Original subtitles

All available assistance required at Dubai.

Emergency descent underway.

NARRATOR: 22 minutes after takeoff--

Get your oxygen mask on.

NARRATOR: --the pilots of a UPS cargo jet

face a life-threatening emergency.

JOHN COX: A cockpit full of smoke

is an absolutely terrifying condition.

Can you see anything?

No, I can't see anything.

It's about as bad as you can get.

NARRATOR: The pilots need information fast.

MATTHEW BELL: Tell me what to do-- what altitude,

what speed, what heading.

NARRATOR: Controllers on the ground may be their only hope.

I want you to tell him exactly

what I say when I say it.

It's almost impossible to grasp

the magnitude of the task.

300 feet, any runway is available.

JOHN COX: If he doesn't sort this out,

this is going to result in a catastrophic accident.

STEWARDESS 1: Ladies and gentlemen,

we are starting our approach.

We lost both engines.

WOMAN: emergency detected.

MATTHEW BELL: Mayday!

Mayday!

STEWARDESS 2: Brace for impact!

MAN: I think I lost one.

NARRATOR: Evening settles over the desert city of Dubai.

The world's tallest building shimmers in the twilight.

In the sky above, a 747 cargo jet climbs out from Dubai

International Airport.

Autopilot engaged.

NARRATOR: After a routine takeoff, the crew of UPS 6

can now let the autopilot take over most of the flying

and settle in for a long night.

You may never get tired of that view.

NARRATOR: First Officer Matthew Bell is piloting the plane.

He's a former US Marine who's been with UPS for four years.

Nice flying, by the way.

Get a good touch on the controls

NARRATOR: Captain Doug Lampe is also a seasoned pro.

He's been with UPS for 15 years and logged more

than 4,000 hours on the 747.

Both of them were said to be very skilled

aviators, very experienced.

NARRATOR: The massive cargo hold of the 747

is filled with 228,000 pounds of freight bound for Germany.

The 3,000-mile journey will take the plane northwest from

the United Arab Emirates past Bahrain

and the Middle East before crossing

Europe to land in Cologne.

Dubai is one of the major cargo hubs in the Middle East,

in fact, in the world.

JOHN COX: A lot of cargo moves at night.

So oftentimes when we're asleep,

we have over our heads thousands upon thousands

of cargo flights moving the freight

and being delivered the next day.

NARRATOR: As the 747 climbs, it passes

into Bahrain's airspace.

And the captain tunes his radio to contact

a new controller there.

Bahrain UPS 6 climbing to flight level 320.

RICHARD PHILLIPS: That'll be fine.

UPS 6, this is Bahrain.

And you are in radar contact.

DOUGLAS LAMPE: Radar contact now for UPS 6.

Thank you.

NARRATOR: Richard Phillips is now responsible for the plane.

JOHN COX: It's busy airspace.

There's a lot of frequency changes.

There's a lot of different air traffic controllers

you talk to while traversing this airspace.

NARRATOR: 21 minutes after takeoff, the plane

has climbed to 31,000 feet.

Fire, main deck forward.

NARRATOR: An alarm warns of a fire in the cargo hold.

DOUGLAS LAMPE: I'll fly the airplane.

You run the checklist.

OK.

Checklist for deck forward.

Land at nearest available airfield.

Just got a fire indication on the main deck.

I need to land ASAP.

DARREN STRAKER: To have a fire on the airplane

directs the crew to immediately land the airplane.

There is no such thing as a good fire.

Doha is at your 10:00 and 100 miles.

Is that close enough?

NARRATOR: Phillips asks the crew if they'd like

to land at a nearby airport.

But the captain has a different idea.

How about we turn around and go back to Dubai?

I'd like to declare an emergency.

NARRATOR: He wants to return to the airport

they took off from.

BILL ENGLISH: They knew the facility.

They had the charts, giant runways,

plenty of firefighting capability,

good air traffic control.

NARRATOR: Philips quickly finds a route

to get Flight 6 back to Dubai.

UPS 6 make a right turn, heading 090.

Turn right, 090.

