Original subtitles

Narrator: A mysterious phone call

to an Italian journalist...

Man: Where did you get this information?

And he said, "Do not believe what they are going to say."

Narrator: Throws an air crash investigation into turmoil.

Man: We absolutely have to have more of the wreckage.

Narrator: There are rumors of a cover-up.

Man: Nobody on the legal side believed us.

Narrator: Investigators suspect foul play.

Man: I think it was a bomb.

Narrator: 81 people are killed in an instant.

Man: All of a sudden,

the airplane was in pieces in the sky.

Man: It was shot down by a missile.

Narrator: What brought down the passenger plane?

A bomb or a missile?

Man: They said that my theory was ridiculous.

Man: The goal that we were presented with

was to find the truth.

Flight Attendant: Ladies and gentlemen, we are starting our approach.

Pilot: We lost both engines!

Flight attendant: Put the mask over your nose.

Emergency descent.

Pilot: Mayday, mayday.

Flight attendant: Brace for impact!

Controller: I think I lost one.

Man: Investigation starting...

Man: He's gonna crash!

Narrator: In the glow of the setting sun,

Itavia Airlines flight 870

cruises 29,000 feet above the Mediterranean sea.

Pilot: Good evening, 8-7-0 maintaining 2-9-0 over puma.

Controller: Roger. Proceed Latina Ponza.

Pilot: Roma 8-7-0.

Narrator: Captain Domenico Gatti and First Officer Enzo Fontana

are at the controls of the DC-9.

David Learmount: The crew had the kind of experience

that you would hope to see with your own particular crew

on the flight that you're just about to take.

And the flight itself was short and very easy to do.

Narrator: Among the 77 passengers

is Alberto Bonfietti,

a journalist on his way to meet his family in Palermo.

Alberto Bonfietti: Grazie.

Daria Bonfietti, translated: That Friday afternoon,

my brother Alberto took that plane to go to Palermo

and meet his wife and daughter

who were already there on vacation.

Narrator: The flight from bologna to Palermo

takes about an hour and a half.

But just halfway to their destination,

First Officer Fontana is running into a problem.

Enzo Fontana: Look at this. I'm getting nothing.

Domenico Gatti: Try Ponza instead.

Fontana: Nothing.

Narrator: There's no signal from many of the navigation beacons

that normally guide pilots toward Palermo.

Fontana: 8-7-0, Roma, it's like a graveyard tonight.

We haven't found a single beacon working properly.

Controller: Everything is a bit out.

What is your heading?

Fontana: We are at 1-9-5.

Narrator: Without the beacons,

the pilots need directions from air traffic control.

Controller: I don't know if you want to keep that heading.

Otherwise you can go right 15 or 20 degrees.

Fontana: Ok.

We put in 2-1-0.

Narrator: The plane turns

and flies into a pocket of turbulence.

Learmount: High-level turbulence,

it's just like...

It's like being on a road which has got potholes in it.

On many flights that anybody will take,

at some stage during the journey

you will encounter some degree of turbulence.

Narrator: The pilots hope a lower altitude

will give their passengers a smoother ride.

Gatti: Let's try to get under this.

Fontana: This is 8-7-0.

Is it possible to get 2-5-0?

Controller: Affirmative. You can start your descent now.

Learmount: Pilots quite often ask for a change of level.

If they've got a little bit of choppiness,

which they know will make the passengers uncomfortable

or even nervous,

then they'll try another level.

And that's what we think they were trying to do.

Fontana: Ah. There we go. Finally.

Narrator: There's more good news.

Fontana: Palermo is coming in well.

Narrator: The navigation beacons are now working.

Fontana: And we have... We have the Ponza DME.

Controller: Good. Call back for descent.

Fontana: Thank you for everything.

We'll call you for descent. 8-7-0.

Narrator: The controllers will have

no further contact with the pilots

until they begin their landing.

.

But just seconds later,

Itavia flight 870 breaks into pieces

and disappears from radar.

Controller: Itavia 8-7-0, Rome.

Itavia 8-7-0, Rome.

.

We're missing a flight.

Itavia 8-7-0.

It's gone.

Narrator: Flight 870 has crashed into the Mediterranean Sea.

Learmount: It's very surreal

for a controller to go through an experience like that,

because you can't quite believe what you're seeing.

I mean, accidents are very, very rare.

So when you're a part of one, when you're watching one happen,

you don't quite believe it.

Narrator: By morning, Italian search and rescue teams

are scanning the waters near the plane's last known position.

Family members waiting at the airport

are told only that the plane is missing,

its fate unknown.

Bonfietti: The first words we heard

were that the plane was assumed to be lost.

Narrator: Searchers soon confirm the worst.

There are no signs of any survivors.

All 81 passengers and crew are dead,

including Alberto Bonfietti.

Bonfietti: I bought my brother's ticket for that damn flight,

and I never saw him again.

Narrator: The loss of flight 870

makes news around the world.

There seems to be no way to explain

why a modern airliner fell from the sky so suddenly.

Andrea Purgatori is a well-known reporter

for one of Italy's largest daily newspapers.

Andrea Purgatori: In 1980,

I was an investigative reporter for "Corriere Della Sera,"

which was and is still

the most important newspaper in Italy's.

Narrator: On the night of the crash,

he gets an astounding phone call.

Purgatori: I received a phone call

from an air traffic controller in Rome.

Where did you get this information?

And he said, "I cannot talk to you long from this phone,

but do not believe what they are going to say,

because it was shot down by a missile."

Narrator: The source points him toward a controversial theory:

Flight 870 was caught in the crossfire

during a dogfight between NATO and Libyan jets.

Purgatori: There was a situation of tension in the Mediterranean

which was very close to, you know,

the tension you have before a war.

Narrator: In 1980,

the Mediterranean is a military hot zone.

Italy lies just across the sea from Libya.

It's an outlaw nation

ruled by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi,

an International Pariah.

Purgatori: At that time,

Gaddafi was like Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden

for the United States and most of the western world.

Narrator: Has the political tension

between Libya and the west

somehow claimed the lives of 81 innocent people?

Purgatori: Yes.

I can guarantee your identity is safe with me.

Narrator: Purgatori is convinced

he's on the verge of breaking a major international story.

Purgatori: That was the kind of story that, as a reporter,

you can, you know, find probably once in your life,

once in your career.

Ok. Let's meet.

Narrator: But it will take more than 30 years

to find out what really happened that night

in the skies over Italy's.

Two days after the Itavia Airlines tragedy,

Andrea Purgatori writes a front-page story

that shocks Italy's and the world.

Purgatori: It's out.

I was the first to say, "Ok, there's a possibility

that the DC-9 was hit by a missile."

Narrator: Purgatori does some digging

and comes up with an astounding theory.

Purgatori: Western jet fighters,

probably French,

were engaging in an act of war with Libyan airplanes.

And the Libyan airplanes were probably hiding themselves

behind the DC-9.

And the DC-9 was just, you know,

in the wrong place in the wrong moment,

and it was hit by one of the missiles.

Narrator: The Italian government dismisses early media reports

that a missile brought down flight 870

and launches an official investigation into the crash.

Purgatori: The Italian air force

decided to give a press conference

which they said that my theory was ridiculous.

Narrator: 38 bodies have been recovered from the crash site.

But most of the wreckage from flight 870

has sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

Investigators have little to go on.

Man: Is this all we have?

Learmount: The early investigators of this accident

didn't have very much to look at.

There wasn't very much wreckage.

Narrator: They hope air traffic controllers

on duty at the time of the crash will have more information.

Controller: There was some problem

with the beacons on the night.

But otherwise everything seemed fine.

Narrator: But the controllers have no idea what went wrong.

Fontana: Palermo is coming in well.

Controller: Good. Call back for descent.

Narrator: They heard no sign of trouble from the crew.

Fontana: Thank you for everything.

We'll call you for descent. 8-7-0.

Learmount: If it's a slowly gathering emergency

where things go wrong bit by bit

until the aircraft becomes uncontrollable,

the pilots as sure as hell going to tell somebody.

They didn't.

They didn't have time to.

So whatever it was had been really sudden.

Narrator: A mid-air collision could explain the accident.

Controllers aren't sure if there were other aircraft nearby.

Their radar works best when receiving transponder signals

broadcast by aircraft.

But some smaller planes are not required to have transponders.

Controller: This is all that I saw.

Narrator: Investigators need a solid lead.

They have no proof

that a missile brought down the plane,

but there's no proof of any other cause either.

Man: We need to look at every possible explanation.

Learmount: An investigator, of course,

if, for example, the press is speculating

about the aircraft having been shot down,

the investigators will read that like other people do,

but they'll be keeping an open mind.

Narrator: They study other incidents

involving the same type of plane.

Learmount: They were casting around for any historic evidence

that might tell them what happened.

Narrator: They learn that in the last decade,

four other DC-9s suffered structural failures.

If the Itavia plane broke apart

because of metal fatigue or a design flaw,

thousands of lives could be at risk.

But the research sheds no new light on the crash.

Man: This one landed safely.

Narrator: In each previous emergency,

the pilots have enough warning to take action...

Man: This one, too.

Narrator: And land their planes safely.

Man: We've got nothing here.

Narrator: With most of the wreckage

at the bottom of the sea,

investigators have only floating debris to work with.

Learmount: You can have seat cushions--

they float--

equipment from the galleys,

from the kitchens on board the aircraft--

they float.

Plastic components from the overhead lockers.

These are all the sorts of things

that you would expect to float.

And sure enough, they found those.

Narrator: They carefully map the location

of each recovered piece.

The size and shape of the debris field

could provide clues about what happened.

Man: Let me see those winds again.

Narrator: If the DC-9 hit the water in one piece,

it would have disintegrated on impact,

leaving debris in a small concentrated area.

But if it broke up in flight,

its forward momentum

would have scattered debris over a large area.

Pieces of the plane have been found spread across

more than 80 square miles of ocean.

It's a revealing discovery.

Man: Too far apart to have happened on impact.

Learmount: The crew didn't know it was coming,

air traffic control didn't know it was coming.

And then, all of a sudden,

the airplane was in pieces in the sky.

Narrator: Investigators scrutinize the debris

for evidence that another airplane

collided with flight 870.

They find nothing.

Speculation about a missile strike

only grows stronger.

Bonfietti: Certainly there were many reports--

the newspapers, the television,

the media talked about it a lot.

Narrator: Investigators hope a detailed analysis of the radar

can give them some answers.

They want to know if there was anything else in the skies

that could have brought down the plane.

They contact John Macidull

of the United States National Transportation Safety Board.

John Macidull: Let's see what we can see.

Narrator: Macidull is well-suited for the job.

He's a former navy pilot and a radar expert.

Macidull: There is an obligation for the United States

to help other countries with their investigation

of an aircraft accident in their country

if it was a United States manufactured aircraft.

In this case, it was a Douglas DC-9.

Narrator: He studies an enhanced version

of flight 870's radar track--

one that shows more detail

than the air traffic controller could see.

Macidull: I received their radar printout,

which included the beacon code track of this DC-9.

Looks like this is where it broke up.

Here are the pieces here.

Narrator: Radar works

by bouncing radio waves off objects.

When a plane breaks apart,

each piece creates its own signal or return.

Air traffic controllers

tune their radar to detect airliners,

but radar can be adjusted to display other objects.

Macidull: I want to get a closer look at this.

Learmount: You eventually start getting

more than one radar return.

So, there's plenty to see.

Narrator: Macidull sees no sign of a mid-air collision.

Macidull: Now, what have we here?

Narrator: But he does notice something unusual.

There are three unidentified radar blips

to the west of flight 870.

Macidull reaches a startling conclusion.

Macidull: At that altitude and this kind of speed,

I'd say that was a high-speed jet.

Purgatori: He could see traces of another airplane

which was not a civil plane.

Macidull: Coming from the west,

at that time of day,

they'd never see them coming.

This unidentified object came out of the sun,

which is a standard fighter pilot technique.

Narrator: Blinded by the sun,

the DC-9 pilots would have had little chance

to spot an incoming jet.

Macidull: I told them that it was possible

that something was fired from another aircraft.

Purgatori: It was quite clear

that it was a fighter shooting a missile.

Narrator: Macidull's analysis makes it more likely than ever

that a fighter jet was flying near the DC-9.

But there's still no proof of a missile.

Man: It could have been a missile.

It looks like a missile.

It was a missile.

We need to prove it.

Narrator: Three weeks after the crash,

new evidence comes to light.

The wreckage of a Libyan fighter jet

is found in the mountains of southern Italy's.

The discovery raises more suspicion

and adds fuel to the missile theory.

Purgatori: In my opinion,

there were French fighters taking off

from the base of Solenzara in the Island of Corsica,

intercepting the Libyan planes,

and there was an act of war.

