the next thing i remember is looking up and seeing nothing but fire. >> helicopters in serious trouble. a rescue mission turns catastrophic when unpredictable winds push a chopper to its limits. >> i thought we were watching these guys roll to their deaths. >> a gorgeous summer day in new york city turns ugly when a sightseeing helicopter collides with a small plane. >> nobody could survive that. it was too quick, too fast, too devastating. >> firefighters flee a mountain top to avoid lightning only to fly into a disaster they didn't

see coming. >> right then i knew that this isn't supposed to happen like this. >> our dramatic animations take you inside these complex machines and illustrate what led to horrific accidents. >> then all of a sudden it's not an airplane or a helicopter. it's a paper weight. and it will just drop out of the sky. helicopters are amazing feats of engineering. they can lift off from any runway, fly in any direction, and most important, they can hover. >> being able to hover, it's why we all do it. it's one of the most incredible

experiences you can have. >> this superior maneuverability makes them a valuable resource in extreme conditions. >> helicopters are a great tool for getting into high risk environments, whether it's a mountain top, a sea state, or even on top of a building. >> but there's a price to pay for that remarkable access. >> along with that capability comes higher levels of demands and expectations. pilots must be aware of the machine's and their own limitations so they stay out of harm's way. >> because when things do go wrong, the situation can turn deadly in an instant. a helicopter rescue crew on a daring mission underestimates the power of mother nature and ends up needing a rescue of its own. >> what i'm thinking is, basically do everything you can to survive the crash.

>> may 30th, 2002. it's a beautiful spring morning in portland, oregon. reporter pat doris is wrapping up a morning news briefing when he gets word of a breaking story happening high on the slopes of mt. hood. >> the information that we had was there were climbers down. there were some in a crevasse. there were probably fatalities. and that there was a rescue being put together to go get them. >> doris and his helicopter news team are immediately dispatched to the scene to report the story. they learn that nine climbers in the process of summiting the dormant volcano have fallen into a crevasse, a 20-foot-deep opening in the mountain's snowpack. >> some folks were starting to walk down a little bit now. >> my first impression looking out the window, all i could see was the mountain. when i looked in my monitor, you could see a little slit which

was the crevasse that everybody had fallen into. >> this deep ravine forms when warm spring temperatures cause mt. hood's seasonal snow to separate from its permanent snowpack. now it's a trap for mine climbers from three different groups who have slid hundreds of feet down a slick sheet of icy spring snow and crash landed in the chasm. >> they had just summited and were coming down. the guys had roped themselves together for the descent and not attached themselves to the mountain with anything, which is not entirely bad, but the rule is the top guy can't fall, because if the top guy falls, he's going to yank everybody off. of course that's what happened, all of them slid into the crevasse. >> one climber fell. he was roped up with other climbers. his fall simply ripped them off their feet.

that rope team fell into another team which fell into another rope team. that rat's nest of ropes and climbers all fell into the crevasse. >> when portland mountain rescue volunteers arrived at the rescue site to render aid, they find three climbers dead and several more are injured. >> it was actually a pretty chaotic scene. we had four seriously climbers who needed to be evacuated. obviously our focus was getting the injured out first. >> below, the sheriff's department sets up a base of operations to coordinate the rescue effort. they call in two helicopter teams to carry out the medical evacuations. the oregon army national guard and the air force reserve 304th rescue squadron based in portland. air force pararescueman andrew

canfield is dispatched with the 304th. >> we're basically all purpose rescue and recovery specialists. our job is to go anywhere in the world and recover anyone who is in need. >> loaded into a helicopter, andrew and his six-person team are tasked with flying up to the crevasse to pick up a severely injured climber. >> it was a crystal clear blue sky day. we did an observation pass over the area to get familiar with the lay of the land there. >> with the weather and wind conditions seemingly stable, the helicopters hovers so one of the pararescuemen can rappel into the mountain. >> once he was on the ground, he disconnected and we flew off and waited for him to call. >> the situation on the ground is tense for steve rollins and his team as they struggle to

