All language subtitles for M.2003-S11E03-Split.Decision.Arrow.Air.Flight.1285.WEBDL-1080pEAC3.5.1h264-PiTBULL_track4_[eng]

(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS)

NARRATOR: Military families in Kentucky

prepare to welcome home
loved ones from overseas.

JOHN HERRLING: The plan was
to have a reception for them

and then those soldiers would be reunited
with their families and friends.

NARRATOR: At the same time,
at a small Canadian airport.

(RATTLING)

(ALARM BEEPING)

(EXPLOSIONS)

- (SHATTERS)
- (SIREN WAILING)

McNAIR:
Weckage all over the place.

There was massive destruction.

Nobody could have survived this.

NARRATOR: 256 people are dead.

It's one of the worst
aviation accidents of all time.

WESLEY WARK: Anytime a crash
of this sort would occur,

immediate suspicions would be raised.

NARRATOR:
Answers will be hard to come by.

It does not advance safety
to get the wrong cause of an accident.

NARRATOR: As two radically
different scenarios for the crash emerge.

PILOT:
Mayday. Mayday.

(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)

(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)

(AIRPLANE DRONING)

NARRATOR: Arrow Air flight
12-85 is nearing the end

of a ten thousand kilometer journey
from Egypt to the United States.

The DC-8 is on its way
to Fort Campbell, Kentucky

via Germany and Newfoundland.

Onboard are eight crewmembers
and 248 passengers.

Most of them are US soldiers
with the famed 101st Airborne Division,

the Screaming Eagles.

HERRLING: That division fought
through World War II,

through D-Day and the battle of Normandy,

dropped in behind the German lines.

It has really marked its place in history.

I think everybody, uh,
who serves in that division

has a special loyalty
and, and a special, uh, feeling

about the division and being part of it.

They had been in the Sinai
for five and a half months,

so I'm sure they were anxious
to get back to friends and family

and to enjoy the holidays.

NARRATOR:
To bring the soldiers home,

the military has hired
the charter carrier Arrow Air.

It was not unusual to do that
back in the '70s and, and '80s

where the government would contract
with a civilian airlines

to transport troops
in and out of the country.

NARRATOR:
At 5:30 in the morning,

the Douglas DC-8 lands
at Gander International Airport

on the eastern edge
of Newfoundland, Canada.

(AIRPLANE DRONING)

They had to refuel in Gander
before they could complete the flight

into Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

Okay, guys, I'd like to be refueled,
checked, and wheels up in ninety minutes.

Roger that.

NARRATOR: Captain John Griffin has
been an Arrow Air pilot for four years.

He's also a flight instructor
for the airline.

First officer John Connelly
will be at the controls

when flight 12-85 leaves Gander.

Mike Fowler, the flight engineer,

monitors the aircraft's
mechanical systems.

(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)

Okay, you want to give her the once-over?

While the pilots run through
a series of pre-flight checklists,

the flight engineer steps out
to inspect the plane's exterior.

He'll look for any damage
to the fuselage or engines

and check for buildups
of ice on the plane.

The soldiers wait inside the airport.

Some shop for souvenirs at the gift shop.

Anything?

Okay. Roger that.

Alright, 15,538 gallons,

1,100 pounds.

Passengers and cargo unchanged.

Weight's confirmed.

Okay.

We're good to go.

That puts us here.

Rotation is 144 knots.

Yeah, that looks good.

NARRATOR: On the airspeed indicator
is a marker or bug.

It reminds the crew
of the exact speed they must hit

in order to get the plane off the ground.

CONNELLY: Bug's set on the right.

CAPTAIN GRIFFIN: Copy that.

NARRATOR: With the refueling
and pre-flight checks complete,

the 248 soldiers get back on board.

HERRLING: I think it was probably
a very joyous mood

because, uh, when they landed in Gander,

I know some of them went in

and used the telephones
to call Fort Campbell

and call their families
and say they were in Gander

and they'd be home in a few hours.

CAPTAIN GRIFFIN:
Gander tower...

(OVER RADIO)
Big A 9-5-0.

We've completed refueling
and pre-flight checks.

Requesting taxi to runway 3-1.

Uh, Big A 9-5-0,
wind's at 2-9-0 at four knots.

