All language subtitles for Air.Disasters.S02E04.Panic.on.the.Runway.1080p.PMTP.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-maldini_track3_[eng]

Beatours 28,
you are clear for takeoff.

80 knots.

Stop!

Don't hammer the brakes.
Don't hammer the brakes.

137 people

are on board this British
Airtours flight.

Within minutes, nearly
half of them will be dead.

This should not really
have happened.

Evacuate, evacuate!

The aircraft
didn't even get airborne.

It didn't run off the runway.

And yet, still
55 people were killed.

For investigators,
it's a familiar routine--

reconstructing the final moments
inside the cabin,

analyzing the wreckage
and the flight data recorders.

In the end, they turn
to a psychologist

to help them figure out
how a survivable emergency

turned into one
of British aviation's

most horrific disasters.

Ladies and gentlemen,

we are starting our approach.

We lost both engines!

Put the mask over your nose.

Emergency descent.

Mayday, mayday.

Brace for impact!

I think I lost one.

Investigation starting...

Man: He's gonna crash!

Just before
six in the morning

on August the 22nd, 1985,

Manchester's Airport
is coming to life.

The first flights of the day
are being prepped for departure.

British Airtours Flight 28 is
scheduled to take 131 passengers

from Manchester to
the Greek island of Corfu.

British Airtours is a division
of British Airways,

specializing in low cost flights
to vacation destinations.

It's a chilly morning.

A slight breeze is blowing.

Ideal flying weather.

Most of the passengers
on this early morning flight

are traveling on vacation.

Lindsay Davies
is heading to Greece

with her boyfriend
Charlie Thickson.

All right, let's go.

We'd been going out
with each other for a year,

and that's one of the reasons
we were so excited about it.

You know, it was our
first holiday together.

Captain Peter Terrington

is in command.

I was the senior
training captain

on the fleet.

First officer Brian Love

is being trained by Terrington.

He was going to
perform a takeoff and landing,

as part of his training.

All right, captain?

Yep.

Ah, briefing, then, Brian.

Airfield emergencies.

You handling the aircraft.

What are the four things
you're going to stop for?

Fire, failure,
configuration warning,

or you shouting stop.

Okay. So you
bring the thing to a stop

and I'll take over the aircraft

and leave you to deal
with the emergency.

I'll deal with the ATC.

Okay?

If you've talked about
the possibility of emergency

and talked over
what you would do,

then if it actually happens,

it's easier to recall
those items.

Okay, Brian, start two.

Starting two.

Oil pressure rising.

Okay, go one.

24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29.

129 plus 2 on board, captain.

All strapped in, doors are
closed and automatic.

Thank you, Arthur.

The crew is flying
a Boeing 737.

It takes just four minutes

for the plane to reach
the foot of the runway.

Beatours 28,
you are clear for takeoff.

The 737 has 3,300 yards

to get to take-off speed.

The engines are pushed
to high power.

I was sitting
by the window,

looking out of the window.

Everything was normal.

The plane was going quite fast.

80 knots.

Check.

We heard a dull thud,

which sounded as if
it came from outside.

I was really keen to see
what was going on outside

but couldn't see anything.

Captain Terrington
needs to act fast.

Stop!

And the immediate reaction
was to stop.

We were quite a few knots
below our decision speed,

so I very quickly
closed the throttles

and applied reverse thrust.

We could feel
the aircraft slowing down,

and I thought we'd blown a tire,

and I didn't know,
so we just waited to hear.

Don't hammer the brakes.

Don't hammer the brakes!

I thought the tire
might have gone

and would cause damage
to the undercarriage

if we braked too strongly.

Probably nothing.

I wouldn't worry.

I just assumed that
maybe a tire had burst,

so I wasn't really alarmed
at that point.

My thought at that time
was, oh, okay,

we're going to get
off this plane

and probably have to move
all the luggage

onto another plane and take off.

Soon, passengers
on the left side of the plane

see the real problem.

I could see orange flames

inside the back of the engine.

And at that point, I thought
it's obviously not a burst tire.

That wouldn't cause that,

and this is perhaps something
a bit more serious.

