WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.399 Picture this. It's just a few days before Christmas nineteen 2 00:00:03.480 --> 00:00:04.080 ninety nine. 3 00:00:04.440 --> 00:00:06.679 A pretty cozy timmy, right, super cozy. 4 00:00:06.719 --> 00:00:09.240 You're in this quiet little village called Great Hollingbury, just 5 00:00:09.279 --> 00:00:12.240 north of London, and imagine a man named Gary Dan. 6 00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:14.919 He's standing in his living room handing out presents to 7 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:18.440 his family. The tree is lit, it's a freezing, crystal 8 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:20.079 clear winter night outside. 9 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:22.320 Sounds perfectly idyllic, it really is. 10 00:00:22.559 --> 00:00:26.839 But then this sound starts vibrating through the floorboards, just 11 00:00:27.039 --> 00:00:30.679 a deafening mechanical roar that builds so fast and so 12 00:00:30.879 --> 00:00:33.320 loud it feels like it's going to tear the chimney 13 00:00:33.399 --> 00:00:34.200 right off the roof. 14 00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:37.439 Oh wow, it's that kind of guttural, low frequency sound 15 00:00:37.439 --> 00:00:40.359 that just bypasses logic, you know, Yeah, it triggers pure 16 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:42.200 instinctual panic exactly. 17 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:44.880 So Gary runs to the window, presses his face against 18 00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:47.399 the cold glass, and looks out into the freezing night, 19 00:00:47.759 --> 00:00:51.520 and what he sees just defies belief. A massive Boeing 20 00:00:51.679 --> 00:00:55.359 seven forty seven cargo plane is right there, practically skimming 21 00:00:55.359 --> 00:00:56.759 the tree tops of his neighborhood. 22 00:00:56.840 --> 00:00:57.399 Unbelievable. 23 00:00:57.439 --> 00:01:00.640 Yeah, it's banking violently to the left with vieral flames 24 00:01:00.640 --> 00:01:03.079 shooting out of the engine exhausts. I mean, before his 25 00:01:03.159 --> 00:01:06.519 brain can even process the impossible physics of a jumbo 26 00:01:06.599 --> 00:01:10.519 jet in his backyard, it just vanishes behind the tree line. 27 00:01:10.159 --> 00:01:13.560 Followed immediately by an earth shattering impact that lights up 28 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:14.680 the entire horizon. 29 00:01:14.959 --> 00:01:18.200 Right Gary and his brother run out of their house 30 00:01:18.280 --> 00:01:21.959 into the pitch black woods, sprinting toward this massive plume 31 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:25.920 of smoke. Aviation fuel is just popping and exploding in 32 00:01:25.959 --> 00:01:28.680 the canopy above them. They push through the brush and 33 00:01:28.719 --> 00:01:30.599 find themselves standing at the edge. 34 00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:32.840 Of an abyss just total devastation. 35 00:01:32.439 --> 00:01:36.079 A crater thirty feet deep and glowing with fires carved 36 00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:39.719 directly into the English countryside. Wreckage is scattered over half 37 00:01:39.719 --> 00:01:42.920 a mile. They're shouting into the darkness like hello, can 38 00:01:42.959 --> 00:01:44.959 anybody hear me? But all they get back is the 39 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:46.079 crackle of burning pine. 40 00:01:46.200 --> 00:01:48.519 That is just chilling, It really is. 41 00:01:49.159 --> 00:01:51.239 So How does a state of the art seven forty 42 00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:56.040 seven flown by four highly trained aviation professionals fall out 43 00:01:56.079 --> 00:01:59.079 of the sky less than sixty seconds after taking off 44 00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:02.439 from Stanstad Airport? That is our mission in this deep dive. 45 00:02:02.599 --> 00:02:05.519 When you look at the accident reports, you initially assume 46 00:02:05.640 --> 00:02:07.959 catastrophic mechanical failure. 47 00:02:07.680 --> 00:02:08.560 Right, which makes sense. 48 00:02:08.759 --> 00:02:11.599 But the true cause of Korean Air Cargo Flight eighty 49 00:02:11.639 --> 00:02:14.159 five h nine was buried in hundreds of years of 50 00:02:14.199 --> 00:02:18.960 cultural history, military psychology, and a phenomenon that accident investigators 51 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:21.560 honestly fear more than engine fires. 