1,200 pounds.
It's a race against time and the plane starts to win.
ADI's coming back.
As the plane finally begins to level, the attitude indicators return to normal.
ADI's coming in.
More importantly, as mysteriously as the incident began, three of the plane's engines regain power.
Engines one, two and three are coming back.
Engine four still negative.
Reignite engine four.
Yes, captain.
Once again the flight engineer tries to reignite the fourth engine, but this time Engine four reignited.
For the first time in minutes, the plane is flying under control.
They saved the airplane.
They pulled the airplane out of this acrobatic manoeuvre at an altitude of 9,500 feet.
They popped out of the clouds at 11,000 feet and they had the airplane in stable level flight by 9,500 feet.
That was a masterpiece of flying.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking.
(Sighs heavily) Is anyone hurt? Do we have a doctor on board? There's a gentleman was sitting behind me all splattered with blood from hitting the compartment.
So we kept flying.
Umnext thing I knew that the whole plane was quiet.
Real quiet.
Nobody talked very much.
The talk was whispering, because we don't know, we still don't know we're gonna live or die.
Dynasty 006 fell off my screen, but she's back now.
A new controller, Brian Campbell, has taken over control of Dynasty 006.
Dynasty 006, Oakland Centre.
Do you hear me? Can you fly the plane? 006, we are flying now.
We are Emergency.
We are 9,000.
9,000.
Roger.
Roger.
We have radar contact.
Oakland Centre, Dynasty 006, we're declaring an emergency.
We request a direct route to San Francisco.
Well, they cleared all the other airplanes out of the way.
They gave them clear runway, so nobody was waiting, nobody.
He didn't have to wait for anybody else.
He went straight in for a landing.
Dynasty 006, Oakland Centre, you are now clear.
You are free to descend at pilot's discretion.
Captain Ho not only has injuries on board, the plane itself has been severely damaged.
His rear elevators, which help control the altitude of the plane, don't seem to be working.
Without them, landing his jet safely will be extremely difficult.
The problem is it's a very big airplane and it responds very, very slowly and you just might not do it before you run out of air.
You might hit the ocean.
What you need is a very cool head.
Captain Ho must now land using varying amounts of engine thrust.
After pulling the plane out of its terrifying dive, if he makes one mistake, Flight 006 could still end in disaster.
(Passengers cheer and applaud) On the ground, the full extent of the damage to the plane can be seen.
I saw this enormous piece of extremely complicated machinery that is much larger than most buildings sitting there on the tarmac with bits ripped off it.
Parts of the entire tail plane at the end were ripped off, as though a tornado had come through or a crane had been in and ripped pieces out of it.
It was a very sobering experience.
It's clear why the crew had such a hard time landing the plane.
Enormous chunks of the tail are missing, either torn off by the stress of the dive or crushed when the landing gear doors broke lose.
If the damage had been much more severe, the crew wouldn't have been able to regain control of their jet.
Two dozen passengers have minor injuries.
Only one requires hospitalisation, but is soon released.
A near disaster was avoided.
But what had gone wrong in the first place? The cockpit voice recorder is sent to Washington, but it's designed to tape over itself every 30 minutes.
None of what happened in the cockpit during the terrifying plunge from the sky remains.
A record of the plane's instrument activity during the flight has been captured by the flight data recorder.
But, again, the team runs into a problem.
The flight data recorder experienced unprecedented stress during the dive.
There were electrical interruptions too, which caused gaps in the recording.
Investigators begin with what they do have.
Passengers and crew report that just before the failure of the jet's fourth engine, the plane flew through unexpected turbulence.
Had this caused the engine to fail? Satellite weather maps reveal that there was indeed heavy air turbulence over the Pacific.
But it wasn't severe enough to cause engine failure.
The jet's four engines are tested and studied.
Even after the horrific dive through the sky, they're found to be in working order.
However, given the previous history of problems with engine four, it receives particular scrutiny.
