Mayday (2013) s02e05 Episode Script
Lost
ENGINE WHINES American 965, leaving 23 NARRATOR: In 1995, only days before Christmas, an American Airlines Boeing 757 is on its final approach to Cali, Colombia.
Cali approach, American 965.
The pilots are calm and relaxed.
They don't know they've made a terrible mistake.
ALARM BLARES Oh, shit! Pull up, baby! In complete darkness, the jet, carrying 163 passengers and crew, is heading into mortal danger.
Up, baby! More, more! Up, up, up! ENGINE ROARS Flight 965 crashed into a 9,000 foot 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 mountain? THEME MUSIC On 20 December 1995, American Airlines Flight 965 is preparing to depart Miami International Airport.
Its destination is Cali, Colombia.
Flight 965 is scheduled to leave at 4.
40pm but has already been delayed for 30 minutes at the gate to allow for connecting passengers.
Surely, they're going to call us any second now.
The Dussans only just made it.
In Miami, they tell us that we have to rush because the plane is going to leave to Cali very soon.
Mercedes Ramirez, along with her mother and father, managed to get on the flight at the last minute.
We were on stand-by so we weren't sure our names were going to be called to get on that flight.
We heard our names and we were excited because, like, "Yes! We got on the flight.
" Flight 965 finally leaves the gate at 5.
14pm, 34 minutes late, but the problems are not over yet.
As they taxi towards the runway, the tower informs informs them of yet another delay.
TOWER: American 965, stand by.
Heavy seasonal traffic clogs the runways and they are forced to wait another hour and 20 minutes on the tarmac.
We're ready.
TOWER: American 965 Finally, two hours late, flight 965 is cleared for take-off.
Fly the runway heading, clear for take-off.
Merry Christmas, cleared for take-off, 27 right, American 965.
You do a great job, goodnight.
Captain Nicholas Tafuri, aged 57, is in charge of Flight 965.
He is one of American Airlines' premier pilots, with more than 13,000 hours of flying experience, over 2,000 of them in the 757.
He had flown to Cali only six days earlier.
200the headingclimb to 16.
TOWER: That's 16, American 965.
At the controls is first officer Donny R.
Williams, aged 39.
Although he has been flying for American for nine years, Flight 965 is his first trip to Cali.
It is the holiday season and the plane is filled with passengers starting their Christmas celebrations.
The day of the flight, 20 December, is a very special day for passenger Mercedes Ramirez.
Mercedes is a university student from Missouri.
It is her 21st birthday and this trip is a gift from her parents.
Since we flew stand-by I couldn't sit with both my mum 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, about my age, in the aisle seat, and then my father was in another row behind us.
So nothing out of the ordinary at all, just a normal flight.
19-year-old Morissio Rayez is sitting beside Mercedes' mother.
Rayez is a student at the University of Michigan.
Gonzalo Dussan and his wife, Nancy, and their two children, Michelle and Gonzalo Jr, are seated nearby.
ENGINE WHINES Two hours and 45 minutes into the flight, the plane is cruising at an altitude of 37,000 feet and on a pre-programmed flight path and heading towards Cali's airport.
36 miles.
They are flying a Boeing 757, a state-of-the-art airplane equipped with highly sophisticated computer systems.
When programmed with the appropriate data, the on board computer, known as the flight management system, can control the aircraft from take-off to landing.
It can be a pilot's best friend, or in the case of Flight 965 .
.
their worst nightmare.
An awkward moment an hour before their scheduled arrival in Cali makes Mercedes Ramirez change seats.
My mother had been talking to the college student next to her and I think she was trying to kind of set me up with him, because she kept on saying, "My daughter's in college, "and my daughter's this, and my daughter's that.
" So I was very embarrassed.
So I got up from my seat and moved to the row behind us and I sat with my father.
The seemingly trivial decision will prove to be her lifesaver.
It is a clear, moonless night, with visibility more than six miles.
.
.
and that's just how it works.
Captain Tafuri is now getting concerned about their arrival time in Cali.
Debrief, one-hour sign in - and we can't move that up at all because 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 Cali and not able to leave on time tomorrow.
Gonzalo Dussan's children quarrel over the window seat, not knowing that the consequences will be dire.
I remember I told them before Cali, when the plane started to lose altitude, so we are 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 the mountains with different colours, lights and everything.
Then they start to fight for the window side.
I was fighting with my brother, Gonzalo.
We were fighting for the window.
Let your sister have a chance by the window.
