WEBVTT - Season 9 Episode 5: Did You Ever See a Dream 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.800 It was late March nineteen seventy nine, and an unseasonably 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:08.399 warm day was settling in over Tulsa, Oklahoma. Down at 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:12.319 the main hangar of the American Airlines Maintenance Facility just 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:17.440 east of Tulsa Airport, mechanics and coveralls mingled with engineers 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:22.599 in crisp shirts and ties under bright fluorescent light, serenaded 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.479 by an endless wiz of drills and the thrum of 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:30.400 heavy machinery. The facility was then and still is the 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:36.000 world's largest commercial airlines base. Back in nineteen seventy nine, 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.360 it employed around six thousand people, servicing as many as 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:44.440 ten to fifteen aircraft at any one time. One of 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:48.000 them on that day in late March was a sparkling 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:55.080 aluminium paneled McDonnell Douglas DC ten registration number N one 0:00:55.280 --> 0:01:00.200 one zero AA. The model was notable for its its 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:04.480 distinctive trijet design, with an engine on each wing and 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.800 one in the tail. This particular aircraft was seven years 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.240 old and had flown thousands of hours since its first 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:17.959 delivery in nineteen seventy two. It carried movie stars, people 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.399 on business families jetting off on vacation, but now it 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:27.200 was just another machine undergoing a routine maintenance check, including 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:32.040 an inspection of the engines. McDonnell Douglas had an official 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:36.520 procedure for this. It involved first removing the engine and 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.960 then the pylon, a curved strip of metal that held 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:44.360 the engine to the wing. It was a complex, meticulous job, 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.360 and one that also involved having to disconnect seventy nine 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:53.960 different cable systems, including hydraulic lines, fuel lines, and various 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:59.320 electric facilities. This was not only fiddly but also time consuming, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:04.240 so engineers at American Airlines found a quicker way, a 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:08.680 more practical, cheaper way. Instead of taking the engine and 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.400 pylon apart separately, piece by piece, with the aid of 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:16.320 an overhead crane, they removed both sections in one go 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:22.040 as one single piece, using a regular forklift truck for support. 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.320 This way, they only had to disconnect twenty seven systems 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:30.960 instead of seventy nine, saving two hundred working hours every 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:35.400 time a plane underwent maintenance. And so it was that, 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.160 in the early hours of the midnight shift in the 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:42.840 hangar of that American Airlines maintenance facility in late March 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:47.480 nineteen seventy nine, the thirty first to be precise, the 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:52.399 same process was applied to plane N one one zero AA. 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.480 Forklift truck was brought forward and the platform attached to 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.600 its forks, was carefully positioned into place under plane N 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:12.320 one one zero AA's left engine. With the fork secured, 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:15.800 the mechanics got to work removing the engine along with 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:20.320 its supporting pylon. A few hours later, the midnight shift 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.360 came to an end, but the engine removal had not 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:27.800 yet been completed, so the forklift truck was simply left 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.640 in place, propping up the engine and the wing. The 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:35.360 truck's engine was then turned off and the midnight crew 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:39.840 clocked off for the day. Perhaps had someone been there, 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.400 they might have heard the faint hiss of pressure escaping 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.680 from the truck's hydraulics as its engine powered down, or 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:51.280 heard the pylon creek and shift ever so slightly out 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:55.280 of place as the truck's forks holding the plane's engine 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:59.720 in place slowly began to ease ever so slightly down, 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.320 Or perhaps it would have been imperceptible under the din 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.440 of all the rest of the noise in the hangar. 