52 00:02:21.759 --> 00:02:24.159 Yeah, and the investigation begins right in the dirt of 53 00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:27.960 that crater. Rescue workers arrived shortly after Gary and the 54 00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:31.280 grim reality setting quickly. The three crew members and one 55 00:02:31.319 --> 00:02:32.919 maintenance engineer on board did. 56 00:02:32.759 --> 00:02:34.800 Not survive, just a horrific outcome. 57 00:02:35.039 --> 00:02:38.800 It was the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch, the AAIB 58 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:42.800 is mobilized immediately, but you know, securing a commercial crash 59 00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:44.560 site is never as simple as just walking up to 60 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:48.240 the wreckage. A safety specialist named Sid Hawkins was dispatched 61 00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:50.039 to assess the immediate threat because he's. 62 00:02:49.879 --> 00:02:51.680 Walking into a nightmare scenario. 63 00:02:51.319 --> 00:02:55.080 Right, Oh, absolutely, Because this wasn't a passenger flight carrying 64 00:02:55.199 --> 00:02:58.039 you know, suitcases and golf clubs. This seven forty seven 65 00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:03.120 took off with thirty tons of highly volatile aviation fuel 66 00:03:03.360 --> 00:03:06.080 and sixty three thousand kilograms of heavy freight. 67 00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:07.639 That's a massive amount of weight. 68 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:10.919 Right, So before investigators could even step foot near that 69 00:03:10.960 --> 00:03:14.599 thirty foot crater. Hawkins had to decode the cargo manifest, 70 00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:17.479 and that manifest was deeply alarming. 71 00:03:17.719 --> 00:03:19.400 What kind of stuff are we talking about here? 72 00:03:19.439 --> 00:03:22.280 Well, you had two tons of whiskey, which is essentially 73 00:03:22.360 --> 00:03:25.439 highly flammable ethanol in a crash environment. You had color 74 00:03:25.479 --> 00:03:28.719 printer cartridges, heavy machinery and X ray machine. 75 00:03:28.759 --> 00:03:30.560 Okay, hazardous but manageable. 76 00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:33.080 Sure, But the most terrifying items on the list were 77 00:03:33.080 --> 00:03:36.479 spools of military detonating cord and the fact that this 78 00:03:36.759 --> 00:03:40.879 specific older model of the seven forty seven utilized depleted 79 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:43.080 uranium as ballanced weights in the tail section. 80 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:46.479 Depleted uranium, I mean, that just sounds inherently apocalyptic when 81 00:03:46.520 --> 00:03:48.439 you combine it with a raging jet fuel fire. 82 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:50.840 It does. It's a very heavy metal used as a 83 00:03:50.840 --> 00:03:53.919 counterweight to keep the plane balanced. But if those weights 84 00:03:53.919 --> 00:03:57.240 shatter and aerosolize in a high temperature fire, the toxic 85 00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:00.000 and radioactive risks of the first responders are severe. 86 00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:01.639 Wow, So what do they do? 87 00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:06.120 Hawkins had to bring in specialized radiological teams. Fortunately, tests 88 00:04:06.199 --> 00:04:08.960 quickly showed that the uranium casing had held and the 89 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:13.080 detonating cord had either burned off harmlessly or remained intact. 90 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:15.840 Okay, So once the site was declared safe, the sun 91 00:04:15.879 --> 00:04:18.720 comes up, revealing the true scale of the devastation in 92 00:04:18.759 --> 00:04:21.600 the woods. But the tension wasn't just in the forest. 93 00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:24.720 Right back at stance at airport, on the very runway, 94 00:04:24.720 --> 00:04:28.199 flight eight five oh nine had just left, crews were 95 00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:31.519 dealing with a chilling discovery of their own. The runway 96 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:33.399 was completely littered with debris, and. 97 00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:36.639 In the world of aviation investigation, runway debris usually means 98 00:04:36.680 --> 00:04:38.279 one specific thing, doesn't it yea. 99 00:04:38.319 --> 00:04:41.360 It immediately points the finger at an uncontained engine failure. 100 00:04:41.680 --> 00:04:45.360 You start visualizing a turbine blade snapping inside the enginet 101 00:04:45.399 --> 00:04:48.000 like one hundred and fifty miles per hour, exploding outward, 102 00:04:48.199 --> 00:04:51.199 severing hydraulic lines, and tearing the wing apart before the 103 00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:52.879 plane even clears the airport boundary. 