Narrator: For reporter Andrea Purgatori,

the crashed fighter confirms his belief

that flight 870 was an unintended casualty

in a secret skirmish between NATO and Libyan jets.

Purgatori: Were the French firing to the Libyans,

or the Libyans firing to the French?

This is difficult to say.

But then the French fighters tried to chase the Libyan plane

until it crashed on the mountains of Calabria

in the southern part of Italy's.

Learmount: The aircraft disappeared.

There was an explosion.

Was it a missile?

Certainly I thought, yeah, this is...

This is going to be distinctly possible.

Narrator: So far,

the evidence for a missile strike is circumstantial.

Then investigators get a lucky break.

They come across an intriguing clue:

A piece of shrapnel embedded in the body of a passenger.

If they can identify where it came from,

it might tell them what caused the explosion.

Man: There's something I would like you to see.

Narrator: Italian investigators travel to Washington

with the piece of metal.

Macidull: Welcome to Washington, sir.

Man: Grazie.

Macidull: Is this it? Man: Yes.

Narrator: They ask NTSB's John Macidull

to help identify it.

Macidull: Ok, let's take a look at it.

It was about that size...

Of a pen.

Slightly curved, ok?

Flat on one side.

Now...

Where are you from?

It was found in the thigh of one of the passengers.

At NTSB's we had structural schematics

of an entire DC-9.

And based on what I thought about missiles,

I started looking at the middle of the aircraft.

Narrator: The type of metal hints

that it's from outside the cabin.

Macidull: We're gonna need to look at the wheel wells.

We looked in both wheel wells

and matched this piece of metal up

with the curved ribbing,

unique ribbing in this panel...

Next.

Under the right wheel well, not the left wheel well.

It wouldn't match the left wheel well.

Bingo.

Say the jet fired the missile from here.

It would explode as soon as it got close, about here.

That would drive the shrapnel,

including our piece from the wheel well,

into the cabin.

So, to me, it was conclusive information.

Purgatori: My reaction after John Macidull's conclusions was,

you know, I was right.

Narrator: Investigators send pieces of wreckage to the lab

to test for explosives.

The analysis confirms an explosion.

The debris is coated with trace amounts of TNT.

But the result doesn't prove

a missile brought down the plane.

It's just as possible the explosives came from a bomb.

Learmount: TNT is not only used by the military.

I wouldn't say it's easy to get hold of,

but somebody who's determined enough

could get hold of it.

Narrator: Five weeks after the Itavia disaster,

Italians are shocked by another tragedy.

A bombing at the bologna railway station kills 85 people.

Neo-fascist terrorists are blamed for the attack,

fueling fears that the same group

may have placed a bomb on flight 870.

Purgatori: You must remember that in this country

we had so many episodes of terrorism, bombings,

which were not clear.

Narrator: The new evidence

leaves investigators with a dilemma.

They have circumstantial evidence

for both the missile and the bomb theories.

But there's no hard proof to determine which one

caused the explosion.

Man: We're going to have to say we don't know.

Purgatori: The commission of the transportation ministry

worked for two years,

and ended saying that the accident

was caused by an explosion.

But they were not able to say

if the explosion was outside or inside the plane,

a bomb or a missile.

Narrator: Under extreme public pressure

to come up with an answer,

the Italian government issues a report

that says only an explosion of unknown origin

brought down the plane.

Learmount: It's very unsatisfactory.

It's distressing.

You can't say that any of us, like me,

who care about things like this,

or particularly for the families,

you can't say they have closure.

Narrator: Daria Bonfietti continues to demand answers

about what happened to her brother.

She's not alone in her fight.

Bonfietti: Under our guidance, a group of intellectuals

wrote a letter to the president of Italy's,

asking why we didn't know the truth about this accident

and asking that all the obstacles be removed

so the truth could come out.

Narrator: The pressure pays off.

Five years after the first inconclusive investigation,

the Italian government agrees to launch a new inquiry.

In may of 1987,

a multi-million-dollar salvage operation

recovers the cockpit voice recorder.

Seven years after flight 870 crashed into the Mediterranean,

the cockpit voice recorder allows investigators to hear

what the pilots said during the last moments of the flight.

Controller: Itavia 8-7-0, call back for descent.

Fontana: Thank you for everything.

We'll call you for descent. 8-7-0.

Narrator: The captain starts to say guarda--

Italian for "look."

Gatti: Guarda.

Narrator: Then the recording abruptly cuts off.

Investigators wonder if he caught a glimpse

of a missile heading for the plane.

Macidull: It's what you would expect someone to say

if they saw something that was really strange

coming toward you.

Learmount: Conjecture is that he was starting to say "Look."

But you might say, "Look at the artificial horizon."

It could have been that.

Narrator: The salvage effort

has recovered hundreds of pieces of debris

from the sea floor.

They're now being reassembled at a hangar near Rome.

More than 50% of the aircraft remains missing.

But the outline of the plane begins to take shape.

Learmount: It's a jigsaw puzzle.

If you theorized on how the aircraft came apart,

the more you can visually build up this picture,

the more clear that becomes.

Narrator: A key piece of debris

adds weight to the theory that a missile hit the plane.

It has two small holes

with edges that bend in, not out.

Investigators have also discovered debris

in a seat cushion from the cabin.

It's from a galley at the front of the plane.

If a missile exploded near the front of the plane,

it might have blown the piece toward the back.

But there is too much wreckage missing

to reach a definitive conclusion.

Man: It's not much to go on.

Learmount: We have some wreckage.

We have some evidence from radar.

But it's not primary evidence.

The real evidence is the bits of airplane.

Narrator: Italian investigators are under intense pressure

to announce what blew the plane apart.

Purgatori: People started to say,

"Tell us exactly what happened to this airplane."

Man: It all fits with the missile theory.

Narrator: They decide to stick their necks out.

In 1989, they release an accident report

that concludes the explosion was probably caused

by a missile fired from an unidentified aircraft.

As the first person to advance that theory,

reporter Andrea Purgatori feels vindicated.

Purgatori: I was right.

I was right in investigating this case,

in, you know, putting, you know,

the truth, the possible truth,

piece by piece together.

Bonfietti: Because of this and only from this moment,

we, the relatives of the victims,

started to say the DC-9 was hit by a missile.

Narrator: But just one year later,

the entire investigation crumbles

when the unthinkable happens.

Citing a lack of evidence,

two Italian investigators retract their opinion

that a missile brought down the plane.

Man: We're back at square one.

Learmount: It's quite rare

to have so little certainty about an accident.

This is a very extraordinary accident in that respect.

Narrator: The Italian government orders a third investigation

to answer the question once and for all.

Did a missile bring down flight 870,

or was it a bomb?

They assemble an international group of experts...

Including veteran British air accident investigator

Frank Taylor.

Frank Taylor: Ok, let's get those set up over there.

The goal that we were presented with

was to find the truth,

to find out what had actually happened

and report on that.

And that was... That was absolutely splendid,

because that's what you do in an investigation.

You look at the evidence and try to work out what it means.

Narrator: Taylor is uniquely qualified

to identify evidence of a bomb.

He's investigated more than 20 air disasters,

including the bombing of pan am flight 103

over Lockerbie, Scotland.

In 1988, Libyan terrorists planted a bomb

in the cargo hold of flight 103.

When it exploded, it destroyed the plane,

killing 270 people.

Engineer Goran Lilja of Sweden is also on Taylor's team.

Narrator: Taylor is immediately concerned

by how little wreckage has been recovered from flight 870.

Taylor: Is this all the wreckage you've got?

We're surprised that anybody came to any conclusion at all

on the evidence we have,

other than it was almost certainly an explosion

of some sort, somewhere.

Well, the first thing we've got to do

is find the rest of this plane.

Narrator: Taylor's first job

is to convince the government to fund a new search.

Taylor: Yes, could you put me through, please?

Narrator: It could cost millions,

and there's no guarantee it will solve the case.

Taylor: No. We absolutely have to have more of the plane.

A basic conclusion from what we inherited

was that we needed to recover more wreckage,

and we said so very clearly.

There's no way to make any conclusions

without more of the wreckage.

Yeah. Yeah.

Ok, ok.

Thanks very much. Thank you. Bye.

Narrator: If anyone can find the wreckage,

it would be Taylor.

During the Lockerbie investigation,

he helped create a software program

to locate widely scattered debris.

Taylor: You have two effects:

How far a piece will travel in the direction

that the aircraft was originally traveling,

and how far it will be blown downwind

by whatever winds there are.

But the computer can do this very easily.

Narrator: Taylor convinces the Italian government

that his program can find more wreckage.

Taylor: Ok.

Altitude around 24,000.

Narrator: They approve his request

for a new salvage operation.

Taylor: Wind is westerly, about a hundred knots.

Narrator: But the pressure's on to deliver.

Taylor: Now, that's where we should be looking.

The wind data was available,

so we could feed that into our computer,

and it told us more or less

where the rest of the wreckage would be.

Narrator: The strategy works.

The effort soon recovers another 40% of the plane.

Taylor: Eventually we found it.

It was there, more or less,

within a few meters virtually of where we'd predicted.

Narrator: The location of the Itavia wreckage

on the sea floor

tells Taylor which pieces came off the plane first.

Investigators now have a theory about how the plane came down.

Taylor: See those first pieces?

The explosion was at the back of the plane,

not the front.

Then it hit nose first...

Like this.

Narrator: The reconstruction seems to match his theory.

The wreckage at the front

is in much smaller pieces than the rest of the plane.

Learmount: If an aircraft comes down very steeply

at a very high rate of descent,

if it hits the surface of the water,

it's very, very nearly as disastrous to the structure

as it would be if it were to hit the granite side of a mountain.

Taylor: It hit with one poof.

Narrator: The theory also explains

how debris from the front of the plane

could have ended up towards the back...

Or embedded in the body of a passenger,

and why the cargo door had holes that bent inwards.

Taylor: As the fuselage sides crumpled,

some of the windows would shatter,

the rivets and so forth from the outer skin

would be fired inwards, outwards, in all directions.

And that explained why there were all these fragments

embedded in seat cushions

and bodies found in the very early stages.

Narrator: But not all of the evidence

supports Taylor's theory

that there was an explosion near the back of the plane.

He has no explanation

for an obvious hole near the front of the fuselage.

Taylor: I don't get it.

We need more evidence.

Learmount: You can't just take a piece of information of...

There's some pieces missing from the front

and just say, "Ah, that must mean this."

No, it doesn't... Nothing is that obvious.

Narrator: Investigators dig up the radar for another look.

Taylor: Ok, now there's our flight 8-7-0.

Narrator: They want to see for themselves

if there's any evidence of a fighter jet

in the vicinity of the plane.

Taylor: Yeah, ok.

Now, eliminate the ones we think are just noise.

Narrator: They discover there are many unidentified returns,

not just the three previously identified as a fighter jet.

Random or stray radar plots are not uncommon.

Taylor: There are many, many other unexplained returns

in the area,

but it so happened, probably, that these were the only ones

that sort of linked together, you know,

to make people think that they were another aircraft.

Narrator: Taylor concludes

that what Macidull thought was another aircraft

is actually debris falling from flight 870

as it breaks apart.

Taylor: Well, I'll tell you what plane this is.

It's our plane.

And this is a piece of debris.

Narrator: The investigation has reached an impasse.

Radar evidence of another jet has been discounted.

But there's still no proof of a bomb on board.

Then Frank Taylor notices something odd

near the back of the plane.

There are a number of small crumpled pieces of debris

mixed in with areas that are nearly untouched.

Taylor: Something's not right.

Narrator: For Frank Taylor,

it's a sign the debris has been placed in the wrong location.

Taylor: Basically it just looked wrong.

The progression of damage from intense crumpling--

very small pieces to very large pieces

and then back to small pieces--

just did not make any sense at all.

Narrator: One piece of wreckage stands out.

Taylor: Those numbers.

I've seen them somewhere else.

I came across quite a large piece of skin

which had got penciled numbers written on the inside,

close to the stringers--

those are the horizontal stiffening pieces

along the fuselage.

I had never seen that piece before,

but I remembered somewhere

seeing another piece with penciled numbers on.

I couldn't remember exactly where.

I had a rough idea, so I just went looking.

Gotcha!

Can you remove that piece for me, please?

And eventually I found it in the forward fuselage.

And the numbers ran consecutively

from the piece in the forward fuselage

to the piece at the rear.

Ok.

A little bit further down. A little bit further down.

A little bit further.

That's it!

That's where you belong.

Lovely.

Could you wire those in?

And that was the first bit.

And that gave us then total confidence

that, yeah, ok, this is going to work.

