Original subtitles

Good morning Nigerian 2120.

Cleared for takeoff 34 left.

What's that?

NARRATOR: A mysterious sound.

So as soon as this aircraft took off.

We've got four low pressure lights.

LARRY: There was basically no surviving.

(ALARM BEEPING)

The air brake thing just broke.

- Smoke. - I'll take a look.

They think they've got a hydraulic problem.

We've lost all hydraulics.

NARRATOR: A confounding series of failures.

ALLAN: (OVER RADIO) We're declaring an emergency.

We are having flight control problems.

Roger. Roger. I thought you were Saudi 738.

Now they have to grapple with this blaze.

There's smoke in the back. Real bad.

NARRATOR: A raging inferno.

This thing would have been like a torch.

It's pandemonium inside the cabin.

No! No! No! Don't!

Bodies were falling out of the aircraft.

There it is! It's two miles out!

Christ, I have no control!

And he had no idea what would ensue when he lowered that landing gear.

NARRATOR: 261 people.

Landing gear down.

NARRATOR: On the brink of disaster.

MAN: (OVER RADIO) Mayday, mayday.

NARRATOR: Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

The birthplace of the prophet Mohammed.

This is the holiest city in all of Islam.

Making the journey to Mecca is a sacred duty

in the life of every Muslim.

The Hajj is the world's largest pilgrimage.

This week more than one-and-a-half million people

will take part in the ritual.

80 kilometers away, one of the largest airports in the world

is the gateway to Mecca for pilgrims traveling by air.

Jeddah Airport has a terminal built exclusively for the annual Hajj.

A terminal that can handle 80,000 passengers at a time.

Today, in blistering desert heat,

Nigeria Airways Flight 2120

prepares to take a group of Nigerian pilgrims home.

For most Westerners, a Hajj flight would seem almost surreal.

These are very, uh, poor pilgrims from villages in Nigeria.

They've never been on a plane for the most part.

The whole cultural difference is amazing.

I mean, there's stories told about some of those pilgrims

getting into the airplanes

and actually trying to light their barbeques

to cook meals on the flights,

uh, not realizing that of course you can't do that.

NARRATOR: The 247 passengers are onboard a DC-8

that will be heading west across Africa to Sokoto, Nigeria.

It's a charter flight operated by Canadian airline Nationair.

The DC-8 was the primary aircraft for Nationair.

It was reliable, sturdy and served us very well

in operations throughout the world.

Nationair was a scrappy little start-up airline based in Montreal.

And it started by taking people on vacations to sunny destinations

during the winter and it grew very rapidly.

And then had this very unusual, uh, offshore charter business

uh, which is what brought them to, uh, Jeddah and Saudi Arabia.

NARRATOR: By offering unconventional flights that most other airlines

would never consider,

Nationair is giving its competition a run for their money.

Sir, you have to take your seat, please.

NARRATOR: Captain William Allan is a former Canadian Air Force pilot.

He has more than 20 years of flying experience.

First Officer Kent Davidge will be at the controls today,

piloting Flight 2120 out of Jeddah.

Let's close her up and get out of here.

Heading four.

We got number four way up here.

Okay. Starting one.

NARRATOR: Victor Fehr.

I'll turn on the AirCon.

NARRATOR: Is the engineer on today's flight.

There are two other Nationair employees on the plane,

lead mechanic Jean-Paul Philippe

and project manager Aldo Tettamanti.

Mr. Tettamanti was sent to Jeddah

by our planning department to primarily provide

logistical, administrative support.

NARRATOR: Flight 2120 must taxi five kilometers

across the sprawling airfield to get to its takeoff position.

Flight controls.

Check.

It's a long way around.

Yup.

Good morning Nigerian 2120.

Cleared for takeoff, uh, three-four-left.

NARRATOR: At 8:26 a.m.

it's already 30 degrees outside.

Runway's clear.

DAVIDGE: All engines.

Okay. You have control.

I have control.

Stable.

Brakes released.

Set Max Thrust.

Max Thrust.

NARRATOR: Davidge powers the DC-8 down the runway.

So early in the takeoff roll.

(THUDDING)

They hear a loud sound in the cockpit.

And he flight engineer says.

What's that?

NARRATOR: The instruments show no indication of trouble.

They continue to accelerate.

80 knots. 90 knots now.

