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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio. Well,

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Speaker 1: welcome back to Coast to Coast George dorry with you.

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Speaker 1: We have been following, of course, the tragedy in Ethiopia

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Speaker 1: where one hundred and fifty seven people died several days

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Speaker 1: ago in that very tragic crash of the Boeing Company's

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Speaker 1: seven thirty seven Max eight. And of course what's really

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Speaker 1: got everybody concerned, of course, is because in October there

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Speaker 1: was an identical plane that crashed in the Java Sea,

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Speaker 1: killing one hundred and eighty nine people, and the crashes

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Speaker 1: seemed similar. I thought it's about time we bring back

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Speaker 1: David Sussy back to the program. David, of course as

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Speaker 1: the author of Why Planes Crash? He was born in Boulder, Colorado,

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Speaker 1: and he has traveled the world and the interest of

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Speaker 1: improving safety awareness. He worked in the cockpit, on the

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Speaker 1: hangar floor with an aviation boardrooms and inside the Washington

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Speaker 1: DC Beltway. He has seen death up close and personal. David,

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Speaker 1: and you've been at CNA on all week. David's good

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Speaker 1: to have you back. Well, thank you, George. I wish

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Speaker 1: it was for something more yeah, enlightening, but this is

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Speaker 1: a true tragedy. When I saw the similarities between the

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Speaker 1: two crashes, this is even before anybody had grounded these planes,

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Speaker 1: I figured this is something weird. I've been someone that David,

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Speaker 1: I don't believe in coincidences. I think things happen, and

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Speaker 1: when they do, you got to look at the facts

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Speaker 1: that are out there. They're way too similar. What do

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Speaker 1: you think? Oh, most definitely George. As an accident investigator,

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Speaker 1: which I was for sixteen years, the worst fear that

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Speaker 1: I have is basically going to the same accident seen twice.

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Speaker 1: You know, you go to one accident scene, you figure

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Speaker 1: out what happened to it, and you put fixes in

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Speaker 1: place to make sure it doesn't happen again. But then

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Speaker 1: when it does, it's it's doubly as tragic. It's just horrible.

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Speaker 1: And when I saw these two the data where the

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Speaker 1: angle of attack indicate. Now, this data was streamed through

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Speaker 1: the new system that we use, the ADSP system, and

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Speaker 1: so when I got what they call the high definition report,

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Speaker 1: which was within hours of the accident, I could see

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Speaker 1: clearly that this angle of attack indicator was giving so

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Speaker 1: similar readings to lion Air that it was frightening. I

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Speaker 1: knew we had to do something right away when you

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Speaker 1: put this mix. Let's just assume for a moment that

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Speaker 1: there's a software problem and Boying is trying to update

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Speaker 1: it as we speak. But there's a software problem, and

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Speaker 1: mix that in with inexperienced pilots that don't have a

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Speaker 1: lot of flying time, you got a disaster on your hands. Yeah, George,

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Speaker 1: that's the case in Lion Air. But but then again

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Speaker 1: in this aircraft, in the Ethiopian aircraft, they had eight

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Speaker 1: thousand hours. So you know, in the accidents that I've investigated,

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Speaker 1: there's a thing that I refer to as the atrophy

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Speaker 1: of vigilance in the brain. And what happens is the

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Speaker 1: more confident you are, in more routine you are as

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Speaker 1: to how you do things, your brain is not capable

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Speaker 1: of understanding or becomes less capable of understanding anomalies. And

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Speaker 1: when things don't go the way you expect them to go.

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Speaker 1: And so even in that case, even in someone who

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Speaker 1: has that much experience, they're going to respond in the

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Speaker 1: way that they know innately do and the way that

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Speaker 1: this software is it set them up for failure from

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Speaker 1: the very beginning for that kind of scenario to happen.

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Speaker 1: In January of two thousand and nine, a US Airbus

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Speaker 1: A three twenty tanked in the Hudson River. All one

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty five people aboard survived because of the

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Speaker 1: incredible work of now retired Captain Sully Sellenberger. He went

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Speaker 1: online today David and said that we don't know the

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Speaker 1: cause yet of the crash, but I'm concerned about the

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Speaker 1: training of the pilots. What do you think, Well, the

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Speaker 1: training of the pilots. I think it goes further in

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Speaker 1: that though if the pilots had the information, they did

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Speaker 1: have extensive training, what was I think the mistake. As

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Speaker 1: it's a case with almost every accident I've done, the

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Speaker 1: actual risk occurs way before the accident occurs, and I

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Speaker 1: believe that the risk here started with the desire of

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Speaker 1: Boeing and the FAA to maint to come up with

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Speaker 1: a new aircraft that had new capabilities, that had bigger engines,

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Speaker 1: that had a very significantly different airplane. But what they

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Speaker 1: wanted to do was make sure that the pilots that

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Speaker 1: went from the old model seven thirty seven into the

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Speaker 1: new model seven thirty seven didn't require a lot more training.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to be able to save a lot of money,

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Speaker 1: and they wanted to be able to make it more

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Speaker 1: efficient transition to this new model airplane by saying, well,

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Speaker 1: the cockpits are the same and you fly it the

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Speaker 1: same way and it feels the same way, and we

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Speaker 1: don't have to retrain you on a whole new type

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Speaker 1: of aircraft. And that's what they certified it under the

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Speaker 1: same type certificate, which is basically the approval to build

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Speaker 1: that airplane. So they started by saying, we want to

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Speaker 1: make the same type certificate, but we're going to pack

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Speaker 1: a lot more punch into this new seven thirty seven.

