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Fine because we was going too fast and the original descent was too big and i knew something was going to happen. >> at exactly 4:00 p.m., 44 minutes after the problem began, a violent impact. >> as the right wing hit the ground, the tail snapped off. the entire tail of the plane broke off just as if it were a toy and went rocketing down the runway at 250 miles per hour. i heard explosions and loud noises and flashes of light, and it had to be with the plane breaking apart. >> al could have kept telling us that it would have been rough, but i could never in my wildest dreams have imagined smas...

Extended normally. the force causes the plane to vibrate and yaw or pull to the right. a light in the cockpit to indicate the landing gear is down and locked does not illuminate. >> when the landing gear extends under normal system operation it's hydraulic and extends at a given rate very smoothly. in the case of united 173, what occurred is it fell out and fell at a very rapid rate and one of the other components of the landing gear also broke free and in so doing damaged the wiring that closes the switch that lights the light. >> captain mcbroom doesn't want to land until he's confident the ...

Begins to vibrate and shutter. pilots determine the number two engine has failed. >> i began to realize how serious it was when i saw the flight crew come back, and they were trying to look out the windows, the passenger windows, just to observe what was going on with the physical condition of the airplane. and you could tell by looking at the flight crew that something serious was up. >> and as they go through the checklist, officer bill records, who was flying the plane, realized they had a more serious problem than they thought. >> we were shutting airplane down and going through procedure ...

Red line. >> you want to be particular, make it a runway. >> runway united flight instructor danny finch flying in first class has offered to help and is now in the cockpit. captain haynes willingness to accept fitch's offer is crew resource management in action. >> he would not have said anything prior to crm because you don't go up to the cockpit and bother a captain when you've got a problem. >> captain finch was a perfect addition to an already effective crew, but he was an additional asset. >> i said take the throttles. i was asking him to do this and do that and he kind of fell into the ...

Said we're having a little trouble with the landing gear. we're going to be in the air just a little bit longer this is a pretty common problem, don't worry about it. >> captain mcbroom was a very experienced pilot, tens of thousands of hours and 5,000 hours as a captain of the dc 8 he was flying that night. so this was mr. dc 8 expert and that may have convinced him if if he just studied a little more into the manual and talked to the people in the maintenance center, he would figure out whether or not this landing gear would collapse. >> by 5:14 p.m., air traffic control knows united 173 has...