Air Emergency (2003–…): Season 11, Episode 10 - I'm the Problem - full transcript

A passenger plane is
obliterated in the California hills.

There were no wings, no fuselage,
there was no tail-section, no seats

Hardened steel is ripped to pieces

This was the worst damage I have ever seen

The wreckage paints a grim picture of the final
moments of Pacific South-west Air Flight 1771.

The plane reached impossibly high speeds

They told us that it broke the sound-barrier

Passengers experienced crippling G-forces

We assessed the impact forces at 5,000 G.

It would have been a horrifying experience,
the final few seconds of their lives

Whatever brought down Flight 1771,
investigators are certain of one thing:



It was not an accident.

This is a true story

It is based on official reports
and eyewitness accounts

"I AM THE PROBLEM"

Los Angeles International Airport,
one of the busiest in the world

Every year 40 million
passengers arrive and depart through LAX.

At Terminal 1, a group of passengers and crew
bound for San Francisco

are making their way
through security

A short while later
they board Pacific South-west Air Flight 1771.

Pacific South-west was a large
regional airline at that time.

Will you serve me a Scotch on your way back?

They had service in about 30 cities
mostly in the western part of the United States.

The flight from Los Angelos to San Francisco

is one of the most popular routes at
Pacific South-west Airlines, also known as PSA.



Among the 38 passengers are
several PSA employees-

including the airline's chief pilot.

It is very common for airline employees
to commute between cities for work

and so, people would take a bus to work,
many airline employees take a plane to work.

Captain Gregg Lindamood has been flying
with PSA for 14 years.

The father of three is also
a decorated combat veteran

Brakes.

Flaps up.

Spoilers retracted

First Officer James Nunn only
joined the airline the previous spring

He has also logged thousands of hours
in the cockpit.

Thrust levers

Today they are piloting a
British-built BAE 146 commuter jet.

With quiet turbo-fan engines it is designed for
short haul flights over densely populated areas

The flight to San Francisco
will take just over an hour.

What do you give the boys for Christmas?

It will be aNintendo.
For its cost, they must share it.

Anything to drink, guys?

I'm fine, thanks

Say if you change your mind.

Flight 1771 is cruising at 22,000 feet
above the California countryside.

Can you ask him how it has been?

Just over halfway through the flight...
Capt Lindemood worries about the mild turbulence

PSA 1771. Any reports on the ride ahead?
We have had a little continuous light shock.

Rocky Mountain Center here.
It's not too bad.

It was a gun shot.

The crew now
has a much bigger problem on its hands

Emergency call 77.
We have a gunfire on-board the aircraft.

You want to go to Monterey?
Can you make it, sir?

Moments later
Flight 1771 falls into a steep dive

Eyewitnesses caught a brief glimpse of the
aircraft as it was plummeting from the sky

It flew into a high
rate of speed.

It looked like a dart
diving to the ground

Flight 1771 crashes into an isolated hill
280 km Northwest of Los Angeles.

The police get to the crashsite
and find a 30 tonne airliner obliterated

There were no wings,
there were no fuselage

There was no tail-section, no seats

There was just papers.

Papers everywhere.

And the strong smell of aviation fuel.

It doesn't take long for Sheriff Steve Bolts
to reach a grim conclusion.

No one has survived the crash.

We are making a frantic search throughout
this remote cow pasture looking for survivors

And we cannot even find de-seized human beings

much less human beings that had survived

Most catastrophic aircraft accidents happen
on take off or landing.

A shallow impact angle can sometimes leave
large sections of the plane intact.

giving passengers and crew a chance at survival.

The 43 people aboard flight 1771...

...had no chance at all

This is one of the worst air-disasters
in California history

The day after the crash investigators
from both the NTSB and the FBI are on the scene

Have you seen something like this?

It is going to be a long day, guys

We knew that gunshots had been heard by the ATC

Squad 77.
We have a gunfire on-board the aircraft.

If the reports of gunshots were accurate

then I realized immediately
we had a crime on board the aircraft

for which the FBI had primary jurisdiction

But the reports may not be accurate

The Pilots and controllers may have been mistaken.