prepare the patient. meanwhile the massive machine maneuvers overhead. >> helicopters were coming in as quickly as they could to evacuate patients. everybody was kind of doing their best to help out no way way they could. but working under the helicopters is very industriost. the sound is deafening. even being next to somebody, it can be difficult to communicate. it was risky just due to the number of people. >> moments later, the patient is ready and the helicopter gets into position. andrew canfield, tethered to the aircraft with a gunner's belt, prepares to receive the injured climber boaaboard. >> i'm positioned and watching them on the ground. >> rollins and his team are staging nearby. >> i had one of my rescuers assisting with loading the

patient. at that point i was underneath the tail rotor and could look up and see the hoist operation. >> the pj grabs the table, gets the patient, we're in solid hover and we're ready to start to lift the survivor. >> that's when it happens. >> i think it was a change in the rotor wash that got my attention. i looked up and noticing the helicopter twisting in an odd direction. >> the little rotor on the tail that keeps the body on the helicopter from spinning around went to maximum power and didn't have enough power to stop the rotation. the body of the helicopter began rotating around and around and it lost control. >> viewing the dramatic scene from his news helicopter, pat doris instantly knows the helicopter is in trouble. >> i saw the tail just kind of make a really strange movement. and the nose came around. and i remember thinking, they're going to hit the mountain.

>> the aircraft descended very quickly, you kind of feel your stomach up in your throat. that's win. there was something very wrong. >> everything seemed to slow down. and it was kind of almost like a dream. i saw the helicopter drop down almost below me, and the refueling nozzle hit the snow. and at that point i knew it was going to crash. coming up -- >> when i saw it starting to roll, i felt sick to my stomach, because i thought we were watching these guys roll to their deaths.

may 30th, 2002. mt. hood, oregon. an air force hh-60 is in mid-hover over several mountain ro rescue volunteers who have just attached an injured climber to

the aircraft when it tilts toward the snow. andrew canfield is attached to the open side door of the aircraft as it starts to go down. >> my initial thought was to actually get out of the helicopter, to bail out. >> he releases his tether and goes to jump. but it's a too late. the helicopter is about to crash. >> at that point i basically just got as flat as possible and braced for impact. >> his crewmate releases the tether connected to the injured climber. seconds later, the helicopter collides with mt. hood. >> it hit the side of the mountain. the rotor blades shattered and went in every direction. >> crouched on the ridge yards from the listing chopper, mountain rescue volunteer steve rollins has only seconds to react. >> the rotor sheared off. and it went from deafeningly loud to dead silent. i thought briefly of jumping in the crevasse, not knowing if it was going to explode. >> instead it does something else entirely.

pat doris, observing the scene from a portland news chopper, watches in disbelief. >> it was the craziest thing ever. not only did it crash but then it started to roll. i felt sick to my stuck, because i was conscious that we had a pretty big audience watching, including probably some of their family members. and i thought we were watching these guys roll to their deaths. >> that is horrible. good lord. >> i didn't think there was any way anybody could survive that. and then i started thinking, now we'll have to start the process all over again to have somebody come rescue the rescuers. >> inside the helicopter, the crew is alive, but being brutally thrashed around. >> it started to pick up speed and become more violent and faster as we went. >> what i'm thinking is do everything we can to survive the crash. >> untethered, andrew canfield holds onto a crewmate for dear

life. >> i was holding on to him as we started to get stretched out because of the centrifugal force as the helicopter was rolling. >> but the toll of the rolling chopper rips them across. >> it launched me out. >> canfield hits the snow and starts to tumble. >> the thought in my head when i was first ejected out of the helicopter, was, thank god, i'm free, i'm out. then i realized i was downhill from the helicopter and it was quickly overtaking me. >> seconds later, the 22,000 pound machine rolls right over the top of him. >> if you were just laying in the middle of train tracks and a freight tran went over you. >> the weight of the rolling helicopter crushes him into the layer of snow beneath him, cushioning the impact. amazingly, canfield survives with no major trauma, as do his crew mates. >> i watched all the crew

members get out of the helicopter. they were all walking and talking. i realized that, okay, everybody else on the helicopter is okay. >> the rescue operation is reset. and within hours, all the injured climbers and flight crew are brought down from the mountain. shortly after, a military inquiry is opened into the cause of the crash. investigators looked to one of the fundamentals of rotor wing aviation. they check how much power it had available to hover. >> when a helicopter is in forward flight, the rotor disk acts much more like a wing. it has air flow over the top of it. it's a more conventional type of flight. >> the big change is when you transition into a hover. all of a sudden, you are not flying through the air anymore. you're taking air and driving it through the rotor system and creating lift. that requires an incredible amount of power. >> in certain conditions, more power is needed to keep a helicopter up in the air.

