Final Boarding Call

Northwest Airlink Flight 5719

On December 1, 1993, Northwest Airlink Flight 5719 crashed three miles short of its destination in northern Minnesota, killing all 18 people aboard. The weather wasn't extreme. The aircraft wasn't broken. Both pilots were certified, qualified, and physically capable of flying the approach. But as the turboprop descended through the dark, something else was happening in the cockpit — something that wouldn't show up in the wreckage. This is the story of how investigators traced a routine night flight back through twenty years of warning signs that nobody connected, and what the cockpit voice recorder revealed about the silence that killed eighteen people. Sources: * NTSB Aircraft Accident Report AAR-94/05 — Express Airlines II, Inc., Northwest Airlink Flight 5719 * Cockpit Voice Recorder Transcript (NTSB Appendix B) * Mayday: Air Disasters, Season 17 Episode 1, "Killer Attitude" * NTSB Safety Recommendations A-94-70 through A-94-72 * Express Airlines II General Operations Manual and Standard Operating Procedures (as cited in AAR-94/05) Find FINAL BOARDING CALL online: * Website: finalboardingcallpodcast.com * Email: finalboardingcallpodcast@gmail.com * Instagram: @FinalBoardingCallPod * Facebook: Final Boarding Call Credits: Final Boarding Call is hosted by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas, researched and written by Alice Stern, produced and edited by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas.

TACA Flight 110

What happens when a brand-new Boeing 737 flies into a hailstorm so violent that both engines die in the same instant, 16,500 feet above the Gulf Coast? Join Alice and Zach as they explore the 1988 emergency landing of TACA Flight 110, where a 29-year-old captain with one eye, a first officer he trusted, and a brand new aircraft were tested in a way no flight simulator had ever prepared a crew for. Discover how a near-miss nine months earlier was waved off as a freak event, why the engines on one of the most reliable jets in the world were vulnerable in a way no one had imagined, and how a 43-ton glider found the only piece of dry ground for miles. This is the rare story where everyone walks away — including the aircraft itself. Sources: * "Boeing 737-300 | TACA International Airlines Flight 110, N75356" — Federal Aviation Administration, Lessons Learned from Transport Airplane Accidents * NTSB Brief of Incident FTW88IA109 — National Transportation Safety Board * "Nowhere to Land," Mayday: Air Disaster, Season 11 Episode 11 — National Geographic / Cineflix * "Interview with Capt. Carlos Dárdano: Hero of TACA 110" — Carlos Dardano Fans, YouTube * "This Incredible Pilot: Carlos Dárdano" — Plane & Pilot Magazine * "The Miracle on the Levée" — Fear of Landing * "¡Misión Cumplida! Se Jubila el Histórico Piloto Salvadoreño Carlos Dárdano" — El Diario de Hoy * Aviation Safety Network — TACA Flight 110 Profile Find FINAL BOARDING CALL online: * Website: finalboardingcallpodcast.com [http://finalboardingcallpodcast.com] * Email: finalboardingcallpodcast@gmail.com * Instagram: @FinalBoardingCallPod * Facebook: Final Boarding Call Credits: Final Boarding Call is hosted by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas, researched and written by Alice Stern, produced and edited by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH134

On the night of July 18, 2018, a Malaysia Airlines Airbus A330 pushed back from Brisbane Airport carrying 215 passengers bound for Kuala Lumpur. Within seconds of takeoff, every airspeed display in the cockpit went red — and the crew had no idea how fast they were flying or why. Join Alice and Zach as they unravel a near-disaster that played out in the dark over the Queensland coast, the chain of small failures that put this aircraft in the air, and the very specific Brisbane Airport problem that nobody at Malaysia Airlines had been told about. Buckle up — this one is a wild ride. Sources: * ATSB Final Investigation Report AO-2018-053 — Australian Transport Safety Bureau, March 2022 * "How Did EVERYONE Miss THIS!? | Malaysian Airlines Flight 134" — Mentour Pilot, YouTube * "Malaysia Airlines mistakes led to 'serious incident' on packed A330" — Australian Aviation * "Pitot covers left on made for tense BUSS ride" — Flight Safety Australia * "A350 pitot probe covers left on prior to pushback demonstrates how assumptions, procedural omissions can lead to unsafe conditions" — Australian Transport Safety Bureau * Malaysia Airlines Flight MH134 — Wikipedia Find FINAL BOARDING CALL online: Website: finalboardingcallpodcast.com | Email: finalboardingcallpodcast@gmail.com | Instagram: @FinalBoardingCallPod | Facebook: Final Boarding Call | Patreon: patreon.com/finalboardingcall Credits: Final Boarding Call is hosted by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas, researched and written by Alice Stern, produced and edited by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas.

