Original subtitles

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Do you read me, Metrojet 9268?

NARRATOR: Panic grips an Egyptian air traffic controller.

OLIVER: The altitude just dropped and disappeared.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Do you read me, Metrojet 9268?

TOM: There's no way to survive.

NARRATOR: Charred wreckage in the Sinai Desert

is all that's left of Metrojet Flight 9268.

Investigators must contend with political tensions

and wild rumors.

MOKHTAR: There was good reason for people to speculate

this could have been a surface to air missile.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: What's that sound?

NARRATOR: An unusual clue points to a chilling possibility.

DAVID: Modern aircraft just don't fall out of the sky.

They just don't.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: It's just before 6:00 AM

at Sharm El Sheikh Airport in Egypt.

Two-hundred and seventeen passengers are headed

to St. Petersburg, Russia, some four hours away.

They're flying on Metrojet Flight 9268.

OLIVER: The kinds of airlines that you have flying

into Sharm El Sheikh is budget airlines, low cost carriers.

MOKHTAR: Very competitively priced specifically for Russian,

Ukrainian, other East European tourists

and also people from the UK.

NARRATOR: The lure for tourists is a budget beach vacation on the

Red Sea, a small oasis at the edge of Egypt's Sinai Desert.

MOKHTAR: Sharm El Sheikh is right at the southern tip

of the Sinai Peninsula.

Mostly it's actually good for people who like to scuba dive.

Weather is fairly nice throughout the year,

and all of that put together makes it

a very popular destination spot for people.

NARRATOR: The Metrojet captain is Valery Nemov,

an experienced aviator with 12,000 hours of flight time.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Exterior check complete.

CAPT. NEMOV: Everything in order out there?

FO. TRUKACHEV: All good, Captain.

DAVID: Standard procedure for pilots everywhere,

one of the two of them gets into the cockpit

and the other does what they call the walk around check.

FO. TRUKACHEV: It's my daughter. I gotta take this.

I'll make it fast.

NARRATOR: First Officer Sergei Trukachev

is a former military pilot.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Hi, honey. Ha. Good question.

NARRATOR: The aircraft is an Airbus A321,

a longer version of the Airbus A320.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Down to your right.

NARRATOR: This morning's flight is almost full.

Including the seven crew members,

there are 224 people on board.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: That'll never fit.

Let me store it at the back.

NARRATOR: Getting everyone's carry-on luggage safely stowed

on a near-capacity flight is a challenge.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: You'll just need to put that

under the seat for now.

FO. TRUKACHEV: And I'll see you tonight. Bye. All done.

CAPT. NEMOV: Good. Let's get going.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Let's do it. Sharm El Sheikh, Metrojet 9268.

Request permission to taxi.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Metrojet 9268, runway zero-four-right.

NARRATOR: Metrojet began operations in 1993

under the name Kogalymavia.

In 2011, one of its planes caught fire.

Three people died and 32 more were injured.

Shortly after, the company changed its brand name.

DAVID: When Metrojet rebranded itself,

Russia was emerging from the aviation doldrums that it hit

with the demise of the Soviet Union.

It's come back up again and Metrojet, has been reborn

into the new, much safer era now.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Sharm El Sheikh, Metrojet 9268 requests

takeoff clearance runway zero-four-right.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Metrojet 9268, cleared for takeoff

runway zero-four-right.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Eighty knots. CAPT. NEMOV: Check.

FO. TRUKACHEV: V-1. CAPT. NEMOV: V-1.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Rotate.

NARRATOR: At 5:51 am, Metrojet Flight 9268 lifts into the air.

DAVID: The aircraft took off in a standard way.

No problems with the takeoff. No problems with the climb.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The flight path is northeast from Sharm El Sheikh

along the Gulf of Aqaba.

It then heads due north over Cyprus, Turkey, Ukraine and

finally into Russian airspace ending in St. Petersburg.

Total flight time is expected to be four hours and 40 minutes.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Metrojet 9268, prepare to contact

Nicosia control, local frequency.

