Shadowing Practice: Everyone's Reckless Mistakes Got 8 Tourists Killed! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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This was the last photo ever taken on an airplane flying eight passengers back to their cruise ship in Alaska.

Because about 20 seconds later, the aircraft they were flying in slammed into the side of a mountain, killing everyone on board.

But the most shocking part about the story wasn't the weather.

It was the reckless mistakes that everyone made

that lined up all the holes in the Swiss cheese before they ever took off.

I'm Hoover, and welcome to your Pilot Debrief.

Our story begins on June 25, 2015 in Ketchikan, Alaska, when a cruise ship was docked in town for the day

and a group of passengers purchased a shore excursion that included a sightseeing flight over the Misty Fjords National Monument.

Unfortunately, what none of them realized is that they wouldn't survive the flight.

But in order to better understand how dangerous this tour really was,

we need to start by taking a closer look at the company responsible for it.

Promac Air was a private charter company in Alaska, and by 2015, about 90 % of their business was air tours, including working with cruise ships.

But when it comes to safety, the company didn't have a safety officer, and they didn't have what's called a safety management system,

or SMS, which is basically a formal program for reporting problems and fixing hazards before they get someone killed.

Now, to be fair, at that time, there wasn't any legal requirement for them to have an SMS,

so what they did instead was they had an anonymous box for safety reports,

and that way the pilots could keep the management informed anytime they thought something was dangerous.

Now, in theory, this sounds great, but the only problem was that according to the director of operations, no one ever reported anything,

making it seem like everything was fine and there was nothing to be worried about.

That being said, I'd argue that the bigger problem at the company was the culture.

In fact, according to the investigation, a relatively new pilot with the company told the NTSB that during his initial training,

the assistant chief pilot told him and a group of other pilots, this is Alaska, you won't make it there, you got to bend the rules.

And when some of the pilots asked what happens

if you run into weather during your flight and you have to turn around and come back,

the assistant chief pilot allegedly said that if all the airplanes get through and you're the one that turns around,

we're going to have a conversation about it.

Think about that for a minute.

You just got a job at a new company, and during your initial training,

you're basically told that you need to do whatever it takes to make the flight happen, even if it might not be legal.

Now that pilot would go on to say that he just assumed that's the culture.

It's like we push through.

Now just to show that this wasn't an isolated example, the NTSB interviewed another company pilot who had about 26 ,000 hours.

And he said that one time he was flying and he made a radio call asking another airplane,

how's the weather up there because it looks IFR here.

Which he thought was a reasonable request to help him determine if he needed to take a different route.

But he was shocked when after the flight was over

that the company management ridiculed him for mentioning the word IFR on the radio,

and they even told him that if he ever said IFR on the radio again, he'd get fired.

This is where you need to understand that according to yet another pilot, the real problem was that the director of operations,

the assistant chief pilot, and the president were all good talkers, but they don't listen.

He went on to say

that it was the hardest place in the world to communicate with anyone because they already know everything, so you can't tell them anything.

Now, in full transparency, some of the more experienced pilots at the company said that they never felt pressured,

and the assistant chief pilot himself told the NTSB that there used to be pressure from management, but it was non -existent now.

Additionally, the FAA inspector who oversaw PROMEC told the NTSB he believed they were operating safely

and that they weren't a higher risk operator.

In fact, he checked in on the company about three months prior to the crash

and he was satisfied with how they were running operations.

However, he also admitted that he had never observed the flight coordinator training

or their training records and he wasn't even sure if they had a written program for it.

He also thought they had a flight risk assessment in development, but nothing was official before the accident.

So in other words, the oversight

that was supposed to catch a weak operational control system never really dug into how that system actually worked.

Now, regardless of all these issues, when it comes to safety, the company policy said that the pilot

and the flight scheduler both had to agree that a flight was safe before it could launch.

And even though that sounds great on paper, on the day of the crash,

the scheduler working the flight said that she didn't talk to the accident pilot

that morning beyond your typical normal greetings and a quick weather report.