Let me by.
I'm not staying there.

But at that point I knew that
I wanted to get off the plane,

and I wasn't happy at all.

I knew that there was a fire,

and I just wanted to get away
from the fire.

Smoke is seeping
into the cabin.

Please sit down!

My nearest exit
was at the back.

I didn't want to go to the back

because the smoke
was coming in there.

So I decided in my mind

that I was going to go
through the front.

I said to Charlie...

Come on, we're going.

And that's when I started going
towards the front of the plane.

Stopping. 28 mike,
we're abandoning takeoff.

Looks like we've got a fire
on number one.

Looks like there's
a lot of fire.

Thank you.

Plane on fire,
runway 24.

From where he's sitting,

captain Terrington can't see
how bad the fire is.

He needs advice from the tower.

Do we have to
get the passengers off?

I would do,
by the starboard side.

Terrington decides
to pull off the runway.

Evacuate to the starboard side,
please.

Fire drill, engine number one.

Shutting down two.

Evacuate, evacuate!

Please stay calm!

Before the flight
crew leaves the cockpit,

they must complete
a 15-step checklist.

Parking brake.

Set.

Speed brake lever.

Down.

But time
is running out.

We had
an evacuation checklist,

but it was four pages long,

and the last item was
to get the passengers off.

Engine and
APU fire warning switches.

This didn't cover
my problem at all.

On the 737,
there are four cabin doors.

The two in the back are covered
in flames and smoke,

leaving only two for 137 people.

Then, a mechanical problem
eliminates one of those.

Well, Arthur was
opening one right.

And, um, he was really banging,
he was really trying to open it,

and it was really hard to open.

The back of the cabin
is filling with smoke.

It's making breathing difficult.

Passengers rush forward.

It just seemed
to go on forever

before they,
they started evacuating.

And that's when I thought
I'm not going to get off.

It's going to blow up
with all of us on it.

Engine and APU
fire warning switches.

Now, all 137 people
on board are alive.

But with every second,

their odds of surviving
are decreasing.

Flight 28 is becoming
a death trap.

The jammed door
on the right side of the 737

leaves the crew no choice.

They must get the passengers out

from the side of the plane
that's burning.

As soon as we
opened the door,

the fire service
were already around,

shooting foam up the slide

and it came into
the galley floor.

We wanted to start
evacuating passengers,

but there was
a bit of a bottleneck

and nobody was coming forward.

The aisle is quite narrow
where the galley is,

and they were pushing forward.

And I could see this boy

that was really sort of
pushed against the wall.

He couldn't get out
so I pulled him by his T-shirt,

had the yellow T-shirt, and he,
he sort of tumbled forward,

and after that everybody sort of
just tumbled in behind him.

And we just directed them
down the slide.

Jump.

Jump. Jump.

In training they tell you
to bring people to the door

and you tell them to jump.

Jump.

Desperate to get
people off the plane quickly,

the purser returns
to the jammed door.

After several attempts,
he manages to force it open.

The only time
I turned around

was to make sure that Charlie
was following me.

See you out there.

One thing I did see
when I looked back

was people going to the front,

towards the front of the plane
where the seats are,

and pushing the seats forward,

folding them down
as they went along.

So people were trying to rush
forward from the back.

The chute was open and people
were just jumping out

straight onto the chute.

As I got to the bottom,

I didn't look back at all,
was just wanting to get off.

Dozens of passengers
have made it off the plane.

But there are still
many more inside.

It was smoldering and it
was black, thick black smoke.

And Charlie had said
that after you'd gone,

this black smoke came down,
he said,

and everybody was screaming
and panicking.

He said people
are going to die in there.

Standby power switch.

Captain Peter Terrington

and his first officer Brian Love

are still aboard
the burning airplane.

And they still haven't completed
the steps required to evacuate.

There was four tons of fuel

coming out of that aircraft.

Wing tank.

Ready to go, Brian?
Go, Brian.

I could see quite a lot
of flames.

Completing the checklist

would put their lives at risk.

We did as many items
as we could.

And then we both went
out of the flight deck window.

There are no more
passengers at the exits.

