It’s Dec. 20, 1995, 9:38 p.m. and the pilot of Flight 965 is preparing to land an American Airlines Boeing 757 on its way from Miami to Cali, Colombia. As the plane nears the second-highest mountain range on Earth, the pilot realizes he has veered dangerously off course.
His final words, memorialized on the cockpit recorder — “We got f–ked up here. … Where are we headed?” — are heard before the plane slams into a 9,800-foot mountain killing 159 of the 163 people on board. Most were Colombians on their way home for the Christmas holiday. Among them were the son, daughter-in-law and grandchild of former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre.
