A short clip from a show detailing the tragic events of Flight 1771's crash On December 7, 1987. An irate former employee named David Burke stormed the cockpit and shot the pilot and co-pilot.



Several seconds later, the CVR picked up increasing windscreen noise as the airplane pitched down and accelerated. A final gunshot was heard, and it is speculated that Burke had killed the airline's chief pilot, who may have tried to save the aircraft. According to the TV series Mayday, because a fragment of Burke's fingertip was recovered with the gun, it indicated that he was holding the gun until impact.[4] The plane descended and crashed nose-first into the hillside of a cattle ranch at 4:16 p.m. in the Santa Lucia Mountains near Paso Robles[5] and Cayucos. The plane was estimated to have crashed at a speed of around 700 mph (1,100 km/h), disintegrating instantly. It is estimated that the aircraft hit the ground at five thousand times the force of gravity. The crash was witnessed by three different people on the ground, all of whom were able to see the plane until a fraction of a second before impact. Two men in a pickup driving east on Highway 46 saw the plane against a clear blue sky. A third witness, who was very near the impact site never publicly came forward. The plane was completely intact until it crashed, and was traveling at an approximately 70-degree angle toward the south. The plane impacted a rocky hillside, leaving a crater less than 2 feet deep and 4 feet across, presumably where the landing gear struck the ground. Unburnt paper flew everywhere as small aircraft fuel fires burned on the ground. No one survived the crash. The human remains were in very small pieces, the largest of which were feet in shoes. The force of the impact caused such extensive damage that 27 of the passengers were never identified.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1771