if the aircraft is overloaded. if the air temperature is high. or if it's flying through thin air at high elevation. >> if you have not taken into account those factors, it's not an airplane or a helicopter. it's a paperweight. and it will just drop out of the sky. >> according to andrew canfield, the crew was aware going in that with the thin air at the mountain's high elevation, the helicopter would have to be operating at its power margin. to compensate, the pilot tries to steer it into the wind. >> if you're in a hover or coming in for a landing in a low state of energy, you always try to fly into the wind, because that wind at your nose actually provides additional lift. >> but relying on mountain winds for extra lift proves to be a critical miscalculation. >> the winds help the helicopter initially produce lift. but if there's the least bit of

variation in wind, you can erode a very razor-thin margin. in this case that's what happened. >> as soon as that wind kind of shifted, we went from having a 30-knot headwind to a 30-knot tailwind. >> when this happens, the power demand on the helicopter instantly spikes. the engines max out, causing the rotors to lose speed and droop. the helicopter loses lift and begins to fall. >> there was nowhere for the pilots to nose down and fly out. and so they had to do the best they could, which was basically to avoid crashing on top of the many people that were on the mountain. >> when you watch that video, it's obvious that the pilot starts to basically go downhill, figuring that if he can get down into cleaner air, he may regain that lift. unfortunately, as he settles out, part of the aircraft contacted the snow field and the aircraft self-destructed. >> when the military releases

its finding, the report states the crew lacked an understanding of or did not adequately consider the effects of unpredictable mountain winds on flying performance when selecting a method for executing the survivor recovery. furthermore, the helicopter's close proximity to the mountain left the crew with no escape route once the helicopter began to lose lift. >> one of the cardinal rules of flying in the mountains is, always have an exit, preferably three. if you don't have one, then you are banking everything on the fact that the helicopter will perform exactly the way you want. but if you don't have a way to be able to move out of that situation, then you've gotten yourself into a corner. coming up -- >> nobody could survive that. it was too quick, too fast, too devastating. te to severe rheumatoid arthritis, and you're talking to your doctor about your medication...

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august 8th, 2009. it's a stunning summer day in new york city. and tourists from around the world are out and about, enjoying the sights. captain ken corcoran is a tour boat operator and remembers the day well. at around 11:50 that morning, his vessel was heading north on the hudson river as they approached the he found their statue of liberty tour. >> august 8th, 2009, was a beautiful day. we had about 250 passengers that day, maybe a little bit more. the atmosphere was great. everybody had plenty of room, great weather, great opportunity to take great pictures. >> across the river, standing on the manhattan shoreline in the hudson river park, local resident yvonne morrow is taking advantage of the weather to lead a walking tour of the waterfront. >> i spend a lot of time on the waterfront. you're out on the edge of the pier, right on the water.

it's just very pleasant. but 20, 25 people met us on christopher street. and we walked north slowly. >> some 20 blocks north, five italian tourists are at the 30th street heliport. they're about to take off on a 12-minute helicopter tour showcasing the new york city skyline. 32-year-old jeremy clark is at the controls. >> new york on the ground is one thing. but new york from the air is a different thing. so this basic helicopter tour was going to take them down the hudson river so they could see the skyline, the tall buildings, then over the statue of liberty. >> they board a euro copter as-350 helicopter. at 11:52 a.m., they take off. below, on the hudson, captain corcoran's customers are on the deck, taking the view and filming the sights. >> at this point in the trip, there was plenty of people on the outer decks with their video