So Joanna Toff decides to see

if anyone else is left
in the cabin.

And the smoke was,
you could touch it,

it was so thick.

And you could taste,
it was awful, really.

Go!

There was a young girl

just a bit further down
in the cabin.

But she was really
disorientated;

I mean, I suppose
we all were, really.

We just didn't have any idea
what was going on.

I just brought her
down to the slide.

She was taken off then.

The fireman was telling me
to come on out.

And I'm thinking well,
I'm not finished, you know,

we've not finished yet.

When Toff re-enters
the cabin,

the thick smoke makes it as hard
to see as it is to breathe.

It was really
dark and quiet,

I've never seen
anything like it.

And I could see the light
from the door anyway by then,

so I knew where the door was.

The smoke forces Toff
to abandon her search.

Just minutes after
pulling off the runway,

British Airtours Flight 28
has been consumed by fire.

We got out
of the flight deck,

which was relatively intact.

And when we turned round
on the ground

we saw a complete wreck
of an aircraft.

And it had happened
in a matter of seconds.

It was, uh, dreadful.

54 people are dead.

One more person would later die
in the hospital.

There was
nothing wrong, really, with us.

We thought nothing physical
wrong with us.

But our lives changed, you know,

just in those,
in those few hours.

I couldn't breathe.

I was virtually out the door
and I couldn't breathe then.

The smoke was coming in

and everybody just stood up
and ran out.

It was just a mad panic
getting out.

When the smoke came,

you just couldn't see
anything at all.

You couldn't see anybody.

It takes
125 firefighters

more than two hours
to put out the fire.

News of the disaster
soon spreads around the world.

British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher

flies to Manchester
to visit the scene.

When we get a terrible
air crash of this kind,

everyone is appalled
and shocked.

Every single aspect
of this accident

will be thoroughly investigated.

It has to be.

This is the fourth
major commercial air disaster

of the year.

In June of 1985,

an air India jet exploded
over the Atlantic Ocean.

329 people were killed.

Weeks later, 137 people died
when a Delta Airlines flight

crashed at
Dallas-Forth Worth Airport.

And just ten days before
the Manchester crash,

the deadliest single-aircraft
accident in history.

Japan Airlines flight 123,
a fully loaded 747,

slammed into a mountain,
killing 520 people.

British Airtours Flight 28
adds 55 new victims

to the list of air casualties.

1985 is now the deadliest year

in the history
of commercial aviation.

The flying public
is getting nervous.

Britain's Air Accidents
Investigation Branch

sends a team to Manchester

to unravel the events
that led to the catastrophe.

Among them, Stephen Moss.

He'll be inspecting
the plane's engines.

This should not
really have happened.

The aircraft didn't even
get airborne.

It didn't run off the runway,

and yet still 55 people
were killed.

Chris Protheroe
is also on the team.

His focus is on the fire.

We were aware
from initial reports

that the fire had entered
the aircraft very rapidly

as the aircraft came to a halt.

And that was a focus for me.

It doesn't take
too long for Stephen Moss

to figure out where
the trouble started.

He sees damage to the plane
that was not caused by the fire.

The first thing
we noticed clearly

was the hole in the underside
of the wing.

And right next to it
was a gaping hole

in the side of the engine.

Seems that one
had led to the other.

To lift a passenger jet

off the ground,

massive thrust is needed.

That power is created
when air travels

through the front of the engine
to a series of compressor fans.

It's then ignited,

and the exhaust pushes
the plane forward.

Something had clearly
gone very wrong

with Flight 28's left engine.

Investigators look for clues
on the runway and in the cabin,

hoping to discover
why so many people died.

Entering the cabin
for the first time,

there was a, as with
all aircraft fires,

there's an overwhelming
pungent smell...

Burning plastic, burnt fuel.

Burning material had dropped
down onto seats,

and so the aisles were filled up

with the remains
of overhead lockers.

A scene of devastation.

The damage
in the cabin is revealing.

It's almost completely charred
up high,

but is relatively intact
down low.

It was clear that
there had not been a flashover

in this particular case.

