@@Landrar ...and then you hear the captain saying the crew is "opening the doors". I'd be going "wtf" over and over in my mind with one term in my head painted on the wall: "we're going to die".
Shows like this make me appreciate pilots and flight crew even more. Staying calm in the face of unimaginable terror & knowing your life is about to end.
The will to survive is a mechanism that kicks in like the sun rising. It's amazing hearing stories, but everyone is built like this is the face of death 💀
@@cameronscott6002 I'd say you either have it or you don't and most find out when it's too late. Your fight or flight will kick in and some run and some don't. The will to live is amazing as you said and it's crazy some of the stories out there.
"A pallet full of computers and electronics were the source of the fire." You mean, early laptops like the IBM PC Convertible and ZDS Super Sport which used Nickel-Cadmium batteries that were, at the time, unvented? The kind of batteries that, if overcharged or damaged, can rupture? Producing oxygen and hydrogen as well as providing metals that burn at very high temperatures and can't be put out with a normal fire extinguisher but would flare if fresh oxygen is introduced? The same kind of device that, when set on fire, produces deadly toxic fumes? "But it was probably terrorists or the government sneaking in explosives/propellent."
Poor Rennie, you did the best you could! You can only go as far as the evidence and resources allow you to go. Thank you to Rennie and the whole team of investigators for trying to find closure for these families.
I flew a lot in the late seventies and eighties. I never worried about the flight or the competency of the crews . These horrific episodes are as close as I’d ever want to be to these tragedies. My condolences to all . R,I.P. to all that have died .
@@windwoman3549 Well, you'll be one to get sucked into the light if you're not ready for it. Everyone is on their own path. I can't make you see it or care to learn it if you don't want to. There are tons of atheists who have near-death experiences, and then they realize that consciousness continues. So whether or not you believe in it doesn't fail to make it not the case. I'm guessing you've never had experiences with people from the other side? I have. Consciousness continues and that's just a fact.
@@lockergr I don't know how true or false your comment is however.... I will tell you this, a lot of us family members grew up working for a Crop Duster back in the day. My nephew just so happened to be the one loading the planes and working the chemicals and water truck on this day. We were in our busiest time of the year which is called defoliation. I cant remember if the hose slipped or broke, that's been over 40yrs ago either way he was covered in straight chemical paraquat. Long story short he damn near died. He was in a coma well over a week. Then he'd say crazy thing's thinking he was fighting the Armageddon, He'd reach over to my chair and tell me to get behind him their coming again. When they flew in the Cobra Venom and to all of us excitement it work. Up till then it was touch and go. He told me he'd never be afraid of dying it was so peaceful to him and at some point he could remember looking down and seeing his self and me in the chair next to him talking to him. I could give another experience with my daddy back in 1985 but I've taken up enough space. Lol sorry so long. R.I.P. to all the loss on these planes.
@@lockergr you must have never picked up a Bible. There is no reincarnation, absence of the body means presence with the Lord. I pray you find Jesus before you take your final breath, cuz after that it's a done deal 🤷♂️
As soon as I heard the word "computers on board" I Googled lithium-ion battery... "A prototype Li-ion battery was developed by Akira Yoshino in 1985". This could have been the 1st "battery" fire onboard on airplane.
fire alone is not the full picture, it needs combustible accelerants to be lethal - it seemed like a larger scale chemical fire, like rocket propellant.
@@notyourmomyousnowflake3533 When you have a palette of Li-Ion batteries next to five palettes of plastic-wrapped cardboard boxes surrounded by insulation blankets that were not fire-resistant IAW FAA rules until the end of 90's... Well, then you got all accelerant you need. The ammonia perchlorate theory seems unreasonable. The stuff is relatively cheap and it would be easier to make it in bulk "on spot" rather than "secretly" hiring commercial airline to bring it from Taiwan. I was thinking about termite charges but that would make the whole story an act of terrorism.
@@notyourmomyousnowflake3533 Lithium-ion alone is its own accelerant. It's an unstable compound and reacts violently to heat, impacts, punctures, decompression, etc. By producing a torch of flame until the lithium is exhausted.
This actually makes a ton of sense. However, it depends exactly what electronic computers were on board. Lithium Ion batteries would have only been stored in laptops at the time. But if they were on board, then it makes perfect sense. Fires from LI fires are persistent and EXTREMELY hot. Enough to possibly melt graphene. I think you solved the mystery millions of dollars couldn't.
As a pilot, in-flight fires are my worst fears, because there isn't much you can do against them despite the checklists, and you have a very fast ticking clock before either you suffocate or your structural integrity fails.
@Elijah S yes they did but they never determined what had happened nor did they find he actual aircraft just shards and smaller pieces of it in different locations and i hope they do another investigation but they have not said they will
@@Landino15_ They are never going to find what happened to that plane. It's been too long and the Indian Ocean is one of the most volatile and remote oceans in the world. There's nothing for days in either direction. It's gone.
@@Krystalmyth @Krystal Myth mh370 was ruled a pilot suicide. The plane was flown for extended periods of time in-between atc radar "dead zones" in such a way that could only have been deliberately done by a person with knowledge of where these dead zones would be, in this case the pilot. It would be like accidentally flying around the state of texas right on the state line; that doesn't happen by accident.
To do a smoke evacuation procedure, the cabin crew should first secure themselves to the plane with a strap, and also tether the door so that it only cracks open. This is how I was trained to do this procedure when I worked in the airline industry. You risk being sucked out otherwise...I feel for the people on board this flight. RIP.
I was thinking about that, when they showed them standing by the door and opening it.....wouldn’t he be sucked out? Or because they are lower and slower, he would be okay? Either way, what a terrifying time for everyone. RIP ❤️
@@skipper523 to be fair, this is just a dramatization and not actual video. They seldom get events 100% accurate, especially non consequential details that don't really matter to the story.
@@Landrar Besides which, we can't ask people the exact details since everyone died. They're just trying to fill in the blanks left by the radio transmissions.
I mean, they mention the island had good relations with SA.... But literally no nation's ATC is going to deny or turn away a burning aircraft full of civilian passengers.
No but Mauritius was the closest airport available. SAA flew often to Port Louis and South Africans holidayed in Mauritius during the Apartheid period. It was virtually the only country in the region who allowed SAA to fly over. SAA usually flew over ocean to get to Europe, avoiding any African country.
When they opened the door I thought won’t that just feed the fire more, too bad the plane didn’t have cargo doors underneath the back part of the plane so they could have pushed a button and the cargo would have been dumped into the ocean.
A cargo dump would be ingenious in my opinion. Deadly cargo has been a problem far too many times. As far as the issue of weight transfer upsetting level flight, I'm sure the pilots can prepare and anticipate. If the cargo is located aft of cog, the pilots could raise the nose slightly before dumping the cargo, and vice versa. The biggest engineering hurdle I can see is how do make the floor able to fall away from the airplane while still maintaining structural integrity of the airframe. The complexity, cost, weight, and addition of possible points of failure are probably why it isn't done. Some planes are sold with fuel dumping as an "option" and some carriers even forgo that.
@@232K7 747 cargo doors are on the side of the fuselage. If it had a tail ramp door, they could have a procedure like a military air cargo drop out a rear ramp door. But with the 747's configuration, even if you could get the pallet in position to push it out, the buffeting that close to the elevators could take the plane down. And if it didn't the pallet could still strike the horizontal stabilizer. It's just not built to jettison cargo in flight.
@@jordanmusikwerks1047 They tried to put the fire out. The crew tried to land the plane. Even if they all died, they didn't die without a fight! It was a hopeless situation yet till the bitter end they thought they would make it. What do you want them to do? See the fire and just give up?
Yes, it's what all the women applying castor oil to their eyebrows are looking for, only the trimmed version. If you don't have any on your head you may as well enjoy what you've got on your eyebrows!
I’ve always been surprised at the lack of piped fire extinguishing systems in airplanes. Especially in the cargo areas. The only option for fire fighting being a human with a fire bottle should be absolute last resort.
