Original subtitles

Smoke fills a passenger plane

ten kilometers in the sky.

We're on Mayday. We're going down.

Electrical systems shut down as the smoke spreads.

The crew tries desperately to land their stricken plane.

We're going to make an emergency landing.

Put your head on your lap.

We're going to need fire trucks.

They're standing by for you.

What seemed like a small problem at first has

become a life or death struggle for everyone on board

Air Canada flight 797.

Early evening, June 2nd, 1983.

Suppertime aboard Air Canada Flight 797.

Captain Donald Cameron has been working for Air Canada for

17 years and has flown almost 5-thousand hours on a DC-9.

But it doesn't mean he gets to eat first.

How's your seafood? Nice?

Before he can dig in,

his first officer Claude Ouimet will have to finish.

Good.

The jet is in the middle of a flight

from Dallas, Texas to Montreal with a stopover in Toronto.

The heavy cloud cover below hides some light showers

but at their cruising altitude of 10-thousand meters

the view is clear and bright.

The DC-9 is only half full today,

with 41 passengers scattered throughout the plane.

Can I have some tea please?

24-year-old Dianne Fadley is an active

member of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.

We have a number of different

fundraising activities.

Once a year they have a large conference um

and at this time it happened to be in Toronto.

Raymond Chalifoux is 23 and recently married.

An engineer, he's returning home

from his first-ever business trip.

It was a little bit frightening

both for me and for my wife.

I was supposed to be gone four or five days

so uh first time we were separated for a long

period of time so uh it was kind of insecure for me, yeah.

And a few rows further up sits a growing

legend in the world of folk music.

Stan Rogers is just 33 but his career is

beginning to take off outside of his native Canada.

Stan's best known songs celebrate ordinary people.

The songs are really about ordinary people

rising to the occasion and becoming heroes on their own.

Just before 7 o'clock,

the plane is a little more than halfway to Toronto.

What was that? It's right there.

I see it. Right there. Yeah.

Three circuit breakers have popped out.

Like fuses, they protect delicate electrical

circuits on the plane from becoming overloaded.

Like a machine gun. Yeah. Zap, zap, zap.

The three breakers are for the flushing

motor in the toilet at the rear of the plane.

Cameron decides to give them

a few minutes before he tries to reset them again.

You know sometimes it overworks and uh overheats

and then the breaker pops and then you uh it

cools off and then you push the breaker and everything is fine.

So put the snag in the log book and that's it.

Someone must have pushed a rag down the toilet or

something, jammed it and it overheated.

Cameron thinks that something must be stopping

the motor from working properly, but it's not an emergency.

Toilets get blocked all the time.

Several minutes pass as the plane

continues on its way to Toronto.

Flight attendants Laura Kayama

and Judi Davidson are busy serving up dinner in the cabin.

In the cockpit, it's Captain Cameron's turn for dinner.

But first he wants to reset the three circuit breakers.

Without them, the toilet won't work.

The rest of the flight could get

uncomfortable for the passengers.

Pops as I push it.

He's given it more than 8 minutes, but whatever

is wrong with the washroom, it isn't fixing itself.

In the cabin, one of the passengers

complains about a disturbing odour.

Yeah that is a strange smell. Let me take a look.

Connie Kirsch, a Texan headed for a business

meeting in Toronto, is seated at the back of the plane.

I had smelled a peculiar smell where I was sitting

and I, it struck me as odd.

Actually it was a wiry smell, it wasn't a smoke smell.

A wisp of smoke is leaking out of the washroom.

The smoke, and the acrid smell of burning plastic,

takes Davidson by surprise.

This is much more than just a clogged toilet.

Other passengers are beginning to notice the smoke

and the suffocating smell.

Sergio, there's a problem in the washroom.

Judi says there's a fire.

Okay. I'll be right there.

Chief flight attendant Sergio Benetti

is in charge of the cabin crew.

As a precaution we're moving everyone three rows up.

The smoke is noxious and overpowering.

Benetti can't see any flames.

He sprays the fire extinguisher into the tiny washroom,

trying to coat every surface.

As soon as I saw that fire extinguisher something

went through my mind.