Even though speculation
about the gunman's identity is wide-spread

Is it up to the NTSB
to determine exactly what happened on Flight 1771

One of the things you have to avoid in
an accident investigation is preconceived notions

e.g. Most of us never turn on the radio,
never watch TV on the way to the scene.

because even though you might
not consciously be aware of it

you can get front-loaded with information
and when you get there,

you may subconsciously start looking for things
to substantiate that background

So, you try to arrive on scene
with a totally objective view of what is going on

While NTSB investigators try to
determine the cause of the crash...

...law enforcement agents
have questions of their own.

Establishing: 'Who had motives?'
Establishing: 'Who had access?'

Establishing:
'Who was the intended victim?'

They should be here somewhere.

The FBI is searching for evidence of a crime-

- and the NTSB for
clues about the crash.

If they recover the black boxes
they may find both

With the total destruction of the aircraft

you had limited amounts of information
that you can gather from the wreckage

The most important thing was
to get the voice recorder-

and get away from the speculations
and see what the CVR tells us factually

The flight recorders tell the tale
of what happens to the aircraft.

They are very important in reconstructing
the events that brought the airplane down.

The nose hits here and
then the tail comes...

They should be somewhere here.

I think that is it

After hours of searching
through the shattered remains

the effort finally pays off

They recover the plane's two black boxes

The first recorder that was recovered was the CVR

that was recognized by its orange cover.
It was still, although badly mangled

was still recognizable as a recorder

The second black box
has suffered even heavier damage

The flight data recorder captures critical
information about the aircraft's performance.

What a mess.

What a mess

It was so badly mangled
it was not recognizable as a FDR

Both recorders will be sent
to the NTSB laboratory in Washington.

It is far from certain whether the data they hold
can be successfully retrieved

Without it, investigators may never know
what happened on flight 1771

That is about the first thing
you do when you get on the scene

Find the cockpit voice recorder.

You cannot over emphasize
how important that was in this case

We did no airframe left to work with.
We had no wreckage in the normal sense of the word

At the NTSB laboratory in Washington

Dennis Grossi examines the badly damaged
cockpit voice recorder

The case itself was crushed

It was bent in like somebody
grabbed and pushed it together.

It was made of hardened steel.
We assessed the impact forces around 5,000 G-

based on the deformation of the crash enclosure

The recorder, the aircraft
and everyone on board

suffered an impact force 5,000
times the force of gravity.

The world's best fighter pilots
can handle a sustained force of 9 G.

In a crash, the human body can
sometimes survive 100G for a split second.

A force 50 times as strong
is difficult to comprehend

Grossi knows the immense impact may
have ruined any chance of

of hearing the last words from
the cockpit of flight 1771

No crash investigation is routine

Among the jigsaw puzzle of
pieces from flight 1771

investigators are looking for
something very different.

Perhaps a gun.

Finding the weapon could help the FBI identify
who might have fired shots

But for the NTSB
gunfire alone does not explain this accident.

A bullet should not bring down
a modern commercial jet

There is a lot of misconception
about decompression

and about whether or not
a single shot could bring down an aircraft

And if it is simply a shot through the fuselage
of the aircraft,

the answer would be no

It takes a much larger hole in the fuselage
for there to be an explosive decompression.

The kind of hole that led to one of
the deadliest air-disasters of all time.

In 1974, a faulty cargo-door
blew up Turkish Airlines flight 981 .

The decompression caused the
cabin floor to collapse,

severing the flight control cables

The crash killed all 346 people on board.

Bob Dickens:
The aircraft would normally not come down

just from of a bullet-hole
with no other implications

It just would not be enough
to cause an explosive decompression...

...which is what you almost have to have
to bring the aircraft down.

If a gunshot did not bring the plane down,

then, investigators need to find out what did.

At the NTSB lab in Washington
work to recovered Flight 1771's CVR

...has produced a surprising result.

Despite suffering huge impact forces,
the audiotape is still intact.

Let's give it a listening

The first 28 minutes of the tape
reveal a routine flight.

The crew was trying to find out
when the turbulence would end.

Can you ask him how it looks.

We have had continuous turbulence.

PSA, this is Rocky Mountain Center.
It's not too bad.

We hear the flight-crew talk
and did their normal procedures.

But in the final two minutes
events take a chilling turn.

It sure sounds like a gunshot.

