Original subtitles

- Tonight on "History's Most Shocking".

[people screaming] Who's in charge

of steering this cruise ship?

- Imagine how bad this guy must be at parallel parking.

- [Passenger] Oh my God!

- [Tony] What happened when this clueless pedestrian

took a fateful step?

- The train may look like it's moving slowly,

but when something has that much mass,

it's gonna cut right through you.

- [Snowmobiler] Oh, dear God.

- [Tony] Was this snowmobiler

just in the wrong place at the wrong time?

- It felt like I was getting ran over by a truck.

I wasn't able to breathe.

- [Tony] Why it's always best to avoid burning bridges.

- It was way worse than any other fire

we had ever encountered.

The best thing we could do was sit back, stay safe.

- [Tony] And what happened with the real $6 million man

and his real caught- on-camera disaster?

- [Ground control] Peterson, brake!

- Believe it or not,

this crash brought us the space shuttle.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

- [Tony] Disasters.

[loud explosion] - [Reporter] Oh, the humanity.

[person screaming] - [Tony] Shocking video.

Life or death decisions [people screaming]

behind history's caught-on-camera moments.

- What to do with one dead whale?

[explosion]

- [Tony] Are the mysteries of how and why they happened.

- Some sort of metal fatigue was most likely

[people screaming] at fault here.

[wave crashes] - It's like a bulldozer.

Very few buildings can actually withstand

that force of moving water.

[water cascading]

- I'm Tony Harris.

[big cat growling]

[motorcycle revving]

Prepare to be shocked.

[dramatic music]

Good evening and welcome to "History's Most Shocking."

Most people's cruise ship nightmares

involve an unforeseen disaster happening way out at sea,

but we're about to show you a much more common

and dangerous problem,

and it happens when the passengers

are already packed for home and about to disembark.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

June 2nd, 2019, after touring the Greek islands,

the cruise ship MSC Opera is returning to Venice, Italy.

Over the years, Elisabeta Pasqualin

has witnessed dozens of these ships

dock here from her apartment overlooking the pier.

[horn blaring] - [Tony] The 900-foot-long,

nearly 150 million pound behemoth

barrels toward the dock with its horns blaring.

- [Tony] Meanwhile, from the upper deck of the ship,

a passenger also captures the mayhem as it unfolds.

- Zooming in,

we can see pedestrians on the dock fleeing in terror.

- [Tony] And then it happens.

- [Tony] Watch again as from across the harbor

another camera captures the terrifying moment of impact.

[loud crash]

- What's happening here is a very scary, real-life example

of Newton's first law.

An object in motion remains in motion

unless acted upon by an external force.

- [Tony] If you look at the numbers

with more than 300 cruise ships in operation,

accidents like these aren't common,

but they're not extremely rare either.

- According to the Maritime Injury Guide,

between the year 2005 and 2023,

there were close to 450

major cruise ship accidents around the world.

[wind blaring]

- [Tony] Here's the Norwegian Epic

taking out a dock in San Juan, Puerto Rico,

and here we see the Carnival Glory getting up close

and personal with the Carnival Legend

as it attempts to dock in Cozumel, Mexico.

- So this is something that happens fairly regularly.

It's basically a failure to gauge the motion of the ship.

It's a failure to maintain control.

[people screaming]

- In recent years, port cities in Florida, Maine

and California tried to limit

or even ban cruise liners,

over-tourism and pollution were the stated reasons,

but with accidents like these, safety could be a factor, too.

But does size really matter?

Is what happened to the MSC Opera

just the case of a big ship trying to fit into a small port

or is something else going on?

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

So how do we wind up with a cruise ship out of control?

- [Tony] Some say the industry has eclipsed

what ports can handle,

especially ancient ones like Venice.

- Cruise ships have been getting bigger and bigger

for decades, and the simple reason is economics.

The more they need to compete with one another,

the more kind of extravagant and crazy they get.

So we have increasingly huge ships

that make the Titanic look like a bathtub toy.

- [Tony] In 1912,

the Titanic was the largest ship in the world.