There is definitely something wrong

but the guy seemed to have the thing under control so he's

gonna do his job and things will be business as usual.

It's 2 minutes past 7, just 11 minutes

since the circuit breakers first popped out.

Laura Kayama brings Captain Cameron the disturbing news.

Excuse me captain

but there's a fire in the washroom in the back.

They just went back to go put it out.

You want me to go back? Yeah, go.

A fire onboard an aircraft is

one of the worst situations any crew can face.

The plane is some 10-kilometers high.

What starts as a spark can turn deadly in a few short minutes.

But at the moment Cameron doesn't know

how bad the situation is.

You gotta remember in 1983

people were allowed to smoke in the aircraft

and there had been a number of incidents of this sort

in the industry so it really didn't alarm me that much.

Ouimet finds the situation is

worse than he expected.

I didn't see any flames when I opened the door

before but I sprayed it really good with the fire extinguisher.

You think it was a cigarette in the garbage?

No, not really. Okay.

Can't get back there. Smoke's too heavy.

I think we better go down.

But flight attendant Sergio Benetti has a very

different assessment of the situation.

You don't have to worry. I think the smoke's easing up.

It's a confusing moment for Captain Cameron.

Some components do fail from time to time that

are not severe or serious enough to cause an emergency descent.

That's a pretty serious thing.

When Ouimet and Benetti

were at the back of the plane,

the smoke seemed thick but now it appears to be subsiding.

Okay. It's starting to clear now

but I'll go back and check if that's okay.

Yeah that's okay. Take these goggles.

I'll leave my mask on.

Go back wherever you can

but don't get yourself incapacitated.

No problem. No problem.

If it's just a broken toilet motor,

Cameron can still make it to Toronto.

But if it's more serious he'll have to land immediately,

before the small inconvenience becomes a deadly problem.

June 2nd, 1983.

Air Canada flight 797 cruises through the early evening.

The flight has taken an unsettling turn.

Wisps of smoke are gathering at the back of the DC-9.

An acrid smell is spreading through the cabin.

The crew is growing concerned.

They've already moved passengers toward the front of the jet,

as far as possible from the creeping smoke.

Captain Donald Cameron is waiting for an update

from the back of the plane when suddenly he's got a new problem.

The master warning light is on.

Electrical systems throughout the plane,

including some in the cockpit, begin to fail.

The airplane basically lost all its sophisticated

navigation and attitude information.

So I was left very suddenly with I think three engine

instruments per engine and uh four flight instruments,

which were very primitive.

They were what you might have flown

a World War Two bomber with.

With his electrical systems starting to shut down,

Cameron calls the nearest ground control.

Memphis Center, this is Air Canada 797.

Air Canada 797 Indianapolis Center. Go ahead.

Yeah we've got an electrical problem here.

We may be off communication shortly. Stand by.

Co-pilot Claude Ouimet is at the back of the plane.

The washroom door handle has become hot to the touch.

He doesn't even risk opening it.

Faced with a potential fire onboard, the crew have no

choice but to land their plane as soon as possible.

I don't like what's happening.

I think we'd better go down.

We're going to be making an emergency descent.

Brief the cabin crew. Yes sir.

As soon as the decision is made,

another warning light goes on.

They've just lost most of their emergency power.

We're talking about multiple failure here

and it's starting to be complicated

so we're going down and obviously we have to land.

Mayday, mayday, mayday.

A small problem has snowballed

into an all-out emergency.

Mayday, mayday, mayday.

This is Louisville Control. Over.

Air Canada 797. We have a fire onboard.

We are going down.

Can you possibly make Cincinnati?

Roger that.

Cincinnati is 46-kilometers away.

They can make it.

Captain Cameron begins an initial descent

to 15-hundred meters.

The crew has switched to emergency battery power

but many of the plane's instruments aren't functioning.

So all we had left was DC emer power

and that's only good for radios basically.

It's not only instruments.

Cameron finds that a critical piece of his plane

isn't working properly.

The horizontal stabilizer on the tail of his DC-9 is frozen -

set for cruising at 10-thousand meters.

Cameron uses the part that's still working -

the elevators - to make the plane dive.