Dennis Grossi: All of a sudden they hear
and we hear on this recording a gun shot

The tape confirms what the pilots have reported.

Two gunshots.

God, a gun shot.

Squad 77.
We have a gunfire on board the aircraft

It was a very sobering moment because we
realized that we were listening to 2 people

communicating with each other,
the pilot and co-pilot...

...in a routine flight
that suddenly became anything but routine

It was something that one does not quickly forget

Investigators listen as the situation
becomes increasingly disturbing

The door to the cockpit was heard open

a female voice, presumably the flight attendant,
said in a voice that was filled with alarm

There is a problem, Captain!

Bob Dickens:
We heard a male voice of the Captain

saying:
what is the nature of the problem?

I'm the problem.

Investigators now know for certain
that the killer was a man

and that he shot the flight-crew.

It is always startling when
you hear something like that

when you hear the commission of a murder

As accident investigators,
you don't hear that

This was a very unusual recording

A flight attendant and both pilots are shot

That is five shots so far.

Then we could heard
the cockpit door shut again.

And another final shot.

The sixth shot

Before the tape ends,
they hear one last ominous sound.

The plane is in a dive
The engines gas up.

Bob Dickens: Within five seconds we picked up
so-called windscreen noise.

You could tell that the aircraft was accelerating

Richard Bretzing:
That noise increased in its pitch.

We learned of course
that is was going into a dive.

65 seconds after the murder of its crew,

flight 1771 smashes into the California hills.

Richard Bretzing: It helped us to understand
what we were investigating

the heinousness of the crime
that we were investigating

The CVR recording
changes the NTSB's role in the case

Tell me if I can help.

It just confirms that this wasn't an accident
that it was a crime.

The FBI would be taking over the investigation
from here on

Bob Dickens: The FBI bear in mind how
to investigate a crime,

they don't necessarily know how
to investigate an aircraft accident.

We would go ahead and do our normal procedures

-and make that information available to the FBI

The FBI is investigating a murder.

But solving it is now
just one of their priorities.

-What's the problem?

I am the problem

The CVR recording has highlighted
another pressing issue

Somehow, someone managed
to get a gun on that plane.

A weapon was smuggled through LAX,
one of the world's busiest airports.

Investigators wonder how the shooter
managed to evade airport security.

Let's find out how that guy got on that plane.

If the FBI cannot find answers soon
more lives could be at risk.

Two days after the
downing of flight 1771,

investigators are still
combing through the wreckage

for a piece of evidence,
rarely found at a crash-site:

A murder weapon.

That is a hydraulic line
probably from the main-gear

The search for the gun
was very frustrating

because we knew that played a
major role in what had happened

Bob Dickens: We needed to know for sure
that the gun was there.

It is a pretty good supposition
that there is a gun involved

Richard: We were not sure that we would succeed
because the field with debris was so wide

and the impact had reduced the airplane
into so many small pieces.

While the search for the gun
continues in California

NTSB investigators in Washington try to determine
what caused Flight 1771 to go into a sudden dive

after the crew was shot .

Dennis Grossi believes that the answer may
lie in the shattered remains of the FDR,

the flight data recorder.

The internal magazine that held the tape
was the only part that was recovered.

The rest was not recovered.

Worse still:
Almost all the tape that records data is gone.

Torn from the machine
when it slammed into the ground

This was the worst damage I have ever seen

Grossi examines a critical
part of the recorder

The tape-heads that lay down data
onto the magnetic tape.

He finds a tiny piece of recording-tape
that has survived.

The magazine did not survive
and the tape itself was destroyed

except for 6 to 8 inch piece of tape
that ran around the recording heads and capstan

With such a short piece of tape,

it is doubtful there will be
any useful information on it at all

Dennis Grossi: We worked real hard at trying
to get all the data we could.

Investigators in California finally find
what they have been hunting for.

The barrel of a gun

The gun was found by one of the FBI agents

pretty much in the middle of
where the aircraft impacted

We were very fortunate that we found the gun
It was an unbelievable stroke of luck

It's not just any gun,
It is a .44 calibre Magnum.

A .44 magnum was considered to be
the most powerful handgun that you can have

But the barrel alone is not enough.
They need the rest of the weapon

Fortunately they find it

The cylinder with six fired cartridges.