CAPT. NEMOV: Affirmative, Sharm El Sheikh.

We'll let you know when we've left Egypt airspace.

NARRATOR: Twenty minutes after takeoff,

Egyptian air traffic control is ready

to hand the Airbus over to controllers in Cyprus.

DAVID: Around about that time it was still climbing.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Look over my schedule for the next few days.

NARRATOR: With the seat belt sign off,

passengers are free to move around the cabin.

♪ ♪

CAPT. NEMOV: Come in.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Two cups of tea for two fine gentlemen.

CAPT. NEMOV: Thank you very much.

FO. TRUKACHEV: You are the best.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Oh. Since you say so, no charge for the tea.

NARRATOR: Flight 9268 reaches cruising altitude,

31,000 feet above the Sinai Peninsula.

MOKHTAR: The Sinai Desert is about a third of Egypt's size,

and Egypt's about a million square kilometers.

So it's a huge, vast expanse of desert.

NARRATOR: All is going smoothly at air traffic control

until at 6:13 AM, when Flight 9268 does something unexpected.

DAVID: It had gone through 30,000 feet,

and then all of a sudden the radar return changed.

NARRATOR: The Airbus seems to be dropping.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Metrojet 9268, are you experiencing any difficulties?

DAVID: The initial reaction of the controller is:

Am I seeing something? Am I seeing things? Is this me?

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Do you read me Metrojet 9268?

OLIVER: Then all of sudden everything just dropped off.

The altitude just dropped and disappeared.

DAVID: That's when the adrenaline starts kicking in.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Do you read me?

NEWS ANCHOR (Archive): NBC News has learned

Russian air carrier Metrojet Flight 9268

disappeared from radar this morning.

Egyptian government officials confirmed to NBC News

that the plane has crashed in the northern Sinai peninsula

and that Egyptian Air Force jets

have reportedly located the wreckage of this plane.

NARRATOR: As rescuers arrive on the scene,

it soon becomes clear that there are no survivors.

All 224 passengers and crew are dead.

Almost all the victims were Russian citizens

returning from vacation.

♪ ♪

In St. Petersburg, news of the shocking disaster

spreads quickly.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Departure of Kogalymavia Flight 9267

to Sharm El Sheikh is delayed to six PM.

NARRATOR: The Metrojet crash is the deadliest air accident

in the history of Russian aviation.

A nation is demanding answers. How could it have happened?

OLIVER: Airbus aircraft just simply do not fall out of the sky.

So that gets everyone's ears perked up on,

what happened here?

WOLF (Archive): I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in The Situation Room .

Thousands of foreign tourists, they're stranded right now

in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El Sheikh,

their flights grounded.

Russian and Egyptian officials are warning

against jumping to conclusions.

NARRATOR: In Egypt's Sinai Desert, an international team

of investigators gathers near the crash zone

of Metrojet Flight 9268.

Egyptian investigators will work alongside their

Russian counterparts to try to find out what went wrong.

For both nations, the stakes are high.

DAVID: The Russians, they lost a lot of people

on board that aircraft, and they don't want the safety

of Russian aviation to be impugned.

Egypt, it was in Egyptian airspace that this happened,

and they do not wish their professionalism

as an aviating nation to be impugned as well.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Good to see you again.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Yeah, you too.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: So what have we got?

NARRATOR: The team starts by mapping the wreckage,

something Stephen Moss has done many times as a senior member

of Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch.

STEPHEN: A wreckage map, or debris trail, is part of

the fundamental procedures of air crash investigation.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: This is what we're finding.

The tail section is here. Wings and forward fuselage are here.

♪ ♪

Almost five kilometers apart.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Good God.

DAVID: The wreckage of the aircraft spread out

over a trail of about 13 kilometers long.

NARRATOR: The lengthy wreckage trail

provides an important first clue.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Midair breakup.

Well over 20,000 feet I'd say.

NARRATOR: The size of the debris field tells investigators

that the plane broke apart high in the air.