cameras and cameras pointing up to the sky. just regular sightseeing, an enjoyi enjoyable trip. >> a few minutes later a tourist catching the scenery catches sight of a helicopter and zooms in for a closer look. at the same time, yvonne morrow and her group are looking over the river. >> we were looking across at new jersey and pointing things out when all of a sudden we heard this pop and it made us look up. >> seemingly from out of nowhere, a small plane appears as the helicopter is ascending. >> oh, my god! >> a devastating collision is captured on video. the remains of both aircraft fall to the water. captain corcoran is almost directly below the falling debris. >> basically at this point is when we had seen two major splashes. i didn't know what it was, to be honest with you. the corner of my eye, just at

this point right here. and it just went plop, plop. what the crew members heard was people screaming. that's when i realized it was a small plane and a helicopter. >> emergency responders arrive on the scene almost immediately. >> within seconds, it seemed, nypd aviation, the helicopter came swooping down and dropped one of their rescue divers into the water. it was just amazing. >> stunned bystanders watched the tense scene unfold. >> you couldn't believe what you were seeing. it really was horrible. >> we were all hoping, we were looking for a miracle, for someone to survive such a horrific accident. >> but there is no hope for the people aboard either aircraft. the pilot of the small plane, a piper r-300, his two passengers, and the pilot and five occupants of the helicopter, all perish in the collision.

>> we figured there was no survivors. nobody could survive that. especially when you saw the pieces of the helicopter falling in the water. it was too quick, too fast, and too devastating. >> immediately the question arises, how could this have happened on a perfectly clear summer day? one thing to consider is that helicopters are extremely complicated machines to operate. >> there's basically three factors at play while you're flying a helicopter, which is your collective, which lifts the helicopter into the air. your cyclic, which controls the disk itself. and then your pedals, which keep the cabin pointed in the direion that you want it to be po in. >> according to his colleagues, jeremy clark was an experienced pilot, more than capable of handle the multiple tasks required to fly a helicopter. >> of course the pilot's responsibility is not only to maintain control of the

aircraft, but he's got to maintain that route. you can't be drifting offcourse. >> yet somehow he does. coming up -- >> the sad part about midair collisions is the vast, vast majority of them happen on bright, sunny days.

officials in south carolina have temporarily called off the search for three escaped inmates. the men broke out of their dorchester county jail saturday morning. they were serving time for numerous charges including burglary, drugs and theft. nearby residents are urged to lock their homes, garages, and vehicles overnight. a fierce fight against a raging wildfire in central california. two people confirmed dead, 150 homes destroyed with another 2500 in the fire's path. the state of emergency also in effect. now back to our programming.

august 8th, 2009. a perfect summer day in new york city is shattered when the rotors of a tourist helicopter tear the wing of a small plane, sending both careening into the hudson river. >> the airplane was a piper low wing airplane. the helicopter was a commercial sightseeing helicopter. and it had passengers on board to see the sights of new york from the air. >> manhattan resident yvonne morrow was one of many people near the river that morning who saw the catastrophic collision firsthand. >> it was really awful. to see that is so devastating. you wonder, how could this happen? >> while crews work to recover the remains of the victims and both aircraft, the ntsb begins an investigation to determine how on a clear day, this collision could have happened. one of the things they look at, the flight tracks of the plane

and the helicopter. gregg feith consulted on the case for the family of the fixed wing pilot. >> there were aircraft taking off from two separate places. the helicopter was taking off out of the 30th street heliport in new york city. >> operated by 32-year-old pilot jeremy clark, the helicopter's tour was going to take the five italian tourists on board down the middle of the hudson river, around the statue of liberty, and back up. >> they were on a fixed route, about a thousand feet above the ground. >> according to investigators, the other aircraft, a fixed wing piper pa-32r-300, takes off at 11:50 a.m., and climbs to an altitude of 1100 feet. at the controls, 60-year-old recreational pilot steve altman. with him are his brother and 15-year-old nephew. the flight takes off from teterboro, new jersey, and is

headed to ocean city, new jersey. >> in this case, the direction of flight was going to take this piper right over the hudson river as it transited through the new york city skyline area. >> two minutes later, at 11:52, the helicopter, facing west, lifts off, climbing straight up, then proceeds south. because the hudson river is part of new york's visual flight rule corridor, neither pilot has filed a fight plan. >> both were operating under visual rules, which is a scene avoid rule. like you drive your car, you seek conflicting traffic. it's same thing with airplanes. >> the flight following is if the air traffic controller is not too busy with instrument traffic, they can radar identify an airplane and provide traffic

