0:00

this is a

0:02

rooster teeth production in december

0:07

seventh nineteen eighty seven pacific southwest

0:10

airlines seventeen seventy one a british

0:12

aerospace one forty six regional airline

0:14

or with forty three people on board a server singer

0:16

commuter flight from los angeles international

0:18

airport to san francisco international airport

0:20

pacific southwest airlines flight seventeen seventy one

0:23

departs l a x at three thirty one

0:25

pm and were scheduled to arrive at san francisco

0:27

at for forty three pm they would

0:29

not make it to their destination the first twenty

0:31

eight minutes of the cockpit voice recorder indicate a

0:34

routine flight just after the captain requested

0:36

a change in altitude

0:37

you to turbulence the cockpit voice recorder

0:39

recorded the sound of three to four gunshots

0:41

and a crew member could be heard stating my god

0:43

that's a gun the flight was hijacked by an armed

0:46

passenger and forced to impact a hillside

0:48

at around seven hundred seventy miles an hour

0:50

slightly faster than the speed of sound

0:53

the impact was under santa rita cattle ranch in

0:55

the senate lucio mountains between pasa robles

0:57

and co yukos what happened in the cabin

0:59

and how did the hijacker gain access to the cockpit

1:01

with a loaded weapon how was he able to bypass

1:03

security and commit the second worst mass murder

1:06

in california at the time

1:07

find out on this episode a black

1:09

box out hello

1:13

romagna black box down it's gus and chris hello

1:15

chris hi we're back with another episode

1:17

yeah and this one sounds wilde

1:20

yeah little wild chris has been talking

1:22

a lot yesterday sophie sounds a little but

1:24

that's good that's going on his watch his voice

1:26

is a little tired right now a little a little

1:28

scratchy before of course we get into

1:31

it one reminded when he was follow on social media

1:33

at black box down pod facebook

1:35

instagram twitter repost typically images

1:37

of things that are difficult

1:38

to imagine in your mind kind

1:40

of supplemental helps you see what we're talking about

1:43

i said this in a in a recent episode but typically

1:45

i don't like doing episodes about

1:48

terrorism or hijackings i feel like

1:50

it falls outside of the safety

1:53

culture of an airliner i like that's more of a security

1:55

lapse as opposed to something wrong

1:57

with the plane or something wrong it in you

2:00

yeah lacking in maintenance or in the airplane

2:02

or upside where the airline but of course we did the one

2:04

with a philippine for three fourths couple weeks ago

2:07

attacks that was i thought that was an interesting story the

2:09

wider story going on there and how

2:11

they were able to save that plane you know yeah this

2:14

one is also very

2:16

interesting outside of the scope of just

2:18

the hijacking which is why i wanted to talk about

2:20

this particular incident though here and we've

2:22

talked about pacific southwest airlines before this was

2:24

a regional airline was headquartered out in san

2:26

diego it operated from nineteen forty nine

2:28

to ninety ninety eight we mentioned them in

2:30

a recent episode where there was a mid air collision

2:33

over san diego where one of their planes caught

2:35

up to a cessna that was practicing instrument

2:37

approaches and then they collided over san diego and

2:40

they had what they called the grinning birds at smiles

2:42

on the airplanes remember that yeah

2:45

we hosted we asked our social media opal

2:47

i posted us a photo of the smiling airplane

2:49

are not a social media when that episode came out

2:51

a little a pretty happy airplane anticipated

2:54

pretty happy airplanes yeah and this airline

2:56

was very influential very i was

2:58

a big inspiration for southwest airlines

3:00

so even though pacific southwest airlines doesn't exist

3:02

anymore southwest airlines kind of took

3:04

a lot of their ideas and is still operating

3:06

within like new known as far as like than

3:08

no frills customer service

3:11

you know kind of fun aspect yeah

3:13

however that being said this incident were talking about

3:15

their said was december of nineteen eighty seven

3:17

pacific southwest airlines had just recently been purchased

3:20

by us air in nineteen eighty six

3:22

aka us or was trying to

3:24

expand

3:24

their network and by

3:26

acquiring pacific southwest airlines a really i'm

3:28

a big foothold on the west coast you know you don't

3:30

hear about it so often anymore exists that a ton of

3:33

airlines like the used to be but back in the day

3:35

when airlines would acquire each other one of the big

3:37

reasons was their routes you know where

