a 757 is held up in miami a few days before christmas due to delays of connecting passengers eventually leaving late with 163 people on board for cali columbia. the dusan famiy of 4 only just made it from new jersey to connect to the flight. mercades remieriz got on on standby it is her 21st birthday the night of the flight (20th of december). the flight is delayed due to congestitation increasing the delay to two hours. captain nicholas tufory and fo donny r willams are the piltos tonight the captain flew to cali 6 days before the fo has never done the route before. as its nearly christmas they are getting ready for the holidays. the plane is crusiing at 36000 feet there is no radar in cali due to it being damaged. mersades switches seats to the row behind her due to a college student talking to her mum who was embarasing her. the dusan kids fight over the window seat the daughter ends up getting it as they agreed to swap for decent. the plane at this stage is starting its decent. calis airport is in the mountains at the end of a valley with 4300 meter mountains nearby. the approach requires them to pass over two beacons talua and rosa before overflying the runway and than landing to the south. atc without radar will have trouble tracking the plane so he asks for the distance from the field. at this stage 63 miles from the field they are cleared to 15000 feet at this point and to report talua but the pilots think they are told to forget talua which is wrong and will lead to more confusion the controller thinks directly means no delay. the crew are than asked to approach runway 19 which is quicker approach but the crew know they need to rush to get down in time. they deploy the speed breaks to increase decent rate the crew are confused when asked about talua and the crew can’t find it in their charts. the plane is now passed talua and don’t realise so they ask to head to roso the next beacon but the computer doesn’t list it so they end up heading towards bogota still decending when they realise they turn back on track but there is now a wall of mountains between them and the airport. the pilots now realise they are off course so they turn back but its too late the gpws sounds so they have to go to full power but don’t disarm the speed breaks the plane hits a mountain. the last call says 9000 feet as their altitude but don’t say dme. a call to atc confirms the crash at 942pm it takes till the morning to get to the site. meresades remierz the college man and 3 of the dusans survive the crash (the mom was killed). the dad tries to find his kids but its not an easy effort. marsades and the college boy try and help each other no one else survives. michelle dusan has to be carried off the mountain when rescued and her brother dies of injuries later so only 4 people survive the crash michelle survives. it is not shown in the ep but a dog also survives. investigators determine even though there where survivors the crash was labeled unsurvivable all the people who live where near the wing of the plane. the cause of the crash was pilot error as they misdid the approach and several errors from the crew. its also called a controlled flight into terrain accident (cfit).
next time american storms leads to a collumbiean airline holding forever will they land.
Harrison’s world 