Now compare that to the Icon of the Seas,

which is five times larger.

- But as ships get bigger and bigger,

the ports aren't getting bigger and bigger,

- [Tony] And in this case, it's not just all about size,

speed is also a factor.

- The ship is going way too fast

[intense ambient music] as it comes into dock,

I would say somewhere between six to eight knots.

A ship that size,

you're gonna be looking at several football fields

before you could bring it to a stop.

[horn blaring]

- [Tony] So why is the ship going so fast?

Typically, tugboats would be helping guide ships into Venice

at the proper safe speed.

- You can see that the tugs are in the wrong position.

That indicates to me

that the ship has gone completely astray

and the tugs were not able to lash onto it safely.

[horn blaring] - [Tony] But the issue

with the tugs was just a symptom of a bigger problem,

one that you can't see in the footage.

- [Kenn] An alarm went off [alarm blaring]

that was completely ignored by the chief engineer

and the chief electrical officer.

Had they responded to that alarm,

they would've found that there was a power supply failure.

- [Tony] The alarms had been ringing

for almost an hour by the time

anyone on the bridge decided to take action,

but by then the backup systems had also failed,

and the captain was unable to control or maneuver the ship.

Two tugboats tried everything they could

to slow and steer it,

but the ship's momentum was just too great.

Thankfully, no one was killed in the incident,

but four people were hospitalized for minor injuries.

- Negligent would actually be an understatement.

When you're on the bridge of a ship and you're in command,

you are responsible

for the safe navigation and operation of that ship.

Period, end of story.

That's maritime law.

[people screaming]

[intense ambient music]

- The takeaway, human error and negligence.

In fact, the MSC Opera case was so serious,

the captain and officers were slapped with jail sentences,

although those were later commuted into monetary fines.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

Now from the seas to the railway.

Let's face it, in the age of information overload,

it's really easy to get distracted,

but in your train tracks,

the downside of distraction can be deadly.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

The footage you are seeing

is all taken from commuter train station cameras

in Auckland, New Zealand.

Apparently New Zealand

has a little bit of a crisis on its hands

involving distracted citizens, and it looks a lot like this.

Watch how this man steps out in front of a commuter train

before quickly realizing his mistake,

and jumping back just in the nick of time.

Next, a woman crosses in front of a barreling train

and quickly lunges back barely escaping certain death.

Now watch this cyclist fly across the platform,

seemingly oblivious to the oncoming train

that narrowly misses him.

When we see these incidents,

we instantly think of the pedestrians.

But it's important to note,

even near misses can traumatize the engineers, too.

- It's a matter of percentages,

and after a while they do hit people

and it takes an emotional toll on them.

They just feel terrible that they couldn't do anything

to prevent that person from making a stupid mistake.

- These video clips are all from New Zealand,

but it's not just a New Zealand problem,

this is a human problem.

People all over the world

are getting close calls with trains.

[train roars past] [dramatic music]

- [Tony] Check out this woman from Turkey.

So distracted, she actually gets clipped by the train

and these videos from the US show how not paying attention

and crossing train tracks don't mix,

a growing epidemic

that has been the subject of news headlines

around the country.

[intense ambient music]

- If you get hit by a train,

the blunt force trauma will be so traumatic

and so extensive,

that if they find your body, it will be a pile of jelly.

[train whistle screeches]

- More than 400 people a year are killed

while trespassing on train tracks.

That's according to the US Federal Railroad Administration.

But why are these near misses happening?

The answer might not be as obvious as it seems.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

To no one's surprise, recent studies show that humanity

has become more distracted than ever.

- Distraction is becoming a bigger issue

as we have electronic devices,

our headsets, our earphones,

all these different things

that allow us to be focused on the internal world

and not the external world.

As a result of that,

we can end up in a very unsafe situation.

- [Tony] But there's a less obvious factor at play here too,

the trains themselves are now easier to tune out.

- The trains are getting quieter as they're more electric,

and so that requires us to be more diligent,

especially when we come into a marked area

that makes us cross the railroad station.