NARRATOR: It will take 25 minutes to fly the 207 miles

back to Dubai International.

All available assistance required at Dubai.

Emergency descent underway.

NARRATOR: In Bahrain, Phillips' workload just skyrocketed.

Iraqi Airways Flight 10 descend flight level to 7,000.

NARRATOR: It's his job to keep the airspace around UPS

6 clear of other planes.

Iraqi Airways Flight 1, turn right 10 degrees.

I've got an emergency descent.

JOHN COX: When you declare an emergency in an airplane,

anywhere in the world, you can fly at any altitude,

at any heading, going any direction,

fly through any airspace.

Dubai 70, make a left turn 190.

JOHN COX: It doesn't matter.

You own the sky.

Pack 2 and 3 off.

NARRATOR: The first officer activates

the fire suppression system and depressurizes the cargo hold.

The maneuver sucks the oxygen from a hold which

should stifle the flames.

JOHN COX: Cargo airplanes have a unique advantage in that

they can starve a fire of oxygen,

which is one of the three essential elements of a fire.

Get your oxygen mask on.

NARRATOR: The pilots also don emergency masks

with up to two hours of oxygen in case smoke

gets into the cockpit.

DARREN STRAKER: Part of the checklist

is to put on your oxygen mask.

You don't have any choice.

And in a fire, it's pretty obvious

that you need to be breathing.

NARRATOR: Captain Lampe flicks off the autopilot

and begins flying the plane manually.

BILL ENGLISH: For the pilot to be hands on in the emergency,

he can immediately make inputs to the airplane

without having to deal with making entries to a computer

or anything like that.

He can just simply point the airplane

where he wants it to go.

NARRATOR: Another warning light goes off.

The fire is spreading.

It's a nightmare scenario.

The crew now has fire alarms in several different areas

of the cargo hold.

The fire suppression system isn't working.

And the flames are spreading fast.

The fact that the fire warnings were not

only not going away but they were actually progressing,

they were increasing, tells you that you

have a high likelihood of a very, very serious fire

in the back of the airplane.

NARRATOR: With the emergency escalating,

clear communication is key.

Bahrain, I need an emergency descend.

This is UPS 6 file.

UPS 6, descend flight level 270.

UPS 6 is going down to what altitude, sir?

Flight level 270, sir.

JOHN COX: Establishing effective communication

is one of the first steps after the mask are in place.

NARRATOR: But the pilots are having trouble hearing.

Can you hear me?

NARRATOR: The masks have built-in microphones.

I can't hear a damn thing.

NARRATOR: In the midst of the emergency,

the crew needs to adjust the setting to make them work.

JOHN COX: It can take some time because the correct selection

for the microphone and the mask has to be made,

the overhead speakers have to be turned on,

the volume has to be turned up.

The downside of that is that no additional parts

of the checklist are accomplished until the crew

communication is established.

Bahrain, do you read UPS 6?

RICHARD PHILLIPS: UPS 6, go ahead, sir.

NARRATOR: Just as the communication

problem is solved, a much bigger one drifts in--

smoke.

JOHN COX: A cockpit full of smoke

is an absolutely terrifying condition.

You're doing everything you can to vent

smoke out of the airplane.

Yet, it continues to get worse.

God, it's getting hot in here.

BILL ENGLISH: The captain starts to feel heat.

He knows the fires right underneath them.

I need a descent down at 10,000 feet right away, sir.

UPS 6 descend and maintain 10,000, your discretion.

NARRATOR: A terrifying situation

is about to get worse.

DARREN STRAKER: As soon as he starts

to pitch the aeroplane down, there's

no control of the elevators.

Find out what the hell is going on.

I've barely got control of the airplane.

JOHN COX: That's very disconcerting

because losing the normal actions

of a primary flight control can have catastrophic effects.

NARRATOR: The crew of UPS 6 is still 22 minutes from Dubai

International Airport.

I've got no control of the airplane.

What?

I have no pitch control of the airplane!

BILL ENGLISH: Pitch control, that's nose

up, nose down of the airplane.

