Original subtitles

(narrator): Soon after departing Riyadh,

the pilots of Saudia Flight 1-6-3 get terrifying news.

- Fire! Fire in the cabin!

- A fire in the cabin can spread very, very rapidly.

- Fire equipment is in standby positions and ready.

- The passengers were probably terrified.

(coughing)

(narrator): They're able to return to the airport.

- Okay, we are shutting down the engines now and evacuating.

(narrator): But only minutes later...

- Saudia, 1-6-3, do you read?

(narrator): ...everyone onboard is dead.

- None of it made any sense.

(narrator): Investigators discovery critical evidence

on the cockpit voice recorder.

- It's just smoke in the aft.

- And continually downplaying the situation.

- If he had gone back to see for himself,

then perhaps things would have been different.

- Mayday, Mayday!

(indistinct radio chatter)

(narrator): It's twenty past nine on a hot evening

at Saudi Arabia's Riyadh International Airport.

- Saudia 1-1-2 line up and hold.

Clear to leave Riyadh via DURMA.

Climb and maintain three five zero, left turn from takeoff.

(narrator): In the tower, controllers are handling a full roster of flights.

Most are scheduled after sunset when the heat dies down.

Everything is running smoothly...

(radio): Riyadh, Saudia 1-6-3.

(narrator): ...until a recently departed Saudia flight calls in.

- Go ahead. - Uh, 1-6-3,

we're returning back to Riyadh.

(narrator): ...which changes everything.

- Cleared to reverse course back to Riyadh.

Request reason.

(radio): Saudia 1-6-3, we've got a fire in the cabin

and please alert the fire trucks.

- This is extremely dangerous.

It doesn't get any more serious than this.

This is basically a pilot's worst-case nightmare.

- Okay, cleared back.

You can descend to any altitude you'd like.

- 1-6-3, we can descend to any altitude.

- When an aircraft reports to the air traffic control tower

that they have a fire onboard,

they clear other airplanes out of the way

and that airplane is given top priority to land

and an evacuation should then ensue.

(narrator): The flight originated in Karachi, Pakistan

before stopping over in Riyadh.

It was heading to Jeddah but now must turn back.

- You are number one for landing.

- 1-6-3.

(narrator): Saudia Flight 1-6-3 is a Tristar L-10-11.

- The L-10-11 is a three engine,

wide body, long-range transport airplane.

It was designed to go very long distances,

carry hundreds of people, had excellent performance,

and mechanically reliable.

(narrator): There are 287 passengers on board

and some at the rear of the cabin are having difficulty breathing.

(coughing) The smoke is the first

indication of a fire the pilots reported to air traffic control.

- The passengers were probably terrified,

and the aircraft needed to be on the ground as soon as possible.

(narrator): 38-year-old Captain Mohammed Ali Khowyter is the pilot flying.

He's been with Saudia for fifteen years

and is now responsible for getting the plane and passengers back safely.

26-year-old first officer, Sami Abdullah Hasanain

is the pilot monitoring.

(radio): How many passengers on board?

(pilot, on radio): We've got a full load.

- I would declare an emergency.

- Yeah.

(narrator): American Bradley Curtis is the flight engineer.

- You really could not fly an airplane like the L-10-11

without a flight engineer to manage

all of the aircraft systems that modern day aircraft

are all done by automation.

(narrator): Flight 1-6-3 is now less than four minutes from the airport...

(coughing) - Ladies and gentlemen,

please stay in your seats.

(narrator): Emergency crews are standing by.

(radio): Riyadh, Saudia 1-6-3, ten miles final.

Runway in sight. Are we cleared to land?

- 1-6-3, cleared to land, wind three two zero at five.

- Cleared to land. Can you confirm you alerted the fire trucks?

- Affirmative. - Thank you.

Riyadh, Saudia 1-6-3.

(narrator): As the smoke in the cabin increases,

the purser does her best to prepare passengers for landing.

(coughing)

- Place your hands behind your head,

head between your knees.

(narrator): Saudia 1-6-3 has been on fire

for at least 17 minutes.

- A fire in the cabin can spread very, very rapidly.

It can be very difficult to contain.

So it becomes a race against time.

- Saudia, 1-6-3, fire equipment is in standby positions and ready.

- Please advise the fire trucks to be at the tail

of the airplane after touchdown please.

- Yes, will do.

(computer): Thirty...

Twenty... Ten.

(narrator): The L-10-11 touches down

sixteen minutes after the crew first called in the fire.

