Two Massachusetts roommates recently set out to solve the more than 30-year-old mystery of a South American plane crash. What they found was a grim reminder of the tragedy that may or may not provide some answers about what happened that day. It all started with some curiosity and a Google search. That's what led Dan Futrell to Eastern Air Lines Flight 980, which flew into a Bolivian mountain on New Year's Day in 1985. "The highest recorded commercial plane crash, as far as we know in the history of aviation, at 19,600 feet," he says. Twenty-nine people died, including eight Americans. Several expeditions had made it to the crash site, but none found the flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder. One mission by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board failed when the searchers all got altitude sickness. But Futrell thought finding those black boxes must be possible. "Maybe hard, for sure. But not impossible," Futrell says. "So that sounded like a good adventure to me."
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