But like a car that's lost power steering, the aircraft resists.

As Cameron pushes on the controls,

they push back - with a pressure equal to 20 kilograms.

The airplane became very heavy and that

took my total concentration to fly the airplane.

An acrid, bitter smoke

is creeping forward from the back of the plane

and seeping in from the seams in the fuselage ceiling.

It hovers like a cloud over the passengers' heads.

Incredibly harsh smoke that was really

irritating your throat.

You had to take really, really small small breaths.

Otherwise you would choke. I could see it rise.

It was traveling along those luggage racks,

you know, coming forward.

Seatbelts.

The smell of burning plastic fills the air.

Dropping oxygen masks could make the situation worse.

I could have deployed the oxygen

masks to the passengers but it's forbidden.

You're only allowed to use the oxygen masks

in case of a massive, a massive decompression or

a loss of cabin pressure, not for fire.

I was crying and scared. I wasn't hysterical.

The gentleman sitting next to me explained to me that

if I would not cry and if I could, you know,

conserve my, not breathe so fast that it would conserve

the oxygen and help us and not to worry, that the flight

attendants, they really know how to handle these situations.

As the electrical malfunctions

ripple through the plane, the P.A. system shuts down.

Flight attendants struggle to shout directions

but it's getting more and more difficult to breathe.

In 1983, it is not standard procedure to tell

passengers how to open the emergency doors but in this

case the two flight attendants are taking no chances.

As smoke begins entering the cockpit,

the Captain's situation is becoming critical.

For the first time Ouimet talks to the Cincinnati airport.

Approach Air Canada 797. We're on Mayday.

We're going down. GREGORY: Air Canada 797. Cincinnati approach.

Plan runway three six ILS and the equipment has been alerted.

Do you have time to give me the nature of the emergency?

We have a fire in the washroom.

We're filling up with smoke right now.

Say type of aircraft, number of people onboard

and the amount of fuel.

We'll copy that later. We don't have time.

Gregory Karam is the approach tower controller.

He's the lifeline for the struggling jet.

He can't see the plane on radar yet

but he knows it's in trouble.

There was really no mayhem whatsoever,

no screaming, nothing at all.

In fact it was very quiet and calm and, again,

I was terrified at that point.

Almost 13 minutes after 7,

Karam catches sight of flight 797 on his radar.

The crew needs to be guided in from the ground.

Struggling to see through the dense smoke,

they could easily veer off course.

Karam will talk them down, watching them

every step of the way.

In the cabin, the smoke and heat are becoming unbearable.

My thought was well we're gonna crash.

They won't be able to identify myself

because I didn't have my papers with me

so I stood up, I took my wallet in the compartment

and put my jacket on so that they could identify my body.

Uh I knew at that point, that's when I decided,

I felt that I was not gonna make it

'cause I felt that I was never gonna see my family again.

The situation just seemed very impossible.

Stan certainly had a sense of his own mortality.

He hated to fly but the demand for Stan was growing

so he was flying more often and he certainly had a sense

that with so much traveling his risk is elevated.

Where's the airport?

Twelve o'clock and eight miles Air Canada.

Okay. We're trying to locate it.

We're going to need fire trucks.

They're standing by for you.

Can you give me the number of people and the amount of fuel?

We don't have time. It's getting worse in here.

Understood sir. Turn left now.

You're just half a mile north of final approach.

Finally the crew see the airport.

Okay. We have the airport.

The tower has you in sight.

You need not acknowledge further transmission

from the Air Canada 797.

You are clear to land. You are four miles from the airport.

Good luck.

In a thick haze of smoke and soot,

flight attendants Laura Kayama and Judi Davidson feel their

way along the aisle, trying to reassure the passengers.

They can't get past the twelfth row.

The smoke and the heat are overwhelming.

I was praying the whole time.

Dear god, please help us land this plane.

Please get this plane safely on the ground.

Can't see, can't breathe.

Death absolutely crossed my mind but hang in there.

Don't give up.

I've been married for less than a year

and it's already over.

So I start breathing as little as I could

and start thinking seriously of my wife.

Fighting the reluctant controls,

Captain Cameron's strength is being pushed to the limit.