This is quite similar to Valujet 592 in 1996. You’d think valujet would have learned something from this about carrying flammable cargo. But i guess not
There were several cargo hold fires in the mid-to late 80s. After AA flight 132 in 1988, The FAA recommended smoke detectors in cargo holds but they were not made mandatory. Valujet didn’t put the flammable cargo in on the flight deliberately, but they didn’t have a good safety record. From what I remember from the Mayday episode, VJ’s maintinence contractor SabreTech had a bunch of oxygen generators cluttering their space and the generators (size of tennis ball can) belonged to VJ, so SabreTech decided to send them back to corporate on VJ592. The oxygen generators should not have been accepted as cargo, but they would have been less likely to start a fire if they had had “pins” in them as they were supposed to, and they were empty as had been assumed, and if they were canisters not generators as their box had been labeled. But the generators were not empty, they were expired, which some maintenance guys thought meant empty. “‘just before takeoff, 144 expired chemical oxygen generators, each slightly larger than the size of a tennis ball can, had been placed in the cargo compartment in five boxes marked COMAT (company material) by ValuJet's maintenance contractor, SabreTech, in violation of FAA regulations forbidding the transport of hazardous materials in passenger aircraft cargo holds. Failure to cover the generators' firing pins with the prescribed plastic caps made an accidental activation much more likely. The investigation revealed that rather than covering them, the cords attached to the firing pins were simply cut or duct-taped around the cans, and Scotch tape was also used to stick the ends down. SabreTech employees indicated on the cargo manifest that the "oxy canisters", which were loosely packed in the boxes that were each sealed with tape and bubble wrap, were "empty". ValuJet workers then loaded the boxes in the cargo hold in the mistaken belief that the devices that they contained were just empty canisters, thus being certified as supposedly "safe" to transport on a passenger aircraft, when in fact they were neither simple oxygen canisters, nor empty.’”
These shows are so distressing when we see the lives cut short suddenly, and we're face to face with the people left behind. Additionally, _knowing_ that passengers and crew has time to think of what is happening to them; I only imagine their fear and it hurts physically. 😔 That being said, these shows also illustrate to me just _how many helpers there are in this world we all share together_ and it's always the same: it never matters where we are from or what accents we have or the melanin levels of our skin... those things never seem to matter when we experience existential emergencies. Normal people like you and I are there _helping_ because for the most part no matter how shitty we may behave on a daily basis when it comes down to real deal live or death there are always ordinary people doing extraordinary things. This show really emphasizes that for me and while I struggle with the distressing content it feels so _good_ to see the helpers. 🌍🌎🌏.
Miraculous! ..to make a FOUR MILE long cable with an ROV on the end that can successfully recover large pieces of aircraft thru all that water! I wonder if it's been used in other deep water operations. ⚠️❓NO mention of possible use of the overhead oxygen masks. ⚠️❓NO mention of the other black box - the flight data recorder. My theory is when the door was opened, the pilot had not descended as far as he believed, or was a little quick on the trigger. The plane was at an altitude where the door could be forcibly opened. However, the sudden pressure differential was still great enough to have somewhat of an implosive effect. Due to weakened (burned) sections of the cargo hold fuselage, l theorize that it ripped apart then broke off just after the door was opened. After that of course the rest broke up and fell to oblivion. RIP
To investigate flights, specific groups work to figure out what happened. The groups include representatives from the place the airplane was manufactured, and safety experts in the country where the problem occurred. I asked in another comment section why the US NTSB was involved with flights from outside the US. and that’s what they told me.
@@Sunset553 Yeah, since the 747 is a US-made plane, the NTSB gets involved in any 747 incident, regardless of who owns the plane or where the incident occurred. The EASA gets involved in any Airbus incident in exactly the same way.
I'm about 28:00 minutes in this video, and you can already see how certification testing differing from real world conditions provides a false sense of security. It's just another example of manufacturers doing the bare minimum to get by in lieu of a more expensive, but safer test.
The problem I have with the suggestion that there were weapons on board was that the aparthiad government paid a huge amount of money to find the airplane. If they had been smuggling weapons, they would have been relieved the evidence was at the bottom of the ocean and used the excuse that it would be too expensive. The fact that the cargo that was on fire was laptop batteries, which do autoignite when poorly constructed, combines to make it look like in this specific case there probably weren’t weapons. Because it makes no sense they’d let the investigator use that much money, risking exposure, when the difficulty of accessing the wreckage is such a convenient excuse.
You’re right, but it’s also the very reason SA was likely very focused on the investigation: distraction for the population. Obviously history shows it didn’t work.
These poor souls were fighting a losing battle that seemed impossible to win. The captain sounded so calm and collected, managing to delegate while also flying under very stressful circumstances.. but I can't imagine what was going through his head. How awful for all these people to lose their lives and for there to never be any concrete answer as to what caused it for closure. Without Rennie and his refusal to give up, I doubt we would even have as much information as we have today.
If the government was secretly using the plane to carry military contraband, why would they spend millions to pioneer a method of recovering as much information as possible to determine the cause of the wreck? They could have easily just not funded it and even less would be known. To me this is pretty a solid reason to think arms smuggling wasn’t the cause of the fire
I have a feeling the lithium ion batteries in the computer shipment on board failed their quality control inspections, got put on the aircraft anyway, burst into flames at some point in the flight, burned through their packaging, and then the packaging on fire spewed out flammable gases that accumulated and ignited, setting the entire cargo hold on fire.
so many times when a plane crashes into water, it is such a gamble if you can find the black boxes or not. I wish there would be a way to let these black boxes send out much stronger location signals, maybe even communicate to a satelite when they detect an impact
Aircraft should have an emergency vent system to suck out smoke from the cockpit at minimum, and out of the cabin too for that matter. You watch so many of these fire-on-board episodes and you realize that the smoke is just as dangerous as the fire itself. Not only that, but there should be a standard fire extinguishing system throughout the aircraft, if for nothing else than to at least buy some time to get the plane on the ground.
Aircraft could take a few lessons from WWII battleships and aircraft carriers. They developed several novel systems to fight aviation gasoline fires WHILE under attack, including several important fire prevention systems.
Right why didn’t they think of anti-smoke and anti-fire measures. Almost like it’s much easier to type than to actually install such a thing in a metal box that will fly through the air.
It was the batteries, electronics, and/or computer parts. The customs inspector unpacked a properly insulated and safely protected pallet but then put everything back all willy-nilly which allowed two or more combustibles/catalysts to ignite when they came into contact.
I have an idea. Why not attach small parachutes to the black boxes so when the crash is in the open water, the parachutes will automatically deploy. Kinda like they do with surfboards.
Could the manufacturers wrap the black boxes in a material that can make it float? Or house them in a floatation type hold? The one thing that’s common in these search and recovery operations is that they look for the black boxes in enormous ocean depths which adds to the agony and cost.
Sad that they may never find the ignition source but what I think may have contributed to the super high temp of the fire is magnesium.....it burns white hot...white hot flames can generate heat that would start melting even the fuselage...most likely some of the stuff in the cargo hold contained magnesium which could've fed into the fire....also once ignited magnesium can continue to burn even in low oxygen environments, including underwater....it's commonly used in flare guns....and some of the flames in that cargo hold looked to be nearly white and could also explain why the fire wasn't going out even after they tried to depressurize the hold
I'm surprised they didn't have an automatic extinguisher system in the cargo hold areas. Maybe there is a food reason they didn't. But offhand it seems like it would have been a good idea.
34 years ago, regulations were different than today... also, the plane itself may have been much older, perhaps as much as 20 years old at the time... hindsight makes it easy to pass judgement without knowledge of the time in question... what appears obvious today, in the information age of internet, was not necessarily available then, 5 years prior to the very beginning of the internet as we know it now. there was no electronic fuel injection in cars, airbags... digital watches were still a novelty.. consumer digital cameras were still 12 years in the future... computers had RAM measured in kilobytes and hard drives in megabytes, not terabytes... the "black boxes" used reel-to-reel tape rather than the modern digital SSD units (which did not exist at the time either!)