And I'm like, "I want to see, I want to see the lights, "I want to see the airport.
" And he got mad.
Go sit with your cousin.
Good boy, Gonzalo.
Take a look at the lights.
We're almost there.
Michelle, can you see the lights? In 30 seconds, the pilots will make the first of a series of mistakes which will result in the death of nearly everyone on board.
American Airlines Flight 965 is on its final descent, roughly 63 miles from Cali.
Cali's Aragon 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 feet.
It is a formidable sight.
To guide the plane on its proper pre-programmed flight path the aircraft must pass over a series of waypoints.
These are generally radio beacons at fixed positions along the route.
The plane's 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 Tulua.
Tulua is a radio beacon at the head of the valley which leads to Cali.
After passing Tulua they should fly down the valley and pass over the final waypoint called Rozo.
Then they fly past the airport, turn right and land from the south.
You can see it really well.
CAPTAIN TAFURI: Cali approach, American 965.
American 965.
Good evening, go ahead.
Buenas noches, senor.
American 965 Cali 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, American 965 is cleared to Cali.
Descend and maintain 15,000 feet, altimeter 3002.
Report, Tulua.
Okay, understood.
Clear direct to Cali VOR, report Tulua.
Affirmative.
It's a misunderstanding.
Captain Tafuri thinks he is being told to fly direct to Cali and forget all about Tulua, but the controller needs him to report when he passes Tulua so that he knows where the plane is.
(speaks Spanish) TRANSLATOR: To me, the word "directly" means he was authorised to go directly to Cali, that there was no delay.
Therefore, he had to inform us of his position in Tulua because we don't have radar.
I needed him to inform me of that exact location.
Tafuri punches "direct to Cali" in his computer.
Since the plane no longer has to pass over them, all the waypoints between his present position and Cali will now be erased, including Tulua, the one he is now approaching.
I put "direct Cali" for you in there.
Okay, thank you.
Flight attendants, please, prepare for landing, thank you.
11 minutes before their estimated time of arrival Niner-six-five, go ahead, please.
Sir, the wind is calm.
.
.
Air traffic control asks the flight crew if they would like to land on runway 19 Want to shoot the 19 straight in? .
.
instead of their planned approach to runway 01.
We'll have to scramble to get down.
We can do it.
Yes, sir.
We'll need a lower altitude right away, though.
Roger.
American 965 is cleared to VOR DME.
Okay.
The pilots are pleased.
Runway 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 are raised they reduce lift and increase the plane's rate of descent.
Approach runway one-niner.
Rozo No.
1 arrival.
Report Tulua VOR.
This split-second decision to land on runway 19 sets off a chain of events that will end in disaster.
Will report VOR, thank you, sir.
Report Tulua, VOR.
Report Tulua.
I gotta give you to Tulua first of all.
You want to go right to Cali or to Tulua? I thought he said the Rozo one arrival? 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 19, enter the new route into the computer and still fly the plane.
And Tulua one, Rozo, yeah, there it is.
See, that comes off Tulua.
That are getting totally confused.
The controller keeps asking them to report when they have passed Tulua, but having erased it from their computer, they have no idea where it is.
Captain Tafuri asks the tower if they can forget Tulua and fly directly to Rozo, their last waypoint before the runway.
Can American Airlines 965 go direct to Rozo and then do the Rozo arrival, sir? Affirmative, take the Rozo one and runway one-niner.
The wind is calm.
Alright, Rozo.
The Rozo 1219, thank you, American 965.
Report Tulua 21 miles and 5,000 feet.
Okay, report Tulua 21 miles The controller is still asking them to report passing the Tulua beacon.
Without radar, he doesn't realise they are already past it and are speeding down the valley towards the airport.
Captain Tafuri now makes another fateful decision.
Having decided they are going to head for the Rozo 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, Rozo, would be top of the list, but tonight, it's not.
Captain Tafuri doesn't notice .
.
and pushes the execute button.
At over 300 miles per hour, 1,300 feet per minute, Flight 965 begins to veer off on a new and deadly course.
In the cockpit of Flight 965, the pilots are completely unaware of what they have done.
They are 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 Tafuri and First Officer Williams suddenly notice their aircraft is taking them somewhere they don't want to go.
Let's go right to Tulua first of all, okay.
Yeah, where are we headed? 17, 7.
Captain Tafuri is floundering in the pitch darkness.
If he could only find the Tulua waypoint he could get his bearings.
He switches from one computer system to another and then manually enters the radio frequency for the Tulua beacon.