A flashover occurs

when the gases
in an enclosed space

become so hot that they ignite,

incinerating everything
around them.

The way Flight 28's cabin
is charred

tells Protheroe
about the nature of the fire.

Many of
the seat squab cushions,

even things like
the emergency evacuation cards,

which are just plastic
laminated cards,

were pretty much undamaged.

You could have wiped them off
and put them on another aircraft

and nobody would have known
they'd been in this accident.

Whereas at the upper levels
in the fuselage

there was a great deal
of heat damage,

and this is not a characteristic
of a flashover.

The fire in the cabin
had been severe,

but should not have been
catastrophic.

This leaves investigators
with two questions:

Why did so many people die,
and what caused the fire?

The answer to the question

may be outside the plane,
lying on the runway.

Investigators find a large piece
of dome-shaped metal

along the plane's path.

Stephen Moss can see
it's from a piece of the engine

called a combustor can.

It looked like there'd been
a separation of the can

from the front end,
from the back end.

The combustion chamber

of the 737's jet engines

contain nine combustor cans.

It's where fuel and air
are mixed and ignited.

So each can needs to withstand
intense heat.

Moss suspects the fractured can

somehow blew apart and destroyed
the plane's left engine.

It had struck

an under-wing fuel tank
access panel

and put a sizable hole in that,

which directly led
to the release

of a vast quantity of fuel.

Proving the piece
of the combustion can

penetrated the wing is easy.

It fits neatly into the hole
in the wing.

This was clearly the,
if you like,

the root cause of the accident.

The engine on the plane

is a Pratt & Whitney JT-8D.

For Moss,
that's of grave concern.

At the time,
it was probably

the most widely used jet engine
on commercial air transport

in the world.

And it was obviously
pretty urgent

that we try and find
the cause of this one

in order to prevent
other aircraft

having the same problem.

There are tens
of thousands of combustor cans

in service around the world.

One of them erupted
in Manchester.

Stephen Moss needs to find out
why it failed, and fast.

Investigators looking
into the deadly fire

on board British Airtours
Flight 28

study the plane's
maintenance log.

They discover the combustor can
that ruptured

had previously been damaged.

We needed to look
at that repair

and how effective it was.

During a routine inspection

a year and a half earlier,

mechanics had found small cracks
in some of the combustor cans.

It was certainly
not uncommon

to find fatigue cracks
in the cans.

They're operating in
a high temperature environment.

The manuals give various schemes
for repairing these cracks.

Investigators find
mechanics repaired the cracks

according to a procedure
laid out

in the engine repair manual.

They welded them closed.

But the crack on can number nine
was unusually long.

The overhaul manual
did not give any limit

on the length of crack
that could be repaired,

and it was a longer crack than
had been experienced before.

It was still repaired.

After the repaired cans

were put back in the engine,

mechanics had no way of knowing

the weld didn't effectively
seal the crack.

That's because the cans
can't be inspected

while the engine
is on the plane.

Since the repair there were
eleven reports

of slow acceleration

from the engine that exploded
in Manchester.

A damaged combustor can

could have been a reason
for the problem.

But troubleshooting guides

available to mechanics
in Manchester

didn't list that
as a potential cause.

Instead Pratt & Whitney
offered other ways

to fix the acceleration problem.

So mechanics in Manchester
made minor adjustments

to fix the plane's idle speed
and kept the plane in operation.

Cockpit voice recordings reveal
that the crew of Flight 28

was aware there was a problem
with slow acceleration.

Slow acceleration
on the number one engine

day before yesterday.

I was on the flight,
yes, sir.

And they signed off on it.

But the log entry led
captain Terrington to believe

that the problem had been fixed.

A comment in the tech log

for the flight
before the last one,

that the engine was slow
in accelerating.

It wasn't apparent
as a serious problem.

Because the engineers
had done some work

and the aircraft had been flying
the previous day

with no problems.

The idle speed adjustments

didn't fix the real problem--

the cracked combustor can.

And it reached
the breaking point on Flight 28.

Stopping. 28 mike,
we are abandoning takeoff.

Evacuate, evacuate!

Please stay calm
and don't panic.