@@themittonmethod1243 Very good points. I agree, I was around back then and yes,things were quite different the. Also, if there actually was Ammonium Perchlorate on board the extinguishers or.sprinklers would not have helped. AP will burn furiously until it burns itself out.
Lithium ion batteries like the kind used for computers are pretty damn dangerous but that certainly doesn't preclude there being weapons in the cargo as well, which would only make things worse. Everyone ought to remember that the US sent weapons to the allied forces in WWII on passenger ships as well, so this could have happened. We need to learn, as a species, how to make peace and avoid war or hatred against fellow members of our species.
My theory: Maybe someone, most likely a crew member, brought something aboard, without it being caught, and went to the cargo hold, and set the place afire.
I wouldn't think computer batteries would be the cause of the fire if I was the one investigating but then again, there was the Note 7 about 20 years after which makes me wonder if faulty batteries might be to blame.
Portable rechargeable batteries all use chemistries that are capable of releasing significant amounts of heat if ignited. That problem is not unique to lithium-based batteries.
At that time, there were no built-in fire suppression systems on commercial aircraft. As demonstrated here, it was up to air crew to personally suppress a fire, by which point the fire will have likely grown out of control. It also limits fire fighting to what a human being can physically tolerate. Unfortunately, I believe it was a long time until built-in automatic fire suppression systems were required on commercial aircraft.
I would think if the door were opened while still at altitude, say 30,000 feet, the fire would go out due to lack of oxygen. The crew and passengers could have stayed on oxygen while the fire sputtered out. From that point the crew could have brought any suspect boxes of computer parts up to the open doors and ejected them before lowering the altitude to breathable oxygen < 10,000 feet.
just a few reasons: 1) depressurization at such high altitiude would suck out everything not properly secured like peoples handbags and stuff, sending it flying through the whole airplane and potentially seriously injuring passengers. 2) The person opening the door at that height would kinda sacrifice themselves 3) the max height a fire can burn depends on what it fuels on. if it already burns on many different materials, theres a chance it will still going or come back once the plane goes lower 4) At such heights people are not gonna casually carry heavy cargo around without masks 5) just the fire going out wouldnt make it safe to handle. It would still be hot and needs to cool down first
5:55 Any aircraft operator who experiences an inflight emergency may land at any Air Force airfield without prior authorization so this include civilian airfield.32 CFR § 855.14 - Unauthorized landings.
As you may remember from a few years back with Samsung. Modern batteries are much safer. They don't just catch on fire. They also explode quite energetically.
Back in the 60's our IT installations had Halon fire suppression systems. You mean to tell me those god-like Boeing engineers couldn't fit the cargo areas with one?
Boeing has never been the paragon of safety that its reputation unfortunately enjoys. At least for the past 50 years. Look into the crash that happened from Hawaii to New Zealand where the cargo door was so poorly designed it caused the crashed. There was cheap "safety" measures put in place by Boeing to try and fix the flaw of the design but they were in no way adequate and any amateur engineer could show and prove why, which the parents of one of the victims did. So not only did Boeing know there was a problem, they cheaped out so bad it killed over a hundred people.
@@morgan4574 Precisely. It's always been more important to secure the industry of aviation and it's reputation, securing blame goes to pilot error even when they are aware of a fault. That's the ntsbs job. Even if they find error with an aircraft if they can pin it on a pilot they will, if they can secure an atc especially an international atc even better and if they can't do either or if it's too obvious then the aircraft takes fault. We saw this with mcas. They knew it was mcas from the he start and were working to fix it. Had the second aircraft not gone down and so quickly they'd have pushed it all under the rug easy. The priority is $$$$ always. Then $$$$. Then maybe lives. But only because lives = $$$$. That's the game of Capitalism, and Boeing has its initials in the the hi score list.
1. Halon is banned now 2. It's heavy 3. Plane companies make planes based on demand, and no company demanded a fire suppression system 4. It's complex 5. Storing a large amount of compressed gass in an airplane is a bad idea
@@misham6547 they didn't want to pay for explosive/fire paneling either because of cost. So we just need a few more of these. Capitalism has one demand. Profit.
I didn’t hear any mention of simple $10. battery operated fire alarms like we have in our homes stuck on the ceilings. At the first sign of smoke or my cooking would set off a alarm where the crew would of heard and possibly put out the fire before it got going to the point of no return.
Even with alarms unless you are so close to an airport an onboard fire is almost always fatal because most things on an aircraft are flammable they had no chance of putting out this fire with only a fire extinguisher what they should do is have a check list of how to extinguish various fires and have the proper equipment for those specific fires that would give them a chance to save the plane but fire alarms won’t do much
Usually it's not needed, a normal fire in the cargo bay will burn out quickly because the cargo compartment is air tight, so there is limited fuel for the fire. A similar accident happened when oxygen generators in cargo accidentally caused the fire then of course became the fuel for the fire to keep growing larger, which defeated this air tight measure. I believe now most planes also do have fire suppression which dumps foam and halon into the cargo bay. But it's not able to stop all types of fire especially if there is a fuel source that's not just the air or materials in the cargo compartment.
This sounds like a lithium ion battery fire. Think about it the technology for these batteries where invented in the 1970s and in 1985 lithium ion battery cells where being produced and the fire started in a pallet that had computer parts, which some parts have lithium ion cells installed. I realize it maybe a far stretch considering no other reported accident occurred involving these batteries intell the UPS and Asian Crash but the fires in both of those crashes seems vary similar to the fire on the SAA plane.
@@simonm1447 You’re right, I must have read an article at the time that was misleading, but if not Lithium ion batteries or at least commercial available ones, could it be still a chemical based fire like we saw with valuejet 592? What’s your take on the ignition source.
@@deltacrj900 that's hard to say without knowing the exact cargo list. However dangerous chemicals were surely not officially allowed on passenger flights even back then. But if even the investigators could not find an exact cause it would be impossible to find one from internet research.
@@simonm1447 not sure if I agree with the first point because ways to track illegal shipments back then wasn’t as on point as it is today. I do completely agree with your second point about internet searches, though I think it’s fun to speculate things with fact intelligent driven conversations.🙂
@@deltacrj900 I think they were surely not allowed officially - however I don't know how strict controls had been back then. Illegal shipments would be not officially.
There is nothing more terrifying than a fire aboard at sea or in the air , I was burned off tha F/V "PETREL" at night, in a storm 75 N, miles out to sea! On the 21st. Of May 1977 .We were forced into freezing sea's, hanging onto a hatch cover without survival suit's we were picked up by a U.S.C.G 52-A chopper, we were all saved , I tell my pilot friends, if you have a fire 🔥 don't worry about getting to an airport. Worry about getting the aircraft on the ground, quick !!! With a fire , you don't have minutes, you only have seconds ! I thank God that we survived and that I never had any nightmares, I continued to go to sea ending as Capt. Of a small tanker from Jan. 1979 to Dec 1982 ! I am now a full time marine and aviation artist, my experience's make my work possible !
a malfunction in the sprinklers may be a more dangerous and more likely than a fire. Maybe flood an area and damage things or redistribute weight too fast? I am not a plane expert but that may be the reason. also the for sprinklers water would add a lot of weight to the plane of were in every nessacary area. that could make landing difficult, planes already have to dump fuel before landing sometimes.
They obviously did if they know it was carrying stuff like computer parts. If the plane was carrying something it should not have been, you really think it would just casually be listed in the manifest? In that case, there wouldn't be as many questions and conspiracies about this crash as there are.
Why have black boxes not been equipped with more sophisticated locator beacons and/or longer lasting batteries?! I feel like the technology has to be possible
Maybe I’ve spent too much time in conspiro land, but this just has odd red flags to me. Did they interview the people who shipped the items? Or track where they came from? The comment from the daughter (no disrespect and condolences if I’m wrong) about her parents getting all their affairs in order the night before the flight is very odd. They put together a will and insurance and decided where the kids would go. I know it was turbulent times, but it’s odd. Did they look into that? Especially given he was on business for cell phone “technology” and the cargo that caught fire was electrical goods? I mean…if the company he met with shipped the goods that would be pretty sus. But I’m sure someone looked into all that and I’m just on a deep dive of what if’s. Probably just the bad batteries that blew up and I’m being very disrespectful. But condolences to all the victims.