It's critical to airspeed.

And as he gets close to the runway,

critical to being able to land.

NARRATOR: The captain knows if he

can re-engage the autopilot, it might

be able to steady the plane.

Very quickly and prudently, he

decides something's not right.

Let's go back to the automation.

NARRATOR: But the smoke is blinding.

Can you see anything?

No, I can't see anything.

JOHN COX: Terrifying would be an understatement.

And it would require a lot of discipline

to maintain the ability to fly the airplane.

NARRATOR: The captain gropes through the smoke

and finds the autopilot control.

The strategy works.

For now, the plant is stable.

But navigating back to the airport

with smoke obscuring the controls

will still be an enormous challenge.

UPS 6, proceed direct to Dubai when you're able.

NARRATOR: With UPS 6 about to fly out of his airspace,

Philips gets on the phone to controllers in the United Arab

Emirates to make sure Dubai Airport is

ready for the incoming plane.

UPS 6 is reporting a cargo fire

and has declared an emergency.

Try and get Dubai into the computer.

NARRATOR: The crew needs to program their autopilot

for the return to Dubai.

Let's get straight into 12 Left.

12 Left, OK.

BILL ENGLISH: Unfortunately, the pilot

is going to need to see that autopilot to configure it.

No, I can't see it!

DARREN STRAKER: It's almost impossible

to grasp the magnitude of the problem-solving task.

NARRATOR: If they can get close enough to the runway

and maintain the correct speed, a high-tech guidance

system at the airport might help

get the plane to the ground.

The Instrument Landing System or ILS sends out radio signals

from the end of the runway.

It can guide the plane down both vertically

and horizontally from about 12 miles out.

The autopilot in the 747 is pretty sophisticated.

It could pick up that instrument landing system

signal and automatically fly the airplane and bring it

all the way basically to the threshold of the runway.

NARRATOR: But first, Bell has to dial

in the right frequency for the ILS signal

from Runway 12 Left.

Somehow through the smoke, he doesn't.

UPS 6 is now less than 20 minutes from the runway.

OK, UPS 6 is straight into 12 Left, sirs.

Straight into 12 Left.

All planes stand by.

NARRATOR: Other flights are rerouted

to clear the way for UPS 6.

Everyone is waiting for the mammoth 747 to land.

DOUGLAS LAMPE: Give me a heading if you can.

I can't see.

OK, stand by.

NARRATOR: The crew needs Philips to finish

guiding them to the runway.

Abu Dhabi, stand by.

NARRATOR: He has to work fast.

They're almost off his radar screen.

BILL ENGLISH: Most of the time, pilots

can at least see their instruments.

In this case, the controller needed

to be helping them in something very, very basic--

airspeed, altitude, and heading.

I need that heading.

It's getting really hot in here.

NARRATOR: Just when the crew needs him most--

RICHARD PHILLIPS: We'll get right back to you

with that, sir.

Right, clipboard, please.

NARRATOR: --Phillips loses radar contact.

Thank you.

NARRATOR: UPS 6 has flown beyond the range

of Bahrain's radar.

Emirates, this is Bahrain Area Control.

I need your readouts for UPS 6.

They're off my radar.

NARRATOR: Since he can no longer see UPS 6,

Philips asks controllers in Abu Dhabi

to track the plane on their radar and send him updates.

Heading 106.

UPS 6, heading is 106.

UPS 6, heading 106, if you're able.

NARRATOR: Moments later, the pilots

face their worst crisis yet.

I got no

oxygen.

OK, hold on.

Are you OK?

NARRATOR: The captain isn't getting any air.

I got no oxygen. I can't breathe.

NARRATOR: There's emergency oxygen beside the jump seat

at the rear of the cockpit.

But the captain can't reach it.

-

Oxygen.

NARRATOR: The captain now has just one option.

But it's risky.

JOHN COX: The best thing he can do

now is to get up out of the seat,

go back, and get that supplemental

oxygen.

You fly.

OK, I got control.

NARRATOR: No pilot wants to leave

the controls in an emergency.

It goes against every instinct.