They can be coming from either direction.

- [Tony] Even so, why aren't these stealthy trains

just slamming on the brakes

when they see someone on the tracks?

Turns out it's not that easy.

- Trains always have the right of way by law,

and the reason they do is because

they can't stop on a dime.

- [Tony] In fact, a typical freight train

can weigh anywhere between three and 18,000 tons

and require a full mile or more to come to a complete stop.

- Situational awareness is a key to your safety,

and if you're not aware of what's going on,

you have a high potential to get hurt or killed.

- [Tony] One attempt to combat this problem

is an automated braking system

that uses sensors and control overrides

to avoid train collisions and derailments.

The hope is that this tech

will soon be able to detect people on the tracks as well.

But unfortunately, its moment has yet to arrive.

- There's nothing on the planet, no laser sensor, no radar,

no emergency braking system

that's gonna save your life in this situation.

You need to be aware, it's on you.

[intense ambient music]

- The takeaway, quiet trains and quite tuned-out people.

In the United States,

a person or vehicle

is struck by a train almost every three hours.

While the National Transportation Safety Board

is trying to find new ways to prevent these disasters,

it's really on us

to avoid being distracted in these high danger areas.

Be aware of your surroundings

and take out those earbuds, could save your life

- Many of us have spent hours carefully setting up dominoes

just to knock them all down,

but imagine spending years

and millions of dollars constructing real buildings

only to see them fall down within seconds.

This video is proof. It really happened.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

August 27th, 2021, Kunming, China.

A group of locals is filming 15 high-rise buildings.

They're brand new, not old,

which makes what happens next so unexpected.

[loud explosion] Within seconds,

most of the towers transform into dust and debris.

Let's see that again.

One second after the initial explosion,

the first towers begin to collapse.

Nine seconds later,

the two buildings to the right start to implode.

Within 22 seconds, the scene is reduced to rubble.

This wholesale leveling of prime real estate

confused the internet,

but it's actually an example

of what's known as a controlled demolition.

It really took off as its own science after World War II.

- You had buildings that were completely bombed out,

standing next to buildings

that were untouched by the conflict.

So ultimately what had to occur

was bringing down these partially-destroyed structures

without causing damage

to the surrounding buildings or surrounding area.

[debris crashes to ground]

- [Tony] Dynamite and TNT have been used countless times

in tightly controlled ways

to make space for new developments.

Most notably,

when the Las Vegas strip began to transform in the 1990s,

[intense ambient music] the first hotel to come down

was "The Dunes",

which was the 10th casino resort

to be built on the strip back in 1955.

- As hotels on it became outdated,

the government of Las Vegas detonated

and demolished multiple hotels to basically clear them away

so that the modern Vegas of today could be built.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

- [Tony] As we've seen throughout the history

of building implosions,

like this one in Germany,

the purpose is to clear out the old

to make space for the new.

But that doesn't explain

what happened in the Kunming, China demolition.

As we said, this was new construction

that was still being finished.

So how and why did this massive demolition take place?

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

[loud explosion]

To begin, we break down how these implosions are set up.

- Gravity is actually the item

that we rely on the most for an implosion.

What we see here is

the placement of the dynamite strategically,

and the detonating cord also has to be placed correctly

so that gravity can take that the rest of the way.

- [Tony] The explosives are generally placed in bore holes,

drilled into load-bearing concrete support columns

primarily on the lower half of the building.

As the concrete crumbles,

the weight of the top floors collapses

the building onto itself.

- There were five tons of explosives

and approximately 85,000 blasting caps used.

That's about right to take down 14 of the 15 buildings.

- [Tony] Apart from the explosives,

the timing of the detonation is crucial

so that the buildings [intense ambient music]

systematically fold in on each other,

therefore limiting the amount of debris.

- You have to strategically place detonators

at different points of the building

so that ideally the building will fall

how you intend it to fall.

If this isn't done appropriately,

you may have the building falling to one side or the next

or maybe even rolling some sort of distance.