It's actually quite common for people who don't typically travel to ensure their affairs are in order prior to a major trip. Especially if you have had children etc since your last trip. We get a lot of people updating beneficiary info before travels etc.
I don't fly too often, maybe once or twice a year. My husband and I make sure we have everything in order as best as possible, especially spiritually. We make sure we go to reconciliation prior to our flight (we are devout Catholics). Admittedly, this is something I should do more frequently than just prior to a flight. But I also make sure my entire family has our itinerary, and I always contact my Mom during every layover & arrival to let her know we are safe. I know that flying is the safest mode of transportation, but my husband & I want to make sure that we are ready in every way, before we even board the plane, just in case. So I understand the mindset of the parents. My heart goes out to all of those who lost loved ones in this tragedy. Rest in peace to all of those who passed away. 🙏🏻❤️
Wait a minute, if all of the passengers move to the front of the plane, it'll be much harder for the pilot to control the plane because of weight displacement.
When a fire in an aircraft is as bad as this one, the best alternative is to ditch, ASAP. I realize for a large commercial airliner to ditch in the ocean is pretty extreme, but an on board fire on a operational aircraft is about as dire an emergency as you can get. A Swiss Air flight went down due to on board fire off the East Coast, a ValueJet DC-9 went down in the Florida Everglades in '96 due to on board fire, and here is another example of an on board fire bringing down a airliner.
1. Reson why the smoke spread was because the opened the cargo door 2. One a 747 there is an emergency escape hatch in the cockpit they should've opened that.
Should have had them lie on the floor, cause smoke rises. I know it probably wouldn't have done much, but better than sitting there doing nothing, and letting everyone choke to death! But, who am i??!!! 🤔😒
smoke only sticks to the celling when their is a way out, in this case the smoke was stuck in a metal tube flying at 280 Knots while at a height 2-5 Miles above the surface of 3rd largest ocean in the world while 180 Miles away from civilization, so since their was no escape from that except the opening of the door, it condensed and filled the entire cabin so there was no way to avoid that fate, once the plane took off from Taiwan the fate of all people onboard we're sealed.
This is a dramatic recreation of an incident that has no records of what the passengers were doing. Maybe they were crawling around on the floor. Maybe they were helping fight the fire. maybe they were dead early on. Maybe....
Was there lithium ion battery’s on the pallet ? A cell phone caught fire on the inside of a pickup truck and shows a large fire on the inside the truck. Lithium battery is now banned from aircraft now days.
Any mystery fan will tell you that if you plan to ship something via air that is highly flammable/illegal you're not going to put that on the manifesto. You're going to say you're shipping African vases or something like that. I think it was an electrical fire that happened on that first flat. They said that's where the fire started.
Laptops = lithium ion batteries, which have been shown to be self-feeding hazardous cargo on multiple occasions. Seems to me, if there were missiles on board, the components would have been easily discernible in the wreckage.
I just recall my father seeing a cargo bay door fall off a plane on tarmac in Hawaii. This would have been around 1978. Overall I have flown about 400 flights usually without incident & never anything near fatal.
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Some Time NSTB Wins and Some Time They Lose
May be 😅
I cannot think of a more terrifying scenario than an onboard fire over an ocean with no close place to land.
Imagine an onboard fire when you're sealed inside a metal tube that's 250 meters below the surface of the ocean.
@@Landrar op
Land on the water... (which is really hard....)
@@NK-qn6pq You can do that in the Hudson, no use 300km away from land.
@@Landrar ...and then you hear the captain saying the crew is "opening the doors".
I'd be going "wtf" over and over in my mind with one term in my head painted on the wall: "we're going to die".
You know it's bad when they interview the relatives and not the passengers 😬
i scrolled down right at the start of the vid and this is the first comment I see. I don't know if this is spoilers or not 🤣
@@neurofunkie they always spoil it themselves, well I guess not always 😂 just pay attention if people refer to them in the past tense
Yes. I did not remember this accident but obvious no one survived! Sad 😢
Yeah, I always hope to see the survivors
Somtimes they interview survivors and relatives, like in the Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 episode
some died while some survived
Shows like this make me appreciate pilots and flight crew even more. Staying calm in the face of unimaginable terror & knowing your life is about to end.
me too.
The will to survive is a mechanism that kicks in like the sun rising. It's amazing hearing stories, but everyone is built like this is the face of death 💀
@@cameronscott6002 I'd say you either have it or you don't and most find out when it's too late. Your fight or flight will kick in and some run and some don't. The will to live is amazing as you said and it's crazy some of the stories out there.
It’s the anticipation of going down that must be horrible. Better to blow up & go instantly.
@@Rosary716 I bet they would have smoke inhalation before crashing.
"A pallet full of computers and electronics were the source of the fire."
You mean, early laptops like the IBM PC Convertible and ZDS Super Sport which used Nickel-Cadmium batteries that were, at the time, unvented? The kind of batteries that, if overcharged or damaged, can rupture? Producing oxygen and hydrogen as well as providing metals that burn at very high temperatures and can't be put out with a normal fire extinguisher but would flare if fresh oxygen is introduced? The same kind of device that, when set on fire, produces deadly toxic fumes?
"But it was probably terrorists or the government sneaking in explosives/propellent."
Bill gates at his finest
Yeah, it’s also like they forgot Lithium batteries are a thing
@@generalnat5359 This was before UPS 6, UPS 6 is the reason Lithium is no longer transported by plane.
When computer batteries were mentioned, I thought the same thing.
That was my thought too, Mythbusters did a test on this! Those fraggers can be DANGEROUS if handled wrong.
Poor Rennie, you did the best you could! You can only go as far as the evidence and resources allow you to go. Thank you to Rennie and the whole team of investigators for trying to find closure for these families.
I flew a lot in the late seventies and eighties. I never worried about the flight or the competency of the crews . These horrific episodes are as close as I’d ever want to be to these tragedies. My condolences to all . R,I.P. to all that have died .
No one just rests in peace as their consciousness continues. We all get sucked into the reincarnation soul trap if we don't fight it.
@@lockergr
🙄RIDICULOUS! 🙄
@@windwoman3549 Well, you'll be one to get sucked into the light if you're not ready for it. Everyone is on their own path. I can't make you see it or care to learn it if you don't want to. There are tons of atheists who have near-death experiences, and then they realize that consciousness continues. So whether or not you believe in it doesn't fail to make it not the case. I'm guessing you've never had experiences with people from the other side? I have. Consciousness continues and that's just a fact.
@@lockergr I don't know how true or false your comment is however.... I will tell you this, a lot of us family members grew up working for a Crop Duster back in the day. My nephew just so happened to be the one loading the planes and working the chemicals and water truck on this day. We were in our busiest time of the year which is called defoliation. I cant remember if the hose slipped or broke, that's been over 40yrs ago either way he was covered in straight chemical paraquat. Long story short he damn near died. He was in a coma well over a week. Then he'd say crazy thing's thinking he was fighting the Armageddon, He'd reach over to my chair and tell me to get behind him their coming again. When they flew in the Cobra Venom and to all of us excitement it work. Up till then it was touch and go. He told me he'd never be afraid of dying it was so peaceful to him and at some point he could remember looking down and seeing his self and me in the chair next to him talking to him. I could give another experience with my daddy back in 1985 but I've taken up enough space. Lol sorry so long. R.I.P. to all the loss on these planes.