Takeoff now runway 2-2.

NARRATOR:
A last minute change puts Arrow Air

on a different runway
than originally planned.

9,900 feet,
takeoff to the south, we're good.

Copy that, Gander.
Runway 2-2.

(JET ENGINES RUMBLING)

MAN (OVER RADIO): Big A 9-5-0,
you are cleared for takeoff.

Merry Christmas.

Roger that, Gander tower.
And a Merry Christmas to you too.

(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING)

NARRATOR: The DC-8 accelerates
to takeoff speed.

CAPTAIN GRIFFIN:
80 knots.

CONNELLY: Check.

(JET ENGINES WHINING)

CAPTAIN GRIFFIN:
V1.

Rotate.

NARRATOR: Arrow Air 12-85 lifts off

from Gander Airport
at 6:46 a.m.

But just seconds later.

(BEEPING)

Ah, she's flying like a pig.

(RATTLING)

CONNELLY:
Positive rate?

Negative.

Ugh!

HERRLING:
I'm sure for the last few seconds

those soldiers knew that
there was a serious problem in hand.

(RATTLING)

(ALARMS BEEPING)

Watch your altitude! Pull up.

Come on. Airspeed!

Airspeed!

CAPTAIN GRIFFIN:
Watch the trees.

- (CLATTERING)
- (PEOPLE SCREAMING)

(SCREAMING)

(EXPLOSION BOOMS)

Yes, uh, Arrow 1-2-8-5 is down,
just off runway 2-2.

Estimate 2,000 to 4,000 feet.

NARRATOR: At the small airport
in Gander, Newfoundland,

emergency crews race to the crash site.

It's a field of wreckage, bodies,
and personal effects.

Thousands of liters of jet fuel
are feeding a massive blaze.

BADCOCK:
It didn't look like aircraft.

It was just... Probably a 30-foot
high burning mass of metal.

And fuel and everything.

Hey, any survivors?

NARRATOR: Canadian Air Force Captain Tom
Badcock is one of the first on the scene.

BADCOCK: As an air force officer,
of course, I had been to numerous crashes

but this was nothing, uh,
like I had ever seen in my life before.

And to see the devastation
and to see my, basically, comrades

lying on the ground in pieces was...

Words couldn't, can't describe it.

Many of them had bought T-shirts saying

"I survived Gander, Newfoundland."

We found that particularly emotional.

NARRATOR: After hours of frantic searching
through the charred wreckage,

everyone's worst fears are realized.

The crash has claimed the lives
of all 256 people onboard.

The search for the cause
of the disaster is already underway,

but it will lead to controversy

and ultimately to the demise
of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board.

NARRATOR: For the US military,

the crash of flight 12-85
in Gander, Newfoundland

is a historic loss.

HERRLING:
If you take a look at the history

of the 101st Airborne Division
air assault,

even in World War II,

that division never lost so many people
in such a short period of time

as they did on December the 12th
in 1985 in Gander.

NARRATOR: The Canadian military
sets up a security perimeter

around the crash site.

BADCOCK: We controlled all access,
uh, to and from the site.

The RCMP asked me
if I would identify an object

which they thought to be strange.

BADCOCK:
Never seen a casing like this before.

BADCOCK: And he said, does this have any
kind of a chemical or nuclear connotation

and I said, no, I have no idea what it is.

NARRATOR: The find raises suspicion
about what was on the flight.

WARK: It certainly is possible that
Arrow Air could have been carrying things

either that it shouldn't
have been carrying

or that weren't on any kind
of cargo manifest.

NARRATOR: David McNair is an investigator
with the Canadian Aviation Safety Board.

McNAIR:
There were aircraft parts everywhere,

and you immediately became aware
that it was gonna be hard

to find things that you needed to find.

NARRATOR: McNair is joined
by colleague Peter Boag.

They arrive hours after the crash
to a scene of complete devastation.

McNAIR: The sights and smells,
it's always unpleasant.

But you just have to. You have to do it.
That's part of your job.

NARRATOR: The terrible scale of the crash
quickly makes headlines around the world.

It will have a tremendous impact
on this division.

This is not only a sad day
for the 101st Airborne

but a sad day for the nation.

RONALD REAGAN: Most of the young men
and women we mourn

were returning to spend the holidays
with their families.