104 00:04:52.959 --> 00:04:57.199 But this debris field held something deeply disturbing. Amidst all 105 00:04:57.279 --> 00:05:00.600 the shredded metal and plastic on the tarmac, and investigators 106 00:05:00.600 --> 00:05:05.360 found an object that looked identically horrifyingly like a human jawbone. 107 00:05:04.920 --> 00:05:09.639 Which completely upends the initial theory. The thought process immediately 108 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:14.600 shifts from mechanical failure to a morbid human element, right like. 109 00:05:14.639 --> 00:05:17.120 Did a trespasser run onto the runway in the dark 110 00:05:17.160 --> 00:05:19.199 to commit suicide or did a. 111 00:05:19.160 --> 00:05:22.399 Ground crew member get sucked into the engine intake instantly 112 00:05:22.439 --> 00:05:24.399 destroying the turbine and bringing down a three hundred and 113 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:28.439 fifty ton aircraft. They actually had to lock downstairstead, shutting 114 00:05:28.480 --> 00:05:31.560 down all flights right before the Christmas rush just to 115 00:05:31.639 --> 00:05:32.600 unravel this thread. 116 00:05:32.639 --> 00:05:35.959 But thankfully daylight brought some relief on that front. Under 117 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:39.560 proper lighting, the so called jawbone was identified as just 118 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:43.519 a heavily melted, twisted piece of industrial plastic, just. 119 00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:45.720 A trick of light in the context. 120 00:05:45.319 --> 00:05:47.720 Exactly so, the debris on the runway wasn't from the 121 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:50.399 plane breaking apart during its takeoff role. It was actually 122 00:05:50.519 --> 00:05:54.360 shrapnel from the massive explosion in the woods, violently adjusted 123 00:05:54.480 --> 00:05:57.519 high into the atmosphere and blown backward by the winter 124 00:05:57.639 --> 00:05:58.480 wind onto. 125 00:05:58.279 --> 00:06:00.439 The airport, which is a crucial piece of the puzzle. 126 00:06:01.079 --> 00:06:04.319 It prompted the AAIB to execute what's called a four 127 00:06:04.399 --> 00:06:05.680 corner search in the forest. 128 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:07.319 A four corner search. 129 00:06:07.360 --> 00:06:10.959 Yeah investigators grid out the wreckage, specifically looking for the 130 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:13.839 furthest extremities of the aircraft yeah, so the tip of 131 00:06:13.959 --> 00:06:16.920 left wing, the tip of the right wing, the tailplane, 132 00:06:16.959 --> 00:06:18.000 and the vertical fin and. 133 00:06:17.959 --> 00:06:19.399 If they find them all in one spot. 134 00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:22.959 Finding all four corners in the main impact crater proves 135 00:06:22.959 --> 00:06:26.279 the aircraft did not suffer a midair structural breakup. It 136 00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:28.079 was entirely whole the moment. 137 00:06:27.800 --> 00:06:30.360 It hit the earth Man and the ground marks told 138 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:33.680 the rest of the story. There was a long, slender, 139 00:06:33.959 --> 00:06:37.079 violent gash sliced through the top soil by the left wing, 140 00:06:37.480 --> 00:06:40.680 immediately followed by the massive main crater from the nose. 141 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:42.360 It didn't fall flat right. 142 00:06:42.360 --> 00:06:44.360 It flew into the ground at over two hundred and 143 00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:48.040 fifty knots in a steep, nearly ninety degree left bank 144 00:06:48.199 --> 00:06:52.279 pointing down. So if the plane was structurally sound taking 145 00:06:52.279 --> 00:06:54.639 off normally, did the pilot just decide to fly it 146 00:06:54.680 --> 00:06:55.240 into the ground. 147 00:06:55.439 --> 00:06:58.959 That's the deeply unsettling paradox they were staring at. The 148 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:02.800 engines were producing thrust. Flight controls were connected. To figure 149 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:05.639 out why a highly experienced crew would fly a functional 150 00:07:05.680 --> 00:07:08.120 airframe into the dirt, they had to dig through the 151 00:07:08.160 --> 00:07:10.120 pulverized cockpit for the flight instruments. 152 00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:14.759 Specifically, they were looking for the captain's attitude Director indicator 153 00:07:14.879 --> 00:07:15.680 or eighty. 