It's the only way wreckage could be spread

over such a large area.

If the plane had stayed intact until it hit the ground,

the debris field would be much smaller.

What caused Metrojet 9268 to break apart

is investigators' first question.

They can see that both of the plane's engines

were charred by fire.

The engines were also completely detached from the wings,

which double as the aircraft's fuel tanks.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: It could have been

a fuel tank explosion like TWA 800.

NARRATOR: In July 1996, a Boeing 747 blew apart

and fell into the sea minutes after taking off

from New York's JFK Airport.

One of the longest air crash investigations in history

found that a short circuit sparked an explosion

in the plane's center wing fuel tank.

Could something similar have happened in Egypt?

DAVID: At the time, the Egyptian authorities floated the idea

that it could have been a fuel tank explosion.

They've got electrically driven fuel pumps.

An electrical short circuit sets the fuel alight,

the wing blows off.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Let's get the wreckage pieces

to the hangar so we can take a closer look.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: We've already started in on that.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: What about the black boxes?

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: The black boxes are on their way for analysis.

NARRATOR: The aircraft's flight recorders could hold

the evidence investigators need.

But accessing and analyzing the data will take time.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Hello.

NARRATOR: Before getting any further on the fuel tank explosion theory,

investigators are confronted with news

that could change everything.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Really?

NARRATOR: There are rumors this was a terrorist attack.

REPORTER (Archive): It's obviously much too early

to pinpoint a cause of this crash,

but the area where the plane went down has been the scene

of terrorist clashes with the Egyptian military

in recent years, including a big one over the summer.

MOKHTAR: For the longest time the Sinai Peninsula

it's been effectively outside of the government's control.

So any group wishing to find a base of operation

would easily be able to melt in its mountains, caves

or just the vast expanse of desert.

NARRATOR: Though global tensions cannot be ignored,

what investigators need are hard facts.

They don't draw conclusions based on speculation.

STEPHEN: That doesn't satisfy me as an investigator,

and I don't think that would satisfy any country now.

They would want to see photographs, prove it.

You need to understand: Why did it happen?

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Take a look at this.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: What is it?

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: This terrorist group

is claiming responsibility for the attack.

NARRATOR: A terrorist group affiliated with Islamic State,

fighting to seize territory across the Middle East,

claims responsibility for bringing down Metrojet 9268.

They say it was in retaliation for

Russian military attacks in Syria.

♪ ♪

Though there is no proof to back up the claim,

there's speculation that attackers

used a surface to air missile.

OLIVER: When I looked at the debris field,

I kept thinking right again,

another catastrophic, shocking crash

as a result of an ignition device hitting the aircraft.

MOKHTAR: There was good reason for people to speculate

initially that this could have been a surface to air missile.

That group has used a surface to air missile before,

specifically in early 2014 to shoot down

successfully an Egyptian helicopter.

They've also posted photographs of different

surface to air missiles that they have in their arsenal.

NARRATOR: After the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011,

militants raided his weapons depots, flooding the region

with Russian-made shoulder- mounted missile launchers.

Investigators need to know if those weapons are

powerful enough to hit an airliner at cruising altitude.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: These are the missiles they're using.

The plane was flying at 31,000 feet.

What's the range on those missiles?

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: I was just looking at the specs. Check it out.

NARRATOR: They study military documents

and make some quick calculations.

They soon have their answer.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: It's not possible. Not with the weapons they have.

MOKHTAR: It was too high of an altitude to be

surface to air missile, and the initial talk of the possibility

of the Islamic State being behind it was dismissed.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Hello? On TV, now? Thank you. Okay. Bye.

The first officer's wife is being interviewed.

NARRATOR: Just when the missile theory is off the table,

another public statement raises a new possibility.

FIRST OFFICER'S WIFE:

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: What's she saying? I can't understand a word.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: They spoke with the father

just before he flew out of Sharm El Sheikh.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: And what did he say?

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: He said there were mechanical issues with the plane.

FO. TRUKACHEV: It's my daughter. I gotta take this.