DAVIDGE: 90 knots. Check.

It's sort of a shimmy.

Like if you're riding on one of those thingamajigs.

V-one.

NARRATOR: V-one is the speed at which pilots can no longer

safely abandon their takeoff.

ALLAN: Rotate.

Positive rate.

Gear up.

CONTROLLER: (OVER RADIO) Nigerian 2120 airborne.

Two-nine.

Flight 2120 is now climbing through 1500 feet.

The plane has been in the air for one-and-a-half minutes.

(ALARM BEEPING)

We've got four low pressure lights.

What have we got?

FEHR: We've got four low pressure lights.

ALLAN: Yeah.

We might be losing pressurization.

Pressurization is uncontrolled.

NARRATOR: The instruments indicate that the plane

isn't pressurizing properly.

But, in the cabin, nothing seems wrong.

- Level off. - DAVIDGE: Okay.

Uh, Nationair 2120.

We'd like to just level off at 2000 feet, if that's okay?

We're having a slight pressurization problem.

NARRATOR: In the tower the controller has his hands full.

An odd coincidence is creating confusion.

Another plane is reporting the exact same problem.

Say call sign.

The controller thought he was talking to one aircraft

with a pressurization problem.

When, in fact, there were two aircrafts

reporting pressurization problems simultaneously.

I'd just like to level off at, uh, 2000 feet.

I've got a spoiler light.

NARRATOR: Wing spoilers reduce lift when planes are landing.

Since the crew hasn't deployed them,

the light points to yet another malfunction.

Gear unsafe light!

Uh, you, you can descend to 3000 feet.

NARRATOR: The controller believes he's talking

to the other distressed plane,

a Saudi Arabian aircraft.

Fly heading, uh, 160.

NARRATOR: Nationair is flying at 2400 feet.

Descending to 3000 doesn't make sense.

There's so much confusion going on between the tower and these two aircraft.

They're making a bad situation even worse.

NARRATOR: Allan thinks the controller wants him to climb.

Heading 130 and understand you want us up to 3000 feet.

That's affirmative. Fly heading 160, heading 160.

We're losing hydraulics here.

The loss of uh hydraulics has significant implications

in controlling the aircraft.

Okay 160. And we're losing our hydraulics here.

WILLIAM: You revert to what is called manual control

and, uh, it's already difficult with hydraulic assist

but manual control is even more difficult.

We're gonna need to, uh, come back to Jeddah to land.

NARRATOR: Flight 2120 is 13 kilometers from the airport

and flying away from it.

Roger. Understand you're going to land in Jeddah.

NARRATOR: To get back on the ground,

the crew will have to make a wide left turn.

It will take them further away from the airport,

before bringing them back over the city,

to line up with the runway.

In the cabin, the first signs of trouble.

Smoke. I smell smoke.

- JEAN-PAUL: Where? - Back there.

I'll take a look.

NARRATOR: The Nationair mechanic is about to discover the terrifying truth

behind Flight 2120's mysterious mechanical failures.

NARRATOR: Amid growing confusion in the cockpit,

the pilots of Flight 2120

still don't know that there's smoke in the cabin.

All they're dealing with is just all the alarm bells going off

to indicate that equipment is failing left, right and center.

NARRATOR: But mechanic Jean-Paul Philippe

realizes they're in serious trouble.

An onboard fire has the potential to consume the entire aircraft in seconds.

The air brake thing just broke.

We've got a flap slot light.

NARRATOR: Less than 3 minutes after takeoff,

passengers begin to notice something's wrong.

Okay, sir, we have a problem.

We're leveling here right at the moment.

Level off right now. Right now! Level off!

DAVIDGE: We're level three.

NARRATOR: The controller still believes he's talking to another plane.

Yeah, I will give you further instructions.

Descend right now to 3000 feet.

NARRATOR: Jeddah airport is now 20 kilometers away.

With the heaviest smoke at the back of the plane,

passengers rush forward, desperate for air.

Okay leveling at 3000 feet

and if you could give us a heading back toward the runway?

We're declaring an emergency.

We'll advise you of the problem.

We're declaring an emergency at this time.

Roger. Confirm you would like to be runway 16.

Uh, no, 34 would be better.

We're gonna need time to get ready for the landing.

So we have confusion between the two planes and the tower.