Okay, I'm getting it.
17.
7 just doesn't seem right on mine.
I don't know why.
Left turn.
So you want a left turn back around to ULQ? No.
Hell, no.
Let's press on to Press on to where, though? Tulua.
Hopelessly lost and less than two minutes from impact, Tafuri decides to press on with his doomed approach.
Let's go to Cali, first of all, okay? 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 are now in another valley, parallel with the one they should be flying down.
Okay now - I can put it in the box if - I don't want Tulua.
Let's just go to the extended centre line.
- Which is Rozo.
- Rozo.
Why don't you just go direct to Rozo then, alright? Okay.
I'm going to put that over to you.
They decide to give up on Tulua and make straight for the airport.
They don't realise that there is now a wall of mountains between them and Cali.
Niner-six-five, altitude? - 965, 9,000 feet.
- Roger.
Distance now? Shit! The plane's ground proximity warning system is telling them they are about to crash.
965, this is Cali approach, can you hear me? TRANSLATOR: He didn't answer.
He never answered again.
Easy does it, easy does it! I could feel that we were just violentlyjust going up.
ENGINE ROARS And I felt like I was in a roller-coaster ride or something.
The turbulence was absolutely horrible and by that time, people were screaming and everybody knew on the flight that something was very wrong.
COCKPIT WARNING: Terrain.
- ALARM BLARES - Easy does it! Easy does it! Up baby! Instinctively, I reached over and I grabbed my father's hand and I put my head in my lap.
In my mind I just kept thinking, "Come on, straighten it out, straighten it out.
" Up baby! More, more! Up, up, up! AIRCRAFT RUMBLES These were the last words on the cockpit voice recorder.
ENGINE WHINES SOMBRE MUSIC American 965, this is Cali approach.
Can you hear me? At 9.
42pm on its final approach to runway 19 American 965, can you hear me? .
.
American Airlines Flight 965 seemingly vanishes without a trace.
American 965, this is Cali approach.
Can you hear me? (speaks Spanish) TRANSLATOR: I never experienced anything like this before.
This was the first time that I lost a plane 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.
Moments after the plane's scheduled arrival, airport monitors indicate a seven-minute delay.
Friends and family wait with anticipation for the arrival of their loved ones.
As the revised arrival time comes and goes, rumours 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 terminal.
PHONE RINGS Locals living near the town of Buga, north of Cali, report hearing a massive explosion.
SIRENS WAIL Rescue teams race to the town, which lies near the base of a mountain range that stretches as high as 10,000 feet.
It is now 3am, almost six hours after the crash.
The first elements of the search and rescue team are trekking up the side of El Deluvio mountain.
They are no roads, it is completely cut off.
In the midst of tonnes 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 I see the sunlight around me and I don't know where I am and what's around me looks 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 me! 19-year-old college student Morissio Rayez also survives the impact and responds to Mercedes' cry for help.
Can you move? Um, I can try.
I'm not sure, my leg is bent backwards.
- Okay.
- Please, help.
Okay, hold on.
Hold on.
(grunts) Can you move? Can you stand up? - I think my leg is broken.
- We'll try.
- Okay.
- One, three, three.
(screams) No, I can't! When he lifted me was the first time I actually felt pain.
It just felt like an electrical current going up and down my leg.
So he laid me back down and then he went off to try to find help.
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 equipment.
On the ground, rescue teams which had been climbing throughout the night are approaching the summit of El Deluvio.
Help me! Someone, please, help me! Daddy, I'm here.
Papa! Michelle? Gonzalo Dussan's six-year-old daughter Michelle, still strapped in her seat, answers her father's desperate call for help.
Keep talking to me, okay? Michelle, please, I'm coming.
Where are you? Dussan struggles to crawl through the broken and twisted cabin to reach his daughter, but she's pinned beneath the wreckage.
Ow, ow! My leg hurts.
I'm going to get some water for you soon and bring it back, okay? And then I tried to crawl more to tried to get out.
Despite a severe back injury, Dussan manages to crawl towards a small open section of the fuselage.
Help us! Over here! Help us! When I get out of the fuselage of the plane, I remember my son talked to me.
Gonzalo! He say, "Father, Father, help me.
" Gonzalo.
Gonzalo.
Despite a desperate search, Gonzalo Dussan is unable to locate his son amongst the wreckage.
Gonzalo! Realising there is 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, Michelle? 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 death.
Michelle! Shortly after daybreak, the crew of a Black Hawk chopper spot the crash site.