That would be a hard decision to make

and one made almost out of desperation

or, put another way, made with no other choice.

NARRATOR: As the seconds pass with no sign

of the captain's return, First Officer Bell

faces a terrifying reality.

He is now on his own.

BILL ENGLISH: The situation now is doubly

worse for the first officer.

The captain is most likely incapacitated.

He's no longer communicating.

And now, the first officer has got to do it all himself.

Mayday! Mayday!

Mayday!

Can anyone hear me?

JOHN COX: As the slow realization happened--

the captain's not coming back--

all it does is intensify the focus of,

what do I need to do to get on the runway in Dubai?

NARRATOR: Bell is also facing another problem.

After flying beyond Bahrain's radar range,

he is now about to fly out of its radio range as well.

BILL ENGLISH: Just like a cell tower or a AM/FM radio, as you

get farther away, the signal gets weaker and weaker

and eventually doesn't work anymore.

UPS 6, contact Dubai 132 decimal--

NARRATOR: Controllers give him a new frequency

to tune in to Dubai control.

But it's no use.

The smoke in the cockpit is too thick.

Sir, we're going to have to stay with you.

We can't see our radios.

Can you give me an altitude?

He couldn't change back to the Dubai frequency.

So the problem now is, how do you

talk to someone out of radio range on your frequency?

NARRATOR: His only choice is to stay with Richard

Phillips in Bahrain.

Phillips has to think fast.

Sky Dubai 751, you're my intermediary.

SKY DUBAI PILOT (ON RADIO): Sky Dubai 751, roger.

DARREN STRAKER: And a quick piece of thinking,

the controller said, I'm going to use relays

to communicate with the airplane, which is

flying out of my radio range.

NARRATOR: He recruits a plane that's

flying within radio range of both Bahrain control and

UPS 6.

This plane will act as a relay, forwarding messages

to and from the stricken plane.

At the same time, controllers in Abu Dhabi

are tracking UPS 6 on radar and feeding that data to Philips

by phone.

UPS 6, your altitude is 15,000.

This is Sky Dubai 751 relay.

NARRATOR: It's a makeshift system that could

save the first officer's life.

UPS 6 is now just 12 minutes from the runway in Dubai,

hurtling toward it at more than 400 miles an hour.

Dubai is how far?

NARRATOR: It is possible for a single pilot to land a 747.

But in an emergency, the workload is immense.

BILL ENGLISH: He can't see his instruments,

doesn't know where he is relation

to the ground or the airport, and has basic troubles

in controlling the airplane.

That's about as bad as you can get.

Sir, you're going to have to work faster.

Give me a heading direct to the airport of Dubai

and give me immediate vectors.

SKY DUBAI PILOT (ON RADIO): UPS 6 requests

radar vectors to the runway.

OK, tell them to stand by.

UPS 6 requests vectors to runway.

NARRATOR: In Bahrain, Phillips draws on all his experience

to manage the communications.

BILL ENGLISH: The air traffic controllers were faced

with this unique situation--

pilots who couldn't see their instruments.

Never mind just couldn't see outside.

And were trying the best they could

to give this pilot the information that he needed.

Current airspeed immediately.

Immediately!

NARRATOR: As he fights for his life,

all Matthew Bell knows is that the information he needs

can't come soon enough.

JOHN COX: There's a lot of people

in this communication loop.

And information has to pass from one person to the next

to the next to the next.

And this takes time.

And that's something the first officer doesn't have

very much up.

NARRATOR: As UPS 6 speeds ever closer to Dubai,

Phillips struggles to keep the lines of communication open.

As each relay plane flies out of range,

he must scramble to find another.

Dubai 1, you up?

DUBAI 1 PILOT (ON RADIO): Dubai 1, go ahead.

NARRATOR: Dubai 1 is a government aircraft, a 747.

Captain Patty Hearst will be the voice bell

here is during the final descent.

Dubai 1, your radar contact, sir.

I need you to do relays for UPS 6.

All right, what do you want me to tell UPS 6?

I want you to tell him exactly

what I say when I say it.

