Mayday Air Crash Investigations - S10 E03 - Pilot Betrayed
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00:00Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain. I hope you have a good day.
00:04Captain Stéphane Rasmussen has been in love with flying all of his life.
00:09I got my first idea of flying when I was a young boy.
00:14After learning to fly in the Air Force, Rasmussen joined Scandinavian Airlines.
00:19He seemed to like to be the one who really enjoyed his job.
00:22On December the 27th, 1991, he's in command of a state-of-the-art DC-9.
00:34The flight will take him to the very edge of his abilities as his engines fail and his plane falls out of the sky.
00:42I was in a nightmare.
00:43Stockholm, Scandinavian 751. We are crashing into ground now.
00:47What caused the most baffling accident in Sweden's history is nothing investigators could have imagined.
00:56What they finally uncover will strain Rasmussen's lifelong relationship with airplanes to the breaking point.
01:02I really felt that I didn't trust the airplane.
01:09Mayday, mayday.
01:10It's two days after Christmas.
01:32Stockholm Arlander Airport is a mess of snow, slush and ice.
01:36Passengers boarding a mid-morning Scandinavian Airlines flight to Copenhagen are finding the cabin very uncomfortable.
01:49It was really warm inside the plane when we entered because there had been, like, heaters on during night.
01:56And I saw when the passengers embarked, they also wanted to take off, like, jackets and shoes because it was like a sauna.
02:06Is it possible to turn the heat down now?
02:2134-year-old Ulf Sedermark has been with the airline for four years.
02:26He's the first officer on today's flight.
02:28It was a light snowfall.
02:31Temperature was just below freezing and light winds.
02:35We were going to fly Stockholm to Copenhagen and then to Warsaw, back to Copenhagen and down to Barcelona that day.
02:42It would be quite a long working day.
02:45Stefan Rasmussen has just finished an exterior check of the plane.
02:50The Danish pilot is in command this morning.
02:52In those over 12, almost 13,000 hours I've been sitting in the aircraft, I always felt that I put the aircraft back on my, like, a rick sack.
03:07And when we took lift on the wings, we melted together.
03:11The plane Rasmussen is strapping on today is a nearly new DC-9, easily identifiable by its two rear engines.
03:22By now, everyone should know that door stays open.
03:27Right.
03:29Even in the days before terrorist threats, flying with the cockpit door open is unusual.
03:35It's just one way Rasmussen has endeared himself to the crews and passengers he flies with.
03:41I always had my cabin door open because I found out that if we had the door open and they could see that they were a human being in there, they'd trust you.
03:50For me, it felt good that the door was open.
03:53It just feels like you have a connection more than if the door is closed.
03:58The winter weather has delayed this flight, but Rasmussen won't compromise safety for schedule.
04:04Where are we now with the de-icing?
04:06The winds aren't quite done.
04:07They've done the underside.
04:08Now they're doing the top.
04:13Under Captain Rasmussen's instructions, the ground crew had already de-iced the plane once.
04:18Now they're giving it another pass.
04:20It took a while, but they had trouble getting rid of the snow on top of the wing.
04:25So we were slightly late for their pushback out of our runway.
04:28For Captain Per Holmberg, this kind of delay is routine business.
04:34He flies DC-9s for the airline.
04:37A passenger this morning, he is scheduled to command another flight later that day.
04:41Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain.
04:46I hope you had a good Christmas.
04:48We're just getting our wings cleared as we've had a bit of snow overnight.
04:51And when that's finished, we're ready for takeoff for some warmer weather.
04:56I handpicked the airline's best cabin crew to take care of you today.
04:59We all hope you have a nice flight.
05:01Finally, Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751 is cleared to proceed.
05:12There are build-ups of snow that the crew must avoid on the way to the runway.
05:19Would have been nice of them to clear the snow.
05:23Well, that would have made it too easy.
05:25Approaching holding point, runway 08.
05:32Roger, Scandinavian 751.
05:34You are cleared for takeoff from runway 08.
05:41Spoilers?
05:43Armed.
05:44Auto brake, takeoff and armed.
05:47Runway update performed.
05:50Checklist completed.
05:53Set power.
05:55Despite the winter conditions, the takeoff is routine.
06:07V1, rotate.
06:18Gear up.
06:19Gear up, selected.
