Embry Riddle and virtual reality is changing the way students study airplane accidents.

Students can now go into the airplane and study it from inside.

What's left of American airlines flight 1420, which crashed in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1999, is on full display as part of new technology software developed at Embry Riddle Worldwide called Oculus Rift.

"They can go on board the aircraft, they can see the damage that was on board the aircraft that survivors would have to experience," said Ken Witcher with Worldwide Embry Riddle. "They can see, in this case, where fatalities were."

With the help of seasoned investigators, the school has developed software which reproduces an actual crash site that students can study with virtual hands on. A student can wear immersive goggles and walk into the aircraft or they can use an iPad and manipulate their way into the aircraft.

Once inside the ill-fated airplane, students can see every detail replicated from National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reports and pictures, from slumped-over blood-stained seats to what's left of the cockpit.

"If you continue to look around to where the captain was in this case, which unfortunately was a fatality in this particular situation, but you can see how the damage on the aircraft would make you understand that it would be a terrible place to be in this particular situation," said Witcher.

Embry Riddle has other labs where students can study a crashed plane in front of them, but this is the only way a student can lift and examine damaged parts that may have caused the crash.

"With a virtual environment, we can take those components, like an engine or landing gear, and we can just click on them and then take them into a virtual environment and then examine them," said Witcher as he clicked on landing gear and spun it around.

Right now the course is being taught to accident investigation graduate students, but because this is part of Embry Riddle Worldwide, students enrolled in any of Embry's global campuses, from Afghanistan to Canada, can use the technology.