3:39

they were flying and it's less had it to acquire

3:41

an airline and get their routes than it is to try

3:43

to make new routes into are busy

3:45

airports yeah because there's like limited like

3:48

space in the air right right a rival

3:50

limited slots where people can land

3:52

and take off so sometimes you know an airline

3:54

will buy another one just to get to her there's lots

3:56

in and out of an airport like gets that's really valuable

3:59

i think we mentioned

4:00

in another episode way back when Southwest

4:02

Airlines acquired Air Tran, mainly for

4:04

their routes into Atlanta. Anyway, we're

4:07

already off the rail. We're already really sidetracked. We're talking about

4:10

Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771. The

4:12

flight was captained by Greg Lindemud, who was 43

4:14

years old, and First Officer James

4:16

Nunn, who was 48. And they departed

4:19

Los Angeles at 3.36 p.m. and

4:21

they were cruising at 22,000 feet

4:23

over the central California coast.

4:25

The cockpit voice recorder recorded one of them

4:28

asking air traffic control about reports of turbulence

4:30

and at 4.13 p.m. one of the pilots could be heard contacting

4:34

the FAA in Oakland with a message, we've

4:36

got a problem, we've

4:37

got a gun fired, they're

4:39

on board the aircraft. Oh so

4:42

they heard it before they got into the cockpit?

4:44

Right, they heard the gun discharge in the passenger

4:47

cabin and they know you know something's wrong. After

4:49

the first few shots a crew member can be heard on a cockpit

4:51

voice recorder stating, my god that's a gun,

4:54

as a second crew member was heard stating,

4:56

yes I know it is, tell them we have a problem. And

4:58

then radio traffic indicates that the flight

5:00

broadcast a distress code and afterward

5:03

a flight attendant believed to be Debbie Neal can be heard

5:05

calling out captain as another voice

5:07

believed to be a man can be heard saying,

5:09

I've got a problem while entering the cabin. And

5:12

I wanna

5:14

make a big asterisk here. Okay.

5:17

The impact was so

5:19

severe and the black box technology

5:21

was still a little primitive back then in 1987 that

5:25

the cockpit voice recorder was pretty

5:27

damaged. So this part of the

5:29

recording is a little garbled and the

5:31

report says it's unclear exactly

5:33

what was said. It was something like maybe I've got a problem

5:36

or I'm the problem. The problem is

5:38

really the only word that they were able to tell, but it was a

5:40

short sentence like involving I and

5:42

problem. I mean, both sound accurate.

5:45

Yeah, neither is good.

5:48

And there was one other thing I wanted to mention right here. You

5:50

know, we said that the flight broadcast a distress

5:52

code and in one of our supplemental

5:55

episodes, you know, when we talked about aviation

5:57

and movies, I talked about that movie, 7500. which

6:00

is about, you know, a hijacking on a plane.

6:03

And that movie was called 7,500 because

6:05

that's the code you broadcast in

6:07

a plane if there's a hijacking going on. That

6:09

way air traffic control knows. They know exactly.

6:12

Right. What's going on. If you can't say anything,

6:15

you can type that code in and it alerts

6:17

air traffic control that there is a hijacking situation.

6:20

It's a secret code. Yeah. Well,

6:22

maybe not so secret. We're talking about it. There's

6:25

a movie with the title, but it's a way to discreetly

6:27

indicate, you know. Yeah,

6:29

yeah, yeah, secret, like, you know. You

6:31

don't have to say it aloud. Right, there's a couple other

6:33

codes that are pretty standard. 7,600 is

6:36

if your radios stop working or you lose

6:38

communication. You can broadcast that and air traffic

6:41

control knows, oh, they might not be able to hear us or

6:43

they might not be able to talk to us, just something's wrong with their

6:45

radio.

6:46

And then 7,700 is if you're declaring

6:48

an emergency. So just a couple

6:50

of the codes that are possible. And then typically,

6:53

you just put in whatever identifier code

6:55

air traffic control tells you. It's just so they can keep track

6:57

of you. And that's all via the transponder.

6:59

So after the cockpit voice

7:02

recorder hears this guy burst in and

7:04

say something about having a problem or being

7:06

a problem, then the sound

7:09

of scuffling and moaning followed by the noise of the

7:11

instruments being moved and an increase

7:13

in speed. And the recording kind

7:15

of ends seven seconds later. So like they

7:17

went down and hit that quickly? I'm

7:20

not, it's unclear as to whether or

7:22

not the rest of it was

7:24

unrecoverable or if that's when impact happened.