You do not grieve alone.

- We grieve as a nation together.
- (SHATTERS)

As together we say goodbye
to those who died

in the service of their country.

There is just no way that
I can express to you

how tragic that was
with the loss of so many people

in, in that one plane crash.

WARK: The Americans were,
were really suffering

in terms of military losses
just two years prior

to the, uh, the crash
of the Arrow Air flight.

The United States had lost
a large number of soldiers

in a suicide truck bombing in, in Beirut.

So the losses in a sense were mounting

and although the numbers these days
might not strike us as extraordinary,

they certainly were extraordinary
at, at the time.

It wasn't just some assortment
of soldiers, a large number of them

from one of the leading American
military units in the American army.

You know, all of this raised,
if you like, the symbolic stakes

quite apart from the casualty toll
of the loss of life that occurred.

NARRATOR:
Investigators immediately interview

the Gander ground crew
and get some intriguing information.

Morning.

Did you see the flight engineer
inspect the aircraft?

But they did not de-ice the wings
before taking off?

(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)

Yeah, we picked up
a little bit of ice coming in.

We're good to go.

Okay. Thank you.

McNAIR:
Well, we were concerned about icing

because the re-fueler witness indicated

that they had picked up
some ice on the approach.

NARRATOR:
They turn to meteorological reports

for the early hours of December the 12th.

BADCOCK: In early morning,
it was very, very icy.

And it had been severe freezing rain.

They flew in during the time that
the forecast was for icing.

NARRATOR: McNair and Boag
wonder if the crew of flight 12-85

may have made a serious error
by not de-icing.

They check to see what other planes
flying out of Gander did that morning.

There were two other takeoffs
this morning.

One de-iced, one didn't.

McNAIR: And we noted that one,
one Boeing 737 that departed

had picked up quite a bit of ice
on its departure

and that was an indicator to us
that the probability of ice accretion

or ice gathering on the aircraft
was quite high.

NARRATOR: But the other aircraft,
a British Aerospace VC-10,

had been on the ground for 50 minutes
and did not de-ice.

It got off the ground safely.

McNAIR: And they took off
within two hours of each other.

NARRATOR: Ice cannot have been
the only factor in this crash.

Big A 9-5-0, winds 2-9-0, add four knots.

Takeoff now, runway 2-2.

NARRATOR: In search of other factors,

they consider
the last minute runway change.

Copy that, Gander.
Runway 2-2.

McNAIR:
Not the runway they were expecting.

NARRATOR: But they quickly conclude
that the alternate runway

could not have had
any bearing on this crash.

McNAIR: Runway 2-2
is the longest runway at Gander,

so in fact it gave them
the best margin for performance.

NARRATOR: Investigators examine
and document the crash site,

trying to determine the trajectory
of the plane as it went down.

BADCOCK:
This was a very heavily wooded area

and as it got closer to the ground,

it started clipping the trees.

(AIRPLANE DRONING)

(ALARMS BEEPING)

(EXPLOSION BOOMS)

And we're gonna need pictures
of the treetops as well

and we're gonna need aerial shots.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING)

NARRATOR:
But what they need most of all

is the information
from the plane's two black boxes.

They could hold the key to understanding
what doomed flight 12-85.

But as soon as they're recovered,
McNair sees a potential problem.

We were disappointed to see
it was such an old recorder,

an old foil recorder,

as they really just don't give
enough information to the investigators.

Well, send them off to Ottawa,
and we'll see what we've got.

NARRATOR:
The older design of FDR

engraves data on a slow moving roll
of stainless steel foil.

Though the foil is fire resistant,
it can record only four flight parameters,

such as airspeed and altitude.

The newer digital flight recorders
can record hundreds of parameters.

All they can do is send the black boxes

to the National Research Council's
Flight Recorder Playback Center

and hope for the best.

Then, with the investigation
only hours old...

- (RINIGING)
- ...it takes a drastic turn.

An overseas US consulate receives word

from someone claiming
responsibility for the crash.

The caller says it was
the work of Islamic Jihad,

a branch of Hezbollah.

If you had to think about
any one terrorist group

operating in the Middle East at this time
which had an in, an intent

as well as a capacity
to target American military personnel,

that was Hezbollah.