We have, unbeknownst to the pilot and the crew in the cockpit,

smoke billowing into the passengers', uh, seat area.

There's smoke in the back.

Real bad.

Yeah we're heading back. We've got a hydraulic problem. Okay.

This is the first indication that the pilot has of anything going on

in the back of the plane.

Should I tell the passengers?

Yeah. Just tell them we'll be returning to Jeddah.

They think they've got a hydraulic problem.

Now they have to grapple with this blaze

that is spreading through the rear of the aircraft.

So things are rapidly spinning out of control.

Okay let's get squared away and see what we've got here please.

NARRATOR: In the cabin, it's becoming almost

impossible to breath.

And Jeddah is still 19 kilometers away.

We've lost all hydraulics.

NARRATOR: The odds on making it back to the airport are getting slimmer.

Damn it! I've got no ailerons!

NARRATOR: Davidge can't steer the plane with no hydraulics.

Hang on, I've got it.

NARRATOR: Captain Allan struggles with his control column.

But it too could fail at any moment.

Let's get lined up before things get any worse.

ALLAN: Okay, so we're at 2000 feet now declaring an emergency.

We are having flight control problems.

Uh, Roger. Roger. I thought you were Saudi 738.

NARRATOR: Only now does the controller realize that the troubled aircraft

is the Nationair flight.

Uh, turn left, right now heading 080.

Expect runway three-four-left.

By this time, it's pandemonium inside the cabin.

The passengers are being engulfed by flames.

And bodies are starting to fall from the aircraft fuselage.

NARRATOR: The plane is right over Jeddah,

a city of 2 million people.

The bodies were falling out of the aircraft 11 miles from the airport.

Okay, sir, we're having trouble turning.

We are having flight control problems.

We can try to turn left but we are having flight control problems.

In the situation, uh, it would have madecertainly controlling

the aircraft for approaching landing very, very difficult.

How much further?

Ten miles. 1700 feet.

NARRATOR: Choking for air, some passengers try to open the doors.

At this speed it's impossible.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: No! No!

Jeddah 2120 cleared to land runway three-four, uh, left.

ALLAN: Okay. We're coming straight in. We'll land on the left.

Require emergency vehicles immediately.

We have a fire. We will be ground evacuating.

Jeddah 2120 clear to land any runway.

Clear to land.

There it is! It's two miles out!

Alright. Let's get on the ground.

I've lost elevators. Christ I have no control.

Landing gear down.

PILOT: (OVER RADIO) Saudi Air 738.

Nigeria Airlines is down just short of runway three-four-center.

NARRATOR: The fiery explosion, and sudden impact with the ground,

has all but obliterated Flight 2120.

REPORTER: (OVER TV) A trail of blackened debris

stained the desert half a mile short of Jeddah's main airport.

Little was left of the DC-8; such was the force of the impact.

NARRATOR: 247 passengers and 14 crew are dead.

This is the worst accident ever for a Canadian airline

and the deadliest crash of a DC-8 in history.

One day after the crash,

a team of Canadian investigators arrives in Jeddah.

They'll be joining the official Saudi investigation.

They now must figure out how a DC-8 bound for Nigeria.

Nigerian 2120 airborne two-nine.

NARRATOR: Ended up in pieces just ten minutes after taking off.

Has anything been removed?

We'd heard that there'd been an onboard fire

but really little more than that,

uh, beyond the fact that all the 261 souls onboard

had perished in the accident.

NARRATOR: Bill Taylor is the Transportation Safety Board

of Canada's technical expert.

BILL: My first view of the crash site was, uh, one of astonishment really

at the spread of the debris, the severity of the breakup.

Usually, there's some indication of recognizable parts of the aircraft,

but, uh, there was virtually nothing to identify it as an aircraft.

I can't even tell what most of this is.

It was critical for us to know what happened as quickly as possible,

because we're carrying millions of people all over the world.

And so we wanted to know if we had a problem.

Do we have a problem with our operation,

our equipment, our aircraft?

RON: The thing that impacts you

is when you're dealing with 247 passengers

and 14 crew all dead.

That's, that gets your attention.

And the fact that something as big as a DC-8

is now lying there in a zillion pieces,

all burned. Yeah. It has an effect.

BILL: I was responsible for performing a site survey

which identified the location of the major parts of the wreckage.