7:26

I'm gonna say the impact probably did not happen

7:28

that quickly, because they were at 22,000 feet, you're

7:31

looking at about four and a half miles. They were

7:33

going very fast, but to cover that in seven seconds

7:35

would be extreme, way

7:37

too fast. I don't think that would have been physically

7:39

possible. So I'm gonna assume that

7:41

beyond there, the recording

7:44

just ceased to work or was unrecoverable.

7:46

So speaking of speed, the instruments revealed

7:49

that the plane was traveling in excess

7:51

of Mach 1, which means it broke the

7:53

sound barrier. It was going faster than the speed of sound. They're

7:56

going pretty much straight down when it crashed.

7:58

the force of the impact. created a 30 foot

8:01

deep crater

8:02

with most of the debris located in

8:04

there. Yeah, like if you think about all of that

8:06

weight and all of that force with that speed

8:09

hitting, like it created a 30 foot crater.

8:11

And the investigators say that it was

8:13

weird because it impacted with so much

8:15

force that the ground gave way

8:17

to make this crater. And then it

8:20

was almost like a mini trampoline. The

8:22

ground gave way and then kind of like flexed back

8:24

up back a little bit and just caused

8:26

like a bunch of papers and everything on the plane to just

8:28

shoot up and kind of like spread all around

8:31

the area. Oh man, so

8:33

because they were going straight down,

8:36

not angled down, like a lot of

8:39

accidents that we talk about, because this

8:41

was, it sounds like intentional, that

8:44

would create more of a crater versus like skidding

8:46

along the ground, right? Right,

8:48

right, that's like going straight down versus normally

8:51

a pilot is presumably trying to still fly the plane

8:53

or save the plane, so you're not going straight down. Of course we've talked

8:55

about exceptions to that, but for the most part, typically

8:58

it's not that

8:59

type of impact. Yeah.

9:01

And in fact, based on the deformation

9:04

of the black box recorder case, it's

9:06

estimated the aircraft experience a deceleration

9:08

of 5000 G when it hit the ground.

9:10

If you want to imagine it, like it's whatever

9:13

your weight is, multiply it by 5000. That's

9:15

the force you would have felt.

9:17

That they hit when they stopped essentially.

9:19

Right, right. When they hit

9:21

the ground. And like, I mean, it was everything

9:23

was just disintegrated. There was really not

9:25

much to look at. You know, if

9:28

they got to the point where even the black boxes were deformed

9:30

and they had trouble reading them And

9:32

it was really a difficult case for them to go through So like

9:35

we said even the black box data was kind

9:37

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12:00

So

12:02

the crash site was located by a CBS news

12:05

helicopter. And then investigators

12:07

from the National Transportation Safety Board

12:09

were joined by the FBI. And

12:11

they had to work together because they know there's a

12:13

crime. They heard the pilot say there was a gun. And

12:15

it's like the NTSB knows how to investigate

12:17

plane crashes to figure out what happened. And the FBI

12:19

knows how to investigate crime. So it's like they need

12:22

each other's expertise to work together

12:24

to figure this one out. Yeah.

12:27

It's kind of cool. Yeah. After

12:29

two days of digging through what was left of the plane,

12:32

they found the parts of a handgun containing

12:34

six spent cartridge cases

12:36

and a note on an air sickness bag

12:38

that was written by David Augustus

12:40

Burke indicating that he may have been responsible

12:43

for the crash.

12:44

An air sickness bag? Like isn't

12:46

he vomited? He didn't actually use it. Yeah,

12:49

so he took it out of the front thing and wrote a note.

12:51

Exactly. Like, okay,

12:53

just use it as a piece of paper.

12:55

I assume, hey, I have a gun

12:57

kind of note. We'll get to that, right? But

13:01

yeah, that's a good question. It's like, well, you know, if he takes the

13:03

time to write a note, what's he writing?

13:05

What is that? And the reason I mentioned earlier,

13:07

I brought up about how the impact kind

13:09

of the ground kind of gave way and then everything kind of bounced

13:12

back up and spread up into the air was

13:14

that's kind of what saved this note. It didn't burn

13:16

up in a fire or anything because all of the papers

13:19

kind of shot out and spread out in the area.

13:21

You know, if it had been a more traditional crash, like you were talking

13:23

about where it kind of skids along into the

13:25

ground and there had been a post impact fire,

13:27

you know, presumably this note would have been burned

13:29

up. But because it hit straight down and

13:31

everything kind of, all the papers kind of bounced up and

13:33

flew all around, they were able to find this

13:36

note, which was huge for this case.