Additionally, the only manager working that morning was the company president, and he said the same thing.

So basically, the decision to fly was entirely up to the pilot.

But now that you know more about the company that operated the tour,

it's time to talk about the man who was flying the plane that day.

Brian was 64 years old, and he had been a pilot for more than 20 years, and he had a commercial certificate with an instrument rating,

and he'd spent the last few summers flying tours in Alaska.

However, he had just been hired by ProMec on April 27th, less than two months before the crash.

A few days later, on May 1st, he passed his checkride in a DHC -2

Beaver, and he flew his first air tour on May 3rd.

Even though Brian had prior time in the Beaver, I thought this was a really fast transition,

because he essentially went from being hired to one week later he was flying passengers.

But the NTSB didn't really dig too much into the details regarding his training or local area procedures,

and instead they just remarked that it was a fast timeline.

That being said, about one month later on June 6th, Brian finished training in the DHC -3 Otter,

then on June 10th, he flew his first Otter tour.

So by the time of the crash on June 25th, he had only been flying the Otter for about two to three weeks,

and he only had about 40 hours of experience in that aircraft.

If you're not familiar, the DHC -3 Otter is a single -engine,

high -wing bush plane designed in the early 1950s to haul people and cargo in and out of rough places.

And if you've ever been to Alaska, you've probably seen one sitting on floats.

The one that Brian was flying had a glass cockpit with two screens,

one for the flight instruments and one showing a moving map of the terrain.

And according to the NTSB, there was nothing mechanically wrong with the aircraft at the time of the crash.

Keep in mind that even though Brian didn't have a lot of experience in the Otter,

he had just over 4 ,000 hours of total flight time, including about 500 hours in the Beaver,

and about 1 ,200 of his hours was experience that he gained flying in other parts of Alaska,

but he only had about 150 hours with ProMech.

Now, the point I'm trying to make is that Brian wasn't a new pilot, but he was brand new to this airplane,

and even though he had flown on Alaska before, he was brand new to this part of Alaska.

That being said, there was a whole lot more to the story

that the NTSB discovered about Brian when they interviewed other pilots at the company.

First of all, the director of operations said that he thought Brian was a conservative decision maker,

and he remembered one tour where Brian was the only one in the group who turned around

because of rain and poor visibility, and after the trip, the company president even told Brian that he made the right decision.

However, another pilot remembered a time that he warned Brian about an area that he couldn't fly through because of the weather,

but Brian tried to do it anyway, and he was forced to turn around and ended up running low on fuel.

There was also a story about how Brian was seen flying into the clouds one time

when he was supposed to remain clear of the weather, and that individual told the NTSB that it seemed like Brian thought he was invincible

or that he was better than he was.

The most shocking part about these interviews, though, was that the NTSB discovered that on June 14th, less than two weeks before the crash,

Brian was flying, and he was warned on the radio about severe downdrafts in one of the areas along his route, but he flew there anyway.

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Unfortunately, when he did, he hit one of those downdrafts, and the floats of his airplane struck the trees, and he almost crashed.

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In fact, in his logbook for that day, Brian wrote, Misty Tripp thought I was dead.

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The crazy part about that story, though, is that Brian's roommate and at least two other pilots knew about the tree strike,

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but no one ever filed a safety report about what happened, and when the NTSB asked the company president and the director of operations about it,

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they had no idea what they were talking about because no one ever told them.

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On top of all of this, at one point, Brian's roommate met with the assistant chief pilot and told him, you're pushing Brian too hard,

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but allegedly his response was, as long as everybody is flying okay, I don't really care.

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I'll be honest, this is probably one of the most frustrating tragedies

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that I've debriefed in a while because there's just no reason this ever should have happened.

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Alaska isn't the kind of place that you can mess around

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because there's already a much higher level of risk with some of the flights

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there compared to flying down in places like Florida or Texas.

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And the fact that safety wasn't being taken seriously

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and no one seemed to be monitoring what the pilots were doing was just shocking to me.