- Over here! - Here! I could see the helicopters perfectly from where I was at and even though I could see them perfectly, I didn't know if they could see me.
(shouts) More than eight 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 rescue us after so many hours of being stuck on the side of that mountain.
So seeing them was one of the greatest things ever.
They came and they threw a rope and the people started to descend, and, you know, I was so happy because I feel then that they are going to help us.
The first thing I told them - "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 him.
"And my daughter is alive," I told them.
"She's inside, she's inside the fuselage.
" 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 nearby tree.
He has been suspended in the air above the crash site for more than eight hours.
His condition is grave.
Morissio Rayez is the first to be airlifted off the mountain.
But low cloud cover grounds the chopper and delays the removal of the remaining survivors.
Fearing that Michelle Dussan may not survive the wait, 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 Dussan 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 Dussan is the last survivor to emerge from the jungle of El Deluvio 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's any medical explanation or scientific explanation, there is no explanation that out of 159 people that were .
.
strong and, like, tough, that me, a 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.
How could one of the most technologically advanced aircraft in the world crash into the side of a mountain? There is never one single item that - or error - that typically brings an airplane down.
There is an error of chain.
And the chain is made up of many links.
The airplane was en 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-niner? Would you like shoot the 19 straight in? Ahyeah, we'll have to scramble to get down.
We can do it.
When they first accepted the approach, the first officer remarked, "That we do get need to get down in a hurry "in order to accomplish this.
" Yes, sir, we'll need a lower altitude right away, though.
At the time the crew accepted the approach to runway 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 final segment of the flight.
The fact that they accepted that runway put the crew in a rushed and hurried manner.
Tulua first of all.
Go right to Cali or Tulua? I thought he said the Rozo one arrival? 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 five 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 are rushed and in a hurry, and scrambling, they then make a dangerous request.
Can American Airlines 965 go direct to Rozo and then do the Rozo arrival, sir? Affirmative.
Take the Rozo one and runway one-niner.
When the controller said, "Affirmative, take the Rozo one," he meant use the Rozo one arrival procedure, although the crew thought he meant to go direct to Rozo.
That's not a good idea, because to proceed direct to Rozo is the last point just before the runway.
And Rozo is the last point before landing, not the first point that you should be targeting.
This miscommunication really dealt with 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.
Where are we? The crew looks at their charts in front of them and they see the fix "Rozo" and it is identified by the letter "R" so they naturally put "R" into the computer, thinking it will take them directly to Rozo.
The computer offers a list of Rs to choose from, but unbeknownst to the pilots, none of them is Rozo.
Habit has shown, and the system is designed, to place the one that is closest to your airplane first.
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 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 feet.
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 o'clock position.
Captain Tafuri 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.
Unfortunately, the crew does not know that 'R' stands for another fix that is 132 miles away behind them at about their 7 o'clock position, and that is 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.
Ah, where are we? The plane was simply doing what it was programmed to do.
In this case, it is to fly to Bogota 130 miles away.
More than a minute into the turn, the pilots are unaware the plane is flying away from Cali and is heading dangerously off course.
The first officer is getting the charts out, the captain is getting the charts out, they are trying to tune radios, no-one is flying the airplane, no-one is watching what happens and they assume the automation is going to take care of them.
Sometimes it will, but in this case, it didn't.
Ah, where are we? Let's go right to Tulua first of all, okay? Yeah, where are we headed? 17.
7.
(mutters) There's an old saying in aviation - never point an airplane some place that your brain hasn't been five minutes earlier.
American 965, distance now? 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 beyond the pilot's recognition of where it was supposed to be travelling.
The pilots had lost what's referred to as "situational awareness".
Left turn, so you want a left turn back? - No! Hell, no, let's press on to - Press on where, though? - Tulua.
- That's a right? 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 abandon the approach, climb to the minimum safe altitude and to go to Cali.
Let's go toah, straight to Cali.
Niner-six-five, altitude? Instead of abandoning the approach and gaining altitude, Flight 965 continued its deadly descent.
ALARM BLARES When the warning sounded that the plane was about to crash into the ground, First Officer Williams disengaged the autopilot within one second, but forgot to retract the speed brakes which had been deployed earlier.
965, this is Cali approach.
Can you hear me? ENGINE ROARS 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 over the last 100 years and still is a problem.
Both these pilots were experienced pilots, flying the 757 for American Airlines.
Both these pilots were good pilots.
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 showed wilful misconduct during the approach to Cali Airport.