If the airline
had inspected the cans,

I think there is no doubt

that they would have seen
the problem.

Investigators
now know the origins

of the Manchester disaster.

The welded crack
in combustor can number nine

gave way as Flight 28
sped down the runway.

The front of the can was ejected
from the engine

and put a hole in the underside
of the left wing.

That led to a huge fuel leak
onto the damaged engine,

which caused the fire.

Engine fires are not uncommon.

The body of a 737 is insulated
with fire-retardant material

to protect the cabin.

Investigators
still don't understand

how a fire outside the plane
spread into the cabin

as quickly as it did.

It was clear
from these photographs

that there was a very dynamic
phase to the fire

whilst the aircraft was
at speed on the runway,

which produced this energetic,
turbulent sort

of blow torching type of fire,
visually, anyway,

trailing behind the aircraft.

A press photo
from the day of the crash

leads fire inspector
Chris Protheroe to a new theory.

The photographs
of the aircraft

that appeared in the press

showed the left thrust reverser
deployed.

The general impression

that one got visually
from that photograph

was that the thrust reversers

had effectively
blow torched fire

against the side
of the fuselage,

and that that, if you like,
was the explanation

as to why the fire
had penetrated so quickly.

That photograph
and the implications of it,

actually, therefore,
loomed quite large.

Stop!

There are several ways

to bring a speeding jet liner
to a halt.

One is with the brakes.

Don't hammer the brakes.

Another is with
the engine's thrust reversers.

Thrust reversers
redirect the exhaust

from the jet engine forwards.

This helps slow the plane down.

It looked as though
the thrust reversers

had simply blown this big fire
on the left of the aircraft

against, directly onto the side
of the aircraft,

directly onto the rear fuselage.

That would explain why the fire

destroyed the cabin so quickly.

It now seems possible
that captain Terrington

made the fire worse by trying
to slow his plane down.

We have to get
the passengers off.

But Protheroe
has two good reasons

to doubt his theory.

One is the location
where charring

from the burning exhaust gas,
or efflux, was found.

The efflux impinges
on the fuselage further up,

closer to the roof,
the crown skins of the aircraft.

So actually the penetration
that we had low down

did not fit with that.

And the other reason is

by the time the thrust reversers
were deployed,

the left engine
had already exploded.

But to act as a blowtorch

the engine would have needed
considerable exhaust.

We did calculations
to confirm

that the residual thrust
from that engine

would not have had the energy
to have this effect.

Clearly, something
other than the thrusters

had caused the fire
to spread so quickly.

Protheroe looks more closely
at the data.

After examining weather reports
from the day of the accident,

he finds the answer.

The wind was the main factor

that determined the severity
of the fire

in terms of its attack
on the outside of the aircraft,

how rapidly it penetrated
the aircraft,

and it also affected
the conditions inside the cabin.

Believing he had
blown a tire,

captain Terrington made
a fateful decision.

Stopping. 28 mike,
we are abandoning takeoff.

Well, when we heard the thud,
then we closed the throttles.

It was my assumption

that we were going to
turn off the runway,

clear the runway,

ask air traffic for an engineer
to come out and check the tires.

Like a highway,

an airport runway has
a series of exits.

Captain Terrington chose one
called Link Delta.

We got a fire on number one.

Captain Terrington
turned his plane to the right

and brought it to a stop.

He couldn't have realized
that doing so

would make the problem
far worse.

There was a crosswind,

a slight crosswind from
the left side of the aircraft

that was carrying the fire
that was burning

from the fuel that was pooled
underneath the left wing.

It carried that fire aft,
rearwards

and to over and under
the rear fuselage,

in between the wing
and the tail plane.

The wind wrapped the fire

around the back of the plane...

And into the cabin.

If there had been
no wind at all,

I think the situation would have
been very much more benign.

Investigators have
discovered how the fire started

and the conditions that caused
it to penetrate the cabin.

Now investigator Ed Trimble
must solve the biggest mystery

surrounding
the Manchester accident.

Here we had an aircraft

which had aborted the takeoff
for good reason,

had taxied off and stopped
in a taxiway,

in an expeditious manner,

and yet 55 people
had lost their lives.

