0:03 in 1979 a plane would approach the edge
0:06 of the world an area that planes usually
0:08 stay away from after arriving to the
0:10 Antarctic landscape this commercial
0:13 flight with 257 people would seemingly
0:17 vanish Into Thin Air disappearing into
0:19 the untouched mountains of Antarctica
0:21 completely far away from the original
0:23 course this disappearance would almost
0:25 instantly spark a Widespread Panic
0:27 becoming one of the most confusing and
0:30 deadly Aviation disasters in history
0:33 history Air New Zealand flight 901 was a
0:35 sightseing flight for tourists that
0:37 wanted to view the beautiful Antarctic
0:39 Landscapes it was a successful and
0:42 popular attraction among curious people
0:44 the flight would cross the ocean loop
0:45 around what's known as McMurdo sound to
0:47 take pictures of the landscape in Mount
0:50 arabis and then head back home safely
0:52 without Landing however there were more
0:54 than a few problems with this flight
0:56 since the flight was over Antarctica if
0:58 the plane malfunctioned or needed to
1:00 emergency land anywhere there would be
1:04 zero available stops in addition McMurdo
1:06 sound is absolutely freezing if the
1:08 plane flew through it normally the flaps
1:10 would entirely freeze up due to the cold
1:13 winds so to prevent this the plane has
1:15 to fly at a much faster speed through
1:18 the area to top it all off this would
1:19 also be the first time that the Captain
1:22 Jim Collins and the first flight officer
1:24 Gregory Mark cassine had ever flown this
1:26 route their only training in this area
1:29 was a 45-minute dc10 flight simulator
1:31 session to review simple navigation and
1:34 flight instruments however this does not
1:36 change the fact that Jim and Gregory
1:38 were still extremely skilled Pilots both
1:40 men had a respectable amount of flight
1:43 hours in their time as Pilots regardless
1:44 though the most threatening issue in
1:47 this situation was actually not any of
1:49 these things instead it was with the
1:51 plane itself more specifically the
1:54 plane's route you see the original route
1:56 for the Antarctic sightseeing flights
1:59 wasn't actually McMurdo sound instead it
2:01 actually used to be directly above the
2:04 top of Mount arabus a 12,000 ft High
2:06 active volcano there weren't really any
2:08 problems with the mount arabus route but
2:11 regardless in 1978 a year before the
2:13 disaster everything would change because
2:15 the plane received a new computer for
2:18 navigation so as the mount arabis flying
2:20 route was being transcribed onto the new
2:22 computer a tiny seemingly insignificant
2:24 coordinate change was entered
2:26 incorrectly into the new computer it was
2:31 incorrectly entered as 164° instead of
2:33 166° this small change in coordinates
2:35 would simply put the flight path over MC
2:37 muro's sound now this wouldn't be a
2:39 problem yet because all the pilots that
2:41 realized this change simply assumed this
2:43 was because flying over some water is
2:45 ultimately safer than flying over an
2:47 active volcano they also assumed that
2:48 flying this route would allow them to
2:50 drop to a much lower altitude for a
2:52 better sightseeing experience on par
2:54 with the height of the
2:56 volcano so they started flying the
2:59 McMurdo rout almost every time at a much
3:00 lower altitude ude for better sight
3:03 scene at this point everything seemed to
3:04 be going well and tourist flights were
3:07 booming in popularity people from all
3:08 over the world would come to experience
3:10 a flight to a place that most people had
3:12 never even seen
3:15 before however just 2 weeks before the
3:18 disaster on November 14th 1979 a captain
3:21 finally realized this discrepancy in the
3:23 coordinates after doing checks before
3:25 his flight he realized that the original
3:27 route was actually over Mount arabus so
3:29 naturally the captain simply reported
3:31 his findings to an officer on the 14th
3:34 and went about his flight after almost 2
3:37 weeks of no change finally on the 27th a
3:39 day before Jim Collins and Gregory's
3:40 flight the navigation officers
3:43 misunderstood the other Captain's report
3:45 and ended up moving the route back over Mount
3:47 Mount
3:49 arabus now this normally wouldn't be
3:52 that much of a big deal in a normal case
3:54 everyone would improvise and figure out
3:56 a new route accordingly but the real
3:58 issue here again is that Jim and Gregory
4:00 had never flown this route before for
4:01 their only understanding of the route is
4:03 that they have to fly through McMurdo
4:04 sound at a lower altitude for
4:06 sightseeing but now that the route was
4:08 switched back to Mount arabus if they
4:10 were to fly at a low altitude here well
4:12 that would unfortunately put them on a
4:15 collision course with Mount
4:17 arabus now there's a simple solution to
4:20 all of this all that needs to happen is
4:21 that those that know about the flight
4:23 path change just simply have to tell Jim
4:25 and Gregory that the flight was changed
4:27 and tell them to fly at a much higher
4:30 altitude over mount arabus well the
4:31 problem with this is that the officers
4:33 that received the report originally
4:35 received it at 1:00 in the morning only
4:38 roughly 7 hours before Jim's flight
4:40 would depart so at this point when Jim
4:41 and the rest of the flight crew woke up
4:43 for their early morning flight they were
4:45 not told a single piece of information
4:47 about the route change they woke up that
4:50 morning ready to fly through McMurdo
4:52 sound so finally when Air New Zealand
4:55 flight 901 set off for Antarctica on
4:57 November 28th nobody on the plane knew
4:59 that they were actually on a flight path
5:08 arabus as the plane flew towards
5:10 Antarctica everything seemed to be going
5:12 smoothly the plane itself was performing
5:14 fine and everybody aboard was excited to
5:17 see this Frozen mystery continent the
5:19 forecast of weather for the McMurdo area
5:21 given to the flight crew was a light
5:23 wind with snowfall and an overcast layer
5:27 of clouds at around 3,500 ft an overcast
5:29 layer of clouds is described as a sky
5:31 that is 100% completely covered in
5:34 clouds however the weather would prove
5:37 to be much more problematic later on now
5:39 as the plane would get closer to the
5:41 area they would connect and talk to the
5:43 air traffic control station located in
5:45 McMurdo the officers there would guide
5:47 the flight around the Antarctic weather
5:49 accordingly the traffic control station
5:51 would describe that the weather for the
5:53 area was actually a low overcast at
5:55 around 2,000 ft with some snow covering
5:58 the area but luckily below 2,000 ft
6:00 visibility would still be fine for
6:02 sightseeing however the pilots for the
6:04 flight would go on records saying that
6:06 this didn't sound very promising
6:08 regardless though as the flight got
6:10 closer to Big Muro again the guys at the
6:12 air traffic control station offered to
6:14 guide the flight even lower lower to a
6:17 height of 1,500 ft once they get within
6:20 40 Mi of the station so they waited and
6:22 flew closer and closer to the Mount
6:25 arabus area and finally as the flight
6:27 reached the mount Arbus area the plane
6:30 began to descend from 18,000 ft into the
6:33 clouds since low overcast was at such a
6:36 low height of 2,000 ft Jim decided to
6:37 descend under the clouds so the
6:39 passengers can see the Landscapes and so
6:42 he can see where they are however this
6:44 decision was actually against the
6:45 minimum flight height set for the route
6:47 the minimum and lowest they were
6:50 technically allowed to fly was 6,000 ft
6:52 but it also wasn't uncommon for Pilots
6:54 to safely descend under the minimum set
6:56 height for a better sightseeing
6:58 experience and for situational needs
7:01 that said they started to descend the
7:03 pilots began orbiting down in a
7:06 circle-like shape to 6,000 ft but things
7:08 would become very tricky from here as
7:10 now they were in the thick of the clouds
7:13 and the thick of the snow after circling
7:15 the pilots then took an oval-like shape
7:17 descent to get a new approach on the
7:19 area they continued to descend even
7:21 further to the desired height of 2,000
7:23 ft so they can get a grasp of where they
7:26 were still in the clouds however they
7:28 would now be in a very dangerous
7:30 situation because what what they didn't
7:32 know is that there was no hope of
7:34 getting any visibility of the area from
7:36 this point on they kept descending
7:38 through so many clouds until they
7:40 reached a very dangerous area and at
7:45 about 1,500 ft they hit a sector white
7:47 out a sector white out is a weather
7:50 phenomena in Antarctica where a flat
7:52 snow covered surface blends with an
7:54 overcast Sky making it nearly impossible
7:57 to distinguish features of the landscape
7:59 this makes for a landscape of no Shadows
8:01 no features and pretty much zero
8:03 visibility due to the snow this would
8:05 make it impossible for the pilots to
8:07 determine where they were and whether or
8:09 not they were in McMurdo sound as this
8:11 was happening however for some reason
8:13 the pilots were also losing signal to
8:16 the McMurdo area the officers there
8:17 would come in and out of signal
8:19 sometimes until the signal was
8:21 completely lost at this point they were