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Regardless, now that you know more about Brian and the company that he was flying for,

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it's time to talk about what happened on the day of the crash.

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On the day of the crash the weather forecast called for low clouds,

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reduced visibility, rain and fog and there was also weather advisory warning pilots that the mountains could be hidden in the clouds.

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Despite the weather Brian was scheduled to fly four tours

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that day and based on his phone records we know

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that he was checking the weather that morning

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but as far as he was concerned this was probably just another typical day in Alaska.

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Now the way the tour worked is

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that the cruise passengers would get off the ship and then they would travel to the fjords by boat.

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That's where Brian or one of the other pro -mec pilots would pick them up

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and fly them home from the fjords back to the cruise ship.

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If you look at the map, there were basically two ways home.

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The short route was about 25 minutes and mostly over land through a low valley and across a lake.

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However, the long route was about 30 minutes and stayed mostly over the water, but pilots generally preferred this route whenever there was bad weather

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because there was more room to fly below the clouds without worrying about the terrain,

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and they could always land on the water if they needed to.

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But what it boiled down to was a difference of about five minutes.

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On Brian's first tour that day, he flew the short route to go pick up the passengers,

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and he radioed back that the weather was good with isolated rain showers,

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but the two other pilots behind him took the long route saying the conditions weren't great, but at least they were above minimums.

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Not long after that, Brian and the other two pilots picked up the passengers

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and they started on the short route to make their way back home, but eventually they had to switch to the long route and Brian,

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who was out in front of everyone, ended up having to do a 180

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and then he did another 360 degree turn deviating from course trying to find a way home below the weather.

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Now, even though turning around was the right decision, I'd argue that he never should have tried that short route to begin with.

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I mean, why would you push the limits

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when you know the weather is bad because you just flew this route

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and you have a much safer option to fly over the water?

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Not surprisingly, the company management had no idea

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that Brian had to turn around on that earlier flight

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because of the weather or that the other pilots had to deviate and take the long route either.

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As a quick side note, just to show you the kind of pressure the pilots were under,

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one of the new pilots who showed up for work

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that morning told the company president that he didn't think the weather was good enough to fly,

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but the president's response allegedly was, that's just Alaska weather.

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So the pilot shut up and hopped in the plane.

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When it comes to the second tour, this time there were six aircraft from ProMech flying,

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and they all took the long route to go pick up the passengers, and they took that same route back,

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and the lowest they were supposed to fly was 500 feet above the surface.

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However, based on the flight data, all six of them went below that altitude on their way back because the weather was so bad.

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In fact, Brian got down to 375 feet and the company president, who was also flying one of the aircraft, got as low as 250 feet.

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And the new pilot that didn't want to fly that day, he went as low as 225 feet above the water.

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Later on, that new pilot told the NTSB that the weather was so bad,

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he felt lucky to come back and he was surprised that the company kept flying that day.

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When I read about this in the investigation, I thought it was absolutely ridiculous.

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I mean, I just can't imagine how a company president will be willing to risk the lives of his pilots

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and the passengers that are trusting you to keep them safe.

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They never should have been flying that day, and they should have immediately canceled any remaining flights after what just happened during that second tour.

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Now, this is where it's important to understand

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that there was another private charter company in the area that was supposed to operate that day,

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but they had enough common sense to look at the weather and decided that it wasn't good enough, so they canceled their flights.

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But the truth is, that other company had learned that lesson the hard way because back in 2007,

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one of their tour flights crashed while flying in the weather, killing the pilot and four passengers.

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So the rules they made for themselves had been written in blood.

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Regardless, the problem was that as soon as that other tour company canceled their flights, the cruise line rebooked passengers with ProMech,

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so there was arguably a lot of pressure to make the flights happen.

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And to set the stage, when it comes to Brian's third flight that day, the passengers had to be back at 1230

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because the ship was leaving at 1 o 'clock and they weren't going to wait for anyone.

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But you know who didn't fly in that third tour group of pilots?