@@lockergr you must have never picked up a Bible. There is no reincarnation, absence of the body means presence with the Lord. I pray you find Jesus before you take your final breath, cuz after that it's a done deal 🤷♂️
As soon as I heard the word "computers on board" I Googled lithium-ion battery... "A prototype Li-ion battery was developed by Akira Yoshino in 1985". This could have been the 1st "battery" fire onboard on airplane.
fire alone is not the full picture, it needs combustible accelerants to be lethal - it seemed like a larger scale chemical fire, like rocket propellant.
@@notyourmomyousnowflake3533 When you have a palette of Li-Ion batteries next to five palettes of plastic-wrapped cardboard boxes surrounded by insulation blankets that were not fire-resistant IAW FAA rules until the end of 90's... Well, then you got all accelerant you need.
The ammonia perchlorate theory seems unreasonable. The stuff is relatively cheap and it would be easier to make it in bulk "on spot" rather than "secretly" hiring commercial airline to bring it from Taiwan. I was thinking about termite charges but that would make the whole story an act of terrorism.
@@notyourmomyousnowflake3533 Lithium-ion alone is its own accelerant. It's an unstable compound and reacts violently to heat, impacts, punctures, decompression, etc. By producing a torch of flame until the lithium is exhausted.
@@notyourmomyousnowflake3533 youtube Tesla vehicle fire so you can see one.
This actually makes a ton of sense. However, it depends exactly what electronic computers were on board. Lithium Ion batteries would have only been stored in laptops at the time. But if they were on board, then it makes perfect sense. Fires from LI fires are persistent and EXTREMELY hot. Enough to possibly melt graphene. I think you solved the mystery millions of dollars couldn't.
Fire is the most terrifying thing on any airplane.
Not loads of fun on a ship either.
not loads of fun on anything
except a campfire
@@ivebeenmemed Unless you drop the stick in the right/wrong place.
Snakes and terrorists too
Serial killers
As a pilot, in-flight fires are my worst fears, because there isn't much you can do against them despite the checklists, and you have a very fast ticking clock before either you suffocate or your structural integrity fails.
these people had such determination to find the 747, i hope that same determination will pay off in the search for Malaysia airlines flight 370
Same
@Elijah S yes they did but they never determined what had happened nor did they find he actual aircraft just shards and smaller pieces of it in different locations and i hope they do another investigation but they have not said they will
@@Landino15_ They are never going to find what happened to that plane. It's been too long and the Indian Ocean is one of the most volatile and remote oceans in the world. There's nothing for days in either direction. It's gone.
@@Landino15_ Did you hear him say 9 hours into their trip over the Indian Ocean.... 9 hours and nothing but water below. It's huge, love.
@@Krystalmyth @Krystal Myth mh370 was ruled a pilot suicide. The plane was flown for extended periods of time in-between atc radar "dead zones" in such a way that could only have been deliberately done by a person with knowledge of where these dead zones would be, in this case the pilot.
It would be like accidentally flying around the state of texas right on the state line; that doesn't happen by accident.
To do a smoke evacuation procedure, the cabin crew should first secure themselves to the plane with a strap, and also tether the door so that it only cracks open. This is how I was trained to do this procedure when I worked in the airline industry. You risk being sucked out otherwise...I feel for the people on board this flight. RIP.
I was thinking about that, when they showed them standing by the door and opening it.....wouldn’t he be sucked out? Or because they are lower and slower, he would be okay? Either way, what a terrifying time for everyone. RIP ❤️
Thanks for your expertise!
@@skipper523 to be fair, this is just a dramatization and not actual video. They seldom get events 100% accurate, especially non consequential details that don't really matter to the story.
No one just rests in peace as their consciousness continues. We all get sucked into the reincarnation soul trap if we don't fight it.
@@Landrar Besides which, we can't ask people the exact details since everyone died. They're just trying to fill in the blanks left by the radio transmissions.
I mean, they mention the island had good relations with SA.... But literally no nation's ATC is going to deny or turn away a burning aircraft full of civilian passengers.
No but Mauritius was the closest airport available. SAA flew often to Port Louis and South Africans holidayed in Mauritius during the Apartheid period. It was virtually the only country in the region who allowed SAA to fly over. SAA usually flew over ocean to get to Europe, avoiding any African country.
When they opened the door I thought won’t that just feed the fire more, too bad the plane didn’t have cargo doors underneath the back part of the plane so they could have pushed a button and the cargo would have been dumped into the ocean.
Thing is, dumping that much weight would probably nosedive the plane.
@@arianebolt1575 Wouldn't it cause it to pitch up, stall, and then dive?
A cargo dump would be ingenious in my opinion. Deadly cargo has been a problem far too many times.
As far as the issue of weight transfer upsetting level flight, I'm sure the pilots can prepare and anticipate. If the cargo is located aft of cog, the pilots could raise the nose slightly before dumping the cargo, and vice versa.
The biggest engineering hurdle I can see is how do make the floor able to fall away from the airplane while still maintaining structural integrity of the airframe. The complexity, cost, weight, and addition of possible points of failure are probably why it isn't done. Some planes are sold with fuel dumping as an "option" and some carriers even forgo that.
@@232K7 747 cargo doors are on the side of the fuselage. If it had a tail ramp door, they could have a procedure like a military air cargo drop out a rear ramp door. But with the 747's configuration, even if you could get the pallet in position to push it out, the buffeting that close to the elevators could take the plane down. And if it didn't the pallet could still strike the horizontal stabilizer. It's just not built to jettison cargo in flight.
What should have been implemented was a way to depressurize the back cargo deck therefore the fire would stave out of oxygen
This is an amazing story of heroism and expertise
Wow really? 185 people fucking died. How heroic.
@@jordanmusikwerks1047 They tried to put the fire out. The crew tried to land the plane. Even if they all died, they didn't die without a fight! It was a hopeless situation yet till the bitter end they thought they would make it. What do you want them to do? See the fire and just give up?
@@jordanmusikwerks1047 159 people died, not 185.
Other than the source of the fire, this happened almost exactly like Swiss Air 111. It's extremely terrifying to think that it can happen again.
The Swiss Air 111 flight fire was due to an overload of electrical entertainment equipment installed in the passenger seats.
3:39 that's a spectacular set of eyebrows.
Yes, it's what all the women applying castor oil to their eyebrows are looking for, only the trimmed version. If you don't have any on your head you may as well enjoy what you've got on your eyebrows!
Those are attack eyebrows
it looks like those old anime guys with extra long eyebrows to show their wisdom and former power
they really are. they remind me of a peacock’s plume
He also has eyebrows on the head
I’ve always been surprised at the lack of piped fire extinguishing systems in airplanes. Especially in the cargo areas. The only option for fire fighting being a human with a fire bottle should be absolute last resort.
Yes
too bad they didn't build a way to cut oxygen off to a fire like that.
Makes me wonder if those computer parts had magnesium components in them. A magnesium fire is almost impossible to put out once it gets started.
This is an amazing story. These people did the best they could given the circumstances
This is quite similar to Valujet 592 in 1996. You’d think valujet would have learned something from this about carrying flammable cargo. But i guess not
There were several cargo hold fires in the mid-to late 80s. After AA flight 132 in 1988, The FAA recommended smoke detectors in cargo holds but they were not made mandatory. Valujet didn’t put the flammable cargo in on the flight deliberately, but they didn’t have a good safety record. From what I remember from the Mayday episode, VJ’s maintinence contractor SabreTech had a bunch of oxygen generators cluttering their space and the generators (size of tennis ball can) belonged to VJ, so SabreTech decided to send them back to corporate on VJ592. The oxygen generators should not have been accepted as cargo, but they would have been less likely to start a fire if they had had “pins” in them as they were supposed to, and they were empty as had been assumed, and if they were canisters not generators as their box had been labeled. But the generators were not empty, they were expired, which some maintenance guys thought meant empty.