I'll make it fast.

Hi, honey.

Ha. Good question.

Let's just say I've flown on better.

OLIVER: I did see reports of family members

quoting that safety was dubious on this aircraft.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: There's only one way to find out.

STEPHEN: The fact that the aircraft may have had

a lot of problems, you'd have to firstly find out

what those problems were and, secondly,

are they relevant to what we know has happened?

♪ ♪

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Excuse me.

NARRATOR: Investigators speak with the aircraft engineer

who last serviced the airplane at Sharm El Sheikh Airport.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: What can you tell us about Metrojet 9268?

AIRCRAFT ENGINEER: We serviced it for 30 minutes before takeoff.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: That doesn't sound like a long time.

AIRCRAFT ENGINEER: That's all the time we had to turn it around.

OLIVER: That is a quick turnaround, and low-cost carriers

sometimes have to do that.

DAVID: They work their people hard

to turn the aircraft around fast so that that aircraft

is in the air as many hours of the day as it possibly can be

earning money for them.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: How would you describe the plane's condition?

AIRCRAFT ENGINEER: No major issues. It checked out fine.

NARRATOR: The aircraft was 18 years old.

It had been through several different owners.

But maintenance engineers insist

that the plane was mechanically sound.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Significant incidents maybe in the past?

Something like that?

AIRCRAFT ENGINEER: It had a tail strike in 2001.

NARRATOR: A tail strike is when the rear fuselage of a plane

hits the runway during takeoff or landing.

Damage can be minor or severe

depending on the force of the impact.

AIRCRAFT ENGINEER: It happened during a landing in Cairo.

Pretty major damage.

STEPHEN: Now this would need to be repaired,

and it would need to be repaired very carefully,

and of course that would be an area

that the investigators would look at very closely.

NARRATOR: Maintenance records show that the tail strike damage

was repaired. But investigators have reason to be concerned.

DAVID: It's not the structural damage itself at the time

which is the danger. It is the repair afterwards.

NARRATOR: In 2002, 225 people died

when a China Airlines jumbo jet came apart in midair.

STEPHEN: What happened was the rear-pressure bulkhead failed

and it actually blew the fin off.

NARRATOR: A repair of tail strike damage carried out

22 years earlier ultimately proved to be not strong enough.

♪ ♪

Modern airliners are designed to withstand

huge changes in atmospheric pressure.

As a plane climbs, air is pumped into the cabin so that

passengers can survive the change in exterior air pressure.

On descent, the flow is reversed.

These pressure changes flex the fuselage.

A poor repair, as in the case of China Airlines,

could be an accident waiting to happen.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: All right. Thank you for the information.

NARRATOR: Investigators now wonder if a tail strike repair

from 14 years ago may have fatally weakened

the Metrojet Airbus.

DAVID: If these are not checked on a regular basis,

that can end up in the destruction of the aircraft.

So the tail strike was something the investigators had to

look at extremely closely as a possible cause of this accident.

NARRATOR: The shattered remains of Metrojet 9268

have been moved from the Sinai desert

to a massive warehouse in Cairo.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Let me take a look at this.

NARRATOR: Investigators hope the collected debris can

tell them if an improper tail strike repair from years ago

doomed Metrojet Flight 9268.

It's a daunting task, but they need to know:

Is this China Airlines Flight 661 all over again?

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: The tail strike could explain why

the tail section was the first piece to break off.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Agreed. Let's check all the tail pieces we can find.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Good idea.

STEPHEN: But then you'd return to the actual wreckage itself

and say, well, is there any indication that there has been

or the event itself has initiated from the region

of the rear pressure bulkhead?

NARRATOR: They sort through tail pieces from the Metrojet Airbus.

They focus on the ones that were repaired

because of the tail strike incident.

DAVID: If any mistakes or shortcuts are made during the repair,

then that tends to put abnormal or uneven stresses

on various parts of the metal structure,

and that starts the process of metal fatigue,

and you get cracks.

