Deadweight | Air Crash Investigation | National Geographic UK — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:05This accident taught us a lot about the
3. 0:07weight and balance of airplanes. It's
4. 0:08important to get the right passenger
5. 0:10weight and the right distribution in
6. 0:11these smaller airplanes.
7. 0:17Good morning. Welcome aboard US Airways
8. 0:19Express service to Greenville
9. 0:20Spartanber. The airplane was quite
10. 0:22happily loaded. Flight crew flown
11. 0:24together before earlier sectors in the
12. 0:25day.
13. 0:28Uh the airplane taxied out quite
14. 0:29normally and off they went.
15. 0:33[Music]
16. 0:41Gear up.
17. 0:43Gear was retracted and then the crew
18. 0:45noticed that the nose continued to rise
19. 0:47further than they expected.
20. 0:54[Music]
21. 0:59Oh, help me. You got it.
22. 1:07And then the airplane fell forward from
23. 1:09there. The nose dropped quite
24. 1:10dramatically.
25. 1:16This is the bit really of interest to
26. 1:18me. It's why did the nose keep on
27. 1:20pitching up and up and up?
28. 1:26You focus your investigation on just
29. 1:27looking for the cables and the pulleys
30. 1:29and and the control columns. Everything
31. 1:32else like that becomes the focus of your
32. 1:33interest.
33. 1:36We kept scratching our head wondering,
34. 1:39okay, this airplane flew nine times
35. 1:42previously and we had no problems. So,
36. 1:45we're trying to um decide, well, what
37. 1:48was unusual about this flight? It would
38. 1:50have been okay with a lot less baggage
39. 1:53in there or moving the passengers around
40. 1:54or various things that they they have to
41. 1:56do at that point. How many are we going
42. 1:58to take off? We're figuring it out.
43. 2:02As a result of this accident, then the
44. 2:04loading of these small airplanes has
45. 2:05become a lot tighter than it was before.
46. 2:07We hope that it won't happen again.
47. 2:16Fire station.
48. 2:18that the plane is crashed. Yes.