NARRATOR: The next five minutes will decide the fate of UPS 6

and its lone pilot, Matthew Bell.

JOHN COX: He's now dependent on his thousands of hours

of experience and training to basically rewrite an emergency

procedure for this airplane because

these compound failures are far and above anything

that you-- we train for.

Tower clears you to land Runway 12 Left.

UPS 6, you are cleared to land 12 Left.

Tell me what to do-- what altitude,

what speed, what heading.

DUBAI 1 PILOT (ON RADIO): OK.

NARRATOR: Bill desperately needs to know how

to line up with the runway.

They want to know what altitude,

what speed, what heading.

I need current altitude, speed, and heading.

20 miles out, heading 115.

UPS, 620 miles.

Heading is 115.

UPS 6, you are 20 zero miles from the field.

NARRATOR: The information is frustratingly incomplete.

Just like the game of telephone,

a little bit gets lost in the translation.

JOHN COX: With so many people in the communication loop,

every bit of data he's getting is outdated.

It's not what's going on right now.

It's what was going on some period of time-- seconds ago.

And he's trying to fly the airplane in real time.

NARRATOR: As he nears the airport,

Bill takes the final step in his attempt to lock

on to the runway signal.

He pushes the ILS approach button.

Come on!

NARRATOR: He knows it may be his last chance

to get his plane on the ground safely.

If the autopilot system captures

the both lateral and vertical parts of the ILS,

it says that you have a high likelihood of getting

the airplane to the airport.

You may bend it.

It may end up in some pieces.

But it's the highest likelihood of survival.

No traffic between the field and the aircraft.

No traffic between the field and the aircraft.

NARRATOR: Bill is doing the impossible.

He manages to line the plane up with the runway.

He's too high.

And he's too fast.

NARRATOR: But it's not enough.

The plane is moving too fast to capture the ILS signal.

In an instant, his best chance for a safe landing is gone.

They said he's too fast and too high.

Is he able to make a 360?

NARRATOR: Circling would give Bell

more time to slow his plane and try

again to capture the signal.

You're high and fast.

Can you do a 360? - Negative.

Negative.

Negative.

JOHN COX: He's what's known as behind it.

He's not on the proper vertical profile.

It's not getting better.

If he doesn't sort this out, this is going to result

in a catastrophic accident.

NARRATOR: Bell doesn't give up.

He sets the autopilot to speed up his descent.

Here we go.

NARRATOR: He hopes he can bring the plane in steep and fast

and somehow make the landing work.

Bell is blinded by the smoke.

He's operating the play by feel.

He extends the flaps and drops the landing gear.

An alarm warns Bell the gear did not drop.

Oh, I have no gear!

JOHN COX: He was doing everything

he could to maintain control of a severely crippled airplane.

Sir, where are we?

Where are we located?

NARRATOR: Bell is overshooting the runway.

He was pretty much lined up along the left right course

to the runway.

Unfortunately, it was too high for him to make a landing.

Is he able to make a left turn for a 10-mile

final for Sharjah?

BILL ENGLISH: Air traffic thought quick.

They knew there was another runway nearby at Sharjah

and tried to give him guidance to make that runway.

Are you able to make a left turn now to Sharjah?

It's 10 miles away.

Do your left turn.

What heading?

NARRATOR: A small left turn could take

him to the alternate airport.

What sort of heading, Bahrain?

Hurry up!

What heading?

Heading 095.

You're on final for Sharjah.

NARRATOR: Bell tries to enter the heading

into the autopilot.

He's made a right turn-- a right turn!

NARRATOR: But instead of turning left,

the plane turns the wrong way, 90 degrees to the right.

Unfortunately, one digit was wrong--

195.

And instead of turning left towards Sharjah,

the airplane turned right, away from Dubai and Sharjah.

NARRATOR: Bell feels the plane banked the wrong way.

He disconnects the autopilot to try to correct his course.

But he still has no manual pitch control.

The nose of the plane drops.

DARREN STRAKER: He has no manual flight controls.

So the audio flight system is off.