154 00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:18.360 I right exactly when you were flying a heavy jet 155 00:07:18.399 --> 00:07:21.279 in the pitch black of night, surrounded by heavy cloud cover, 156 00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:23.160 your eyes will lie to you. 157 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:25.199 Because you can't see anything outside. 158 00:07:25.480 --> 00:07:29.319 Right, without a visual horizon, your inner ear cannot distinguish 159 00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:32.920 between gravity and the centrifugal forces of a turn. You 160 00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:36.439 could be banking sixty degrees and feel completely level. The 161 00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:39.519 EIGHTI is the screen that cuts through human sensory illusion, 162 00:07:39.959 --> 00:07:42.480 displaying the exact pitch and roll of the aircraft. 163 00:07:42.920 --> 00:07:46.079 So when forensics pulled the shattered pieces of the Captain's 164 00:07:46.120 --> 00:07:49.000 EIGHTI from the wreckage, they found something chilling. 165 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:52.439 They analyzed the microscopic scratch marks made by the indicator 166 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:55.360 needles at the exact millisecond of impact. 167 00:07:55.120 --> 00:07:57.439 Right, and they realized that while the plane was banking 168 00:07:57.519 --> 00:08:00.800 ninety degrees into the dirt, the captain's screw was frozen. 169 00:08:00.920 --> 00:08:03.040 It was displaying perfectly straight level flight. 170 00:08:03.160 --> 00:08:05.800 And the absolute tragedy of this is this plane had 171 00:08:05.800 --> 00:08:09.639 a pre existing condition. Wait really yeah, The aircraft had 172 00:08:09.720 --> 00:08:12.920 arrived in London from Tashkent earlier that afternoon, and the 173 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:16.439 previous flight crew experienced that exact same lie on that 174 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:18.439 exact same ADI. 175 00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:20.720 But they landed safely at Stanstead. 176 00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:24.560 How because they had the advantage of daylight. The previous 177 00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:28.360 captain initiated a turn, saw his instrument wasn't moving, look 178 00:08:28.360 --> 00:08:31.279 out the window at the actual physical horizon, realized his 179 00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:35.639 screen was broken, and simply swapped to reading his backup instruments. 180 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:38.240 Okay, so they land. They log the failure in the 181 00:08:38.279 --> 00:08:41.240 maintenance book, and a Korean air ground engineer traveling with 182 00:08:41.279 --> 00:08:44.240 the plane gets to work. But he is missing a 183 00:08:44.279 --> 00:08:48.000 critical document, the fault isolation manual, which is. 184 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:51.879 A huge problem. Without that manual, modern aviation maintenance basically 185 00:08:52.279 --> 00:08:53.919 devolves into dangerous guesswork. 186 00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:56.799 Right, So he enlists a local British mechanic for assistance. 187 00:08:57.039 --> 00:08:59.559 They pull the ADI unit out of the dashboard, inspect 188 00:08:59.600 --> 00:09:02.000 the back and determine that a tiny connector pin looks 189 00:09:02.039 --> 00:09:02.960 slightly bent. Yeah. 190 00:09:03.039 --> 00:09:05.200 They replace the pin, plug the unit back in, run 191 00:09:05.240 --> 00:09:08.039 a quick built in test, and the screen lights up perfectly. 192 00:09:08.039 --> 00:09:09.159 They sign off on the repair. 193 00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:12.039 I mean, think about it like this. Imagine your house's 194 00:09:12.080 --> 00:09:15.720 electrical systems starts violently flickering. You assume the bulb in 195 00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:17.600 your lamp is bad, so you change it. The new 196 00:09:17.639 --> 00:09:20.799 bulb turns on and you think, great, problem solved. 197 00:09:20.519 --> 00:09:22.919 But you're missing the big picture exactly. 198 00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:25.519 What you don't realize is that the actual issue is 199 00:09:25.559 --> 00:09:29.600 a massive degrading short circuit down in your basement breaker panel, 200 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:33.159 and your house is quietly catching fire behind the drywall. 201 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:37.200 They treated the symptom completely missing the disease. 