How did this plane end up MILES off course?? American 965

----------

A few days before Christmas in 1995, the pilots of an American Airlines Boeing 757 wound up lost over the Andes mountains in South America. Under pressure to make it to the airport quickly, they began to make mistakes. What started out as a simple lapse in judgement, quickly snowballed into a series of critical errors, each one compounded by the one before it. In a few short minutes, these mistakes would result in the deaths of nearly everyone onboard.

This is the story of American Airlines flight 965.

----------

Final Report:

------

All music licensed through Epidemic Sound

Maps: Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under ODbL.

Pictures:

787:

A320:

A330:

A340:

AAL965 Crash site pictures:
FAA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

-----------

00:00 Intro
01:05 Flight background
01:54 Pilots
03:38 Flying in Latin America
05:50 Initial descent
09:10 The first mistake
10:45 A shortcut
16:30 Wrong turn
18:58 Confusion begins
23:52 Terrain
24:54 Crash
25:26 Aftermath and Investigation
27:38 Children of the Magenta
29:10 Situational Awareness
29:40 Speedbrakes
30:50 American 965 documentary
31:44 EGPWS

[MatthewHerbert]

He forgot to mention one other survivor... A dog that was in its kennel in the cargo hold SOMEHOW survived and was evacuated along with the other survivors away from the wreckage

[albertchehade]

After watching all of your videos, I am greatly relieved that I survived 33 year flying career with 15k flight hours, without incident nor accident....in Australia and SE/SW Asia

[heraldtim]

It is never, ever good when a pilot says, "Uh, where are we?" Thanks for the video!

[postersm]

This is a perfect example of the Swiss cheese model among other things. Like most if not all crashes like this, it’s never just one or two or even three things that cause of the crash. all the holes in the Swiss cheese have to line up perfectly. I can’t remember the name of the doctor that came up with this model but I think it’s brilliant.

[Dovietail]

Erasing those beacons was no small mistake in mountainous country in the dark. You don't deviate in dark mountains. I'm surprised they got as far as they did before smacking into a mountainside. Tragic.

[badbadleroybrown]

Two biggest errors for me were 1. not climbing as soon as they realised they were in a confused/unknown position given the surrounding terrain and 2. not retracting air brakes when in terrain avoidance mode.

[SuperpowerBroadcasting]

I'm amazed anyone managed to survive this. The fact that even four people survived is incredible

[dw]

My friend when I was a little girl was on this flight with her family, visiting her mom’s family for Christmas. I always remember her and think often about what she or her little brother would be doing today. Thanks for your sensitive and informative video on this tragedy.

[yiuqwfj]

Losing your way is excusable, but being lost AND descending in mountainous terrain, that's beyond me.

[natalo]

"American Airline Flight 965 was truly one of the few crashes that have had this affect"

He says, as the baggage conveyor plows through the passenger bus

[mariaweston]

If pilot had landed there 13 times, I don’t understand why pilot didn’t know about reporting waypoints, from his previous flights into the airport.

[gabe-poyi]

I’ve noticed a number of times where a pilot comments that something doesn’t feel/look/seem right, seems odd/strange, but not react to it if the other pilot doesn’t confirm it. I recall one flight in particular that took off on the wrong runway. The co-pilot commented on a few things that seemed strange, like no runway lights, but the Captain was focused on taxiing and takeoff and just said, Yeah. As a result, they ended up crashing because the runway was too short.

[MilliGaming]

A night flight over that terrain is the thing of nightmares

[rex]

At the point in which the pilots figured out that they didn't know where the hell they were, the words of my flight instructor, and the gentleman that wrote the book that I studied for ground school: "Climb, Confess, & Comply". This was related to an VFR pilot flying into IFR conditions (in my case, the "confess" would be "I'm a dumbass, and flew into the clouds, please help me not to die)... never the less, and i'ts pointed out in the video, this would have been the best course of action.

[kneel]

ugh this one was tragic, thats why its best to over-communicate and be meticulous about validating what you're entering into the computer and checking the map and ensuring its what you expeted etc

[stephengrimmer]

Unbelievably sad. Does nobody check compass headings any more?

Excellent channel, puts other, better established ones in the shade, well chosen incidents, great graphics and well delivered commentary in a professional TV accent. Deserves more subscribers and upvotes. Keep it going. They will come!

[SteffenHamre]

By far the best explained version of this accident. Must have been very time-consuming creating this video. Excellent work once again!! Thanks, and keep up the good work!

[ivanzidane]

Man i dont know why i love this kind of documentary at the same time its horrifying to imagine being the passengers or pilots but at the same time interesting

[Brian-----]

The crash of American 956 is similar to the crash of Thai 311 (the subject of another of your videos). In both, after a change of approach plans late in a flight, both crew became too narrowly focused on interacting with the FMS (to execute the change) in low visibility near high mountains, utterly lost navigational or relative positional awareness, eventually realized it, didn’t urgently prioritize resolving that loss, and soon hit mountains. The facts that in this flight, an experienced flight crew worked harmoniously AND had been specifically trained in such risks based on the earlier Thai flight accident report (see this flight’s accident report, pp. 46-47) shows that the negative crew relationship dynamic on the Thai flight, while unhelpful on any flight, actually was not the key factor in that crash. Tunnel vision can happen even to highly competent crews recently trained in the specific risk they came to face!

It’s surprisingly easy for experienced crews to forget that at all times an aircraft is vectoring at very high speed, covering significant distances in seconds. (By contrast, even a new teenage driver behind the wheel of a car can’t forget this). You’re always flying toward something. …Do you know what it is?

In most of North America or Southeast Asia most of the time, spot losing navigational awareness just isn’t a big risk. But in Colombia or Nepal, in the Andes or Himalayas, any such loss for any timespan can be quickly fatal.

[galady]

I appreciate how clearly you explain stats without making it overwhelming. While every crash is a tragedy it seems this one could have been avoided during several missed opportunities. Sketchy radar and language concerns were 2 reasons I never worked any South American trips.