Survivor Mercedes Ramirez, who lost both her parents, continues to deal with the crash.
Cali approach, American 965.
The pilots are calm and relaxed.
They don't know they've made a terrible mistake.
ALARM BLARES Oh, shit! Pull up, baby! In complete darkness, the jet, carrying 163 passengers and crew, is heading into mortal danger.
Up, baby! More, more! Up, up, up! ENGINE ROARS Flight 965 crashed into a 9,000 foot 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 mountain? THEME MUSIC On 20 December 1995, American Airlines Flight 965 is preparing to depart Miami International Airport.
Its destination is Cali, Colombia.
Flight 965 is scheduled to leave at 4.
40pm but has already been delayed for 30 minutes at the gate to allow for connecting passengers.
Surely, they're going to call us any second now.
The Dussans only just made it.
In Miami, they tell us that we have to rush because the plane is going to leave to Cali very soon.
Mercedes Ramirez, along with her mother and father, managed to get on the flight at the last minute.
We were on stand-by so we weren't sure our names were going to be called to get on that flight.
We heard our names and we were excited because, like, "Yes! We got on the flight.
" Flight 965 finally leaves the gate at 5.
14pm, 34 minutes late, but the problems are not over yet.
As they taxi towards the runway, the tower informs informs them of yet another delay.
TOWER: American 965, stand by.
Heavy seasonal traffic clogs the runways and they are forced to wait another hour and 20 minutes on the tarmac.
We're ready.
TOWER: American 965 Finally, two hours late, flight 965 is cleared for take-off.
Fly the runway heading, clear for take-off.
Merry Christmas, cleared for take-off, 27 right, American 965.
You do a great job, goodnight.
Captain Nicholas Tafuri, aged 57, is in charge of Flight 965.
He is one of American Airlines' premier pilots, with more than 13,000 hours of flying experience, over 2,000 of them in the 757.
He had flown to Cali only six days earlier.
200the headingclimb to 16.
TOWER: That's 16, American 965.
At the controls is first officer Donny R.
Williams, aged 39.
Although he has been flying for American for nine years, Flight 965 is his first trip to Cali.
It is the holiday season and the plane is filled with passengers starting their Christmas celebrations.
The day of the flight, 20 December, is a very special day for passenger Mercedes Ramirez.
Mercedes is a university student from Missouri.
It is her 21st birthday and this trip is a gift from her parents.
Since we flew stand-by I couldn't sit with both my mum 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, about my age, in the aisle seat, and then my father was in another row behind us.
So nothing out of the ordinary at all, just a normal flight.
19-year-old Morissio Rayez is sitting beside Mercedes' mother.
Rayez is a student at the University of Michigan.
Gonzalo Dussan and his wife, Nancy, and their two children, Michelle and Gonzalo Jr, are seated nearby.
ENGINE WHINES Two hours and 45 minutes into the flight, the plane is cruising at an altitude of 37,000 feet and on a pre-programmed flight path and heading towards Cali's airport.
36 miles.
They are flying a Boeing 757, a state-of-the-art airplane equipped with highly sophisticated computer systems.
When programmed with the appropriate data, the on board computer, known as the flight management system, can control the aircraft from take-off to landing.
It can be a pilot's best friend, or in the case of Flight 965 .
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their worst nightmare.
An awkward moment an hour before their scheduled arrival in Cali makes Mercedes Ramirez change seats.
My mother had been talking to the college student next to her and I think she was trying to kind of set me up with him, because she kept on saying, "My daughter's in college, "and my daughter's this, and my daughter's that.
" So I was very embarrassed.
So I got up from my seat and moved to the row behind us and I sat with my father.
The seemingly trivial decision will prove to be her lifesaver.
It is a clear, moonless night, with visibility more than six miles.
.
.
and that's just how it works.
Captain Tafuri is now getting concerned about their arrival time in Cali.
Debrief, one-hour sign in - and we can't move that up at all because 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 Cali and not able to leave on time tomorrow.
Gonzalo Dussan's children quarrel over the window seat, not knowing that the consequences will be dire.
I remember I told them before Cali, when the plane started to lose altitude, so we are 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 the mountains with different colours, lights and everything.
Then they start to fight for the window side.
I was fighting with my brother, Gonzalo.
We were fighting for the window.
Let your sister have a chance by the window.
And I'm like, "I want to see, I want to see the lights, "I want to see the airport.
" And he got mad.
Go sit with your cousin.