And he has to control pitch.

But he has no elevator control.

My airspeed!

What's his airspeed?

Ground speed 266.

JOHN COX: The first officer never

gave up trying to fly the airplane or land the airplane.

OK, your ground speed is 266.

It sounds like you're too fast.

800 feet.

You're 800 feet.

300 feet.

Any runway is available.

Any runway available, UPS 6.

If able, climb immediately.

Climb immediately!

UPS 6, climb immediately!

What's the word?

Radar contact lost.

NARRATOR: UPS 6 has crashed into a military base

10 miles from Dubai International Airport.

Neither pilot has survived.

First officer Matthew Bell, who fought to the final seconds,

leaves behind a wife and a four-year-old daughter.

Captain Douglas Lampe was also married with four children.

It's one of Dubai's worst ever aviation disasters.

And for the first time, the man in charge of the investigation

is a UAE national.

I remember it was a Friday evening

on the month of Ramadan.

And shortly after, we got the call.

NARRATOR: He knows he's facing one of the most important

challenges of his career.

KHALID AL RAISI: This is the busiest

airport in this region.

And UPS is a major career as well.

It was so important to know what the reason

that the aircraft crashed.

NARRATOR: Al Raisi already has an important lead.

The pilots told controllers the plane was on fire.

But he doesn't know what caused the fire

or how it could have crippled a jumbo jet so completely.

The $220-million plane is now charred rubble.

The unrecognizable remains spread over a wreckage site

the size of six football fields.

JOHN COX: The airplane had hit at very high speeds.

There were a lot of small pieces.

And when that happens, from an investigative standpoint,

it's going to be really challenging.

NARRATOR: Al Raisi quickly appoints

New Zealander Darren Straker to lead the investigation.

Straker is an experienced air crash investigator,

recently recruited to the UAE.

OK, let's get moving.

We need to see every piece.

First question is, what was on fire?

How did it get on board?

Why didn't the aircraft fire suppression system handle it?

And how did this 747 drop out of the sky

in the middle of a large city?

NARRATOR: Since the 747 is American built--

Well, what do you need?

NARRATOR: --Al Raisi he also calls

in investigators from the US National

Transportation Safety Board.

BILL ENGLISH: We knew right away from the air traffic

communications, they had this catastrophic fire

and all these other side effects in the airplane.

We needed to find out how could this happen.

NARRATOR: The 747 is one of the most

popular planes in the sky.

A newly formed team needs answers fast.

I want you to search this entire grid inch by inch.

NARRATOR: The first step is to recover

as much debris as possible.

BILL ENGLISH: We call it eating the elephant,

where do you start, one bite at a time.

First things to look for were the flight

recorders-- the CVR and FDR.

NARRATOR: The cockpit voice recorder

is found almost immediately.

It should have captured everything that pilots

said in the cockpit.

But there's no sign of a flight data recorder.

And the heat of the desert is making a difficult search

even more challenging.

We needed to find the data recorder.

So we just resorted to searching square by square.

We made 10 meter squared sections.

And we just progressed in a linear fashion

from the beginning of the debris field.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, investigators

hope the cockpit voice recorder will provide some leads.

DOUGLAS LAMPE (ON RECORD): Fire, main deck forward.

NARRATOR: But it only raises more questions.

DOUGLAS LAMPE (ON RECORD): I'll fly the airplane.

You run the checklist.

MATTHEW BELL (ON RECORD): OK.

Pack 2 and 3 off.

NARRATOR: The recording shows the crew reacted quickly,

immediately engaging the onboard systems

designed to contain a fire.

Why couldn't they make it back to the airport?

Those systems should prevent this from happening.

But they didn't.

DOUGLAS LAMPE (ON RECORD): I got no oxygen.

I can't breathe.

DARREN STRAKER: The thing that stood out

for me was the speed of the onset of the problems

they faced.

How does a fire get so out of control, uncontained,

that the airplane is rendered almost unflyable

and the crew is put at risk?

NARRATOR: Three days in, the search for the second recorder

pays off.

The flight data recorder should contain information

about exactly where the fire started and how it progressed.

Let's see what the lab can do with this back in Washington.

NARRATOR: Investigators won't know what they have

until they can get the recorder to an NTSB

laboratory for analysis.

BILL ENGLISH: Recorders are designed to withstand

some fire and some heat.

But they're not completely immune.

They can be burned.

They can be damaged by heat and by impact.

NARRATOR: Beyond the outer edge of the wreckage field,

investigators make an unexpected find.

BILL ENGLISH: We looked outside the burned area

and saw this little shrub, maybe 3 feet high,

just sitting out by itself in the dirt, burned

far away from the main area.

Inside that bush was one small lithium battery

that had burns, blown itself up,

and shot out of the wreckage into the little bush.

NARRATOR: The small piece of evidence

suggests a terrifying new theory.

The cargo manifest reveals UPS 6 had dozens of shipments

of lithium batteries or consumer electronics

that contain them.

81,000 batteries, that's a lot of hazardous cargo.

DARREN STRAKER: Once we had got the cargo manifest

and seen the total volume of these batteries

that were on board, we were heading

in the right direction.

NARRATOR: Lithium batteries are extremely flammable.

They can provide up to 10 times the energy

of regular alkaline batteries, which is why they

last longer in electronics.

But their volatile chemical composition

means they can burst into flames if they're damaged.

Is that what happened in the cargo hold of UPS Flight 6?

Joseph Panagiotu is a fire and explosive expert for the NTSB.

JOSEPH PANAGIOTU: There's been instances where they're

trying to load a pallet of cargo which

contains a lot of batteries.

And it catches on fire at the airport

before getting onto the airplane.

So we're aware that that is a possibility.

You can't automatically conclude

that that's what it is.

But it's one of the prime suspects.

NARRATOR: Demand for lithium batteries

has never been higher.

Several billion are manufactured and shipped

around the world every year.

Lithium batteries are on everything that we do.

They're in our cars.

They're in our homes.

They're in every airplane we get on.

They are everywhere.

NARRATOR: At a testing facility in the United States,

Straker runs lab tests to explore just

how flammable lithium batteries can be.

The results are astonishing.

When they heat a single box containing 100 batteries,

it quickly ignites, sending up flames that reach temperatures

of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

DARREN STRAKER: We are completely surprised at how

a small AA size lithium battery would overheat and then vent

and practically just explode into a problem

which you couldn't contain.

NARRATOR: The black box flight data has been downloaded.

Investigators study each parameter,

trying to reconstruct how the plane broke down over time.

BILL ENGLISH: We could see numerous systems failing,

things dropping offline.

We could start tracing back as things were failing,

lining them up physically with the airplane.

NARRATOR: The next step is to map the failures

and use them to trace the path of the fire.

The data paints a vivid picture of an intense fire

that burned through the cargo hold at a critical location.

All the failures are right here behind the cockpit.

BILL ENGLISH: If you are familiar with the 747,

you know it has that very distinctive

hump up in the front.

The cockpit is part of that hump.

And the cargo deck is underneath there.

A lot of the cabling, the control cables,

electrical cabling and everything

ran through this one common area

just at the aft part of that hump,

right above the part of that cargo compartment where

we saw the first fire alarms.

NARRATOR: So what was in the containers

beneath those systems?

Bingo.

Lithium batteries.

BILL ENGLISH: Right underneath the critical failure points

in the airplane, we found some shipments

in there of some pretty large batteries,

a lot of energy packed in a very dense place.

DARREN STRAKER: That was a big moment to figure that out.

We had the solution to the issue

of where the failures originated

and how they originated.

NARRATOR: In the crowded cargo deck,

the flames soon spread to other containers, many of which

also contained batteries.

JOSEPH PANAGIOTU: We've seen in fire tests

that sometimes, they become projectiles,

flaming projectiles.

And they can spread a fire that way and make it even worse.

Fire, main deck forward.

NARRATOR: By the time the crew gets a warning,

the fire is already burning too intensely for the suppression

system to put it out.

The menu of flight control system

is in the direct path of the fire.