And searching for evidence of the source of the onboard fire.

NARRATOR: By mapping the spread of the debris.

Left, left, left.

NARRATOR: The investigators begin to get a picture

of what happened to the DC-8 at the moment of impact.

BILL: The fuel sprayed out in a, in a V-shape,

and instantaneous, uh, fire over that area.

Obviously what had happened, as the aircraft hit the ground

with a severe down motion, it ruptured all of the fuel tanks.

NARRATOR: The main wreckage sprawls across a stretch of desert

400 meters long and 200 meters wide.

A body was found 11 miles back from the crash site.

So the crash site actually starts 11 miles back.

So it's like 12 miles of things falling out of the airplane

and people falling out of the airplane.

We did see that whole sections of seats were melted and charred,

and, uh, obviously had people in them when they fell.

And everybody was, uh...

very bad injuries.

Let's just leave it at that.

NARRATOR: The most important question for investigators

is, "Where did the fire start?"

But with so much of the plane so badly burned,

it will be hard to plot the progress of the fire.

They need to distinguish between pieces that burned in the air

from those that caught fire on the ground.

Damage from an in-flight fire is, uh, usually considerably

greater than ground fire because of the extra heat

developed from the air flow giving the blow torch effect.

And, uh the effect on the metal is to heat it to the point

where, uh, it's almost molten,

whereas in a post-crash fire, it's an even coating,

and, uh, any material that melts drips straight down.

NARRATOR: The wreckage from the front of the plane

shows the least amount of fire damage.

Remnants from the centre fuselage are the most severely burned.

This indicates that the fire likely began in the plane's mid-section.

The center fuel cell had been penetrated by the fire

because there was one part of that wall

that you could see a clear burn-through pattern in the wall.

We found that the, uh, tail section of the airplane

was covered with molten aluminum,

indicating that the, uh, air stream had brought

parts of the melting airplane back.

NARRATOR: It's clear the fire grew hot enough to melt the fuselage

before the plane hit the ground.

But how the fire started is still a mystery.

Let's get all these pieces back to the hangar.

NARRATOR: The Saudi government provides a hangar

for the investigators to conduct a more in-depth analysis of the wreckage.

The lead investigator on the case

is the Transportation Safety Board's Ron Coleman.

The Saudis didn't have the expertise on the ground, or in the area,

and hadn't done any major accident investigations

that I was aware of.

And also, they didn't have any engineering lab capability and we did.

So they opted to let us do that work for them.

Let's put together what we can.

We knew that parts of the airplane had melted and part of the cabin

had burned away underneath the passengers.

We know that aluminum melts at 1100 degrees Celsius approximately.

So this thing would have been like a torch.

NARRATOR: Before investigators can reach any conclusions

about what caused the crash,

Nationair puts forward a theory of its own.

Early on Nationair claimed that a foreign object, a hunk of metal,

had been on the tarmac at Jeddah.

NARRATOR: Nationair makes that claim after learning remnants

of blown tires were found on the runway.

However, the Saudi aviation authorities said there was no evidence

of any foreign object on the tarmac,

uh, at any time before or after the crash.

NARRATOR: Canadian investigators now face two very different,

but equally disturbing, possibilities.

Either Nationair is rushing to judgment about why one of its planes went down,

or the Saudi aviation authority is attempting a cover-up.

NARRATOR: Examining the remains of Flight 2120's landing gear,

investigators discover that the wheels

may have had something to do with the crash.

One of the left wheel-rims shows clear signs

of having been scraped along the runway.

BILL: This is the, uh, number two wheel

that was recovered from the, uh, from the accident site.

You can see here, the area where the, uh, wheel was ground down.

You can imagine the kind of heat

that that would generate

running along the runway scraping off.

NARRATOR: At the crash site,

Bill Taylor makes a chance discovery.

It adds an unexpected new layer to the investigation.

I noticed a piece of paper blowing across the, uh, the site.

Picked it up and I could see there was handwritten notes on this paper.

And it turned out to be part of the A-flight inspection checklist.

Uh, and it was the actual page that recorded tire pressures.

Hey.

NARRATOR: The maintenance checklist shows that the tires

were inflated to normal pressure.

What is not normal is that there are two different colors of ink,

with a second entry written over the first.

It was apparent that, uh,

that the numbers had been changed at some point.