(sirens blaring)

- Tower, could you advise if there is any fire

in the tail of the aircraft? - Stand by.

Guys, do you see a fire in the tail?

(narrator): The controller checks with the fire team on the ground.

- Negative. We don't see flames.

- No, no fire.

They say no, nothing they can see.

- 1-6-3.

(narrator): Saudia 1-6-3 now turns onto a taxiway...

...and comes to a stop.

- Once the aircraft comes to a full stop,

it, theoretically, should be able to be evacuated

in under ninety seconds.

- Saudia 1-6-3, do you want to continue to the ramp,

or do you want to shut down?

(pilot): Stand by...

Okay, we are shutting down the engines now and evacuating.

- Okay, Saudia 1-6-3,

understand you are holding and shutting down.

- Affirmative and evacuating.

- When you have a fire in the cabin,

the available oxygen is being eaten up very quickly.

Passengers cannot breathe.

They are being overcome by smoke and fumes...

And you have to get the doors open and get people out.

(narrator): The plane's doors remain closed.

The fire is spreading.

- There's fire in the tail!

Tell him to turn the engines off.

(narrator): Firefighters are unable to approach the plane.

- With an aircraft of this size,

even with those engines at idle speed,

they can actually still suck individuals into the engines.

- The Captain said he's switching off the engines

and evacuating now. Put the fire out please.

- We can't because the engines are still running.

The engines are still running, I can hear them.

- So as these toxic substances continue to build,

such as carbon monoxide, eventually,

you lose consciousness and you die.

- Saudia, 1-6-3, do you read?

Saudia 1-6-3, do you read?

Saudia 1-6-3, if you read, shut down the engines.

(narrator): There's no response from the cockpit

and no signs of an evacuation.

- So, none of it made any sense.

(narrator): Three minutes and fifteen seconds

after stopping on the taxiway, flames consume the aircraft.

Not a single person escapes.

- My heart breaks for them.

(narrator): The next morning,

the scale of the devastation is clear.

The fire has obliterated the upper fuselage

from tail fin to cockpit.

All 301 people on board are dead.

It's the second deadliest

single aircraft disaster to date.

- It was a very tragic situation,

it was just inconceivable to everyone.

(narrator): It's now up to investigators

to sift through the smoldering wreckage

to find out what happened.

- Flight 1-6-3 had two main questions

to present to the investigators.

One was why the aircraft came to a stop

and didn't evacuate the passengers?

And the other was, why was there a fire

on this aircraft in the first place?

Transportation Safety Board,rl

or NTSB,

and the aircraft manufacturer Lockheed

send investigators to Riyadh to help the Saudis

determine the cause of the catastrophic fire on Flight 163.

- The Saudis were in charge,

according to international rules.

But they didn't have a lot of major aircraft

accident experience, so the U.S. NTSB

supported them and helped them with the investigation.

- Just some soot. The black box should be fine.

- The crew were found in their seats.

But look at where the passengers

and some of the flight attendants were found.

(narrator): Investigators discover that passengers

had moved forward and gathered near the doors.

- After the airplane came to a stop,

there must have been mass confusion.

- Did they try to open the doors?

- It doesn't look like it.

None of the emergency handles were pulled.

- The fact that no one attempted to open the doors

from the inside of the aircraft

leads me to believe that they were already incapacitated

and could not open their doors.

(narrator): They examine the devastated cabin

to figure out how the fire started.

- It looks like someone tried to put out the fire.

- The roof was totally gone.

The sides were gone. Everything was burned away.

The seat frames with the fabrics were all burned away.

Total destruction in the cabin area.

- There's something at the back you're gonna wanna see.

- Wow.

What do we have here?

(Ron): When we got to the back part of the airplane,

on the left side, in the aisle, was a hole in the floor.

- It looks like the fire came up through the floor.

- Mm-hmm.

(narrator): The hole is the investigators' first clue

about the origin of the fire.

(coughing)

- Yeah. We need to get down there.

(Ron): Appeared to me, that's where the fire started,

under that hole.

Because a fire burns up, not down,

so that made us want to know what was beneath that hole?

- Be careful there.

(narrator): Investigators examine the cargo compartment

below the rear cabin.

- It looks like the fire burned a hole

through the compartment ceiling right here.

- The fuel lines are scorched.

- The throttle and flight control cables are damaged too.

(narrator): On a Tristar, the control cables,

throttle cables and fuel lines run through an 8-inch space

above the rear cargo compartment.