The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

On a cold January morning in 1986, a launch that had been promoted as a celebration of science and education went catastrophically wrong in front of a watching nation. But the real story of this disaster didn't begin on the launch pad. It began six months earlier, in a memo an engineer wrote to his boss. It continued the night before, in a conference room in Utah, where that engineer laid photographs on a table and begged four men not to kill seven people. Join Alice and Zach as they unravel the story of how the warnings were raised, how they were overruled, and what it cost the people who tried to tell the truth. Sources: * Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident (Rogers Commission Report), Volumes I–V — NASA History Division * "Personal Observations on the Reliability of the Shuttle," Appendix F to the Rogers Commission Report — Richard P. Feynman * The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA — Diane Vaughan, University of Chicago Press * Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster — Allan J. McDonald with James R. Hansen * "Challenger: The Final Voyage" — report by Dr. Joseph P. Kerwin to NASA Administrator, July 28, 1986 * "Ethical Decisions — Morton Thiokol and the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster" — Roger Boisjoly, MIT lecture, January 1989 * "The Challenger Disaster: Making it Personal" — paper presented at ASEE Annual Conference * NASA Challenger STS-51-L crew report and transcript release, 1986 * "Christa McAuliffe's Lost Lessons" — NASA STEM archive * "Former Students Remember Christa McAuliffe" — New Hampshire Public Radio * President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Challenger Disaster, January 28, 1986 — Ronald Reagan Presidential Library * Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report, Volume I, August 2003 Find FINAL BOARDING CALL online: * Website: finalboardingcallpodcast.com * Email: finalboardingcallpodcast@gmail.com * Instagram: @FinalBoardingCallPod * Facebook: Final Boarding Call Credits: Final Boarding Call is hosted by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas, researched and written by Alice Stern, produced and edited by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas.

Trans-Colorado Airlines Flight 2286

On January 19, 1988, a twin-engine commuter plane descended through an overcast Colorado night toward a mountain valley and struck a ridge twelve miles from the runway at Durango. The pilots were experienced. The aircraft was functioning normally. Investigators found no mechanical failure of any kind. So what brought Trans-Colorado Airlines Flight 2286 down on a routine approach — and why did it take more than a year, a stranger's tip at a hotel in Phoenix, and a second round of toxicology testing to find the answer? Join Alice and Zach for the story of a crash that exposed the people hiding inside America's commuter airline system, and the slow, imperfect reforms that followed. Sources: * Aircraft Accident Report NTSB/AAR-89/01: Trans-Colorado Airlines, Inc., Flight 2286 - National Transportation Safety Board * "A Sickness and Its Cure: The crash of Trans-Colorado Airlines flight 2286" - Admiral Cloudberg, Medium * "Dangerous Approach" - Mayday: Air Disaster, Season 16, Episode 6 - Discovery Channel Canada / National Geographic * "A Continental Express commuter plane crashed on a snow-covered ridge in southwestern Colorado" - UPI, January 20, 1988 * "No mechanical failure found in commuter plane" - UPI, January 22, 1988 * "Airline crash attributed to cocaine" - UPI, January 31, 1989 * "Anti-Drug Program for Personnel Engaged in Specified Aviation Activities, Final Rule" (53 FR 47024) - Federal Aviation Administration, November 21, 1988 * "Pilot Records Improvement Act of 1996" - Federal Aviation Administration * "Reinforcement and Rapid Delivery Systems: Understanding Adverse Consequences of Cocaine" - S. Cohen, National Institute on Drug Abuse Monograph 61 * "The Behavioral Pharmacology of Cocaine in Humans" - M.W. Fishman, National Institute on Drug Abuse Monograph 50 Find FINAL BOARDING CALL online: * Website: finalboardingcallpodcast.com * Email: finalboardingcallpodcast@gmail.com * Instagram: @FinalBoardingCallPod * Facebook: Final Boarding Call Credits: Final Boarding Call is hosted by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas, researched and written by Alice Stern, produced and edited by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas.