Take Off Fire News Today

Creating a hole for the fuel to leak out of it. >> captured on camera by a passing truck, jet fuel begins spewing out of the wing and into the air where it vaporizes and ignites. once the fire gets going, there is no way to stop it. >> as the roll picked up in magnitude, their ability to maintain level flight was degraded and the nose started down. ten years after the crash, continental airlines and two employees go on trial for involuntary manslaughter. under french law it is standard for a cri...

>> i looked back and you couldnt see the back of the airplane through the light blue hazy smoke. i dont like whats going on. we better go down. >> the pilots put on their oxygen masks and prepare for an emergency landing into the closest airport, cincinnati. the crew moves passengers forward in the cabin to get away from the smoke but there is little else we can do. >> dropping oxygen masks to the passengers in a situation like this would do absolutely no good. the masks are designed so that the...

>> with no electrical systems, the pilots struggle to maintain control of the situation. as they try to make their way back towards miami, fire begins to come out through the cabin floor. >> he is more intent. now my heart rate is up. he said i need vectors n. my mind im thinking thats not good. he has so much smoke he cant see his instrumentation. >> turning left, heading 140. >> i started bringing him back around. the turn was real slow coming back. but still a lot of air speed. at about 9,500...

And then something suspicious. >> they found there were oxygen generators in there. they found evidence that some of the generators had been discharged. that suddenly would explain why the containment liner had not worked. >> inside the cargo hold the charred remains of oxygen generators are found. >> oxygen generators use a process in the event that they are needed during depression. >> they were improperly secured for shipping. >> it turned out it was apparently shoddy workmanship. >> what cau...

And we found also something which was not from the plane. it was a strip of metal. it was not a part of the concord and it had nothing to do with the runway. >> how this piece of metal could have contributed to the crash is unclear until another crucial clue is discovered. think of it as a jigsaw puzzle. and what they found they reassembled the parts on the runway. the pattern matched a piece of metal so it was consistent with the tire having rolled over a piece of metal. >> the shape of the dam...

Common aircraft insulation material is a fire hazard. thousands of planes are refitted with new insulation, and flammability testing is re-evaluated. but they still dont know how the fire started. and if other aircraft are at risk. >> when we started to look for potential ignition sources the very first thing that comes to mind is aircraft wiring. >> the investigators scour more than 150 miles of wiring for signs of an electrical malfunction called arcing. >> arcing events are when electricity j...

Rose up like a wave at a beach. >> all 110 people on board are killed. >> we will show you a live picture of the crash scene. that area of scorched earth surrounded by water and green everglades around it, very, very little left in terms of wreckage. >> investigators spend weeks combing through the swamp looking for clues. >> as they found more and more of the wreckage and they were able to look, they realized there was a lot of fire damage and before the fuselage there was a lot of fire damage....

>> as bystanders watch in horror the plane banks to the left and crashes into a small hotel. >> it was such a huge fire that i couldnt see anything. no plane, no wreckage, no hotel. >> 113 people died. it sends a shock wave through the aviation world. coming up, how could the most capable aircraft in the fleet without a fatal accident in its history ignite during takeoff? >> it was a time bomb. they were going to die. you know its going to end one day. and thats why im doing the job im doing now...

Overtime insulation can chafe and crack and these crack ace lou the electricity to not flow down the wire path as its supposed to. but to jump to a part of the frame of the plane or another wire that might be exposed. >> the lave tori motor is small but carries a lot of power. >> weight is something you try to keep to an absolutely minimum. one of the ways we do that in an aircraft is to utilize very small but powerful electric motors so that a very small motor can get three boosts of electricit...

Point of origin. there wasnt open flame. that was behind the walls in an inaccessible areas. >> a fire hyped behind the wall is an almost impossible to put out or contain. >> the smoke was clearing and then i suddenly lost all of my electrical power. >> thats when the crew realized they had a life threatening event on their hands. they needed a crew on the ground. >> may day. were going down. >> moments later dense smoke begins to come through the cabin walls. >> you have time to give me the nat...