13:38

Yeah. That's, that's, this is one of those wild

13:40

things. Like there was that one incident where they

13:42

were like weeks after the, I feel like it

13:45

was weeks, days after the crash, the person

13:47

like sees

13:49

a document on the ground. Oh yeah.

13:51

Yeah. You remember it? Like

13:53

that kind of thing. Right. It's

13:55

just these absolutely pivotal

13:58

moments where it's just like someone finds a piece paper

14:00

so

14:00

the big question now at this point is who

14:03

is this person who is this david augustus park you

14:05

know why did he

14:06

write this note and get him a bleep

14:08

commit this crime well it turns

14:10

out burke was a

14:12

recently fired ellie based employee

14:14

of us air member i say he was

14:16

there had just acquired pacific southwest airlines

14:19

oh

14:19

he was suspended

14:21

november fifteenth nineteen eighty seven

14:24

by his supervisor rate thompson

14:26

after he was caught stealing cash from the

14:28

airline from in flight cocktail receipts

14:31

oh

14:31

my god yeah

14:32

he was caught stealing sixty nine dollars

14:35

that led to his termination and that's

14:37

kind of we're we're here that's kind

14:39

of where we're at to let

14:41

go home i hate when people do stupid things

14:44

like dynamic just awful right

14:46

well look i hope we'll we'll talk more

14:48

about that it just a bit as a week we get you

14:51

know there's a there's a little more made a deputy year but yeah we're

14:53

good definitely inexcusable

14:54

and you know well what will get into

14:57

that little more so david gusto spark was

14:59

formerly based in rochester new york

15:01

but he had moved to los angeles to avoid

15:03

suspicions of smuggling cocaine from jamaica

15:05

through the airline what is this guy

15:08

do

15:08

he so he was never actually officially

15:10

charts for that and i feel like that's that's important

15:12

to say but these were persistent

15:15

rumors and there there is like a little

15:17

bit of shady was going on there but he was never

15:19

actually charts for that based upon

15:21

what we do know a minute eminem

15:24

make an assumption is is it seems kind

15:26

of like can we know how these reports all right it's very fact

15:28

means it's only what you can prove you know nothing

15:30

yeah beyond that so burke did not appear

15:32

for his grievance hearing on december third nineteen eighty

15:34

seven this is related to his theft of the sixty

15:37

nine dollars okay and early on

15:39

the next morning which would have been december fourth he was charged

15:41

with a costing someone with a large

15:43

gun while wearing a mask the

15:45

victim refused to identify him as her

15:47

assailant and

15:48

he was later observed bt with thompson

15:50

remember his was a supervisor who

15:52

fired him and thompson was the station

15:54

manager of us air at l a x

15:57

certainly

15:57

he will cost of someone with a large

15:59

gun in the man

16:00

where this was unrelated.

16:02

This is off airport is just like that. I

16:04

think they just include all of this as like background

16:06

showing that he may have had other things

16:08

going on and okay.

16:10

I had access to a gun. He was charged

16:13

as in like outside of this incident.

16:16

He was attacking someone and then right.

16:19

Okay. And then later after that he

16:21

was observed meeting with Thompson who was the station manager

16:24

of us era. and this was his boss.

16:26

In his exit interview, he admitted to a $300 a week

16:28

cocaine habit.

16:30

Again, plays back to the

16:33

cocaine smuggling theory.

16:35

Yeah, and $300 a week, what is

16:37

that in today's money?

16:39

So $300 in 1987 is equivalent to just under $800 today.

16:45

$800 a week?

16:47

That's probably a lot of cocaine. That's a lot

16:49

of cocaine. I figure when you're

16:51

doing your budgeting in like Quicken, Like that pie chart

16:54

looks kind of weird. Your

16:56

CPA is telling you, here's where you could save

16:58

some money.

16:59

Yeah, it's like, a big part of your pie

17:01

chart is that white pie. If

17:04

you reduce your cocaine expenditures, we can get back in

17:06

the black.

17:08

Oh

17:10

man. So he claimed this cocaine

17:12

habit was due to not being treated fairly

17:14

at USA. What? I

17:17

don't know. He also admitted to a significant alcohol

17:19

problem and the need for counseling.

