A devastating plane crash killed everybody on board after the pilot issued a final horrifying scream.
The incident caused the plane to flip over and dive uncontrollably, killing everyone on board upon impact.
The flight was piloted by Captain Harold Leon Green, 51, along with First Officer Patricia Karen Eidson, 42, and three flight attendants.
In heartbreaking tapes obtained following the crash, Green and Eidson could be heard descending into a state of panic, with both uttering cries of “oh no” and “oh my god” as the plane went down.
In the final seconds of the recording, Eidson could be heard saying: “Oh my god, oh my god!” before screaming, while Green shouted: “Oh no, [expletive].”
The plane could then be heard hitting the ground and the tape ends.
Green was widely considered to be a conservative captain who always went by the book and had more than 10,000 hours of experience as a United Airlines pilot under his belt.
The United Airlines Flight 585 was scheduled to arrive at Colorado Springs in Colorado, US, from Denver on March 3, 1991, carrying 20 passengers and five members of staff, when it experienced a rudder hardover shortly before touching down on the runway.
Meanwhile his first officer was considered to be a talented pilot herself, with 4,000 hours of experience to her name.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) opened an investigation in the wake of the gut-wrenching incident, which lasted 21 months.
Initially they “could not identify conclusive evidence to explain the loss of United Airlines Flight 585” but when another Boeing 737 crash took place under similar circumstances in 1994, the investigation was reopened and it was found that a sudden malfunction of the aircraft’s rudder power control unit caused the devastating crash.
Another non-fatal incident saw the same make of plane suffer similar similar problems as it approached Richmond, Virginia in 1996, prompting the NTSB to issue a new report.
“The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the United Airlines flight 585 accident was a loss of control of the airplane resulting from the movement of the rudder surface to its blowdown limit,” it said.
“The rudder surface most likely deflected in a direction opposite to that commanded by the pilots as a result of a jam of the main rudder power control unit servo valve secondary slide to the servo valve housing offset from its neutral position and overtravel of the primary slide.”