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:11.160 Either way, when the next crew arrived shortly after to 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.400 finish the task, they were surprised to find the pylon 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.720 a little out of line, but after a little bit 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.479 of jiggling with the fork lift, they soon managed to 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.960 ease it back into place and remove it accordingly. Later, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:29.239 with the maintenance check complete, the tech crew finished up, 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:34.279 logged their time and headed home. By the afternoon of 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:38.080 March thirty, first d C ten N one one o 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:43.920 A A stood ready once more, its engines reattached, its 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:49.240 paperwork stamped and signed, but somewhere deep in the metal 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:53.680 of the aircraft's left pylon, unbeknownst to any one, a 0:04:53.800 --> 0:05:00.360 near invisible, undetectable fracture was just beginning to appear. You're 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:12.320 listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard mc lean smith. David 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:17.800 Booth stood looking out over a strange, silent landscape. Ahead 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:22.040 of him was a large, nondescript field, a tree line 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:25.440 going down it, and a gravel path that curved around 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.960 from in front to behind him, leading onto a main road. 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:35.080 To his side was a dull, single story building. Distracted 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.760 by movement above, he looked up to see the shining 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:45.680 fuselage of a silver American Airlines jet arching through the sky. 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.000 It was strange, he thought to himself, how despite it 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:53.400 being so close the plane seemed to be flying completely silently, 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.920 with no sound coming from its engines. As it drew 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:01.320 ever closer, it began to bang oddly to the right. 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.760 More and more it turned until its left wing was 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:11.840 pointing upwards perpendicular to the ground. Then steadily it began 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:17.039 to fall. David watched on in utter horror as the plane, 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:21.839 now seemingly flying in slow motion, continued to fall, still 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:26.600 turning as it went. Then it plunged nose first straight 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.680 into the earth, exploding with a sickening roar in a 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:35.080 huge fireball of red and orange, followed by a billowing 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:41.119 plume of thick gray smoke. David shot up in his bed, 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:45.840 sweating profusely, struggling to catch his breath as tears streamed 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.800 down his eyes. Under the pale moonlight, he looked out 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.960 at his baby, Justin, sleeping soundly in his crib, then 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:58.120 turned to see his wife, Pam, lying fast asleep beside him. 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.760 He was at home, in his bed in Hyde Park, Cincinnati. 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.000 It was just a dream, he said to himself. It 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:10.400 was just a dream, And yet the dream and the 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:14.200 overwhelming sense of sadness that was now washing over him 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:19.800 was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. David spent the 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.679 rest of the night lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.440 unable to shake the image of that plane smashing into 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.680 the ground as vivid then in his mind as it 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.880 was when he was dreaming it. When morning finally came, 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.760 he didn't have the words to explain it to Pam, 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.800 so he just washed and shaved, same as he always did, 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:46.000 and drove off to work. It was Tuesday, May fifteenth, 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:57.760 nineteen seventy nine. The following night, David Booth had the 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:02.200 dream again, the same dull building to his left, the 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:07.320 same American Airlines plane arching silently, horrifyingly through the sky, 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:12.080 its wings turning until it was almost upside down, before 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.720 slamming into the ground in a devastating ball of fire. 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:21.480 And once again David woke with tears streaming from his eyes, 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:26.200 crippled by a profound sense of sorrow. Then it happened 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.920 again the next night, and the next, and the next. 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:35.680 By Tuesday, twenty second of May, David had had the 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.520 same dream for seven nights in a row. Whenever he 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.840 remembered it the next day, it wasn't in that hazy, 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:47.040 fragmentary way that you try to fix a dream in 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:51.120 your mind. It was like a crisply embedded memory of 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:55.920 what he'd experienced the day before. Twenty three year old 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.520 David Booth, an office manager at the agency rent a 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:03.479 Car Reading, was a bright man with a long, patrician 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:08.160 face and plaintive, thoughtful eyes. He liked to play the 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.520 guitar and listen to Emmy Lou Harris, and had a 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:15.200 ponchant for self help books. What he didn't have any 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:19.480 time for was spooky stuff or any of that occult nonsense. 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:25.560 But this strange, incessant, terrifying dream was tearing him apart. 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.920 It even left him too scared to sleep come the evening. 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.000 He tried to keep himself awake as long as possible, 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.079 sitting alone in the darkness long after his wife Pam 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.520 had gone to bed, watching the Tonight Show, then the 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.959 Tomorrow Show, and even the test cards that came after. 