RON: It didn't look right.

We recommended that we send it to the RCMP

for them to look at it and see if it had been altered, the document,

because there is a law in the aviation industry

that no document shall be altered.

And this one looked suspect.

NARRATOR: The plane's flight data recorder

and the cockpit voice recorder

have been recovered.

Though it's far from certain whether any data has survived the intense heat,

and heavy impact.

We packaged them and transported them back to the Canadian lab for analysis.

NARRATOR: Tire tracks on the runway offer some intriguing clues

about what happened to Flight 2120.

Left main landing gear had been leaving marks,

rubber marks, to begin with.

So this is the outer left wheel.

BILL: These continued for some distance

and then we could see where the inboard front tire

of the left landing gear had lost its tire.

In other words, the tire had blown and the wheel had come down

into contact with the runway.

NARRATOR: From rubber marks on the runway, Taylor concludes that the aircraft

blew two adjacent tires, both from the left main landing gear.

What's that?

NARRATOR: It's an important discovery.

But they still don't know why the tires burst,

nor how that could have led to the catastrophic fire.

Let's spread it out see what's what.

NARRATOR: Investigators next examine pieces of tire found on the runway.

They're looking for any signs of a defect, or heavy tire wear.

BILL: Visual examination found that the, uh,

the tires had sufficient tread to continue in service.

Uh, they were worn but, uh, still pretty good shape.

NARRATOR: The discovery supports Nationair's claim.

It's possible that the DC-8 did,

in fact, hit something on the runway that caused a puncture.

Press releases at the time, uh, provided by the president of the company

stated that the cause of the tire failure was debris on the runway.

NARRATOR: Even with two blown tires.

Positive rate.

NARRATOR: Flight 2120 got airborne.

The connection between the blown tires and the calamity

that consumed the plane still isn't clear.

Okay let's get squared away and see what we've got here, please.

NARRATOR: In Ottawa, the Transportation Safety Board

has salvaged the cockpit voice recording.

But instead of solving the mystery it only adds to it.

FEHR: What's that?

We've got a flat tire, you figure?

NARRATOR: The voice recorder confirms that the crew suspected

they had a blown tire.

ALLAN: You're not leaning on the brakes, eh?

The pilot flying is the only one

that has his feet on the rudder pedals on the takeoff.

The rudder pedals are also the brake pedals.

No. I'm not.

I got my feet on the bottom of the rudder.

It can happen from time to time that you touch the brakes either

for directional control or inadvertently.

And I assume that, that's what the captain thought

that he might have inadvertently touched the brake pedal.

NARRATOR: Its common for pilots to take off with blown tires.

It's considered less dangerous than aborting a takeoff at high speeds.

Tire failures at the time were not an uncommon event,

nor are they today.

You takeoff successfully, continue on route

and land at destination without adverse consequences.

ALLAN: Okay we're leveling at 3000 feet

and if you could give us a heading back toward the runway?

NARRATOR: The Nationair crew finally does declare an emergency.

We're declaring an emergency.

We'll advise you of the problem.

We're declaring an emergency at this time.

NARRATOR: It's then, that the air traffic controller

realizes his mistake.

Roger. Roger. I thought you were Saudi 738.

LARRY: There was another flight coming inbound that was having problems

the air traffic controller thought that he was talking to the other aircraft.

CONTROLLER: (OVER RADIO) Roger. Confirm you would like to...

NARRATOR: Investigators wonder if that confusion contributed to the disaster

by delaying the DC-8's return to Jeddah.

Uh, no, 34 would be better.

We're gonna need time to get ready for the landing.

NARRATOR: But after studying air traffic communication transcripts

and analyzing the flight path,

they determine that the mix up did not add any time to the return journey.

As it turns out, this didn't have any effect

on the eventual crashing of the aircraft.

NARRATOR: The question remains;

could a blown tire have somehow led to an intense fire

that took down a commercial aircraft in 10 minutes?

At the Royal Canadian Mounted Police forensics lab,

technicians have analyzed the Nationair maintenance log.

Tests reveal two layers of ink on the log entries.

The readings for the tire pressure were written over.

And the actual readings that were underneath,

uh, showed 20 to 30 PSI

below the required levels to operate the plane and tires safely.

So the only conclusion that you could make from that

is that the entries were falsified.

Tell me what the plan was for the tires.