advisories to the pilot. >> by 11:53, the helicopter is at 900 feet and climbing, still heading south. the piper, cruising at 1100 feet, has reached the hudson and is now only yards from the helicopter. the weather is good. visibility is ten miles with no clouds obscuring the aircraft. so why didn't they see and avoid each other? >> the sad part about midair collisions is that the vast, vast majority of them happen on bright, sunny days. what it is is it's a bunch of guys up flying, and they're not aware of their aircraft around them. >> investigators believe that this is probably what happened on august 8th, in spite of the clear weather and high visibility, the two pilots must have been distracted. to be sure, investigators tried to recreate what may have been happening in the cockpit of each aircraft moments before impact. they turn their attention to the

helicopter's operation. the collision occurs at 1100 feet, 100 feet above the recommended maximum altitude for the helicopter. investigators speculate that clark may have been distracted by his role as a pilot and tour operator. >> some of these pilots also become the tour guide, if you will, explaining the buildings, pointing out particular scenes and that kind of stuff. you have to divert your attention, if that's the type of operation you're running. >> investigators raise the possibility that this disextraction may have prevented clark from noticing the piper approaching from the west as he lifts off. by the time he turns south, it's too late. the piper is approaching from behind the helicopter and out of clark's field of view. >> helicopters have typically very good visibility as they have larger canopies. but they too have visibility restrictions that can be up and behind them.

>> investigators also learn that the pilot of a piper was likely dealing with a distracting situation of his own, as he struggles to reestablish contact with the controllers providing flight following. >> the air traffic controller at teterboro said he needed to talk to the newer controller who handled that piece of airspace. he was given a hand-off frequency. it is the pilot's responsibility to then read it back to the controller to ensure accuracy. >> the piper's pilot, however, reads the frequency back incorrectly, and teterboro's air traffic controller doesn't catch the mistake. investigators learn this is because the air traffic controller's attention was diverted by a personal phone call. >> the fixed wing pilot never was on the appropriate frequency for the newer controller. but it's obvious that he probably was very distracted trying to establish that radio communication. >> this occurs just as the

helicopter begins to lift off and turns south. audio transcripts show that the air traffic controller continues his personal call and does not issue any warning to the piper. now, the helicopter is only yards away. but even at this close distance, investigators believe the piper's pilot would have difficulty spotting the helicopter. >> the helicopter can actually move vertically at a rapid rate. >> that may have been a contributing factor, because the pilot may not necessarily be looking down to identify aircraft. >> according to the ntsb report, nine seconds before impact, the helicopter is now in the piper's field of view. but it's still not immediately visible to the pilot. >> human eyes are very good at detecting motion. if you see the traffic and it moves, your eye will pick it up. >> in this case, however, investigators believe the complex background of the new

york city skyline disguises the movement of a helicopter. >> for the fixed wing pilot, all of a sudden he has a jungle of buildings. he's got a variety of different shapes, sizes, colors. so to try and pick up movement of the helicopter may have been lost in those various colors. >> one second before impact, the helicopter is in clear view of the piper. but now it's too late to avoid it. >> and as they came together during the course of taking what was believed to be evasive action, the rotor blades on the helicopter then cut into the piper, rendering it incapacitated. the pilot couldn't control it. and both aircraft went into the river. >> investigators find that the probable cause of the accident was the inherent limitations of the see and avoid concept, which made it difficult for the airplane pilot to see the helicopter until the final seconds before collision. for captain corcoran, the memory

of the fatal crash is now a permanent part of his route. >> when i pass this area, i do think about it. what sticks out the in this one is, it shouldn't have happened. all those people died for nothing. coming up -- >> a lot of branches flying around, the helicopter started shaking. right then i knew this isn't supposed to happen like this. let's feed him to the sharks! squuuuack, let's feed him to the sharks! yay! and take all of his gold! and take all of his gold! ya! and hide it from the crew! ya...? squuuuack, they're all morons anyway! i never said that. they all smell bad too. no! you all smell wonderful! i smell bad! if you're a parrot, you repeat things. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do. squuuuack, it's what you do. ♪