06:20Just 25 seconds into the flight, as the plane is climbing, there is a problem.
06:36When you hear things that are different from the anomaly, you get suspicious.
06:40There was a really big roar in the aircraft, almost like an explosion.
06:47Boom.
06:48There was another banging noise that I just thought, what is that?
06:57I had never heard that before.
06:59It's obvious the source of the noise is the right engine.
07:02It sounds serious.
07:03I believe it's a compressor stop.
07:08I took the right throttle and moved a little back.
07:12But there, it really became strange because the engine performance increased when I reduced the throttle.
07:21It's like if you're sitting in your car and you're turning your wheel to the left and the car is driving to the right, you get confused.
07:29We're not supposed to call into cockpit now.
07:37And then I thought, this is an emergency.
07:39I have to call the captain.
07:40But Captain Rasmussen doesn't respond to the call.
07:46He's too busy trying to figure out what's going wrong with his plane.
07:51I couldn't see anything on the instrument.
07:52They were quite stable and in a quite normal range.
07:56No problem.
07:58But I could hear those roaring every second.
08:02He searches for telltale signs of attack or structural failure.
08:05I looked up at the cabin pressure because if you have a bump or a freight door or anything which is ripped off, that'll give a decompression.
08:21In the cabin, pressure levels are stable.
08:28But the crew has other concerns.
08:32I saw the smoke and it smelled burnt.
08:35What should we do about this?
08:40Just 3,200 feet above the ground, the emergency escalates.
08:44The right engine quits.
08:47When we have flown a little over one minute, the right engine just went down.
08:57I had a very, very short moment of thinking that I was in a nightmare and just dreaming.
09:03I was confused.
09:06I was really confused.
09:08Two seconds later, the left engine also quits.
09:12The plane is now powerless.
09:14One engine dropped and then another engine dropped.
09:17I thought that it wasn't true.
09:19It wasn't true.
09:19It wasn't real.
09:21Less than a minute and a half after takeoff, the DC-9 begins falling from the sky.
09:26And after that, it was complete silence.
09:38And I think that was the worst moment for me.
09:43Just being in the air and it's so quiet.
09:46It was like a bird just sailing through the sky.
09:49So then I started to get scared.
10:00Engine relay.
10:02As the pilots try to restart their engines, things get even worse.
10:09The left engine erupts in flames.
10:11And I saw the exos gas temperature was rising rapidly.
10:17The max temperature was around 680 degrees Celsius and I saw it go above 800.
10:24A fire in the engine could spread to the rest of the plane.
10:28Should I call?
10:29If Seydermark pulls the fire extinguisher in the left engine, he will never be able to restart it.
10:34He pulls the handle to put out the fire.
10:47From his seat, Captain Per Holmberg can see that the crew is in trouble.
10:59Flight 751 is now falling at a rate of 1,200 feet per minute.
11:04But air traffic controllers at the Stockholm airport have no idea the plane is in trouble.
11:13Arlenda, Stockholm, Scandinavian 751.
11:18Good morning, SK 751.
11:20Climb to flight level 180.
11:22We have problems with our engines, please.
11:25We need to go back to...
11:26To go back to Arlenda.
11:30751, roger.
11:31Turn right heading to...
11:33Suddenly, the radio goes dead.
11:38A result of the failed engines.
11:43Only the right engine can provide power, but it's now spinning too slowly to generate electricity for the instruments.
11:51Without the engine, you don't have any propulsion, so you will...
11:54The only energy you have is your height.
11:57With time running out, the pilots of Flight 751 must find a way to restart the right engine...
12:04...or else crash into the countryside below.
12:11Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751 is now falling from the sky at 20 feet per second.
12:16Captain Per Holmberg, who boarded the flight as a passenger, becomes part of the flight crew.
12:25He came out in the cockpit, and he said, is there anything I can help you with?
12:30I don't think I even said yes.
12:31I said, just said, start the APU.
12:34If the auxiliary power unit can be launched, it will bring back the radio and instruments.
12:39So I just handed him the emergency checklist and started to focus on controlling the flight...
12:45...to see that we were maintaining the speed and that the attitude and that we were wings level.
12:56He managed to start the auxiliary power unit, so my flight instruments were supplied from that.
13:03But for some reason, Captain Rasmussen's instruments don't come back online.