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The company president.

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That's because he stayed behind

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and he even called out on the radio to remind everyone they needed to be back by 1230.

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Brian took the long way out again to pick up the passengers,

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and they were supposed to leave at 11 .45 to get back around 12 .10, leaving them plenty of time.

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Instead, eight passengers boarded the plane late, and they didn't take off until 12 .07, having no idea it would be their last flight.

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Brian took off with the passengers for the flight back to Ketchikan,

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and he had to decide if he was going to take the long way or the short way.

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However, this time there was a friend of Brian's who was flying ahead of him who said

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that the weather on the short route was good.

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Meanwhile, another pilot told the NTSB that he'd already been forced to turn around over a lake on the short route,

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so he took the long route, but he never told anyone about it on the radio.

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Allegedly, when that happened, the company president, who had been tracking all of the aircraft, saw this and he got frustrated,

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saying, Damn it, come on, Chuck.

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The NTSB eventually recovered these photographs from the passengers phones after the crash

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that showed how

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when Brian was crossing the channel the visibility over the water was at least five miles

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and you can see just how low the clouds are over the mountains.

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So it's hard to imagine why you would try to take the short route.

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Now perhaps Brian was hoping to save five minutes of time

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and some of you might argue

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that he was probably under a lot of pressure since he was still new to the job, and if he didn't make it back in time,

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then ProMech was going to have to pay to get the passengers to the next port to meet the ship.

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But in my opinion, Brian had enough experience as a pilot to understand the risk that was involved,

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and he could have easily picked the long route since it was the more conservative option.

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Unfortunately, he chose the short route, and as Brian entered the valley surrounded by mountains,

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another image from a passenger's video showed that they were passing thin, ragged clouds that were hiding the mountains behind them.

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Thankfully, a few minutes later, they cleared the first part of the terrain and found themselves over Ella Lake,

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which would have been the perfect opportunity to abort the route because once again, there was good visibility over the water,

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and Brian could have flown low enough to stay below the clouds.

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Now, before I explain what happened next, there are two things that you need to know.

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First of all, on the west side of the lake, there are two mountains that look almost the same.

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So when the visibility is low,

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PROMEC pilots would normally fly past the south end of the lake before turning west because that kept them clear of both.

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Now, the second thing to point out is that the aircraft that Brian was flying in had a terrain warning system.

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But the problem was the system was designed to warn you if you were within 700 feet of the ground.

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And because the tour flights would often go as low as 500 feet over the water,

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the system would generate warnings all the time so several of the pilots

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that flew for PROMEC had gotten into the habit of silencing the warnings with a switch, even though the map still showed the terrain.

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The NTSB later discovered in one of the passengers' photos

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that was taken just before the flight

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that the terrain warning switch in Brian's aircraft was set to inhibit before the flight began,

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and that was the same position it was found in the wreckage.

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It's not clear if Brian intentionally turned the system off, or if he just didn't check and remember to turn it on prior to the flight.

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To make matters worse, the map displayed in Brian's cockpit was using its original database from 2003, which didn't show small lakes,

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and a more recent update would have given Brian better situational awareness about where he was.

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Either way, when Brian reached the middle of the lake, he was still about a mile and a quarter from the south shore,

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and that's when he began a turn to the west

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and climbed to about 1 ,500 feet in order to clear a 900 -foot ridge in front of him.

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However, the visibility was getting worse, and in this photo, everything above 1 ,000 feet was obscured by the weather.

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Additionally, the passenger in Brian's right front seat took this photograph, looking down at the trees that were already partly hidden by the clouds.

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Seven seconds later, that same passenger took one more photo looking forward, with rain on the windscreen and almost nothing visible ahead.

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It was the last photo ever taken on that airplane.

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That's because even though Brian cleared the first mountain ridge, he didn't realize that he had turned too early,

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and now he was pointed straight at the second mountain.