(EXPLODES)

NARRATOR:
The call opens the possibility

that a terrorist bomb
brought down Flight 12-85.

Tensions were really high in the world
at that time and when an aircraft

fully loaded with,
with American soldiers crashes...

(EXPLOSION BOOMS)

...there's always questions that come up.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING)

NARRATOR:
McNair sends portions of the wreckage

to a Royal Canadian
Mounted Police forensics lab

to be tested for bomb residue.

The team searches for evidence
that flight 12-85 exploded

before it hit the ground.

They look for any fallen debris between
the runway and the point of impact.

If the aircraft had exploded
before it hit the trees,

one would expect something
would come off the aircraft

and we would have found it.

We didn't find anything, nothing at all.

So we knew with confidence that
the aircraft hit the trees,

the first impact, intact.

NARRATOR: It's a similar story
when the test results

from the RCMP come back.

They find no trace of bomb residue.

And both US and Canadian officials suggest
Islamic Jihad's claim of responsibility

could be false.

One of the things that obviously
benefits terrorist organizations

is to spread the claim,
uh, for operational responsibility

very, very broadly

to kind of boost the reputation
of their organization,

again to instill greater fear,

so it's difficult
to separate fact from fiction.

NARRATOR:
With terrorism looking less likely,

investigators continue to focus
on the performance of the aircraft.

35 feet, six inches.
Four and a half degree declination.

McNAIR: The airplane had struck some trees

about half a mile
from the end of the runway

and we could see
a distinct pattern in the trees.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

NARRATOR: Using photographs
from the crash site...

investigators plot the height of 378 trees
to determine the DC-8's exact position

as it went down.

The airplane was right wing low

with a nose high attitude
relative to the trees.

Through photogrammetry, we determined

that in fact the aircraft was way above
the stall angle of the aircraft.

So the aircraft was clearly stalled
in a high rate of descent.

NARRATOR:
The plane's radical nose-up position

prevented it from getting the lift
needed to keep it in the air.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

Investigators can't explain
why the plane was flying

at such an extreme angle.

One clue about what the pilots were doing
comes from a piece of cockpit wreckage,

the airspeed indicator.

- Look here.
- MAN: Mm-hmm.

McNAIR: There is the bug at...

NARRATOR: It shows that the crew set
a takeoff speed of 144 knots...

McNAIR:
I'm seeing 165.

NARRATOR: ...and that the plane reached
an airspeed of at least 165 knots.

(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING)

CONNELLY:
Bug's set on the right.

CAPTAIN GRIFFIN (OFF SCREEN):
Copy that.

NARRATOR: Investigators hope
that a much more detailed picture

of the pilots' last moments will emerge
from the cockpit voice recorder.

But they're in for a disappointment.

(FLUTTERING)

It doesn't sound like
it recorded anything from the cockpit.

NARRATOR: The cockpit recorder
wasn't functioning properly.

It didn't record any
of the crew's conversations.

With the absence
of cockpit voice recorder,

we don't know exactly what the crew
was doing or what they were facing.

NARRATOR: Their hopes now rest
with the flight data recorder.

McNAIR: Even this rudimentary recorder
would have caught

some indication to show
what speeds they rotated at,

what warning lights
if any were they seeing,

what was their reaction.

All these things are extremely valuable.

NARRATOR: But it turns out
to be only marginally more useful

than the cockpit voice recorder.

McNAIR: The recorder for the
Arrow Air accident was extremely limited.

We were able to determine
first of all speed,

a little bit of altitude,
and heading of the aircraft.

There was no indication
on there of engine power,

bank angle, uh, pitch angle.

NARRATOR: The flight data recorder
tells investigators

that Arrow Air 12-85
began its takeoff roll

and increased to a speed of 167 knots.

Liftoff occurred 51 seconds
from the start of the roll.

Two seconds later,
the speed began to decrease.

(ALARMS BEEPING)

Come on. Airspeed!

Airspeed!

(ALARMS BEEPING)

McNAIR: Speed dropped off very quickly

and so we knew that the aircraft
was below normal flying speed.

We got that much from the recorder.

It tells us almost nothing.

NARRATOR: But a closer look
at the flight data does reveal

a potentially valuable clue.