202 00:09:37.559 --> 00:09:41.320 That is the exact mechanism of this failure. The eighty 203 00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:44.480 I screen is just a dumb monitor. The actual brain 204 00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:47.720 generating the data is a device called the inertial navigation 205 00:09:47.879 --> 00:09:49.720 unit or INU. 206 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:51.960 Which is located deep in the avionics bay beneath the 207 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:53.080 cockpit floor right. 208 00:09:53.559 --> 00:09:56.480 It acts like the plane's synthetic inner ear. It uses 209 00:09:56.480 --> 00:10:00.120 a highly complex array of lasering, gyroscopes and accelerometers to 210 00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:03.879 track the plane's movement in three dimensional space, totally independent 211 00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:05.639 of any outside GPS signals. 212 00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:08.039 But the Captain's I and you had suffered a localized 213 00:10:08.080 --> 00:10:08.799 internal fault. 214 00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:13.320 It wasn't dead. Worse, it was actively lying. It was 215 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:18.159 continually broadcasting a corrupted zero degrees of roll signal. The 216 00:10:18.240 --> 00:10:22.559 maintenance crew's pin replacement was entirely useless. When flight eighty 217 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:25.159 five O nine was cleared for takeoff to Milan. It 218 00:10:25.240 --> 00:10:26.759 was a ticking time bomb. 219 00:10:26.919 --> 00:10:30.759 But commercial planes have redundancies. There is never just one 220 00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:34.559 instrument in that cockpit. You have the captain screen, the 221 00:10:34.600 --> 00:10:37.480 first officer's screen on the right, and a completely independent 222 00:10:37.559 --> 00:10:39.720 Stammi screen in the center console right. 223 00:10:39.799 --> 00:10:41.720 Even if one screen is stuck, you have three other 224 00:10:41.799 --> 00:10:43.399 pairs of eyes and a four man. 225 00:10:43.279 --> 00:10:46.039 Crew, which makes the contents of the cockpit voice recorder 226 00:10:46.039 --> 00:10:48.960 of the black box so harrowing to listen to. It 227 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:51.600 was buried under thirty feet of compacted earth for nearly 228 00:10:51.679 --> 00:10:55.080 a week. When investigators finally extracted the audio tape, the 229 00:10:55.240 --> 00:10:57.559 terror wasn't in the sound of panic or screaming. 230 00:10:57.679 --> 00:11:00.519 The terror was in the absolute clinical silence. 231 00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:03.679 Let's break down that sixty second flight. It's night. They 232 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:06.600 are running over an hour behind schedule, which inherently builds 233 00:11:06.639 --> 00:11:10.200 psychological pressure. They throttle up, hurtle down the runway, and 234 00:11:10.240 --> 00:11:11.759 lift off into the darkness, and at. 235 00:11:11.759 --> 00:11:15.159 Nine hundred feet their departure procedure requires a climbing left turn. 236 00:11:15.399 --> 00:11:18.279 The moment the wheels leave the ground, a piercing warning 237 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:20.360 horn begins blaring in the cockpit. 238 00:11:20.799 --> 00:11:25.360 It's a specific localized alarm called a comparator warning Its 239 00:11:25.399 --> 00:11:28.559 sole purpose is to monitor the multiple ion us and 240 00:11:28.639 --> 00:11:32.360 scream at the pilots if the data disagrees. It is 241 00:11:32.399 --> 00:11:35.639 an unmistakable audible alert telling the crew, Hey, one of 242 00:11:35.679 --> 00:11:38.399 your screens is lying to you. Crosscheck your backups immediately. 243 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:41.759 The captain starts turning his control column to the left, 244 00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:45.360 but his primary screen, fed by that corrupted iron ew 245 00:11:45.399 --> 00:11:48.039 in the belly of the plane, shows them flying level. 246 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:51.120 He is suddenly caught in a deadly feedback loop of 247 00:11:51.159 --> 00:11:55.960 spatial disorientation. He physically turns the wheel, but his eyes 248 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:57.120 tell him the plane isn't. 249 00:11:56.960 --> 00:11:59.360 Responding because the screen is frozen exactly. 