13:07He managed to fly the plane basically by feet.
13:14Power is also restored to the cabin, but it's small comfort to passengers who now know they're in extreme danger.
13:22Stockholm Air Traffic Control instructs the pilots to return to the airport.
13:27Scandinavian 751, are you able to turn right heading 090, radar vectoring for 0-1.
13:33But the plane is now just 1,600 feet from the ground.
13:39And 1st Officer Seidermark's attempts to resuscitate it aren't working.
13:46Roger, we are maintaining our heading, but we are trying to restart our engines.
13:50Making a 180-degree turn back to Stockholm could be catastrophic.
13:56I really had the feeling that if I turned the aircraft at that time, we would have stalled.
14:00When you're turning back, you are losing a lot of energy.
14:03So the most safe thing to do is actually just to go straight and keep your wings level.
14:07That means that you will use less energy of your altitude so you can maintain your speed.
14:14You can maintain 2,000 feet.
14:16We are not able to maintain 2,000 feet.
14:19We are descending.
14:20We are at 1,600 feet and descending.
14:24Holmberg wants Rasmussen to focus his attention on finding a landing spot.
14:28Look straight ahead.
14:30He was screaming at Stefan.
14:42Just look straight ahead and watch the flight path.
14:46Prepare for on-ground emergency.
14:48On-ground emergency!
14:51Bend down!
14:53Bend down!
14:54Bend down!
14:55So we shouted bend down, I don't know how many times.
14:58Bend down, bend down, bend down.
14:59Keep your seatbelts fastened.
15:04While passengers brace, Rasmussen considers where to land his plane.
15:09Look straight ahead.
15:14And I had an idea that on the northern direction could bring us out to the Baltic Sea, which was at that time frozen.
15:24An absolutely excellent runway.
15:29But instead, he finds himself gliding powerlessly over a dense forest.
15:34I saw that green area, and I saw that little light spot in the middle of the forest.
15:43But that really looked short.
15:47Steal right!
15:48Steal right!
15:52Just 500 feet above the ground, Captain Rasmussen lifts the plane's nose to slow it down, hoping to soften the crash landing.
16:00Pine trees from the top, they look very soft.
16:07I could use the trees as almost like a pillow.
16:12Should I lower the landing gear?
16:14Yes.
16:15Gear down.
16:15Bend down and hold your knees.
16:20I prepared myself for a hard impact.
16:23If it's an emergency landing, we have no engines.
16:26I just thought, this is going to be a hard landing.
16:29Stockholm, Scandinavian 751.
16:31We are crashing into the ground now.
16:33I wasn't afraid until we were flying into the trees.
16:41Then I was scared, and I knew we were not going to make it.
16:44I didn't thought I should die.
16:46I knew I should die.
16:48I made my prey to God.
16:50And then, a moment after, we were in a strange world.
17:20After we have come to a complete stop, I feel the smell of airplane fuel.
17:29I thought, okay, we're going to explode.
17:33And I look around, and I see the snow, because there was a big crack in the airplane fuselage, just in front of the aft galley.
17:42And you could just walk down on the ground.
17:51Everything was quiet, and I woke up.
17:56It might only have been a split second or so.
18:00I was afraid that my spine was broken, that I wouldn't be able to walk again.
18:05So I remember I was sitting there, and I was moving my toes and my feet, just to see if I could have control over them.
18:11I had a pain in my hand, because I had broken a bone in my hand, and I was bleeding heavily from my forehead.
18:16So I was trying to get clear of all the blood that was coming down in my eyes.
18:21And Stefan told me that we had to get out of the aircraft.
18:28After plowing through 125 meters of pine forest, the pilot's fear is now that the broken aircraft could catch fire.
18:35Dozens of passengers escaped through the brakes in the fuselage walls.
18:44But Captain Per Holmberg has been knocked unconscious by the crash.
18:47It all went so fast that, like, no one could take in, like, what happened?
18:55So I tried to stay with a group of passengers I had there.
18:58But I just knew the feeling also that we had to wait a long time for the rescue teams.
19:04Help will be here soon.
19:05Fortunately, no fire materializes.
19:09But because they removed their winter clothing while boarding the sweltering plane, many passengers are starting to freeze.
19:16Most people were just standing in their shirts, T-shirts, very, very little clothes.