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youthat's why you drink ensure. sidelined. with 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. for the strength and energy to get back to doing... ...what you love. ensure. always be you. warnings of lightning strikes force a crew of wild land firefighters to evacuate a mountain top. they believe they are flying to safety until disaster strikes. >> everything jerks real hard and you go down. you're instructed to put your head between your will you legs.

unfortunately i did not do that of that i was in dismay, wondering if this was really happening. . august 5th, 2008. shasta trinity national forest, california. it's been a long, hot summer for wild land firefighters from grayback forestry in oregon. for months the men had been battling an outbreak of deadly forest fires, sparked by the dangerous combination of extreme drought and severe weather. working his first season as a firefighter, rookie johnathan froright has been learning the ropes on the front lines. >> all of northern california was pretty much on fire. >> with several thousand individual fires burning across the state, the crew from grayback along with roughly 20,000 firefighters called in from around the world have been

pushed hard. wild land firefighter michael brown was one of them. >> we're out there, we're battling the brush and the trees and the animals. your life is on the line. so you're always looking out for everybody. the camaraderie is more intense than anybody can ever imagine. >> despite the danger and the hard ships, the tight-knit crew has been making progress in what's called the iron complex. for several days now they have been spiked out at 7200 feet, cutting down trees and digging fire breaks in an attempt to contain the fires. >> the term "spiked out" means we were up in an area where they have to fly in your water and food. you throw your sleeping bag on the ground and camp out and go to work in the morning. >> but on august 5th, warnings of an approaching electrical storm make their location on the mountain extremely hazardous. >> the crews were spiked out in

very steep, rugged country. lightning comes in the mountainous regions of the west, picks the highest point, and that's the ridge tops. they were evacuated. >> with daylight fading fast, u.s. forest service coordinators have to move the men from gr grayback and several other crews out of the area quickly. they call in a specially outfitted sikorski, operated by carson helicopters, to transport the crews. >> they caught the flying bus. it's a fairly big helicopter. it had two seats on the right side of the helicopter and single seats on the left, cargo area in the back. >> just after 6:00 p.m., it touches down at helispot 44, a small clearing in the mountains located at an elevation of 5,980 feet. it begins the first of several runs to helispot 36, roughly

4,400 feet below. >> we were split up, ten, ten. the first part of my group, they were flown out just fine. we were excited because we were going to see it land and take off. >> the helicopter refueled and came back and got the next ten. >> at 7:36 p.m., the rest of the grayback crew loads on. michael brown takes a seat in the front right of the aircraft. johnathan froright moves to the back. >> being the new guy on the crew, a nuewbie, as we call it,i was last in line. >> with the firefighters aboard, the massive chopper moves off. >> i was excited. >> it felt perfectly fine to me. i could see out of both windows. i was able to see above the tree tops. >> but roughly a hundred feet in the air, something happens.

>> i remember the helicopter dipping down once, and then we started to move forward again. then another dip. and that's when i could kind of tell something was going wrong. >> i'm looking out the window, and the next thing i notice is there's a lot of branches flying around. the helicopter starts shaking. i notice that the rotors are tapping the tops of the trees. right then i knew that this isn't right, this isn't supposed to happen like this. >> seconds later, the sikorsky slams into the mountain and bursts into flames. >> the helicopter kind of shifted, sideways. >> it's the last thing michael brown remembers before blacking out. >> the next thing i remember is looking up and seeing nothing but fire. >> in the back of the helicopter, johnathan survives the impact. he's severely injured with a broken back. the situation is grave. in the front of the helicopter, michael brown awakens in an equally desperate situation.

his face is smashed and his body pinned to the floor of the burning helicopter. >> i open my eyes and i have other seats on top of me, behind me. i'm hearing co-workers and friends moaning. at this point i go into survival mode. i need to get my seatbelt off somehow and get out of this. coming up -- >> it spewed out hundreds of pounds of fuel which immediately lit. booking.com offers free cancellations, so you're free to decide if the trip you're on... hahahahahaha! ...isn't really the trip you want to be on. hahahaha... hahaha... [mountain woman and key laughing together] amazing sleep stays with you all day and all night. sleep number beds with sleepiq technology give you the knowledge to adjust for the best sleep ever.