- [Tony] Because of these hazards,

implosions account for less than 1% of demolition work,

and they are rarely the first option.

So why do this to new buildings?

- These buildings were the side effect

of China's progressive urban development model,

which caused a lot of unintended ghost cities.

They were building much faster than they were selling,

and then to compound things, the Zero Covid Policy

set up by the Chinese government

left millions of apartments unsold across China.

The buildings in Sunshine City

have been neglected for so long

that flooding caused irreparable damage to the foundation.

It became more affordable to just demolish them

as opposed to repairing them.

- [Tony] And it turns out, as demolitions go,

this one was almost perfect.

- You can see one or two of the buildings collapsing

in the wrong direction, but that does happen.

14 out of 15 buildings, I would say this is very successful.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

- The takeaway, this implosion

was due to Chinese urban overdevelopment,

and this may not be the last one we see

in the city of Kunming.

News reports say authorities counted 93

unfinished property projects in this one city as of 2021.

They could also be demolished

if not taken over by new developers.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

Moving on.

Nothing can shatter the peace

of traversing a snow- covered mountaintop,

quite like the word avalanche.

Watch what happens

when one vacationing snowmobiler's adventure

turns into a literal fight for his life.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

March 13th, 2016,

the Gorman Lake Snowmobile Area in British Columbia

is a location that's well known

for extreme riders like Doug Lakeman,

who enjoys adrenaline spikes with his snowmobiling.

[engine droning] - It was the third day

that we've been out in that area,

so just looking for another gorgeous day

of riding in the mountains.

[snowmobile drones] - [Tony] Doug fires up

his GoPro camera and shoots up the mountain side.

Everything seems fine as he rockets towards the summit,

but when he reaches the mountain's peak,

disaster strikes.

The fresh powder around him begins to crack and shift.

- When that snow broke away,

it was instant that you know there is a problem.

[engine droning]

- {Tony] Suddenly the entire snow top breaks apart.

It's an avalanche.

Doug is tossed from his snowmobile

and is submerged in a white wave within seconds.

- [Doug] It felt like I was getting ran over by a truck,

I wasn't able to breathe.

- [Tony] How did Doug survive being buried alive?

- [Tony] Snowmobiler Doug Lakeman

is caught in an avalanche.

He's fighting for his life, and the odds are against him.

[grinding roar of avalanche]

- Each year, an average of about 24 people die in avalanches

across the United States.

Some of these avalanches

can travel at speeds up to 200 miles an hour,

and trying to outrace them on a snowmobile

is not usually an option.

- [Tony] You don't even necessarily

have to be in the snow to fall victim to an avalanche.

Just ask the backpacker

who captured this incredible video

while hiking in Kyrgyzstan.

- [Hiker] Oh, dear God.

- He and the group he was hiking with

thought they were at a safe distance

as they watched this wall of snow

come barreling down the mountainside,

but it just kept getting closer.

- [Hiker] Oh God, oh dear God,

[intense dramatic music]

- Going out there in avalanche country,

you are literally taking your life in your own hands.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

- In the famous Dyatlov Pass Incident of 1959,

nine Soviet hikers were killed by an avalanche so violent,

many thought they'd been brutally murdered by a Yeti.

But what triggered this particular avalanche,

and how did Doug escape when many others don't?

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

[engine droning]

If Doug wanted to avoid this avalanche in the first place,

taking heed of regional warnings

would've been a good way to start.

- Avalanche Canada had put out a bulletin

that there was considerable risks

of avalanches on this specific day due to recent snowfall

that likely is bearing any wind slabs

that had developed in the last several days.

[roaring wind]

- [Tony] When a heavy wind going up one side of a mountain

pushes snow onto the other side,

it creates what's called a wind slab,

a smooth, rounded and dense snow deposit

that forms over a weaker layer of snow.

Unfortunately, these wind slabs can be impossible to see

due to their snow covering,

[engine droning] and can break into pieces

when the weaker layer underneath gives way.