Did a burst fuel line cause the fire?

(Bob): When investigating any fire, you're looking

for the causes that may be very obvious engineering things,

mechanical things that you look at,

to try and see if you can eliminate those sources of fire and ignition.

(narrator): Investigators also discover a burned-out hole

on the left side of the compartment.

- It looks like a burst hydraulic pipe, some melted wires.

- Maybe an electrical short or a hydraulic leak caused the fire?

(Ron): When we looked inside that cargo compartment,

there were all kinds of possibilities

of what could have caused the fire.

(narrator): They remove the charred mechanical

components for further testing.

- As part of the investigation, there were several things

we wanted to eliminate at the start, including:

was it electrical failure?

Was it a hydraulic systems failure,

or some other mechanical failure?

(narrator): If there is a fault in one of the systems

on this plane, then the Tristar fleet,

nearly 200 planes flying worldwide,

could be at risk as well.

- We got the results.

(narrator): Lab tests have been performed on the fuel,

electrical and hydraulic systems from Saudia Flight 1-6-3.

- No detectable evidence that the fuel system leaked.

- What about the electrical system?

- No. There were no shorts.

And the hydraulic systems were also fine.

(Ron): The tests we conducted indicated that all the failures

that occurred with the systems were caused by the fire.

They did not cause the fire.

- So the fire must have started inside the cargo bay.

We need to rule out a bomb.

(Ron): A bomb expert from the U.K. was brought in

and his expertise is to determine

if there was explosives or incendiary devices.

(narrator): Nine months earlier, the Great Mosque in Mecca

was seized by insurgents who called for the overthrow of Saudi Arabia's rulers.

Hundreds of worshipers were killed.

Did extremists plant a bomb in the luggage compartment

of this flight headed to Mecca?

- No evidence of a timing device.

No structural damage suggesting an explosion.

No small fragments in the structure.

- So no bomb.

- The bomb experts did an exhaustive search

and examination of the wreckage. Including was it electrical.

His investigation revealed no explosives,

no incendiary devices.

- Let's check previous cargo fires for patterns.

- Good idea.

(narrator): Are there any clues

from cases similar to that of Saudia Flight 1-6-3?

(Ron): We looked at previous in-flight fires

and fires on airplanes in cargo compartments,

to see what caused those,

to see if it would point us in a direction.

- Matches. - Matches?

- Take a look.

Last year, British officials identified

three different incidents in which matches had started

a fire in luggage being loaded onto a plane.

- Hard to believe this is even possible.

(Ron): We had one incident where the luggage

was thrown into the cargo pit.

It started smoking and then caught fire.

And matches, in those days, were not safety matches.

Today, it will not ignite unless it's on a special fabric.

(matches rattling) - You ready?

(narrator): Investigators test how easily matches could ignite.

(slamming)

(slamming)

(sizzling) (Ron): If you hit it

with something hard and "poof", it would catch fire.

That was the non-safety matches.

It surprised us that the matches could catch fire so easily.

So it was a serious hazard.

(narrator): The theory that matches were the source of the fire seemed possible.

Passengers on this particular flight

were likely to pack them in their luggage.

(coughing)

- Many of the passengers on the airplane were pilgrims

heading to Mecca and they would have had stoves with them

to cook when they were camping out.

They would have had matches to start the stoves.

- Matches seem like the most likely cause.

- Mm-hmm.

(Ron): We didn't find any evidence of matches causing the fire,

but obviously that evidence would have been destroyed.

But it was a pretty good hunch on our part.

(narrator): But if some luggage actually caught fire,

would it be enough to bring down a sophisticated jetliner?

- Fire in a cargo compartment

isn't supposed to be able to spread.

- The compartment should have sealed off

and starved the fire of any oxygen.

- Maybe the compartment's fire suppression system failed.

(narrator): Unlike the air-tight cargo holds

at the front of the airplane,

which were designed to hold cargo containers,

the aft hold was designed for passengers' baggage

and any pets they were traveling with.

- The aft cargo compartment was different

than all of the other cargo compartments on this aircraft

because it was designed to be able to hold live animals,

so it was pressurized, and it had a source of fresh air.

(narrator): An inlet fan and three valves allow for airflow.

But if smoke sets off one or both detectors,

the fan stops and the valves close,

sealing the compartment

and cutting off the supply of oxygen.

- In the case of Flight 1-6-3,

obviously, something in that self-extinguishing system

did not take place and the fire continued.

- Okay. Let's see if they work.