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Speaker 1: So I believe that's where it really started. And when

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Speaker 1: they came up with a system to make it fly

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Speaker 1: that same way so that they didn't have to retrain

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Speaker 1: pilots and go through this. They didn't tell the pilots

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Speaker 1: that there was something new about this airplane, and so

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Speaker 1: the pilot training, as good as it may have been,

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Speaker 1: didn't touch on this particular part of the aircraft, which

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Speaker 1: is which is the IMCAST is what it's referred to as.

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Speaker 1: That's the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, A big name for

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Speaker 1: a simple thing. It just makes sure the airplane fly straight. Really,

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Speaker 1: We've got some video simulation of the Ethiopian crash on

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Speaker 1: the Coast to Coast dot com website in the highlight reel.

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Speaker 1: But I want to warn everybody it is kind of

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Speaker 1: emotional towards the end. It's video simulation. It is not

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Speaker 1: actually what happened during the crash. It is just a

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Speaker 1: similar elation on what the artists think happened. But it

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Speaker 1: is still kind of emotional. David, in your opinion, based

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Speaker 1: on what you're hearing of the two crashes, what do

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Speaker 1: you think happened in this Ethiopian crash in terms of

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Speaker 1: it takes off, people are strapped in, the plane takes off.

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Speaker 1: What happens, well, at this point, it's interesting. I looked

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Speaker 1: at the data from the same flight from the same

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Speaker 1: airport at the day before, the day before. Let's start

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Speaker 1: with that flight. First, they're strapped in and they code

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Speaker 1: to fly, and three quarters of the way down the

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Speaker 1: runway they take off and there are thousand feet about

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Speaker 1: the runway going about two hundred and forty knots. In

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Speaker 1: this next day, they take off and the airplane stays

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Speaker 1: on the ground for an extended period of time. It

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Speaker 1: goes past that point three quarters of the way down

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Speaker 1: the airport. The speed continues to increase and increase and increase,

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Speaker 1: and ends up about two hundred and sixty two hundred

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Speaker 1: and seventy knots on the ground before it even takes off,

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Speaker 1: and the pilots had to be wondering why things not

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Speaker 1: lifting off at that point. But eventually they do get

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Speaker 1: the aircraft to lift off. They lift off with that

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Speaker 1: aircraft and it takes off within six minutes, within five

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Speaker 1: and a half to six minutes, this flight well. Firstly,

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Speaker 1: within three minutes, the pilot starts calling back saying, we

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Speaker 1: need to come home. We need to come home. There's

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Speaker 1: something wrong. We need to bring back home. Give me

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Speaker 1: a vector. I need to be back. We need to

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Speaker 1: go back and land. So they routed other airplanes around,

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Speaker 1: they tried to turn the airplane around, or they were

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Speaker 1: going to, but before they even had a chance to

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Speaker 1: turn this airplane around, it had already gone down and

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Speaker 1: the nose of the aircraft was pushed down by this

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Speaker 1: mcast system, and fatally and tragically the aircraft continued down

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Speaker 1: and within five or six minutes the aircraft had crashed

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Speaker 1: and no survivors at what angle was the plane coming down?

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Speaker 1: I don't know all the details at this point. I

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Speaker 1: do know that it was an incredibly short period of time.

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Speaker 1: So if I can just calculate what the angle would be,

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Speaker 1: it would have been close about seventy five degrees. Oh

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Speaker 1: my god's almost straight down. It is. So the people

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Speaker 1: obviously aboard this plane they knew this was it. Yes,

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Speaker 1: they did. They did. This was not one of those

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Speaker 1: instantaneous failures that happened in the sky when people are

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Speaker 1: instantaneously killed. This is something that they had to have

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Speaker 1: suffered that all the way down, knowing that something obviously

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Speaker 1: dramatic was going on. But before that the aircraft had

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Speaker 1: posted up and down. It was going up and down.

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Speaker 1: The air traffic controllers knew there was problems with this

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Speaker 1: aircraft long before, not long before, but minutes before the

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Speaker 1: pilot actually called in for help, because they could see

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Speaker 1: that it was varying altitude significantly, up to one hundred

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Speaker 1: feet up and a hundred feet down very rapidly. David,

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Speaker 1: I fly about four to six times a month, primarily

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Speaker 1: with Southwest, and I'm on these older versions of the

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Speaker 1: seven thirty seven's, the old reliable ones, but every time

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Speaker 1: we hit a little turbulence, you know, you could tell

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Speaker 1: people on the plane get a little skittish and jittery.

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Speaker 1: They make some sounds and things like that. I could

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Speaker 1: only imagine what it was like on that plane for

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Speaker 1: those poor people. No, it had to be tragic. It

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Speaker 1: just it would have panicked at anyone, and unfortunately you're

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Speaker 1: there and you have nothing you can do about it.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at

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Speaker 1: one am Eastern, and go to Coast to Coast am

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Speaker 1: dot com for more