797 the tower has you in sight.

Squinting through the smoke,

the crew of flight 797 land hard.

At 20 minutes after 7, the Air Canada plane is on the ground.

It's less than 30 minutes

since the first sign of any trouble on board flight 797.

When we touched the ground,

I assumed that we're safe now.

Now let's get out of this airplane.

But inside the plane, the smoke isn't letting up.

Passengers are undoing their seatbelts

and trying desperately to escape.

I got up out of my seat and I remember

putting my hands up on someone's back and it was like waiting in

a line and I knew that was one line I didn't want to wait very

long and so I turned around and went the other direction,

not knowing I was actually heading

towards the front of the plane.

Sergio Benetti is the first one to the door.

He helps gasping passengers escape.

The cabin is pitch black and burning hot. SERGIO: Go!

In the cockpit,

the crew quickly shuts the plane down.

The first officer escapes through the emergency window.

It's a 5-meter jump to the ground.

Passengers have opened three of the over-wing exits.

But even with the doors open, the exits are all but invisible.

The smoke is too thick.

I saw a light and it was the door that had opened,

someone had opened the door and I realized what it was

and ran to the door and held my, I just put my face out

so I could breathe.

Passengers who have found the exits

slide off the wing and stumble to safety.

On the ground, Laura Kayama and Judi Davidson frantically

move passengers away from the deadly plane.

Fire rescue vehicles surround the plane.

They douse the plane's exterior

and the ground beneath with foam,

fearing a fuel fire, or worse an explosion.

Through the cockpit window,

Ouimet can see Captain Cameron sitting in his seat looking

dazed and slumped towards the wheel.

The first thing that got my attention was to see

Don's face in the window

and uh realize that he was not completely conscious.

I couldn't get out of my seat.

I'd start and I'd get my arse up in the air like that

and I'd be pushed back by the, I have no idea,

it was an invisible force

but it was probably smoke and fire.

Desperately trying to save the captain's life,

Ouimet tells firefighters to cover him with foam.

It was a soapy ice cold mixture that drenched me.

It works.

Cameron stirs and climbs out through the cockpit window.

Barely 90 seconds have passed since the plane landed

when suddenly the whole interior of flight 797 ignites.

The flames roll through the cabin like a train.

Captain Donald Cameron is the last person

to get out of the plane alive.

We knew there were people on the airplane

unfortunately at that point.

That was uh that was finished.

The cabin fire breaks through the top of the fuselage.

Black smoke can be seen for kilometers.

Flight attendant Laura Kayama begins to count.

I will remember these words forever.

She told us to line up so that she could count the survivors.

If there were survivors obviously there were dead.

Including the crew there had

been 46 people aboard the plane.

But there aren't 46 people on the runway.

I really thought that

if the pilot could land the plane we would all get off but

I knew when I looked around I didn't think we were all there.

The passengers who escaped the plane

suffer from smoke inhalation and minor injuries,

but most are not badly hurt.

It was almost like if you got off the plane

nothing was wrong.

I mean there was maybe a sprained ankle,

maybe someone had a broken arm or something.

You made it and you were completely fine

or you didn't make it.

The young man next to me

that helped me with my breathing techniques didn't survive.

That was a real tough blow because I know,

I believe he played a big part in my survival.

I guess it was around midnight

I decided to call Air Canada.

I said I'm trying to find out if a friend of mine

was on this flight in Cincinnati

and she said are you a member of the family?

I said no, I'm just a close friend

and she said do you know if his wife is alone?

And I said well yes

and she said well she may need somebody with her.

Stan Rogers, the rising musical star,

didn't make it off the plane.

Cincinnati ground.

This is Captain of the Air Canada flight

that's on fire here.

Captain Cameron radios Cincinnati Ground Control

from an emergency vehicle near his plane.

He has a sobering message.

It seems there are 23 people

left onboard the aircraft.

Is there a scheduled carrier runs into here that could

maybe give aid and shelter to our stranded passengers?

It's pretty cold out here.

What began with a simple electrical problem

has taken the lives of 23 people.

What caused the deadly fire? What went so horribly wrong?

The investigation will uncover the plane's troubling history.