The wear on a small throttle valve trimmer is measured.
It's worn down by only 4/1000th of an inch but that's enough to restrict the fuel flow to engine four.
Engine four's not giving us good thrust.
Investigators determine that at 12,000m engine four did, indeed, deliver weaker than normal thrust.
It's known as a 'hung' engine.
The aircraft logbook reveals that engine four had been written up on two previous occasions, just the week before.
Perhaps the engine wasn't properly fixed, which led to the China Airlines mishap.
The NTSB decide to dig deeper into the history of maintenance on engine four.
We had a snag advisory on engine four before we took off.
- Yes, sir.
- Maybe that's it.
But after weeks of investigation, the NTSB concludes that the engine didn't need to be replaced.
All the repairs were done according to the book.
A faulty engine was not the cause of the accident.
And even with the loss of one engine, the plane shouldn't have been in immediate danger.
Engine four flamed out.
A 747 is designed to fly on only three engines.
There are standard procedures to follow in the case of an engine failure but the crew of the China Airlines flight hadn't followed them.
They tried to reignite the engine immediately, instead of descending.
Reignite engine four.
Yes, captain.
They attempted to restart much too high.
You are supposed to attempt to restart an engine only below 30,000 feet.
They were at 41,000.
What is a little curious to me is why they didn't use the normal relight procedure.
They were starting to try to relight the engine at altitude, and that would likely not relight.
No response, captain.
It's a mistake but it shouldn't have led to the plane spiralling out of control.
So how had a manageable problem turned into a near disaster? - I've lost ADI! - The ADIs have malfunctioned.
It's going out of limits! To get more information on what was happening in the cockpit, investigators interview the flight crew.
I heard the captain report the ADI was lost and then I saw the stand-by ADI was also going out of limits.
The crew tell investigators that their ADIs, which measure how level the plane is, weren't working.
They could have said, "This can't possibly be right.
" And looking at their indicators.
"Can't possibly be right and therefore they must have failed.
" MAN: The attitude indicator had indicated a position so implausible that it looked like it had to be a failed instrument.
This couldn't be what the plane was really doing.
But, in fact, when the ADIs are studied by the NTSB, they're all found to be perfectly normal.
When we started banking right, engine four was already flamed out.
We started to descend faster, and engines one, two and three also failed.
EQUIPMENT BEEPS Engines one, two and three have lost power! NTSB investigators are even more confused when the crew tells them that all of their engines had failed.
- No response, captain! - (Grunts) With the exception of engine four, the flight data recorder indicates that the other three engines were working the entire flight.
BEEPING CONTINUES - (Grunts) - Ignition negative! If the engines HAD all failed, there would have been a host of other problems such as cabin depressurisation - but that didn't happen.
ENGINES START UP Engines one, two and three are coming back.
Finally, when we descended lower in altitude, one, two and three came back and we were able to reignite engine number four.
Engine four reignited.
At the end of the dive, the crew had the plane under full power.
It was a remarkable recovery.
But to investigators, it's a puzzle.
The story the crew is telling doesn't match up with the evidence they've uncovered.
When the work is complete, there's only one conclusion - apart from a problem with a small valve, there was nothing wrong with the 747 before it plunged from the sky.
In fact, it was the crew that made a series of fateful decisions that almost crashed the plane.
Just after 10:00 Pacific time, engine four starts to lose thrust.
Engine four's giving us weak thrust.
The flight engineer struggles to fix the problem.
But investigators discover that he doesn't take one of the most basic steps he should have.
He leaves the engine's bleed air valve on.
The bleed air valve takes air generated by the engine to help cool the plane.
When an engine isn't working properly, the valve is supposed to be closed so the engine can use all available air to restart.
Unwittingly, the flight engineer has started a ticking clock.
Engine four is slowly losing its ability to stay lit.
We're losing speed.
With more engine power on the left wing than the right, the China Airlines flight begins turning.
