copilot locked the captain out and purposely crashed the jet in march. now back to our regular programming. on july 19th, 1989, united airlines flight 232 is in deep crisis. after an explosion, the dc10 loses its tailmounted number two engine along with all of its hydraulic fluid which operates the landing gear, glass, slats, steering and brakes. the only control pilots have is over the throttles which determine engine speed. by adjusting thrust on one side or the other, pilots are able to steer the plane. but even under this unimaginable pressure, captain al haynes manages to crack a joke with air traffic controller alan backman. you re clear to land on any
you? told me that the engine speed came up. reporter: if somebody gets a truck and doesn t start, what could potentially happen? they could be stuck literally out in the cold. reporter: in a worst-case scenario, a vehicle that won t start or an engine that in just too much snow could put a stranded driver in a life or death situation which explains why in torture team wants to solve problems here before they get to your driveway. the mckinley climate chamber built during world war ii when they discovered combat aircraft struggled to just take cough in frigid temperatures. since then, everything from the stealth bomber to navy hovercraft put through the paces here. we can create humidity in the chamber. we do sandstorms and sandstorms. rain inside the chamber. reporter: now this month ford renting this giant freezer. 51 engineers here to test 75 new
separate what s known as a black box or a data recorder from the flight data recorder. we know they can withstand a whole lot. assuming they are able to quickly recover those, what is the most important information they ll be looking for to try to figure out how this could have happened? you look at the flight data recorder records parameters engine speed, temperatures flight control positions, attitude of the aircraft air speed, different flight computers, and what they were sensing. that s the flight data recorder. the other one is the cockpit voice recorder and that s picking up the cockpit noise. ambient noise in the cockpit, noise of the engines, people talking, and then all communications all channels of communications coming into the aircraft and going out of the aircraft. and so you take the communication, and you put it on top of the flight data recorder and you plug all this into a flight simulator of that type
recorders, they re going to want to know what type of conversation was going on in the cockpit, were they just trying to navigate around the weather, was there a malfunction, we ll be able to hear the engine speed, whether it was constant whether it was trailing off. we ll be able to hear whether there was unlikely bird strike a smashed windshield. we ll be able to hear any alerts or alarms that went off in the cockpit, and we ll also be able to hear some of the weather in the form of hail possibly right. in the same way that it hits your car roof. because it s like metal on metal. and also thunder claps, perhaps. so there s a lot of information, and many times it s not just the words of the pilot and the co-pilot or the radio reception, but it s the noises the sounds
a lot about the so-called black box. there s two things. there s the flight data record enthen there s the audio recorder of the cockpit audio recorder. what are the first thing search and rescue and investigators are going to be looking at? once they find these recorders, they re going to want to know what type of conversation was going on in the cockpit, were they just trying to navigate around the weather? was there a malfunction? we ll be able to hear the engine speed, whether it was constant, whether it was trailing off. we ll be able to hear whether there was unlikely a bird strike, a smashed windshield. we ll be able to hear any alerts or alarms that went off in the cockpit. and we ll also be able to hear some of the weather in the form of hail possibly in the same way that it hits your car roof. because it s like metal on metal. and also thunder claps, perhaps.