250 00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:02.399 His inner confused by the g forces of the climb 251 00:12:02.440 --> 00:12:05.679 and the darkness outside can't provide a reliable balance. He 252 00:12:05.720 --> 00:12:08.320 assumes the heavy aircraft is just being sluggish in the climb, 253 00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:10.240 so he turns the wheel further to the left. 254 00:12:10.360 --> 00:12:14.279 The plane rolls to thirty degrees, then sixty degrees, then 255 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:15.480 eighty degrees. 256 00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:18.519 And the aerodynamics of a jet at a ninety degree 257 00:12:18.559 --> 00:12:23.080 bank are just brutal. An airplane wings lift is generated 258 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:26.320 perpendicular to the wing itself. When you bank ninety degrees, 259 00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:28.279 all of your lift is pointing sideways. 260 00:12:28.279 --> 00:12:30.960 Parallel to the ground, so you're not going up anymore, right. 261 00:12:30.840 --> 00:12:33.480 You have zero vertical lift keeping you in the air. 262 00:12:34.039 --> 00:12:37.159 A three hundred and fifty to seven forty seven effectively 263 00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:40.679 becomes a heavy metal brick slicing downwards toward the earth. 264 00:12:40.759 --> 00:12:43.639 Here's the part of this investigation that absolutely mind blows me. 265 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:47.799 The captain is unknowingly flying them into a graveyard spiral. Yes, 266 00:12:48.440 --> 00:12:51.120 but the first officer, sitting three feet to his right, 267 00:12:51.279 --> 00:12:53.360 has his own independent screen. 268 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:55.080 Which is working perfectly exactly. 269 00:12:55.279 --> 00:12:58.240 His screen is working perfectly. The standby screen in the 270 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:01.240 middle is working perfectly. The flow ight engineer, sitting at 271 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:04.159 a panel right behind them, clearly sees the standby screen 272 00:13:04.240 --> 00:13:08.600 showing an extreme bank. The engineer even quietly murmurs, bank's 273 00:13:08.679 --> 00:13:09.559 not working, and. 274 00:13:09.519 --> 00:13:12.159 The captain, who is hyper fixated on his frozen screens, 275 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:13.080 just ignores the comment. 276 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:17.360 But wait, the first officer, with the undeniable visual evidence 277 00:13:17.360 --> 00:13:19.639 of their impending death right in front of his face, 278 00:13:20.080 --> 00:13:23.799 does absolutely nothing. I just survival instinct is the most 279 00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:26.960 fundamental drive in biology. It is you are in a 280 00:13:27.080 --> 00:13:30.919 steel tube hurtling toward the ground at three hundred miles 281 00:13:30.919 --> 00:13:33.759 an hour. The first officer knows without a shadow of 282 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:36.720 a doubt they are seconds from impact. Why doesn't he 283 00:13:36.840 --> 00:13:39.600 just reach out, grab his own control column and shout 284 00:13:39.799 --> 00:13:40.799 I have control. 285 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:44.000 Well to answer that, we have to pull back from 286 00:13:44.039 --> 00:13:46.840 the mechanics of the aircraft and examine the mechanics of 287 00:13:46.840 --> 00:13:50.080 the human mind. The cause of this crash wasn't wiring. 288 00:13:50.399 --> 00:13:51.200 It was history. 289 00:13:51.639 --> 00:13:52.559 Okay, tell me mare. 290 00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:54.840 We have to look at who was occupying the left seat. 291 00:13:55.320 --> 00:13:57.559 Captain Park wasn't just a veteran pilot. He was a 292 00:13:57.600 --> 00:13:59.679 former colonel in the Republic of Career Air. 293 00:13:59.559 --> 00:14:03.360 Force, OH, a military man accustomed to supreme authority exactly. 294 00:14:03.519 --> 00:14:06.080 He had spent the bulk of his career flying highly agile, 295 00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:10.080 single seat fighter jets solo operations. He was not culturally 296 00:14:10.200 --> 00:14:12.679 or professionally conditioned to operate as part of a multi 297 00:14:12.679 --> 00:14:15.759 crew commercial environment where decision making is collaborative. 298 00:14:15.840 --> 00:14:17.039 That makes sense, and the. 299 00:14:17.080 --> 00:14:20.240 Voice recorder reveals a man who was deeply agitated that night. 300 00:14:20.879 --> 00:14:23.759 The delays irritated him, and his tone toward his first 301 00:14:23.799 --> 00:14:28.480 officer was sharply condescending, establishing this immediate atmosphere of intimidation, 302 00:14:29.080 --> 00:14:29.559 and not to. 303 00:14:29.519 --> 00:14:33.120 Mention, he was also operating under a cloud of institutional pressure. 