STEPHEN: Fatigue has -- certainly to a trained investigator

has quite distinctive characteristics.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: No signs of damage around the repair.

NARRATOR: After an exhaustive analysis, investigators agree

that the structure of the Metrojet plane,

including its repaired tail, was perfectly sound.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Something else caused it.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: What about the fuel tanks?

NARRATOR: Still searching for the cause of the midair breakup,

they return to an earlier theory -- fuel tank explosion.

TOM: If there has been a fuel tank explosion,

it should be discernible in the outer walls of the fuel tank

of being bulged outward.

NARRATOR: But the evidence doesn't support a fuel tank failure.

It's another dead end.

Before long, they also rule out engine failure

and all other mechanical failures.

It seems there was nothing wrong with the aircraft.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: It just doesn't make sense.

STEPHEN: It's frustrating, but that's the way it sometimes goes.

NARRATOR: In Russia, families of the victims

are still waiting for answers.

The pressure mounts on both Russian

and Egyptian authorities.

DAVID: There's a natural tension when an entire aircraft

is lost with everybody on board being from one state.

The Russian government feels it has to explain to its people

what has happened because they're very shocked.

Meanwhile, Egypt on the other hand is saying, oh God.

This is going to damage our tourism industry.

AYMAN (Archive): The committee is considering with a great attention

all possible scenarios for the cause of the accident,

and did not reach till the moment

any conclusion in this regards.

NARRATOR: Investigators' best hope of understanding

why 224 people died now lies

with the plane's cockpit voice recorder.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Ready?

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Let's play it.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Sharm El Sheikh, Metrojet 9268.

Request takeoff clearance, runway zero-four-right.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Metrojet 9268, cleared for takeoff

runway zero-four-right.

NARRATOR: They listen for anything out of the ordinary --

a missed procedure by the crew,

or any background sound that might hold a clue.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Eighty knots. CAPT. NEMOV: Check.

FO. TRUKACHEV: V-1. CAPT. NEMOV: V-1.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Rotate.

DAVID: You can hear everything that the pilots can hear,

the sound of the engines, the sound of the air rushing past,

and you can hear what the pilots are saying to each other.

And if anybody else comes into the cockpit

and talks to them, you can hear that too.

CAPT. NEMOV: Come in.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Two cups of tea for two fine gentlemen.

CAPT. NEMOV: Thank you very much.

FO. TRUKACHEV: You are the best.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Well, since you say so, no charge for the tea.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Metrojet 9268,

prepare to contact Nicosia control, local frequency.

CAPT. NEMOV: Okay. Might as well get comfortable.

FO. TRUKACHEV: I have to look over my schedule for the next few days.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: That's it?

STEPHEN: Everything is going normally, the normal sounds

in the cockpit, the normal conversation,

and then suddenly it stops.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Play the very end again, but this time

can we try to take out some background noise?

CAPT. NEMOV: Might as well get comfortable.

FO. TRUKACHEV: I have to look over my schedule for the next few days.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: What's that sound?

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Can you isolate it any more?

FO. TRUKACHEV: I have to look over my schedule for the next few days.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: There's definitely a sound there. It's like a...

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Like a bang.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: It sounds like the beginning of an explosion.

NARRATOR: It's a compelling clue, suggesting an onboard blast.

The team now wants to learn all they can

from the crucial recording.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: If we can find out where that sound came from,

we might be able to figure out what caused the explosion.

STEPHEN: There is an event and then it stops working.

Well, that in its own on itself is telling you something.

That is saying that there has been

a very sudden and violent event.

NARRATOR: The cockpit voice recorder has captured

what seems to be the sound of an explosion.

To help figure out what could have caused an explosion,

investigators first must determine

where the sound came from.

OLIVER: The cockpit voice recorders, they're leaving

one signature piece of evidence so far,

and that is some type of unknown noise

that requires a frequency spectral analysis

of the time domain of the noise.