17:21

And some

17:22

former acquaintances like girlfriends,

17:24

neighbors described him as a violent man,

17:27

even before these events of flight 1771. So

17:30

all of that I think was just in there

17:32

building kind of background on

17:35

his character.

17:36

Anyway, this is all leading up to this event. And

17:39

Burke was later seen purchasing a ticket for

17:41

this flight for flight 1771 at a PSA counter

17:44

and documents recovered by the FBI showed

17:47

he was allowed at 1.30 PM to bypass

17:49

the security point because he was a

17:51

known US air employee. Oh

17:54

my.

17:55

They didn't know that he'd been fired or? Right,

17:58

he still had his credentials. Oh

18:00

my goodness. So if you're ever in security

18:03

nowadays and you see, you

18:04

know, the pilots and the flight attendants, you know,

18:06

cut in front of you to head to the security line and they still

18:08

have to go through the metal detector,

18:10

this is why. That's,

18:11

yeah, no exceptions. Right,

18:14

flight crew still has to go through the screening,

18:16

even though they work there and they may

18:18

be in a hurry, they're allowed to get to the front of the line, obviously

18:20

to get to work on the plane, they still have

18:22

to go through the metal detector, get their stuff

18:24

scanned and, you know, make sure that this doesn't

18:27

happen again. So that's why I think this is a really interesting

18:29

one.

18:30

Yeah. So Burke left messages

18:32

on his girlfriend's answering machine saying, I

18:34

wish I could see you, but I'm not gonna see you again.

18:36

I'm sorry I messed things up, I love you.

18:39

And he said that he would not return from San Francisco

18:41

the night of the event.

18:42

So he boarded the plane and like we said,

18:44

he used his US air credentials that had not yet been

18:47

surrendered. And he was armed

18:49

with a Smith and Wesson model 29 44 caliber revolver. I

18:52

know that sounds, if you don't know guns

18:55

and it's not like, I mean, I know that's like a mouth. All

18:57

right, Samantha and Wes in model 29, 44 caliber

18:59

revolver. This is a

19:01

big gun. Have you ever seen

19:03

Clint Eastwood, the Dirty Harry?

19:05

It's a Clint Eastwood movie from the 70s. With

19:08

the really, really long, what

19:10

do you call it, neck? Barrel. Barrel.

19:14

Yeah. Yeah, that's this gun. This

19:17

is like a huge gun.

19:20

Like, it's almost like the cartoon comically

19:23

large gun. Right.

19:25

What a, I guess if he didn't go through security.

19:27

Right, then it's easier to hide. Yeah.

19:30

So depending on the

19:32

specific model he had, the gun

19:35

itself is either 9.3 inches long or 12 inches long. So

19:38

it could be

19:39

really, really long. And these

19:42

typically weigh,

19:43

depending on the gun, they typically weigh,

19:46

let's say about

19:47

a little over a kilogram, which is like just

19:49

over 2.2 pounds. So it's

19:52

heavy, this is a big gun.