This DC-9 had another serious accident

just a few years before.

In June of 1983, a strange smell in the back of an

Air Canada DC-9 quickly turned into an all-out emergency.

For 15 minutes, passengers and crew struggled to deal

with thick toxic smoke as it rolled through the plane.

Flight 797 made a remarkable landing,

only to burst into flames 90 seconds later.

23 people didn't escape the plane.

Now the burnt shell of the DC-9 sits on the runway

at the Greater Cincinnati Airport.

It is one of the most disturbing airplane disasters in years.

Within the hour, investigators

from the National Transportation Safety Board are on the scene.

The first grim task of the investigators is to recover

the bodies of the dead - 21 Canadians and 2 Americans.

Many are burned beyond recognition.

Almost all of the victims are found in the front

half of the plane between the wings and the cockpit.

Some are still strapped into their seats.

Others are found in the aisles.

And even though all the passengers had been

moved up earlier in the flight,

two bodies are found near the rear, beyond the wings.

Because of the dense smoke in the cabin,

the passengers couldn't see well enough to find the exits

and two passengers went beyond the over-wing exits

and succumbed to the environment.

Investigators take blood samples from the bodies.

They find deadly levels of certain chemicals that were

produced as the plane burned.

When we did toxicological studies

we were able to determine that there were some significant

high levels of cyanide

and fluoride in the blood as well as carbon monoxide.

It's not known

if the toxic fumes killed the passengers.

All that's certain is that they were

unable to escape before the flames tore through.

When I went onboard, I was just struck by the acrid smell.

It was kinda eerie because there was a lot of fire damage.

A lot of the fuselage was burned.

The interior of the cabin was burned

down to the tops of the seats.

With the bodies removed,

investigators begin digging through the wreckage to try

and find the cause of the fire.

Among them are members of the FBI.

They were investigating to determine whether terrorism

might have been a factor so they were on scene right away

looking at the aircraft to make that determination.

The FBI examine pieces of the plane's floor, samples of

water from the washroom, even a plastic vial found on the floor.

The FBI became involved very early

because of a possibility of a crime taking place.

Uh it takes precedent over an accident.

They were looking for anything that would

have to do with an incendiary device or a small explosive

device or anything that could be fused to start a fire.

They determined that there was no evidence of any crime

being committed and it was probably accidental ignition

and so they then left and NTSB took over the accident.

Having discounted the possibility

that the fire was deliberately set,

investigators consider the next obvious cause - a cigarette.

When smoking on planes was still allowed, the most common

source of fires in a washroom was the trash container.

Investigators examine the trash container

and find that the top is burned away, but the trash chute

and the container behind and below the sink are intact.

Inside the container are remnants of paper,

scorched but not burned.

The fire could not have started here.

With the most obvious potential causes discounted,

investigators begin to comb through the wreckage

looking for what had started the fire.

Studying the history of the plane,

Hill uncovers some startling facts.

In the year before the accident, 76 separate maintenance

issues had been written up in the plane's logbook.

All were dealt with but still

it's an unusually high number of problems.

The plane's troubled history didn't end there.

Four years earlier, the rear bulkhead had failed,

causing an explosive decompression.

The crew had to make an emergency landing.

It knocked out a lot of electrical cable

and hydraulics and stuff like that

and the guy did a hell of a job bringing it back to Boston.

The plane was repaired and put back into service.

But Hill focuses on the wires that had to be stitched

together after the accident.

A bad repair job could have been the cause of the fire.

There were wires that ran through there

that had been cut, spliced back together.

Investigators study all the wire splices

they can find on flight 797 that weren't destroyed in the fire,

but they find no evidence of arcing or short-circuiting.

It's another dead end.

Investigators turn their attention to the cockpit

voice recorder and the popping circuit breakers.

What was that? It's right there.

I see it. Right there. What was that? It's right there.

I see it. Right there.

Yeah, like a machine gun.

Yeah. Zap, zap, zap.

The circuit breakers trip as a precaution.

When they begin to overheat, the circuit breakers turn off,

cutting electrical current to the motor.

It's a safety feature so the motor won't cause a fire.

Pops as I push it.