The distance needed
to get to takeoff speed

was longer than the pilots
had planned for.

McNAIR:
We looked at the acceleration distances

and it took a little bit longer than we...
than expected.

4,300 feet...

...100 knots.

6,300 feet...

...144 knots.

They should be lifting off now.

NARRATOR: Investigators discover
that liftoff occurred

some four seconds later,

or more than a thousand feet further
than it should have.

8,000 feet...

167 knots.

An extra 1,000 feet to get off the ground.

Why'd it take them so long?

V1.

Rotate.

They used the full power,

and we would expect them
to rotate a little earlier,

takeoff a little earlier.

NARRATOR: The longer than normal
take-off supports the original theory

that ice on the wings
played a role in the crash.

But investigators know
that can't be the whole story.

McNAIR: Icing itself is not necessarily
the only thing that happened.

Accidents don't just
usually have one item.

They have several items.

NARRATOR: Determined to find out
what else besides ice

on the wings contributed to the crash,

the CASB turns its attention
to the plane's flaps.

For the DC-8, the optimal flap setting
for takeoff is 18 degrees.

Looks like the flaps were extended.

McNAIR: With detailed work,

we could say
with some reasonable certainty

where the flaps were,

which we believe were
in the normal takeoff position.

NARRATOR: They wonder if ice,
combined with malfunctioning engines,

caused the plane to stall.

The engines are sent to the CASB in Ottawa
for a full inspection.

Each engine was recovered on site
and immediately you could tell that,

there was rotational damage
on all the engines.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

NARRATOR: Wood debris is found
deep inside all four of the turbines.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING)

A lot of tree debris means the engine
was running when it hit the trees.

(ALARMS BEEPING)

(EXPLOSION BOOMS)

NARRATOR: Evidence shows the DC-8
was properly configured for takeoff

and that there was nothing wrong
with the engines.

So why was flight 12-85 slow
to get off the ground?

Investigators focus in
on the weight of the aircraft.

It's 101,000 pounds for fuel,

passengers and cargo unchanged.

They had predicted that,
uh, each passenger

and baggage would weigh a 175 pounds.

NARRATOR: That average weight,
170 pounds,

matches the estimated weight
for male passengers

set out in the Arrow Air guidelines.

As a pilot, having flown
many military people around,

this didn't seem to ring true,

so we immediately looked
at that aspect of the investigation.

Good morning. I have a rec form
for some personnel files.

NARRATOR: Following his hunch,
McNair soon makes a crucial discovery.

Regular commercial flight
has an extra folks.

It has men, women, children,

so then the average
doesn't work out as much.

NARRATOR: But this was
no ordinary commercial flight.

All 256 passengers were adults,

almost all of them large men.

McNAIR: We actually looked at the,
the medical records of the passengers

in terms of getting their actual weight
during their last medical.

In my own case, I normally weigh 175.

But when I've got all my gear on
or I'm bringing it onboard an aircraft...

I'm... I'm bringing onboard
200 pounds or more.

McNAIR: We estimated
that the more realistic weight

would have been 220 pounds per passenger.

That includes the passenger,
everything they were carrying,

and, uh, and the equipment they had.

NARRATOR: With the new estimates,
he calculates the weight of the passengers

at more than 54,000 pounds.

That's 12,000 pounds heavier

than the weight recorded
on the load sheet.

It's not even close.

NARRATOR: But this plane had been flying
with that weight all night,

taking off from Cairo,
then from Cologne without any problems.

The ice picked up in Gander
may have made the difference.

McNAIR: You can take off at a heavier
than normal weight

and if there are no other factors at play
you can get away with it.

If you have something else like ice,
you have a serious problem.

NARRATOR:
Investigators now strongly suspect

that it was a combination
of ice and extra weight

that prevented the DC-8
from staying in the air.

Okay. This has to be it.

Ice and weight.

McNAIR:
We had a lot of scientific basis

to say that the aircraft
should have flown but did not.

Why didn't it fly,
and we had two powerful reasons.

One was weight.
The other was even probably more powerful,

is a small amount
of ice contamination on the aircraft.

NARRATOR: But they can only theorize.

No one in Gander saw ice on the wings.

It's impossible to know
how much there was.

That's one problem.