NARRATOR: With this troubling new information,

investigators now turn their attention

to the mechanics who last worked on the plane.

They learn that four days before the crash,

at a stop in Ghana, Africa,

mechanics wanted to change the tires.

The tread was beginning to wear, and the pressure was low.

The investigative team wants to learn more

about how Nationair managed day-to-day maintenance.

Bill Taylor is joined by operations expert Larry Vance.

What we did was look at all the operational issues.

And, uh, we looked at human factors;

basically, everything that had to do with the operation of the aircraft.

You're not going to believe what I just found.

NARRATOR: Taylor uncovers evidence that the tire change was never carried out.

A fax from the Nationair project manager in Jeddah ordered it stopped

so the plane could stay on schedule.

LARRY: They had a facsimile come in from the project manager.

Forget it. They want us to get going.

LARRY: Saying that some of their passengers

were being given off to other carriers,

which put some pressure on them to abandon their plan

to change the wheels.

It was felt it would have caused a greater delay.

So the fax came in and said,

"Stop the tire change. We're way behind.

We may lose the contract.

Load everybody up and get back."

And so they did.

They stopped the work.

Because Nationair is go, go, go, go,

nobody wants to deal with anything that could delay the departure.

NARRATOR: Rather than top-up the tires, a mechanic altered the log

to make it seem like the tire pressure was fine.

LARRY: There's no indication that they ever added pressure

to the tires to actually inflate them to that.

They just simply made the books look right.

NARRATOR: Three days later, the plane landed in Jeddah

with the same under-inflated tires.

At 5 a.m. the following morning,

the crew arrived for pre-flight checks.

20 minutes before takeoff,

lead mechanic Jean-Paul Philippe

finally decided to get the tires topped up.

He had waited for quite a long time.

I believe the passengers were onboard,

and the baggage was onboard.

Basically the flight was ready to leave

when he finally decided it was the right thing to do

to try and get nitrogen.

All the tanks are empty.

NARRATOR: Aircraft tires are inflated with nitrogen not air.

Nitrogen does not expand as much as air.

It's also less flammable.

He actually made an attempt to find nitrogen to top the tires up.

Listen, I just, I just need to top up two tires.

That's it.

NARRATOR: Philippe asked another airline to help.

I just need to top-up two tires.

They had nitrogen bottles but they were empty.

That didn't go very well.

It was reported to us that the project manager just simply said,

"Forget it. We're not going to get nitrogen.

We're gonna go without topping-up the tires."

And away they went.

He's not a commercial pilot or a trained mechanic.

NARRATOR: Investigators now conclude

that the project manager's lack of experience

was a critical factor in the accident.

LARRY: He was making operational-type decisions

on behalf of, or instead of,

some of the people who should have been making the decisions themselves,

and putting a stop to things like allowing the aircraft

to fly with under-inflated tires.

Oh let me guess. We gotta go.

It was something new and was to have, uh,

actually assisted us in being better prepared

and operating more effectively.

In hindsight, the irony is the reverse actually happened,

that additional pressure was put on the crews.

Any decision to takeoff with an unworthy airplane,

or tires that were low,

ultimately should have been communicated to the captain,

because the captain is the person that's responsible

for the safety of the airplane and the crew.

NARRATOR: But that didn't happen.

No one in the cockpit was likely aware the tires were under inflated

before take-off.

WILLIAM: I don't think that this flight engineer

would find it significant to see the values on the tire pressures,

uh, were changed as that is not an unusual occurrence

on a journey log.

Incorrect values are added and they're changed or fixed.

NARRATOR: Before it crashed, claiming 261 lives,

the same plane took off and landed

seven times with the under-inflated tires.

Records show that the plane's loaded weight

was about the same for each flight.

So why did the tires blow on July 11th at Jeddah?

How long is that taxiway anyway?

NARRATOR: Investigators suspect the answer relates to the sheer size

of the airport combined with extreme desert temperatures.

It was something like 11 minutes of taxiing with several turns.

So it was a long taxi before they even started the takeoff run.

They taxied for five kilometers.

The tire must have been burning up on the tarmac.

NARRATOR: The DC-8's main landing gear consists of a left and right bogie,

each with four wheels.

Uniform tire pressure is important.

It ensures the weight of the plane is distributed evenly

betweenall 8 wheels.