Its frame is very powerfully constructed

To tear the barrel off
just suggests the power of the crash impact.

The shattered pistol leads
to a morbid discovery.

When we found what was left of the gun,
there was a portion of the finger at the trigger.

Then, it went back
to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia.

Lab-analysis may help solve the mystery
that hangs over the entire investigation.

The FBI has a weapon, a crime scene
and 42 murder victims.

What is missing is proof of the identity
of the 43th person on board: the killer.

During today's investigation
here we located a weapon.

And that weapon is going to be examined

and of course any connection between it
and the crime will be more fully developped.

We needed to determine a motive
for why someone should do such a thing

Somebody would have had to fire those gun shots
and there have to be a reason for it

It's part of a seat.
Part of the frame.

The investigation on scene
is totally NTSB

as far as the kick in the tin , if you will

We were able to answer the questions
of the FBI agents.

They do not have the expertise
to know what to look for,

but from the criminal aspects of it
they certainly know what to ask about.

At the crash-site,
the NTSB has recovered a piece of wreckage

that could help explain
what happened on Flight 1771.

A fragment of a passenger seat.

We found a seat that had a bullet-hole in it

If they can determine where the seat was located

PSA's seating records could give investigators
the name of another one of the victims

shot before the plane went down

Dennis Grossi has done all he can
to salvage data from the small fragment of tape-

recovered from the flight data recorder.

I was able to decode that little strip of tape-

and I got the last seconds.

It does contain data, but only six seconds worth.

Investigators learn, that in its final moments,

the aircraft was operating normally
with no mechanical problems.

Except for one thing.

Someone had pushed the
control column forward...

forcing the plane into a a steep dive

The aircraft accelerated
to the speed of sound.

It went from 22,000 feet with cruise power
on all four engines

Investigators now understand why only very small
pieces of wreckage were found at the crash-site

Dennis Gr: When the aircraft hit it
at such a high speed, it compressed the earth.

Then it released
and blew everything back out of the hole

The heavy impact
propelled some debris straight back into the air

before it could be singed by the explosion

All the light material, all
of the paper on the aircraft

any insulation material

all that light stuff got blown up into the air
and then the wind carried it for miles.

The fact that the plane was forced into a dive
explains why PSA's Flight 1771 crashed so quickly.

It also adds even greater urgency
to the FBI investigation

Since it was almost certainly the killer's hands
on the controls

this is now the worst mass-murder
in California history

but they still don't have enough evidence
to be certain who the killer was...

...nor who he was trying to kill

Was it the work of a madman
who wanted to commit mass-murder?

Or did the killer target one particular passenger?

and coldly sacrifice everyone else on board?

The FBI's investigation into the
shooting and crash of PSA flight 1771

has uncovered a lapse in security at LAX

It may explain how a gun
was smuggled onto the aircraft

Any number of people on the airport could bypass
the security screening that was going on.

Agent Bretzing learns that airline
employees with valid identification

are allowed to bypass security at LAX.

What they had set-up is
a bypass for crew-members and employees

anybody that had a proper badge

You would show your badge and they would allow you
to bypass both the metal detector and the X-ray

Richard Bretzing: It was a big loophole.

Bretzing knows the killer was a man.

And from Flight 1771's
passenger manifest,

he can see that there were four male passengers
who worked for either Pacific South West

or its parent airline US Air.

It's one of these guys.

We suppose that he did bypass security,
carrying the weapon.

Investigators need to proof conclusively
who smuggled the gun on board.

At the FBI-laboratory

forensic specialists analyse the piece of skin
found in the trigger-guard

A technician is able to get a fingerprint
from the skin fragment

In search of a match,
he compares the print to those on file

for the four male passengers
who could have bypassed security

And he finds a match.

There was enough of the forefinger,
that they were able to match it

Just days after the crash that claimed 43 lives,
the FBI has positively identified their killer

That was a key-element in their investigation.

His name is David Burke.

David Burke cleaned the airline

He was one of those employees that would go
in the planes and helped to clean the inside

Investigators now know that David Burke
smuggled a gun on board.

What they now need to explain is WHY

A motive gives you understanding.

it helps to develop the full mosaic of the crime

Knowing the motive, you are able
to conclusively determine what happened.

Day 3 at the crash-site.

still sifting through the
strune remains of the plane...