- The weight of his snow machine,

the vibration of the engine,

the turns that he's making has caused the weak layer

that was supporting the heavier layer to collapse.

You can see a lot of the slab

that is now giving way [engine droning]

is breaking up into pieces and starting to move,

and he's unfortunately in the middle of it.

- All it took was one snowmobiler

to move across that fresh powder of snow

[engine droning] to cause the avalanche

to give way.

- [Tony] So Doug can take credit for starting this avalanche

as well as surviving it,

and though getting tossed from his snowmobile

looks terrifying, it might have been for the best.

- What a lot of people assume about avalanches

is that people die by suffocation,

but very often avalanche fatalities

come from the trauma of being washed through

heavy blocks of ice and snow or through trees,

or in this case

to get rolled up with a big heavy snow machine.

[dark threatening drone]

- [Tony] After getting away from the snowmobile,

Doug's still under the snow, but not for long.

- The tumbling of snow as it drifts over the train below

has somehow very luckily enabled him

to return closer to the surface

in a scenario where now maybe he can swim.

- [Tony] In an avalanche,

swimming has the same definition as it does in water,

paddling your arms and legs

to keep yourself above the surface.

What you're seeing here on Doug's helmet cam

is his Michael Phelps impersonation in snow.

That's his right arm paddling desperately

to keep him from sinking down into a white frozen oblivion.

- All I really thought of for survival

is to swim as hard as I could,

and I always call it doggy paddle from hell.

- [Tony] It's a move that may have saved his life,

as Doug is able to ride out the end of the avalanche.

- You're gonna be found quicker and easier

if you have some part of your body exposed.

Luckily enough of him is exposed

and his friends already have a visual on him,

and that makes it extremely fast getting to him,

which is gonna increase his chances

for success dramatically.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

- The takeaway,

this was a weak snow slab triggered by a snowmobile.

Luckily, Doug left the scene with just bruises

and sore muscles and he has no intention of quitting.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

Now check this out.

In 2021,

the US Congress passed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill

designed to improve the nation's railroad tracks

and bridges, among other things.

As our next video proves,

those upgrades can't come soon enough.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

It's mid-afternoon on May 19th, 2013

in Lampasas County, Texas.

Lometa Volunteer Fire Department Captain, Jamie Smart,

has been called out [siren blaring]

with his crew to a remote fire

20 minutes from any city or water source.

- We rolled out there with three brush trucks

expecting to fight a brush fire,

and when we got there,

the scene that we saw was pretty amazing.

- [Tony] Jamie pulls out his cellphone

and captures this 900-foot- long wooden train trestle

engulfed in flames.

- It was way worse

than any other fire we had ever encountered,

and we knew with only having 3000 gallons

and the magnitude of fire that we had

that the best thing we could do was sit back, stay safe.

- [Tony] It's a good thing firefighters

didn't get too close

because nobody was ready for this.

[intense ambient music]

[loud crackling]

Watch as the wooden frame built way back in 1910 buckles

and then starts to cave in.

[intense dramatic music]

- The trestle fell like dominoes falling,

and then you just see the big huge burst of dust and smoke

and fire that comes out of that thing.

- [Tony] Take another look.

At first, the crumbling supports knock each other down

until finally the bridge appears to collapse

almost all at once.

- I've been on lots of fires throughout the years

and this by far was the most amazing scene I had ever seen.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

- This incident is reminiscent of another train trestle fire

that broke out on a bridge in Sherwood, Oregon

in August of 2015, that was accidentally started

by some teens who were smoking.

So what caused this fire in Texas?

And why did it topple the bridge the way it did?

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

First, let's explain

just how trestle bridges like this are designed.

- The supports between these vertical members

are called bents.

The cross bracing between the bents is an integral part

of a trestle bridge

that gives interlocking support to each of the bents.

As you can see in this video, that's missing.

There's hardly anything left here,

and I think this has been burning long enough

where the cross members burnt and fell away,

and without that bracing

to keep them on top and everything,

you're gonna see that domino effect

bend-at-the-knees-failure.

- [Tony] But why did the fire spread like that?