So there was a big question

as to precisely why
that had occurred.

Investigators learn
that most of the dead

were not found in the worst
burned parts of the plane.

Autopsies will point
to the real killer on Flight 28.

Of the 54 people
who died in the cabin,

only six had suffered
serious burns.

All the rest died
from smoke inhalation.

It seems the smoke in the cabin
was particularly lethal.

Survivors tell investigators
that the smoke was unbearable.

The smoke was really
black and, and it was,

it was almost touching you,
it was, it was, really weird.

And they said that
the effect of that was shocking.

That immediately you took
one breath of the smoke,

you began to feel debilitated

and you knew that if you took
another breath or two,

you weren't going to make it.

At the time
of the Manchester accident,

the effects of fire
on an airplane

had been well studied
and understood.

But the effects of smoke
were not.

To figure out what
made the smoke so toxic,

Trimble decides to recreate the
fire that burned on Flight 28.

We were trying to model

not only the gases
which were produced,

but also the kind of threat
levels which were produced.

The smoke
that filled the plane

was from materials burning
inside the cabin.

The foam in the seats,
the wool in the carpets,

and the plastic overhead bins
all release poisonous fumes.

Those conditions are recreated
by burning the same materials.

Trimble discovers the passengers
on Flight 28 inhaled smoke

that contained a deadly blend
of poisonous gases,

including high levels

of carbon monoxide
and hydrogen cyanide.

Now he desperately needs
to find out

if there's any way
to protect airline passengers

from that kind of smoke.

It would seem to me
pretty clear

that unless we could protect
people's respiratory systems

from the assault
from such combustion gases,

there was little
that we could do

to improve survival chances
from aircraft fires.

Over the course of five weeks,

investigators run
dozens of tests,

experimenting
with different filters.

They burn nearly a quarter ton
of material

to create the necessary smoke.

Their dramatic conclusion:

it may have been possible
to save passengers' lives.

There was not
the slightest doubt in my mind

that in these situations,
in an aircraft cabin,

if it is being assaulted
by combustion gases,

your chances of survival
are vastly improved

if you have smoke hood
protection.

British Airtours Flight 28

had only enough smoke hoods
for the crew.

They were never used.

Trimble's research indicates

that smoke hoods for passengers
could have saved lives.

There were hoods available,

both of the filter type
and the breathable gas type,

which can provide a very high
level of protection to people

in these circumstances.

Many of the
passengers on Flight 28

would have survived
with a few more minutes

of breathing time.

A full Boeing 737

is designed to be evacuated
in less than two minutes.

So even without additional time,

more of the passengers
on Flight 28

should have been able
to get off.

To discover why so many people
never made it off the plane,

investigators turn to an
unlikely source for the answer.

By law,
airplane manufacturers

must prove their planes can be
evacuated quickly and safely.

When the 737 was introduced
in the UK,

Boeing demonstrated
that 130 people

could get off the plane
in just 75 seconds.

All public transport aircraft

are certificated
to the same criteria,

and that is that the total
complement of passengers

must be capable of evacuating
from the aircraft

using half the exits
in the aircraft--

it's generally one side
or the other--

within a maximum of 90 seconds.

But 90 seconds
after Flight 28 came to a stop,

most of the passengers
were still on board.

The reason why
the evacuation at Manchester

wasn't achieved in 90 seconds

is because the conditions
in a real fire evacuation

are completely different from
the certification conditions.

The certification
evacuation is conducted

in clear conditions,

with no smoke
that reduces vision

and overwhelms passengers.

Within minutes
of coming to a stop,

Flight 28 filled
with a thick black smoke.

A soon as the smoke began

to spill into the rear cabin

and then flow forwards,

essentially that induced
immediate panic

in those who were
so affected by the smoke.

Because the respiration,
I mean, the typical comment

was I took one breath
of the smoke

and I felt as though my lungs
were solidifying.

You can imagine
under these conditions

that people have got to
get away from the smoke.

And the people did this

by basically clambering
over the seats

and other people
in front of them.

In less than five minutes,

what should have been
a survivable accident

turned deadly.