...investigators uncover a bizarre
but telling piece of evidence.

One that points directly to the motive
behind David Burke's crime.

During the search, one of our people
found an air-sickeness bag

and knew immediately
that it was an pertinent piece to the puzzle

Because he pushed the plane into such steep dive

... Burke unwittingly ensured
that the vital clue could be discovered

The air sickness bag
had a very ominous message penned on it

Burke had written the unsigned note
during the flight

He expressed a grudge against a man called "Ray".

"Hi, Ray. I think it is a sort of ironical
that we end up like this."

"I asked for some leniency
for my family, remember."

"Well, I got none,

and you will get none."

That was the message
that we recovered from that air-sickness bag

The air-sickness bag is the conclusive clue
they have been searching for:

the clue that establishes David Burke's motive.

"Ray" is identified as the airline's
station manager, Ray Thomson.

He worked for PSA's
parent company US Air.

He was also David Burke's former boss.

Ray Thomson was the supervisor

By now, Bretzing has also learned that
Burke had a troubled history both with the company

and with the law

Burke had worked for US Air for 14 years,
most of them in Rochester, New York

There was allegations of criminal activities
when he was back in Rochester.

Burke was someone they have watched carefully
of narcotic trafficking and larceny.

Allegations that Burke smuggled cocaine
on commercial flights were never proven.

He was always a step ahead of us
but the bottomline is that he was never charged.

He moved to the west coast
presumably to get away from the heat

But 3 weeks before the crash,
Burke ran into more trouble.

He was fired from the company

after being caught on tape
helping himself to the in-flight bar proceeds

He had stolen some money from the fund that the
flight attendants use when they are making change

He had stolen 69 dollars.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back

Three weeks after being fired,
Burke was given an opportunity to appeal

Mister Burke had been terminated several
weeks prior to the flight.

Thanks for coming in, David

He then came back for an appeal-hearing
on the day of the flight

I have reviewed your file

He was terminated by Ray Thomson.

Your appeal has been denied.

Under intense financial pressure
Burke was nearly at the end of his rope

Why do you have got to be such a jerk?

The termination interview
was not a placid one.

My decision is final, Mr Burke.

Thank you very much.

As he left Thomson's office,
Burke made a remark that hinted plans for revenge

The secretary had said:
"David, I hope you have a nice day."

And David Burke, the suspect, paused at the door,
turned her and said,

I planned to have a very nice day.

When he was fired,
he still had his credentials

It was in 1987
and security was a lot different than it is now

Investigators now know that in the days,
leading up to the crash,

David Burke went from a grieved, ex-employee

to a man
coldly planning a murder.

Now they need to find out all they can
about his movements on the day of the crash.

What can you tell me
about David Burke?

After his meeting with Thomson
he went to his locker, possibly to get the gun.

He went to his locker
on the day of that flight.

Whether he retrieved his
gun from the locker or not

we are not sure.

Instead of returning to the office,
Burke decided to buy a ticket for flight 1771...

...a flight he knew Ray Thomson would be on.

Ray Thomson lived in San Francisco,

and he flew regularly on that flight
to return to San Francisco at the end of the day

It was common knowledge among the employees
that Ray Thomson would be on that flight

Why Burke opted to kill so many others,
along with his former boss

is a question that defies rational explanation.

The average person certainly would
not act with the rage and vengeance

that had to consume David Burke prior to this act

One can only imagine there must have been
something else wrong with David Burke.

He just decided to take it out as an
act of revenge against the company.

I don't know there is any other motivation
we can come up with

It is clear Burke's attack on Flight 1771
was meticulously planned.

But exactly how events unfolded,
once his rampage began is still uncertain.

NTSB investigators have provided
a big piece of the puzzle.

They've been able to match up the bullet-punctured
seat-fragment with an exact on-board location

Row 4, seat C.

Records show that on Flight 1771
that seat was unoccupied

But the seat directly in front of that empty seat
was occupied...

...by Ray Thomson.

The finding points to the sheer power
of Burke's .44 calibre handgun.

His first two shots
pierce not one but two airline seats.

The bullet hole would have been made
as the bullet passed through Ray Thomson

and then entered that seat
and left the bullet hole there

They now know that David Burke shot at
least 4 people during his rage filled assault.

