Top 10 Air Disaster Videos of All Time | Smithsonian Channel

the situation. (confused controllers talking) - August 7, 1997, Fine Air Cargo Flight 101 prepares to take off from Miami to the Dominican Republic. (engine revving) At 12:30 p.m. m., as Flight 101 heads for its runway, First Officer Petrosky recites a familiar drill. - Standard flight procedure. There is a problem before V1, which is 130 knots. The pilot in command will abort the plane. Treat anything after V1 as an in-flight emergency. - Sounds good. - At 12:34, the tower makes contact. - Fine Air 101, flight heading 270, cleared for takeoff. - Takeoff 270 right, Fine Air 101 heavy. (dramatic music) Okay, force reel and stable. (engine accelerating) Maximum power. - Good, we are going at 60 knots, power adjusted. 80, V1.

Turn: the plane takes off from the runway. - Easy, easy, easy, easy, easy. - Zero. (suspense music)-The air traffic controller is alarmed by what he does not see. (suspense music) - What's going on? - Whoa Whoa. - The crew struggles to control the plane. (air hissing) (controller speaks through speaker) - Ground too low. - What's happening? - Land too low. - No! (emergency beep) (explosion) (somber music) - Where's your emergency? - Yes, there was a plane on 72nd and 25th streets. - It is unthinkable, a plane crash in the heart of Miami. The deaths of the three men, the crew and the plane's security guard are confirmed. - Seat belt, please.

Thank you. - Cathay Pacific Flight 780 is cruising at 38,000 feet over the South China Sea. (bleep) Captain Malcolm Waters and his crew are nearing the end of a four-and-a-half-hour flight from Indonesia to Hong Kong. (airplane whistle) 165 miles from Hong Kong airport, the Airbus leaves cruising altitude and begins its descent. And then something goes wrong. (beep) The flight computer is alerting pilots to a problem. - Okay, let's see what we have. (beep) (chimes) - Engine two stalls. - The aircraft's monitoring system indicates that there is a problem with the right engine, engine number two. (beep) (plane whistles) With no explanation for the incident, Captain Waters reduces engine power to idle to protect it from damage. - Idle. - The lowest possible power level without stopping operation. (dramatic music) The pilots prepare to land the single-engine Airbus.

Everything is prepared for an emergency landing (beep), but then another alert and more vibrations. - Engine one stalled. - The stalling of engine one was confirmed. - Things have gone from bad to worse. The tracking system indicates that they have just lost the other engine, which they were counting on to take the plane to Hong Kong. (suspense music) The monitoring system tells the pilots to set the malfunctioning engine number to idle. They are one minute away from touchdown. (quick beep) Then another alert: It's speeding. - It is an overspeed warning, a sign that the plane is flying too fast.

Captain Waters can't understand it. They should be slowing down. He checks the controls again. He then he sees it. Engine number one, which decelerated minutes earlier, is still running at 74% power. High thrust, too high to land safely. - Land too low. Ground too low. - Their speed is more than a hundred miles per hour faster than normal, so fast that the flight computer does not recognize that the pilots are attempting to land. (the plane whistles) Captain Waters pushes the nose down, forcing the Airbus onto the runway. (explosion) (plane whistles) (people screaming) The Airbus approaches the end of the runway. (The plane whistles) Finally, the plane stops a short distance from the water's edge.

They have consumed more than 8,800 feet in a mile and a half of runway. - Once the plane stopped, can you see what the hell just happened? - It's a difficult trip aboard a 737 descending in New Orleans. A violent storm has caught the pilot off guard. -Ask to take a seat. - Flight attendants, please take your seats. (rain hitting window) - Suddenly, less than 17,000 feet above the ground, flight becomes even more terrifying. - We lost power in the engines. I don't have anything. - The plane has enough speed to glide, but not for long. You will quickly lose altitude as you do so.

The crew has only one option left. - I guess I'll have to make an abandonment here, sir. - They must take the risk and leave the plane in the water. - Board 110, Roger, whatever you have to do, sir. - And that was the last communication with the tower. Then we were at about 1500 feet when that happened. - Dardano plans to land the plane in the canal right in front of him. - It's OK there. - (sighs) Leave it gently. (suspense music) - The 737 can only stay in the air for one more minute. While Dardano searches for a safe stretch of the canal to drop the plane, another option appears. - Look, look, that one over there. - And then López saw the dam parallel to the canal to which we were making the approach. - Leave it on the grass. - Yes Boss. - The dike is much shorter and narrower than a landing strip, but it seems safer than water. - That's where we're going to come in. - You got it, my friend.

Okay, put the equipment down. (suspense music) Okay. - But Captain Dardano continues flying towards the water. To have any hope of landing on the dike, he needs to make a sudden and dramatic course correction. That requires a risky maneuver known as sideslip. - So we just have to do a little side glide to get into position and make a perfect landing. - It's a move for small planes and gliders, not a 47-ton Boeing 737, but it's a risk you have to take. (suspense music) - That's it, dad. - Only 700 feet separate the plane from the ground. Without engines, pilots have no thrust reversers to brake the plane when it lands.