19:23Few didn't even have shoes on.
19:26They are now at risk from hypothermia.
19:28So I focused on being caring.
19:34Maybe I did it for my own sake also.
19:36I needed a hug also.
19:37It was comforting to, like, comfort someone else.
19:42The wreckage of Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751 lies just 15 kilometers northeast of Stockholm-Arlander Airport.
19:56The fuselage has broken into three pieces.
20:00In the chaos of the moment, nobody knows how many people have been killed in the crash.
20:05Rescuers arrive within minutes and attend to the freezing survivors.
20:16They pull Captain Per Holmberg from the cabin, unconscious.
20:21He landed on the wall at impact and he skidded down on the wall to the floor at impact.
20:30So he was quite badly damaged.
20:32Damage, he cut his eyelid and he also got his collarbone that was broken off so his shoulder was in front of him.
20:4392 of the passengers have sustained injuries.
20:47Only eight are considered serious.
20:48But when the crew conducts a headcount, they're stunned to learn that out of the 129 people who boarded Flight 751,
21:00not a single one was killed in the crash.
21:04Everyone survived.
21:06It was like a shock just to take in.
21:10Wow.
21:10That was a fantastic comment.
21:11Just as I was the happiest captain in the world, we were all alive.
21:18That was a great moment.
21:22Reporters break the remarkable story to the world as the Swedish Accident Investigation Board, or SAIB, takes charge of the case.
21:30Scandinavian Airlines alerts its own investigators, dispatching Tori Hultgren to head up its team.
21:39So it's most unusual that the plane crashes in a wooded area, and everybody survives, and never heard of it before.
21:52The police kept everybody off the site itself.
21:57It was a cordon around the aircraft, about 100 meters.
22:00We had a complete aircraft, nothing had burned, and we had lots of good data.
22:10Henrik Ullender from the SAIB gets to work on the evidence.
22:15And we started to plan the documentation of the accident site,
22:20which means photographing all the final approach through the wood, you know,
22:26and to take photos of all the parts that were spread all over the place.
22:32The two black boxes, which record cockpit conversations and store flight data, are recovered immediately.
22:44Investigators speak to survivors.
22:46Everyone tells a similar story.
22:50Would you mind telling me what you saw and heard?
22:54Loud, booming sounds from the engines moments after the flight began.
22:58Smoke in the cabin.
23:00And finally, the entire loss of power and an engine on fire.
23:04You have a twin-engine aircraft, and you are really not supposed to lose both engines at the same time.
23:12The Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines are sent to a Scandinavian Airlines repair shop for closer examination.
23:20Investigators are eager to speak with Captain Rasmussen about the incident.
23:25But to their dismay, Scandinavian Airlines takes him to the media first.
23:29The first question, what did you think when boat engine refused to function?
23:33It will take me an awful lot of time to tell you all that.
23:37The normal case is that the key witnesses, like the crew and so on, should be kept in quarantine until they meet the investigation board.
23:51European media celebrate Captain Stephen Rasmussen as a hero for landing the DC-9 without engine power.
23:58But investigators consider the possibility that he or his co-pilot had made errors that caused the crisis in the first place.
24:07The honor and the glory always rests with the captain, but so does also the mishaps.
24:13I knew that being a person where in the spotlight of the press would be a quite different situation.
24:24And I said to myself, the only thing you can do now is to give them all their story and then pray that they will find the reason.
24:36Lars Lindberg is an investigative representative for the Swedish Airlines Pilot Association.
24:51He examines the wreckage for signs of mechanical or structural failure.
24:57We knew both engines had failed for some reason.
25:01So we were concerned what was the background for something like that to happen.
25:06The first time I saw the engines in the workshop, I was surprised.
25:14Is this all they found?
25:17There was a number of parts that were completely missing.
25:22And this was something we hadn't seen before to this extent.
25:26To find out what happened, investigators must find the missing pieces,
25:32which now lie somewhere in snow-covered fields and forests.
25:36A close study of Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751's engines reveals exactly which pieces are missing.
25:48Part of this aircraft was shedding parts from both engines.
25:52And then what you do is you go further in and you document everything and you try to find the root cause and see how it all comes together.
25:58The missing pieces could hold the key to discovering why both of the plane's engines quit within seconds of each other.
