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Welcome to what's next. comcastnbcuniversal. the tensions or russia. a top tide president obama says it's possible russia is preparing to take more of ukraine. moscow is amassing troops along the eastern border them massive mudslide north of seattle claimed four lives. 18 people, maybe more, are still missing. now back to "why planes crash." a dc-9 takes off from miami international airport and begins its assent. as it reaches 10,000 feet, fire breaks out in the cargo hold. moments later, the pilot loses control of the plane and plunge

They get a cockpit warning indication there is believed to be a fire in the number two engine. >> once the plane reaches a critical speed, it cannot stop. >> typically for a pilot when you have a problem and you are committed to flight, which this flight was, they want to crawl to a safety altitude before they take action. >> the ability to fly is compromised by the fire. >> when he has the plane flying, he is heavy, low and slow. that's a critical point for a pilot. a minute after takeoff the number two engine fails. >> this the cockpit they are starting to gern warnings. they have been tol...

>> in the wake of the swissair 111 crash, the airline industry is forced to re-evaluate their procedures for in-flight fires. flammability testing becomes more rigorous. insulation blankets are manufactured from more flame resistant materials. and the certification and maintenance of wiring becomes more stringent. >> swissair 111 was a watershed event in how pilots deal with in-flight smoke and fire conditions. after that, pilots recognized how quickly things could go wrong. >> what makes fire such a lethal threat to aircraft is its ability to start and grow undetected, in some cases the inter...

Given a 15-month suspended prison sentence for going against industry norms to forge the piece of metal that fell to the ground. >> i don't think that that piece of metal brought the airplane down. i think it played a factor in the cause of the accident but i don't think it was the sole responsible cause of the accident. >> even before the verdict, the -- i don't think it was the sole, responsibility cause. aviation industry agrees on drastic safety changes. debris on the runway is now seen as an even greater threat to aircraft. manufacturers begin producing burst-resistant tires and tuel tank...

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