Good boy, Gonzalo.
Take a look at the lights.
We're almost there.
Michelle, can you see the lights? In 30 seconds, the pilots will make the first of a series of mistakes which will result in the death of nearly everyone on board.
American Airlines Flight 965 is on its final descent, roughly 63 miles from Cali.
Cali's Aragon 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 feet.
It is a formidable sight.
To guide the plane on its proper pre-programmed flight path the aircraft must pass over a series of waypoints.
These are generally radio beacons at fixed positions along the route.
The plane's 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 Tulua.
Tulua is a radio beacon at the head of the valley which leads to Cali.
After passing Tulua they should fly down the valley and pass over the final waypoint called Rozo.
Then they fly past the airport, turn right and land from the south.
You can see it really well.
CAPTAIN TAFURI: Cali approach, American 965.
American 965.
Good evening, go ahead.
Buenas noches, senor.
American 965 Cali 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, American 965 is cleared to Cali.
Descend and maintain 15,000 feet, altimeter 3002.
Report, Tulua.
Okay, understood.
Clear direct to Cali VOR, report Tulua.
Affirmative.
It's a misunderstanding.
Captain Tafuri thinks he is being told to fly direct to Cali and forget all about Tulua, but the controller needs him to report when he passes Tulua so that he knows where the plane is.
(speaks Spanish) TRANSLATOR: To me, the word "directly" means he was authorised to go directly to Cali, that there was no delay.
Therefore, he had to inform us of his position in Tulua because we don't have radar.
I needed him to inform me of that exact location.
Tafuri punches "direct to Cali" in his computer.
Since the plane no longer has to pass over them, all the waypoints between his present position and Cali will now be erased, including Tulua, the one he is now approaching.
I put "direct Cali" for you in there.
Okay, thank you.
Flight attendants, please, prepare for landing, thank you.
11 minutes before their estimated time of arrival Niner-six-five, go ahead, please.
Sir, the wind is calm.
.
.
Air traffic control asks the flight crew if they would like to land on runway 19 Want to shoot the 19 straight in? .
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instead of their planned approach to runway 01.
We'll have to scramble to get down.
We can do it.
Yes, sir.
We'll need a lower altitude right away, though.
Roger.
American 965 is cleared to VOR DME.
Okay.
The pilots are pleased.
Runway 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 are raised they reduce lift and increase the plane's rate of descent.
Approach runway one-niner.
Rozo No.
1 arrival.
Report Tulua VOR.
This split-second decision to land on runway 19 sets off a chain of events that will end in disaster.
Will report VOR, thank you, sir.
Report Tulua, VOR.
Report Tulua.
I gotta give you to Tulua first of all.
You want to go right to Cali or to Tulua? I thought he said the Rozo one arrival? 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 19, enter the new route into the computer and still fly the plane.
And Tulua one, Rozo, yeah, there it is.
See, that comes off Tulua.
That are getting totally confused.
The controller keeps asking them to report when they have passed Tulua, but having erased it from their computer, they have no idea where it is.
Captain Tafuri asks the tower if they can forget Tulua and fly directly to Rozo, their last waypoint before the runway.
Can American Airlines 965 go direct to Rozo and then do the Rozo arrival, sir? Affirmative, take the Rozo one and runway one-niner.
The wind is calm.
Alright, Rozo.
The Rozo 1219, thank you, American 965.
Report Tulua 21 miles and 5,000 feet.
Okay, report Tulua 21 miles The controller is still asking them to report passing the Tulua beacon.
Without radar, he doesn't realise they are already past it and are speeding down the valley towards the airport.
Captain Tafuri now makes another fateful decision.
Having decided they are going to head for the Rozo 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, Rozo, would be top of the list, but tonight, it's not.
Captain Tafuri doesn't notice .
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and pushes the execute button.
At over 300 miles per hour, 1,300 feet per minute, Flight 965 begins to veer off on a new and deadly course.
In the cockpit of Flight 965, the pilots are completely unaware of what they have done.
They are 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 Tafuri and First Officer Williams suddenly notice their aircraft is taking them somewhere they don't want to go.
Let's go right to Tulua first of all, okay.
Yeah, where are we headed? 17, 7.
Captain Tafuri is floundering in the pitch darkness.
If he could only find the Tulua waypoint he could get his bearings.
He switches from one computer system to another and then manually enters the radio frequency for the Tulua beacon.
Okay, I'm getting it.
17.
7 just doesn't seem right on mine.
I don't know why.
Left turn.