Quimby believes the culprit

must have been some sort of accelerant.

- This looks like it was some kind of a fuel spill,

and I suspect

there might have been kind of a fuel tank rupture.

They might have had an earlier train go over the structure

and leak fuel on it and soak into it,

and something come along,

whether it's a welder's spark working on the track

or the rails or something else might have sparked this fire.

- [Tony] But when all is said and done,

did the first responders do the right thing

by letting the bridge fall?

- In an ideal world to save this bridge before it collapsed,

you would need dozens of ladder trucks

and several more fire trucks.

You're also gonna need 1000s of gallons of water,

and there's no way to get that amount of water supply

in a rural area like this.

So in this specific instance,

the best thing for them to do is to keep everyone safe.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

- The takeaway, mechanical sparks likely caused this fire

and a fuel spill may have caused it to spread so fast.

The state's fire marshal determined a backhoe

or tractor with its bucket down

may have created those initial sparks

while operating on the trestle.

A new bridge has been built as a replacement,

and this time it's made out of metal and concrete.

- We think of police officers

and firefighters as having risky jobs,

but utility workers

have twice the number of fatalities each year.

And as you're about to see day or night,

electric company employees put their lives on the line,

literally.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

It's early morning, April 15th, 2019

in Manchester Township, New Jersey.

A utility worker is trying to untangle a downed power line

stuck on a traffic light pole after a storm,

but suddenly it's lights out.

[loud crackling]

Let's take another look.

As the wire hits the wet pavement,

it explodes into a ball of fire right in the man's hand.

The worker makes a run for it away from the flames

as the electrical fire rapidly spreads.

- This is what happens when a live wire hits wet ground.

It doesn't want to die, it wants to keep going.

- [Tony] In fact, it looks like the actual road catches fire

almost like there's oil on it rather than rainwater.

What on earth?

- This shows you the power

of what happens when a high voltage line comes down

and starts to ignite what's on the ground.

[loud crackling]

- [Tony] It's one of the dangers

of having overhead power lines,

a decision with its roots in the first few decades

of the 20th century.

- Building underground power lines was too expensive.

The choice was made, put them up on poles.

- [Tony] And to this day,

it's cheaper to install and repair overhead lines

since accessing underground wires

often involves disruptive digging.

- Now we have a nation filled with electric lines

running with high voltage right overhead,

and an army of people risking their lives to maintain it.

[loud crackling] [graphic whooshes]

- This critical infrastructure decision

is how transformer explosions

and similar electrical accidents

became regular parts of daily life,

and why an average of 30 to 60 linemen

die in the line of duty each year.

But what happened here?

How does the wet ground seemingly catch fire?

And how did this worker manage to live?

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

First, we look into

what set off this chain of dangerous events.

[loud crackling]

- The power company should have shut off power

to this particular area, but he reached up

and pulled the wire down on top of themself.

I don't see any reason why you would do that there.

- [Tony] Bringing that wire down was the first step

in everything going wrong.

- Water and electricity don't go together.

When that electrical wire

that's charged reaches the water,

it arcs and it explodes,

and you can see little sparks turning into flames.

- [Tony] The electricity arcs

when its path through the wire is disrupted

as it's grounded,

so the current travels through the water and air

in a powerful sustained electrical discharge.

And though it may look like the ground itself is on fire,

it's actually just the wire that's sparking and burning.

The wet pavement's causing the flames to reflect

and adding another layer of danger.

[loud crackling]

- The cable that was dangling was a high voltage cable,

perhaps voltage is up to 44,000 volts.

Water is a conductor.

Electricity is looking for a pathway,

and if you grab that cable with one hand

and your foot is in the water,

that pathway is through your body.

You'll die as a consequence.

- [Tony] Luckily, this guy appears

to have escaped death this time.

- Honestly, what probably saved him was his PPE

or his personal protective equipment.

- [Tony] This includes his heavy rubberized boots.

Rubber doesn't conduct electricity

because its electrons hold onto their atoms so tightly.