When you have an under-inflated tire,

that total weight then is distributed over the remaining wheels.

It would be felt on the axle-mate of the low pressure tire.

We calculated, using our weight and balance figures,

that the pressure for that day would have been 183 PSI.

It's pretty clear from the RCMP investigation

that one of the tires was 155 PSI.

NARRATOR: That's 28 Pounds per square inch below the safe level.

Added to that; the effects of a long taxi run,

on a scorchingly hot taxiway.

During taxi, there's an opportune time for tires to heat,

and particularly tires that are under-inflated

to heat up, flex and so on.

When you get over-deflection, or excessive bending,

in that area, it generates heat.

If you generated enough heat,

uh, the nylon begins to melt and pulls apart.

The tire blows.

What's that?

NARRATOR: The first tire to burst was not the low one,

but the one right beside it.

90 knots now.

NARRATOR: The under-inflated tire blew next.

The wheel rim hit the runway.

And when that started to drag and wear down the runway,

it got super hot.

NARRATOR: Hot enough to ignite the rubber tires.

The crew took the fire into the air with them,

and it quickly consumed the plane.

So as soon as this aircraft took off and they retracted the landing gear

there was basically no surviving.

Gear up.

The fire was going to spread.

There's smoke in the back. Real bad.

They were gonna crash.

Just tell them, we'll be returning to Jeddah.

It's all over, ten seconds after they lift off.

When the aircraft got airborne, positive rate, the gear up,

and the gear went into the wheel wells on fire.

Unfortunately, the DC-8 did not have any heat or fire indication

to tell the crew that they had a problem

with the landing gear in the wheel well area.

The fire begins in this tire.

NARRATOR: Investigators now know where the fire started,

and why it spread so quickly.

The left wheel well burns first.

Using the remnants of the tire and perhaps hydraulic fluid as the fuel,

this fire continued to burn in the wheel well.

We might be losing pressurization.

Pressurization is uncontrolled.

Next, this bundle of wires, the wiring from the spoiler line.

I've got a spoiler light.

The fire's spreading fast.

It's reached here, the main hydraulic line.

We're losing hydraulics here.

By now, the fire's reached the very top of the wheel well.

It's eating through the emergency wheel brake.

The air brake thing just broke.

Then the fire hits the right wheel well and this bundle of wires.

It shorts out the flap slot light.

RON: We have electrical wires.

We have hydraulic fluid. All highly flammable.

We've got a flap slot light.

And you've got the air rushing at you at 240 knots.

Now the fire breaches the wheel well,

making its way up towards the cabin,

burning through the aileron controls on the first officer's side.

Damn it! I've got no ailerons!

Clearly a fire in the wheel well is a very dangerous thing

because of what's in the wheel well.

This is the way the airplanes have been designed

and they function fairly well

until something like this happens and we find out,

oh, perhaps that wasn't a very good place to put this.

Once it's burned through the main fuel tank here,

it's all over.

He had no idea as to what would ensue when he lowered that landing gear.

Landing gear down.

The fire had compromised the structure to the point

where when this action of lowering the gear took place,

it destroyed the airframe.

(EXPLOSION)

REPORTER: (OVER TV) The official accident report

issued almost two years after the crash found the DC-8 was unfit to fly.

I don't believe that the people who were making the decisions

had in their heads

that this was a hazardous thing that they were doing.

NARRATOR: The report lists several causes for the crash,

including the lack of fire prevention equipment in the wheel wells,

and the decision to release the plane with under-inflated tires.

The mechanics working on this aircraft were not fully aware

of the hazards involved in low tire pressures.

NARRATOR: A number of critical changes came about after this accident.

Smoke, fire and temperature sensors in the wheel wells are now mandatory

on all modern aircraft.

Most critically, all crews are trained

on the importance of properly inflated tires.

Forget it. They want us to get going.

NARRATOR: The accident was a major factor in the collapse of Nationair in 1993.

The accident I think was probably the beginning of the end.

Uh, our emphasis of production over protection,

uh, really identified the main weakness in the company.

Let me guess. Look, we gotta go.

ANDREW: You can only pressure your people to cut corners so many times,

and put pressure on them to, uh, keep to schedule so many times,

and put dollars ahead of safety so many times

before something will go terribly wrong like it did in this Nationair crash.