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:50.120 But gradually his eyelids would begin to droop, and before 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:53.280 he knew it, he was back in that strange, eerie 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:59.960 field again, watching hell fall from the sky. Slowly, over time, 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:05.040 he began to wonder what if it wasn't just a dream. 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.800 On that Tuesday, May twenty second, Booth arrived at his 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:13.240 work with one thing on his mind. He didn't know 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.800 what he would say exactly, but he had to tell 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:19.960 someone what he was going through. If nothing else, he reasoned, 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.960 maybe by sharing his terrifying experience, he might bring it 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.640 to an end. He found a number for the Cincinnati 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:33.800 office of the Federal Aviation Administration and gave them a call. Eventually, 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.680 he was put through to Ray Pinkerton, assistant manager of 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:42.800 the Airway Traffic Facility. Ray listened patiently to David as 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.080 he recounted the strange dream he'd been having every night 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.679 for the past week. He didn't want to sound crazy, 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:53.079 he said, but what if the dream was some kind 0:10:53.120 --> 0:11:08.320 of premonition? Much to David's relief, Ray Pinkerton didn't make 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.120 fun of him, nor did he dismiss him as some 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:15.559 kind of kook. To Pinkerton, the unnerving tremble he could 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.880 hear in David's voice was enough to convince him that 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.720 he should at least take him at face value. Whatever 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.520 the man was going through, he thought, it was clearly 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:29.600 very real to him. The fact that David begged Ray 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.520 not to tell the press about the call, that he 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.480 simply wanted to get it off his chest was also unsettling, 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.959 but Ray didn't really know what to say. He certainly 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:45.120 didn't believe in premonitions. In the end, he agreed to 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.520 pass the information up the chain, hoping that would at 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:54.080 least give David some reassurance. Later that afternoon, Ray called 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:58.439 Public affairs Officer Jack Barker in the FAA's Atlanta office 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.560 and relayed everything. David told him how he claimed to 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:06.440 have dreamt about an American Airlines plane that banked oddly 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.000 to the side and almost flipped upside down before it 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.199 crashed into the ground, and how the engines had been 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:17.360 strangely silent when it did so. Ray also did its 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.160 best to recount the various landmarks that David pointed out, 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:26.040 the dull, single story building, the gravel path curving round 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.320 and leading onto a main road, and the wide open 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:34.080 field where the plane came down. There was something else, too, 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.320 although David had no idea what it meant. For some reason, 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:42.240 the number forty and the word Danbury, which he assumed 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.920 was related to the town of Danbury in Connecticut, kept 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.880 popping into his head. Like Ray, Jack Barker didn't dismiss 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.200 the dream out of hand, either. For years, his own grandfather, 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.400 a sea captain, had told a chilling story about how 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:01.840 he'd once been standing on the deck of a ship 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.560 as it sailed between Key West and South America when 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:09.120 he was suddenly struck in the chest by an albatross. 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.000 The event had so shocked him he'd made a note 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:15.120 of it in the ship's log, recording the precise time 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:19.520 it happened. When he returned home, he received the devastating 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:24.240 news that his daughter had died from yellow fever. According 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.800 to the grandfather, the time of her death was exactly 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:33.080 the same time the albatross had collided into him. But also, 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.240 just like Ray, Barker was at a loss with what 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.400 to do with the information, even if the dream really 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:44.400 was some kind of premonition. Aside from identifying the plane 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.240 as American Airlines, they had nothing substantial to act on. 