(narrator): Investigators test both of the cargo compartments'

smoke detectors to determine if they are functioning properly.

(sizzling)

- Okay. That one's working. What about the other one?

- The smoke detectors were working.

- There must be another reason

why oxygen continued to fuel the fire.

- Maybe there was something wrong with the compartment itself?

- Good point.

Let's find out.

- Smoke detectors were working correctly,

but the fire spread, even though it was supposed

to have been self-extinguished.

And we needed to find out why.

- Let mecs

(narrator): Investigators Andexamine the specificationy.

of the rear cargo compartment on board Saudia Flight 1-6-3

to better understand how it's designed to contain a fire.

- According to this, it's considered a Class D cargo compartment.

- The designation states that a Class D compartment is 500 cubic feet.

What's the size of the L-10-11 compartment?

- The L-10-11's cargo compartment is... 700 cubic feet.

(narrator): The cargo compartment on the L-10-11

is 200 cubic feet bigger than its original design.

- We determined that the original certification

of a Class D cargo compartment was based on smaller airplanes.

(narrator): Over the three decades since 1950,

the aircraft design changed.

It grew in size, including the Class D cargo compartments.

- If the compartment was larger, that means there's more oxygen.

- Maybe that fueled the fire instead of extinguishing it.

(Bob): It appears that the bigger the aircraft got,

the bigger compartments got.

There was no modification of the self-extinguishment of the compartments.

(narrator): Investigators recreate a cargo compartment

that matches the specifications of Saudia 1-6-3's aft cargo bay

to test its ability to self-extinguish.

Matches and an igniter are placed inside the compartment

to start the fire from a safe distance.

(sighing)

- Okay, let's see what happens.

- Let's see if the fire extinguishes.

- It's progressing quickly.

(narrator): As investigators expected,

the fire does not burn out.

- A small fire that in a normal Class D compartment

would extinguish and burn all its oxygen up,

in a large compartment, it wouldn't do that.

It had too much oxygen.

- It's burning through the fire-resistant liner.

- The L-10-11 construction of the cargo compartment

included the use of a Nomex liner

that's used for fire suits.

And it was thought that that would protect the compartment

and allow for this self-extinguishment.

(sighing)

- Instead of burning out,

it burned through the liner in...

...2 minutes and 59 seconds.

(sighing)

That explains why the fire wasn't contained.

(Ron): Well, we were quite surprised

by the findings of our tests of the Nomex.

It failed, miserably and permitted the fire

to spread much quicker than we had suspected.

(narrator): The extra oxygen in the larger compartment

fuels the fire intensely and long enough

to penetrate the Nomex liner, progressing into the sidewall,

ceiling and damaging the plane's components.

At the same time, smoke escapes the cargo compartment

and seeps through the air vents into the cabin.

Eventually, flames penetrate the cabin floor.

(coughing)

Why the pilots didn't stop and shut the engines down sooner,

which would have prevented the fire from spreading

throughout the plane,

now remains Saudia 1-6-3's biggest mystery.

- Why there was not an immediate stop,

and an attempt to evacuate the passengers?

All these things make no sense.

- What was your first indication that there was a problem?

(narrator): Investigators turn to the air traffic controller

for further details.

- Twelve minutes into the flight,

the crew reported a fire in the cabin and asked to turn back.

(pilot, on radio): Riyadh, Saudia 1-6-3.

- Go ahead.

- Uh, 1-6-3, we're returning back to Riyadh.

- Cleared to reverse course back to Riyadh.

Request reason.

- Saudia 1-6-3, we've got fire in the cabin.

And please alert the fire trucks.

(on phone): And then? - The approach back was normal.

So was the landing.

- How did they sound?

- The communications seemed normal.

Even after they stopped on the taxiway.

Saudia 1-6-3, do you want to continue to the ramp?

Or do you want to shut down?

(pilot): Standby...

Okay, we are shutting down the engines now and evacuating.

- And you couldn't see the fire?

- Not until after they had stopped.

The plane just sat there with the engines running

for another three minutes.

When they finally shut them down, I guess it was too late.

(narrator): It's still not clear

why the engines were not shut down sooner.

Or why the plane wasn't stopped

on the runway right after touchdown.

- The captain's decision not to stop the aircraft

immediately after landing and evacuate was reckless

and irresponsible, in my mind.

It is imperative that you get the passengers out

as quickly as possible.

(narrator): While investigators will never know

why the engines weren't shut down in time,

could something have prevented the pilots from stopping

the plane earlier on the runway?