In order to keep it from turning to the right, the proper thing to do would have been to step on the rudder.
That would have produced a twisting force, so to speak, that would have overcome the imbalance of the engines.
But instead of adjusting the rudder himself, Captain Ho continues to let the autopilot fly the jet.
The autopilot is designed not to move the rudder.
The autopilot can adjust the ailerons and spoilers on the plane's wings.
But these flaps aren't strong enough to overcome the imbalance that the plane is experiencing.
Without the help of the rudder, the plane's turn becomes steeper and steeper.
Investigators discover that after losing power to his fourth engine, Captain Ho continues to leave the autopilot on.
He doesn't take complete control of the plane.
He doesn't adjust the plane's rudder with his left foot.
Air speed 240.
The plane enters a critical moment.
It's about to flip on its side and enter a nosedive.
The NTSB believes that the captain was concentrating on his airspeed indicator, but seemingly fails to notice the instrument directly beside it - his attitude indicator.
This instrument would have warned him that his plane was starting to roll alarmingly to the right.
During the plane's nosedive, it flies through thick cloud.
With no visual horizon as a reference, the flight crew must trust their instruments to level the plane.
I've lost ADI.
Instead, what investigators believe happened is that the crew became spatially disoriented.
They decided that their instruments were failing.
They simply didn't believe what they were seeing.
And they thought they had lost their attitude instruments.
They hadn't lost their attitude instruments.
The airplane was in fact embarking on an aerobatic manoeuvre.
The most probable reason for all three crew members believing something so unlikely as that all attitude indicators could malfunction in the same way at the same time is that the way in which they malfunctioned was so unexpected and strange that it didn't seem to correspond to any possible thing that the airplane could be doing.
The airplane had in fact rolled over on its back and gone into a vertical dive, and that's something that Boeing 747s don't typically do.
As the plane begins tumbling towards the ocean, another critical lapse in judgment occurs.
The stand-by ADI was also going out of limits.
I tried to restart During interviews, the flight engineer told the NTSB that all three of the plane's working engines failed.
We started to descend faster, and engines one, two and three also failed.
But the flight data recorder shows that, in fact, they were still working.
In the heat of the crisis, the engineer had made an enormous mistake.
Engines one, two and three have lost pow! The investigation reveals that as the plane fell, the thrust in each engine was indeed reduced dramatically.
But the cause wasn't engine trouble.
The engine throttles had been lowered to 'idle' in an attempt to slow the furious fall of the jet.
It was something the engineer missed in the chaos of the dive.
You can understand why the flight engineer might have been confused about this situation if he had not seen the captain pull the power to idle on the engines.
He would reasonably assume that the fact that they went to idle was a problem, rather than intentional.
Investigators also believe that they know why the engines didn't give the crew more power when the engineer tried to throttle them up.
The cold temperatures at 9,000m would stop them from responding quickly.
No response, captain! But in the heat of the moment, the engineer could have taken their slow response as another indication that they failed.
The NTSB discovers that, indeed, gauges in the generator panel behind the engineer show that the three engines were still firing Ignition negative! .
.
but the gravitational force became so powerful the engineer couldn't look back.
After months of painstaking recreation, the NTSB investigators believe they understand what happened inside the cockpit of China Airlines flight 006.
But what they don't understand is why.
The crew's medical records are examined.
Was there something wrong with the captain that might explain the bizarre behaviour? Nothing turns up.
You know, it wasn't just the Three Stooges who, you know, won a trip on a 747 or something.
It was a trained crew - highly experienced, thousands of hours.
How could an experienced crew make so many fundamental mistakes? The investigators find the answers in the hours before the incident.
What they uncover is a potential danger that affects pilots around the world.
The NTSB team decides to examine all of the factors affecting human behaviour, including a new field of research.