19:54

So Ray Thompson, remember this is the

19:56

supervisor who fired him. Ray

19:58

Thompson was known to. regularly commute

20:01

from l a x to san francisco and was

20:03

also a passenger on this flight oh

20:06

i'm

20:06

ah he's gone after that guy

20:09

did you shoot him in the pack so let

20:11

me let me read this next and it's all talk about the i look okay

20:14

so

20:14

after boarding the plane bourke wrote a

20:16

message on the air sickness back which was recovered from

20:18

the crash site mean that's the one we talked about little

20:20

while ago but there's

20:21

no way to know whether or not he gave

20:23

the message to thomson to read before

20:26

shooting and just like there's just no way to know that

20:28

the note read hi

20:30

ray i think it's sort of ironical

20:32

that we end up like this i

20:34

ask for some leniency for my family remember

20:36

well i got none and you'll get none

20:38

oh man so you

20:40

ask you a fee how he shot i'm of

20:42

what happened in the exact sequence of

20:44

events is it's hard to piece together

20:47

there's no way to react how and also

20:49

you know what you can piece together from the cockpit voice

20:51

recorder that was also damage so it's not quite clear

20:53

as well in due to

20:55

the damage to it it was even possible to decipher

20:58

everything set in the cockpit or sometimes

21:00

it wasn't clear who what that's why i was

21:02

kind of vague and i said the pilot said this or the pilots

21:04

that that i didn't say who said it it was just

21:07

such

21:07

poor quality and home

21:09

so

21:09

i'm gonna read what is the likely

21:12

scenario as it was piece together and put together

21:14

in the republic as much most likely what

21:16

happened this

21:17

plane oh i didn't even really described

21:19

to play british aerospace be a one forty

21:21

six this is kind of a weird

21:23

plane i don't i don't know

21:26

that we have ever

21:28

covered

21:28

an incident or an accident

21:30

with one of these planes it's it's

21:33

not really a very common

21:35

plane it's similar to

21:38

the plane that the

21:39

brazilian soccer team

21:42

crashed i'm ever when they ran out of your at

21:44

similar to that i i think that plane

21:46

was like a new or improved version of

21:49

this plane this british aerospace one forty

21:51

six so it's like a regional jets

21:53

got four engines it's a very

21:55

successful plane very quiet

21:57

and popular among

21:59

some airlines i'd

22:00

don't think it was very widely used in the United States.

22:03

Okay. And looking it up, a total of 394 of

22:05

them were built over its lifetime.

22:08

Okay, I guess that's pretty good

22:10

for regional. Yeah, decent amount.

22:13

Not like, you know, super popular. It's

22:15

not everywhere. But I mean, maybe that's why

22:17

we don't see it very often. But you know,

22:19

the people who operate it, you

22:21

know, I think we're big fans of it. Anyway, I

22:23

just forgot to talk about the plane. So

22:26

this flight was at 22,000 feet

22:28

over central California coast. And

22:31

like we said, the cockpit voice recorder recorded one of

22:33

the pilots asking air traffic control about reports of

22:35

turbulence. And during the controller's

22:38

reply, the cockpit voice recorder picked up two

22:40

high level gunshot like sounds.

22:42

Burke at this point had likely shot Thompson.

22:45

One of the pilots reported twice to

22:47

the center controller. There had been gunshots fired

22:49

aboard the aircraft. And another

22:51

reason that they're able to piece this together that

22:54

Burke most likely shot Thompson before

22:56

proceeding is they were able to

22:58

find the bullet holes in the seat back

23:02

where Thompson was sitting. Actually, I take it back.

23:04

They didn't find the seat back where Thompson was sitting.

23:06

They found the seat behind Thompson in

23:09

the wreckage or they found part of the seat behind.

23:11

And that one had a bullet hole

23:12

in it. So they figure he shot him. And since

23:14

his gun was ridiculously big, the bullet went

23:17

through him and through the empty seat behind

23:19

him as well. So that's why they can speculate

23:21

that he most likely shot Thompson first

23:23

before proceeding with anything else. The controller

23:26

asked the pilots whether they wish to divert to

23:28

Monterey and the sound of the cockpit door opening

23:30

could be heard, followed by the sound of a female

23:32

voice believed to be flight attendant Debbie Neal.

23:34

And what was said by her couldn't be discerned

23:37

aside from the word captain.

23:39

And this was followed one second later by a male

23:41

voice saying something that was mostly unintelligible

23:43

in the recording but ended with the word problem.

23:46

The FBI's transcript notes that this may have

23:48

been Burke's voice,

23:50

and it's popularly believed the complete phrase

23:52

spoken by Burke had been, I'm the problem. This

23:54

actually is not in the official FBI

23:56

report. following this exchange.

23:59

Two more gunshot. were registered

24:01

followed by another gunshot six seconds later.

24:03

So most likely at this point, Burke

24:06

shot each of the pilots incapacitating

24:08

them, if not outright killing them. Then 15

24:10

seconds later, the cockpit voice recorder picked up

24:13

the sound of the cockpit door, either opening

24:15

or closing, as well as increasing

24:17

windscreen noise as the airplane pitched down and accelerated.

24:20

32 seconds after the sounds made by the cockpit door, a

24:23

sixth and final gunshot was heard. All

24:25

that could be determined was that this- Bet it was him.

24:28

Suicide. Well,

24:30

all that could be determined was that this shot occurred in the

24:33

passenger cabin and some people speculated, like

24:35

you just said right there, that maybe Burke

24:37

shot himself. However, the

24:39

most probable victim of that sixth

24:41

and final bullet was an off-duty pilot

24:43

working for PSA, Douglas Arthur, who

24:46

was most likely trying to enter the cockpit in an

24:48

attempt to get the plane out of the dive. For

24:50

the remainder of the recording, the sound of the windscreen

24:53

noise and distant voices could be heard. And

24:55

the reason that they speculate he

24:58

shot the off-duty pilot instead

25:00

of shooting himself is that when they

25:03

recovered parts of the gun amongst

25:05

the wreckage, they recovered part

25:07

of Burke's finger still in the trigger

25:10

guard. And they said, Oh my goodness.