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and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. raise your expectations. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, control is possible.

remaining firefighters all perish. >> remember saying, god, you said you'd never give me anything i could handle. this is more than i can handle. >> i'd woken up in the burn unit in sacramento slightly conscious. i swear i could hear, you know, other guys in the crew talking. and then i remember a couple people coming in and letting me know that, hey, these guys didn't make it. >> it was, you know, think the hardest, most i ever cried in my hive. >> as the fire fighting community mourns its fallen, the ntsb twbegins investigating wha caused the sikorsky to hit the trees and cause into the ground. ntbs investigators are able to recover both 1500 horsepower ge engines and transport them from the scene for further

examination. they study the crash site, conduct eyewitness and survivor interviews and ree cover and examine the helicopter's cockpit voice recorder or cvr. >> listen to the engine sounds, examine the engine. one thing we looked into was the aircraft. >> the specialist can hear the engine in the cvr not producing power but actually topping or meeting their maximum power just before the crash. >> there are limits on the amount of power you can get out of the engines on all aircraft. in this case when they got to that limit, it was not enough power to lift the helicopter and as a result they started down. >> the question for investigators now is what caused the engines to dangerously max out. >> as we put the investigation together, it was quite clear the helicopter was seriously overweight for the takeoff.

>> investigators discover at the performance charts they believe the flight crew used to determine how much weight they could carry when flying in high altitude has been altered. >> it was basically a very different chart that somebody had cut and pasted and gave to the flight crew. >> the question is why. the ntsb alleges this change was made by someone at carson helicopters to exaggerate the helicopter's lift capabablcapac >> if you artificially -- you have more payload available, equates into more firefighters that can get in the helicopter. >> this can cause the crew to inadvertently overload the aircraft. >> the ntsb found that this aircraft was over its maximum operating weight by better than 1,000 pounds. the weight of the aircraft overcame the lift that was being produced and the accident then was inevitable. >> the ntsb report states that several actions by carson

helicopters including altering performance charts collectedly resulted in the pilots relying on performance calculations that significantly overestimated the helicopter's load carrying capacity. >> the ntsb basically concluded that the aircraft was operating outside of its performance standards or limitations. >> carson responds with an open letter stating, "carson is not disputing that a carson employee submitted incorrect information on the empty weight of the aircraft." but the suggestion by the ntsb that it was condoned by the company is totally false and misleading. in 2013, a former carson employee pled guilty to conspireing to -- another wases convicted in 2015 of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and making false statements to obtain fire fighting contracts.

no criminal charges were brought against carson. the company maintains it does not believe the altered charts were the cause of the crash. and they are not alone. in 2010, william, the surviving co-pilot and the family of rork, the pilot in command of the night pursued the ntsb's fightings. they viewed sikors, y and others alleging a known problem. the engine's fuel filter caused the crash. >> there is some discussion about the fact there may have been a performance issue be the operation of the engine, itself, because there was some contamination found in a fuel control unit which could reduce the fuel flow which would have had an adverse effect on the engine. >> on march 27th, 2012, a jury in oregon decides in favor of the pilots. >> i can't determine why the jury reached that conclusion. i can only provide that looking

at all the factual information provided to the ntsb, we saw no evidence of an engine failure. >> general electric appeals the decision but settles out of court as do the other parties without admitting any wrongdoing and it stands by the ntsb's findings. for michael brown and jonathan, the findings of the ntsb investigation and the lawsuit are little comfort. >> i don't think that there will ever be an answer that anybody wants to hear. all i know is my friends didn't die fighting fire. they died in a situation that was out of their hands. >> the worst thing to deal with was the loss of life. you know, the loss of my brothers. they were all great people and i don't want them to be forgotten.

politicians riot. >> i saw a smoke grenade explode and the whole parliament hall was covered with smoke. two young boys fight inside a cage. >> i think that's enough, i think everybody has seen enough now. and an angry driver plows through a crowd. >> i thought i was about to die. >> oh, no, no, no, no. >> watch what happens when people behave wildly. >> oh, my god! >> emergency. >> we got a mass, mass riot. >> are caught on camera acting inappropriately. >> pole