“‘just before takeoff, 144 expired chemical oxygen generators, each slightly larger than the size of a tennis ball can, had been placed in the cargo compartment in five boxes marked COMAT (company material) by ValuJet's maintenance contractor, SabreTech, in violation of FAA regulations forbidding the transport of hazardous materials in passenger aircraft cargo holds. Failure to cover the generators' firing pins with the prescribed plastic caps made an accidental activation much more likely. The investigation revealed that rather than covering them, the cords attached to the firing pins were simply cut or duct-taped around the cans, and Scotch tape was also used to stick the ends down. SabreTech employees indicated on the cargo manifest that the "oxy canisters", which were loosely packed in the boxes that were each sealed with tape and bubble wrap, were "empty". ValuJet workers then loaded the boxes in the cargo hold in the mistaken belief that the devices that they contained were just empty canisters, thus being certified as supposedly "safe" to transport on a passenger aircraft, when in fact they were neither simple oxygen canisters, nor empty.’”
and then ups six.
This is so sad! RIP to the passengers and crew
Sad
These shows are so distressing when we see the lives cut short suddenly, and we're face to face with the people left behind. Additionally, _knowing_ that passengers and crew has time to think of what is happening to them; I only imagine their fear and it hurts physically. 😔
That being said, these shows also illustrate to me just _how many helpers there are in this world we all share together_ and it's always the same: it never matters where we are from or what accents we have or the melanin levels of our skin... those things never seem to matter when we experience existential emergencies.
Normal people like you and I are there _helping_ because for the most part no matter how shitty we may behave on a daily basis when it comes down to real deal live or death there are always ordinary people doing extraordinary things. This show really emphasizes that for me and while I struggle with the distressing content it feels so _good_ to see the helpers. 🌍🌎🌏.
Why do you only have 17 subscribers!?! This is ridiculous! Your channel is awesome!👍😎
uh no he has way more than that...
Miraculous! ..to make a FOUR MILE long cable with an ROV on the end that can successfully recover large pieces of aircraft thru all that water! I wonder if it's been used in other deep water operations.
⚠️❓NO mention of possible use of the overhead oxygen masks. ⚠️❓NO mention of the other black box - the flight data recorder.
My theory is when the door was opened, the pilot had not descended as far as he believed, or was a little quick on the trigger. The plane was at an altitude where the door could be forcibly opened. However, the sudden pressure differential was still great enough to have somewhat of an implosive effect. Due to weakened (burned) sections of the cargo hold fuselage, l theorize that it ripped apart then broke off just after the door was opened. After that of course the rest broke up and fell to oblivion. RIP
Over 77,000 subscribers. Should be more in my opinion.
now 172,000 subscribers
now 582k
"we have a smoke problem"
Well, he ain't wrong
Horrific tragedy! Thank you for the great video!
What about the Flight Data Recorder?
And...around the world people criticize us, like or dislike us, but when the sh*t hits the fan they come to us.
The Flight Data recorder was never found. Even if it was, it probably would've stopped recording like the CVR did since the fire was so intense.
To investigate flights, specific groups work to figure out what happened. The groups include representatives from the place the airplane was manufactured, and safety experts in the country where the problem occurred. I asked in another comment section why the US NTSB was involved with flights from outside the US. and that’s what they told me.
@@Sunset553 Yeah, since the 747 is a US-made plane, the NTSB gets involved in any 747 incident, regardless of who owns the plane or where the incident occurred. The EASA gets involved in any Airbus incident in exactly the same way.
I've been waiting for this episode to be put back up!
South Africa, home❤️🔥, I've been watching other mayday disasters.
I'm about 28:00 minutes in this video, and you can already see how certification testing differing from real world conditions provides a false sense of security. It's just another example of manufacturers doing the bare minimum to get by in lieu of a more expensive, but safer test.
It's not the manufacturer that's to blame (fully), but the FAA that sets the regulations and standards in the first place.
Fire is NOT something people want to deal with in an airplane...
The internet thanks you for your contribution. Where weiuld we be without this obvious observation..Mr. Obvious.
I heard about an incident where there were snakes on a plane.
Video AND investigation seemingly extremely well done.
The problem I have with the suggestion that there were weapons on board was that the aparthiad government paid a huge amount of money to find the airplane. If they had been smuggling weapons, they would have been relieved the evidence was at the bottom of the ocean and used the excuse that it would be too expensive. The fact that the cargo that was on fire was laptop batteries, which do autoignite when poorly constructed, combines to make it look like in this specific case there probably weren’t weapons. Because it makes no sense they’d let the investigator use that much money, risking exposure, when the difficulty of accessing the wreckage is such a convenient excuse.
You’re right, but it’s also the very reason SA was likely very focused on the investigation: distraction for the population. Obviously history shows it didn’t work.
Yes. They would have had a perfect excuse.
Ni Cad batteries were often overheating, exploding, and burning. I've seen it happen on aircraft main batteries in the 70's and early 80's.
These poor souls were fighting a losing battle that seemed impossible to win. The captain sounded so calm and collected, managing to delegate while also flying under very stressful circumstances.. but I can't imagine what was going through his head. How awful for all these people to lose their lives and for there to never be any concrete answer as to what caused it for closure.
Without Rennie and his refusal to give up, I doubt we would even have as much information as we have today.
This is one of the better aci videos.
Ni-Cad batteries can self ignite.
And they were in standard use with portable computers that included batteries at the time.
I have seen NiCds explode like little grenades.
If the government was secretly using the plane to carry military contraband, why would they spend millions to pioneer a method of recovering as much information as possible to determine the cause of the wreck? They could have easily just not funded it and even less would be known. To me this is pretty a solid reason to think arms smuggling wasn’t the cause of the fire
Reminds me of Swissair flight 111. RIP
Actually it’s more similar to the value jet 592 fire. Their cargo also caught fire and it was catastrophic 😔
One of the best episodes out there
I have a feeling the lithium ion batteries in the computer shipment on board failed their quality control inspections, got put on the aircraft anyway, burst into flames at some point in the flight, burned through their packaging, and then the packaging on fire spewed out flammable gases that accumulated and ignited, setting the entire cargo hold on fire.
6:49 there's always those people that sleep throughout the whole ordeal.
Bruh they were dead 💀
Think he's unconscious
so many times when a plane crashes into water, it is such a gamble if you can find the black boxes or not. I wish there would be a way to let these black boxes send out much stronger location signals, maybe even communicate to a satelite when they detect an impact
Aircraft should have an emergency vent system to suck out smoke from the cockpit at minimum, and out of the cabin too for that matter. You watch so many of these fire-on-board episodes and you realize that the smoke is just as dangerous as the fire itself. Not only that, but there should be a standard fire extinguishing system throughout the aircraft, if for nothing else than to at least buy some time to get the plane on the ground.
Aircraft could take a few lessons from WWII battleships and aircraft carriers. They developed several novel systems to fight aviation gasoline fires WHILE under attack, including several important fire prevention systems.
Right why didn’t they think of anti-smoke and anti-fire measures. Almost like it’s much easier to type than to actually install such a thing in a metal box that will fly through the air.
It was the batteries, electronics, and/or computer parts. The customs inspector unpacked a properly insulated and safely protected pallet but then put everything back all willy-nilly which allowed two or more combustibles/catalysts to ignite when they came into contact.
This is my favorite show
I have an idea. Why not attach small parachutes to the black boxes so when the crash is in the open water, the parachutes will automatically deploy. Kinda like they do with surfboards.
Be nice to have some sort of sprinkler system in the cargo hold ..
9:12 "you will be much more comfortable once we complete this proccedure."
........
My god, the sass with which this man speaks.
Could the manufacturers wrap the black boxes in a material that can make it float? Or house them in a floatation type hold? The one thing that’s common in these search and recovery operations is that they look for the black boxes in enormous ocean depths which adds to the agony and cost.
Air flows into the cargo area, giving the fire more oxygen to burn.
Wouldnt the simulated fire tests reveal if that degree of fire could occur from the manifested cargo ?.. or require a more kinetic source?
No one is gonna talk about how he said "trachea" in a weird way!
