The story of American Airlines Flight 965 still haunts Michelle Dussan, mainly because she was one of only four people who made it out alive. Among the casualties were Dussan's mother and 13-year-old brother, who she'd rowed with about who could get the window seat.
In the end, Dussan's argument with her brother saved her life and spared her from being among the 151 casualties from the deadly crash back in 1995.
Dussan has spoken openly about her ordeal and recalled what little she could remember from being just six years old when the plane crashed into a mountain known as El Diluvio (the Deluge) in Columbia.
Having been caught in bad weather back in Miami, the flight took off for Columbia to celebrate Christmas, but shortly before the scheduled landing at Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport in Cali, disaster struck.
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Official reports deemed it was pilot error that caused the plane to crash, claiming that if those in the cockpit had retracted the speedbrakes only one second after they initiated an escape maneuver, the plane would've climbed around 150 ft above the initial impact point and potentially cleared the trees to save those onboard.
Speaking to Joe Santagato and Greg Dybec's "Other People's Lives" YouTube channel, Dussan attempts to debunk some of the theories and gives her own view on what happened.
Explaining how her dad was interviewed for 2021's American 965 documentary, Dussan continued: "Originally, they kept saying that the plane had crashed because the pilots were drinking and they were excited about going to Colombia for vacation.
"They blame the pilots for the reason that the plane crashed, when in all reality, that was totally false, and the real reason the plane crashed was because of a malfunction that the plane had."
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Saying that the motor onboard has been carried over from the '50s, and accusing American Airlines of knowing about the fault, Dussan sensationally claimed that an oil leak led to fumes entering the cockpit and affecting the pilots' judgment.
She carried on: "It's contaminated air that they were breathing, and obviously, we know that it has side effects with your brain and everything else...They were disoriented, and now, everything makes so much more sense."
Dussan maintains that the wife of First Officer Donald "Don" Williams didn't even recognize his voice when she heard audio of him in the documentary.
Ultimately, the crash was deemed a non-survivable event, and U.S. District Judge Stanley Marcus ruled 'willful misconduct' on the pilots' part in 1997. This was then reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1999, declaring that the judge was wrong in finding fault with the pilots.