For the first time, as far as I know, in a report, the circadian rhythms, the biorhythms, the day and night functioning of the body, was seriously taken into account as a possible explanation of why an extremely experienced Boeing 747 captain didn't notice things that to other pilots might have seemed obvious, such as the fact that his aeroplane was busy flipping on his back when he was attempting to deal with an engine problem.
Although Captain Ho had the required 15 hours off duty before flying that day, the NTSB investigators take a closer look at the captain's schedule before the night of the flight.
I do not think I was fatigued.
I can't say I slept well during the flight, but This accident occurred at what would be about 2:00am, local time.
And that's pretty significant.
Most people are asleep around 2:00am.
So this incident occurred at a point in hiswhat we'd call 'circadian rhythms' - in his body clock - where he would be at his deepest sleep.
I remember also, he had gone back There we a crew rest area on the 747.
He said he'd rested for five hours and slept for two, but Another thing I remember from his interview was he said, "You never really sleep well on the airplane.
" A captain never sleep well during a flight.
I work for many years for this airline, but I never have this problem before.
That seemed like a very true statement.
You know, it's hard to get a really solid sleep on the airplane, particularly if you're a person in command, as he was.
So, putting it all together, we saw this was an experienced crew, a qualified crew.
And they were flying on a schedule that would make them susceptible to some of the negative or adverse effects of fatigue.
During six flights in the previous six days, Captain Ho had covered a total of 18 time zones.
(Sighs) Thought I'd keep you company.
The NTSB research suggests that desynchronosis - or jet lag - may have been a cause.
I think all these factors certainly would have contributed to his being, uh, performing to less than his full potential at the time.
Investigators also take a closer look at the very machinery that is supposed to make long-distance flying easier.
Take a look at Engine Out procedures.
Work out a three-engine cruise altitude.
Yes, captain.
We have people in the front of airplanes because we believe that in circumstances which nobody has foreseen, the human being in the front of the airplane can react creatively, can solve a problem that nobody has thought about before, in realtime.
And automation CAN'T solve problems that nobody has thought about before in realtime in quite the same way.
The NTSB concludes that, possibly fatigued from air travel and bored by the monotony of his tasks We're banking right, captain.
I'm disengaging autopilot.
.
.
the captain relied on his autopilot for too long.
When he should have taken direct control, he hesitated, trusting his systems.
That is obviously a failure.
The crew didn't behave as they should have behaved.
Pilot error.
As a result of the China Airlines near-mishap and other incidents around the same time, aircraft manufacturers began to rethink the design of their automated systems.
The idea of the automation is that it's going to help the human do the human's job.
It's going to help the human take the airplane from the gate to the gate at the other end, and it's going to help along the way.
Boeing makes use of this particular incident to say, "We still want the crew to have full authority, "so that they can move the controls "as far as it's physically possible to move them "and to manage the airplane - "even if it may bend the airplane, "as it is better to do that than to restrict the pilot's authority "and then have him guess whether or not "he's in charge or the computer's in charge.
" Whatever mistakes the flight crew made that day, they did succeed in their ultimate task.
They flew the airplane well.
They did an excellent job with the approach afterward.
They, uh, were careful with the airplane.
They knew the airplane had been damaged.
They didn't know the severity of it.
They were gentle with the manoeuvring and yet tested enough to make sure that they wouldn't get themselves in further trouble as they made the approach to landing.
The one big thing they did right - and one only ever needs to do one big thing - is they saved the airplane.
And, in principle, that's all you ever need to do right when something happens to your airplane.
You need to save the airplane and you need to save the passengers, and that's what they did.
How can you forget something like that? ThatI survived through that.
So it's hard for me to forget that I was lucky and it wasn't my time yet.
The pilot saved our lives.
He got us into it, but he got us out of it.
And perhaps there was one other hero that day - the Boeing 747 itself.
It was put through manoeuvres and stresses that far outweighed its known limits.
And yet, despite it all, the aircraft survived and landed safely.
Supertext Captions by the Australian Caption Centre