Fire on a plane is never good news Fire anywhere is always trouble Bless the crew passenger who all fought valiantly to save the plane God Bless🙏🙏
Sad that they may never find the ignition source but what I think may have contributed to the super high temp of the fire is magnesium.....it burns white hot...white hot flames can generate heat that would start melting even the fuselage...most likely some of the stuff in the cargo hold contained magnesium which could've fed into the fire....also once ignited magnesium can continue to burn even in low oxygen environments, including underwater....it's commonly used in flare guns....and some of the flames in that cargo hold looked to be nearly white and could also explain why the fire wasn't going out even after they tried to depressurize the hold
Debora Patta is GORGEOUS!!!
I'm surprised they didn't have an automatic extinguisher system in the cargo hold areas. Maybe there is a food reason they didn't. But offhand it seems like it would have been a good idea.
34 years ago, regulations were different than today... also, the plane itself may have been much older, perhaps as much as 20 years old at the time... hindsight makes it easy to pass judgement without knowledge of the time in question... what appears obvious today, in the information age of internet, was not necessarily available then, 5 years prior to the very beginning of the internet as we know it now. there was no electronic fuel injection in cars, airbags... digital watches were still a novelty.. consumer digital cameras were still 12 years in the future... computers had RAM measured in kilobytes and hard drives in megabytes, not terabytes... the "black boxes" used reel-to-reel tape rather than the modern digital SSD units (which did not exist at the time either!)
@@themittonmethod1243 Very good points. I agree, I was around back then and yes,things were quite different the. Also, if there actually was Ammonium Perchlorate on board the extinguishers or.sprinklers would not have helped. AP will burn furiously until it burns itself out.
Mostly weight, cost and lack of real need. If this plane hadn't been loaded with military munitions, it wouldn't have crashed.
@@themittonmethod1243 actually the plane wasn't 20. it was closer to 3 I think.
@@codacreator6162 We'll probably never know for certain if there were actually military explosives on board. Seems to be a well guarded secret.
combination of cargo and passengers, BAD idea!
Lithium ion batteries like the kind used for computers are pretty damn dangerous but that certainly doesn't preclude there being weapons in the cargo as well, which would only make things worse. Everyone ought to remember that the US sent weapons to the allied forces in WWII on passenger ships as well, so this could have happened. We need to learn, as a species, how to make peace and avoid war or hatred against fellow members of our species.
Lithium batteries brought down a "Value Jet" D.C.-9 In the Everglades and have been responsible for many fires !
@@richardderosset6960 i think you're thinking of ups flight 6, the valuejet crash was caused by improperly maintained/labeled oxygen canisters
1987... Lithium-Ion batteries did not exist at the time, they were theoretically possible but even Ni-Cad were only in early consumer use at the time.
@@themittonmethod1243 Thank you for the correction , that information is greatly appreciated, Best Wishes !
@@qwertyuiop123453993 Yes ! You right ! Thank you , your correction is greatly appreciated, again thank you very much !
My theory: Maybe someone, most likely a crew member, brought something aboard, without it being caught, and went to the cargo hold, and set the place afire.
Suicide bombing is one thing, but a fire? People usually want to die faster than that, if they reach that point.
@@arianebolt1575 true....hmm
I wouldn't think computer batteries would be the cause of the fire if I was the one investigating but then again, there was the Note 7 about 20 years after which makes me wonder if faulty batteries might be to blame.
Portable rechargeable batteries all use chemistries that are capable of releasing significant amounts of heat if ignited. That problem is not unique to lithium-based batteries.
At that time, there were no built-in fire suppression systems on commercial aircraft. As demonstrated here, it was up to air crew to personally suppress a fire, by which point the fire will have likely grown out of control. It also limits fire fighting to what a human being can physically tolerate. Unfortunately, I believe it was a long time until built-in automatic fire suppression systems were required on commercial aircraft.
Has such a system ever shown its usefulness?
we need smoke filters or carbon scrubbers on planes now.. little mini vents that suck the smoke out.. or of course open the doors!
I would think if the door were opened while still at altitude, say 30,000 feet, the fire would go out due to lack of oxygen. The crew and passengers could have stayed on oxygen while the fire sputtered out. From that point the crew could have brought any suspect boxes of computer parts up to the open doors and ejected them before lowering the altitude to breathable oxygen < 10,000 feet.
Im no expert but it does and doesn't seem to be a good idea to do that but that's just me
That would cause sudden depressurization and that would be just as bad
just a few reasons:
1) depressurization at such high altitiude would suck out everything not properly secured like peoples handbags and stuff, sending it flying through the whole airplane and potentially seriously injuring passengers.
2) The person opening the door at that height would kinda sacrifice themselves
3) the max height a fire can burn depends on what it fuels on. if it already burns on many different materials, theres a chance it will still going or come back once the plane goes lower
4) At such heights people are not gonna casually carry heavy cargo around without masks
5) just the fire going out wouldnt make it safe to handle. It would still be hot and needs to cool down first
5:55 Any aircraft operator who experiences an inflight emergency may land at any Air Force airfield without prior authorization so this include civilian airfield.32 CFR § 855.14 - Unauthorized landings.
As you may remember from a few years back with Samsung. Modern batteries are much safer. They don't just catch on fire. They also explode quite energetically.
Back in the 60's our IT installations had Halon fire suppression systems. You mean to tell me those god-like Boeing engineers couldn't fit the cargo areas with one?
$$$$$
Boeing has never been the paragon of safety that its reputation unfortunately enjoys. At least for the past 50 years. Look into the crash that happened from Hawaii to New Zealand where the cargo door was so poorly designed it caused the crashed. There was cheap "safety" measures put in place by Boeing to try and fix the flaw of the design but they were in no way adequate and any amateur engineer could show and prove why, which the parents of one of the victims did. So not only did Boeing know there was a problem, they cheaped out so bad it killed over a hundred people.
@@morgan4574 Precisely. It's always been more important to secure the industry of aviation and it's reputation, securing blame goes to pilot error even when they are aware of a fault. That's the ntsbs job. Even if they find error with an aircraft if they can pin it on a pilot they will, if they can secure an atc especially an international atc even better and if they can't do either or if it's too obvious then the aircraft takes fault. We saw this with mcas. They knew it was mcas from the he start and were working to fix it. Had the second aircraft not gone down and so quickly they'd have pushed it all under the rug easy. The priority is $$$$ always. Then $$$$. Then maybe lives. But only because lives = $$$$. That's the game of Capitalism, and Boeing has its initials in the the hi score list.
1. Halon is banned now
2. It's heavy
3. Plane companies make planes based on demand, and no company demanded a fire suppression system
4. It's complex
5. Storing a large amount of compressed gass in an airplane is a bad idea
@@misham6547 they didn't want to pay for explosive/fire paneling either because of cost. So we just need a few more of these. Capitalism has one demand. Profit.
I didn’t hear any mention of simple $10. battery operated fire alarms like we have in our homes stuck on the ceilings. At the first sign of smoke or my cooking would set off a alarm where the crew would of heard and possibly put out the fire before it got going to the point of no return.
Even with alarms unless you are so close to an airport an onboard fire is almost always fatal because most things on an aircraft are flammable they had no chance of putting out this fire with only a fire extinguisher what they should do is have a check list of how to extinguish various fires and have the proper equipment for those specific fires that would give them a chance to save the plane but fire alarms won’t do much
"The smoke is getting thicker", and "Leon is getting larger...."
Opening the doors might clear the smoke but it might also accelerate the air coming through and fan the flames more
No fire suppression system in the cargo area?
Usually it's not needed, a normal fire in the cargo bay will burn out quickly because the cargo compartment is air tight, so there is limited fuel for the fire. A similar accident happened when oxygen generators in cargo accidentally caused the fire then of course became the fuel for the fire to keep growing larger, which defeated this air tight measure. I believe now most planes also do have fire suppression which dumps foam and halon into the cargo bay. But it's not able to stop all types of fire especially if there is a fuel source that's not just the air or materials in the cargo compartment.