304 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:35.960 Yeah, he had recently received a formal reprimand from the 305 00:14:35.960 --> 00:14:39.240 airline for botching an instrument departure on a previous flight. 306 00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:43.759 So he was hyper focused, almost aggressively so on executing 307 00:14:43.799 --> 00:14:47.480 this specific departure route flawlessly to prove himself. 308 00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:51.080 So he creates this mental tunnel, focusing all his cognitive 309 00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:55.279 bandwidth on that one broken screen. But that still doesn't 310 00:14:55.320 --> 00:14:57.240 explain the first officer's paralysis. 311 00:14:57.600 --> 00:15:00.679 The first officer's inaction is rooted in something much deeper, 312 00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:04.799 the societal norms of nineteen ninety South Korea. Sociologists use 313 00:15:04.840 --> 00:15:07.600 a metric called the power distance index to measure how 314 00:15:07.639 --> 00:15:09.720 different cultures handle inequality and. 315 00:15:09.679 --> 00:15:11.159 Authority, and where did they stand. 316 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:15.200 At that time. Korean society, and particularly its military influenced 317 00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:19.080 aviation sector, had an incredibly high power distance. It is 318 00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:23.480 a culture deeply structured around strict hierarchical respect. You defer 319 00:15:23.519 --> 00:15:26.600 to your elders, and you absolutely defer to your commanding officers. 320 00:15:26.720 --> 00:15:29.480 So in that cockpit, they weren't just captain and first officer. 321 00:15:29.679 --> 00:15:33.080 No, they were a revered senior military colonel and a 322 00:15:33.200 --> 00:15:38.360 vastly junior subservient apprentice. The first officer was relatively new 323 00:15:38.399 --> 00:15:40.840 to the seven forty seven. He had a fraction of 324 00:15:40.879 --> 00:15:42.480 the flying hours. Captain Parkatt, the. 325 00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:45.559 Psychological ingredient in that room was essentially a cliff. 326 00:15:45.519 --> 00:15:49.320 Exactly for a junior officer in that specific cultural context, 327 00:15:49.559 --> 00:15:53.080 pointing out a superior's mistake isn't just rude. It causes 328 00:15:53.120 --> 00:15:57.039 the superior to lose face, which is a profound social rupture, 329 00:15:57.639 --> 00:16:00.480 intervening like taking the controls from a former The colonel 330 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:03.320 was viewed as an active insubordination so severe that it 331 00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:05.120 felt conceptually impossible. 332 00:16:05.559 --> 00:16:08.240 The AAIB analysis put it in a way that is 333 00:16:08.279 --> 00:16:11.120 hard to shake. They basically said, the first officer was 334 00:16:11.159 --> 00:16:15.480 so psychologically shackled by military deference and cultural hierarchy that 335 00:16:15.559 --> 00:16:19.559 he subconsciously feared the dishonor of correcting his commander more 336 00:16:19.600 --> 00:16:21.879 than he feeled a high speed collision with the Earth. 337 00:16:21.960 --> 00:16:26.000 It's incredibly tragic, and this cultural phenomenon was actively tearing 338 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:29.200 the airline apart. At the time. This crash did not 339 00:16:29.320 --> 00:16:31.600 happen in a vacuum, right. There was another one, yeah, 340 00:16:31.679 --> 00:16:33.919 just two and a half years earlier, in August of 341 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:37.000 nineteen ninety seven, Korean Air Flight eight oh one flew 342 00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:41.399 directly into a hillside in Guam, and the circumstances were 343 00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:46.279 hauntingly identical. Poor visibility, an exhausted captain making a critical 344 00:16:46.360 --> 00:16:49.679 navigational error, and a junior crew who saw the mistake 345 00:16:49.720 --> 00:16:53.360 but used highly mitigated indirect language instead of firmly taking 346 00:16:53.399 --> 00:16:54.399 control of the aircraft. 347 00:16:54.679 --> 00:16:58.799 And that Guam crash completely decimated the airline's reputation on 348 00:16:58.840 --> 00:17:02.120 the global stage to airlines suspended their partnership. The US 349 00:17:02.159 --> 00:17:05.240 Department of Defense actually banned its military personnel from flying 350 00:17:05.279 --> 00:17:06.559 on koreanair. 