Ep 8. The Invisible Plane

On this episode of AIR DISASTERS season 3, viewers are transported back to August 14, 2005, for the tragic crash of West Caribbean Airways Flight 708. The episode, titled "The Invisible Plane," explores how a largely invisible force – the microburst – led to the unexplained loss of this flight that claimed the lives of all 160 passengers and crew members aboard.

The program begins by painting the backdrop of Flight 708's journey, an ill-fated flight that started in Panama City, Panama and was heading to Fort de France, Martinique. The ill-fated journey of Flight 708 started with a delay of three hours, and after four rescheduled takeoffs, the flight was finally cleared for takeoff by nineteen hours. Even then, the flight contained minor mechanical and passenger issues that delayed it further, with some passengers even requesting to disembark the plane after they suspected their presence was bringing bad luck.

The aircraft in question was a classic design, an MD-82, with more than 20 years of experience, powered by twin rear-mounted engines. Its four-man crew consisted of an experienced captain, a first officer, and two flight engineers, all from Colombia. The passengers were from different countries, mainly Panama, Martinique, and several from the United States and France.

As narration in the show beckons viewers into the events that transpired on that fateful day, it describes in detail how the flight initially managed to fly through what was believed to be an ordinary thunderstorm before disaster struck. Without warning, the plane began to roll to the right, and then inverted before the crash.

As the show progresses, viewers can see the accident investigation team, led by the Colombian Civil Aviation Authority, try to figure out what caused the plane to fall from the sky. The highlights of the investigation depicted in the episode involve the team's meticulous quest to recover the flight recorders, understand the evidence they found, and determine the probable causes of the tragic crash.

Air traffic controllers in Panama's airspace offer insight about the microburst, an extremely rare weather phenomenon that poses serious hazards to airplanes mid-flight. Microbursts are particularly dangerous for planes that are taking off or landing. They can push aircraft swiftly towards the ground, and they arise from cool air rapidly descending from the thunderstorm's core, forcing the hot air it displaces downwards in small, concentrated airflow blasts that can cause loss of lift, lose altitude, and even crash.

To reenact the circumstances under which these events started, AIR DISASTERS season 3 episode 8 uses the available data to recreate the pressures beyond the cockpit doors during the flight. The manufacturing company of the aircraft was permitted to test the aircraft's responses in a wind tunnel to see how it carried in different circumstances. With the gathered data and the pilot’s state at the time of the accident, graphically assisted reenactments are used to display how a microburst could lead to perilous danger for an airplane that had experienced technical issues and had already flown for a prolonged period before encountering such an odd weather phenomenon.

Overall, AIR DISASTERS season 3 episode 8: "The Invisible Plane" succeeds in offering a detailed look into a fateful flight that many would not have known the journey of. It boldly recounts the events and the efforts made to investigate the possible causes of one of the most tragic aviation disasters in recent history. From the thorough inspection of the wreckage, gathering of witness statements to create an illustrated and informative tale, the episode does an excellent job of depicting this relatively unknown episode in the history of aviation.