new york to st. martin will stretch the aircraft to its limits. as the flight heads south, the weather begins to deteriorate. captain dewitt is told visibility at the st. martin airport is below the minimum standard required for landing. he elects to divert to san juan, puerto rico. 13 minutes later, san juan tower tells him st. martin tower wants to talk to him. >> so i picked up and tried to get hold of san martin tower. all they did was start giving me fairly good weather, which is well above the minimums i needed. i did question them, where did the report come from that you were below minimums? i elected then to refile for st. martin, my original destination, which i did. >> but as these dramatic animations illustrate, contrary to the information captain dewitt says he was given, weather is terrible. he attempts to land the plane any way, burning massive quantities of fuel in the process. >> visibility was poor. it was raining. and because of those conditions, he had to stay in closer at the airport, to the runway than he would normally. so the first attempt was unsuccessful. >> so i lined it up with the runway and i t