And I'm over here wondering why it took so long for the alarm to sound in the first place 🤨
This sounds like a lithium ion battery fire. Think about it the technology for these batteries where invented in the 1970s and in 1985 lithium ion battery cells where being produced and the fire started in a pallet that had computer parts, which some parts have lithium ion cells installed. I realize it maybe a far stretch considering no other reported accident occurred involving these batteries intell the UPS and Asian Crash but the fires in both of those crashes seems vary similar to the fire on the SAA plane.
Li Ion batteries had not been used commercially before 1991
@@simonm1447 You’re right, I must have read an article at the time that was misleading, but if not Lithium ion batteries or at least commercial available ones, could it be still a chemical based fire like we saw with valuejet 592? What’s your take on the ignition source.
@@deltacrj900 that's hard to say without knowing the exact cargo list. However dangerous chemicals were surely not officially allowed on passenger flights even back then.
But if even the investigators could not find an exact cause it would be impossible to find one from internet research.
@@simonm1447 not sure if I agree with the first point because ways to track illegal shipments back then wasn’t as on point as it is today. I do completely agree with your second point about internet searches, though I think it’s fun to speculate things with fact intelligent driven conversations.🙂
@@deltacrj900 I think they were surely not allowed officially - however I don't know how strict controls had been back then. Illegal shipments would be not officially.
Call me paranoid but something seemed suspicious about that "random" Taiwanese cargo inspection right before takeoff.
There is nothing more terrifying than a fire aboard at sea or in the air , I was burned off tha F/V "PETREL" at night, in a storm 75 N, miles out to sea! On the 21st. Of May 1977 .We were forced into freezing sea's, hanging onto a hatch cover without survival suit's we were picked up by a U.S.C.G 52-A chopper, we were all saved , I tell my pilot friends, if you have a fire 🔥 don't worry about getting to an airport. Worry about getting the aircraft on the ground, quick !!! With a fire , you don't have minutes, you only have seconds ! I thank God that we survived and that I never had any nightmares, I continued to go to sea ending as Capt. Of a small tanker from Jan. 1979 to Dec 1982 ! I am now a full time marine and aviation artist, my experience's make my work possible !
Why don’t they put a sprinkler system on planes?
a malfunction in the sprinklers may be a more dangerous and more likely than a fire. Maybe flood an area and damage things or redistribute weight too fast? I am not a plane expert but that may be the reason. also the for sprinklers water would add a lot of weight to the plane of were in every nessacary area. that could make landing difficult, planes already have to dump fuel before landing sometimes.
They do have fire suppression systems now.
I don't know why they didn't check the cargo manifest first and foremost?
They obviously did if they know it was carrying stuff like computer parts. If the plane was carrying something it should not have been, you really think it would just casually be listed in the manifest? In that case, there wouldn't be as many questions and conspiracies about this crash as there are.
Why have black boxes not been equipped with more sophisticated locator beacons and/or longer lasting batteries?! I feel like the technology has to be possible
You have to bear in mind that this incident occurred in late 1987. It's very much possible that the technology wasn't quite there yet.
Maybe I’ve spent too much time in conspiro land, but this just has odd red flags to me.
Did they interview the people who shipped the items? Or track where they came from?
The comment from the daughter (no disrespect and condolences if I’m wrong) about her parents getting all their affairs in order the night before the flight is very odd. They put together a will and insurance and decided where the kids would go. I know it was turbulent times, but it’s odd. Did they look into that? Especially given he was on business for cell phone “technology” and the cargo that caught fire was electrical goods? I mean…if the company he met with shipped the goods that would be pretty sus. But I’m sure someone looked into all that and I’m just on a deep dive of what if’s.
Probably just the bad batteries that blew up and I’m being very disrespectful. But condolences to all the victims.
It's actually quite common for people who don't typically travel to ensure their affairs are in order prior to a major trip. Especially if you have had children etc since your last trip.
We get a lot of people updating beneficiary info before travels etc.
I don't fly too often, maybe once or twice a year. My husband and I make sure we have everything in order as best as possible, especially spiritually. We make sure we go to reconciliation prior to our flight (we are devout Catholics). Admittedly, this is something I should do more frequently than just prior to a flight. But I also make sure my entire family has our itinerary, and I always contact my Mom during every layover & arrival to let her know we are safe. I know that flying is the safest mode of transportation, but my husband & I want to make sure that we are ready in every way, before we even board the plane, just in case. So I understand the mindset of the parents. My heart goes out to all of those who lost loved ones in this tragedy. Rest in peace to all of those who passed away. 🙏🏻❤️
Why, in all of these shows, do the pilots tell ATC that they have a smoke problem rather than a fire?
Wait a minute, if all of the passengers move to the front of the plane, it'll be much harder for the pilot to control the plane because of weight displacement.
So many air disasters. I am never flying again.
You must keep flying. We need more episodes to watch! 😄
You will sometime soon. Flying is quite safe
When a fire in an aircraft is as bad as this one, the best alternative is to ditch, ASAP. I realize for a large commercial airliner to ditch in the ocean is pretty extreme, but an on board fire on a operational aircraft is about as dire an emergency as you can get. A Swiss Air flight went down due to on board fire off the East Coast, a ValueJet DC-9 went down in the Florida Everglades in '96 due to on board fire, and here is another example of an on board fire bringing down a airliner.
Don't forget UPS Flight 6
1. Reson why the smoke spread was because the opened the cargo door
2. One a 747 there is an emergency escape hatch in the cockpit they should've opened that.
to this day the cause of the fire is unknown
Yes it may be something the cargo but it's unknown
Lithium ion batteries
They just wanted to know what started that started that fire! I can only imagine the frustation they felt when they couldnt find out
All aircraft wiring should be encased in a fireproof tube or coating 😎
things can only be so fireproof with the weight limits for flight i assume
Not possible to be "fireproof" but they can be pretty fire resistant
One of the laptops, decided to do a Windows update, turned the laptop on and...
No laptops then.
No laptops then
At 2:56: What's that turbo prop doing in this video?
Should have had them lie on the floor, cause smoke rises. I know it probably wouldn't have done much, but better than sitting there doing nothing, and letting everyone choke to death! But, who am i??!!! 🤔😒
And what about wetting napkins or clothes or anything, and covering their nose and mouth with it?
smoke only sticks to the celling when their is a way out, in this case the smoke was stuck in a metal tube flying at 280 Knots while at a height 2-5 Miles above the surface of 3rd largest ocean in the world while 180 Miles away from civilization, so since their was no escape from that except the opening of the door, it condensed and filled the entire cabin so there was no way to avoid that fate, once the plane took off from Taiwan the fate of all people onboard we're sealed.
This is a dramatic recreation of an incident that has no records of what the passengers were doing. Maybe they were crawling around on the floor. Maybe they were helping fight the fire. maybe they were dead early on. Maybe....
Why don't planes have a way to purge smoke?
It would be very useful if the crew could Force the o2 masks to deploy
Was there lithium ion battery’s on the pallet ? A cell phone caught fire on the inside of a pickup truck and shows a large fire on the inside the truck. Lithium battery is now banned from aircraft now days.
No, these had not been used commercially before 1991
I personally think that an engineer should be on every flight just in case things go wrong. Like the cops that are on flights.
Computers have replaced the engineer long ago
Many questions still no answered about what happened about the fire
Any mystery fan will tell you that if you plan to ship something via air that is highly flammable/illegal you're not going to put that on the manifesto. You're going to say you're shipping African vases or something like that. I think it was an electrical fire that happened on that first flat. They said that's where the fire started.
Laptops = lithium ion batteries, which have been shown to be self-feeding hazardous cargo on multiple occasions. Seems to me, if there were missiles on board, the components would have been easily discernible in the wreckage.
Li Ion batteries had not been used commercially until 1991. So these computers may had NiCd batteries, but no Li Ion ones.
Great episode but réunion is labeled as Mauritius at 5:31
I just recall my father seeing a cargo bay door fall off a plane on tarmac in Hawaii. This would have been around 1978. Overall I have flown about 400 flights usually without incident & never anything near fatal.
My theory is they were diving the plane in the ocean to put out the fire but it didn't work like they planned.✈🌊