So you want a left turn back around to ULQ? No.
Hell, no.
Let's press on to Press on to where, though? Tulua.
Hopelessly lost and less than two minutes from impact, Tafuri decides to press on with his doomed approach.
Let's go to Cali, first of all, okay? 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 are now in another valley, parallel with the one they should be flying down.
Okay now - I can put it in the box if - I don't want Tulua.
Let's just go to the extended centre line.
- Which is Rozo.
- Rozo.
Why don't you just go direct to Rozo then, alright? Okay.
I'm going to put that over to you.
They decide to give up on Tulua and make straight for the airport.
They don't realise that there is now a wall of mountains between them and Cali.
Niner-six-five, altitude? - 965, 9,000 feet.
- Roger.
Distance now? Shit! The plane's ground proximity warning system is telling them they are about to crash.
965, this is Cali approach, can you hear me? TRANSLATOR: He didn't answer.
He never answered again.
Easy does it, easy does it! I could feel that we were just violentlyjust going up.
ENGINE ROARS And I felt like I was in a roller-coaster ride or something.
The turbulence was absolutely horrible and by that time, people were screaming and everybody knew on the flight that something was very wrong.
COCKPIT WARNING: Terrain.
- ALARM BLARES - Easy does it! Easy does it! Up baby! Instinctively, I reached over and I grabbed my father's hand and I put my head in my lap.
In my mind I just kept thinking, "Come on, straighten it out, straighten it out.
" Up baby! More, more! Up, up, up! AIRCRAFT RUMBLES These were the last words on the cockpit voice recorder.
ENGINE WHINES SOMBRE MUSIC American 965, this is Cali approach.
Can you hear me? At 9.
42pm on its final approach to runway 19 American 965, can you hear me? .
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American Airlines Flight 965 seemingly vanishes without a trace.
American 965, this is Cali approach.
Can you hear me? (speaks Spanish) TRANSLATOR: I never experienced anything like this before.
This was the first time that I lost a plane 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.
Moments after the plane's scheduled arrival, airport monitors indicate a seven-minute delay.
Friends and family wait with anticipation for the arrival of their loved ones.
As the revised arrival time comes and goes, rumours 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 terminal.
PHONE RINGS Locals living near the town of Buga, north of Cali, report hearing a massive explosion.
SIRENS WAIL Rescue teams race to the town, which lies near the base of a mountain range that stretches as high as 10,000 feet.
It is now 3am, almost six hours after the crash.
The first elements of the search and rescue team are trekking up the side of El Deluvio mountain.
They are no roads, it is completely cut off.
In the midst of tonnes of twisted and torn metal .
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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 I see the sunlight around me and I don't know where I am and what's around me looks 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 me! 19-year-old college student Morissio Rayez also survives the impact and responds to Mercedes' cry for help.
Can you move? Um, I can try.
I'm not sure, my leg is bent backwards.
- Okay.
- Please, help.
Okay, hold on.
Hold on.
(grunts) Can you move? Can you stand up? - I think my leg is broken.
- We'll try.
- Okay.
- One, three, three.
(screams) No, I can't! When he lifted me was the first time I actually felt pain.
It just felt like an electrical current going up and down my leg.
So he laid me back down and then he went off to try to find help.
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 equipment.
On the ground, rescue teams which had been climbing throughout the night are approaching the summit of El Deluvio.
Help me! Someone, please, help me! Daddy, I'm here.
Papa! Michelle? Gonzalo Dussan's six-year-old daughter Michelle, still strapped in her seat, answers her father's desperate call for help.
Keep talking to me, okay? Michelle, please, I'm coming.
Where are you? Dussan struggles to crawl through the broken and twisted cabin to reach his daughter, but she's pinned beneath the wreckage.
Ow, ow! My leg hurts.
I'm going to get some water for you soon and bring it back, okay? And then I tried to crawl more to tried to get out.
Despite a severe back injury, Dussan manages to crawl towards a small open section of the fuselage.
Help us! Over here! Help us! When I get out of the fuselage of the plane, I remember my son talked to me.
Gonzalo! He say, "Father, Father, help me.
" Gonzalo.
Gonzalo.
Despite a desperate search, Gonzalo Dussan is unable to locate his son amongst the wreckage.
Gonzalo! Realising there is 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, Michelle? 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 death.
Michelle! Shortly after daybreak, the crew of a Black Hawk chopper spot the crash site.
- Over here! - Here! I could see the helicopters perfectly from where I was at and even though I could see them perfectly, I didn't know if they could see me.