NARRATOR: The CVR records sounds in the cockpit

from three microphones, one on the captain's headset,

one on the first officer's headset

and one main cockpit microphone between the two pilots.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Hydraulic demand pumps?

CAPT. NEMOV: All auto.

NARRATOR: Determining which microphone the blast sound

hit first can reveal which side of the plane it came from.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: There. It hit the captain's microphone first,

then the central microphone, and after the first officer's.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: So that means it came from

the left side of the plane. The question is where.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: An explosion produces two different types of waves.

A shock wave vibrates through the fuselage

at speeds up to 16,000 feet per second.

A much slower sound wave travels through the air

at 1,100 feet per second.

Both of these waves are captured by

the sensitive cockpit microphones.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Can we see the close-up

of the captain's microphone, please?

NARRATOR: Comparing the timing of the two different waves could

help investigators pinpoint the origin of the blast.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: That's the sound wave, and that's the shock wave.

So the sound wave hit the microphone just over

100th of a second after the shock wave.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Give me a second.

NARRATOR: The small gap in time between the two waves

is a huge clue for investigators.

They already know the speed of each wave.

Now, with the time gap, they can calculate

exactly how far they traveled.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: I think it started at the rear of the plane.

Right here. At the very left rear of the plane.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: That makes sense.

NARRATOR: Clever detective work has revealed

where the blast originated.

Now they want to know what caused it.

They hope wreckage from the rear of the plane

can provide a clue.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Look at this!

NARRATOR: As they reexamine the wreckage,

they discover some telltale debris.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: What is it?

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Well, take a look.

NARRATOR: Several pieces of fuselage peppered

with suspicious-looking holes.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: I think I saw another one just like that.

Right here!

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: I see what you're thinking. Guys, clear a space here!

Give me a hand! Give me a hand with this!

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Right in the middle.

♪ ♪

Bring that in a bit.

STEPHEN: The obvious analogy is with a jigsaw puzzle.

You have all the pieces but they don't make sense

until you start putting them back together again

to form a picture.

♪ ♪

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: It looks like we found our explosion.

TOM: When you put these pieces logically back together,

then you can actually see the confines of the hole.

NARRATOR: The finding backs up the CVR analysis.

They now have even more compelling evidence

of an explosion in the left rear of the plane.

Still searching for the cause of the explosion,

they order a chemical analysis of debris

from near the blast area.

OLIVER: Airplane crash investigations is about looking deeply into the

minutiae, looking deeply into every single possible detail.

TOM: What the laboratory forensic chemist would do

is to extract that residue off of these components

and run it through the instrumentation

that would tell you whether that you have presence

of actual, unbelievably small quantities

of undetonated explosives.

NARRATOR: The lab tests are conclusive.

There is bomb residue on the wreckage.

Flight 9268 was blown out of the sky

by an onboard explosive device.

NARRATOR: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

makes a public statement blaming terrorists

for the deadly air disaster.

PRESIDENT SISI (Archive):

NARRATOR: His statement echoes that

of Russia's Federal Security Service.

It was a terrorist bombing.

A major piece of the puzzle is now solved.

But important questions about the Metrojet bombing remain.

DAVID: We know this aircraft was brought down by an explosive.

How did the explosive get on board, and in what form was it?

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Was it someone on board?

I need a background check on

every single one of these passengers, please.

NARRATOR: US and British intelligence agencies have revealed

that they picked up chatter from English-speaking

militant Islamists in the days leading up to the attack.

It suggested something big was being planned for the Sinai.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Take a look at this.

MOKHTAR: There was reportedly chatter in English

indicated that ISIS Central's external operations units

may have played a hand in this operation.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: Maybe this is ISIS.

♪ ♪

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Have a look at this.

NARRATOR: Between 2014 and 2016, Islamic State

publishes an online propaganda magazine called Dabiq .

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: What is this? They have their own magazine?

NARRATOR: One issue contains a stunning claim.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: They say they packed explosives in a soda can.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: That's frightening. But it makes sense.