26:05But they could be anywhere along the 15-kilometre route the aircraft covered during its short flight.
26:14They must be found.
26:20Investigators use the flight data recorder to map the plane's journey and determine where engine parts may have fallen.
26:26After scouring the snow-covered fields along the plane's path,
26:36the recovery team finds 500 fragments.
26:41Just a fraction of what's missing.
26:45Many are very badly damaged.
26:47Some of the titanium blades actually seem to have been on fire.
26:52You have this titanium fire inside both engines, both the right and the left engine.
26:58And this titanium fire is a very unique occurrence.
27:02It's requiring very, very high pressure and very high temperature for a titanium blade to catch fire.
27:09Investigators dig deeper into the cause of the engine trouble.
27:12The left engine's fuel line is badly dented.
27:17It was obviously hit by a fast-moving piece of metal inside the engine.
27:21The impact caused it to rupture.
27:23This part got dislodged.
27:25It went out and hit a fuel line.
27:28And that fuel line cracked, sprayed fuel onto the hot engine.
27:33The engine was clearly coming apart during the flight.
27:37That sounds serious.
27:38The discovery explains the fire in the left engine and why so many pieces of it were found so far from the crash site.
27:49But investigators are left wondering why the engines broke up in the first place.
27:55A major clue comes from passenger and crew testimonies,
27:59which told of repeated booming noises before the left engine caught fire.
28:03The cockpit voice recorder picked up these sounds.
28:10You can hear that and we could correlate that with when the damage occurred.
28:15You can see that on the flight data recorder.
28:17The sounds are familiar to investigators and leave no doubt.
28:21The DC-9's engines began surging shortly after takeoff.
28:26Jet engines rely on a steady stream of air for combustion.
28:29A series of fans move incoming air through various stages of compression.
28:35But when that flow is disrupted, fuel at the rear of the engines ignites violently and shoots forward.
28:41That's a surge.
28:44You can have a small surge and you can have a large surge.
28:47You can have the complete surge on the whole engine.
28:49It sounds serious.
28:50This surge process was very violent.
28:57So after a very short time, we had an aircraft with two engines that could not be restarted, that didn't generate any thrust.
29:05Basically, you had a giant glider at that point.
29:09A closer look at the fan blades from the front of the engines explains why they were surging.
29:23They're badly dented.
29:28The damage would have prevented them from effectively directing air to the rear of the engines.
29:33This damage that twisted the fan blade started this process.
29:38You got this disturbed air in the fan.
29:41You got this rotating fan stall that then triggered this whole breakdown, the compressor surge,
29:47and then the whole process that led up to the dual engine failures.
29:51But what exactly mangled the blades?
29:53There are ways to tell.
29:55If it comes from a stone, rubber, ice, and so on, you can see it on the shape of the damage.
30:02The ice causes very specific damages.
30:05It's sort of like a soft dent.
30:08Analysis of dent patterns on the fan blades is conclusive.
30:12They were struck by ice.
30:19Now investigators want to find out where the ice could have come from.
30:23Weathered better for the 24 hours leading up to the crash.
30:28They know Stockholm had been hit with rain and snow in the hours before Flight 751 took off.
30:34It was a situation with a temperature around zero degrees.
30:40It was a drizzle, snow, rain in the morning.
30:43They learned that the DC-9 arrived from Zurich the night before, with the fuel tanks more than half full.
30:49They had quite a large amount of reserve fuel, of diversion fuel, in their wings.
30:55The fuel in the wing tanks were close to minus 20 degrees Celsius.
31:01The conditions that night were ideal for the formation of clear ice on the wing surface.
31:07And here you had very, very cold fuel on the top wing skin.
31:14And as the temperature dropped during the night, it went to snow and rain, and finally snow.
31:20So there was a layer cake.
31:22Ice at the bottom, slush, and snow on top.
31:27About 10 inches total on top of the wings in the morning.
31:30Responsibility for de-icing the plane ultimately falls on the captain.
31:37Rasmussen insists he was aware of the overnight build-up.
31:41Investigators wonder if the pilot did all he could to ensure his plane was completely free of ice.
31:49Rasmussen claims he instructed technicians to de-ice the plane thoroughly.
31:54I didn't walk around with the aircraft. It was cold. It was frosty.