8:24 now headed directly towards Mount arabus
8:25 and the flight engineer was starting to
8:28 become concerned as to where they were
8:29 the clouds were thick and it was hard to
8:31 see what was going on and they couldn't
8:33 see anything that would remotely
8:35 resemble the mcmo Sound
8:37 area at this point the crew fully
8:39 believed that they were over the ice
8:41 covered ocean of mcmo sound so they
8:44 continued to fly straight head on but
8:45 finally the flight engineer would ask
8:48 nervously where Mount arabus was in
8:50 relation to the plane the sightseeing
8:53 guide Peter assumed it was 25 M to the
8:55 left but they were all ultimately unsure
8:57 of where they were Jim said that the
8:59 conditions were not looking good at all
9:02 and they were all entirely confused as
9:03 to what was happening as they flew
9:05 closer and closer towards Mount arabus
9:07 they would become very uncertain the
9:10 engineer stated quote that he did not
9:12 like this but finally they figured that
9:14 they would climb out of this as they
9:16 were unsure as to what was happening
9:18 Gregory told Jim that he could turn
9:19 right that there would be nothing there
9:22 if he wanted to do a 180° turn away from
9:25 the area and Jim said negative and to
9:28 everyone's surprise the emergency ground
9:30 proximity warning system beeped loudly a
9:32 warning to the crew that they were only
9:34 500 ft above the mountain but
9:36 unfortunately this would be far too
9:39 little time to pull the plane up as they
9:41 only had 6 seconds before the plane
9:59 mountain at 12:50 p.m. 5 minutes after
10:02 the last radio contact with mcmo station
10:05 Air New Zealand flight 901 crashed into
10:09 the side of Mount arabus at 44 kmph
10:13 killing all 257 passengers upon impact
10:15 this was the footage of the inside of
10:17 the cabin 5 minutes before the plane
10:19 entered the thick layer of clouds as
10:21 soon as they entered the clouds nobody
10:23 on board had any idea of what was
10:25 happening after the crash however MC
10:27 Muro station continued to try contacting
10:29 the fight as they hadn't been in contact
10:31 contact for a good while but they
10:34 wouldn't receive a single response even
10:35 after they were scheduled to arrive back
10:37 in Auckland New Zealand there was not a
10:39 single radio transmission of the flight
10:42 after it lost contact with mcmo station
10:43 and finally when the flight was
10:45 scheduled to run out of fuel there was
10:48 not a single sign of it the flight was
10:51 now considered lost finally the next
10:53 morning the US Navy dispatched a rescue
10:55 effort to locate the whereabouts of the
10:57 flight and found the remains of it on
10:59 the site of Mount arabus with all 200
11:02 157 people aboard
11:05 dead the wreckage impact covered a total
11:09 area of roughly 570 by 120 M and after
11:10 deep inspection of the potential
11:12 survivability of such a crash
11:15 professionals deemed it as entirely
11:17 unsurvivable regardless there would
11:19 still be one big problem how were they
11:21 going to recover This Plane it was
11:22 sitting in the middle of an Antarctic
11:25 volcano in harsh conditions recovery in
11:27 and of itself would be a very difficult
11:28 task let alone the harsh weather and
11:31 ident ification of the people regardless
11:33 however the morning after the plane
11:35 crashed a search effort called operation
11:36 overdue was set in place for the
11:40 recovery of all 257 people aboard
11:42 however this would not be easy as they
11:44 were on Mount arabis the weather was
11:46 harsh and extensive and heavy work like
11:47 this would be much more difficult
11:50 nonetheless a large group of police
11:52 dentists Pathologists and more set out
11:53 for the mountain to hopefully recover
11:56 and identify all 257 passengers lost
11:59 upon impact Jim Morgan the lead inpector
12:01 ector of the mortuary team noted that
12:02 they spent weeks in polar tents amidst
12:04 the wreckage in dead bodies struggling
12:06 through the harsh environment he noted
12:08 that the skua goals there would try to
12:10 consume the remains of the wreckage and
12:12 the dead bodies right in front of the
12:13 team and that shooing the goals was
12:15 impossible and made it significantly
12:17 harder to recover the remains before the
12:19 birds got to them but eventually
12:20 throughout the weeks they would push
12:22 through the harsh environments and do
12:24 everything they could fortunately the
12:25 rescue effort was astonishingly
12:28 successful and ended up with 83% of the
12:30 remains being f found the teams that led
12:32 the search effort for this wreckage were
12:33 undoubtedly Heroes that risked their