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About two seconds before impact, the aircraft suddenly pitched up and pulled about two

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Gs because that's probably when Brian saw the trees, but it was too late, and they slammed into the hillside,

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killing Brian and all eight passengers instantly.

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I just want to point out that the pilot

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that was following Brian decided to keep going south over the lower terrain before turning west and he eventually made it home.

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Tragically, Brian was planning to move into his own apartment

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when he got off work that day

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and my heart goes out to his wife and the family and friends of all the victims of this terrible tragedy.

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The NTSB blamed Brian for what happened, but they also said the company culture essentially endorsed flying in hazardous weather,

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failed to manage the pressures on pilots, didn't have a formal safety program, and didn't have adequate control over the decision to launch flights.

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Less than a year later, ProMex shut down its operations,

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and the point that I want you to take away from this debrief is this wasn't one mistake.

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This was classic normalization of deviance over time where all the holes in the Swiss cheese lined up,

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and everyone's reckless mistakes got Brian and eight other people killed.

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I hope this debrief has been helpful be sure to check out another one on the channel

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and I'll catch you on the next debrief.

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Thanks again to Delete Me for sponsoring this video.

271

To get your data removed from the internet, check out Delete Me using my link in the description and get 20 % off.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Everyone's Reckless Mistakes Got 8 Tourists Killed!”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: pilot, Brian, flight, weather, flying. This video has 271 sentences and 4150 words to shadow. The speech runs for 21:05. The speaker talks fast, about 197 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
passenger noun	/ˈpæs.ɪn.d͡ʒɚ/	One who rides or travels in a vehicle, but who does not operate it and is not a member of the crew.
cloud noun	/ˈklaʊ̯d/	A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air.
terrain noun	/təˈɹeɪn/	A single, distinctive rock formation; an area having a preponderance of a particular rock or group of rocks.
cruise noun	/kɹuz/	A sea or lake voyage, especially one taken for pleasure.
delete verb	/dɪˈliːt/	To remove, get rid of or erase, especially written or printed material, or data on a computer or other device.
airplane noun	/ˈɛɹˌpleɪ̯n/	A powered heavier-than-air aircraft with fixed wings: a fixed-wing aircraft with at least one engine or electric motor.
visibility noun	/ˌvɪz.əˈbɪl.ɪ.ti/	The condition of being visible.
shock noun	/ʃɔk/	A sudden, heavy impact.
allegedly adverb	/əˈlɛdʒ.ɪd.li/	According to allegation(s); supposedly, reportedly.
regardless adverb	/ɹɪˈɡɑɹd.lɪs/	Without attention to warnings or indications of bad consequences.
argue verb	/ˈɑɹ.ɡju/	To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply.
privacy noun	/ˈpɹaɪ.və.si/	The state of being secluded from the presence, sight, or knowledge of others.
additionally adverb		By way of addition; in addition to; also.
cancel verb	/ˈkæn.sl̩/	To cross out something with lines etc.
warn verb	/woɹn/	To make (someone) aware of impending danger, evil, etc.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
turn around verb		To physically rotate (usually around a vertical axis) for a half turn (180 degrees), a whole turn (360 degrees), or an indefinite amount.
get off verb		To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it.
pick up verb		To lift; to grasp and raise.
check out verb		To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
come back verb		To return to a place.
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
line up verb	/laɪnˈʌp/	To align; to put in alignment; to put in correct adjustment for smooth running.
point out verb		To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was docked · being said · been hired
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've ever been · I've debriefed · haven't talked
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	SMS, which is · man who was

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 57 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, wasn't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shock /ʃɔk/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, shore /ʃɔɹ/, transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/, operational /ˌɑ.pəˈɹeɪ.ʃə.nəl/
Long words — get the stress right: visibility /ˌvɪz.əˈbɪl.ɪ.ti/, allegedly /əˈlɛdʒ.ɪd.li/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, ridiculous /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs/, operator /ˈɑpəˌɹeɪtɚ/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like passenger, cloud, terrain.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Everyone's Reckless Mistakes Got 8 Tourists Killed! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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