have another opportunity and i hugged my kids and my wife. reporter: if the crew hadn t recovered flight 006 from its nose dive, given their rate of descend they would have collided with the ocean in 30 seconds. the captain is fortunate he had 30-plus thousand feet to recover this high-speed dive. had this happened in 20,000 feet he may not vpd enough altitude to effect a full recovery. reporter: the in the sbs investigation i determined the captain s decision- making abilities could have been impaired by monotony, board come and fatigue. a lot of times their sleep patterns are disrupted. there are studies that equated to a blood alcohol level as far as impairment. with a very fatigued pilot you are going to have performance
228 people on board. reporter: dramatic animations reveal the critical moments that lead to disaster. flying through turbulent weather, air france flight 447 disappears in to the night. what happens is a mystery that will span years and the very depths of the atlantic ocean. may 31st, 2009, air france flight 447 takes off at night
potential problems with peito tubes freezing over and had begun modifications just two days prior to the accident. the official report maintains that improving pilot training, including exercises dedicated to manual aircraft handling is the key lesson of flight 447. professional pilot, who had gone through professional pilot training, but none of these pilots had ever been trained to fly the airplane manually at high altitude with these levels of sensitivity. coming up an out-of-control passenger jet plummets toward the ocean. the confusion on the flight deck on that airplane was extreme. progressive insurance here, and i m a box who thrives on the unexpected. ha-ha! shall we dine? [ chuckle ] you wouldn t expect an insurance company to show you their rates and their competitors rates, but that s precisely what we do. going up! nope, coming down.
flight is expected to show up in senegal s air space, but the crew doesn t check in with senegal s air traffic controllers. air france 447 is missing. in the light of day, an aerial search team is demied. they scoured miles around the plane s last known position. is this plane on top of the water somewhere? are people alive? but by early afternoon, officials with air france and the french government presume the airplane is lost to the sea. this is a catastrophe. and we have lost an aircraft with 228 people on board. reporter: if there is any doubt about the fate of flight 447, five days later grim discoveries confirm it. bodies, boarding passes and small pieces of a plane are found floating on the surface of the ocean. the next day, the first major
became a nuisance warning because they had heard it intermittently before. they didn t know if it was valid or not and decided to disregard it. we ll never know. they never discussed it. reporter: the initial french investigative report states that a phenomenon called the startle effect may have played a role. it is similar to walking in to a room that s dark and somebody jumping out and saying boo. it s that instantaneous scare, if you will. the auto pilot is off. why is it off? what do i need to do? and now you are having to process this information in a compressed time line. human beings when they are focused on one task, thing s will drop out. oral inputs of are one of the first to go. so this is consistent with this pilot not hearing, therefore not responding. reporter: prior to the crash of flight 447, airbus and air france had recognized the