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.559 There was nothing to identify what specific plane or flight 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.160 it was, nor to pinpoint exactly where the crash was 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.760 supposedly going to occur, and they certainly weren't about to 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.440 ground all American Airlines flights until they worked it out, 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:08.640 potentially thousands of flights a day. Barker agreed to log 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.960 it with American Airlines Cincinnati office just in case, but 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:17.679 beyond that there was nothing else to be done. Meanwhile, 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.320 it was around this time that an American Airline's DC 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.680 ten flight one nine one, bound for Los Angeles, was 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:30.600 taking off from Chicago's O'Hare Airport. About thirty minutes into 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.400 the flight, much to the captain's alarm, the planes left 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:39.920 engine suddenly failed. Thankfully, with its two other engines working fine, 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.040 he was able to turn the plane around and land 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:49.120 safely back in Chicago later that night. David Booth had 0:14:49.160 --> 0:15:00.080 the dream again. On Friday, May twenty fifth, da VI. 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.960 It woke once more in the early hours of the morning, 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:07.440 sweating profusely with his heart banging in his chest, and 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:12.720 once again came that unbearable wave of sadness. It had 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.200 now been ten days straight since he began dreaming of 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:20.560 the plane crash. But things were different this time. The 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.960 sadness that had usually evaporated by mid morning refused to 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:29.560 leave him. Three hundred and twenty miles away to the north. 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:34.320 Back at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, a bright sun lit up 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:39.840 the late spring sky outside Gate K five on the tarmac. 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:45.480 American Airlines DC ten flight one nine one registration number 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:50.120 N one one AA was ready once more to make 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:55.000 its regular journey to Los Angeles. Inside the gate, one 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:58.680 by one, passengers for the two forty five PM flight 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:04.200 began filing in twenty six year old Margaret Stax from 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.360 a K Moos, Michigan, was excited to be heading out 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:11.600 to her first book by Its convention. Forty seven year 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.360 old author Judith Wax and her fifty one year old husband, 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.840 Sheldon were also heading to the convention. Five years ago, 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.200 when her daughter finally left for college and her son 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:28.320 joined the Harry Krishna movement, Judith began writing again within 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.920 a year. She was a witty and astute essayist in demand, 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.000 and now she was heading to the convention as a 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.360 celebrated author of a memoir she'd published only a few 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:42.400 weeks ago. She and Sheldon, who was going in his 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:46.720 capacity as managing editor of Playboy Magazine, were joined by 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:51.880 Sheldon's colleagues Mary Sheridan and Vickie Hayder. It was Vicky's 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.040 first time away from her one year old son Sean. 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.520 Though she was excited for the trip, her son was 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:02.880 all she could think about. Catherine and Joseph Benneck were 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:05.879 taking their eleven year old sons Stephen, on a short 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:09.160 break to make the most of the Memorial Day weekend, 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.800 while newlyweds Barbara and Peter Warner were still giddy with 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:18.479 excitement after getting married only three days ago. The couple 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.480 were on their way home from an all too brief honeymoon, 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.639 but looking forward to sharing it all with their families. 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:35.439 One after another, the passengers continued to arrive for the 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:39.960 two forty five pm flight to Los Angeles. Twenty four 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:43.960 year old Ray DeVito escort it its girlfriend, Deborah Maruzzi 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:46.920 as far as he could before the pair made their 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:51.359 good wyes and Deborah headed off toward the gate. The 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.040 couple had been seeing each other for two years and 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:58.480 still found it hard to be apart. Back in departures, 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.479 Ray took a seat by one of the windows facing 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.280 the runway so he could watch the plane take off. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.400 Around two PM, a call went out to those waiting 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:13.640 hopefully on flight one nine one's reserved list. Among them 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.960 was thirty four year old Glenn Nichols, a communication specialist 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:20.600 who just spent the last three weeks at a training 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:25.280 course at the Bell System School. Glenn introduced himself to 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.480 the staff at the counter. He was in luck. They 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.600 told him a seat had just come available on the 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:35.400 sold out flight. Then a young woman appeared behind him, 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.800 a little flustered. She didn't want to be rude, she said, 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.879 but was there any chance that she could have the seat? 