25:13

If he had shot himself, he would have not

25:15

been holding onto the gun anymore. Wow.

25:17

So most likely he was still holding onto the gun when

25:20

the impact occurred, which means he was most likely

25:22

still alive.

25:23

Holy moly. That is

25:26

a, those

25:28

are those types of clues that

25:30

you don't think about and you don't necessarily

25:32

want to think about. Right. It's

25:35

pretty

25:36

gory and horrific, but it just speaks to

25:38

the amount of detail and

25:41

every little thing that needs to be looked at. Even in a situation

25:43

like this where almost all your evidence

25:45

is disintegrated and destroyed, there's still

25:48

little clues that can be

25:50

gleaned to tell you to give you a picture

25:52

of how everything went down. Yeah,

25:55

I'm just thinking too, when they found

25:58

the weapon, they were like, Oh,

26:00

quick, like, like, don't look

26:03

like let's take a picture or something. You know, like they

26:05

had to like document how they found it. Right.

26:08

In fact, actually, if I remember correctly, this

26:10

detail didn't make it into the final script here. But if I remember

26:12

correctly, the force of the crash

26:15

was so great that even the gun broke apart

26:17

like

26:18

it was it was not whole. You know, they

26:20

found part of the trigger mechanism in the barrel.

26:22

I'm sorry, the part of the trigger mechanism and the cylinder. And

26:25

that's where they found this evidence and they

26:27

were able to piece this together.

26:29

So, like I just said, the revolver

26:31

was recovered from the crash site along

26:33

with six spent rounds, and it was sent to the FBI

26:35

lab for analysis. And that's

26:37

where they were able to lift a print from

26:40

that finger fragment that was still stuck

26:42

in the revolver's trigger guard. And that's how they were identified,

26:45

Burke, as the person who was holding the weapon when

26:47

the plane crashed. And of course,

26:49

like I said, that indicated he was alive and holding the

26:51

gun until the moment of impact.

26:53

And it was also found out that Burke had recently

26:56

borrowed a chrome 44 Magnum

26:58

with an eight inch barrel revolver from

27:00

another USAire employee working in San Francisco.

27:03

You know, that, and again, like I said, that eight inch barrel,

27:05

this is a big gun. This is like the

27:08

dirty hairy style gun. I think

27:11

the longest barrel that they made for this specific

27:14

kind of gun is like about 10 and a half

27:16

inches. If this is the eight inch barrel version,

27:18

this is the second longest barrel available for

27:20

it. For international listeners, the 10 and a

27:23

half inches is about 270

27:23

millimeters. the eight inches

27:25

about 210 millimeters.

27:28

Who lets people borrow guns? Like

27:31

who's like, hey, can I borrow your gun? And

27:33

like, why? You know, I don't

27:36

know. I was about to say, if you

27:38

asked to borrow a gun for me, I'd give it to you. But now

27:40

that I say I'm saying that a lot, I don't know if I would, Chris. I'd

27:43

be like, what do you need this for, Chris? Yeah,

27:46

I mean, it'd be,

27:48

I don't know what I would say. I guess

27:50

you have some excuse. Like I'm worried

27:52

about someone attacking me. I

27:54

don't know. I mean, I guess if you're selling

27:57

cocaine

27:58

to or smuggling. and

28:00

I don't know. But you think he would have

28:02

his own gun at that point? I don't know.

28:05

It's a weird thing. Maybe he's just got like, you know,

28:07

like a really good friend who's like, you want to buy a gun? Yeah,

28:09

sure. No problem. Here you go. No questions asked. So

28:13

Burke's car was the 87 Ford Taurus

28:15

was found at LAX and impounded

28:18

and search warrants executed by the FBI found

28:20

that Burke was attempting to obtain hundreds

28:22

of thousands of dollars in flight insurance. He

28:25

didn't actually manage to get any, but he

28:27

was. And this reminds me of

28:29

one of our early episodes at FedEx 705 where

28:32

an employee tries to stage a crash to

28:34

try to cover up him committing suicide.

28:37

Yeah. And again, this is an employee,

28:40

well, I guess in this case, this was a recent

28:42

employee, this had been fired, who

28:44

gets into the cockpit and in this

28:46

case successfully crashes the plane.

