WATCH: Footage from COCKPIT of Boeing 737 shows plane plow into ocean

The shaky footage was filmed by an alarmed aircraft maintenance engineer on his iPhone as a plane plunged into the Pacific Ocean on September 28, 2018. One passenger was killed in the crash.

Incredibly, 12 crew members and 34 passengers survived the Air Niugini Boeing 737 smash, although six were seriously injured. Papua New Guinea’s Accident Investigation Commission (PNC AIC) released their final report on the crash on Thursday, outlining the failings that led to the plane falling some 1,500ft short of the runway on its final landing approach.

The PNC AIC released the crash footage alongside an animated reconstruction of the final minutes of the doomed flight. Moments before impact, the second pilot realized the seriousness of the situation, calling out: “We’re too low!”

Filmed in the cockpit, the video shows the pilot and co-pilot ignoring repeated warnings from the aircraft instruments that the plane was sinking too far and urging them to pull up the plane.

Local boats and US Navy divers rushed to the scene to stage an emergency rescue of the survivors as they scrambled out of the stricken airliner, but one passenger was still on board when the plane sank into the water. According to the accident investigators, a pathologist later confirmed that the passenger was not wearing their seatbelt at the time of the crash and suffered devastating head injuries, dying within minutes.

The engineer who shot the terrifying footage of the flight’s final descent was seated in the cockpit jump seat, and investigators said the video was invaluable in helping them determine the factors leading to the crash, including the pilots blatantly disregarding a series of warnings from their instruments that the plane was dropping too low. 

In his summary of the investigation’s report, PNC AIC Chief Commissioner Hubert Namani said the flight crew were already concentrating on preparing to land the plane as planned, and did not respond to aural alerts about the impending danger.

“Both pilots were fixated on cues associated with control inputs for the landing approach, and subsequently, were not situationally aware and did not recognize the developing significant unsafe condition of an increasingly unstable final approach,” Namani said.

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