Ray Thomson and 3 crew-members.
That accounts for 5 shots.

But investigators heard
six shots on the tape.

They must account for them all.

The gunshot-sounds were picked up
by a microphone in the cockpit.

By comparing the sound pattern of each shot

investigators can determine if
they were fired in the cockpit

or in the passenger-cabin.

The shots that were fired in the plane
and not in the cockpit were distinct but muffled

The other shots were
louder and clearer

indicating they were fired
closer to the CVR microphone.

The shots that were fired in the cockpit
were very loud.

Three shots were shot outside the cockpit
and three shots were fired inside the cockpit.

Investigators don't know
who were shot with the final bullet

Just that it was fired in the cabin.

It is enough for them
to finally piece together a picture

of the horrific final moments
on board PSA flight 1771.

What the hell

You can imagine what Ray Thomson must have thought

as this person whom he had just terminated
a few hours before

walks passed him in the airline,
hands him this note

and then probably goes in to the men's room.

He is reading his note
with this ominous message.

Next they hear the sound
of the lavatory door opening

We are assuming he handed Ray the note...

went into the restroom,
where he took out the gun,

came back up
we heard the door close again

just before the shots.

Ray Thomson probably has the most merciful
of all the deaths on that plane

In less than a minute,
a routine-flight has become a nightmare.

There is a problem, Captain.

He was very careful
He had done the planning fairly well

We believe he followed through with that plan

I'm the problem.

It would not take much knowledge or experience
on the passenger-part

to know that they were in deep, deep trouble.

There is a problem, Captain

After shooting his former
boss and 3 crew members-

David Burke pushed Flight 1771 into a dive
and left the cockpit.

The airline's chief pilot
was now the only person on board

who could pull the plane out of the dive

An off-duty pilot may have
been moving himself forward

to try to render whatever assistance he could
once he realized something drastic was happening.

What the hell are you doing?

Let me in, there.
Don't do this.

But Burke had one bullet left.

That may have accounted for the sixth shot.

There are some who speculate that
Burke was taking his own life,

but the evidence suggests otherwise.

Had David Burke been
taken his own life,

the gun would have fallen from his hand
after he had shot himself

But since a fragment of Burke's fingertip
was recovered from the trigger-guard,

Bretzing reasons that the killer
was alive holding on to the gun

until the very moment of impact

The alarms were sounding in the cockpit.

There was increased noise of the plane plummeting

Just before impact,
it became silent

They tell us that it broke the sound barrier.

It would have been a horrifying experience
the final few seconds of their lives

One man's rage
meant 2 minutes of pure terror for 42 people.

the FBI believes one man is responsible
for the crash of PSA flight 1771

in the hills of San Luis Obispo County,
in which all 43 aboard were killed.

With all the evidence we have recovered here

that we would have more than sufficient

to charge David Burke for the violations
of the air-piracy statute

The unprecedented crime is solved.

But aviation authorities are
left with a troubling question:

Could it happen again?

The tragedy provoked action
from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The body that regulates the airline industry
took urgent measures to tighten security.

The FAA came out
and cancelled the bypass

Air-crews and employees would have to go through
the normal screening as any passenger would

Now it is required that any employee
that leaves an airline, fired, quit or retired

must turn their credentials in immediately

Getting on an aircraft with a gun now
is next to impossible.

But the new measures would not prevent
the world's deadliest hijacking incident

The September, 11th attacks would usher in
sweeping new airline security procedures

After September 11th,
several security gaps were certainly closed

There are now Federal Air Marshals
on many domestic flights.

These are armed officers in plain clothes

Cockpit doors have been
reinforced with kevlar.

They stay locked throughout all flights.

The doors are very hard to get through
they are ballistically sound

If David Burke was on a plane today
when he got to the cockpit

He couldn't have gotten in
with the weapon he had.

He would have been able still
to kill people in the back

but he could not bring the plane down.

Finally, many domestic airline pilots are now
allowed to carry fire-arms

All of these measures have made flying safer

but nothing can completely eliminate
the risk of another David Burke.

In my view, aviation security
has been heightened tremendously.

But we still have a ways to go.

And aviation will always be a target

Narrator
Jonathan Aris

Subtitles:
Rein Croonen