McNair and Boag now must confront another.

Some of their own colleagues on the CASB
are raising doubts about the findings.

NARRATOR: One of those
with questions is board member

and aviation expert Les Filotas.

FILOTAS: Well, as soon as
I started looking at the draft report,

I skimmed some of it and went to the part

that was my technical specialty,
the flight data recorder part

and as soon as I looked at it,

I said there's something
really wrong here.

NARRATOR: Filotas immediately wonders
how the aircraft could lose thrust

and crash so quickly after takeoff.

FILOTAS: I did rough calculations,

and it just showed that to get
that kind of deceleration

you'd have to lose not one, two,
or three engines but all four,

and that was just a...
a startling thing to see right away.

CAPTAIN GRIFFIN:
Watch your altitude. Pull up.

CONNELLY:
Come on. Airspeed!

Airspeed!

(ALARM BEEPING)

FILOTAS: They said the aircraft was,

I believe the exact phrase was,
destroyed by a fuel-fed fire.

(EXPLOSION BOOMS)

The early reports,
everybody who was around there

mentioned the massive explosion
and the mushroom cloud.

CECIL MACKIE: Seen this thing coming,
come across the front of the truck,

and it was like a flame on the bottom, eh.

Two truckers on the highway

were almost under the flight path
when the Arrow Air aircraft passed over,

and they both said they saw fire
on the right hand side.

NARRATOR: US Army officials deny,
there was any un-reported

or classified cargo
onboard Arrow Air 12-85.

But Filotas has reason
to doubt that claim.

FILOTAS: When the troops' equipment
was loaded onboard,

there were some of these big boxes.

What could have been on there
and we couldn't get any answer.

There was no cargo manifest

and, uh,
it was another contentious question

that was never settled.

WARK: Not much attention
clearly was paid to security procedures

and, you know,
this was a different time admittedly

but still I think
the lack of security at Cairo

at the airport
as the soldiers came onboard

the Arrow Air flight
for their return journey,

Uh, I think anybody
would have to regard it as shocking,

even for their time,
and it's the kind of thing

that would never be allowed
to happen today.

NARRATOR: Filotas joins those speculating
that Arrow Air flight 12-85

was the victim of a terrorist plot.

WARK: Was it Hezbollah?

Did it have any kind
of European connections?

And the big question, always in the back
of American governmental

and security authorities' minds is...

is there a,
is there a Cold War dimension to this?

Are the Soviets involved?

JUDGE (OFF SCREEN):
The testimony you're about to give

will be the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth so help you God?

I do.

NARRATOR: Some now wonder
if Arrow Air 12-85 was at the center

of the biggest global scandal of the time,

the US plot to illicitly
provide Iran with arms

in exchange for American hostages.

WARK: Arrow Air was indeed one of,

one of the airlines that,
that assisted a covert operation

that was being mounted at the time
out of the Reagan White House

by a famous individual
by the name of Colonel Ollie North.

And the Iran Contra business
was very tangled

and a very peculiar covert operation.

It was not a thin tiny layer of ice
on the wings.

NARRATOR: Filotas points to
photographic evidence to prove his case.

(CAMER SHUTTER CLICKS)

FILOTAS: My colleague made
a trip out to Gander

and went to the RCMP photo lab there

where they had literally thousands
that they took on the crash site.

Many photos that seemed to indicate

that, um, there was some kind
of an explosion onboard.

It's just like if you took
a piece of aluminum foil

and poked your finger in it.

It would curl out from the inside
to the outside

and would be obvious from which side
you put your finger through.

NARRATOR:
Filotas becomes even more suspicious

when he learns that an independent
investigator hired by Arrow Air

had explored the possibility
of an onboard explosion.

FILOTAS: He carefully looked at everything
and found that on the number three engine,

that's the inboard engine
on the right hand side,

some of the inlet guide veins,
three of them, consecutive ones,

had sort of a dent in the leading edge.

And one of them had some red paint on it.

NARRATOR: That investigator concluded
that there could have been

a mid-air explosion...

(EXPLODED)

...and that the damage
and the paint markings

inside the engine could have been caused

by debris exploding outward
from the main fuselage.

Another key piece
of information for Filotas

comes from the post-mortem examination
of some of the 256 victims.