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.439 Seeing how desperate she was, Glenn happily agreed to let 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:50.440 her take it. The woman smiled with relief and thanked 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.560 Glenn profusely before joining the rest of the passengers, while 0:18:54.640 --> 0:19:00.520 Glenn walked off to find another flight. Finally time for 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:04.520 the passengers to board the plane. There were two hundred 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:08.000 and fifty eight in total, along with eleven working crew 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.679 and two off duty flight attendants hitching a lift to 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:15.760 their next flight. One by one, they took their seats 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:20.760 in the plane. Mary and Richard cap, both in their fifties, 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:25.240 fastened their seat belts, then held hands as pilot Captain 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:29.560 water Lux welcomed them all aboard through the speaker system. 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:34.520 This would be their first vacation in ten years. Elsewhere, 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:39.640 Susan and Stephen Lang from Bull Valley near Woodstock, wondered 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.880 anxiously how their children, three and a half year old 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:46.680 Joy and eight year old Bryson would cope without them 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:50.040 while they were away, but it wouldn't be long, they 0:19:50.080 --> 0:20:00.879 reminded themselves. They'd be back home with them soon. With 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.000 every one on board and settled into their seats, the 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:07.439 no smoking sign was lit up and the attendants began 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:11.760 their safety briefing. The flight was scheduled to take roughly 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:15.080 four hours and would include one hot meal and a 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.919 movie shown on a handful of screens dotted about the cabin. 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:24.160 Before that, however, Captain Lux invited the passengers to watch 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.560 the plane take off fire the cockpits in flight camera. 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.520 The camera was a unique feature of the American Airlines 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:35.080 d C ten that allowed passengers to see directly out 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.320 of the cockpit for the entirety of the take off process, 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:43.240 as if they were flying the plane themselves. At just 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.920 after two fifty six p m. Eleven minutes behind schedule, 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.959 Captain Lux received word from air traffic control that they 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:53.320 were now clear to make it out to the runway. 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.879 He fired up the plane's engines and slowly eased it 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:02.120 away from the gate. A few minutes later, Flight one 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:05.440 nine one was perched at the end of runway thirty two, 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.600 right as it waited for an incoming plane to land. 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:14.000 Up in the air traffic control tower, Controller Edward Rucker 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:18.720 was supervising. At three oh one, he gave Captain Lux 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:24.440 and First Officer James Dillard the green light. American one 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:29.200 nine one cleared for takeoff. American one nine one underway, 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:34.199 replied the Captain. Rucker watched from the tower as the 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.240 plane nudged onto the end of the runway, and then, 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:42.040 after a brief pause, it began to take off steadily. 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:46.960 It gained speed. There's eighty knots, said Captain Lux, as 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:51.800 the plane continued to accelerate. All the while, something unseen 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:56.240 was happening inside the plane's left pylon. A fracture that 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:59.520 had begun weeks ago and had only grown bigger with 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:04.119 every vibration from every flight since then, had now grown 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:08.600 to nearly a foot in length. Rucca continued to watch 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:12.920 as the plane powered forward, going from eighty to one hundred, 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:16.080 then to one hundred and fifty miles per hour, and 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:20.160 beyond V one, the point of no return, from where 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:24.760 it is impossible to abort a take off without catastrophic consequences. 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:28.760 At one hundred and seventy five miles per hour, the 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.800 plane's nosewheel began to lift up from the tarmac. As 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:38.240 it did, Mark Rucca saw something utterly horrifying. The plane's 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.320 left engine was moving independently of the plane, as if 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.480 it were trying to take off on its own. It 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:50.520 bounced and jostled for a moment, then completely disconnected, flew 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:53.639 up over the wing, and fell with a crash onto 0:22:53.680 --> 0:23:07.679 the runway. He blew an engine, cried Ruccia in terror 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:10.760 as he watched Flight one nine to one ease up 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:15.080 into the sky. Even still, Rucca knew the plane was 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:19.040 capable of flying on two engines, provided it got enough speed. 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:23.879 Keeping his eyes fixated on the jet, Rucca radioed the 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.879 cockpit American one nine one, do you want to come back? 