28:48

I guess as a follow-up to that FedEx 705 story,

28:52

that specific plane from

28:54

that episode continued flying

28:56

for many years. It only just got retired at

28:58

the start of 2023. I think its final

29:00

flight was late December, 2022,

29:03

and they finally retired it.

29:05

I think they retired all of those kinds of planes from FedEx.

29:08

I think someone like tweeted about it to

29:10

us in December. Yeah,

29:12

again, that's social media, but at Black Box

29:14

Town Park.

29:15

So there were many

29:18

changes made to federal laws and

29:20

even corporate policies as a result of this

29:22

crime.

29:23

Among the deceased passengers were three

29:25

public affairs executives of Chevron who

29:28

were traveling with the president of Chevron,

29:30

James Silla,

29:31

also killed in the crash with three officials of Pacific

29:33

Bell. Pacific Bell was the

29:36

baby bell that was broken up from AT&T that operated

29:38

in California and covered it back then.

29:40

They no longer exist, they're just AT&T again.

29:43

But many large corporations created

29:45

new policies forbidding multiple executives

29:47

from traveling on the same flight because of this.

29:49

Oh, where it's

29:51

like you have too many important people on

29:54

one flight. Right.

29:56

And you don't want that happening in case something goes

29:58

wrong. And remember, this was

30:00

nineteen eighty seven this is

30:02

two

30:02

years after nineteen eighty five which we talked

30:04

about was the second worst month

30:06

for civil aviation intentionally

30:08

yet

30:09

crashes were still need

30:11

not on car or they

30:13

were less they weren't com and but they were

30:15

super rare at this point so me that

30:17

this part of the thinking of hey maybe we shouldn't

30:19

put all of our executives on one plane anymore

30:22

does to be safe

30:23

and there were new federal laws which required

30:25

immediate seizure of all airline

30:27

and airport employee credentials after

30:29

an employee's termination resignation

30:31

more retirement from an airliner airport position

30:33

which see you now in retrospect seems like

30:36

common sense they're

30:37

turning your badge

30:39

get the well who are now you're he i know

30:42

there was also a new policy implemented stipulating

30:45

that all airline flight crew an airport employees

30:47

were to be subject to the same security measures as airline

30:49

passengers would what i mentioned earlier which

30:51

i as a big take away from this isn't

30:53

your

30:53

they've gotta go through the same security screenings

30:56

as everyone else to make sure something like this

30:58

doesn't happen there

30:59

is a moral for this fly in the garden

31:01

of hope section of the law social valley

31:03

a memorial park there's a granite and bronze marker

31:06

honoring

31:06

the victims of flight seventeen

31:08

seventy one

31:09

and a number of the passengers and crew are

31:11

buried in that cemetery

31:13

ah out there but that's

31:15

it for pacific

31:16

southwest seventeen seventy one this

31:18

one i knew was going to be very straightforward

31:21

and was going to be as long as some of our

31:23

other episodes but i thought it was still

31:25

that

31:25

influential enough and elected

31:28

he did it warranted being talked about

31:30

it's it's really interesting else

31:32

meant the i just can't get over how big

31:34

of a jerk that guy was like okay

31:37

he's mad at his boss right

31:40

or maybe even his boss and the airline

31:42

but like he's gives gonna kill

31:44

all those other people you know and

31:47

that's on top of the fact that he did steal

31:49

sixty nine dollars they had it on video they had video

31:51

of ever in seattle in a month or

31:53

so we i was ok okay

31:56

because you name it they're like he

31:58

he he admitted to having a cocaine an

32:00

alcohol problem and he's a pilot

32:02

who's also stealing money. It's like, I,

32:04

if those aren't grounds to be tired, I

32:07

just want to clarify. He wasn't a pilot. He was just an airline

32:09

employee.

32:10

Oh, and okay.

32:12

Yeah. Yeah. Just, I guess I never said that. He

32:14

wasn't actually a pilot necessarily,

32:16

but he did work for the airline.

32:18

Okay. But yeah, I mean

32:21

just to murder a bunch

32:23

of innocent people. I mean, they're

32:25

all innocent, But people

32:27

who have nothing to do with you or your issues, it's

32:32

just really selfish and a

32:34

testament to what kind of person he was. And

32:37

again, I can't emphasize it

32:39

enough. They had video of

32:41

him stealing

32:42

money and you know, he.