Luckily, the autopilot system is not.

It can still send electrical signals

directly to the servos that operate the plane's controls.

But when the pilot switches off the autopilot,

the plane becomes nearly impossible to fly.

I have no pitch control of the airplane.

NARRATOR: Fire quickly destroys more systems,

including the captain's oxygen supply

and the landing gear controls.

I have no gear.

NARRATOR: But Straker believes that tragedy would have

been even worse if not for the final actions

of the first officer.

300 feet, any runway is available.

NARRATOR: At the last moment, in a plane

he could barely control--

If able, climb immediately.

Climb immediately!

NARRATOR: --he manages to narrowly

avoid a suburb of Dubai.

At the very end, there are some controlled movements

that go in, which if he hadn't made them

two seconds beforehand, they would have collided

with that residential area.

He knew what was in front of him.

And he also knew from the grand proximity warning system

that the time was running out.

NARRATOR: Investigators have one final question.

The 747's cargo area is equipped

with a flame resistant liner.

It wraps the entire cargo hold in a protective shield.

It should have protected the critical systems.

We had to get on top of the reason of this failure

to save other people lives.

NARRATOR: Investigators need to know

why the cargo liner failed.

It's now certain that an intense fire

fueled by a large cargo of batteries

crippled UPS Flight 6.

To find out how fire could have burned through the plane's

protective cargo liner, investigators

conduct another dramatic test.

We did our tests with a representative load.

The fire was-- on the palette was enormous.

JOSEPH PANAGIOTU: We were standing behind glass

about 50 feet away from this.

And I could feel the heat.

BILL ENGLISH: What the test showed

us is not just the energy but the time factor as well.

All this pent-up energy released so quickly

that it could create this catastrophic event

without the time needed for the pilots

to get safely back down on the ground.

NARRATOR: The cargo liner failed.

The flames spread quickly, eating

through vital control systems.

DARREN STRAKER: Once the single point of failure, which

is the cargo liner, has disintegrated,

you don't have protections for your oxygen system.

You don't have protections for your flight control.

You don't have protections for your environmental control.

It's all gone.

It all came down to a single point of failure.

KHALID AL RAISI: We never thought that a new aircraft

could have such failure.

Nobody thought of these failures would happen.

NARRATOR: The final report highlights the need

for better smoke detectors and fire extinguishers in

cargo holds.

It also calls for new fire-resistant

cargo containers.

The final report for UPS 6 came up

with 36 safety recommendation.

This number talks by itself on the depth

of the safety lessons, which we learned from this accident.

BILL ENGLISH: One of the big changes

that's already occurring in the cargo industry

is the concept of container level fire detection.

Rather than relying on the smoke detection or fire

detection in the cargo, compartments themselves,

these very large compartments, we're

moving towards the ability to detect fires inside the cargo

pallets themselves inside the containers

rather than waiting before it's too late and too big.

NARRATOR: At UPS, the entire company mourned

the loss of their colleagues.

Even before the report came out,

they took steps to keep their pilots safer.

The company is testing a new cargo

container that can withstand a 1,200-degree

fire for up to four hours.

HOUSTON MILLS: That-- you know, that type of containment

capability will allow our people as well as anyone

in the world to safely get an aircraft on the ground

no matter where they're flying.

NARRATOR: UPS has also improved safety in the cockpit.

HOUSTON MILLS: We've implemented full-face action

masks, which can be placed on our pilots

with one hand three seconds, gives

them more time to respond to perhaps

a smoke-filled cockpit.

We also will be the first international carrier

to install EVAS, which is the Enhanced

Vision Assurance System.

NARRATOR: The new system creates a sealed air bubble

for the pilots that allows them to see both their instruments

and the view ahead if the cockpit ever fills with smoke.

DARREN STRAKER: The industry has taken

on board what's in the report.

They're addressing the risk clearly.

There's a general public awareness that the batteries

now can pose a serious risk.

So if all of the safety recommendations which

the Civil Aviation Authority have put in the report

are implemented, any other similar accident

would be avoided.