Autopsies indicate that
there were extremely high levels

of carbon monoxide in their blood.

FILOTAS: So if they have
combustion products in their lungs,

natural inference is that
they must have breathed in

some combustion products before the crash.

NARRATOR: From all this evidence,
Filotas and his colleagues

paint their own picture of the crash.

(EXPLOSION BOOMS)

(RATTLING)

What the hell was that?

(ALARM BEEPING)

Smoke. Smoke in the cockpit.
Smoke!

(EXPLOSION BOOMS)

NARRATOR: But the lead investigators,
McNair and Boag,

maintain that the sabotage theories
are nothing more

than a sensationalist distraction.

McNAIR: We had no indication
that terrorism was a player

but we did have a lot of indication

that there was
an aircraft performance problem

and there were icing problems.

NARRATOR: McNair and Boag decide
the only way to end all the speculation

is to scientifically prove their theory
that ice combined with extra weight

is what brought down flight 12-85.

Okay, you want to give her the once-over?

NARRATOR:
Before the mid-1980s,

little was known about
the aerodynamic impact

of very thin ice accumulation.

The flight engineer
who inspected the aircraft

was likely only looking
for large buildups of ice

that would make the plane
significantly heavier,

not thin coatings on top of the wings.

As part of the investigation,

we did a lot of research
on the effects of ice on aircraft.

NARRATOR: Aerodynamic tests
carried out in a wind tunnel

reveal that even a small amount
of ice contamination

can significantly reduce wing lift.

Just a small amount,
say the size of some sandpaper,

if that's the type of surface you have,
it can seriously degrade a large aircraft.

That was a surprise to me.

NARRATOR: The team carries out
further tests in a flight simulator.

We basically had
to reprogram the simulator

to degrade the performance
to simulate ice.

V1.

Rotate.

NARRATOR:
Every attempt to fly the simulator

with the exact same parameters
as flight 12-85

ends the same way...

...with a stall and a crash.

Okay. Let's run it again
with 10,000 less pounds.

From the simulator trials,
we realized with icing onboard,

which degraded the lift characteristics
of the aircraft,

it was difficult to fly a normal profile

and... and you could easily lose
control of the aircraft.

Ah, she's flying like a pig.

Positive rate?

Negative.

Full power.

NARRATOR:
The pilots would have been able to see

that their plane
wasn't climbing fast enough.

CAPTAIN GRIFFIN:
Watch your altitude. Pull up.

Come on. Airspeed!

Airspeed!

Watch the trees!

(ALARMS BEEPING)

NARRATOR: First Officer Connelly
pulled the nose back,

trying to get the plane in the air.

What he didn't realize
is that he was sealing their fate.

The DC-8 was already
on the verge of a stall.

Pulling the nose up
only made things worse.

The aircraft's weight
had been underestimated,

its lift compromised by ice on the wings.

A fatal combination.

(EXPLODED)

(EXPLOSION BOOMS)

If you take one of the factors out,

if you take the ice out
and have the same weight,

maybe you don't have the accident,
if you take out the heavy weight

and still have the icing,
maybe you won't have the accident.

But if you have them combined together,
you have the accident.

NARRATOR: As for the suspicious
paint markings found inside the engine,

McNair determines
they came from a front-end loader

used to clear debris at the crash site.

As well, the extreme intensity of the fire

could have caused
the abnormally high level

of carbon monoxide in the victims' blood.

Even the truckers' accounts
of pre-impact flames can be explained.

If you have an airplane flying
at high angle of attack

where it's in a stalled regime,
typically, or often, you will have

flame coming from the engine
because of compressor stall.

NARRATOR:
As for the terrorists' capability

to pull off such a complex, brazen attack,
there is significant doubt.

WARK: Could they have done it
in terms of intent? Yes.

In terms of actually pulling that
operation off in the circumstances?

You know, that seems to be low probability

but just at the edges
of the margins of the possible.

McNAIR:
There was a lot of controversy

uh, which we just basically
had to deal with

in terms of keeping on with our job

because, uh, investigation
is not an emotional issue,

it's a scientific issue.

So we basically had to stick with science.

We didn't see any evidence
of any other kind of explosion.

We only saw the evidence of an explosion

caused by impact
and the aircraft breaking up.