Dardano has an additional challenge. With only one eye, he is unable to gauge the depth as he speeds toward the narrow strip of rain-soaked grass. There is a high concrete wall in front of the dam and a steep embankment to the left. There may not be enough space to land. - Be careful with the wing on that side. - I see it. Come on. (air hissing) (foreign language spoken) (crash) (air hissing) (dramatic music) (men laughing) - There you go. There you go, Charlie. (speaks in foreign language) - The landing was spectacular. The plane landed very smoothly.

There was not even a hint of turbulence. (speaks in a foreign language) A perfect landing. - January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 departs New York's LaGuardia Airport. (air whistles) There are 150 passengers on board bound for Charlotte, North Carolina. - The aircraft took off without incident and, shortly after takeoff, it lost all its engines due to the birds. - I saw something out of the corner of my eye and slightly to our right, but still in front of us was a row of - Birds. - And they were very, very close, too close for us to maneuver. - Oh! - After quickly assessing the situation, Captain Sully Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles realized that without engine power, they would not reach any nearby airport. (air whistles) - We'll be on the Hudson. (suspense music) Prepare for impact. - Stay down! - You must be aware of the position of your brace.

In many, many accidents, cabin crew desperately try to place passengers in the support position, but because the passengers have not read the safety features card, they do not know what that means. - Bow your heads and stay down. (electronic bells) - Proper brace position is knees together, feet flat on the floor, body bent as far forward as possible with arms wrapped under your legs or resting against the seat in front of you. - Your body will shoot forward. So if you can get into that position beforehand, the amount of back and forth movement will be reduced and the level of injury will be lower. (dramatic music) - In the cabin, passengers prepare for the inevitable. - All the passengers really started to gather and someone shouted as we were getting off: - Get ready at the doors. - Stay down! - The people at the door say, we are ready. - Clay Presley does what all passengers should do.

He stays calm and tries to think about the future. - So I started thinking that if we were going to crash, I know I need to find out where the exit rows are. If water gets in, you have to be able to hold your breath long enough to get to those four or five rows and open the doors if you can. - But before anyone can escape, they must first survive a high-speed impact. (light splashes of water) - It looked like the plane was going straight to the bottom of the Hudson River. (dramatic music) Then the plane appeared and was rocking gently in the waves. - In an instant, the $75 million plane has become an unlikely ship floating down the Hudson River.

Now it is filling with ice water. - That water was cold. It was very cold, so your feet are freezing. - You land in the Hudson in the middle of winter, the water is going to be very cold and you will suffer hypothermia very quickly. Their feet and hands will become numb. They will be useless. (Door handle squeaks) - Passengers closest to the exits open the doors. (suspense music) - I jumped up very quickly and started walking towards the emergency door. And so I made my way to the wing, just a few steps to start. - Luckily, they had rafts with slides instead of just slides.

So what they were able to do was evacuate the passengers to the skid rafts. - In the end, the 150 passengers and the entire crew of flight 1549 are brought to safety. Another example of how serious aviation accidents usually end well. Asiana Flight 214 is nearing the end of an overnight flight from Seoul, Korea, to San Francisco. Ben Levy is a frequent traveler returning home. (grunts) - And I fly quite frequently for business or to visit my family. I am originally from France. And, you know, I fly long distances a lot. I'm in and out of SFO a lot.

So I know the airport very well. (people chatting) - Many of the other 291 passengers are Chinese, including a group of teenagers heading to summer camp in the United States. - Asiana 214, heavy runway 28 on the left. Cleared to land: Landing checklist completed, cleared to land. On glide path. - Pilots check a set of lights next to the runway that can help guide them to a safe landing. - Check. - The plane is less than a minute from the runway when Ben Levy realizes something is wrong. - I remember noticing that there is a small dock that extends out of the runway and thinking, wow, we're really low.

And I dismissed the idea thinking, "Well, what can go wrong?" There's all the technology on board to ensure those guys don't make a mistake. - In the cabin, - Speed. - a crisis arrives. - I have the control. (air hissing) - Oh God, turn around. - The captain raises his nose and tries to climb. (passengers clamoring) (dramatic music) - Get down! (explosion) (tires skidding) (air hissing) - Wait, wait! (crash) (people screaming) - The brutal impact has torn the tail from the body of the plane. An engine is burning. If the fire spreads to the fuel tanks, the plane could explode. - Let's see if we can open this door. - But getting to the ground won't be easy. - At that moment I expect to see a slide open, right?

All like, Hey, you opened the door, the slide will open and there's no slide. - Well, it's ok. Help each other. (grunts) Come on. - Luckily, some crumpled pieces of the fuselage have formed improvised stairs. Ben Levy stays by the door to help the other passengers get off. - Come on. (emergency sirens sounding) - At San Francisco International Airport, runway 28L is a

disaster

zone. Fire crews battled to prevent flames from consuming the fuselage of Asiana Flight 214. (equipment clattering) With rescuers now on board to help the injured, Ben Levy finally heads to safety. (dramatic music) (relaxing music)