TOM: The quantity of explosives that could logically

be secreted in the 12-ounce soda can,

depending upon where it is in the aircraft,

it would certainly be enough to cause it to crash.

NARRATOR: Investigators now wonder if a passenger somehow evaded

airport security and smuggled the small device onboard.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: This is the passenger who was seated

in the area the bomb went off.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: You'll just need to put that under the seat for now.

♪ ♪

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: I've already looked into her.

She was 15 years old traveling with her mother.

Absolutely no link to terrorism.

NARRATOR: Investigators need to narrow down the suspect list.

They go through the entire passenger manifest,

searching for anyone with any possible affiliation

to ISIS or any other violent extremists.

The search comes up empty.

The investigative team returns to the wreckage,

hoping to pinpoint the exact spot in the rear of the plane

where the lethal device went off.

Figuring out precisely where the bomb was placed

could help unmask the person who placed it there.

STEPHEN: When you have evidence of shrapnel damage

on other parts of the structure, it's maybe possible

to actually estimate where the center of the explosion was.

NARRATOR: They reconstruct the area of the plane

where the blast took place.

They even reconstruct the explosion itself.

STEPHEN: You put thin steel rods through the holes

caused by the shrapnel and just see where they all coincide,

where they all point to.

TOM: What that does is it gives you an indication

of how the plane was ripped apart at that location.

You will be able to see on pieces of the skin

of the aircraft, how it has been torn.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: That's good.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: That makes sense.

It's the oversized luggage compartment in the hold.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: So it wasn't a passenger.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: No.

RUSSIAN INVESTIGATOR: Ground crew perhaps.

NARRATOR: Hundreds of people work as ground crew

at Sharm El Sheikh Airport.

They drive trucks, refuel planes, and handle baggage.

Special security clearance gives most of them

far greater access to aircraft than any passenger.

Investigators focus on the personnel

who were working on the morning of the bombing.

EGYPTIAN INVESTIGATOR: I think we may have found our man.

MOKHTAR: According to an unconfirmed report, the Islamic State

found that one of its members had a relative

working in the Sharm El Sheikh Airport.

This put in motion the possibility

of executing an attack at the airport.

There is now ample evidence to support a compelling theory

about what happened to Metrojet Flight 9268.

MOKHTAR: When the time was right, the Islamic State

was able to leverage this relationship

and compel this relative, who was a baggage handler,

to put a bomb in the plane.

They may have bribed police NCOs to look the other way.

They've done this before in previous attacks

and were actually successful in recruiting police officers

who were able to feed them necessary information

or look the other way.

NARRATOR: Once past security, the baggage handler

would have no trouble loading the deadly device.

FO. TRUKACHEV: Sharm El Sheikh, Metrojet 9268.

Request takeoff clearance runway zero-four-right.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Metrojet 9268, cleared for takeoff

runway zero-four-right.

NARRATOR: As the Russian crew is about to head for home,

they have no way of knowing that below them in the cargo hold

is a bomb set to go off at cruising altitude.

FO. TRUKACHEV: V-1. Rotate.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The airplane approaches 31,000 feet.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

STEPHEN: Immediately after the explosion,

within a matter of a second or two, the rest of the structure

should start to break up.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Do you read me, Metrojet 9268?

TOM: The plane decompresses from the pressurization.

That is the part that literally, and I can't say it

any more specifically, it rips the plane apart.

There's no way to survive it.

♪ ♪

DAVID: The Metrojet event was game-changing

for how seriously we have to take security.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Even before an official report is published

on the Metrojet disaster, air safety authorities call

for tighter security screening for airport staff, to reduce

the odds of such a catastrophe ever happening again.

DAVID: Is there a screening process to make sure

that the staff over a period of time of employment

are not subverted by outside sources?

Have their beliefs changed?

Has an organization, like Islamic State for example,

managed to convert somebody who's already in place

having been security cleared?

They should be throwing greater security resources

in human terms and equipment terms.

OLIVER: Is that gonna be costly? Yes, it's going to be.

But do we want to spend money now,

or do we want to spend lives later?