Electric current cannot flow freely through them.

- It's his thick, heavy rubber boots

which prevent the electricity from finding ground.

- [Tony] So what should this worker have done?

- There's something called a hot stick

that you can use to get an idea of whether or not

a power line is still active.

If there was still current in there,

he should have contacted the power company

to shut down power to that particular area.

- There are tools that could be used

to help him move that wire to a safe location.

He's very lucky

that he was able to get away from there alive.

[electricity roars and crackles]

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

- The takeaway, that line shouldn't have been live

and the worker should have been more careful.

The way the fire arcs is fairly typical of these things,

so beware.

And if you ever see a downed line, call the pros.

You may be old enough to remember the classic TV show,

"The $6 Million Man".

It's about a fictional test pilot

and former astronaut named, Steve Austin

whose aircraft crashes

and who is then turned into a bionic secret agent.

But what you might not know is that the opening sequence

which depicted Steve Austin's crash

is footage from a real incident with a real hero.

[graphic whooshes] [military drumming]

It's May 10th, 1967 at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

NASA is testing the M2F2,

an unpowered lifting body aircraft

by dropping it from a B-52 at 44,000 feet.

Pilot Bruce Peterson is at the controls.

Fuzzy black-and- white ground footage

shows the triangular vehicle descending from the sky,

but there appears to be a problem.

[alarm blaring] The vehicle

rocks back and forth nearly flipping upside down.

- [Ground control] Peterson, brake!

- Then seconds later,

it slams hard into the ground and tumbles across the desert.

[dramatic music]

Whoa, take another look.

The M2F2 flips over multiple times.

- It starts to tumble around,

there's smoke billowing out the sides,

and ultimately it looks like a pretty awful plane crash.

- [Tony] So what is Peterson out here

risking it all for?

- This video was shot in 1967,

which was really the height of the space race.

There was significant pressure

by the United States government to try and develop

as much cutting edge technology as possible

to allow for the moon mission to occur,

and ultimately beat the Soviet Union.

- [Tony] This wrecked craft

was part of a 12 year NASA mission

to develop a new concept in space flight.

- The idea was simple, we needed to get astronauts

from outer space back to Earth in a controlled way.

Early space flight was all done by capsules,

so the return to Earth was in a,

basically a metal sort of cone shaped object

that was strapped to a parachute

and you couldn't really control it.

The M2F2 was a lifting body

designed to basically enter the atmosphere

and land much like an airplane would land.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

- The M2F2 had 15 successful test flights

before it crash landed in this now famous footage.

But why did that 16th flight go so wrong?

And what happened to the pilot?

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

First, let's explain how the M2F2 is supposed to work.

- Unlike a traditional aircraft that achieves flight

through conventional wings,

the M2F2, its entire body of its aircraft is the wing.

It is able to sustain flight

by the air pressure coming underneath it.

When you're reentering

the Earth's atmosphere

coming from outer space,

you're being exposed to a lot more air friction, heat,

all of the forces

that would potentially rip apart a conventional aircraft

because of that increased drag surface

of a winged conventional aircraft.

So the lifting body aircraft

are really ideal to travel fast

back into the Earth's atmosphere.

- [Tony] So what went wrong?

It looks like we can see the moment

the trouble begins right here. [alarm blaring]

- As you go slower and slower,

your control surfaces are less and less effective.

You can get into what's called a pilot-induced oscillation

where maybe you're pointing too far to the right

and so you put in a big input

and you start to swing the other way,

and you get into these wild swinging motions

that can be very, very dangerous.

- [Tony] Peterson is able to regain control of the aircraft,

but he's not out of danger yet.

- Because of the instability,

a lot of his runway markers

that he would be using to guide him

for his landing were no longer visible.

[alarm blaring] And you also

had another aircraft,

this rescue helicopter, in his line of sight now.

You've got threat of a collision.

- [Tony] These distractions

may have played a role in Peterson's inability

to extend his landing gear in time.

However, the crash did provide engineers

with some much- needed information.