To prevent future tragedies,

Britain's civil aviation
authority

decides to learn more
about people.

Helen Muir is a psychologist
and a leading expert

on how airplane design
can influence survival.

She's asked to study

the behavior of passengers
on Flight 28

to figure out why so many died.

What we had to learn to do

was to design
the aircraft interior

so even if we had
what we might say

was dysfunctional behavior
in totality,

we could accommodate the needs
of individuals

in their desperate rush
to get out.

Muir configures
a cabin to duplicate Flight 28

and fills it with volunteers.

Then, to have them act
as though the plane's on fire,

she offers money
to the first ones off.

And that produced behavior
that was quite unbelievable.

People went over seats,
they went round past each other,

all sorts of things.

And indeed, when survivors from
the actual Manchester accident

came and saw the videos,

they said yeah, this is,
that's how it was.

The evacuation
of Flight 28 was slowed

by the fact that passengers
became jammed

in the bulkhead opening

separating the main cabin
from the galley.

Alright, folks,
the door's open,

jump down the slide.

Investigators
discover the logjam was created

by the design of the Boeing 737.

The bulkhead opening
was 22 1/2 inches wide,

just enough for one person
to fit through.

Muir's tests showed
the narrow bulkhead opening

created bottlenecks

that flight attendants
had to constantly clear.

Increasing the width
to 30 inches

greatly improves
the movement of passengers.

What we showed,
through repeat testing,

that if you changed the minimum
gap from 20 to 30 inches,

you would dramatically improve

the speed at which people
could get out

and you'd reduce the likelihood

of people falling
and slipping and so on.

As a result
of Helen Muir's work,

a recommendation was made
to increase the space

between the bulkhead walls
to 30 inches

and introduce strip lighting to
help guide passengers to exits

even when they are
blinded by smoke.

Muir also found a way
to improve cabin safety

without redesigning the cabin.

Please sit down.

She conducted research

on the behavior of
the cabin crew in emergencies

and found that passengers
get off a plane much faster

with a highly assertive crew.

It's because
we don't want people

really making
their own decisions.

We want people to do

exactly what the cabin crew
or the procedures state.

And we don't want people
hesitating,

particularly at the door.

Helen Muir's research
prompted manufacturers

to redesign cabins
to make them safer.

But one safety feature remains
controversial: smoke hoods.

Ed Trimble believes
they should be mandatory

on all commercial flights.

Without a doubt.
Without a doubt.

Helen Muir
is less convinced.

She's studied how smoke hoods
affect passenger behavior

and is worried
they would slow down

the orderly evacuation
of an airplane.

We know you've only got

literally one and a half
to two minutes

for everybody to get out.

What we don't want to have

is something which is
difficult to put on

and so it slows people
getting down.

The most important lesson

of British Airtours Flight 28

is that seconds matter.

It's now universally accepted
that it takes 90 seconds

from the first sign of fire
before it becomes unsurvivable.

The passengers on Flight 28
lost valuable time

when the starboard side
door jammed.

The investigators determined
that the slide mechanism

deployed too early, preventing
the door from opening.

There was a flaw that led
the slide container's lid to jam

if the door is opened
too quickly.

After the Manchester accident,

Boeing quickly redesigned
the system

so that couldn't happen.

But the recommendations
made by the AAIB

weren't adopted quickly enough
to save lives six years later.

In 1991, a Boeing 737 slammed
into another plane

on the runway in Los Angeles
and caught fire.

Many of the 22 people who died

were overcome by smoke
before they could get out.

But in 2005, the crash
of an Air France jet in Toronto

showed how much has changed
since the Manchester accident.

All 309 people got off
that plane in just 90 seconds.

No one died.

Some major changes
to commercial airliners...

Alright, the door's open.

...came about
because of a flight

that never left the ground.

That's the only way
I can resolve it

with the death of 55
of my passengers.

The fact that flying
is now safer.

I can't imagine anybody,
you know, doesn't wish

that it hadn't happened.

You know, despite
what's been learned

and despite maybe the subsequent
lives that have been changed,

you know, you'd give anything
for it not to have happened.