351 00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:09.960 Because the Coctit dynamic was a fatal flaw deeply woven 352 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:13.960 into the airline's DNA. They were operating these incredibly complex 353 00:17:14.119 --> 00:17:17.319 multi crew aircraft as if they were single seat fighters 354 00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:20.519 piloted by an autocrat with a couple of silent assistants 355 00:17:20.559 --> 00:17:21.000 in the room. 356 00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:24.039 So the moment Flight eighty five ZHO nine lifted off 357 00:17:24.079 --> 00:17:26.839 with a broken eye in you, the cultural silence made 358 00:17:26.839 --> 00:17:28.079 the crash inevitable. 359 00:17:28.200 --> 00:17:31.720 Exactly so the first officer sits there watching is perfectly 360 00:17:31.720 --> 00:17:36.200 functioning artificial horizon roll past sixty degrees, then eighty, then ninety. 361 00:17:36.519 --> 00:17:38.960 The comparator arm is screaming in the background, the ground 362 00:17:39.039 --> 00:17:40.440 is rushing up in the darkness, and he. 363 00:17:40.440 --> 00:17:43.799 Simply lets it happen. Fifty five seconds after takeoff, they 364 00:17:43.880 --> 00:17:45.440 hit the dirt in Great Hollingbury. 365 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:49.240 It is an agonizing reality to confront, but the legacy 366 00:17:49.240 --> 00:17:52.079 of this crash is defined by what happened next. The 367 00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:56.960 aviation industry doesn't just catalog its disasters, It weaponizes them 368 00:17:57.039 --> 00:17:58.000 to force change. 369 00:17:58.039 --> 00:18:00.720 And the investigators prove this point. Brilliant laate, inn't they 370 00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:03.319 They took the exact data parameters from the black box, 371 00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:06.440 the speed, the weight, the severe bank angle, and plugged 372 00:18:06.440 --> 00:18:09.000 them into a seven forty seven flight simulator. 373 00:18:09.160 --> 00:18:11.359 Right they wanted to see the exact point of no return. 374 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:14.160 They pushed the simulation to the absolute edge, and. 375 00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:16.599 They found that even at a mere five hundred feet 376 00:18:16.599 --> 00:18:18.839 above the ground, screaming through the air at two hundred 377 00:18:18.880 --> 00:18:22.599 and sixty knots, banked at a catastrophic eighty degrees, the 378 00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:24.599 aircraft was completely recoverable. 379 00:18:25.160 --> 00:18:25.839 Think about that. 380 00:18:26.079 --> 00:18:28.960 If the first officer had just forcefully grabbed his control 381 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:31.720 column and physically rolled the wings level, they would have 382 00:18:31.839 --> 00:18:34.039 pulled out of the dive, skimmed the tree tops, and 383 00:18:34.079 --> 00:18:37.200 flown away into the night. The plane was perfectly willing 384 00:18:37.240 --> 00:18:37.599 to fly. 385 00:18:38.039 --> 00:18:41.119 The machine didn't kill them, the hierarchy did. Because of 386 00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:45.839 this undeniable proof, the AAIB's final report didn't just mandate 387 00:18:45.960 --> 00:18:49.759 new procedures for fixing in U faults or updating maintenance manuals. 388 00:18:50.039 --> 00:18:54.519 They demanded a total, radical overhaul of Koreanaire's training philosophy. 389 00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:58.799 They mandated the aggressive implementation of CRM, yes. 390 00:18:58.799 --> 00:19:02.640 Crew Resource management. It is the bedrock of modern flight safety. 391 00:19:03.200 --> 00:19:07.359 CRM is the systematic dismantling of the autocratic cockpit. It 392 00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:09.880 trains crews to view safety as a collaborative effort. 393 00:19:09.920 --> 00:19:11.519 It teaches captains how to invite. 394 00:19:11.279 --> 00:19:14.759 Criticism, and more importantly, it gives junior officers a highly specific, 395 00:19:15.079 --> 00:19:17.319 standardized vocabulary to challenge authority. 396 00:19:17.759 --> 00:19:21.279 It replaces a dictatorship with a system of democratic checks 397 00:19:21.279 --> 00:19:24.240 and balances. Like a first officers trained that if they 398 00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:27.400 observe a critical safety deviation, they don't hint at it, 399 00:19:27.440 --> 00:19:28.599 they state the problem. 400 00:19:28.319 --> 00:19:31.359 Clearly right and if the captain doesn't correct it, they 401 00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:34.079