- One of the things that came out of this is the realization

that the dual fin design actually didn't stabilize it,

made it more unstable.

- So they added a vertical tail fin that provided stability,

and that was enough of an improvement

that the whole program was able to progress

and ultimately arrived at the space shuttle,

the crowning achievement of the US space program.

- [Tony] And fortunately,

despite the horrific crash,

test pilot, Bruce Peterson survived,

though he did go blind in his right eye

from an infection he got while hospitalized,

while his story and this footage

joined "The $6 Million Man" as part of TV history.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

The takeaway, the crash was due to pilot-induced oscillation

and Peterson losing

sight of the runway markings.

Plus, that helicopter didn't help.

And while Peterson didn't become a bionic secret agent,

he was a hero, playing a key role in America's space program.

- A hidden danger on the highway.

It's estimated that in 2024,

there will be almost one and a half billion vehicles

in the world, moving on nearly 6 billion tires.

But sometimes tires can decide to travel on their own.

And when that happens, look out.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

March 23rd, 2023, Chatsworth, California,

just outside of Los Angeles.

We're on the 118 freeway as a dashboard

camera records a silver Chevy pickup

transitioning into the middle lane.

Watch as a black Kia rolls up beside it,

and this happens.

[tires screeching] [loud explosion]

Let's see that again.

[intense ambient music]

The truck's front left tire somehow comes off

and moves right into the path of the Kia

with devastating consequences.

And what's really scary

is that these cases of tires gone wild aren't that uncommon.

This happens an estimated 50,000 times a year

in North America.

[tires screeching] And not just here,

check out this footage from Thailand.

- So look at our gentleman here eating his lunch

in a car shop

when all of a sudden an unexpected visitor comes in.

[loud crash]

[graphic whooshes]

- Thankfully the man in Thailand survived.

But what happened to the person driving the Kia

in Los Angeles,

and what causes a tire

to become a projectile in the first place?

Our experts take the wheel.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

We don't know what vehicle

that rogue tire in Thailand came from,

but when it comes to that Chatsworth incident.

- The great suspicion is

that there was work done on the truck several months before.

That's when these things often happen.

- [Tony] Loose lug nuts

would be the most obvious explanation,

but does the visual evidence support that theory?

- If those lug nuts were becoming loose

because they hadn't been tightened enough,

you'd start to see the wheel

come away from the vehicle a bit.

And at a speed like that,

it would certainly be wobbling around.

Now we don't see any of that.

[tires screeching]

- [Tony] So no wobbling means no loose lug nuts,

but could it be the other way around?

Were the lug nuts over tightened?

Turns out that could lead to disaster too.

- What you can do

is you can put too much tension into the material

so that it cracks or even snaps.

Now that is a very sudden failure that would occur,

and that's more like we see in the clip.

- [Tony] But hang on, there's another theory,

based on an apparent size mismatch

between the tires and the truck.

- It kinda looks like these tires may be larger,

maybe a little bit oversized on the pickup truck.

There are a lot of conditions

that you could change by putting on the wrong wheel and tire

on a given vehicle,

and that may've contributed to what's going on here.

- [Tony] The official California Highway Patrol report

didn't find any negligence,

but it did suggest a surprising and troubling culprit,

the wheel studs, those threaded fasteners

that hold the wheels on were broken on the left front axle.

[tires screeching] [loud crash]

- What they did conclude was that some sort of metal fatigue

or failure in the axle area was most likely at fault.

- [Tony] We can't say

if that was an issue only with this tricked-out truck

or if there's a more widespread risk.

What we can say is that fortunately,

the driver in the Kia survived with minor injuries,

a testament to the benefits of seat belts and airbags.

[graphic whooshes] [intense ambient music]

Our takeaway, well, this highway nightmare

was likely caused by wheel stud failure.

There have been no recalls

of that nature on this particular truck,

so the accident could have been a one off,

but the threat from tires gone wild is real.

So keep your eyes on the road and fasten your seat belts.

And that's our show for tonight.

Thank you so much for watching.

And stay safe out there.