- Nothing unusual here.

(narrator): They scrutinize the recorded flight data.

- It looks like a normal flight.

- Do we have the data on the braking system?

Maybe the brakes failed.

- Here it is.

(narrator): Did the brake hydraulics fail,

preventing the pilots from stopping the plane?

- See for yourself.

(Ron): Our examination of the airplane revealed

that the braking system was working fine

and the pilot could have easily stopped the airplane on the runway.

- It's as if the crew was flying a plane that wasn't even on fire.

- Why did they allow the aircraft to roll to the end of the runway,

and then to taxi onto a taxiway,

and then take over three minutes to shut the engines down?

All of these behaviors are not consistent with how most crews,

if not all crews, would handle an emergency like that.

- We need to find out what went on in that cockpit.

- I'll check on the progress of the CVR download.

(narrator): The investigation now hinges on the cockpit voice recorder or CVR.

Can it explain why the pilots treated the landing

like a normal flight instead of an emergency?

(sirens blaring)

- You reviewed the recordings? - Oh yeah.

You need to hear this for yourself.

(narrator): Investigators listen to how the crew

of Saudia Flight 1-6-3 dealt with the onboard fire.

- Let's start from when the smoke alarms go off

7 minutes into takeoff.

(alarm buzzing) - B aft cargo?

Smoke detection B aft cargo.

Now it's A. That's both of them.

- Hold on...

The alarms go off long before they report a fire.

- They got two smoke warnings.

And then there was a five minute and thirty second

delay before they turned around.

- Why the wait?

- We have smoke in there?

(narrator): The Captain sounds skeptical.

- I would say so, yeah.

- What's the procedure for it in the checklist?

There isn't anything about it in the abnormal procedures, huh?

- Nothing about it.

- Pause the recording.

They waste time going through the smoke alarm procedures

before deciding to turn around?

- And on top of that, they're looking in the wrong place.

They should be looking in the emergency section.

- There was obvious confusion between checklists.

The emergency checklists need to be immediate action.

And the abnormal checklists are actions that you take

to avoid getting into some sort of an emergency condition.

- There's a lack of urgency here.

- Shall I go back there and see if I can smell something?

- Okay, sure.

- Okay. If I can, uh, see or smell anything, I think we better go back.

- Okay. Sure.

(narrator): 40 seconds later...

- Yeah. We got a fire back there.

- We do? - Yeah, we do.

- It's okay. Tell control we're heading back.

(narrator): The Captain is surprised to learn there's a fire.

Only then does he turn the plane back to Riyadh.

It's been five-and-a-half minutes since the first alarm.

- I would declare an emergency.

- Yeah.

(radio): Cleared to reverse course back to Riyadh.

Request reason.

- Uh, declare emergency?

- Fire!

Fire in the cabin.

(door closing)

- The engineer has already told him

there's a fire and his purser has corroborated that.

(coughing)

- The captain doesn't declare an emergency.

And it happens again.

Cue it up to 22:50, 15 minutes into the flight.

- Did we declare an emergency?

- Negative. - Okay.

The fire trucks will be waiting for us though?

- Yes.

- The captain is ignoring his crew.

- In the 1980s, the captain was "God" on the airplane.

There was never any discussion about including

any other crew members in his decision-making process.

And arrogance and hubris may very well have played a large role in this.

- It gets even more disturbing

when the captain is asked about evacuating.

Play those selections.

(radio): Shall we evacuate?

- That's the purser in the cockpit again.

- Can we evacuate all the passengers?

- Flaps ten, please.

(narrator): The captain ignores the purser's question.

- When we're on the ground, yes.

- Flaps ten.

- The captain was asked a total of seven times

if an evacuation was going to happen.

And each time, he ignored the request.

- There were two other people in the cockpit.

What were they doing? - The first officer, not much.

- I would declare an emergency.

- Yeah.

(radio): Cleared to reverse course back to Riyadh.

Request reason.

- Uh, declare emergency?

- He never once challenged the captain's stubbornness.

- The first officer was silent and passive.

The captain just left the first officer

completely out of the picture and continued to fly.

- What about the flight engineer?

(narrator): Reviewing the transcripts,

investigators discover a troubling pattern.

- If anything, he made the situation worse.

- How so?

- By repeatedly downplaying the situation,

continually saying things like, "no problem".

(narrator): Less than a minute after the flight engineer

reports fire in the cabin,

the captain asks him to do another check.

This time, he returns with a different assessment.