NARRATOR: McNair believes his conclusion
carries an urgent warning

for the entire airline industry.

A lot of people have a hard time believing

that a little tiny bit of ice on,
on a large wing

will have a big effect, but it does.

NARRATOR: After nearly three years
of painstaking research and investigation,

the Canadian Aviation Safety Board
is ready to release its report.

(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING)

But what is supposed to provide answers
and prevent similar accidents

instead ignites a storm of controversy.

The ice theory is flat out wrong.

NARRATOR: CASB investigators believe
they have a convincing report

that explains the complex cause
of the crash of Flight 12-85.

I was hoping that,
as all investigators do,

when the final report came out

that in fact the safety message
would be out there and would be accepted.

NARRATOR:
But four of the nine members of the board

disagree with the report's conclusion.

This investigation appears
to involve a cover-up.

It's impossible that
ice would have been a factor.

Crash investigators are,
you know, they're always under pressure

to come up with an answer sooner
than they would like

and sometimes depending
on the intensity of that pressure

can perhaps create crash investigations
which are less than, than satisfactory.

NARRATOR:
The dissenters take the unprecedented step

of releasing their own minority report,

citing an onboard explosion as the cause.

We had extremely difficult time
in putting out our dissenting report.

We were given a very restricted time,

and then there was
an attempt to suppress it.

I was asked the question outright,
well, what do you want to do?

You want to try to save your job or you
want to get the truth about this accident?

My answer was, well, I want to save
my job by getting at the truth.

McNAIR: It was quite unusual
to have a dissenting report

written with photographs.

I don't see merit in it.

I totally don't understand
why it was issued in the first place.

Why would you come up with this?

What's the scientific basis for it?
There is no science.

McNAIR: Okay, look.
Paint transfer means nothing.

The crew blood samples means nothing.

The pedaling is meaningless.

Therefore you have no evidence
of terrorism. This proves nothing.

WARK: In this particular case of course
what we had was an extraordinary outcome,

uh, where you have a majority
and a minority report

which are deeply divergent,

uh, and which raise
very different kinds of pictures

about what the outcome
of this crash would be.

HERRLING:
I think it's very tough for families

and friends not to have
final closure on something.

There was really no definitive answer...

to what caused that crash.

If I was a family member,
I'd have questions too.

NARRATOR: But on March the 10th, 1989,
while the controversy continues to swirl,

there's tragic evidence
that McNair and Boag's message

has not been heard.

In Dryden, Ontario,
in wintry conditions...

the crew of a Fokker F-28 elects
not to de-ice.

Just seconds after takeoff...

the plane cannot achieve sufficient lift
to stay airborne.

The accident was almost identical
to Arrow Air 12-85.

(SCREAMING)

McNAIR:
The airplane hit the tree canopy intact

and after that it exploded
because of the fact it hit the ground

with a lot of fuel on board.

NARRATOR: The crash kills 24
of the 69 people onboard.

It was pretty clear from Dryden

that icing or snow may have been
a factor in this as well.

NARRATOR: If only the investigators'
warning had been heard,

the tragedy in Dryden
may never have happened.

The fact that there was a lot of
controversy around this investigation

was very unfortunate

because basically it took away
from the safety message.

Aircraft like the DC-8 are very vulnerable
to icing contamination.

That message was lost because of the,
of the controversy and the bomb theory.

NARRATOR: But those who held firm
to the bomb theory

stand by their actions.

It does not advance safety
to get the wrong cause of an accident.

The real safety message
is that you have to get at the truth

and the truth,
truth and facts of this accident

were never finely established.

NARRATOR: The controversy
over this investigation spelled the end

of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board.

It was scrapped and later replaced
with a new, better-regulated agency.

McNAIR: We learned a lesson.
It cost a lot of people their lives

and that lesson didn't get
passed on to other people,

and other people lost their lives.
That's the sad part for me.

(SLOW MUSIC PLAYS)

HERRLING: I know in my own case
if I really didn't know all the answers

and I had lost someone in that,
that terrible crash,

uh, I wouldn't be satisfied.

It's tough when you don't know
and you've lost someone

that's near and dear to you.

I think we all want to know.

(SLOW MUSIC PLAYING)