Narrator: Once all the debris is checked

and moved to the correct position,

evidence of a missile hit on the front of the aircraft

is gone.

Taylor: Well, you could quite clearly see

that there'd been no explosion of a missile outside

in the areas that previous commissions,

going right back to the early stages,

had predicted.

Narrator: Itavia flight 870's reassembled fuselage

reveals a new hole at the back of the plane.

It appears to have been caused by a bomb.

Taylor: Yes, well, we know what that is.

Narrator: Investigators study more wreckage

from that part of the plane.

Taylor: What have we got here?

Huh! Well, look at you!

Narrator: The steel wash basin

has been bent upwards by an explosion--

just what investigators would expect to see

if a bomb exploded in the rear lavatory.

Taylor: The more we discovered, the more they all pointed back

to an explosion in the rear toilet area.

Narrator: Taylor and his team finally have enough evidence

to say what brought down Itavia flight 870.

Taylor: I think it was a bomb.

There was no eureka moment.

We just...from there,

it was was just a gradual process

of finding more evidence

and no contradictory evidence.

Narrator: There's just one more test they need to do

to be sure.

Taylor: Ok. Let's blow it up and see what happens.

Narrator: Investigators place explosives

inside a DC lavatory

to test their theory that a bomb brought down flight 870.

Man: Three, two, one.

.

If the shattered pieces match flight 870's debris...

Taylor: Ok, let's go see how we did.

Narrator: It will provide strong evidence that they're right.

The explosion creates distinctive damage.

It's nearly identical to what was seen in the debris

from the lavatory of flight 870.

Taylor: Ok, measure that one, will you? Yeah.

We were absolutely sure. Yes, yes, there's no doubt.

Narrator: The evidence can't reveal who planted the bomb,

but investigators now have a good idea

where it was placed.

The bomb was probably small enough

to hide inside the tissue holder

or behind the wash basin.

Taylor: You can put something in there.

You can reach around behind that

and get closer to the aircraft skin.

Narrator: Based on the physical evidence,

the aircraft's last radar return,

and the location of debris,

investigators now have a clear picture

of flight 870's final moments.

Controller: Itavia 8-7-0 call back for descent.

Fontana: Thank you for everything.

We'll call you for descent. 8-7-0.

Gatti: Guarda!

Taylor: It was an explosion

close to the pylon of the right-hand engine,

which caused the right-hand engine to come off.

Narrator: In less than ten seconds,

the plane breaks apart...

And plunges into the sea.

In 1994, after four years of work,

Frank Taylor's team files its report.

For the first time since the disaster,

investigators claim to have indisputable evidence

that a bomb blew up flight 870.

Learmount: Frank Taylor's team didn't reach any conclusions

except ones which were based on hard physical evidence.

There was no theorizing going on.

Narrator: Taylor's report is the last word

on the technical investigation of the Itavia tragedy.

But in Italy's,

his findings are overshadowed by an ongoing judicial inquiry

that has been consumed with the missile theory

since the beginning.

Learmount: In Italy's, really the judiciary

just seem to be able to ride roughshod

over whatever's happening.

Taylor: What we were told...

In effect that our report was useless.

Learmount: The judiciary in Italy's

just found Frank Taylor's findings inconvenient.

Um, I don't think they ordered it not to be published.

They just made a decision that they wouldn't publish it.

Narrator: Most Italians still believe in the missile theory,

despite scientific evidence to the contrary.

Purgatori: The public opinion was much more intrigued

by the possibility that there was a cover-up,

military or political cover-up.

Narrator: In 2013,

at a hearing to assign financial liability

for the accident,

the Italian supreme court rules

that a missile of unknown origin shot down flight 870

and orders the government to pay 100 million euros

to the victims' families.

The ruling is a relief to the families,

but leaves some wondering if important evidence was ignored.

Learmount: I'm sorry,

but Italy's is a dreadful place

to have an aviation accident.

If you want the truth,

you're less likely to find it there

than just about anywhere else in the world.

Narrator: For air accident investigator Frank Taylor,

the evidence speaks for itself.

Taylor: We discovered quite clearly

that somebody had planted a bomb there.

But nobody on the legal side, it would appear, believed us.

And therefore, so far as we're aware,

there has been no proper search for who did it,

why they did it,

or anything else.

As an engineer and an investigator,

I cannot see why anybody would want to consider anything...

Anything other than the truth.