31:58Noticing that there was still frost on the wings, the head technician ordered a second round of de-icing.
32:07I was really convinced that the aircraft was clean.
32:10And so was he. So was he.
32:13Where are we now with the j-icing?
32:16The wings aren't quite done. They've done the underside.
32:18The cockpit voice recorder backs up Rasmussen's testimony.
32:22They've got it good and clean under the wings? Yes, yes.
32:25They de-iced the aircraft once and looked at it and I said, once more.
32:29And they de-iced. That's the second time.
32:32In fact, a total of 850 litres of fluid was sprayed on the aircraft.
32:38But the fluid may have been faulty.
32:40Not potent enough to melt the thick layer of ice that had accumulated on the wings overnight.
32:45Technicians test samples of the fluid used to de-ice Flight 751.
32:55We found no discrepancies.
32:57There was nothing wrong with any of the fluids used.
33:01But when investigators interview the maintenance crew that worked on the plane,
33:06they begin wondering if the de-icing team was thorough enough in their efforts.
33:10The ground crew insists that after they sprayed the wing, it appeared to be clean.
33:18But that appearance was deceptive.
33:21It looked perfect.
33:22Because the clear ice on top of the fuel tanks, you cannot see the clear ice.
33:28A technician inspected the front of the wing and found no ice.
33:34He couldn't have known that there was ice further back, out of his reach.
33:38No provisions for stairs or anything that he could use to get up on the wing at the de-icing platform.
33:46It looked shiny and nice.
33:49Couldn't see any ice on it.
33:51But still, there was maybe an inch of ice on top of the wing when the aircraft took off.
33:58As soon as the plane took flight, the ice became a problem.
34:02On this aircraft, the engines are positioned behind the wings.
34:08And as the aircraft rotated and the wings bent in order to take the weight of the aircraft,
34:14this ice in the wing roots loosened and it sucked right into the engine.
34:20The ice damaged the fan blades at the front of the engines and ultimately caused them to begin surging.
34:29Nobody really expected this would happen or could happen.
34:34But it did.
34:35When ice breaks off the wings during flight, it doesn't pose a problem for most aircraft.
34:41But the placement of a DC-9's engines leaves them more susceptible to being struck.
34:46The Pratt and Whitney engines on flight 751 were designed to withstand this type of ice ingestion.
34:53Something else must explain the disaster.
35:00Investigators know that the wrong reaction by a pilot can make surges worse.
35:05They comb through the flight data to see what these pilots did when the emergency struck.
35:10The first thing you do when you have a surge, if you recognize this at a surge, is that you reduce power.
35:19Captain Rasmussen claims he did just that.
35:21Of course, you just pull the throttle back and then you have the balance between the incoming fuel and incoming air.
35:29And that was actually what I did.
35:31But the flight data recorder tells a different story.
35:37Why is the engine power increasing?
35:39It clearly shows that in the moments after the surge, thrust was reduced.
35:44But then, seconds later, was increased to beyond full power.
35:48Yeah, it didn't add up because the RPM was increasing to 110%.
35:54And the throttle position was moving.
35:57It shouldn't be.
35:58The only thing that could move the throttles and clamp was the pilot's hand.
36:02But if Rasmussen didn't push the throttles forward, something else did.
36:08It would explain the captain's confusion as his engines began to surge.
36:12As a pilot, when you've gone through the training, you've done all your emergency training, you've been through the simulator,
36:19and now you have a system that is doing something that you don't expect, it's very confusing.
36:27Despite their relentless efforts, investigators can find no possible explanation for the increase in thrust.
36:33The frustrating part with the investigation was that we could not figure out why the system did what it did.
36:39Then, almost two months after the accident, the plane's manufacturer provides the answer.
36:47The culprit is something called automatic thrust restoration.
36:53It's brand new.
36:55It automatically increases the thrust during the climb.
36:58Swedish authorities learned that automatic thrust restoration, or ATR,
37:03was recently introduced as a safety feature on Scandinavian Airlines planes.
37:07It existed because the FAA had discovered some pilots were throttling back considerably while taking off and landing
37:15to reduce noise over residential neighborhoods.
37:19The ATR was designed to make it impossible for them to throttle back to dangerous levels.
37:25So as soon as he powered back, the system kicked in.