12:35 lives to the very highest degree upon
12:37 respect for the families of the victims
12:39 those that were involved were awarded a
12:41 medal of special service by the queen of
12:43 New Zealand however for most there was
12:45 still a massive problem with this crash
12:47 throughout New Zealand most would wonder
12:49 exactly what went wrong questions about
12:51 why it crashed circled the media and
12:53 Confused many for a while the crash
12:55 itself was Infamous in New Zealand
12:56 because of the fact that it seemed like
12:58 everyone in the country knew a person or
13:01 two that died in plane crash so finally
13:02 after the crash and all the search
13:04 efforts a controversial official
13:06 accident report was given to the public
13:08 it was compiled by the New Zealand's
13:10 Chief Inspector of air accidents Ron
13:12 Chippendale now originally Chippendale
13:14 agreed with the idea that the plane
13:15 crashed due to the white out and thick
13:18 clouds however upon seeing this image
13:20 from one of the passengers cameras 5
13:22 minutes before the flight crashed he
13:24 would reject this Theory Chippendale
13:26 subsequently attributed that the actual
13:27 real reason of the crash into Mount
13:30 arabis was actually due to Pilot error
13:32 his arguments of pilot error was based
13:35 on three main points one that the change
13:37 over Mount arabis did not actually
13:39 mislead the crew two that the crash was
13:41 caused by descending below the minimum
13:43 flight height which was 6,000 ft and
13:45 three that the crew was not certain of
13:47 their position and kept moving forward
13:48 regardless of not knowing where they
13:51 were in response to the nature of this
13:53 official statement the public would be
13:55 more interested so due to this
13:57 widespread public interest of the event
13:58 the government would appoint a high
14:00 court judge named Peter Mahone to
14:02 further investigate the causes of the
14:05 crash Mahone would essentially entirely
14:07 dissect chippendale's report judge
14:08 Mahone would further try to prove that
14:10 the reason for the crash wasn't the
14:12 pilots but instead the reason was the
14:14 mistake that the airline officials who
14:16 programmed the plane made mahon's
14:17 argument of Airline error was based on
14:20 three main points one the airline
14:21 officer's mistake of setting it back
14:23 over Mount arabus two the lack of
14:25 communication in telling the crew of the
14:27 change and three the fact that the
14:28 flight Crews were never warned of the
14:30 dangerous effects of the white out and
14:32 the fact that the flight briefing before
14:34 contained a number of mistakes
14:35 ultimately judge Mahone would
14:37 controversially accuse the airline for
14:39 attempting to cover up the disaster and
14:41 for disposal of evidence he would
14:43 famously say quote I am forced to
14:45 reluctantly say that I had to listen to
14:47 an orchestrated Litany of Lies
14:49 ultimately the airline took judge Mahone
14:51 to court where the high court would not
14:52 disagree with Mahone's main points of
14:54 Airline a but instead found that Mahone
14:57 acted in excess of his
14:59 jurisdiction disappointed at after this
15:02 entire situation Mahone resigned at this
15:04 point with everything said and done no
15:05 amount of Court hearings and blame
15:07 puding would prevent the crash from
15:11 happening in 1979 oi would go on record
15:12 saying quote that no one knows what the
15:15 future in Antarctica holds but aircraft
15:17 and Aviation will be intertwined with
15:19 that future tempered and balanced by the
15:21 hearty Souls of pilots and crewmen who
15:23 challenge Antarctica constantly this
15:26 quote was 1 month before the disaster
15:28 happened New Zealand itself holds a
15:30 close relationship ship with Antarctica
15:32 it is described by some as quote our
15:34 backyard and undoubtedly the amount of
15:36 deaths would mean that no new zealanders
15:38 would escape this tragedy when the
15:39 original Antarctic sightseing flights
15:41 began as a cool way to explore the one
15:43 area on Earth that humans shouldn't be
15:46 in it was undoubtedly a risk a risk that
15:48 was quote glazed over with a glass of
15:50 champagne in breathtaking views
15:52 Antarctica itself is a place that
15:54 demands extensive knowledge experience
15:56 and respect for the continent the
15:58 passengers of flight 901 sight seeing
16:00 flight unfortunately lost their lives in
16:02 the face of Adventure but they also
16:04 attributed a massive change in Airline
16:06 safety a change that will undoubtedly be
16:08 the reason that millions of others today
16:12 will be safe on planes and for that they
16:13 can rest peacefully [Music]