Investigators need to know

if the breakers were tripped by a fire that had already

started, or was the motor itself the problem?

The NTSB build a mockup of the plane's washroom

and force the flush motor to seize.

They want to see if it could have started the fire.

The seized motor reaches a temperature of 4-hundred

and 28 degrees Celsius.

It's hot but it is not enough to ignite

parts of the washroom around the motor.

As they listen to the cockpit voice recorder,

investigators uncover a puzzling clue.

Three minutes before the circuit breakers popped,

the recorder picked up another noise.

It was the sound of electrical arcing, like static,

repeated eight times.

The noises weren't audible to the crew.

Hidden from view on any airplane is a river of wiring.

Investigators focus on a cable coming from a generator

below the washroom floor.

Insulation had rubbed off two wires making it possible

for sparks to be produced, sparks that could start a fire.

There was evidence that there was some electrical

arcing but it could have occurred after

the insulation had burned on those wires.

In spite of countless hours of investigation

and numerous tests, in the end the NTSB can't pinpoint

the exact cause of the fire.

There simply isn't enough evidence.

Just because of the vast amount of damage that was

done in that concentrated area around the lavatory where

the fire burnt for a long period of time and possibly

destroyed any of the evidence where the fire actually ignited.

Even if they'll never know

the exact cause of the fire, investigators

try to understand how it could cause so much damage.

There had been heat and smoke but no one had seen any

flames until an explosion ripped through the jet.

When you have a fire that has incomplete combustion, when

it has a lack of oxygen they will product combustible gases.

Those gases then can collect

especially in the crown of an aircraft.

The fire had burned out of sight

behind the washroom walls and the smoke,

hot gases and fumes intensified and spread inside the wall

space from the washroom through to the cabin walls.

Those spaces acted as a sort of chimney for the gases

and smoke that the fire was creating.

Although the fire remained concealed behind the walls

and ceiling panels, the smoke and hot gases

entered the cabin through every seam,

gathering in the upper space in the cabin

and pressing down on passengers.

The inaccessible areas and the cabin area are all linked

together through small cracks and cervices and small openings.

Uh the plane is one big pressure vessel with everything

being the same, equilibrated to the same pressure so smoke

and gases in those areas would fairly quickly

start to permeate into the passenger cabin.

When the doors were opened during the evacuation,

an unlimited supply of oxygen was suddenly

available to feed the fire.

The more intense the heat,

the more oxygen-hungry a fire becomes.

The gases ignited with the force of an explosion.

Once you have a flashover you produce heat,

toxic gases and you burn up all the oxygen in the cabin

and it becomes non survivable.

The technical part of the investigation is

complete but there are still a lot of questions about how

the crew responded to the fire.

The first officer said it's starting to clear now

and at that point I reckoned that the fire was under control.

Could they have done more to prevent

the tragedy on board flight 797?

In 1983, a washroom fire on an Air Canada DC-9

filled the plane's cabin with smoke.

The crew struggled to land the plane but a flash fire

ripped through the jet moments after it came to a stop.

23 people were killed.

There was a fireman hollering at us,

I think the quote was she could blow at any minute.

NTSB investigators are unable to definitively

pinpoint the cause of the fire.

But after reviewing all the information they have,

they're ready to release their report.

The report on the lethal fire aboard Air Canada

flight 797 is published a year after the accident.

It's a landmark in aircraft safety.

But it immediately makes for controversial headlines.

The NTSB points out that the source of the smoke was never

identified either by the flight attendants or the first officer.

The captain was never told nor did he inquire as to the precise

location and extent of the fire which had been reported to him.

What type of fire did you believe that you had?

The bin fire. Mayday, mayday, mayday.

And the report asks a hypothetical question.

Air Canada 797 we have a fire onboard. We are going down.

Can you possibly make Cincinnati?

Roger that.

If he'd begun to descend sooner,

could the captain have landed at Standiford Field Airport

in Louisville, Kentucky?

It was a few minutes closer.

The report and the media attention it gets

are devastating to Captain Cameron and his crew.

Soon after the report is released,

there is an outcry among pilots in the industry.

They resent its implied criticism of flight 797's

crew and the suggestion that they could have

begun their descent five minutes sooner.