37:28Investigators learned that when Rasmussen reduced power to clear his engine surge,
37:34the system read this as a dangerously low power setting and pushed the thottles forward.
37:42The increased thrust made the surging worse until the engines destroyed themselves.
37:47The investigation concludes that the pilots had taken the right steps to clear the surge and prevent the catastrophe.
37:55But the computer code which governs the ATR undermined their efforts.
38:00A strip of 0s and 1s caused the throttles to move
38:08and caused the engines that were stalling, because they already got too much fuel,
38:15got even more fuel.
38:17And they went into self-destruct those engines.
38:20In a few seconds, they were both totally destroyed.
38:25The system was so new to Scandinavian airlines that nobody there had even heard of it.
38:43And it was confusing for everyone, because we didn't know about the system,
38:48we didn't have information on the system.
38:51SAS didn't know the system existed on their aircraft.
38:53We hadn't bought that modification.
38:57And it was sneaked in via another system.
39:03Because he didn't know about the ATR,
39:06Rasmussen was unaware that he could only save his plane by switching it off.
39:11News that the automatic thrust restoration was responsible for the accident
39:15proved both a blessing and a curse for Captain Rasmussen.
39:20It eliminated any notion that he had made a mistake.
39:23When I got that message, I was really released.
39:28It was like winning in a lottery.
39:30It was, you know, because I was so happy.
39:34Because then I could explain why I was in that total cone of confusion.
39:40But the fallout would ultimately destroy a love affair and end a career.
39:50On October the 20th, 1993, the Swedish Accident Investigation Board releases its report on the crash of Flight 751.
39:58It determines that the actions of Captain Rasmussen and First Officer Seydermark contributed to the safe outcome of this incident.
40:12And although investigators question Captain Per Holmberg's decision to enter the cockpit in the first place,
40:17they do praise his contribution.
40:22This crew flew until they stood still on the ground.
40:25They never gave up.
40:27They never gave up.
40:29They didn't give an inch.
40:30The investigators put much of the blame for the accident on Scandinavian airlines
40:35because their procedures for checking for clear ice were inadequate.
40:38The report also condemns the fact that the pilots didn't know about the automatic thrust restoration and how it would act in a surge situation.
41:03If the ATR system hadn't been there, if the trials hadn't moved forward, there wouldn't have been an accident.
41:12It was a bit strange that we didn't have all the documentation available to us,
41:17so we knew what we could expect if something like this would happen.
41:22In the wake of the crash, Scandinavian airlines started training its pilots how to use the ATR system.
41:29They also implemented steps to ensure airplanes don't take off with clear ice on the wings.
41:36We changed all the procedures.
41:38We provided stairs for the mechanic.
41:41And we made it a requirement to go up on top of the wing and touch it with your hand to verify after de-icing.
41:50After healing from his injuries, First Officer Ulf Seydermark returned to the cockpit.
41:55I didn't feel the responsibility that I wouldn't be able to do my job again.
42:06Whatever happens, I know that I still can see things for what they are.
42:10And I still love doing my job.
42:12And if something bad happens, I can deal with it.
42:15But Stefan Rasmussen's return proved far more difficult.
42:20Set power.
42:21After it had from a high-skilled psychologist, we talked about getting in the air again.
42:29He knew that that would be a hard decision to take.
42:34Gear up.
42:43Fire drill.
42:44Fire drill.
42:44Fire drill.
42:44Fire drill.
42:51Fire drill.
42:52After time in the simulator, Rasmussen couldn't regain confidence in his plane.
42:57Sorry, guys.
42:59In a disaster situation.
43:03In a crisis is that you have optimized the teamwork between man and machine.
43:12I really felt that I didn't trust the aircraft.
43:20The pilots tend to take the responsibility for all that went wrong.
43:26Too much of the glory and also too much of the responsibility.
43:33With the right counselling, about 90% of pilots involved in an accident are able to continue flying.
43:42Even though Captain Rasmussen received treatment, his career ended with the crash of Flight 751.
43:52Taking that decision to leave aviation as pilot was like having your highest love and come to that conclusion that you have to kill her.
44:12I had many hours, many missions of happiness in an aircraft.
44:18And I loved my passengers, I loved my aircraft so much, so I said, that's it.
44:30I never regretted it, never.
44:42And I think I was right.