(shouts) More than eight 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 rescue us after so many hours of being stuck on the side of that mountain.
So seeing them was one of the greatest things ever.
They came and they threw a rope and the people started to descend, and, you know, I was so happy because I feel then that they are going to help us.
The first thing I told them - "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 him.
"And my daughter is alive," I told them.
"She's inside, she's inside the fuselage.
" 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 nearby tree.
He has been suspended in the air above the crash site for more than eight hours.
His condition is grave.
Morissio Rayez is the first to be airlifted off the mountain.
But low cloud cover grounds the chopper and delays the removal of the remaining survivors.
Fearing that Michelle Dussan may not survive the wait, 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 Dussan 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 Dussan is the last survivor to emerge from the jungle of El Deluvio 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's any medical explanation or scientific explanation, there is no explanation that out of 159 people that were .
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strong and, like, tough, that me, a 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.
How could one of the most technologically advanced aircraft in the world crash into the side of a mountain? There is never one single item that - or error - that typically brings an airplane down.
There is an error of chain.
And the chain is made up of many links.
The airplane was en 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-niner? Would you like shoot the 19 straight in? Ahyeah, we'll have to scramble to get down.
We can do it.
When they first accepted the approach, the first officer remarked, "That we do get need to get down in a hurry "in order to accomplish this.
" Yes, sir, we'll need a lower altitude right away, though.
At the time the crew accepted the approach to runway 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 final segment of the flight.
The fact that they accepted that runway put the crew in a rushed and hurried manner.
Tulua first of all.
Go right to Cali or Tulua? I thought he said the Rozo one arrival? 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 five 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 are rushed and in a hurry, and scrambling, they then make a dangerous request.
Can American Airlines 965 go direct to Rozo and then do the Rozo arrival, sir? Affirmative.
Take the Rozo one and runway one-niner.
When the controller said, "Affirmative, take the Rozo one," he meant use the Rozo one arrival procedure, although the crew thought he meant to go direct to Rozo.
That's not a good idea, because to proceed direct to Rozo is the last point just before the runway.
And Rozo is the last point before landing, not the first point that you should be targeting.
This miscommunication really dealt with 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.
Where are we? The crew looks at their charts in front of them and they see the fix "Rozo" and it is identified by the letter "R" so they naturally put "R" into the computer, thinking it will take them directly to Rozo.
The computer offers a list of Rs to choose from, but unbeknownst to the pilots, none of them is Rozo.
Habit has shown, and the system is designed, to place the one that is closest to your airplane first.
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 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 feet.
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 o'clock position.
Captain Tafuri 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.
Unfortunately, the crew does not know that 'R' stands for another fix that is 132 miles away behind them at about their 7 o'clock position, and that is 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.
Ah, where are we? The plane was simply doing what it was programmed to do.
In this case, it is to fly to Bogota 130 miles away.
More than a minute into the turn, the pilots are unaware the plane is flying away from Cali and is heading dangerously off course.
The first officer is getting the charts out, the captain is getting the charts out, they are trying to tune radios, no-one is flying the airplane, no-one is watching what happens and they assume the automation is going to take care of them.
Sometimes it will, but in this case, it didn't.
Ah, where are we? Let's go right to Tulua first of all, okay? Yeah, where are we headed? 17.
7.
(mutters) There's an old saying in aviation - never point an airplane some place that your brain hasn't been five minutes earlier.
American 965, distance now? 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 beyond the pilot's recognition of where it was supposed to be travelling.
The pilots had lost what's referred to as "situational awareness".
Left turn, so you want a left turn back? - No! Hell, no, let's press on to - Press on where, though? - Tulua.
- That's a right? 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 abandon the approach, climb to the minimum safe altitude and to go to Cali.
Let's go toah, straight to Cali.
Niner-six-five, altitude? Instead of abandoning the approach and gaining altitude, Flight 965 continued its deadly descent.
ALARM BLARES When the warning sounded that the plane was about to crash into the ground, First Officer Williams disengaged the autopilot within one second, but forgot to retract the speed brakes which had been deployed earlier.
965, this is Cali approach.
Can you hear me? ENGINE ROARS 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 over the last 100 years and still is a problem.
Both these pilots were experienced pilots, flying the 757 for American Airlines.
Both these pilots were good pilots.
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 showed wilful misconduct during the approach to Cali Airport.
Survivor Mercedes Ramirez, who lost both her parents, continues to deal with the crash.