Several months later, the Airline Pilots' Association

submits a petition that defends Cameron and the crew.

It makes an impact.

The NTSB release a revised report including

the petition by the Airline Pilots' Association.

In the petition, first officer Ouimet writes an impassioned

defense of landing the plane where and when they did.

The issue wasn't only the distance to the nearest

airport but the required rate of descent.

As it was, the plane barely made

the descent to the Greater Cincinnati Airport.

Still, the National Transportation Safety Board's

revised summary doesn't pull all its punches,

pointing a finger at Captain Cameron.

The report states that the time taken to evaluate

the nature of the fire and to decide to initiate

an emergency descent contributed to the severity of the accident.

Twenty years later, the statement still stings.

I am glad they were all, the people that got off got off.

I'm very sorry the people that didn't get off didn't get off

because we spent a lot of time and effort getting them there.

That really bothered me.

All I know is that I did the best I could.

Along with the comments on the performance

of the crew, the NTSB recommends a host of safety improvements.

Perhaps if the flight had been full,

someone would have noticed the smell of smoke sooner.

But what the washroom of flight 797 could have used

was a smoke detector.

They weren't standard throughout the industry

but after flight 797, attitudes and regulations changed.

Even though flight attendants did receive some training

in dealing with fires aboard a plane, it didn't go far enough.

But what was more obvious, the flight attendants weren't

properly equipped to attack fires.

Without full face masks and oxygen, they couldn't be

expected to fight fire while holding their breath.

In the years after flight 797,

attendants received better equipment and training.

The cabin crew had also made split second decisions

that helped save lives.

Moving passengers further up the plane and handing out wet

towels minimized the effects of the toxic smoke.

Their decision to tell passengers to open the emergency

exits over the wings was not standard procedure but bit it.

But it let some passengers escape more quickly

and was eventually adopted as a routine practice.

Finally, it became obvious from the location of some

of the bodies that passengers died because of precious

seconds lost trying to find the exits in the pitch dark.

What would have made a difference?

Track lighting on the floors and bumps along the overhead

bins that identified the rows with emergency exits,

features that would eventually become standard.

As a direct result of 797,

a number of rules were changed including a more stringent

test for seats, a heat release and smoke requirement

for cabin interior panels, a requirement for smoke detectors

in lavatories and halon fire extinguishers in the cabin.

We're going to make an emergency landing.

Put your head on your lap. Stay in that position.

But the changes were too late for those who

died on flight 797, like the man sitting beside Connie Kirsch.

Months after the crash, his wife tracked Connie down.

She said I just understand my husband was

the one that was next to you and I just wanted to know what, how

was he, what was his spirits and I said he was in great spirits.

He was very nice.

He let me sit next to him and explained to me how to breathe.

That was really difficult

and the guilt that I've carried for a long time was difficult

but I'm past the guilt but I guess when you go back to it

you think about it like this in detail, you're right back there.

Stan Rogers was another victim of flight 797.

He would never be able to fulfill

the promise of his life and growing career.

I loved his generosity and his loyalty as a friend.

As an artist he was perhaps one of the best song writers

this country's ever produced and it was really an incredible

pleasure and honour to be working with him.

He still gets lots and lots of airplay so his legend grows.

Sometime after the accident, two Air Canada

employees show up at Dianne Fadley's door in Dallas.

They brought my bible.

It's dark because it was burned and singed

but it's a paperback bible and it did not completely burn up.

This is just a reminder to me that God was with me and I

believe he protected me and, you know, he, he was there with me.

Captain Cameron and his crew eventually

received six separate awards for their heroic actions on flight

797, including recognition from the Royal Canadian Air Force,

but they're all still haunted by the nightmare.

You feel responsible. There's no question.

You feel guilt. You're willing to give your license.

You feel very uh very small until you get all the facts

together and because it's a puzzle for you.

You know, you're as much a victim in this.

You're not supposed to fly an airplane in that condition,

you know, so you're as much a victim as the passenger

and it becomes, I think it becomes all of our problem

and we're all part of the solution.

It's just a shame we didn't get everybody off.

It still bothers me.