- It's just smoke in the aft.

- Okay, we're going back to Riyadh.

- Okay, no problem.

Everybody's panicking in the back though.

No problem. No problem.

No problem at all.

- Downplaying the severity of the situation

can most certainly affect the captain's perception

of what exactly is going on.

- What happens on the ground?

- Well, it's hard to know.

Play it from the five-hundred-foot alert.

(computer): 500. - And 500.

- Hydraulic?

- You got low pressure on number two.

Looking good. (beep)

- Tell them to not evacuate.

(purser): Place your hands behind your head,

head between your knees.

- Uh, no need for that. We're okay.

No problem. No problem.

(computer): Minimums. Minimums.

One hundred. - One hundred.

- One hundred.

(computer): Fifty. - Fifty.

(computer): Forty. (pilot): Forty.

(computer): Thirty. (pilot): Thirty.

(recording crackling)

- The fire is so severe at this point

that it burns through the CVR's electrical.

(narrator): Just before touchdown, the fire destroys

the wiring that powers the cockpit voice recorder.

It's a setback for the investigation.

- We have no idea of the chaotic nature

of what was going on in the cockpit at that time.

- He wasted five minutes deciding to turn around.

He wouldn't declare an emergency even though

he's been told there's a fire in the cabin.

He failed to evacuate everybody on that plane.

- And the other pilots did nothing to change his thinking.

- What kind of emergency training did this crew have?

- Let's pull their files and see.

(narrator): Investigators examine the pilot records

of Saudia 1-6-3's crew members

to determine if they were properly trained

to deal with a fire. - Hmm...

This does not look good.

The first officer was dropped from pilot training,

but reinstated two years later

"as a result of committee action".

Committee action?

(Ron): I have a different term for "committee action",

it's friends or family.

He wanted to be a pilot.

He was gonna be a pilot

and someone helped him become a pilot.

- That's nothing compared to the flight engineer.

Listen to this: "Failed to qualify

as a captain and first officer."

He was only hired by the airline as a flight engineer

after paying for his own training.

(Ron): The flight engineer was also another incompetent person.

He flunked previous training,

and he paid for it out of his pocket

to become certified as a flight engineer.

- Well, the captain's training history is no better.

(narrator): The records show that the captain's

qualifications were also questionable.

- "Slow to learn."

"Needed more training than normally required."

"Difficulty varying from a set pattern".

(Ron): The captain's training record indicated

that he was indecisive and slow

and that was all reflected in the events of this accident.

All three of these guys were extremely weak.

None of 'em should have been in a cockpit

and certainly not three of 'em together.

- It was literally a crew pairing

of an accident waiting to happen.

If anything unusual was going to occur,

these people were going to, uh,

descend into some state of confusion,

which is exactly what happened.

(typewriter clacking)

(narrator): Because the cockpit voice recorder failed

just before the Tristar landed,

the investigation was unable to determine

why the captain didn't order an evacuation.

But they did point to his actions as contributing factors.

- It is possible that the captain was in denial

about the severity of the fire, and the situation in the cabin.

But if he had gone back to see for himself,

then perhaps things would have been different.

- The other thing to consider is that air crews realize

that if they shut an airplane down on a runway

that that effectively closes the airport.

These are things that could put your job in jeopardy.

So who really knows what his logic was.

But what is certainly clear was this captain was definitely

not in command of this emergency.

(narrator): Even though investigators are unable

to confirm that matches were the source of the fire,

they do recommend improvements for all cargo compartments.

- To make the cargo compartments safe,

you had to put a fire extinguisher in there,

detectors and extinguishers.

And that's what we recommended they do.

(narrator): They also recommend removing the Nomex liner.

(Bob): The investigation went back to the manufacturer.

They identified a way to improve the resistance

of the compartment to replace the Nomex

and return the compartment

to a full idea of self-extinguishment.

(narrator): The Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA,

considers the recommendations.

But, it's not until 1998,

almost two decades later,

that the FAA changes the regulation.

Now all cargo compartments on commercial airliners

must contain both fire detection and fire suppression systems.

In the aftermath of the tragedy,

Saudia asks Bob Macintosh

to revamp its safety training and procedures.

- I was hired to form a corporate safety department.

And it was my pleasure to do that for my six years there.

- There were numerous lessons that we learned

from how cargo compartments are designed.

And much better designed flame-retardant materials

are now used throughout the cabin.

Our aviation system is safer because of this accident.

- All those things are wonderful takeaways

from a very, very tragic situation.

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