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:32.280 But there was no reply because, unknown to Rucca and 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:35.520 the flight crew, the cable for the cockpit voice recorder 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:40.240 had been damaged when the engine fell off. All Rucca 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:45.560 could do then was watch and pray. At first, it 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:48.840 looked as though it would be okay. The plane, or 0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:53.200 bit jettisoning vast streams of silver hydraulic fluid from its 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:57.919 left wing, continued its usual trajectory into the air, but 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:02.520 then it started to bank oddly to the left. On 0:24:02.680 --> 0:24:06.560 take off, Captain Lux and First Officer Dillard had no 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:09.480 doubt seen the warning light telling them that the left 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:14.240 engine had failed. In response, Dillard swiftly raised the nose 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:17.760 to fourteen degrees and reduced the plane's speed from one 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:21.160 hundred ninety to one hundred seventy six miles per hour, 0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:25.320 standard procedure for an engine failure. But what he and 0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:29.000 LUs didn't know was that the engine hadn't just failed, 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:33.280 it had completely broken away from the plane, destroying numerous 0:24:33.359 --> 0:24:37.479 hydraulic systems in the process. As a result, they no 0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:42.359 longer had control over the left wing slats, meaning now 0:24:42.720 --> 0:24:45.880 the speed at which the plane could stall was far 0:24:46.000 --> 0:24:50.160 higher than the pilots realized. So when First Officer Dillard 0:24:50.240 --> 0:24:54.160 reduced speed, he would have been utterly horrified to find 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:58.359 the left wing suddenly beginning to stall, And then the 0:24:58.400 --> 0:25:03.320 plane began to tilt and tilt more and more until 0:25:03.359 --> 0:25:07.680 the right wing was pointing straight up perpendicular to the ground. 0:25:08.880 --> 0:25:12.240 From the eighty Sea Tower, Rucker and his colleagues could 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:17.880 only watch on in helpless horror down on Tooey Avenue, 0:25:18.160 --> 0:25:22.400 about a mile north of O'Hare Airport. Service station manager 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:26.520 Richard du Sec, distracted by a strange rumble in the sky, 0:25:27.040 --> 0:25:30.240 looked up just in time to see the bizarre site 0:25:30.359 --> 0:25:34.240 of a plane sailing past the window, tilting so far 0:25:34.359 --> 0:25:39.120 over it had almost become inverted, white liquid streaming from 0:25:39.119 --> 0:25:43.159 its left wing where an engine should be. Then the 0:25:43.240 --> 0:25:48.560 strange rumble stopped, replaced by an eerie, ominous silence as 0:25:48.560 --> 0:25:53.320 the plane began suddenly to fall from the sky. Du 0:25:53.440 --> 0:25:56.880 Sec screamed for his sixteen year old assistant Alan Rodgers 0:25:57.000 --> 0:26:00.000 to get down as the plane slammed into the ground, 0:26:00.720 --> 0:26:04.040 exploding in a giant, red and orange ball of fire. 0:26:05.320 --> 0:26:08.680 Glass rained down all around them as the windows blew 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:13.600 out from the force of the explosion. Fourteen year old 0:26:13.760 --> 0:26:18.080 Mario Hubbard, from the nearby two emobile home park, which 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:21.439 the plane had just crashed into, was out biking with 0:26:21.520 --> 0:26:24.760 friends when he heard the explosion, followed by the sight 0:26:24.880 --> 0:26:28.479 of the huge fireball and a thick cloud of black smoke. 0:26:29.560 --> 0:26:32.679 Mario raced back, grateful to fight his home had not 0:26:32.760 --> 0:26:37.280 been destroyed. In a daze, he began to wander between 0:26:37.320 --> 0:26:40.880 the trailers, the heat from the flames becoming ever more 0:26:40.920 --> 0:26:45.080 intense as he inched closer and closer to the crash site. 0:26:45.240 --> 0:26:49.000 All about the ground was littered with debris and hot 0:26:49.040 --> 0:26:53.199 ash fell from the sky. Then he saw something peculiar 0:26:53.440 --> 0:27:05.800 lying between two trailers, a human arm American Airline's flight 0:27:05.920 --> 0:27:10.399 one nine one plane registration N one one o a 0:27:10.400 --> 0:27:13.879 A was in the air for about thirty seconds before 0:27:13.920 --> 0:27:17.800 it turned almost completely over and slammed into a wide 0:27:17.840 --> 0:27:22.000 open field next to an old single story storage hangar, 0:27:22.560 --> 0:27:26.480 just beyond a gravel path that curved round before joining 0:27:26.480 --> 0:27:31.919 a main road. From there, the wreckage continued forward, colliding 0:27:31.960 --> 0:27:35.359 with three mobile home parks about a mile north of 0:27:35.400 --> 0:27:39.840 the runway. With twenty one thousand gallons of fuel in 0:27:39.880 --> 0:27:43.520 its tanks, it exploded in a vast ball of flames 0:27:43.760 --> 0:27:47.280 that reached a hundred feet into the air, igniting power 0:27:47.320 --> 0:27:52.800 lines and three mobile homes. Police officer Mike Delaney, having 0:27:52.880 --> 0:27:56.439 watched the whole thing from inside its car, raced immediately 0:27:56.520 --> 0:27:59.720 to the scene, Parking up as close as he could. 0:28:00.080 --> 0:28:04.040 He hurried through charred foot high grass toward the epicentre 0:28:04.080 --> 0:28:08.240 of the crash. It was strange. Despite the odd section 0:28:08.359 --> 0:28:11.520 of a wing or piece of fuselage, there was little 0:28:11.560 --> 0:28:14.480 sign of the plane at all. It had been almost 0:28:14.560 --> 0:28:20.520 completely vaporized. Instead, all around were just eerie remnants of it, 0:28:21.240 --> 0:28:26.440 scorched pages of in flight magazines flapping in trees, pieces 0:28:26.480 --> 0:28:30.960 of twisted, blackened metal still smoking on the ground. Then 0:28:31.320 --> 0:28:34.639 he saw a single foot lying in the grass, and 0:28:34.720 --> 0:28:37.560 a pair of shoes with only the legs sticking out 0:28:37.600 --> 0:28:42.880 of them. Elsewhere, dark smoke was rising from a blackened torso. 0:28:43.920 --> 0:28:47.280 Then he saw a head. It was clear to him 0:28:47.320 --> 0:28:53.000 then that no one had survived. Back in Cincinnati, around 0:28:53.080 --> 0:28:57.120 eight pm later that evening, David Booth was at home 0:28:57.160 --> 0:29:00.560 with his wife Pam, watching an adaptation of the John 0:29:00.640 --> 0:29:06.200 Jake's American Revolution era novel The Rebels. He'd felt low 0:29:06.280 --> 0:29:10.200 all day, unable to shake the profound sadness that had 0:29:10.240 --> 0:29:13.880