AIR CRASH INVESTIGATIONS:‘Out Of Sight’

8:30pm (PG)

Tonight’s episode of AIR CRASH INVESTIGATIONS takes us back to August 31, 1986. Two planes collide in mid-air and crash into a quiet Los Angeles suburb. There are more than 80 victims in the air and on the ground. Findings reveal a series of disturbing facts about congested airports. The accident set in motion many changes, notably the way planes are monitored by the controllers on the ground and by each other.

A calm Labour Day weekend is shattered by a devastating tragedy. A Los Angeles neighbourhood is destroyed and more than 80 lives are lost when two planes fall from the sky.

An Aeromexico DC 9 is preparing to land at Los Angeles International Airport – one of the busiest in the world – when it collides with a much smaller plane, a Piper PA-28 Cherokee. The Cherokee slices off the tail of the DC 9, causing it to spiral out of control and crash. The smaller plane also crashes into the quiet suburb. The devastation is horrifying, all onboard perish and five homes are destroyed. The entire area is ablaze.

Investigators must discover why this horrible event happened and ensure it never to occurs again. When interviewing the air traffic controller on duty, investigators discover another plane had entered the controlled air space surrounding LAX – the TCA – without permission. Dealing with this third plane may have distracted the controller and kept him from seeing the Cherokee on his radar. The crew on the larger plane, and the pilot on the smaller plane also seemed oblivious to each other in the minutes before the crash – suggesting problems with the standard “see and avoid” technique relied on at busy airports.

The NTSB issued its report and the FAA took the recommendations to heart. It imposed changes to the way planes are monitored and tracked around congested airports by putting in place a new system which orally and visually alerts controllers to potential collisions. In addition, it regulated that smaller planes must be equipped with a new kind of transponder while larger planes have to be outfitted with collision avoidance systems. Since these measures were adopted, there hasn’t been another mid-air collision in or around a congested airport.

PLEASE NOTE: Screens this day and time in Sydney and Brisbane only